After ending the meeting with the zombie group, Lin Qiao held another meeting with the leading team of the base.
It was the first time Lin Qiao met with Yuan Tianxing face to face during the most recent two months. She didn't plan to keep her current condition secret from him, so she didn't try to hide her belly during the meeting.
Yuan Tianxing came to Base Number Two together with Lin Feng to attend to the meeting. He didn't notice Lin Qiao's belly when he first came in, as she was sitting there.
"The second thing, I sent a zombie regiment to station in this place. This place is forty miles away from our base, not far. If anything happens, Yun Meng will deliver the message back to us as soon as possible." Lin Qiao pointed at a spot on the map with the stick and said.
"The landform in Mount Wu area is not complicated enough for a military base. It's a mountain area, but it's still too small, and…" Yuan Tianxing accidentally noticed Lin Qiao's belly while talking. He fixed his eyes straight on her belly and changed his expression right away.
As he abruptly stopped talking, the others all turned to him and found that he was staring at Lin Qiao.
"Oh, Deputy Chief Yuan, didn't you know about that?" Yun Meng looked at Lin Qiao with a wicked smile.
Lin Qiao gave her a glance, then looked at Yuan Tianxing without saying anything.
Lin Feng had noticed her belly too, so he said with surprise, "Wait a minute. She's so large already? It's only been two months. What did you feed her with?"
Hearing Lin Feng's words, Yuan Tianxing instantly turned to him. His lips trembled slightly before he asked, "What is it? Lin Feng, do you know about it?"
He was still in shock, and his eyes were still wearing a confused look. He had one thought in his mind, but he wasn't willing to believe in it.
How could she be… That was not true! He must be wrong! Was Lin Qiao's body in some kind of unusual condition now?
However, Lin Feng's words took away his hope.
Lin Feng smiled as he looked at Lin Qiao's stomach and said, "We've all been busy lately, and you were invisible. I couldn't have imagined that she has grown so big already. Is she going to come out soon? What did Hao say?"
Lin Qiao glanced at him, then looked at the others. None of the others continued talking about the business at all. It seemed that they would not continue the meeting until they figured out the truth about her baby.
'Can you please be more serious?' She curved her lips downward and stayed silent.
"Uncle Lin, you seem to have known it long ago! We're the only one who didn't know, aren't we?" said Qiu Lili sourly. They only found out in a recent couple of days, and were all so shocked.
Standing beside Lin Qiao, Shen Yujen smiled and said, "Even I didn't know until the day before yesterday when Chief came home."
Everyone else turned to Lin Feng, who wiped the smile away from his face and expressionlessly glanced at the people, then cleared his throat and said, "Be serious! Are we gonna have the meeting or not?"
Yun Meng glanced at Yuan Tianxing, who was still stunned, then at Lin Qiao, and said, "What I want to know is how has our Chief been managing this. You're gonna have a baby… Um, who's the father?"
Hearing the word 'baby', Yuan Tianxing instantly came back to himself. He turned back to Lin Qiao with a very complicated look in his eyes, seeming to be hurt and hopeless. Judging by how the others reacted, he was wrong. He didn't want to admit it, but that was the truth.
He loved that woman. She did not only turn into a zombie, but also got pregnant with someone else's baby. She was even pregnant with someone else's baby! What could he possibly do but give up?
A muffled pain was sensed from his heart. It was even worse than what he suffered when Lin Qiao refused him to his face.
Yuan Tianxing couldn't maintain a calm look. His eyes started to lose focus, and his entire face darkened.
Lin Feng knew how Yuan Tianxing felt about Lin Qiao. He saw the look on his face but didn't know what to say to him.
Lin Qiao glanced at Yuan Tianxing. She knew that the meeting wasn't going to continue, so she had to adjourn the meeting.
"But, we don't know who's the father yet!" Qiu Lili pouted and made eye-contact with Yun Meng. No one on the scene knew who the father was.
Lin Qiao rolled her eyes and said, "You might know in the future. Alright… go, just leave! Come back tomorrow and finish this meeting."
After that, she glanced at Yuan Tianxing, and then at Lin Feng.
Lin Feng gave her an eye signal, then stood up and patted Yuan Tianxing on the shoulder as he left.
Duan Juan wasn't in the conference room; she was guarding the door. She knew about Yuan Tianxing's feelings toward Lin Qiao though. As Lin Qiao and the others came out, she accidentally noticed the look on Yuan Tianxing's face.
"What happened to Deputy Chief Yuan?" She asked Shen Yujen with a low voice.
Shen Yujen and Liu Jun were standing together. Hearing her question, they both turned to give Yuan Tianxing a glance. He was sitting on his chair motionlessly with a depressed look. The two of them glanced at each other, then looked at Lin Qiao, who was leaving. "He saw Chief's belly for the first time. I think he's a little shocked."
Duan Juan blinked, then nodded knowingly.
It made sense. Yuan Tianxing was always fond of Lin Qiao. After the apocalypse, she became a base leader, yet he never seemed to give up. However, after coming to the new base, he started to keep a distance from Lin Qiao.
Duan Juan thought that Yuan Tianxing had shrunk back and given up. However, it turned out that he didn't really give up, until just now.
Duan Juan gave a sigh. Lin Qiao was harmed so deeply. She always felt that if a man could really keep Lin Qiao company for the rest of her life, Yuan Tianxing, as her right-hand man, might be the most suitable one.
But, it now turned out that one really could not force a relationship.
Lin Qiao returned to her office and found Wu Chengyue sitting on her couch, reading a file. Wu Yueling was sitting by his side, playing alone. As Lin Qiao came in, she immediately slid off the couch and ran up to her.
Except for Duan Juan and Shen Yujen, the others who followed Lin Qiao out of the conference room had all returned to their own offices.
"So soon?" Wu Chengyue raised his eyes to look at Lin Qiao. The meeting today should have taken at least two hours, but it had only been one hour since it started.
Lin Qiao gave him a glance and then said, "It's not over yet. We'll finish it tomorrow."
Wu Chengyue raised his eyebrows as he guessed out what had happened. He thought for a moment, then asked her, "What do you plan to do to the underground creature zone?"
Lin Qiao walked behind her desk and sat down, habitually putting a hand on her belly as she said, "What can we do? We can't fight a war against them, so we can only hide."
As far as she knew, only the powers possessed by herself and Wu Chengyue could deliver actual harm to those creatures. A short-term hustle could not deal with those creatures. They would have to spend a long time to hunt those creatures down batch by batch.
She couldn't do that by herself now; she needed to wait until Viney was born and she regained her power. She wasn't counting on Wu Chengyue to help either, as he didn't have so much time to spend on that.