"I…… I-," Xu Mey tried to speak but she couldn’t come up with a reply. His last words had hit the mark.

  "Tell me, baby! Do I matter only this much to you? Will it always be like this? Whenever there will be something wrong, you’ll just come up with the idea of leaving me alone?" The rims of his eyes were red and the tears hadn’t stopped falling.

  "Ah-Jie, if I wasn’t there it wouldn’t have happened……" Xu Mey choked on her words.

  Jie took a deep breath. "And how do you know that? Can you predict the future? No! You definitely can’t, baby. We don’t know if the things would change or not just because of your presence or absence."

  "But you pushed me to save me. You could have saved yourself," Xu Mey felt her words quite meaningless now that she was saying these words out loud. In her mind, the words sounded right earlier but now, they sounded so wrong for so many reasons.

  Jie took her cold hands in his own and Xu Mey’s body felt the heat emanating from that touch. She missed it. She missed this warmth. She missed him! "Baby, if we faced the same situation a hundred times, I’ll still choose to save you. Because you are my life. Without you, your Ah-Jie’s existence doesn’t even hold any meaning. Then how can you blame yourself?"

  Xu Mey kept tearing up as she shook her head. "I don’t know. I felt alone. My mind was making me go crazy with all these thoughts. I don’t know how I came up with that idea of leaving you. But Ah-Jie, I realized I can’t leave you. Trust me, I can’t! Not anymore. Just the thought of not having you in my life is scaring me. It’s crushing me."

  Jie hugged her not even caring that the stitches on his chest seemed to have opened as the white bandage was getting dyed in blood red color.

  "Don’t you dare try to abandon me. Or the newest member of our family. You wouldn’t want your child to grow up without the motherly love like you did." Jie’s words made Xu Mey realize her biggest mistake.

  "I told her I’m not like her. How can I even think of doing this?" Xu Mey was rebuking herself. "I told that woman I’m not her daughter and yet here I am…… I was actually going to leave you and our baby like she left me and dad. How can I be this selfish? My mind really wasn’t right."

  "So now, do you think I was wrong for acting like that?" Jie asked gently rubbing her head.

  "Yes! You are still wrong!" Xu Mey pushed him away and glared at him accusingly. "You could have knocked some sense in my mind by talking like we are doing right now. Why did you choose such a cruel way to do it? What if something happened to me?"

  Jie cleared his throat awkwardly. He knew he went far. "Baby, I chose that way because I wanted you to learn a hard lesson. So that you could never even dream about leaving me."

  "That’s not a good enough excuse!" Xu Mey crossed her arms before her chest and looked away.

  "Okay, okay! I’m sorry. Baby’s Ah-Jie is really very sorry for being a jerk. Happy?" Xu Mey didn’t react as if she wasn’t even listening. But after all this time together, even Jie was well aware of how to wrap her around his finger. "Fine. Although it hurts, I’ll get on my knees to apologize."

  Xu Mey’s gaze shifted. She saw him trying to get off the bed. "Ow!" He winced in pain and that’s when Xu Mey noticed his blood-stained bandage.

  "Ah-Jie!" She frenziedly helped him back up and started lecturing, "Why are you straining your body? Look, your stitches must have opened. Oh God! What should I do? Wait here, I’ll call Shen Ge."

  Before she could leave, Jie held her wrist and pulled her back. She landed straight on his thighs. Jie brushed his knuckles lightly on her face and asked in his husky voice, "Am I forgiven?" Xu Mey opened her mouth to answer but it was an opening for Jie who shoved his tongue into her mouth.

  The moment his warm tongue slid against her own, Xu Mey’s body shuddered and tingled with anticipation. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. "You didn’t answer." He pulled back to question.

  Frustrated Xu Mey bit his bottom lip and said, "You deserve punishment."

  "And what’s my punishment?" Jie asked grazing his teeth on her neck making her arch it to give him more access.

  Xu Mey felt breathless but still managed to say, "Your punishment is to love your baby for the rest of this life. Love her every part. Even her crazy mind which runs at the speed of light."

  Jie chuckled and pulled her close making her gasp as he whispered against her lips, "Gladly."