They hit it off at once.
Since marriage was decided, Duan Heyu contacted his parents without a moment’s rest and told them his decision to marry.
“Get what? Son, the signal on Mom’s end doesn’t seem good. Say it again.”
“Married? What married??”
“What! You’re getting married?! Are you crazy, how old are you?! You come home right now!”
What Duan Heyu faced when he got home was a storm of bombardment from his parents.
At first Mother Duan patiently reasoned with him in kind words, but her son had swallowed a scale weight and set his iron heart on marrying early. Seeing that she couldn’t persuade him, in a fit of anger she called Father Duan, who was still in a meeting at the company, straight back home for a mixed-doubles scolding.
“You rotten kid, are you trying to make your old man die of anger? Day after day you don’t do a single proper thing, all you know is making trouble and stuffing up my chest and your mother’s. Do you think we’ve lived too long and are an eyesore to you? You unfilial son!”
“Son, do you think marriage is just a matter of your lips touching? This is the great matter of your life, it will affect you for your whole life. Let’s think about it more, consider it more, all right?”
“Dad, Mom, stop trying to persuade me. I’ve already decided to get married. Next month at the latest we’ll get the certificate.”
Father Duan and Mother Duan’s pupils quaked, and they said in one voice, “What?!”
Father Duan’s face went iron-blue with anger. In one arrow-like stride he was in front of Duan Heyu, yanking him up by the collar, his falcon eyes exceedingly sharp and extremely oppressive.
“Rotten kid, say it again. What is it you want to do?”
In his early years Father Duan had served ten years in the army. Never mind his sturdy build, besides a businessman’s shrewdness and smoothness he also had a soldier’s say-it-once forcefulness, and when he flew into a rage he could really scare people.
Duan Heyu had feared him since he was little, like a mouse seeing a cat.
Facing Father Duan’s pressure now, Duan Heyu swallowed reflexively, his calves going weak, and forced up a smiling face. “Dad, let’s talk properly, don’t use your hands. Using your hands hurts our feelings.”
Father Duan let out a heavy cold snort from his nose.
“Your old man wanted to talk to you properly, but didn’t you, kid, very toughly make the decision on your own? Then what the hell is there to talk about?”
Duan Heyu slid smoothly to his knees. “Dad, I was wrong. Dad, let go of me first, be careful not to hurt your grandson.”
Grandson?
Father Duan frowned in confusion, but his hand did loosen. “What grandson?”
Duan Heyu slipped like a loach into the safe zone behind Mother Duan, rubbed his neck with lingering fear, let out a long breath, and only then said slowly, “Simply put, you and my mom are about to be upgraded to grandpa and grandma.”
Father Duan and Mother Duan: “…”
“Happy or not?”
A silence like death.
Mother Duan forced a smile and asked gently, “Son, how old is the girl? Is she your classmate? How long have you been dating?”
Duan Heyu answered one by one.
Learning that Jiang Zhi was also a Haishi local, Mother Duan’s expression eased somewhat. After settling her mood she said slowly, “Son, you’re only in your early twenties, both still young and not sensible. There will be plenty of chances to have children later. Let’s not keep this child for now. Mom will give you a sum of money, you take it to the girl as a bit of compensation from our family, let her take good care of her body, and we’ll consider the marriage question at greater length.”
Duan Heyu stood there without a sound.
Mother Duan glanced at her husband, understood him without words, and smiled. “Your dad means the same. Don’t be afraid, son. Who doesn’t make mistakes when they’re young? Just be more careful from now on and don’t make another human life.”
A long silence.
“It can’t be aborted.”
Thinking the woman’s side was putting on airs to extort them, Mother Duan said, “Then Mom will give you a bit more money. If it really doesn’t work then we—”
“It really can’t be aborted.”
Duan Heyu grabbed his own hair, finding it deeply hard to get the words out, and under his parents’ doubtful gaze he gritted his teeth and popped out a few words. “I, I’m the one who’s pregnant, not her.”
Father Duan and Mother Duan: “…”
The result was that Duan Heyu was nearly tied up by his own parents and put in a car to the psychiatric hospital. Fortunately Duan Xiao, that timely rain [1]that timely rain (jishi yu, 及时雨) Metaphor, someone who helps at the critical moment jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3234067_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3234067_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, came in time, otherwise the consequences would have been unthinkable.
Father Duan and Mother Duan clutched the stack of hospital diagnoses and high-definition color ultrasound photos, seemingly fixed in place, their power of speech lost.
Duan Heyu, deeply uneasy, hid behind Duan Xiao, gripping his clothes tightly, and licked his lips as he asked, “Brother, are my parents all right? Could the shock be so big they faint from anger on the spot?”
Duan Xiao gave him a sidelong look. Good kid, when he needed something he knew to call him brother.
“Hard to say, but it’s not a big problem, this is a hospital. If something really happens, emergency treatment on the spot will definitely be in time.”
Although Duan Heyu was a bit of a rascal and a bit of a spoiled brat, he had never wanted to make his parents keel over from anger, and hearing Duan Xiao’s answer he couldn’t help worrying.
Just then Mother Duan looked up from the pile of materials in a daze and spoke woodenly, “Little Xiao, is your cousin really preg, preg…”
Mother Duan, who had never found the word “pregnant” scalding on the tongue, had a buzzing head.
“I’m not dreaming, am I…”
“It’s true.”
Oh heaven. Mother Duan’s vision went black and she toppled forward, and luckily Father Duan’s quick eyes and hands caught her.
Duan Xiao: “Aunt, every material the hospital can produce is in your and Uncle’s hands. The two of you witnessed Heyu’s whole examination just now. Although it goes beyond common sense, this really is the fact.”
Duan Xiao spoke slowly and unhurriedly, and with the air he naturally carried that made people feel they were bathing in a spring breeze [2]bathing in a spring breeze (ru mu chunfeng, 如沐春风) Idiom, put at ease by someone’s warmth jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3234067_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3234067_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, such a shocking, absurd, and strange matter, laid out by him bit by bit, seemed not so… hard to accept.
—Only
Mother Duan collapsed into a chair, crying with a handful of snot and a handful of tears. “Heaven above, what sin did I commit? How could my perfectly good son with a handle get pregnant? Does this make any sense? Is there any justice left in heaven!”
“My perfectly good son had his belly made big by a girl. If word got out, wouldn’t people laugh themselves to death? The whole family would be poked in the spine, treated as freaks. How would we live from now on?”
Mother Duan cried until her liver and intestines were in pieces and her voice was hoarse and spent, more than half her makeup ruined, with not a trace of her usual dignified, luxurious lady look.
Father Duan held his wife tight without a word, his brows locked dead tight, his expression quite complicated and heavy.
Duan Heyu’s heart clenched to hear it. His mother went to the beauty salon every week without fail, she was a woman who especially loved being beautiful.
And now she was crying like this.
His heart aching, he couldn’t help stepping forward to hold Mother Duan. His eyes rimmed red and he choked out, “Mom, stop crying, I…”
“Bastard!”
Father Duan finally couldn’t hold back and exploded, pointing at his nose and cursing, “You shameless thing!”
At his age he hadn’t even touched a girl’s hand, and this bastard rotten kid had actually already had relations, and without protection at that. You could tell with your toes that he must have been the one to start it.
He had simply brought it on himself!
Duan Heyu shivered at the shout and gathered his courage to argue for himself. “You can’t blame me for this either. Who knew men could get pregnant? I just didn’t expect it.”
Since ancient times men and women had loved each other, and enjoying the pleasure of fish and water was like eating and drinking. He had only done an ordinary thing, so how was he shameless?
He dared to talk back! Duan Jingguo’s tiger eyes glared, and he swung his arm up, ready to deal his son a round.
Duan Heyu was so frightened he covered his head and scurried like a rat, shouting loudly, “Dad! I’m a pregnant man, I’m a pregnant man!”
Duan Jingguo: “…”
“Uncle, Aunt, Heyu isn’t the only man who’s pregnant. Actually several cases have already appeared nationwide, they just haven’t been announced. But they will be sooner or later, and Heyu won’t become a freak.”
The crying stopped at once, and Mother Duan and Father Duan both went round-eyed at the same time.
“Are you serious?!”
Duan Xiao nodded in confirmation.
The couple looked at each other and grasped the other’s hidden meaning in a second. Mother Duan brushed aside the stray hair stuck to her face, took the tissue her husband handed her, and carefully wiped her face clean.
She murmured, “That’s good then, that’s good then.”
Businessmen always accept new things faster than ordinary people, and their powers of comprehension leave everyone in the dust.
Father Duan’s gaze focused slightly. He pondered for a long while, thinking it over seriously.
He glanced at Duan Heyu with an unclear meaning and said in a low voice, “Go set a time with the woman’s parents. Our two families will discuss the marriage.”
He agreed just like that?
Duan Heyu couldn’t believe happiness had come this easily.
Mother Duan pulled her son over and looked him up and down, and finally her gaze settled on her son’s belly. She sighed. “Heyu, things have come to this and all Mom can do is wish you well. I hope you’ll be safe, and I also hope the one in your belly is a girl.”
Otherwise it would have to suffer along the same way.
Were the childbearing roles fixed for thousands of years finally going to be swapped?
Since men could give birth, should women phase out the uterus, phase out the so-called menstrual period, and truly let the responsibility of reproduction fall on men?
Perhaps the time had come for men to experience for themselves what it tasted like to be seen as a gender that isn’t valued.
In the ward, Duan Heyu lay lazily on Jiang Zhi’s legs, describing the scene vividly.
“Fortunately my legs are long and I run fast, otherwise the old man would have broken them.”
“I think your dad went easy on you because you’re carrying a kid. After all, now that the main account is ruined he can only pick up the alt and train that.”
Duan Heyu strongly disagreed and opened his mouth to snap back at her. “Having a son with such outstanding intelligence and such good looks, they’ve been secretly delighted for twenty-odd years. Where does ‘ruined’ come from? Is it because my parents are too reasonable and too easy to talk to, so you feel guilty and jealous?”
Jiang Zhi: “…Being snide again, throwing sand and shooting shadows [3]throwing sand and shooting shadows (han sha she ying, 含沙射影) Idiom, attacking by veiled insinuation jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3234067_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3234067_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, is that it?”
He was relying on being a pregnant man to be utterly unrestrained, with no cover on his mouth.
Duan Heyu played dumb. “What? I don’t understand.”
Jiang Zhi looked at him with a smile on her skin but not in her flesh, lowered her neck a few degrees, and slid her fingertips up along his arm, and everywhere they went a current was stirred up.
Finally they stopped at the side of his face. Staring at his lips, she said gently and softly, “You’ll understand right away.”
What a dangerous air.
Duan Heyu struggled to get up. Thanks, but he didn’t want to understand!
One practiced slap from Jiang Zhi and Duan Heyu was like a dead fish slapped back onto the shore.
Damn, he, he was a pregnant man.
Jiang Zhi rubbed and kneaded his face hard with both hands as she pleased, without the slightest pity, treating him like dough and pinching him into all kinds of shapes.
Duan Heyu’s heart was dripping blood. His face, oh, his overwhelmingly handsome, priceless, top-tier face.
He dodged left and right, twisting like a squirming maggot, begging for mercy over and over. “Big Sister Jiang! Oh no, Sister Jiang, gentler, gentler. Even a mom-made face can’t hold up under this trampling method of yours.”
The more Jiang Zhi touched, the less she could put it down.
No wonder everyone said fresh young meat was good. Tsk tsk, this fine skin and tender flesh, the oiled and slippery feel of it went straight to the head. She had experienced the pleasure of the rich older sisters.
…
In the bathroom, Duan Heyu shakily examined his face in the mirror on the wall, his heart and liver trembling.
Too vicious, too vicious, it had to be condemned!
How could anyone do something this rude to one of the few handsome men left in the world today!
Coming out of the bathroom, Duan Heyu’s hair stood up in rage. He planted himself there with an imposing air, meaning to punish the chief culprit.
But the chief culprit’s tone was flat as she lightly tossed out a landmine.
“My parents agreed. Will you arrange a time?”
References[+]