He bowed.
Not deeply, but enough that the two nurses behind the counter immediately straightened.
I froze.
“Director Chu…?”
Chu Minh Duc looked at the people gathering in the corridor, then lowered his voice.
“Miss Khuong, please come with me.”
My first reaction was fear.
I instinctively covered my stomach.
“Is something wrong with my baby?”
“No.”
He answered too quickly.
Then, realizing how frightened I looked, he softened his tone.
“The pregnancy appears stable. Approximately six weeks. But there is something in your blood examination that we need to confirm immediately.”
He personally led me upstairs.
Not to the ordinary obstetrics department.
To the private medical floor.
The moment the elevator opened, a nurse hurried forward with a wheelchair.
“I can walk,” I said.
Director Chu shook his head.
“Please sit.”
His politeness made me even more uneasy.
Twenty minutes ago, I had been patient number 217.
Now the hospital director himself was pouring warm water for me.
A second blood sample was taken.
Then a third.
I finally couldn’t stand it anymore.
“What exactly did you find?”
Director Chu sat opposite me.
He placed the first report on the table.
“Your blood has an extremely rare hereditary antigen profile.”
I stared at him blankly.
“Rare?”
“Extremely rare.”
“How rare?”
He hesitated.
Then he said something that made no sense to me.
“In our national special-donor registry, the complete profile currently corresponds to only one documented bloodline.”
My fingers tightened around the paper cup.
“Which bloodline?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he asked:
“Miss Khuong, do you know your biological parents?”
The room became completely silent.
I looked at him.
“My mother died when I was young. My father…”
My voice slowed.
The man I had called Father had died when I was seventeen.
He had never treated me badly.
But three months before his death, during an argument with an aunt, I had accidentally overheard one sentence.
She isn’t even your blood—
My father had smashed a bowl before the woman could finish.
Afterward, when I asked him what she meant, he had only said:
“Relatives talk nonsense when they’re angry.”
I believed him.
Or perhaps I had chosen to.
Director Chu watched my expression carefully.
“Were you adopted?”
“I don’t know.”
Before he could ask anything else, the door opened.
The nurse who had taken my second sample entered.
Her face was pale.
She handed him a newly printed report.
Director Chu read the first page.
Then the second.
His hand stopped.
He looked at me.
“It matched.”
Something cold ran down my spine.
“What matched?”
He stood up.
“Miss Khuong, I need your permission to contact someone.”
“Who?”
His eyes were complicated.
“The Phó family.”
The cup nearly slipped from my hand.
Everyone in the city knew that name.
Phó Group owned commercial centers, luxury residences, hotels, private hospitals and enough land that people joked you could drive for an hour without leaving Phó property.
Its current chairman, Phó Chinh Nam, rarely appeared publicly.
Luc Dien had once spent six months trying to get an invitation to a Phó Group banquet.
He failed.
And now the director was telling me he wanted to contact them because of my blood?
“There must be some mistake.”
Director Chu shook his head.
“The hospital’s rare-blood database was established after Chairman Phó’s eldest daughter disappeared twenty-seven years ago.”
I stopped breathing.
“Disappeared?”
“She was three years old.”
He turned the report toward me.
“The Phó family has a hereditary blood marker that has appeared consistently through four generations. Your results contain the same pattern.”
My heart began pounding.
“And my baby?”
“That is why we noticed it.”
He pointed at another line.
“The preliminary fetal markers show the same inheritance.”
Before I could speak, my phone rang.
Luc Dien.
I declined it.
Immediately, he called again.
Then again.
On the fourth call, I turned the phone off.
Director Chu noticed but said nothing.
At that moment, someone knocked.
A nurse hurried in.
“Director, there are two people downstairs asking for Miss Khuong.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who?”
The nurse looked uncomfortable.
“Mr. Luc Dien and Miss Phuong Niem.”
I stood up.
“How did they know I was here?”
Then I remembered.
The company medical report.
Phuong Niem had seen the abnormal HCG result.
She had been watching me.
Director Chu frowned.
“Do you want security to remove them?”
Before I could answer, a familiar voice exploded outside.
“Khuong Hoa!”
The door opened.
Luc Dien strode in.
Phuong Niem followed closely behind him.
Her eyes went first to me.
Then to the hospital report.
Then to my stomach.
She smiled.
“I knew it.”
Luc Dien turned toward her.
“Knew what?”
Phuong Niem covered her mouth as though she had accidentally revealed a secret.
“Dien, don’t be angry. Maybe Hoa can explain.”
His expression changed.
“Explain what?”
She pulled the old medical report from her handbag.
“The company examination from last month. Her HCG was already abnormal then.”
Luc Dien looked at the report.
Then at me.
His face gradually darkened.
“You’re pregnant?”
I didn’t answer.
He took two steps toward me.
“How long?”
Director Chu immediately moved between us.
“Sir, please control your behavior.”
Luc Dien ignored him.
“Khuong Hoa, I asked you a question.”
“Six weeks.”
He went still.
Then suddenly laughed.
A cold, contemptuous laugh.
“Six weeks?”
Phuong Niem lowered her eyes.
But I saw satisfaction flash across her face.
Luc Dien looked at me as if I were something filthy.
“We stopped living as husband and wife months ago.”
My fingernails dug into my palm.
That was a lie.
But arguing with him now felt meaningless.
He grabbed the examination report from the table.
“So whose child is it?”
I stared directly at him.
“You don’t have the right to ask.”
His face turned livid.
“I’m still legally your husband!”
“And you’re standing here holding your future fiancée’s hand.”
He instinctively released Phuong Niem.
For one brief second, she looked furious.
Then she stepped forward.
“Sister, even if you hate Dien, you shouldn’t use an innocent child to humiliate him.”
I almost laughed.
“Who said I was using anyone?”
Luc Dien threw the report onto the table.
“Fine.”
His voice became terrifyingly calm.
“When the divorce waiting period ends, we’ll add one condition.”
I looked at him.
“What condition?”
“You leave with nothing.”
Director Chu’s expression changed.
Luc Dien continued:
“If this child isn’t mine, you cheated during the marriage. Don’t expect a cent.”
Phuong Niem gently touched his arm.
“Dien, don’t be so cruel.”
But her eyes were smiling.
Then the hallway suddenly became noisy.
Not ordinary hospital noise.
Footsteps.
Many footsteps.
A nurse rushed to the door.
A second later, she stepped aside automatically.
Three men in black suits entered first.
Behind them came an elderly man with silver hair and a black cane.
Director Chu immediately straightened.
“Chairman Phó.”
Luc Dien’s expression froze.
Phuong Niem’s hand slipped from his arm.
The elderly man didn’t look at either of them.
His eyes were fixed on me.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then his gaze fell on the small jade pendant hanging around my neck.
The pendant my father had told me never to remove.
The old man’s cane hit the floor.
Once.
Hard.
His face lost all color.
He walked toward me with trembling steps.
Then, before everyone’s shocked eyes, the most powerful man in the city reached out as though he wanted to touch my face—but stopped halfway.
His voice broke.
“Where did you get that pendant?”
I instinctively stepped back.
“My father gave it to me.”
Chairman Phó’s eyes immediately turned red.
“What was his name?”
“Khuong Minh Hai.”
His entire body stiffened.
Behind him, one of the men in black whispered:
“Chairman…”
But the old man seemed not to hear.
He looked at me again.
Then at the pregnancy report.
Then at my face.
And asked the question that made Director Chu close the door immediately.
“Khuong Hoa… did the man who raised you ever tell you where he found you twenty-seven years ago?”
