Su Wantang fell silent.
She didn’t dare.
Because it was true… she and Lu Zhanye had become entangled. Because inside her womb, there really was his child.
The realization made her heart clench.
“I…”
Before she could finish, footsteps suddenly sounded from the courtyard gate.
Steady. Heavy. The sound of military boots striking the dirt road.
Everyone turned at the same time—
Lu Zhanye had returned.
He stood at the entrance, his military uniform immaculate, the moonlight casting a long shadow behind him. His gaze swept over the chaos in the courtyard, over Su Wanrou collapsed on the ground crying hysterically, and finally settled on Su Wantang.
For the first time, those deep brown eyes truly, seriously looked at her.
Su Wantang’s entire body stiffened.
She could feel the weight of that gaze—like something tangible—moving inch by inch from her face, over her slender neck, across her thin shoulders, and finally stopping at her slightly rounded abdomen.
It was still barely noticeable.
Her coarse clothes were loose-fitting. Only she knew that her lower belly had begun to swell ever so slightly. At just over a month pregnant, it shouldn’t have been visible yet, but perhaps because she was so thin, or because of the nourishment from the spiritual spring water, that faint curve could just barely be seen beneath her clothes.
Lu Zhanye’s gaze lingered there for a long time.
So long that Su Wantang nearly fled in panic.
Then he looked away and turned back to Su Wanrou.
“Midwife Wang is already on her way,” he said calmly. “I sent someone to fetch her.”
Su Wanrou jerked her head up, her pupils shrinking.
“No… don’t…” she muttered, scrambling backward on her hands and feet. “Comrade Lu… I was wrong… I really know I was wrong… don’t let her come… please…”
“Too late.” Lu Zhanye cut her off, his voice as cold as ice. “This matter must be clarified.”
He paused, his gaze once again sweeping over Su Wantang.
This time, she clearly saw the emotion in his eyes—not anger, not disgust, but something complex and profound.
As though she were a riddle.
A riddle he had to solve.
Chaotic footsteps sounded outside the courtyard.
Midwife Wang entered, supported by two villagers. The old woman had obviously been dragged out of bed; her hair was disheveled, an outer robe thrown hastily over her clothes, her face pale with alarm.
“What… what happened here?” she asked, trembling as she looked at the wrecked courtyard.
Lu Zhanye walked up to her and handed her the crumpled diagnosis paper Su Wanrou had wrinkled.
“Grandma Wang, did you write this diagnosis?”
The old midwife took it and glanced at it in the moonlight. Her face instantly turned white.
“I… I did write it…” Her voice grew quieter and quieter. “But… but…”
“But what?” Lu Zhanye pressed. His tone wasn’t harsh, yet it carried an irresistible pressure.
Midwife Wang’s legs gave way and she nearly knelt.
“It was… it was that girl Wanrou… she gave me five yuan… asked me to write this diagnosis… said she would definitely marry Comrade Lu… asked me to help her…”
The truth was finally revealed.
The courtyard erupted in an uproar.
Su Wanrou collapsed onto the ground. She couldn’t even cry anymore. She looked at Midwife Wang, at the villagers’ contemptuous stares, at Lu Zhanye’s icy gaze, and finally fixed her eyes on Su Wantang.
The last trace of light in her eyes went out.
All that remained was endless darkness and… madness.
“Su Wantang…” she suddenly laughed. The sound was soft and cold, eerily chilling in the silent night. “Do you think you’ve won?”
Su Wantang’s heart tightened.
“I forged a diagnosis. I faked a pregnancy to force a marriage. I humiliated myself…” Su Wanrou slowly rose to her feet, swaying like a candle in the wind. “But what about you?”
She took a step forward and pointed at Su Wantang’s stomach.
“Can you honestly say there isn’t a child in your belly?”
Silence.
An even deeper silence than before.
Even breathing seemed to stop.
Every gaze instantly turned toward Su Wantang—toward her slightly rounded stomach.
Her entire body went cold.
She could feel Lu Zhanye’s gaze like a knife stabbing into her. She could feel the villagers’ shocked, probing, contemptuous stares. She could feel her mother Wang Xiuying’s hand gripping her arm suddenly stiffen.
“Wanrou! What nonsense are you talking about?!” Wang Xiuying screamed. “Wantang is still an unmarried girl! How could she be pregnant? Have you gone crazy?!”
“I’m crazy?” Su Wanrou laughed wildly, tears streaming down her face. “Mom, ask her! Ask your precious daughter! Ask her why she’s been vomiting for the past month! Why her complexion keeps getting worse! Why—”
She paused and shouted with all her strength:
“Because she’s carrying some man’s bastard child!”
Boom—
The courtyard exploded with commotion.
“What?!”
“Wantang is pregnant too?!”
“This… these Su sisters…”
The discussions surged like a tidal wave.
Standing at the center of it all, Su Wantang trembled.
She wanted to deny it, refute it, scream—
But her throat felt strangled.
Not a single word could come out.
All she could do was look into her sister’s crazed eyes, at Lu Zhanye’s suddenly darkened expression, at her mother’s paper-white face.
Then she heard Lu Zhanye’s voice.
Very soft.
Yet it struck her ears like thunder.
“Su Wantang.”
He called her by her full name.
For the first time.
“Is what she said true?”
Slowly, Su Wantang raised her head.
Under the moonlight, she saw Lu Zhanye’s deep brown eyes.
There was no anger in them. No accusation.
Only a heavy, almost cruel calmness.
As though he were waiting for an answer.
An answer he already knew.
She parted her lips.
The tears fell first.
Then she heard her own voice, so faint it was almost inaudible:
“Yes.”
One word.
An admission.
The courtyard fell into deathly silence.
Everyone stared at the usually timid young woman, at her pale face, her slightly rounded belly, the silent tears running down her cheeks.
Then every gaze turned once more toward Lu Zhanye.
Waiting for his reaction.
Lu Zhanye said nothing.
He simply looked at Su Wantang for a long time. Moonlight cast deep shadows across his face, making his expression impossible to read.
Only his eyes remained visible.
Within those deep brown pupils surged a complex storm of emotions—shock, suspicion, anger, and a trace of something else…
A faint pain he himself had not yet noticed.
After a long while, he finally spoke.
“The child…”
He paused.
“Whose is it?”
Su Wantang closed her eyes.
Tears poured down her face.
Could she say it?
Could she stand before the entire village and say:
“It’s yours”?