The Overnight Chosen Wife: Darling, Kiss Me Deeper

"What do you mean by that?" Lanni's heart raced. Ji Meiling must be making up things to scare her, right?

Alas, the woman's expression was too realistic. She looked baffled by herself for letting out what she had just said and ended the call in a flash.

Lanni was left shocked and confused. Why would Xiehan kill her child? Was it something that happened accidentally?

She knew Xiehan well enough to be certain that he would never do such a thing on purpose but the point was, wasn't Xiaoshi the only child of Ji Meiling? Since when did she have a child that Xiehan apparently killed?

It was dramatic to imagine that someone probably messed with Xiehan and he ended their life, and they later turned out to be Ji Meiling's estranged child. It was no use speculating wildly on her own, so she decided to go upstairs and ask him.

The door of the study suddenly felt like it was made of thorns. She could ask him alright, but what would she do with the answer he gave her? If he really did kill Ji Meiling's child, what would happen?

She took deep breaths and considered the possibility. Maybe Ji Meiling was making up some random crap to force them into an argument.

She softly knocked on the door and pushed it open slowly. Xiehan was behind his desk, fiddling with an almost empty wine glass and looking lost in thought. She walked over to him and pried the glass out of his hand. "Are you okay, honey?"

"Yeah." He looked up at her. "Did she tell you anything?"

She sat on his lap after placing the wineglass on the desk. "You look like you think there's something specific she should tell me."

He supported her back with his arm. "From your reaction, she did. Some secrets are meant to be kept forever, while some are merely waiting for a moment to erupt."

She searched his eyes. "Tell me, did you really do it? Did you kill her child?"

He froze slightly, as though he had not expected her to actually ask.

Instead of giving her a yes or no answer, he forced a smile. "What would you do with the knowledge if I did? Would you hand me over to the police?"

"Hell no." She ran a hand through his hair in soft, calming strokes. "I just want you to know that I'm here with you. No matter what difficulty you are facing, we can handle it together. I just don't want you keeping it to yourself when you have such a heavy load over your shoulders."

He hugged her and breathed in her scent. He had not known how she would take it. He had always assumed that she would take him for a creep if she ever knew about that incident, so he didn't dare to bring it up. This time he knew it would be brought up by Ji Meiling. The woman probably didn't explain everything, which was within his expectations. He had thought that Lanni would run for the hills once he knew about it yet here she was, comforting him.

"Aren't you scared to say that to a potential murderer?" He teased.

"Don't call yourself that. My husband is not a murderer." She rolled her eyes. "And so what if you were? It would not dim my love for you and I think that's enough to keep us going."

"You are right." He breathed into her neck.

"Do you mind telling me what happened?" She asked, majorly because she wanted to help him let it out.

"Do you want to get some popcorn?" He chuckled and started speaking when she pinched his ear.

"It all happened when I was a little boy. Aunty had just taken me with her. The plan was for me to spend the holidays in Australia with her and she would take me back home once everything calmed down between my parents. It was soon after the argument broke out regarding how they were trying to bring me up."

"Oh," She nodded. That should be around the time when Xiehan spent a lot of time with Li Yuming.

"I was new in Australia and didn't have any friends there. Of course, I wasn't confident enough to approach the other kids and ask them to play with me. I would mostly play on my own unless my aunt or uncle were home." He recalled the past like it had happened a day ago.

___

"Aunty, Aunty, come and play with me!" The young Xiehan demanded. He had mud all over his face and clothes from playing outside and was carrying his equally dirty ball at his side.

"Why do you have mud all over you? Come on, I'll help you take a bath." Ji Meiling called him over.

"But Aunty, we will get dirt on us anyways. We are going to play ball." He protested.

"I didn't say I was going to play with you." Ji Meiling turned to head for his bedroom to run him a bath.

"Pretty please...It's only going to take a minute." He pleaded. As usual, Ji Meiling couldn't stand his pleading puppy dog eyes. She smiled and rubbed his head of silver hair that was now coated in patches of mud.

"Okay. Just one round of ball, then we come back and clean up for dinner."

"Yay!" Xiehan excitedly ran all the way out with his ball as Ji Meiling barely kept up. One round morphed into a few rounds and before they knew it, the sun had set.

"This is the last time." Ji Meiling held up one finger.

Xiehan kicked his ball towards her but this time, she didn't kick it back. Her face was contorted and her forehead sweaty.

"Aunty? Is everything alright?" He ran over to her worriedly.

"I'm fine. Let's go back to the house."

She barely managed to contain her pain as they went back to the house. As he was worried about her, he held her hand in an attempt to support her. Alas, they were barely at the doorstep when she noticed the small patch of blood at the front of her dress.

"Aunty, you are bleeding!" He exclaimed.

"Oh, uhm… I'll get a bandaid." She let go of his hand to rush away but couldn't take another step. She dropped onto the floor writhing in pain.

___

Lanni's eyes widened in horror.

"That was not her period, was it?"

"No." He looked down to mask his emotions as he continued. "I panicked. All I could think of was to call my uncle. Before he returned, I tried to help her to her room in vain. She was crying and I thought it was due to pain, until she was taken to hospital and the doctors confirmed that she was pregnant and had lost her child."

Lanni rubbed his shoulder. "It was not your fault. Even if you knew that she was pregnant, you were too young to know what to do with that information."

"She didn't ever blame me." He muttered. "She was worried that I would be traumatized so she made it a point to explain that it had happened because she had strained herself out and it had nothing to do with me, and that she was destined to lose that child."

It was still a painful moment and a boy that young would never forget it. Lanni took his hand and stroked it comfortingly.

"Does your family know?"

He shook his head. "No one knew she was pregnant. Not even herself. They decided to keep it to themselves to avoid making the entire family sad."

Her feelings were mixed. She would have said that they were kind to not blame a child for being part of the reason for the miscarriage, but at the same time, Ji Meiling was now using that incident as a reason to attack them for revenge. Why did she blame Xiehan? Besides, even if she blamed Xiehan, what had their unborn baby done wrong?

"It still doesn't make what she is doing right." She remarked.

"I know. She probably didn't think she would want to do this either." He grabbed her hand that was stroking his. "She didn't intend to. At first. Because she didn't ever have a reason to. When we announced that you are pregnant, her first reaction was to think that you had cheated on me."

"What the heck?!" She was shocked by her assumption. Who would even think that?

"The miscarriage affected her chances of having children greatly." He revealed. "Having Shishi was already a miracle. No matter how hard they tried later, they wouldn't have any other child. I like to believe that it's one of the reasons why she insisted on having me live with her permanently. I'm not complaining. She treated me exceptionally well, took me to the best schools and Shishi was like a sister to me."

"There is a huge 'but' at the end of it all." She looked into his eyes. "Isn't there?"

He nodded subtly. "When I was a teenager, I had a major injury in school and stayed in hospital for a few days. Aunty used the chance to bribe the doctors to perform a vasectomy on me."

"What in the freaking hell?!" Her jaw dropped.

"Luckily, the doctor didn't want to stain his hands by having made a boy sterile without his consent. He secretly told me about it and didn't go through with the procedure, but lied to her about completing it. All these years, Aunty thinks I can't have a child.. That was why she was shocked when we announced pregnancy, and her first assumption was that you cheated on me.