CHAPTER 420: CHAPTER 420; HONEYMOON PHASE 3 (F)

Since that devastating conversation, Huo Ting Cheng had taken every possible precaution with obsessive dedication. He had consulted with the most renowned traditional medicine practitioners across three countries, specialists who moved in circles where ancient knowledge met modern discretion.

They had provided him with a special herbal concoction, something he took religiously every single day without fail, a bitter tea that rendered his sperm essentially inactive while maintaining all other normal functions.

The sperm were present in normal quantities, appeared normal under any casual examination, but were completely unable to fertilize an egg.

The perfect birth control that didn’t require her to take anything, to know anything, to worry about anything, to make any choices about her own body that he’d already made for her.

Because he simply couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t risk losing her. Not for another child, not for the possibility of expanding their family, not for anything in this world or the next.

He loved his children more than life itself, his precious kids were his entire world, his reason for working so hard to build an empire. But he loved Tang Fei even more, with a desperate, consuming intensity that sometimes frightened him.

And if circumstances ever forced him to choose between his wife’s life and another pregnancy, there was no choice at all. There had never been. There never would be.

But he couldn’t tell her this devastating truth. Couldn’t explain that he was secretly, deliberately preventing pregnancy, and that he’d made this monumental decision completely without consulting her, that he’d effectively taken away her reproductive choice entirely because he couldn’t bear the alternative of potentially losing her. The guilt of that deception ate at him constantly, but not enough to make him stop. Never enough for that.

So instead, he lied to her face. Looked into her trusting eyes and deliberately deceived her.

And hated himself for it with a quiet, constant intensity that never quite faded, even as he knew with absolute certainty that he would do exactly the same thing again without hesitation.

Tang Fei watched the subtle play of emotions flickering across his normally controlled face, micro-expressions so quick and fleeting that most people would have missed them entirely, but she was trained to observe, to notice the smallest tells, to read what people didn’t want to reveal.

"You’re hiding something," she said softly, her voice carrying no accusation, just calm observation of an obvious fact.

He remained quiet for a long moment, clearly weighing his response carefully, then reached across the bedside table and took her hand, the one that had been resting protectively on her abdomen. He brought it slowly to his lips and kissed her palm with unexpected gentleness, his eyes closing briefly as if the contact pained him.

"I’m hiding many things," he admitted finally, his voice carrying unexpected honesty even as he continued to conceal the most important truth. "Just as you are hiding many things from me. But not to hurt you. Never to hurt you. Everything I do, every decision I make, is to protect you."

It wasn’t really a complete answer, but it was honest in its own carefully limited way, an acknowledgment of secrets without revealing their content.

Tang Fei squeezed his hand gently, feeling the tension in his fingers. "Someday," she said quietly, her voice thoughtful rather than demanding, "we should stop hiding things from each other. All the important things, at least."

"Someday," he agreed, though his tone carried a weight that suggested that day might be very far off indeed, perhaps never arriving at all. "But not today. Today, we just... exist. Together. No secrets actively discussed, no schemes, no complications. Just us in this moment."

She nodded slowly, accepting his deflection for now because pushing would accomplish nothing productive. Because he was right in his own way, today, she was too physically tired, too pleasantly sore, too emotionally content to push aggressively for answers that might shatter the fragile peace they’d constructed between them.

"Just us," she echoed softly, picking up her delicate tea cup with her free hand. "I can live with that. For now."

They finished their breakfast in a more subdued, contemplative silence, each lost in their own complex thoughts, each carrying significant secrets they weren’t ready to share, might never be ready to share. But their hands remained linked across the bed table throughout, fingers naturally intertwined, a silent physical acknowledgment that despite all the lies and deliberate omissions, despite all the complicated layers of deception, there was something genuine and real between them. Something that transcended the secrets. Something worth protecting and nurturing.

Even if that protection required maintaining a few carefully constructed deceptions indefinitely.

When all the food was consumed and the elegant teapot sat empty, Huo Ting Cheng cleared away the bedside table with efficient movements and helped Tang Fei settle back comfortably against the carefully arranged pillows.

"What do you want to do today?" he asked, stretching out beside her and pulling her naturally into his side.

"This," she replied with simple honesty, curling into his warmth like it was the most natural thing in the world. "Exactly this. Nothing elaborate. Absolutely nothing demanding."

"That sounds absolutely perfect," he agreed readily, wrapping his strong arm around her and holding her close.

And so they spent the remainder of the morning doing precisely nothing productive, dozing intermittently in comfortable silence, talking quietly about deliberately inconsequential things that required no deep thought, watching the mesmerizing ocean through the expansive windows, existing peacefully in a carefully constructed bubble that felt almost too fragile to be real, too perfect to last.

— — — — — —

The Island Resort - Security Break Room

Huo Qi walked into the security break room looking slightly disheveled and clearly exhausted. The team had been on rotation all night, maintaining vigilant watch over the villa while giving Master Huo and his wife the privacy they’d demanded.

Huo Yu looked up from his tablet immediately, setting down his coffee. "Do they need us?" he asked urgently, half-rising from his seat. "Is everything okay?"