Be a Good “Mother” to That Abomination of Mine…
The man replied with only a faint smile, his eyes entirely undisturbed.
His anger and fury seemed to the man no more than a cornered beast barking and baring its teeth, incapable of doing the slightest actual harm.
Yet, after that night, the man never forced his attentions on him again.
When the daytime sunlight spilled across the window lattices, he was even permitted to walk outside.
What Zhang Lu saw was an exquisite garden.
The corridors were covered in dazzlingly bright roses, gilded and carved railings wound around the entire flowerbed, water from the fountain beside the stone path splashed into fine droplets, and the greenery was trimmed to absolute perfection.
It was dazzlingly luxurious.
This only intensified Zhang Lu’s fear.
What kind of person had he provoked?
Who was this man?
Until this moment, he knew nothing, not even the other man’s name, having only heard others respectfully address him as “Boss.”
Whose boss? It certainly wasn’t Zhang Lu’s.
The strange abnormalities in his body were becoming increasingly distinct, making it impossible to continue deceiving himself or turn a blind eye.
Suppressing the surging panic and unease, Zhang Lu hardened his heart and simply began a hunger strike.
By the third day of the hunger strike, despite having been forcibly given intravenous nutrient drips, Zhang Lu was still so starved that his vision blurred and his limbs grew weak, his stomach occasionally cramping with sharp pains.
He lay on the bed, near exhaustion.
The bedroom door was pushed open gently, and that familiar, crisp, cold fragrance drifted in.
The man walked slowly to the bedside, his expression still calm. There was no sign of rage, and even his brow remained completely smooth.
He lowered his gaze to look down at the frail Zhang Lu, his voice as flat as a bottomless pool, “What are you trying to do?”
Zhang Lu’s chapped lips trembled. He mustered every last ounce of remaining strength to lift his gaze, fixing it dead on the man, his hoarse voice carrying a desperate stubbornness, “Whatever you have done to me, consider this debt settled.”
“Let me go.”
Far from being annoyed, the man curved his lips ever so slightly, the smile so faint it was nearly imperceptible.
He actually nodded, agreeing with unusual promptness.
“Very well.”
“I will give you a single chance.”
Zhang Lu froze abruptly, a spark of incredulous light suddenly bursting within his murky eyes, his breathing halting entirely.
Yet, the words that followed were steeped in ice, “If you can survive on your own ability, I will never appear before you again from this day forward.”
“But if you cannot hold on,”
Leaning slightly forward, the man lightly touched Zhang Lu’s burning forehead with cool fingertips, his tone plain yet imbued with a stubborn finality that cut off all avenues of escape:
“I will come and fetch you back myself.”
“And when that time comes, you had better remember this clearly.”
“In this lifetime, you will never escape me again.”
Zhang Lu stood frozen in place, almost believing he had misheard.
He didn’t dare ask another word, terrified that the person before him might change his mind the very next second.
The man actually had someone give him a set of inconspicuous old clothes and a bit of cash. There was no surveillance and no tail; they simply dumped him at the intersection on the outskirts of town.
The moment the car drove away, Zhang Lu clutched that small amount of money and plunged straight into the roughest, shabbiest, most inconspicuous alley without ever looking back.
It was as if he had stepped right back into his old life.
He still rented the cheapest basement and did the hardest physical labor.
It seemed as though that period of time had truly been nothing more than a nightmare.
Yet only he knew that a body which used to carry a hundred pounds of cargo and work overnight without blinking now frequently grew weak, turned nauseous and sour every morning, and bore a persistent, hard-to-reach heaviness in his lower abdomen like a constant shadow.
He did not dare contact his younger brother, knowing that his current predicament was entirely the result of his own overestimation of his abilities.
Huddled on the damp bedboard at night, he pressed hard against his lower abdomen, itching with bitter hatred and trembling with fear.
He told himself he could endure it.
He could survive on his own.
For over thirty years, this was how he had always gotten by.
Enduring, carrying the load, striving, fighting back, and at worst, risking his life.
His was a worthless life to begin with, so even if he couldn’t beat the other man, it would end in either his death or the other’s ruin. He had never been afraid of anyone.
However,
This time was different.
His body grew heavier by the day, and the reactions grew more violent.
The persistent, fishy, cold stench in the cold-chain market had long since become unbearable. He forced himself to stuff food into his mouth, vomiting it right back up, then forcing it down again once he stopped. This repetitive torture seemed to have no end in sight.
He preferred to lie to himself and pretend he was just sick.
If he was sick, then so be it. An incurable illness meant that death would end all troubles.
What he feared even more was that before he died, he would fail to hold on and voluntarily stumble back into his cage.
By then, he knew clearly in his heart that the man would neither let him leave nor let him die.
Just like now.
As the memories rushed back to the surface, accompanied by violent emotional fluctuations, Zhang Lu no longer had the strength even to open his eyes.
Curled up on the soft, body-stiffening giant bed, consumed by overwhelming humiliation and anxiety, he drifted into a deep sleep.
He hadn’t slept long before a sharp bout of acid reflux violently surged up his throat, instantly jerking him awake.
He propped up his weak body and sat up. With his stomach churning, he hurriedly grabbed the basin prepared by the bedside, lowered his head, and began to retch in muffled gasps.
The sour water made his eyes sting and turn red, and his lower abdomen felt a light, dragging ache. Aside from a few mouthfuls of bitter stomach fluid, nothing else came out.
Catching his breath, he instinctively touched his arm, finding it completely smooth. The needle marks and infusion tubes from his previous checkups and IVs had somehow been gently removed by someone.
When the churning in his stomach subsided slightly, he blankly raised his eyes to look toward the floor-to-ceiling window.
The heavy curtains had been pulled open by a narrow slit, letting in a dazzling morning light so bright it made him squint slightly.
Morning had arrived.
It was already the next day.
Lost in a daze for a moment, he heard the bedroom door push open silently.
That same crisp, cold fragrance, the one that made him physically nauseous, permeated the entire space in the blink of an eye. Zhang Lu’s throat tightened, and his unsettled stomach instantly churned with a sharp wave of acid once again.
The man walked in, followed by a servant carrying a tray neatly laden with fragrant warm porridge, warm water, and medicine.
Reaching the bedside, the man did not speak immediately, merely lowering his gaze to look at him.
Zhang Lu glared right back at him, his teeth clenched tightly, refusing to utter a sound.
Only the servant quietly placed the tray on the bedside table, picked up the plastic basin, bowed to the man, and said, “Boss, I’ll step outside first.”
The man gave a slight nod, his gaze slowly shifting downward from Zhang Lu’s tense face, finally landing on his flat yet secret-bearing lower abdomen.
The gaze was far too direct, carrying a nearly greedy scrutiny.
Zhang Lu’s entire body abruptly tensed like a beast that had stepped on a reverse scale, and he instinctively reached out to cover the area tightly.
“Did you sleep well?” The man’s voice was filled only with calm, carrying even a hint of gentleness.
With hatred and vigilance surging in his eyes, Zhang Lu spoke in a hoarse voice, “What do you want this time?”
Completely ignoring his hostility, the man curved the corners of his lips ever so slightly, reached out to pick up the bowl of warm porridge of just the right temperature, pulled over a soft chair nearby, sat down steadily beside the bed, and said flatly, “To feed you.”
The moment the words fell, Zhang Lu violently jerked his head away, using almost all his strength to swat away the hand extended to him. Some of the warm porridge sloshed out of the porcelain bowl and spattered onto the bedsheets.
“Get lost!” he roared hoarsely, struggling to shrink back toward the head of the bed. “I don’t need you to feed me! Stop putting on a hypocritical act!”
The man reached out and clamped a hand around his wrist.
The force seemed light, but only Zhang Lu knew it was as unmovable as an iron ring.
His hard-earned strength remained utterly useless before this man.
Gritting his teeth, Zhang Lu stopped struggling in vain and glared at the bowl in the man’s hand, “Put it down! I’ll eat it myself!”
“No.” The man’s tone remained calm. “The weight you wasted away, I will personally feed back into you.”
Zhang Lu’s throat choked, blood rushing straight to his head.
Almost by instinct, his other hand instantly curled into a fist with bulging veins, and with all his might, he swung it fiercely toward the man’s face.
The man nimbly side-stepped, easily dodging the vicious punch.
He casually and steadily placed the porridge bowl back on the bedside table. Finally, that calm, seemingly all-controlling gaze flashed with a rare, faint ripple of agitation, and the surrounding air pressure dropped a fraction.
Before Zhang Lu could retract his arm, the man’s hand reached out and clamped onto Zhang Lu’s wrist with the precision of iron pliers, using the momentum of the missed punch to sharply twist and press it backward.
“Ugh!”
Zhang Lu let out a muffled groan of pain, losing his balance as a fierce, tyrannical force slammed him heavily back down into the soft mattress.
The man pressed down on top of him, one long leg hooked in an absolute position of dominance, pressing against the inside of Zhang Lu’s thighs to completely seal off any possibility of struggle.
That intensely aggressive, crisp, cold fragrance acted like a physical cage, instantly choking off Zhang Lu’s breath.
“So full of spirit,” the man said, looking down at him from above with his breath dangerously close, his voice cold enough to drop icicles. “It seems the wind of the cold-chain market really did wake up a stubborn bone like you.”
With his wrists pinned behind him, Zhang Lu’s chest heaved violently. He glared back with unyielding fire burning in his eyes, like a wolf driven to a dead end.
Yet the next second, the man’s free hand plunged directly into the hem of his shirt with absolute precision and zero resistance.
A cool palm pressed directly against Zhang Lu’s slightly spasming lower abdomen, which was still reacting to the retching and struggling.
Zhang Lu shuddered violently as if electrocuted, a strained, altered gasp escaping his throat, “You… take it away! Get lost!”
He wasn’t afraid of being beaten, but he was terrified of that hand lingering in that spot.
Ignoring his roar entirely, the man’s pale palm traced and applied pressure across his flat abdomen with a sort of cruel pacification.
“You can’t even feed yourself, yet you still dare throw punches at me.” The man lowered his head, his cool lips nearly brushing against Zhang Lu’s earlobe. Though his breath carried warm moisture, his tone was as frigid as midwinter, sharp as a blade, “I gave you a chance. It’s your own incompetence.”
The palm continued to wander across his lower abdomen, as gentle as a cold-blooded creature crawling over his skin, sending another wave of turbulent churning through Zhang Lu’s stomach.
Clenching his teeth until they ground together with a muffled click, the fury and humiliation threatening to burst inside his chest, Zhang Lu mustered all his remaining strength and roared out a blood-laced threat in a hoarse voice, “Bullshit! It’s not that I’m incompetent! Just you wait! Even if I can’t beat you, I’ll still risk my life to fight you! I’ll bite a chunk of flesh right out of you!”
The man narrowed his eyes slightly, locking his gaze onto Zhang Lu’s flushed, angry face, before abruptly letting out a low laugh. He lightly flicked his finger against Zhang Lu’s lower abdomen, a very light touch, yet one that sent a creeping wave of numbness straight up Zhang Lu’s scalp.
“I don’t want your life.” His tone regained its calm, though it couldn’t mask the obsessive playfulness underneath, “Keep that stubborn life of yours, and be a good ‘mother’ to that abomination of mine, bringing it safely into the world and raising it well.”
Zhang Lu’s blood ran practically cold, the fire in his eyes burning even brighter, yet with the man’s palm resting against his abdomen, he dared not make a rash move.
Then, the next instant, the man’s tone abruptly turned heavy, devoid of any mockery, leaving only a chilling warning whose breath brushed past Zhang Lu’s neck with biting cold:
“Stop acting out. The more you fuss right now, the easier it is to hurt it, and as for who else might get hurt along with it, that is hard to say.”
The words were spoken lightly, yet they exploded like a thunderclap in the back of Zhang Lu’s mind.
Who?
Who else could it be?