Chapter 528

What exactly had Ian noticed?

It was nothing major.

He had simply caught sight of an extremely faint yet unmistakably unusual fluctuation enveloping the abdomen of the smiling, brown-haired girl who had approached him.

It was a newborn "aura of life," closely linked to the girl's own life energy, yet independent of it.

Commonly known as...

A human baby.

The aura was still very immature and unstable, meaning the pregnancy had not progressed far—perhaps only a few weeks. What made Ian's gaze narrow slightly, however, was that the energy signature of this new life was clearly... different and detached from both the girl before him and the blonde companion beside her. It did not carry the sense of being inherited from either of them.

"A profession where you get pregnant for someone else?"

Ian was startled.

At the same time, he caught an extraordinarily subtle energy fluctuation emanating from the girl—a mixture of excitement, thrill-seeking, and a faint, barely noticeable exhaustion and inner conflict.

That fluctuation did not entirely match the calm, restrained, increasingly protective state one would normally expect from a mother who had just conceived a new life. In that instant, Ian understood. This seemingly cheerful and bold girl, who had tried to strike up a conversation with a handsome stranger outside the art gallery, was not only pregnant, but... judging from the sense of detachment in her energy field, the child in her belly most likely had no direct blood relation to either of the two girls.

More likely, she was merely a "carrier." And her current behavior clearly had not become any more restrained because of her pregnancy. If anything, it carried the air of living for the moment.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk."

A faint trace of reflection passed through Ian's mind. Open-minded attitudes, thrill-seeking behavior, and