When Xiang Zhilan called Shen Muzhi, she realized that they hadn't been in contact since the day they took their wedding photos.

She's currently living at her parents' house, and she doesn't particularly want to see him unless he comes.

They're probably the only couple in the world who's so distant from each other; on the contrary, she and Bo Qingyun meet more often.

Bo Qingyun would invite her out every now and then, and bought a lot of things for the baby and her. She couldn't refuse even if she wanted to. Bo Qingyun really treated her daughter-in-law like a daughter from the bottom of her heart.

She has concluded that the greatest benefit of marrying Shen Muzhi is that she has gained such wonderful in-laws and twins in her belly, all of which are rare and precious.

As for Shen Muzhi herself, Xiang Zhilan sighed softly. Marriage can't always be perfect. She already has two kinds of luck that others can only dream of. As long as her husband treats her with respect, that's good enough.

"Hello?" Shen Muzhi was working in his study when he answered Xiang Zhilan's call without even looking at the caller ID.

"It's me." Xiang Zhilan felt even more awkward and distant after not seeing or speaking to him for several days.

Shen Muzhi stopped flipping through the reports, gestured for the person reporting to be quiet, stood up, walked to the window, looked outside, and asked in a calm tone, "Is there something you need?"

The person who came to report saw a slight smile on Shen Muzhi's lips reflected in the window. He almost doubted his own eyes, as he had never seen Shen Muzhi smile in the seven or eight years he had worked with him.

"Um, it's like this, the studio where we took the wedding photos..." Xiang Zhilan repeated what she had told Ni Sitian to Shen Muzhi.

Shen Muzhi frowned slightly and asked in a tense voice, "Are you short of money?"

Hearing his words, Xiang Zhilan assumed he disagreed and bit her lip lightly, saying, "If you disagree, fine, but why are you being sarcastic?"

She is indeed short of money. She has been unemployed recently and has a heavy mortgage to pay off, so she is relying on her savings to get by. However, she is not so poor that she needs to beg him to agree to give her 10,000 yuan.

"Damn it!" Xiang Zhilan felt wronged just thinking about it and hung up the phone.

If it weren't for her pregnancy, she would have had no trouble finding a job. These days, employers are incredibly pragmatic; it's practically impossible for pregnant women to find work. Not to mention pregnant women, even women of marriageable age face unfair treatment, especially for physically demanding photography jobs like hers.

"Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!" Xiang Zhilan grabbed the plush bear on the bed and hit it, venting all her recent job-hunting frustrations, as if she were hitting Shen Muzhi.

Tired of hitting the bear, she threw it aside, sullenly leaned against the cushion, rubbing her belly, and lectured, "You two remember this, your dad is a bastard! A big bastard!"

"Who teaches like that?" Xiang's mother said reproachfully as she brought in the soup and heard Xiang Zhilan's words.

Xiang Zhilan sat up, took the soup from her mother, and muttered, "He's a bastard."

"How can you say that? Mu Zhi has been good to you. The drink you're having now was made by him and sent over by someone." Xiang's mother spoke well of Shen Mu Zhi, and thinking of the pressure her daughter was under recently in finding a job, she comforted her, "I think you shouldn't go out to work for the time being. Your job involves going up mountains and down to the sea, which is too dangerous."

"I'll find an office job." Since Xiang Zhilan is going to keep the child, she will definitely take good care of herself.