Chapter 15: Promise

After I got pregnant, Lu Mingqi had a room prepared for me on the first floor. I wasn’t allowed to sleep in the master bedroom upstairs anymore.

I understood why, and honestly, I was a little scared too. If I fell again this time, it wouldn’t just be a concussion I had to worry about. There was a tiny life growing inside me now, so I had to be as careful as possible.

But Lu Mingqi was clearly taking things a little too far.

Even when I only had to walk a short distance, he insisted on supporting me.

He helped me lie down, carefully tucked the blanket around me, then pulled a chair over and sat beside the bed, looking as though he intended to stay there until I was completely asleep before he could relax.

“Relax, honey. You’re way too tense.”

Lu Mingqi smiled and shook his head.

“I’m not. I just want to take good care of you.”

I turned on my side and looked at him.

“You really love me that much?”

He reached over and gently brushed my hair away from my face.

“How do you want me to answer that?”

“I don’t want to hear anything. I just don’t understand what you even like about me. You keep saying it was love at first sight, too.”

He thought for a moment before answering.

“You were young, rich, beautiful, and had a great figure. Even if you went looking for a gigolo, they’d probably have to pay you.”

That sounded familiar.

Wasn’t that exactly what I’d said to Lu Mingxing that day?

I immediately put on a serious face.

“What kind of man keeps score like that?”

Lu Mingqi only smiled instead of answering, then casually adjusted the air conditioner.

I slept straight through until I woke up on my own.

When I checked the time, it was already four-thirty in the afternoon.

Lu Mingqi wasn’t in the room. He was probably working in his study.

Why hadn’t he woken me?

Sleeping this late in the afternoon would make it harder to sleep tonight.

I picked up my phone and discovered that every single alarm had been turned off.

Xiao Li was in the living room supervising the house staff. The moment she saw me walk out, she came over.

“Ma’am, Second Young Master received an urgent notice and had to go back to the company for a meeting.”

“Okay.”

“He also told the chef to make the chestnut porridge you like. Would you like it now, or should we wait a little longer?”

“Later. I just woke up, so I’m not hungry yet.”

“Yes, ma’am. Is there anything you need me to do?”

I waved her off.

“No, go ahead and take care of your work. I’m going to read in the study for a while.”

I’d stopped reading web novels lately.

I still had a bit of a psychological shadow from the whole experience.

There were plenty of serious literary books in the study, so every now and then, I’d pick one up and read to clear my head.

But today, the moment I stepped inside, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

I wanted to see how much of a secret stash Lu Mingqi had managed to accumulate over the years.

He’d always said that everything we owned belonged to both of us and that there was no such thing as separate property.

He didn’t even hide the safe’s password from me.

I opened the safe, and the first thing I saw was that ridiculous childish promise we’d made.

I picked it up, sensing that something was off.

After running my fingers over it a few times, I realized there was another piece of paper tucked underneath.

The paper beneath it had already yellowed with age. It looked like it had been kept there for a very long time.

I stared at the messy, wildly scrawled handwriting.

The words read:

“I, Jiang Yueling, promise that when I grow up, I will marry Lu Mingqi.”

That awful handwriting was unmistakably mine.

Back in elementary school, I’d studied calligraphy. My handwriting hadn’t been exceptional, but it had at least been neat and readable.

This, however, had clearly been written when I was much younger.

Lu Mingqi and I…

We’d actually made a promise like this?

I had absolutely no memory of it.

What a sly businessman.

He’d been staking his claim on his future wife since childhood.

Half suspicious and half amused, I took a picture and sent it to him.

He must have been in a meeting because he didn’t see it right away.

He replied half an hour later.

He wasn’t the least bit embarrassed that I’d uncovered his secret.

Instead, he sounded almost mildly reproachful.

“I thought you wouldn’t find it until you were going through my belongings after I died.”

“That’s your private safe. If you didn’t want me to find it, you wouldn’t have made the password so easy to guess.”

“Hmph. You really don’t remember anything. I’m not surprised.”

I wasn’t about to let that slide.

“How old was I back then? Are you seriously telling me you remember everything from your childhood?”

He answered with absolute confidence.

“Maybe.”

Oh, please.

“So we knew each other when we were kids?”

“Think about it yourself.”

If I could remember, why would I be asking him?

He was busy, so I didn’t press him any further.

At seven that evening, he came home and had dinner with me.

During the meal, I brought up the subject again, and he immediately put on the expression of a deeply wronged husband.

I got up, grabbed several medical reports, and laid them on the table.

“Mr. Lu, do you remember that your wife is suffering from post-concussion memory problems?”

“You wouldn’t remember anything even without the concussion.”

“Maybe I do remember. I just haven’t figured it out yet.”

The look in his eyes practically screamed two words:

I don’t believe you.

I pretended not to notice.

“If you want to tell me, tell me. If you don’t, then forget it. I’m not that curious anyway.”

He didn’t take the bait.

He simply continued eating.

But the quieter he became, the more curious I got.

Maybe the desperate look in my eyes was just too obvious, because that night, after we turned off the lights and got into bed, he finally spoke.

“Before your grandparents moved overseas, my grandparents lived in Ancheng too. Their villa was in the same neighborhood as your family’s.”

I immediately perked up in the darkness.

“When I was little, I used to go there with my parents to visit them. There weren’t many kids in that neighborhood. And your brother never liked taking you along when he went out to play.”

My brother was five years older than me. By the time I was little, he already had his own group of friends and didn’t want a little shadow tagging along behind him.

“We ran into each other a few times at the playground. You realized I was willing to play with you, so you started coming to find me every day and making me play house with you.”

“Play house?”

I immediately protested.

“You were only two years older than me. You were a kid too.”

“No. I never liked that game.”

That actually made sense.

I couldn’t picture Lu Mingqi playing house.

“And then?”

“You told me you really, really liked me and that you were going to marry me when you grew up.”

I went completely still.

Three reallys?

Was I really that forward as a child?

“That piece of paper was the ‘marriage contract’ you wrote for me.”

There was laughter in his voice.

“You hadn’t even started school yet, so you couldn’t write. I held your hand and taught you how to write each stroke in the sand.”

“You tricked me into writing it.”

“I told you that you were too young to talk about marriage. You cried so hard you could barely breathe, then wrapped your arms around my leg and refused to let me leave.”

“You made that up, didn’t you? I was a very proper little girl.”

He sighed.

“You were bold enough to do it, but not bold enough to admit it. Jiang Yueling, you really are…”

“Trying to provoke me won’t work.”

“I’m just telling the truth.”

“I refuse to acknowledge that version of the truth!”

He chuckled softly.

“You really don’t remember being interested in me? For the past few months, you genuinely haven’t felt anything for me? I’m the devoted second male lead, remember? Why didn’t you just figure out a way to keep me for yourself? Wouldn’t that have been a better deal than getting divorced?”

I answered calmly,

“Love isn’t worth risking my life over.”

“So now you care about staying alive? Who was it that refused to watch where she was going at the party?”

“Don’t remind me… I’m already regretting it enough.”

He moved closer and pulled me into his arms.

“Don’t ever get hurt again, you idiot.”

His voice was very soft.

I stroked his cheek.

“I’m fine. Look, I’m still alive and doing perfectly well.”

“You call a memory disorder ‘fine’?”

“I’m still in one piece.”

I placed his hand on my stomach.

“And now I’m a perfectly healthy pregnant woman.”

“Pregnancy is going to be hard on you.”

“I know.”

“So once we have this baby, one is enough. Deal?”

I nodded.

One child was enough.

We’d be better off raising one properly.

“Then remember to practice safe sex afterward.”

“I know.”

“I’m not taking birth control pills.”

His hand rested gently over my stomach.

“They’re not good for your health. Don’t take them.”

That answer made me very satisfied with him.

I leaned over and kissed him.

The first time, I accidentally caught his chin.

He chuckled softly, then lowered his head. This time, our lips met properly.

His breath carried a cool hint of mint.

He didn’t smoke or drink. All I could smell on him was the clean scent of his body wash and shampoo.

After kissing for a while, he was the one who pulled away.

“That’s enough. Go to sleep.”

I hummed in agreement and obediently crawled over to my side of the bed.

These days, we didn’t dare sleep wrapped around each other anymore.

We were both afraid of accidentally pressing against my belly.

A little while later, he got up.

“You go to sleep first. I’ll go upstairs to shower.”

“Doesn’t this room have a bathroom?”

“I don’t want to disturb you.”

“I’m not sleepy yet.”