True to his original plan, the moment Yu Se returned to his bedroom, he began a busy round of searching for literature, reading and organizing the latest literature in the field of male childbirth, and writing a literature review.
The literature available in this world at present was not particularly abundant. Although the current marriage system had grown more complete with the promulgation of same-sex marriage laws, research into male childbirth was still in its infancy, with many theoretical and practical issues urgently needing resolution.
Yu Se read every single piece of literature meticulously, not letting a single detail slip by.
He discovered that within the worldview of this dog-blood novel, it did not seem like every male character was specially equipped with reproductive functions.
More than half of the few foreign childbirth cases searchable on the internet were achieved by individuals transitioning from female to male, preserving their reproductive capacity during gender reassignment surgery, and subsequently realizing it through advanced reproductive technology.
Although these instances were rare, they provided a certain realistic foundation for the study of male childbirth.
Yu Se carefully studied the details of these cases, attempting to extract some referenceable experiences or theoretical support from them.
Yet he ultimately discovered an even more terrifying fact.
Whether it was Bai Fan, Madam Xiao, or Feng Zhile, all these pregnant males were entirely concentrated in Dragon City.
Including Lin Liangyu, whom he had seen today; even though he wore a slightly loose work uniform, it was still difficult to conceal the bulge of his abdomen.
If Lin Liangyu could get pregnant, then Xuanxuan was also very likely personally birthed by him.
Ah.
Yu Se fell into deep contemplation.
Could it be that the underground water source of Dragon City was actually a father-son river?
Perhaps he had been thinking too intently, to the point that his beloved apprentice Wang Qi’s phone ringtone was automatically ignored by both of his ears.
It was only when Wang Qi made his fifth phone call that Yu Se snapped back to his senses, realizing he hadn’t yet shared the good news about reopening Kang Kang Hospital with him.
Thus, he answered promptly, “Disciple, your master has good news to share with you!”
Hearing the good news, Wang Qi was overjoyed. In truth, he was a native of Dragon City through and through, and leaving his native soil belonged to the absolute worst category of options.
Yu Se told him, “The hospital location has already been selected, but the renovation will take about a month at the earliest. Even using the most eco-friendly materials, eliminating formaldehyde residue will require another month.”
In other words, for Kang Kang Hospital to officially resume operations, a total of two months would be needed.
Yu Se said, “Once the full set of equipment promised by Mr. Xiao arrives in my hands, I’ll give you a free abdominal color ultrasound.”
Wang Qi asked suspiciously, “Is this hospital welfare? Master, aren’t you being a bit too stingy? Why does employee welfare only provide an abdominal color ultrasound?”
Yu Se contemplated, “Of course it’s not just this single item. I will conduct a meticulous, comprehensive checkup for you to determine whether your abdomen harbors a healthy uterus and appendages.”
Wang Qi fell silent for a long time, a silence that was truly deafening.
Then he slowly asked in return, “Master, filial piety comes first in all virtues. You’ve really racked your brains for me, and this disciple is also willing to pull out all the knowledge he’s learned in his lifetime to carefully examine Master’s abdomen, just to determine whether Master’s belly also conceals an unsolved mystery.”
Sensing he had spoken too quickly and couldn’t keep his mouth shut, he gave a dry laugh, attempting to defuse the awkward atmosphere. “Master, disciple was just joking, don’t take it to heart.”
Yu Se wasn’t someone who would bicker with him over trifles. “I don’t need it, I’m not from Dragon City.”
Actually, if through his investigation, research, scientific verification, and confirmation that the male population in the Dragon City region possessed the biomedical characteristics of gestational function, Yu Se would suggest that the public health sector launch a systematic survey, formulate a specialized research report, and submit it to the National Health Commission.
Pushing as early as possible to include male pregnancy diagnosis and treatment programs within the scope of basic medical insurance.
Allowing those pregnant male groups who avoided examinations due to social prejudice to receive the medical care and support they deserved.
Speaking of this, Yu Se quickly recalled Bai Fan, hurriedly inquiring about the status of the other party and the child, while also instructing Wang Qi not to simply order takeout for Bai Fan, since the other party was currently in the lactation period, he still needs to eat genuinely nutritious food.
Wang Qi naturally strictly obeyed his command, though the beloved apprentice also holding his own misgivings, turning to tell his master, “That kid is two months old in the blink of an eye. Watching him grow bigger day by day every single time I see him now makes me genuinely terrified he’ll open his mouth one day and call me Daddy straight to my face.”
Yu Se immediately shot back with a roll of his eyes.
Yet this joke genuinely reminded Yu Se that he really needed to hurry up and arrange a hiding spot for Bai Fan and the child.
After taking a bath, Yu Se followed his usual routine of locking his bedroom door first. This time, he didn’t just lock the door.
Before falling asleep, he even used his e-reader to pull up a hardcore medical paper:
Clinical Significance of Free-Position Delivery on Pelvic Outlet Diameters and Neonatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy: A Three-Dimensional Real-Time Ultrasound Monitoring Study.
Leveraging deep contemplation in medicine to suppress the strange dreams that would otherwise assault him at night and improve the occurrence of weird bodily reactions.
Deep into the night.
Having already worshipped the profound knowledge of the paper’s author, Yu Se drifted into deep sleep.
It didn’t take much longer.
From that dim and obscure location in the corner of the wall, the sound of a crawling creature moving forward slowly drifted out as usual, except this time the movement was intermittent, occasionally emitting a sound of getting stuck, as if something bulky was struggling mightily to break free from restraints.
The little black snake that could usually slip in smoothly encountered extraordinary difficulty today when squeezing through, its drilling movements turning exceptionally arduous due to some special reason.
Finally, it revealed a body a size plumper than before, resembling a plump black sausage, lazily seeking out the safest spot to spend its digestion period.
Yisman truly was an exceptionally unique little snake; one could say that at times it hardly looked like a snake at all.
Feng Yinchen only ever fed it meager chunks of meat, yet tonight he had agreed to let Yisman enjoy quite a bit of food.
Plump and rounded, Yisman had clearly wasted a bit of effort when climbing onto the bed, yet it still drilled into Yu Se’s duvet with absolute precision.
This time, acting like an old regular, the little black snake headed straight for the center of Yu Se’s legs, attempting to climb up toward the highest strategic point just like last time.
Unfortunately, stuffed now to the thickness of an infant’s forearm, every attempt to climb resulted in it rolling right back down from the top.
Therefore, the little black snake had to wrong itself, switching to a new location, and ultimately burrowing inside Yu Se’s sleep shirt to coil into a thick black mosquito coil.
Yu Se was jolted awake by thirst around six in the morning, reacting out of muscle memory to reach for the bedside teacup, only to be pressed into a cold sweat by the chilly, heavy weight resting across his stomach.
“What’s going on?!”
Yu Se changed the direction of his hand reaching for the teacup, pressing the bedside lamp button directly with one hand while swiftly flipping back a corner of the quilt.
The sight before his eyes couldn’t quite be called a reversal of the blood circulation or a skull-exploding disaster, but it was certainly a choke-hold suffocation effect.
Snakes lack eyelids.
The little black snake at this moment…
No, the chubby little round snake had somehow managed to undo all the buttons of Yu Se’s sleep shirt, fully occupying the doctor’s smooth chest with muscular contractions on its belly that were exceptionally flexible, radiating a dense, icy coolness right through the skin.
Most astonishingly, the snake’s tail was currently concealed inside his underwear, half of it protruding out from one of the leg openings and swaying back and forth ceaselessly.
Yu Se’s brain crashed instantly. Such an intense sense of horror even made him feel as though the other party was completely treating him as some sort of warm incubator.
An incubator for laying eggs?
No, no, no, no! Stop running wild with your imagination!
Yu Se was calm and composed after all, capable of quickly and seriously making judgments in his mind even at this very moment.
Yisman should belong to a non-venomous snake; otherwise, Feng Yinchen wouldn’t bring it around every single day or even allow the little black snake to leave a brand on his own neck.
Still, being non-venomous didn’t make it okay either! Who in their right mind likes being bitten by a snake for no reason?!
Yisman’s lava-amber vertical pupils contracted into extremely thin slits, its motionless snake body locking Yu Se dead in the shadows. The hissing sound issuing from its oral cavity was low and persistent, resembling the warning of a wild beast’s low-frequency vibration that easily shattered the frost condensed all over Yu Se’s body.
Yu Se felt as though he was going to die, opening his eyes to find himself suppressed by a snake.
Yu Se recalled that supposedly Indians possessed a kind of miraculous snake-charming technique, as long as they utilized the sound of a flute, they could evoke resonance in snakes and drive them to serve their bidding.
Yet the moment he recalled Tony Leung in The Eagle Shooting Heroes adopting a whistling method that got him bitten into sausage lips by a snake in a comedic scenario.
Yu Se couldn’t help smiling faintly.
Having offended Yisman somehow, the little black snake grew alert in an instant, even climbing a full inch closer toward Yu Se’s face.
Ahhhh!
Yu Se never imagined in his life that he would actually have moments of fear; he had always assumed himself to be a precision medical instrument.
When people experience extreme panic, they invariably turn to desperate measures.
Noticing his cell phone was within arm’s reach out of the corner of his eye, Yu Se immediately grew resourceful. His hands had already gone rigid in mid-air for several full minutes, blood regurgitating from fear had rendered his fingertips as cold as iron, making him almost unable to grasp the life-saving straw of a phone.
Gritting his teeth to lock eyes with Yisman, Yu Se exhausted every ounce of strength to inch his fingers forward until he finally clenched the phone in his palm.
His heartbeat thudded like a drum, threatening to burst through his chest, with only a single thought echoing in his mind, dialing for emergency services.
However, Yisman’s cold, glittering vertical pupils stared at it intently. The hissing sound emitted between the darting of its forked tongue resembled the whisper of the Grim Reaper, rendering Yu Se’s movements sluggish and arduous.
He had no choice but to take a deep breath, attempting to calm the terror churning within him. With slow and resolute slides of his finger across the screen, he dialed that familiar number.
Feng Yinchen’s workout session happened to conclude right then.
During this period, he had handed the company over to Feng Cheng’s full authority, seizing half a day of leisure amidst a busy life to enjoy the time spent getting along with Yu Se.
Things always grew more familiar with time.
Feng Yinchen glanced at the incoming call display.
Atop it was marked a nickname Yu Se would never get to see.
Se-se
He answered the call promptly.
Doctor Yu didn’t dare open his mouth to call out to him with any amplitude, pressing his lips together to curse in a low murmur, “Save me.”
To Feng Yinchen on the other end, it sounded like a light, fluttering murmur, prompting Feng Yinchen to glance at the nickname once more, confirming it wasn’t a new type of telecommunication scam.
Yu Se said, “Save me.”
Feng Yinchen asked, “Doctor Yu? Could you try speaking just a tiny bit louder?”
Snakes possess no auditory organs, however, they are extremely sensitive to vibrations.
Playful light flashed wildly within Yisman’s vertical pupils, seemingly ignoring Yu Se’s cry for help entirely as it closed in by yet another inch, its forked tongue darting out with hisses that accompanied heart-palpitating sounds, coming dangerously close to biting Yu Se’s cheek.
Yu Se’s heart raced, sweat sliding down his forehead to drip against his taut jawline before finally rolling down into his sexy collarbone groove.
Every minute sound was magnified infinitely during this supremely tense moment.
Feng Yinchen finally detected something amiss on the other end of the phone. Frowning, a trace of solemnity laced his voice. “Doctor Yu, there seems to be some sound beside you. Are you alright?”
Gritting his teeth and forcing himself to remain calm, well aware he couldn’t afford to lose his footing right now, Yu Se seized the opportunity to say, “Do you think I’m doing well? Your snake is trying to take advantage of me!”
On the other end of the phone, Feng Yinchen’s expression instantly grew solemn, but instead of hanging up right away, he strode all the way from the third floor down to the second.
Feng Yinchen seemed to have heard whatever harassing shenanigans his snake was up to. In truth, a single shout of retreat into the phone would have made Yisman obediently mind its manners.
Yet the moment Feng Yinchen turned the doorknob and discovered Yu Se’s bedroom door was locked.
His haste transformed once more into a cold smirk. Closing in on the microphone position, he uttered word by word, “Doctor Yu is actually guarding against me?”
Yu Se also heard the sound of the doorknob turning, catching the echoes of Feng Yinchen in the corridor, and pleaded repeatedly, “No, I locked it by accident, this door is just too high-tech…”
“Do doctors lie?”
Added to Yu Se’s terror was a touch of shame. Biting his already chilled and parched lips, he whispered, “Family Head Feng, I’m begging you.”
I’m begging you!
I’m begging you!
I’m begging you!
Doctor Yu was strong-willed his entire life, in whichever lifetime, one must never dream of—
Therefore.
What a blood-pumping phrase. Feng Yinchen dared stake his life that he would absolutely never attempt to hear Yu Se speak these soft words to him in any plotline outside of bed scenes.
Feng Yinchen said, “But I’m angry, and you know the reason yourself.” With those words, a crafty, low chuckle accompanied the corners of his lips as he hung up the call.
Yu Se thought to himself, I’m dead.
It seemed today he would have to brave the danger of being fiercely bitten by a snake and resolve the crisis relying entirely on himself.
Slowly tossing the phone aside, Yu Se inched his stiff, chilled fingers slowly toward the position of the snake’s tail.
When he was little, he had caught geckos using this technique, so he figured it should be feasible.
Yet Yisman’s posture was too tricky, prompting him to instantly readjust his train of thought, applying the method of seizing a snake by its upper third was much more scientific.
Just as Yu Se made his move.
The sound of a key inserting into the bedroom door rang out. After turning the lock a few times, Feng Yinchen’s sweat-drenched physique was already standing at the doorway in the blink of an eye.
After all, he had just finished working out and had rushed over in a flustered hurry to save someone.
Yet, the moment he gazed toward the center of the bedroom bed.
Yu Se’s sleep shirt was wide open, the silk material resembling two wispy garments of feathers exposing an upper body that had already turned flushed red from fear, along with his slightly curled long legs.
While his little black snake, Yisman, was currently planted securely across Yu Se’s chest, turning its head back to mischievously dart its tongue out at him.
Hateful!
It actually got to enjoy the ultimate scenic beauty and allure earlier than its master.
Seeing him come to save the day and not abandon him to his fate, Yu Se, perhaps from holding a motionless posture for too long, causing his eyes to brim with glistening, tear-like moisture, his eye rims reddened as if brushed with top-grade rouge, pleaded softly,
“Quickly pull your snake away!”