"Don't move—unless you want us both soaked." Yang Ce carefully sealed the bag, then slipped it inside another plastic bag before saying, "What's there to be embarrassed about? Why act so distant with me?"

Xiao Qing thought to herself, this has nothing to do with being distant—it's a matter of my dignity. Then, suddenly feeling a chill down below, she gave a start. "Yang Ce, why didn't you put my stockings back on?"

"Sorry, sorry." Yang Ce hurriedly bent down again to help Xiao Qing pull up her clothes. She had already been toyed with once by Yang Ce, and now she was mentally prepared, so she simply let him carry on.

However, worried that the smell might linger in the car, Xiao Qing opened the window a crack.

Just then, a sports car happened to drive past. Seeing Yang Ce's car stopped by the roadside with its hazard lights flashing, the driver slowed down out of curiosity and glanced in through the window. At once, the young man in the sports car and his girlfriend beside him were both shocked. "Damn, hardcore—can't even wait on the elevated expressway, going down on the woman—"

"Darling, look at them, doing that for his girlfriend. You should do it for me too," the young man's girlfriend whined coyly.

"I don't have that kind of nerve. Let's do it when we get home—that guy's a real man," the young man said in shock, and with that he drove away.

Xiao Qing's face went crimson. She had never imagined that cracking the window for a moment would lead to this. What rotten luck.

Yang Ce heard the conversation outside the window and could barely suppress his laughter. These people certainly had vivid imaginations—imagination was a terrifying thing.

After helping Xiao Qing fix her stockings, Yang Ce switched off the hazard lights and drove the car toward the hospital.

After carrying out a few more tests as the doctor had instructed, the lab results came back as well. Medical technology now was far more advanced than it had been just a few years ago, and the results were clear: there was nothing wrong with Xiao Qing's body at all, nor was she incapable of bearing children. It was simply that her bodily fluids contained a substance hostile to sperm—a highly unusual constitution. In other words, once sperm entered Xiao Qing's body, it was swiftly killed off by her fluids, making conception impossible.

"Doctor, is there any way to help my wife conceive?" Yang Xutang asked, only half understanding the doctor's explanation.

"Your wife's condition doesn't mean she absolutely cannot conceive," the doctor explained. "It's just that the odds are rather low. The days with the least killing power are the few around her period, but those days also happen to be her physiological safe period, so the chances of pregnancy become even smaller. That said, I can prescribe some topical medication to reduce the killing power. Whether it works, though, you'll have to find out for yourselves."

"Is there no other way besides that?" Yang Xutang felt this method wasn't quite right either—it didn't seem very workable.

"There are other ways, of course, but I'd recommend you see a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine and take some herbal remedies to thoroughly change her constitution. Here I can only treat the symptoms, not the root cause," the doctor said. "My teacher is at the Second Affiliated Hospital of the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. You could pay her a visit—perhaps she'll have a good solution. Of course, if that doesn't work, in vitro fertilization is ultimately an option. Medical technology these days is so advanced that we can absolutely cultivate embryos outside the body."

"Then I'll have to trouble you," Yang Puqi said as soon as he heard there was still hope.

"Let me write you a referral letter. My teacher doesn't take patients easily these days." The doctor was a decent, warm-hearted sort. He wrote Yang Ce a note and stated the reason on it: "Your wife's condition is rather uncommon, so my teacher will likely pay close attention once she sees this."

"Thank you." With that, Yang Yanzhou pulled a red envelope he had prepared in advance from his pocket and pressed it on the doctor. Every trade had its own rules; though Yang Ce could stir up wind and rain in Songjiang, he couldn't control every industry.

The doctor declined for quite a while but ultimately accepted it. Yang Shuoxuan hadn't given much—only five hundred yuan inside—which didn't count as any grand bribe.

Once out of the hospital, Yang Ce took out the note the doctor had written and said to Xiao Qing, "Shall we go now?"

"Mm, let's go. I've already taken the day off anyway." Xiao Qing nodded. She had gained some confidence now—after all, if all else failed, there was still that last option. It wasn't as if there was no hope.

Yang Yuting nodded and drove toward the Second Affiliated Hospital of the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. When they arrived and asked, sure enough, the doctor's teacher no longer took regular patients—she saw patients only a few days a month and spent the rest of her time supervising graduate students interning at the medical university.

By the time Yang Ce and the others reached the Second Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the teacher had just gone to the university to lecture to her graduate students and wasn't at the hospital. The two of them had made the trip for nothing. On inquiry they learned the teacher wouldn't be back today, so they had no choice but to leave the hospital and make other plans, coming back another time.

After first driving Xiao Qing back to school, Yang Shuoxuan returned to the dormitory, only to find neither Zhang Bin nor Tian Yan there—the room was empty. A phone call revealed that Tian Yan's younger brother had arrived, and Zhang Bin had driven over with Tian Yan to meet him.

To be continued

1066. A Strange Robbery

1066. A Strange Robbery. The arrival of Tian Yan's younger brother, Tian Dongguang, gave Yang Mo a bit of a headache. The kid was dead set on taking him as a master, yet there was truly nothing Yang Ce could teach him. Afraid of being pestered, Yang Ce decided it was best to slip away first.

He called Chen Shutang, who was just about to accompany Lin Yanhe to the company and had just reached the school gate. "Yang Ce, if you're not busy, come drive us."

Yang Ce, who had been fretting over having nothing to do, readily agreed. He set off and drove to the school gate, where he found Chen Shutang and Lin Yanhe standing together. Each beauty had her own distinctive charm, and together they formed a brilliant sight that drew the eyes of many a single young man on campus.

When Yang Juehuan's car arrived, Chen Shutang and Lin Yanhe got in. Yang Ce felt as though jealous gazes might bore right through him, and he quickly sped away from the school grounds in a puff of exhaust.

"Can't you two not dress up so beautifully? Goodness, if I walked any slower and someone memorized my face, I'd probably get doxxed," Yang Jincong said with a laugh.

"What dressing up? I'm not dressed up at all!" Chen Shutang retorted. "If you're scared, then don't be with us."

"Ha, what a joke. Who has Yang Ce ever been afraid of?" Yang Ce gave a dry laugh. True enough, Yang Ce feared no one—but if someone really posted about him on the campus forum and then every day people gawked at him like he was a giant panda, that was not what Yang Ce wanted.

"Then are you afraid of me?" Chen Shutang asked with a smile after hearing this.

"Uh—" Yang Ce broke into a sweat. "As for you, it actually shouldn't count as fear. It's because I love you that I fear you."

"You pass." Chen Shutang gave a little hmph. Lin Yanhe, sitting off to the side, covered her mouth and secretly giggled—the exchanges between Yang Ce and Chen Shutang were sometimes quite amusing.