Lu Yufei was jolted awake by a splitting headache as a jumble of chaotic memories suddenly flooded her mind.
First came Lin Weiwei’s stiff, influencer-contrived face leaning in, her fingertips pinching a white pill and shoving it directly into Yufei’s palm with a suggestive, knowing smirk: “I worked so hard to get this for you, Feifei. You absolutely have to succeed tonight.”
Immediately following was her own voice: “Will Fu Qing really come?”
Lin Weiwei let out a scoff, patting the back of her hand: “Duh, when has my intel ever been wrong? Take him down, and you can just sit back and enjoy the good life from now on.”
The scene violently shifted.
A hotel room, the dim lighting thick with a dizzying, ambiguous heat.
Fu Qing leaned against the sofa, his shirt collar torn open, his jawline locked tight, his brow radiating disgust and impatience.
And her own hands—completely out of her control—were reaching out, eagerly trying to undo his belt.
Then came the sharp pain, a heavy, drugged slumber, and waking up alone the next morning in a cold hotel bed.
The scene flashed again: she was clutching a pregnancy test report, storming into Fu Qing’s mansion to force his hand. She successfully moved in, then quickly downgraded to a high-rise flat, and then downsized once more to a cramped studio apartment with a single bath…
The headache intensified.
Lu Yufei instinctively went to massage her temples, only to feel a sharp sting on the back of her hand.
An IV tube was taped into her vein, and cool liquid trickled slowly down the line.
Her gaze lifted, running straight into a dark, brooding stare.
Lu Yufei instinctively shrank back into her pillow.
“Do you have anything to say?”
She opened her mouth, but her voice failed her.
What was she supposed to say?
“I’m not the real me”?
“The one who drugged you was the old Lu Yufei”?
“I—”
“You were the one who plotted against me in the first place.” Fu Qing stood up, the legs of his chair screeching harshly against the tiled floor.
“And you were the one who said you were pregnant and demanded I take responsibility. Even in the state I’m in now, for the sake of the child, I’ve tried my best to give you the best…”
He took a step closer, his voice dropping to a low hiss, as if afraid to wake anyone outside, yet desperate to crush whatever was about to explode in his chest.
“How did you treat me in return? Pregnant with my child, yet you went to bars and spent my money hiring male escorts?”
Watching his clenched fists and the faint redness at the corners of his eyes, Lu Yufei didn’t dare utter a single syllable.
She cringed, lowering her gaze, too terrified to look at him.
“Do you think I’m a complete fool?”
Hearing those words, a sour sting pierced the bridge of her nose. Overwhelming grievance surged up, and her eyes instantly turned red.
Those awful things clearly weren’t her doing; why should she have to take the blame and weather this abuse?
Tears swirled in her eyes for a few rounds, but she bit her lip hard, refusing to let them fall.
Right at that moment, the ward door pushed open gently.
A nurse walked in holding a treatment tray, glanced at the IV stand, and her brows immediately knitted together: “What kind of family members are you? The drip bag is completely empty, why didn’t you press the call button? Any later and it would’ve started back-flowing!”
Fu Qing turned his face slightly, dodging the nurse’s gaze.
The nurse didn’t press further, hurrying to the bedside to deftly tear off the medical tape on the back of Lu Yufei’s hand and cleanly pull out the needle.
“Family, come press down on this.” Fu Qing blinked for a beat before realizing she was talking to him.
He took a step forward and pressed a cotton ball over the puncture wound on Lu Yufei’s hand.
The instant his fingertip brushed her skin, both of them froze for a fraction of a second.
Freeing up a hand, the nurse wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Lu Yufei’s arm, pumping the bulb while warning them: “During pregnancy, you need to watch your rest—don’t get too emotional, and don’t skip meals. It’s easy to faint from hypoglycemia. You passed out last night precisely because of low blood sugar combined with emotional stress.”
Lu Yufei let out a low “Mn,” eyes cast downward, not knowing where to look.
Just as the nurse finished taking her reading, a forty-something female doctor wearing gold-rimmed glasses walked in with a medical chart.
Her gaze landed on Lu Yufei’s pale face, her tone turning stern: “Lu Yufei, right? Looking at your blood sugar and blood pressure both running low, have you been trying to lose weight lately? Dieting, or skipping meals?”
Lu Yufei shook her head quickly, her voice still raspy and laced with grievance from just waking up: “No, doctor, I wasn’t dieting. It’s just… I haven’t been eating properly.”
Unable to make sense of the original owner’s dietary habits, she could only offer a vague excuse.
The doctor frowned, her tone deepening. “You can’t mess around like this during pregnancy.”
“This is the critical stage of fetal development. If your nutrition can’t keep up and your blood sugar is too low, not only are you going to keep passing out, but it will also harm the baby. You have to eat on time and supplement your nutrition; this is not something to take lightly.”
With that, the doctor turned to Fu Qing with a caution of her own: “Family members need to pay attention too. A pregnant woman’s emotional state is just as important as her nutrition. As long as she eats on time going forward and builds her nutrition back up, it shouldn’t be a major problem. Observe her for half a day, and if there are no abnormalities, she can be discharged.”
Quiet settled over the ward. Fu Qing took a deep breath, his jawline locked tight, his clenched fists opening and closing.
His gaze pressed out toward the window, a heavy, oppressive low-pressure system wrapping around the room, making it hard to breathe.
After a few seconds, he turned his face back. “What kind of stunt are you pulling this time? You might not care about your own life, but can you stop treating the child like a joke?”
His voice was cold and fierce, causing a rush of heat in Lu Yufei’s eyes as tears welled up again.
Clutching the edge of the blanket with her knuckles turning white, she had a belly full of grievance stuck in her throat, unable to force a single word out.
Fu Qing looked away, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“I don’t care what you’re trying to do, whatever state you’re in now is brought on by yourself! For the sake of the child, I’ll endure it. But if anything happens to the baby, I won’t let you off.”
Lu Yufei had no idea how to respond.
All she could hear ringing in her ears was child, child, child!
She didn’t even do those things—why did he have to treat her like this?
“I’m not having it!” Lu Yufei yelled at Fu Qing, driven by some sudden, reckless burst of courage.
“I don’t want to have it, I don’t want to become a mother this early! Fu Qing, I’m begging you, let’s make a clean break. From now on, I will never appear in front of you again. Just let me get an abortion.”
Clutching the blanket, she wept uncontrollably.
Fu Qing froze.
The corners of his eyes slowly turned red, his fingers curling slowly into his palms.
“Are you sure?” Four words, spoken with deliberate, heavy pauses.
“I’m sure! I’m not having it!”
Fu Qing didn’t speak again. He called a nurse to fetch a wheelchair for a caregiver, settled her into it, and pushed her out.
The corridor was long. Lu Yufei’s vision was so blurred by tears she couldn’t see a thing until he pushed her into the doctor’s office.
The doctor from earlier looked up, glancing back and forth between the weeping pregnant woman and the young man pushing the chair.
Fu Qing parked Lu Yufei by the consultation desk and stayed silent.
The doctor looked up again, eyeing the tear-streaked mother-to-be and the young man behind her.
Lu Yufei sniffled and spoke up: “I want to terminate the pregnancy.”
“The baby is already twenty weeks along now. Termination at this stage means an induction. Do you even know what an induction is?”
Lu Yufei didn’t answer, tears still trailing down the corners of her eyes.
The doctor sighed. “It means using medication to induce uterine contractions and forcefully expelling the fetus. At this month, the baby is basically fully formed. An induction is agonizing for her, and for you too. And given her current physical condition—”
She glanced at Fu Qing, then shifted her gaze back to Lu Yufei.
“Her hypoglycemia and malnutrition were already severe. If she undergoes a forced induction, a hemorrhage could very well cause lifelong infertility. This is your first pregnancy; if you don’t keep this one, you might never have another chance.”
Lu Yufei’s fingers dug viciously into her palms.
—Lifelong infertility.
This exact consequence matched the original novel’s plotline.
Yet the original owner had gone to a shady underground clinic, while this was a regular, legitimate hospital—so why was the doctor saying the exact same thing?
Could it be that no matter how she walked or where she turned, the ending was already waiting in her head for her to march right back and report for duty?
A nurse whispered nearby, “You young couple need to talk things through properly. Don’t do anything rash.”
She didn’t catch whatever else the doctor said. When her consciousness drifted back, Fu Qing had already wheeled her back to the ward.
He helped her back onto the bed, then turned to stand by the window, his back to her.
Sitting on the bed, Lu Yufei couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down.
The more she thought about it, the more aggrieved she felt; the more aggrieved she felt, the less she could stop.
Landing in some bizarre world, pregnant with a bizarre child, and saddled with a bizarre mountain of debt!
Why did she have to draw the short straw on a mess like this? Why was she so profoundly unlucky?
Fu Qing walked back from the window, silently handing a tissue out right under her nose.
She took it, first wiping the tears off her face, then blowing her nose with a fierce honk.
Then she raised her head and saw Fu Qing standing by the bedside, looking down at her.
Lu Yufei suddenly recalled what the novel said: Fu Qing was an orphan, struggling through life alone until twenty-eight…
She was pregnant now, and while Fu Qing might be the male lead, he was also the biological father of the child.
Even though the original owner had acted like a total menace, he still worked hard to support her. Granted, it was all for the sake of the child, but all things considered, he wasn’t a bad guy.
Should she just take things one step at a time?
Lu Yufei sniffled, looked up at Fu Qing, and announced, “I’m hungry.”
Fu Qing stared at her for two seconds, said nothing, and turned out of the ward.
Not long after, he returned, setting two steamed buns and a cup of soy milk on the bedside table.
Lu Yufei lowered her head and took a bite.
Meat filling, greasy and thick-skinned, not particularly delicious, but her mouth couldn’t wait to take a second bite.
Her stomach had been empty since last night; two buns weren’t nearly enough.
She looked up, gazing at Fu Qing with puppy-dog eyes, her voice even softer and weaker than before: “…I’m still hungry.”
Fu Qing poked a straw into the soy milk and handed it to her. “What else do you want?”
Cupping the soy milk in both hands, Lu Yufei felt a little shy and mumbled, “…Can you get two more buns? And if they have tea eggs, get one of those too.”
Fu Qing gave a slight nod and went back out to buy two more buns and a pair of tea eggs.
Lu Yufei opened the plastic bag and took a bite of a bun. A wave of heat rushed up, steaming her eyes back into a watery haze.
She blinked hard to chase away the sour ache, buried her head, and took another huge bite.
As cold as Fu Qing could be, he didn’t actually seem that unreasonable.
Chewing her bun, a thought suddenly crossed her mind, and she mumbled through a mouthful: “Have you eaten?”
Fu Qing’s hand paused mid-action while peeling a tea egg. After a brief silence, he handed the egg to Lu Yufei and replied flatly, “Not hungry.”
Lowering her head, Lu Yufei pulled out the half-eaten bun she’d been gnawing on and extended the untouched half toward him.
“You bought them, you should eat one too.”
Fu Qing looked down at the bun she was offering, not moving.
After holding it out for a few seconds, her arm growing a bit sore, she urged, “Hurry up. Take it so I have a free hand to take the egg.”
Watching her eyes, still flushed from crying, Fu Qing finally reached out with his other hand and took the bun.
He ate a few bites in silence, then spoke up, his voice low as if confirming something to himself:
“Once the baby is born, do whatever kind of self-destruction you want. I’ll figure out a way to give you a payout, and once you take the money, go wherever you like. I only ask that you carry the child to term safely and stop tormenting her.”
Lu Yufei took a bite of her egg and paused for a second.
Then she raised her head and looked right at him:
“Oh, then eat that egg too.”