Since Sheng Yeting was not willing give her a hand, Xia Xingcheng could only rely on herself. She would definitely find Bao and would not let her father get what he wanted. She made a decision to herself and then hurried to leave the Sheng’s Group.
Xia Xingcheng went back to the Xia’s villa, but instead of entering through the gate she slipped in quietly from the backyard, carefully avoiding all the surveillance cameras. The villa was the first place she thought of after discovering that her father had hidden Bao. If her father had in fact hidden Bao somewhere in the villa, then she would take her child away secretly and never come back. However, she had looked through every corner of this place and there was not a trace of Bao. ‘Could it be that Bao isn’t in the villa?’ Xia Xingcheng knitted her eye brows.
Before she could think about it, a delicate sweet voice came, “Hao, I feel so tired.”
‘It’s Xia Xingyan!’
Xia Xingcheng was startled and quickly hid behind the potted plants. She took cover using the plants with their thick branches and leaves. Through the gap between the branches and leaves, she clearly saw Xia Xingyan and Xu Hao approaching slowly.
“If you’re tired, shall we go back to our room to take another rest?” Xu Hao raised his eye brows and grinned to Xia Xingyan.
“Nuisance!” Xia Xingyan pushed him in a spoiled, girly way.
Xu Hao took her in his arms and gently touched her nose. “You just speak contrary to your thoughts. You obviously like it very much but only say you hate it.”
“You’re so annoying. Leave me alone.” Xia Xingyan, whose thoughts had been exposed, pretended to be angry and turned her face away.
Xu Hao knew that she was pretending but still soothed her with sweet talk.
As Xia Xingcheng looked at their intimate interactions and listened to Xu Hao’s sweet words, a rush of bitterness flooded to Xia Xingcheng’s heart and silently she clenched her hands. In the past, Xu Hao had done this exact same sweet-talking with her, and Xia Xingcheng used to think that he loved her and they would be together forever and ever. But, after that incident happened, Xu Hao had no faith in Xia Xingcheng, which damaged her feelings towards him thoroughly. Just thinking that she had ever fallen for such a piece of garbage in the past, she thought how ridiculous she must have been to be so blind back then.
“My dad asked me to babysit that disagreeable Bao…”
Once Xia Xingcheng heard Xia Xingyan mentioning Bao’s name, she withdrew all her feelings of the past but listened carefully about what she was going to say next.
“If he, a child alone in the hotel, should ever meet with an accident, we’ll be in trouble; after all, he’s the key to whether or not we can cooperate with the Sheng’s Group about that “Thunder” Project.”
“But I don’t really want to go.” Xia Xingyan pursed her red lips. She was not very willing to go to the hotel and take care of that woman’s son.
Xu Hao frowned. He actually disliked Bao very much because the kid’s existence was like a reminder of Xia Xingcheng’s betrayal towards him in the past, but just like what Xia Xingyan mentioned, Bao was very important to the Xia’s now. So he pondered the priorities, suppressed his hate towards Bao and smiled to Xia Xingyan. “I’ll accompany you.”
“Really?” said Xia Xingyan in surprise.
Xu Hao gave a “Mhmm,” and said, “Let’s go.”
“Okay.”
‘Bao is in the hotel!’
Xia Xingcheng looked at the figure of Xia Xingyan and Xu Hao leaving, and something occurred to her, so she followed them quietly until they got to the gate of the hotel.
Xia Xingcheng didn’t even think about it but continued to follow them inside the hotel, but she was stopped by the waiter right at the gate.
“Miss, could you show me your membership card?”
“Membership card?” Xia Xingcheng frowned.
Maybe the waiter saw her confusion, so he explained. “You could only enter our hotel with a membership card.”
Xia Xingcheng, failing show a membership card, could only watch Xia Xingyan and Xu Hao disappear from her sight. She sighed in frustration, stepped back and looked up at the hotel building. ‘I wonder on which floor Bao is.’
…
Meanwhile, in the restaurant on the second floor of the hotel, Sheng Yeting was eating with his parents. Sheng’s father and mother had been living abroad and seldom came back. Sheng Yeting had postponed his other social and business activities and came specially to accompany them to have this meal.
As parents, they saw their son reach the age of marriage, but he didn’t even have a girlfriend. They couldn’t help but feel kind of worried.
“Yeting, when do you want to get married?” Sheng Yeting’s mother put down her chopsticks and stared at her son, who was sitting opposite.
“I will get married when the time has come,” answered Sheng Yeting dryly.
Hearing her son’s reply, Sheng Yeting’s mother immediately became upset. “You are just finding excuses in front of your father and I! I say, even if your dad and I are gone, you will not get married!”
“Mom!” Sheng Yeting raised his hand and rubbed his forehead. He looked at his mother with a rather helpless look. “Mom, I will get married, but you can’t rush me.”
Hearing this, Sheng Yeting’s mother sighed heavily and relaxed a lot. “Yeting, I know you’ve been very busy these years, so busy that you don’t have time to think about your own business. But now that the company is developing so steadily, it’s time for you to plan your own life. Your dad and I are still waiting to take care of our grandchildren.”
As she was talking, Sheng Yeting’s mother nudged her husband who was stunned for a short while but he quickly recalled his mind and chimed in, “Yeting, your mother is right. Now the Sheng’s Group has gradually become stable. It’s time for you to relax and enjoy yourself. For example, it would be good for you to find a girlfriend, to have a date or get married. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
‘You think a girlfriend can be so readily available that I don’t have to look?’
‘You think I can just marry someone randomly?’
Sheng Yeting found it so interesting, so interesting indeed, that he shook his head, showing a bemused smile as he glanced carelessly from the corner of his eyes at the person standing at the gate of the hotel downstairs. His gaze was frozen right away. ‘How has she followed us here?’
Sheng Yeting’s mother noticed his son’s odd behavior, and she frowned. “Yeting, is there anything wrong?”
Hearing that, Sheng Yeting withdrew his gaze and shook his head. “Nothing.”
He lowered his head to eat, but he still glimpsed that woman downstairs. His eyes were covered with a thick layer of ice. He didn’t expect that she could follow him all the way here. ‘Had I known it, I wouldn’t have helped her at all. She was just like a clinging vine that couldn’t be shaken off.’
There was a rush of disgust in his heart. He took back his eyes and continued to eat and pretended he simply hadn’t seen her.
Xia Xingcheng didn’t know that Sheng Yeting had misunderstood her. She looked at the hotel building with her pearl-like teeth biting lightly on her lips and her pretty little face was stained by a slight annoyance.
‘I know that Bao is in this hotel but I can’t get him back.’
‘It’s so annoying just thinking about it.’
It was not so bad though; as long as Bao was there, she would think up a thousand means to get him out. The first problem was how to enter the hotel. While she was at her wit’s end, a notice for recruitment next to her came into sight. They were recruiting waiters here. Xia Xingcheng’s eyes were lightened up. It was really a case of, “Every cloud has a silver lining”!
She ran over to rip the notice off, returned back to the waiter, and held up the notice in her hand. “I can’t enter without a membership card but I am here to interview for a job!”
