206 My Son 1

Two weeks ago, succeeding collaborations happened between ZFC and XCG. One of them was good enough for Midori to call her brother who was living in City T.

"Mosh." The tired voice of Masaichi Xiu answered. It was obvious that he is still at work.

"Moshi mosh...Niisan!" Her voice was full of excitement.

"Nani ka?" He continued typing on his laptop.

"Cerealz needs a genuine fan that will promote its new snack bowl designed by yours truly." Her voice remained excited.

"Get to your point." He was irritated about the conversation loop as he was truly busy.

"We want Manta." she gulped.

"My son? He might wanna go to the factory again."

"It's fine. We can take him if he wants to go."

"Don't make it sound as if he's your son."

"He was my son when you were asleep." she teased.

"Don't be so full of yourself. Fine. I'll tell your sister-in-law."

"Hah! Arigatou, Niisan!"

She hung up with a smile.

__________

And so, they had Manta to make a commercial about Cerealz.

However, contrary to the earlier excitement, there was an awkward atmosphere between the two collaborating CEOs.

It was a week after Midori Xiu saw Verdan Zhou hugging the woman he was with when they found him on the island.

They had not spoken since.

Verdan Zhou tried to reach out, called, requested a meeting, to no avail.

He finally had a valid excuse to see her during this shoot, but she did not even respond to his greeting, even if it was just for show. She was really upset.

Actually, after that moment of 'being caught', he utilized all the men who went to the island to find the ring which got him in trouble. They were ordered to deliver the ring to the island and to make Eleanor sign an agreement never to find Verdan Zhou for any matter again.

Even after resolving the matter of the ring, he had yet to resolve this misunderstanding with Midori.

On the day of the shoot, he wore his real wedding ring. However, he noticed that she did not wear her engagemenf ring that day.

Recently, though she wore the wedding ring she exchanged with Takagi Ryuuji on their wedding in Country N, she started wearing the sakura diamond ring on her other ring finger when they seemed to be getting along again. This actually gave Verdan Zhou some hope.

This hope was crushed today.

He still tried to approach her again while she was watching Jiang Mei Ling feed Manta as mother and son in the commercial.

After announcing that she had a child, Mei has been having offers for mother roles, and this was one of them.

Verdan Zhou cleared his throat to distract her from her focus as he stood a step behind her. "CEO Xiu." he called to her.

She blinked. Then she slowly turned her head to look at him. "CEO Zhou."

He sighed. "Do we have a problem?"

"What do you mean?" Her voice was indifferent.

"What happened in my office...I...she just showed up..."

"Let's just keep it professional, CEO Zhou. No one asked about that. Stop explaining."

"So, we were not keeping things professional before?"

She glared at him. "CEO Zhou, I'm married."

"Yep. You married someone else even though you found that I'm still alive."

She looked incredulous. She shook her head and walked away. Her black platform heels clicked against the floor of the studio.

Just then, she stopped as some babbling were heard.

"Dmitri..." she took her son from the nanny. "Wait for Manta to finish. You take him home." she ordered.

Verdan Zhou saw them and hurriedly chased after them.

Midori almost lost footing when he suddenly appeared before her.

He reached out to stabilize her position as he was dead scared for her and the baby.

Dmitri again reached out to him when he saw him, babbling, as ic talking to him.

Verdan Zhou tried to take him, but Midori twisted her body and held on to her son. "No!"

"He's my son!" His voice was loud but still controlled.

"You stopped being his father when you recognized someone else to be your child!" she spat.