The airport bustled with people coming and going, snippets of conversation and the sound of rolling luggage mingled with announcements, while electronic screens updated in real-time. Every moment witnessed farewells and reunions.
Originally, Cen Sen’s appearance seemed to put a period on this farewell scene—Ji Mingshu slowly withdrew from his embrace, and Cen Yang tactfully prepared to make his exit.
But suddenly, with a “plop,” several unidentified objects mysteriously fell from Ji Mingshu’s pocket.
Cen Yang was the first to react, helping to pick them up. He glanced at them while holding them, his expression quite interesting.
Cen Sen didn’t care what they were and coldly snatched them, lowering his eyes to look.
Then both men simultaneously turned to Ji Mingshu.
Ji Mingshu: “…”
The air was probably silent for dozens of seconds. Again, it was Cen Yang who reacted first. He coughed lightly and said warmly, “Congratulations.”
Ji Mingshu tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and pressed her lips together.
Although pregnancy wasn’t something shameful, having pregnancy tests fall out like this was embarrassingly suffocating.
She pretended to casually glance at Cen Sen, only to find him staring at her without blinking.
Wanting only to quickly end this awkward farewell, she took small steps toward him, took his arm, cleared her throat, and said to Cen Yang, “Well, you still need to go through security and customs, so you’d better go in early. We won’t see you off any further. Let’s meet again when we visit America next time.”
Cen Yang nodded, not saying anything more, just waving goodbye.
At the airport, earlier flights continued to arrive, and planes continued to take off with roaring sounds.
After Cen Yang left, Cen Sen asked, “You sneaked out today just to buy these?”
“I wasn’t sneaking around,” Ji Mingshu awkwardly changed the subject. “By the way, how did you come here? Weren’t you supposed to discuss that investment today? Did it go well?”
Cen Sen: “The contract has been signed.”
“That’s good.” She sighed in relief.
Cen Sen: “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“What?”
Cen Sen lowered his gaze, glancing at the pregnancy tests.
Ji Mingshu paused, organizing her explanation, “Well… I threw up this morning, right? Then Gu Kaiyang and Jiang Chun said I might be pregnant, so I thought I’d buy these to check. I couldn’t very well go to the hospital alone, could I?”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Weren’t you negotiating a contract? I was planning to test first, then have you accompany me to the hospital for a check-up.”
Cen Sen remained silent for a moment, not pursuing the topic further. “I’ve already arranged for Zhao Yang to set up a pregnancy check-up. We’ll go now.”
It was arranged so quickly?
But she hadn’t seen him make any calls.
A question mark slowly formed in Ji Mingshu’s mind.
Following Cen Sen to the car, she felt a bit confused and a bit nervous.
Some people tend to talk more when nervous, and Ji Mingshu was one of those. After getting in the car, she kept chattering, recounting everything that had happened since receiving Cen Yang’s farewell call.
When she got to the part about their phone conversation, she found it a bit amusing. “By the way, why were you so nervous on the phone? You two were so strange. You didn’t think Cen Yang would kidnap me, did you? What kind of thinking…”
“What if he did?”
Cen Sen suddenly interrupted.
Ji Mingshu: “…?”
Cen Sen looked in the rearview mirror at the Passat carrying his bodyguards following behind, his voice revealing little emotion.
“When he was still with the Cen family, he was kidnapped. At that time, the Cen family had just learned about his background and was willing to give up in the face of huge ransom demands.”
“He’s harbored resentment toward the Cen family all these years, so I couldn’t rule out the possibility that after losing all his bargaining chips, he might kidnap you for revenge.”
Cen Yang was kidnapped?
When did that happen?
Ji Mingshu couldn’t process this for a long while.
But Cen Sen had already looked away, concluding in a calm voice, “Fortunately, he still has some sense.”
Actually, he had originally not wanted to tell Ji Mingshu about these old matters from the dusty archives, but Ji Mingshu had been too well-protected and had never witnessed the evil and coldness of human nature firsthand.
If today, Cen Yang hadn’t truly decided to say goodbye to the past, but instead wanted to exact one final revenge on the Cen family regardless of the consequences, he could have easily lured Ji Mingshu away with just one phone call, playing on their past connection.
Even if there was only a one-in-ten-thousand chance of such a mutual destruction where no one would come out unscathed, it was hard for him to maintain control when he thought about it.
After processing this, Ji Mingshu felt no fear or alarm, only surprise. “I never knew about this. Why did they want to give up on him back then?”
Cen Sen lowered his eyes and said indifferently, “You know too little about the Cen family.”
So she didn’t know that they were inherently cold-hearted.
Throughout the drive to the hospital, Ji Mingshu was still processing the fact that Cen Yang had once been kidnapped. With this distraction, her earlier nervousness had completely disappeared. Even at the hospital, after the examination while waiting for results, she was still somewhat lost in thought, half wondering if she was pregnant, half thinking about the Cen family’s past.
While waiting for the test results, Cen Sen was on the phone, listening to Zhou Jiaheng’s real-time work progress report.
His expression remained as calm as ever, but as he looked at the door of the waiting room, he became distracted. Zhou Jiaheng had to call his name twice before he refocused his attention.