Go ahead and leave, I will never stop you. This man said…
This man meant what he said. He could not afford to gamble, and he could not afford to lose.
Zhang Lu’s entire body felt as though its strength had been drained away in an instant. The rage in his eyes was replaced by deep apprehension and humiliation, and his rigid posture relaxed bit by bit, though he still gritted his teeth, refusing to bow his head.
Seeing the lingering unwillingness in his eyes, the man gave a soft chuckle, releasing the grip on his wrist, shifting his posture away, and picking up the porridge bowl once more. He scooped up a spoonful and extended it to Zhang Lu’s lips:
“Open your mouth.”
Zhang Lu’s Adam’s apple bobbed, his lips involuntarily pressing together even tighter.
The man smiled, his hand holding the spoon completely steady: “Be a good boy, open your mouth.”
The danger underlying that smile made Zhang Lu gasp sharply, opening his mouth slightly, slowly, and with extreme reluctance.
The warm porridge slipped down his throat, its mild flavor washing away the sourness in his stomach. He swallowed stiffly, his body tense like a fully drawn bow, every single bite executed with immense difficulty.
The man’s movements were gentle, scoop after scoop, with neither urge nor mockery, only calm patience.
Meanwhile, Zhang Lu remained passively open-mouthed, letting himself be fed while his fists beneath the blankets clenched until they ached.
After eating barely half a bowl, a sudden, violent churning arose in Zhang Lu’s stomach. That familiar acidic reflux surged upward before he could react; his throat tightened, and he vomited abruptly. The warm porridge, mixed with stomach acid, spewed out, splashing onto the rim of the bowl, the bed linens, and the clean, pale back of the man’s hand.
A pungent, sour odor instantly permeated the air.
Zhang Lu froze, his complexion flushing bright red in an instant. Overwhelm and wretchedness rushed over him. He whipped his head away, cold sweat dampening his temples while the tips of his ears burned slightly.
With utmost calm, the man set down the porridge bowl, stood up smoothly, and walked into the room’s attached bathroom. A moment later, he emerged with a warm, damp towel wrung half dry, still faint with a wisp of vapor.
He walked back to the bedside and sat down. Remaining entirely silent, he simply reached out, his fingertips gently pinching Zhang Lu’s jaw with a firm yet inescapable pressure, slowly turning his averted face back around.
The touch of the warm towel against his skin made Zhang Lu stiffen all over, his mind turning completely blank as he watched the man use the towel to wipe away the residual porridge and acid from the corners of his mouth.
The movement was unimaginably tender, entirely different from the fierce hostility he had shown when suppressing him just moments prior.
Flipping the towel over, the man continued without any expression, wiping away the sweat clinging to Zhang Lu’s face and forehead.
Zhang Lu kept his gaze pinned downward, not daring to meet the man’s eyes. A crushing sense of humiliation rolled over him like a tidal wave, nearly drowning him.
Tossing the towel casually onto the tray on the bedside table, the man raised his eyes and gave a soft call toward the door: “Come in.”
The servant from earlier pushed the door open and entered.
“Clean this up, and go bring another bowl of warm porridge,” the man instructed, his tone remaining flat. “Next time you cook the porridge, let it simmer a bit longer. We don’t need that much rice.”
“Yes,” the servant acknowledged, stepping forward carefully to clean up the spills and stains on the bedding.
Zhang Lu kept his head bowed throughout. The warmth on his cheeks had not yet faded, but the humiliation had not lessened by even a fraction. He could feel the man’s gaze lingering on him, making his entire body feel ill at ease, yet he didn’t dare move so much as a fraction of an inch.
Amidst the silence, after only a brief moment, the servant finished cleaning, retreated swiftly, and returned carrying a freshly served bowl of porridge.
The man accepted the bowl with a slight nod, and the servant bowed and backed out of the room.
Silence descended upon the room once more.
“Come, let’s continue,” the man said, scooping a spoonful of porridge and extending it forward.
This time, Zhang Lu did not dodge.
An overwhelming sense of powerlessness had exhausted his final struggles. Like a marionette stripped of its soul, with red-rimmed eyes and a vacant gaze, he opened his mouth and mechanically swallowed the warm liquid food.
Until the bottom of the bowl was clear, the man set down the porcelain bowl, pulled out a tissue, and patted Zhang Lu’s mouth with a natural, almost tender care.
In the dead silence of the room, only Zhang Lu’s slightly heavy breathing remained.
With his head lowered, his dry throat bobbed with difficulty, and his voice was so faint it sounded like crushed gravel, laden with heavy bewilderment and pleading.
“Is it true?”
In those eyes that had once been fierce, there now remained only shattered despair:
“Is it true that as long as I give birth to it, you will let me go?”
The man’s movements paused for a split second.
Immediately afterward, he leaned forward, extending that pale, cold hand to gently brush Zhang Lu’s damp bangs away from his forehead.
“Very well.”
The man agreed with utter crispness, his voice as soft and light as a spring breeze.
Zhang Lu jerked his head up, his pupils contracting instantly. His stalled breathing threw off its rhythm entirely as a faint flicker of light flashed in the depths of his eyes.
The man’s cool fingertips slid down his cheek, lightly rubbing his rough jaw.
“When you give birth to it, you may leave.” The corners of the man’s lips curved into a cruel smile, a smile like an ice-tipped blade piercing straight into Zhang Lu’s heart. “I will take it to meet its uncle.”
His well-shaped eyes narrowed slightly, his tone remaining undisturbed and calm.
“Though one could say its mother doesn’t want it, it still has an uncle. Or should we call him a maternal uncle? Which title is more fitting, I wonder?”
Zhang Lu’s heart plunged straight to the bottom of the abyss.
The man leaned close to his ear, his warm breath mingled with a cold fragrance, sealing him completely inside a coffin of despair: “Go ahead and leave, I will never stop you.”
Despair gripped Zhang Lu’s heart so tightly that even the last shred of luck was crushed to dust.
His clenched fists trembled slightly.
Yet he knew clearly that he had no capacity to fight back; indeed, right from the very beginning, he had never possessed any room for choice.
The man straightened up, walked over to the wardrobe nearby, and retrieved a dark gray casual outfit. Holding the clothes, he walked back to the bedside and said flatly:
“Change yourself, or should I help you?”
The clothes were laid out before him. Even though Zhang Lu understood nothing of fashion, he could tell the fabric was of supreme quality.
He could not help lifting his head to ask in a hoarse voice: “What else do you want to do?”
“Take you outside for a walk,” the man answered as a matter of course. “You need to soak up some sun.”
Zhang Lu snatched up the clothes, his first instinct being to refuse.
He didn’t want to follow this man outside, nor did he want to be paraded around like an object to clear his mind.
Yet the moment he opened his mouth, catching sight of the man’s semi-mocking gaze, he instantly swallowed the refusal back down.
Grit in his teeth, he gripped the clothes and stood up, muttering in a raspy, muffled voice: “I’ll change in the bathroom.”
Instead, the man shook his head lightly, leaning against the bedside with a tone that was flat yet laced with dominance: “Change right here.”
Seeing him standing motionless with tightly furrowed brows and a hesitant face, the man added casually: “What, do you need me to help?”
Zhang Lu dared not delay any further. Biting his bullet, he reached out to undo his loose pajamas.
He endured the humiliation with a stiff back, turning away abruptly so his spine remained rigid and straight. Even so, he could clearly feel that heavy gaze from behind resting upon him, completely unmoving.
Every inch of skin under that scrutiny burned and tightened. Humiliation and embarrassment bound him tightly like a fine, dense net.
“You need some fat,” the man remarked suddenly.
His gaze fell upon Zhang Lu’s tense, clean-cut back, which was reduced to hard, solid muscle, his tone as flat as stating a fact: “Don’t keep a body made purely of hard bone and sinew. Your body fat is too low; the further along the pregnancy gets, the more you will suffer.”
Hearing these words, a rush of shame and irritation surged up within Zhang Lu all at once. He could not stomach another half sentence of it.
His fingers tugged clumsily at the fabric to pull on the casual wear with impatient, stiff movements. Without even smoothing down the collar, he whipped around and said bluntly: “Done, we can go.”
Taking the lead, the man walked with composed strides, guiding him out of the room, through the carpeted hallway, and pushing open the glass doors leading out to the courtyard.
The late spring wind rushed toward them carrying the scent of flowers, and the roses in the courtyard were in full bloom.
The sunlight was gentle, casting a cozy warmth over his body that dispelled the chill of the indoors and slowly relaxed the muscles Zhang Lu had kept tense for so long.
He instinctively raised his eyes to look at the clear blue sky, his mood improving more than it had in a long time.
Walking silently beside him, the man uttered not a single word.
A few minutes later, just as Zhang Lu’s emotions began to ease, the man spoke up abruptly:
“Tell me, once the child reaches its full month, what if we throw a grand celebration and invite all our friends and family to celebrate? How does that sound?”
Zhang Lu stiffened all over in an instant. The warm sunlight wrapped around him lost all its temperature in a fraction of a second, while a biting coldness surged wildly through his limbs and bones.
Clearly basking in the bright, warm spring light, he felt as though he had plunged straight into an icy cave.
“No! Don’t!”
Instinctive terror shattered all his endurance. Zhang Lu cried out at the top of his lungs, his voice cracking into a broken pitch.
The man turned his head to look at him, wearing an expression of utter innocence, his tone light and perplexed as if he genuinely failed to understand why Zhang Lu was reacting with such intensity: “What’s wrong? Why not?”
Zhang Lu opened his mouth, but not a single syllable came out, his throat feeling as though it were blocked solid by freezing ice.
He knew better than anyone else, the man saw through him clearer than a mirror. The only family he had left in this world was his younger brother.
For the man to mention a full-month celebration was no celebration at all; it was meant to peel open his most wretched side and thrust it directly before his brother’s eyes, letting his brother know that his own older brother had given birth to a child.
That older brother, the one who could shield him from the storm and stand firm as a rock, had been reduced to a genderless monster.
“No…” Zhang Lu shook his head, unaware that pleading had crept into his eyes.
The man remained silent, simply watching him quietly. Beneath the surface of that feigned innocence, a hint of playful mockery emerged.
Zhang Lu’s jaw trembled as he finally forced out a broken sentence from between his teeth: “Why celebrate? Do you want everyone to know that your child is a monster?”
The moment those words fell, the air pressure around the man sank abruptly, and that trace of casual playfulness vanished without a trace.
His thin lips parted slightly, letting out a faint, icy laugh. A layer of chilly darkness coated the depths of his eyes, and his tone, though light to the point of flatness, concealed the fierce cruelty of someone whose inverse scale had been touched: “Monster? Who? The spawn in your belly?”
The man’s gaze was too cold, like a poison-tipped blade mixed with bottomless shadows, instantly pinning Zhang Lu firmly in place.
Zhang Lu shrank back instinctively, his Adam’s apple bobbing with extreme difficulty.
Spawn. Monster.
Carried by a man, was what came out not a monster?
Yet deep within his heart, something snapped open abruptly, throbbing with a dull, heavy ache.
What was that?
Zhang Lu did not know.