059 Embarrassed

Li Ziyan was terribly worried that Zhao Shumin might become pregnant.

Last night, he truly had not expected that Zhao Shumin would think she was merely having a dream, thus taking the initiative to cross the boundary with him.

Li Ziyan swore to himself that that scene had dealt a massive blow to his heart, sending a tremor deep down into his very soul.

After getting up and briefly washing up, Li Ziyan walked over to Zhao Shumin's bedroom door and knocked.

"Aunt Zhao."

The intimate images from yesterday still surfaced in his mind.

"Xiaoyan, you go to work first."

"Auntie needs to get some good rest. Xiaoyan, you should leave."

"Auntie is tired..."

Zhao Shumin said to Li Ziyan, her face burning with intense heat. Her voice trembled noticeably. For a woman as traditionally conservative as her, even wearing silk stockings felt utterly shameful, let alone crossing the ultimate line with a twenty-year-old young man.

"Alright, Auntie, get some good rest."

"And... remember to buy some medicine."

With that, Li Ziyan left the house. He knew that getting pregnant would cause enormous trouble. Even if he were willing to stay with Zhao Shumin, she would never agree to it right now, and a pregnancy would bring endless complications. The issues involved were simply too complex.

...

As Li Ziyan walked away, Zhao Shumin inside the room sat under the blowing fan, feeling that the breeze it produced was indeed completely different from air conditioning. Lying in Li Ziyan's room, wrapped in his blanket, had felt truly comfortable. It was precisely because of that unusual sensation, combined with the lightheadedness from the alcohol, that she had believed she was dreaming and ended up acting that way—even taking the initiative to such an extent.

Her mind inevitably recalled the time when she had helped Li Ziyan with a massage during the incident with Liu Yan; it felt as though history had repeated itself. Yet this time, Li Ziyan had experienced the reversal.

"What on earth am I going to do?"

"How am I ever going to face this child in the future?"

"He is just a kid, while I am old enough to be his mother, and yet something like this happened between us."

Her entire body burning with heat, Zhao Shumin reproached herself relentlessly. She felt she had ruined Li Ziyan's purity and deeply wronged him, seeing as he was still a college student.

After a long while, she suddenly remembered Li Ziyan telling her to go buy medicine. She snapped out of her trance—she truly needed to hurry and buy the morning-after pill. If she were to carry Li Ziyan's child, she would have nowhere to show her face; after all, he was just a college student.

After dressing properly, Zhao Shumin went to the bathroom to wash up. Once she was finished, with a face that remained stubbornly flushed, she walked out to the pharmacy outside the residential compound.

However, after hesitating, she walked past it and kept going for a long time. Only when she reached another pharmacy further away did she cautiously step inside.

"Um, please give me a box of emergency contraceptives."

Zhao Shumin felt a profound sense of shame. She had always believed that such intimate matters belonged to the young, and that a middle-aged woman like her had no business engaging in them. After all, given her age, doing such things was entirely inappropriate.

Fortunately, the pharmacist did not look surprised. In an era where personal freedom in sexual matters had reached almost excessive proportions, a forty-year-old woman buying emergency contraceptives was the most normal thing in the world.

"Was it taken before or after?"

"What...?"

Zhao Shumin had never taken such medication before. Ever since giving birth to Shang Shunsheng, her ex-husband had never touched her again—though he had beaten her plenty of times. It wasn't until the mistress got pregnant that the two of them finally divorced. At the time, terrified of the gossip and指指点点 that would follow a divorce, Zhao Shumin hadn't even wanted to separate, enduring several more beatings before the divorce was finalized.

"When did you and your husband do it?"

The pharmacist looked at Zhao Shumin, feeling as though this woman belonged to a bygone era, completely ignorant of such basic common sense.

"Last night..."

"Then you need the post-coital one."

"Take one pill. Thirty-two yuan."

After handing the medication to Zhao Shumin, the pharmacist pointed at the QR code for payment. Zhao Shumin paid the money and fled the place with a burning face.

All the way back, Zhao Shumin felt like a thief trying to elude detection. Fortunately, aside from a few men minding their own business, no one paid attention to what she was doing.

Upon returning home, despite feeling extremely hungry, Zhao Shumin went straight back to her bedroom. She poured a cup of warm water from a thermos she had used for over a decade and swallowed the pill. Only then did she finally set her mind at ease, hiding the remaining pills inside her sewing box.

"This way, I won't get pregnant, right?"

Muttering to herself, she buried her face in her arms on the bed, still unable to accept reality. At her age, she had just robbed Xiaoyan of his purity; she truly owed him a massive apology.

While pondering how she might compensate Li Ziyan, she simultaneously felt utterly incapable of facing him.

...

The days that followed remained exceptionally peaceful, save for the relentless heat of midsummer which never wavered. Relying on intelligence updates, Li Ziyan successfully completed his first month's KPI, meaning he could slack off to his heart's content for the foreseeable future. As for the following month's KPI, it wouldn't count until the contracts were signed next month.

Throughout these days, his mind kept drifting back to the realization that Aunt Zhao's waist was truly phenomenal.

Lately, Lai Feifei frequently sent him stickers on WeChat featuring that woman holding a baby, often claiming to be Li Ziyan's mother. Li Ziyan paid no attention to the ramblings of this habitual drunkard—after all, if an alcoholic who drank all day suddenly became normal, that would be the abnormal part!

Shen Hongmei was as busy as ever.

Meanwhile, during his driving lessons, he frequently bumped into He Yanrong, and the two of them unconsciously grew much closer. Li Ziyan could clearly sense that He Yanrong held him in high regard.

The matter that gave him the biggest headache, however, was still Zhao Shumin. Originally, he had thought that after such an unexpected turn of events, some sort of genuine development might occur between them; instead, Zhao Shumin refused to even speak to him these past few days.

Whenever she saw him, she would hurriedly rush away. Yet, she still prepared breakfast for him every single day. From this, Li Ziyan could perceive the deep concern the conservative woman held for him, even though she maintained absolute silence every time they crossed paths.

He found the situation extremely vexing, knowing that Zhao Shumin was simply unable to face the reality of it. Sometimes, when a woman's inner world was bound too tightly by societal restraints, it was hardly a blessing. Every time he wanted to strike up a conversation with Zhao Shumin, he found himself unable to find an opening.

Another early morning arrived, and Li Ziyan waited punctually for the intelligence refresh.

[The tall foreign beauty Catherine has returned to the company.]

This news reminded Li Ziyan of Mia at the Century Palace. That woman's looks were passable, but after having tasted top-tier delicacies, Li Ziyan truly couldn't stomach plain fare anymore. Besides, he had zero interest in regular masseuses. Public buses belonged on public bus routes; what Li Ziyan really wanted was to buy a few private cars to drive around. An old Bentley, an old A8, an old Maybach, or an old Rolls-Royce would all do nicely.

[Go to this lottery ticket shop and purchase this stack of scratch-off cards to secure a profit of five hundred.]

The remaining two pieces of intelligence were trivial.

[This morning, Liu Changsheng's wife will bring her younger brother to Zhao Shumin's place to make trouble, humiliate her, and give her a hard time.]

The final piece of news startled Li Ziyan.

Liu Changsheng's wife actually had the nerve to show up at their door! Clearly, her husband was the one who had tried to harass Aunt Zhao—truly, shameless people always flocked together.

Still, this might just be the opening he needed to break the ice with Aunt Zhao.

Just as he lay back down and pulled the cover over himself, Li Ziyan's mind drifted back to his driving lessons. During his first and second driving lessons, despite the instructor's guidance, he had driven a manual transmission and found it quite decent. However, during his practice sessions a few days ago, he had tried out an automatic car intended for the C2 license test and realized just how much simpler driving could be. There was no need to worry about shifting gears up and down; one only needed to step on the brake and accelerator while steering according to the marked light positions. Both reverse parking and parallel parking were far easier than with a manual car. If he had registered for the C2 license from the start, things would have been much simpler.

Yet Li Ziyan knew very well that he had already paid his registration fee at the Minsheng Driving School for a C1 license, and his records were already logged with the traffic administration bureau. Changing to a C2 license now was clearly out of the question.

"A C1 is a C1. The advantage of a C1 is that you can drive both C1 and C2 vehicles."

"Even though most cars nowadays are automatic, if you only know how to drive an automatic, you won't be able to drive a manual."

Pondering his driver's license, Li Ziyan eagerly anticipated passing his Module Two test as soon as possible. He harbored an intense yearning for that license.

Gradually, he drifted off to sleep. Even in his dreams, he was practicing at the driving school; his desire for that license was simply too strong.

...

The next morning, while Li Ziyan was still half-asleep, he heard violent pounding on the front door.

"You shameless b*tch!"

"Open the door, you shameless b*tch!"

"A shameless b*tch trying to seduce my husband and wreck my family!"