Because of her suspicion towards Xu Huizhen and Ye Ning, Ye Fei didn't dare to go home directly.
She quietly softened her footsteps.
The Ye Family lived in an old residential building that was several decades old.
Six stories high, without an elevator, and the corners of the stairwells were piled up with household items that couldn't fit at home but were too hard to throw away.
The soundproofing of the building was poor too, if someone spoke loudly at home, you would be able to hear bits and pieces upstairs and downstairs.
So, the gossip among households was particularly abundant.
Ye Fei lived on the fourth floor; when she reached her door, she carefully pressed her ear against it to hear the sounds inside.
Soon, she heard the hurried footsteps back and forth inside.
"Why hasn't that girl come back yet?" Xu Huizhen asked anxiously, "She hasn't been hit hard, has she?"
"No, that girl has a tough heart, can really withstand pressure, no matter how big the trouble, she can live through it just fine." Ye Ning's voice came.
"Will it succeed this time?" Xu Huizhen asked again.
"If not this time, then we'll try again. Anyway, since we managed to trick her once, we can do it a second time, third time. After enough times, perhaps she'll recognize the reality." Ye Ning said.
Ye Fei's fingers tightly gripped the door, her fingertips turning white.
"Anyway, I've spoken to Boss Liu; as long as Ye Fei carries his child, he'll give us 10 million, and if it's a boy, he'll add another 10 million." Ye Ning said with a gleam, "Boss Liu's in his fifties, his wife just cannot bear children, let alone sons. And yet his wife won't let anyone else bear one for him. Boss Liu tried secretly several times and got caught each time."
"Tch, tch, isn't this making people unable to continue their lineage!" Xu Huizhen shook her head and pursed her lips.
"Exactly." Ye Ning said, "Boss Liu has been a regular at our restaurant, after a while, I learned of his issues. Isn't this our family's opportunity then?"
"You have the skills, unlike Ye Fei, who besides going to university and spending family money, doesn't know how to do anything!" Xu Huizhen said disdainfully.
Ye Ning daydreamed, "Our family was once famous for fine dining, our ancestral restaurant known far and wide. Going back a few generations, we were quite prosperous. But now, we have nothing left but a small diner and an ancestral cookbook. Having a cookbook but not the money to research and restore those dishes, what's the point?"
"Once we get the money, we can have dad properly research the cookbook. Doesn't Ye Fei want to be a chef too? We'll let her study it with dad. Then we'll open a high-end restaurant, specially selling upscale dishes. The recipes in the cookbook will be our signature dishes."
With excitement, Ye Ning said, "Mom, you don't know; our restaurant is really profitable, I work there to learn their business model, the ways of making money. By then, we'll use it at our family's restaurant. It'll surely work!"
"My daughter is really talented!" Xu Huizhen praised.
"Exactly, Ye Fei will surely resent me over this." Ye Ning said lamentedly.
"What right does she have to resent me? She couldn't think of good ideas herself, she's contributing for the family. Being raised for so many years, what qualifications does she have to complain?" Xu Huizhen instantly spoke harshly, "You have the brains, you come up with the ideas, let those without brains do the rest."
"If dad knows about this..." Ye Ning said again.
Xu Huizhen dismissed it with a "hmph": "This is all for their family's ancestral business, what opinion can he have? Even if he finds out, once it's done, what can he do? Wouldn't he still have to go along with us? He can't let all our efforts be for nothing, sacrificing Ye Fei for no reason, right?"
"By the way, what does this Boss Liu look like?" Xu Huizhen asked again.
Speaking of it, Ye Ning grimaced, "Fat and short, mouth reeking of smoke, I really don't know with such a look, what his wife is worried about. Originally, Boss Liu wanted me to bear his child; if his appearance was decent, I wouldn't pass him on to Ye Fei, I could take advantage of the situation to rise through a son. But with him like that, I don't even want to take a glance, so I could only let Ye Fei be with him."
To put it bluntly, surrogate motherhood isn't allowed domestically, and Boss Liu fears causing trouble; arrangements abroad for a surrogate could easily be caught by his wife. It's better just to find a young girl locally, and he benefits.
Ye Fei staggered back a few steps.
Initially, she thought to seek help from her father, Ye Dezhang, but now it seems unnecessary.
With a family like this, how could Ye Fei dare return?
She rushed downstairs, then dashed into the building across, and hid on the rooftop.
Here, she wouldn't be discovered by others, and she could watch when Xu Huizhen and Ye Ning left.
Thinking of Ye Ning's description of that Boss Liu just now, it didn't match the image in her memory.
She still remembered what had happened.
Although she couldn't see the man's face clearly, she distinctly remembered him being a young man.
Not fat at all; on the contrary, he had a great figure, and she even felt his muscles.
Also, she remembered the low and magnetic voice by her ear, sounding pleasant.
Absolutely no smell of smoke from his mouth.
Definitely not the Boss Liu Ye Ning described.
Ye Fei knew this wasn't her delusion.
There must be some mistake somewhere.
Though what was lost couldn't come back, she still found solace knowing he wasn't that Boss Liu.
Ye Fei waited a long time, probably because Xu Huizhen and Ye Ning simply couldn't wait for her to return.
Ye Ning had to go to work, and Xu Huizhen had to go to the diner too.
Only then did Ye Fei quietly go home.
She packed all her belongings and collected the money she secretly saved from tutoring.
She hadn't spent it for a while, so quite a bit had accumulated, all stored in her card.
Dragging her luggage to the door, she suddenly remembered something and rushed back to Xu Huizhen and Ye Dezhang's bedroom.
She lifted the mattress and found the cookbook that had been pressed beneath it all along.
Their family didn't have a safe, so Xu Huizhen hid the cookbook under the mattress.
Though it's ancestral, the original couldn't withstand the passage of time.
This book was later copied and passed down.
Wasn't Ye Ning wholeheartedly relying on this cookbook to achieve greatness?
For this, her mother, father, and sister had all turned on her together.
Then she would take away the only thing they relied on.
Even if temporarily she couldn't restore the dishes in the cookbook, Ye Ning wouldn't even have the cookbook anymore—all plans would fail.
Ye Fei felt exhilarated.
She took the cookbook, packed it well, and with her luggage, left.