I woke up to find I have a child - Chapter 76
No one can escape the cuteness of Yiyi, and the fearless Jiang Lingyan was no exception.
The next day, Shen Sangluo planned to take Yiyi out to play, and since Jiang Lingyan didn’t want to stay home alone, she went along. They spent the morning at a children’s playground, and when it was time to return Yiyi, Shen Sangluo found that the one who seemed most reluctant to say goodbye to Yiyi was actually Jiang Lingyan.
They both accompanied Yiyi back to her home, and Han Feixu had thought they would leave immediately afterward, only to end up hosting them for dinner.
Ye Mingxin was not at home today since she had a meeting with Gan Zongming at the company and would be dining with colleagues in the evening, so she wouldn’t be back until well after nine in the evening.
Han Feixu took off her shoes, and curled up on the sofa, before turning her gaze to Jiang Lingyan and Yiyi. Jiang Lingyan was teaching Yiyi how to draw comic characters, but Yiyi had no talent for drawing, and her creations could only be considered abstract art at best. Han Feixu wondered where Jiang Lingyan’s confidence came from, thinking she could teach Yiyi to draw = =
After watching them for a while, Han Feixu turned to Shen Sangluo and whispered, “Look at how much our Director Jiang likes children.”
Shen Sangluo turned her head to see Han Feixu with her head in her hands, smiling and giving her a look.
Shen Sangluo glared at her, “What does her liking children have anything to do with me?”
Han Feixu straightened her palm, lightly patting Shen Sangluo’s shoulder with her fingertips, “You two can…”
“No, absolutely not!” Shen Sangluo reacted like an irritated cat, slapping her hand away, “I will not give birth to her child!”
Shen Sangluo’s voice was a bit loud, and the two people drawing at the table turned their heads to look at them. Han Feixu smiled at them, signaling that everything was fine, before turning back to Shen Sangluo and then saying in a lowered volume, “Who said anything about you giving birth to her child? I mean, if she wants to, she can be the one to carry and give birth instead.”
Shen Sangluo grabbed the remote control and turned on the tv as she said firmly, “That won’t work either. When I graduated from college, I decided I won’t have children in this lifetime. Raising children is too risky, and I just don’t have the personality to be a mother. Even if I were to get married in the future, I’ll continue to remain childless.” (T/N: Fun fact, the actual word she used here instead of childless was??, which means “double income family with no kids” or DINK for short)
Han Feixu nodded knowingly, “Oh~~~ So you’ve already planned everything out, and even thought of things after marriage?”
Shen Sangluo replied without thinking: “Of course, I always plan ahead in case of a rainy day….”
Halfway through her words, she suddenly realized something was wrong. She raised her eyes to see Han Feixu looking at her with a mischievous smile, and she realized she had fallen into a trap.
“I didn’t mean it like that, you know right? When I mentioned getting married, I didn’t mean marrying her, but to any hypothetical future partner. It’s just, not with her, I mean, I haven’t thought that far with her yet-” Shen Sangluo started to backtrack with her words to try to fix her mistake.
Han Feixu calmly interrupted her, “Stop trying to explain. An explanation is only a cover-up and what’s beneath the cover-up is the truth.”
This subject was just too dangerous for her. So Shen Sangluo changed the topic, “I saw the trending searches, and saw that your book has sold 100 million. You must be going crazy with joy. I still have a copy that you gave me and based on this trend, it seems I should consider passing it down as a family heirloom for the next generation.
Han Feixu chuckled, “But I thought you didn’t want children. Who will you pass it on to?”
The attempt to change the topic failed = =
Shen Sangluo was also starting to wonder why her IQ seemed to drop sharply whenever talking about her personal affairs. In fact, she felt her current IQ was lower than Han Feixu’s neighbor’s dog. One must know that the neighbor’s dog is a mix of Chihuahua and Husky, one of the lowest bars of intelligence in the dog world.
It seemed no matter what topic she talked about, there was always danger lurking behind it. So she simply resorted to the best strategy that has been passed down for hundreds of years—the “slip away with an excuse” strategy.
They eventually left, and since it was getting late. Han Feixu took Yiyi upstairs to wash up, washing her hair with some fragrant shampoo before tucking her into bed.
The fairy tale she started reading two nights ago hadn’t been finished yet, so Han Feixu lay next to Yiyi, softly reading the story to her. Soon enough, Yiyi fell asleep.
A child’s mind isn’t filled with many thoughts, and so they are able to fall asleep quickly and happily. Han Feixu closed the book, gently pinched Yiyi’s cheek once, and then walked out the door.
She checked the time and saw that it was already 9:10 PM. Ye Mingxin should be back soon.
While Han Feixu was thinking Ye Mingxin was still stuck at the drinks table with her colleagues, the woman in question actually left home half an hour ago. But instead of driving home, she had gone to another place.
Ye Mingxin drove to an underground parking lot of a tall building, and waited for a while before a man emerged from the elevator. He opened the car door and got in, before saying, “Eldest Young Miss, have you eaten yet? If not, can I treat you?”
Ye Mingxin didn’t want to engage in small talk and went straight to the point, “No thank you, I’ve already eaten. I called you out because I need your help to investigate someone. She lived in France for a while, and so it might be difficult to trace her. I remember you studied in France during college, is that correct?”
The man blinked, “Yes, that’s correct. So, do you want me to go to France to investigate this person?”
“That’s not necessary,” Ye Mingxin put her hands on the steering wheel. “If there are no other options, then you can consider going there. However, here is her basic information. Can you find out everything about her within three days?”
Taking the files Ye Mingxin held out to him, the man opened the folder and found only one piece of paper inside with Chloe’s known information. He placed the paper back in the folder and asked, “Then, Eldest Young Miss, how much information do you want me to find about this person? Just tell me what information you want to know and I can dig it up for you.
Ye Mingxin couldn’t answer that question because she wasn’t sure herself what information she wanted to know about Chloe = =
She just felt something was off about Chloe. After returning home yesterday, she found out that Chloe had returned the book to Han Feixu. There were just too many suspicious things about her. Chloe was just an editor of a magazine, and editors typically didn’t have enough money to casually spend 100 million to buy a book. Moreover, she didn’t even want the book in the end, so the 100 million was spent without a sound only to be wasted.
Why didn’t Chole want this book after buying it? Did she drop her brain in the gutter somewhere?
If Chloe is attracted to Han Feixu and wants to curry favor with her, then there is no need to use such a stupid method to pursue someone. Up to this very moment, Han Feixu only thought of Chole as a “very good person” and nothing more. In fact, she had no idea that Chole might be interested in her. Han Feixu is not completely clueless when it comes to reading emotions, so she would have noticed the signs by now if Chloe was interested in her. So there are two possibilities, 1) Chloe doesn’t want Han Feixu to notice or 2) Chloe wasn’t interested in Han Feixu at all.
No matter what the possibility was, it still wouldn’t explain her actions. Ye Mingxin felt that she couldn’t sleep until she figured out Chole’s intentions.
That’s why she had called on this man to help her investigate Chloe. He was her father’s secretary and skilled at gathering information. If she left this up to him, it wouldn’t take long before he got to the bottom of Chloe’s secrets.
Ye Mingxin fell silent for a moment and said, “Investigate everything, I want to know everything about this person.”
The middle-aged secretary was surprised. He subconsciously glanced at the folder, and thought that this person must be someone important to make the Eldest Young Miss request such an extensive investigation. She must be one of Eldest Young Miss’ rivals in the entertainment industry or something similar.
The secretary immediately straightened her back and promised: “Don’t worry, Miss! I will find out everything about her.”
Ye Mingxin was about to smile but then heard the secretary continue, “I’ll make sure to complete the task within a month!”
Ye Mingxin: “….”
A month? A month later would be too late*, what’s the point of investigating then! (*T/N: I used a simple translation, but the idiom that was originally in the text was ??????which translates literally to the yellow-flower vegetables would have gone cold and means to arrive late/take one’s sweet time.)
No matter how long the investigation would take, the matter was handed over in the end. Han Feixu was completely unaware of it, busy working on memorizing her script.
?The Sleeper?was about to begin filming, and it was originally scheduled for release during Lunar New Year. Then Ye Mingxin thought Han Feixu might end up acting in?Barrier Lake?and had pushed the release to a later date. But now that Han Feixu wasn’t working on any other projects, ?The Sleeper?would return to its original Lunar New Year release date.
Since Lunar New Year was in February, and it was currently mid-October, the filming schedule had been moved up, and the start and end date for filming had been moved up.
The film’s production costs were not very high, with most of the costumes and sets adding up to a few hundreds of thousands. The main expense was the actors’ salaries.
Ye Mingxin decided that after finishing this film, she wouldn’t take on any other contracts for a year. She intended to gradually step back from the entertainment industry, with?The Sleeper?being her last film she’d make.
Of course, she wouldn’t fully retire. She still held some shares in the Gan Company and had invested in several other entertainment companies in recent years. Now was the time to collect on her investments, although she might still invest in some new projects. Perhaps, when the mood struck her, she’d make a cameo appearance in another film or series.
But as the lead actress, this would be her last time.
There were six main roles, each portrayed by A-list actors or actresses. Han Feixu’s popularity was already on par with top young actors and actresses. She had over ten million followers on her Weibo, and her fan club had grown significantly.
As Liang Zhu had initially estimated, as her popularity increased, the roles, endorsements, and event appearances piled up. However, up to this point, Han Feixu had only signed one television series contract, one film contract, and a few endorsement deals. She had around ten endorsements in total, but she accepted very few commercial activities and only attended social and charity events when she had time.
Han Feixu had determined she wanted to create an identity for herself as a film actress. With her rising popularity, she wanted to avoid taking on variety shows and joining various variety show programs so she could focus solely on film acting.
She hadn’t forgotten her promise to Yiyi to spend as much time as possible with her.
Han Feixu laid out a family tree for her character on the table. The character she was playing, Xia Ning, was introduced as an orphan at first, a little bit like how she was like right now, but Xia Ning would soon have a whole family of parasitic relatives knocking on her door. This was something Han Feixu was not familiar with.
There were many branches in Xia Ning’s family tree, then after some pondering, Han Feixu also drew a family tree for herself.
Compared with Xia Ning’s family tree, her family tree is so pitiful. There are only three leaves on the whole tree, Han Anni, Ye Mingxin, and Yiyi.
Looking at her bare tree trunk, Han Feixu thought about it for a moment before adding Yan Yuerong and her husband, along with Ye MingDe to the family tree.
Now it looks a little better. After thinking about it for a while, she drew the Ye family’s second uncle’s family. The leaf for the little boy Ye Pinlan was bigger, and the leaf for the shrew of a second aunt was the size of a sesame seed. Now, everyone is on here. Han Feixu lifted the piece of paper, looked up at it, and couldn’t help but smile.
Looking at it like this, her family is also big. Although not everyone on there was very cute, they were still her relatives after all.
After folding up the paper, she took out another piece of paper to begin writing down Xia Ning’s mental journey along a timeline.
As she continued to write, she soon became sleepy and fell asleep at the table.
So when Ye Mingxin came back, this was the scene she happened upon. She gently shook the sleeping Han Feixu, waking her up. Han Feixu looked sleepily up at her, and seeing her still in a daze, Ye Mingxin pulled her to stand up, “You should sleep in your bed.”
A sleepy Han Feixu is very obedient and made no fuss as she walked back to bed, kicked off her slippers, and then lifted the blanket to roll herself up in it.
Her movements were skillful, as if she had done this countless times. Ye Mingxin took a glance at each one before holding them up. Among the papers were character analyses and notes from psychology courses. The last time she saw Han Feixu so serious was when Ye Mingxin was acting in the television adaptation of ?Lu Niang?. It was clear as day to anybody that Han Feixu’s true passion lay in films and only the things she truly loved would make her work so hard for it.
After tidying up for a while, she noticed that one sheet of paper was already folded up. She unfolded it and then paused.
Holding the piece of paper in her hand, she turned around and looked at Han Feixu, who was still sleeping soundly. Han Feixu seemed unaware of her gaze. Ye Mingxin pursed her lips, folded the piece of paper back, and then sandwiched it into the pile of papers she had just packed away.
The next day, they both had some rare free time. Han Feixu was lying in the rocking chair next to the French windows, her eyes glued to an iPad.
On the screen, a public lecture on psychology from Beijing Normal University* was playing. Ye Mingxin held two glasses of juice in her hand and handed one of them to Han Feixu before sitting down next to her. (T/N: Yes, there really is a university called “Normal University” in Beijing)
With Ye Mingxin’s legs firmly on the floor, the rocking chair stopped moving.
“Still watching? You’ve watched so many, are you planning to become some sort of great master of psychology?”
?The Sleeper?may seem like a simple suspense film on the surface, but it is actually a case study of various psychological disorders. Everyone who appears, even the janitor, has a mental illness. Of course, each person’s illness had varying degrees of severeness and not everyone was diagnosed properly.
Originally, the screenwriter had only wanted to focus on antisocial personalities and serial killers. After Dugu Yuehua read the script, he asked them to add an element to it – a psychology element. In this way, the theme of the movie is more refined, with every human being displaying psychological flaws, some big and some small. In today’s day and age, modern humans are more plagued with mental illnesses than physical ones. With this film, Dugu Yuehua wanted to tell people that mental health is just as important as physical health.
Han Feixu pressed pause and told Ye Mingxin seriously, “I may not become a master by watching all of this, but I need to familiarize myself with it. Only by doing this can I defeat Han Yiren in terms of acting reputation.”
Ye Mingxin couldn’t help laughing, “Are you saying you can get rid of Han Yiren if you become familiar with psychology?”
“That’s not how it works,” Han Feixu sat up halfway, “If I become familiar with psychology, then I can play the role of Xia Ning better. Isn’t Han Yiren currently acting in ?Barrier Lake?? Do you know what the biggest highlight of her role is?”
Ye Mingxin had also read the script of ?Barrier Lake?so after thinking about it for a moment she answered, “It should be the final twist, right? The fact that the least noticeable and seemingly fragile character ends up causing the deaths of over a hundred people. None of those who harmed her could imagine her retaliating and even the male lead who is investigating the truth couldn’t imagine it. That means the audience sitting in front of the screen also didn’t expect it.”
“Bingo!” Han Feixu raised her arm and snapped her fingers. “That’s the main highlight of that role and my character, Xia Ning, follows the same pattern. When she first appears, she’s a skinny young girl, just seventeen years old, and her parents have recently passed away. She’s sent to a mental hospital by her uncle, who covets her inheritance. She spends seven years there, and thus the most beautiful years of her life are wasted. And while in the mental hospital, she is tormented every day. The doctors and nurses know that she isn’t actually mentally ill, but they still want to break her down until she truly becomes mentally ill. She is a miserable character, and a symbol of tragedy.”
Han Feixu grew agitated as she explained all this, but Ye Mingxin felt no ripples in her heart as she listened quietly. If these things really happened to people she knew, perhaps she would feel sad and sympathetic, but if they happened in fictional words and images, she would feel nothing. This was the difference in empathy levels between her and Han Feix, although Ye Mingxin’s reaction is pretty normal. Han Feixu was only getting worked up because she was studying Xia Ning, trying to become her character as she tried to understand Xia Ning better.
Han Feixu continued: “Such a pitiful person. No matter how smart she is, in the end she is just a helpless girl and a single brick could knock her down.”
At this point, Ye Mingxin interrupted her, “Actually, anyone would be knocked down if a brick was thrown at them.”
“Don’t interrupt me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ye Mingxin nodded obediently.
“Anyhow,” Having been interrupted, Han Feixu lost her train of thought and paused for a moment before remembering her previous thoughts, “Xia Ning is a person who is like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. There are a total of three twists for her character and each one is more amazing than the last. What I will have to do is to make sure to perform all three twists to the best of my ability, to the point where one skin will crawl when they watch me! This way, Han Yiren will completely be suppressed in terms of my acting skills.”
Ye Mingxin smiled lightly, “That’ll be no problem, I’ll be a green leaf* for you.” (*T/N: Idiom that means supporting role, basically like the green leaves of a flower. You’re there to support, not shine.)
Han Feixu lifted her chin proudly, “There’s no need for you to do anything, I’ll turn you into a green leaf with my acting alone.”
She didn’t realize how boastful she sounded, and neither did Ye Mingxin. Ye Mingxin was completely absorbed in the charms of the present Han Feixu was, and her thoughts were heading down a not so appropriate path.
Han Feixu was about to resume playing the video, but Ye Mingxin leaned over, grabbed her outstretched arm, and with a little force, she pinned Han Feixu down onto the rocking chair.
With both of them in the chair now, the rocking chair began swaying again. Han Feixu blinked her eyes and then glanced to the side.
“In broad daylight, really? And there’s a window right over there…”
Hearing Han Feixu’s words, Ye Mingxin raised an eyebrow, “Yes, and so that makes it even more exciting, doesn’t it?”
She lowered her head, and although Han Feixu didn’t verbally respond, the loud pounding of her heart revealed her true thoughts.
Han Feixu waited for two seconds, closing her eyes as she waited for the expected warmth of a pair of lips, but opened her eyes a few seconds later when she felt no movements. She opened her eyes and found Ye Mingxin frowning while looking at her phone.
“What’s wrong?” Han Feixu asked.
Ye Mingxin put away her phone, and stood up, “There’s an issue at the company, I need to go.”
“Oh, what time will you be back?” Han Feixu sat up, stretching her neck.
Ye Mingxin replied while walking out the door, “I don’t know, don’t wait for me for dinner.”
Han Feixu tilted her head, then laid back down, and resumed watching her video.
Ten minutes after the secretary sent the text message, he received a reply from Ye Mingxin, saying that she was in the parking lot and asked him to come down quickly and clarify things.
The secretary, lamented at how quickly his Eldest Young Miss had responded, and swiftly grabbed his files before rushing out the office.
He ran all the way to the parking lot and got in the car. He was panting for breath as he handed over the documents to Ye Mingxin.
Ye Mingxin accepted his files and then looked at him strangely, “Why did you run down here so fast?”
“Didn’t you tell me to come down quickly?”
Ye Mingxin fell silent for a moment, and the secretary could read the unspoken words on her face.
—I did say that, didn’t I?
The secretary: “…”
Not even 24 hours had passed, and the secretary had already found important information. He truly lived up to his title as someone who had followed Ye Junyuan for so long. Ye Mingxin opened the folder and praised him absentmindedly, to which the secretary just chuckled and said, “Actually, it’s not all due to my skills. The woman had transferred all her property to China and her real estate is handled by one of our fund management companies. I just asked the manager from that subordinate company and he sent me all that information.”
In the text message he sent her, the secretary said he discovered some important financial information about Chloe and it was because of how he worded his text that she rushed over so quickly. She looked at the various data points on the document, all of which were related to Chloe’s spending habits.
As she read the document, the secretary explained, “Didn’t she buy a book just two days ago at the auction? After the payment was made, when you add up all her bank card balances, her balance is less than 100,000. Our lower-level employees probably have more money than she does right now.”
Ye Mingxin’s eyes moved over the lines of data until she reached the end.
The last line was the amount of Chloe’s savings. The initial amount was 12 million euros. It had grown slowly each year, but the increase was minimal, seemingly the result of interest on the savings. However, as of yesterday, the entire 12 million euros had been spent. Her savings had been reduced to 0.
Ye Mingxin frowned, “Are you sure this is all her savings?”
The secretary answered candidly, “No.”
Ye Mingxin asked, “…”
Seeing the “How dare you bait me with this” expression on the Eldest Young Miss’ face, the secretary quickly added, “Even though this isn’t all her savings, it constitutes a significant portion of her assets. According to my investigation, before coming to China, she sold all her houses, cars, and some investment properties. After coming to China, she bought just an apartment and a car. After deducting all that, the remaining assets, when converted into RMB, are just over 100 million. Then after deducting the auction expenses, she now has less than 100,000.”
Ye Mingxin listened, but her primary focus wasn’t on Chloe’s imminent bankruptcy. She was more concerned about something else, “If she sold everything, then that probably means she doesn’t plan on returning to Paris, right? Is she planning to live in China permanently?”
The secretary nodded, “She has submitted her citizenship application, but it’s unlikely to be approved because she no longer meets the financial requirements and conditions due to her lack of money.