After Adrian Desmond left, he locked the bathroom door. Sienna Johnson stood there, her hands and feet icy cold. She was even more frightened because she didn’t know what was happening outside.
In Sienna’s mory, Abyanabad was a crazy place where people only believed in guns and fists; the law was of little use. Soone could be killed casually, disappearing from the world.
Sounds of fighting ca from outside. Sienna stared at the frosted glass door, not even daring to get close. She was unsure if a bullet could penetrate the glass and hit her.
Thinking about this possibility, Sienna hid further inside the bathroom. The baby, too, seed frightened and started to move, even though it was normally its sleeping ti.
Sienna gently stroked her belly, comforting the baby.
"Baby, don’t be scared, it’s alright... Your dad is outside; he’s so strong and will protect you."
Her gentle voice acted as a sedative, and the baby in her belly gradually cald down and fell asleep.
About five or six minutes later, it finally beca quiet outside. The abrupt silence made Sienna even more helpless, as she didn’t know what had happened to Adrian Desmond.
Suddenly, there was the sound of movent outside the door. Sienna’s heart tightened. She looked around and discovered there were no defensive weapons in the bathroom. All she could do was stand there, facing unknown and possible dangers.
The door opened, and Adrian Desmond ca in. Sienna’s tense nerves instantly relaxed.
"Adrian!" she cried, pouncing on him, but almost slipped on the wet floor.
"Be careful!" Adrian exclaid, startled into a cold sweat.
"The bathroom is all wet. Who told you to run?" Adrian chided her.
With a worried face, Sienna asked, "What happened just now? I heard fighting. Did sothing happen? Are you okay? Are you injured?"
Rarely had he seen this woman so panicky. Seeing the concern and worry for him in her eyes made Adrian feel warm inside.
"Nothing happened. My friends were just playing a joke on ."
"What do you an?"
"Those guys were bored after eating, so they sneaked into the hotel to give a surprise. Luckily, I didn’t have a gun, or they’d be eting the Grim Reaper by now."
"Are they okay?"
"They’re fine, couldn’t be better!"
Adrian ca in and locked the door. Sienna’s hair was still covered in shampoo foam. Adrian removed her bathrobe, readjusted the water temperature, and helped her wash her hair and shower.
Seeing her still frowning, Adrian explained again, "Really, nothing happened! My friends knew I was back and hadn’t gone to our appointnt, so they sneaked in to scare , but I took care of them."
"Who scares people like that?" Sienna complained.
"They’re all a bunch of unruly people; don’t mind them!"
Adrian carefully washed her. Clean clothes had already been placed in the bathroom. Sienna changed, and Adrian then dried her hair.
Her long hair draped down her back like the finest black silk from Orienta. Adrian’s fingers twirled a strand. He brought it to his nose and sniffed—a faint floral scent.
"My hair is too long. Can I cut it shorter?"
It was sad that Sienna Johnson, at this point in her life, even had to ask Adrian Desmond for permission to cut her own hair.
"No!" Adrian rejected the idea without a second thought.
"I’m going to give birth in a few months. You haven’t spent ti with a baby; you don’t know they like to grab people’s hair and earrings. When Curly was over a year old, I had short hair, but she would still pull it, and it was really painful..."
"I’ll take care of the baby when the ti cos."
"Can you breastfeed?"
That was sothing the Sixth Master certainly couldn’t do.
"If the baby doesn’t behave, it’ll drink formula."
"Breastfed babies are healthier and smarter."
"We’ll talk about it later."
They both got dressed. Adrian took Sienna’s hand and led her out. In the living room, Sienna was dumbfounded to see several people tightly tied up.
Why are these people still in the living room? And why are they tied up with ropes?
One of them, whose eye was swollen from a punch, greeted Sienna with his signature charming smile, though it looked sowhat comical paired with his swollen eyelid. "Hey, Mai, do you rember ?"
Sienna’s gaze lingered on his face for a few seconds. She had a good mory; if she had t soone a few tis, she would have an impression. She rembered this man—Dan Taylor!
Sienna had a strong impression of him because he had married eight wives back then. "I rember you. You’re Dan Taylor, the one who married eight wives, right?"
A man tied up next to Dan Taylor interjected, "Now it’s sixteen wives."
Sienna stared at Dan Taylor, dumbfounded. "So many?"
Dan Taylor glanced at Adrian, looking quite proud. "There are so many beautiful won in the world; how can sixteen be enough? I have to marry at least fifteen to make my life worthwhile."
"..."
"Adrian, don’t you think so?"
"You’re going for quantity; I’m going for quality. Having Sienna alone is equal to marrying fifteen."
Everyone looked at Adrian with shocked faces. Such flattery! Having beco a live-in son-in-law in Orienta, he’d been trained to be so glib—this wasn’t the Sixth Master’s style at all!
"You’re becoming more and more like Owen Hunter," soone teased. "Utterly henpecked!"
Sienna frowned at Dan Taylor’s face and said seriously, "I advise you to divorce so of your wives..."
"Why?"
Sienna walked over to Dan Taylor, squatted down, and stared at his face for a while before diagnosing, "You have large, bluish eye bags. Your eyes are cloudy, and the whites are yellow. This is clearly a manifestation of kidney deficiency. Kidney deficiency can be due to pathological reasons or excessive indulgence. With your sixteen wives, the constant rotation is enough to overload your kidneys.
"The Universal Truth states: ’The kidneys contain water, receive the essence of the five viscera and six bowels, and store it.’ And according to Disharmony with Diseases: ’The kidneys are the water organs, responsible for the body fluids.
The kidneys govern the bones, generate marrow, and transform the essence. Essence and blood are interdependent.’
I advise you to divorce so of them and focus on cultivating your health."
"How do you know I have kidney deficiency? What if it’s just overexertion?"
For any man from Abyanabad, being told he had kidney deficiency—that his ’equipnt’ wasn’t working—was a monuntal humiliation.
n in Abyanabad, even eighty-year-old grandfathers, often competed over their sexual prowess.
Yet this woman was saying his kidneys were shot. That was worse than killing him.
"I’m telling you, stop spreading such misleading nonsense! You need to apologize to , or even if you’re Adrian’s woman, I won’t let you off!" Dan Taylor angrily warned the woman before him.
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