Could she reveal that absurd night from a month ago? Reveal what had happened deep within the haystack? Reveal the secret of the spiritual spring water? Reveal the system that had forced her hand?
No.
At least, not now.
She took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and met Lu Zhanye’s gaze.
Then she gently shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
She spoke softly.
Yet her voice was crystal clear.
So clear that every word felt like a knife stabbing into Lu Zhanye’s heart.
And into her own.
Lu Zhanye’s pupils contracted sharply.
He stared at her—at the tears sliding down her pale face, at her trembling lips, at the hand protectively resting over her abdomen.
Then, suddenly, he laughed.
A cold laugh.
Cold as ice on a winter night.
“Fine.”
One word.
Then he turned and left.
This time, he did not look back.
The sound of his military boots faded down the dirt road until it disappeared into the depths of the night.
In the courtyard, Su Wantang collapsed to the ground, covering her face as her shoulders shook silently.
Meanwhile, Su Wanrou stood before her. Looking at Lu Zhanye’s departing figure, then at her sister crumpled on the ground, she suddenly burst into laughter.
The sound was crazed, hoarse, mixed with sobs.
“Su Wantang… look… just look…”
She pointed toward the gate, toward the direction Lu Zhanye had vanished.
Her voice was shattered, like glass ground beneath a wheel.
“He’s gone… He doesn’t want you anymore… and he doesn’t want me either…”
“We both lost… We both lost…”
Cold moonlight poured down.
It illuminated the two disheveled young women in the courtyard.
One collapsed on the ground.
The other barely able to stand.
But in the shadows beyond the courtyard wall, a tall figure stood silently.
Lu Zhanye had not really left.
Leaning against the cold earthen wall, he tilted his head back and stared at the night sky.
In his mind, Su Wantang’s words echoed endlessly:
“I don’t know.”
She didn’t know whose child it was.
Which meant that on that night at the threshing ground, he had not been the only man there.
Which meant those touches, those entanglements, those memories he had believed belonged only to himself and “that person”—
Might have been false.
Or perhaps they were real, but not exclusive to him.
The realization wrapped around his heart like a poisonous vine.
Closing his eyes, he drew a deep breath.
The night breeze seemed to carry that familiar scent—
Soapberry mixed with medicinal herbs, bitter yet faintly sweet.
Exactly the same scent as the one deep within the haystack that night.
And that red mole at the side of her neck.
And her broken little whimpers.
And her final whispered apology:
“I’m sorry.”
Every detail pointed to her.
Yet she had said, “I don’t know.”
Lu Zhanye opened his eyes.
Cold, sharp emotions churned within them.
He turned and looked back into the courtyard.
Under the moonlight, Su Wantang still sat collapsed on the ground while her mother, Wang Xiuying, tried to help her up. Around them, villagers pointed and whispered among themselves.
And nearby, Su Wanrou laughed and cried like a madwoman.
At last, Lu Zhanye’s gaze settled on Su Wantang’s slightly rounded abdomen.
There.
A child.
A child that might belong to him—or to someone else.
He stared for a long time.
Then slowly reached into the pocket of his military uniform and pulled out something.
Long.
Soft.
Gleaming dark blue-black beneath the moonlight.
A strand of hair.
The strand he had found a month ago in a crack of the clinic’s heated brick bed.
Su Wantang’s hair.
Holding the strand between his fingers, he tightened his grip slightly.
Then he turned away and truly left.
His footsteps vanished into the darkness.
Inside the courtyard, Su Wantang suddenly lifted her head and looked toward the wall.
It felt as though she had heard something.
Or perhaps she hadn’t.
Only the night wind howled past, stirring the dead leaves on the ground into a rustling whisper.
In the distance, village dogs barked a few times before silence gradually returned.
Everything settled back into stillness.
And so the first clash between the two sisters ended with both sides wounded.
No one had won.
There remained only a courtyard full of wreckage.
Two broken young women.
And an unborn child who had already begun to stir up storms.
The night was still long.
And when the sun rose tomorrow, what would happen next?
Su Wantang didn’t know.
She only knew that once certain things began, there was no turning back.
Just like the child growing inside her.
Just like the wound that had just been torn open between her and Lu Zhanye—a wound already raw and bleeding.
After Su Wantang’s words, “I don’t know,” fell into the silence, time itself seemed to freeze.
The villagers’ whispers grew into a buzzing uproar.
“What a disgrace…” Wang Xiuying finally recovered from her shock. Releasing Su Wantang’s arm, she took a step back as though she had touched something filthy. “The reputation of our Su family… the two of you sisters have completely ruined it!”
As soon as she finished speaking, heavy footsteps sounded at the gate.
Su Dashan entered, leaning on a cane, his face dark with anger.
Normally a quiet and reserved farmer, his forehead veins now bulged with rage and humiliation, his clouded eyes burning with fury.
Several older male relatives followed behind him, drawn by the commotion.
“What’s going on?” Su Dashan’s voice was hoarse as he slammed his cane against the ground. “In the middle of the night, the entire village is here watching our family make fools of ourselves?!”
Zhao Dehai rushed out from the house, looking even worse than Su Dashan.
“Old Su, you came at the right time! Your two daughters—one forged a medical diagnosis and faked a pregnancy to force a marriage, and the other… the other is actually pregnant with a bastard child and doesn’t even know who the father is! Our village hasn’t seen a scandal like this in decades!”
Su Wantang shuddered and instinctively tightened her hold over her stomach.
To everyone present, that movement was as good as a confession.
Following Zhao Dehai’s pointing finger, Su Dashan looked toward the center of the courtyard.
His eldest daughter, Su Wanrou, sat collapsed on the ground, her hair disheveled and face streaked with tears.
His younger daughter, Su Wantang, knelt nearby, both hands clutched protectively over her belly, her face pale as paper.
“Wanrou…” Su Dashan’s voice trembled. “That diagnosis… it really was fake?”
Su Wanrou raised tearful eyes, wanting to deny it.
But the effect of the Truth-Telling Talisman was still active.
The words burst out against her will.
“Yes… I forged it… I gave Midwife Wang five yuan…”
Smack!
A loud slap landed across her face.
Su Dashan’s hand remained suspended in the air, his entire body shaking.
“You… you’re a young woman… how could you do something so shameless?”
Su Wanrou covered her face as tears streamed down.
But now, beneath the shame, there was also madness—a ruthless determination born from having nothing left to lose.
She suddenly pointed at Su Wantang.
“I’m shameless? Then what about her?! The child in her belly is the real bastard! Dad, ask her! Ask her why she’s been vomiting all month! Why she’s been hiding from people! Why—”
“Enough!”
Wang Xiuying screamed and rushed over to grab Su Wanrou.
“Have you not embarrassed us enough already? Come home with me!”
“I’m not going back!” Su Wanrou shook off her mother’s hand, her voice shrill and piercing. “If I go back, she goes back too! If I’m investigated, she gets investigated too! Why is everyone only talking about my forged diagnosis? Why should Su Wantang’s pregnancy be allowed to slip by unnoticed?”