“How is your body? Do you need me to help you down?” Heng Shi turned his head to ask him. Zou Beiqi declined the other’s kindness, opened the passenger door himself, and stood firmly on the ground. “I want to go see my dad first.”
Heng Shi followed his intent, walking side by side with him into his father’s ward. His father was as emaciated as before, appearing so weak that he seemed as though he could shatter in the next second. His mother had originally been filled with worry, but upon seeing Zou Beiqi arrive, she forced herself to muster some energy. “Qiqi is here? Why didn’t you mention hiring a caregiver?”
Hearing his mother say this, Zou Beiqi finally noticed a woman in the corner organizing his father’s belongings. “It wasn’t me. Mr. Heng hired her.”
His mother clearly recognized Heng Shi. “Oh, it’s you. Thank you so much for helping our family with this. Did you help make the new medicine that was mentioned earlier?”
“It’s nothing. I’m very sorry about the new medicine; it failed to produce any effect.”
“It’s fine. We also knew there were risks.” His mother smiled politely. “Right, why did you and Qiqi come over together?”
“Qiqi wasn’t feeling well, so I accompanied him for a checkup.” As Heng Shi spoke, he even gently stroked the messy hair on top of Zou Beiqi’s head.
Hearing this nickname made Zou Beiqi’s goosebumps rise. Before he could react, his mother grabbed Zou Beiqi’s hand first, looking her son up and down from head to toe. “What’s wrong? Where is Qiqi feeling uncomfortable?”
“He might be pregnant.” Heng Shi pressed his fingertips against Zou Beiqi’s abdomen, then proceeded to draw circles on it. “Did Qiqi really carry my child? Then how about marrying me?”
His mother froze for a moment, but seeing the rather intimate posture between Heng Shi and Zou Beiqi, she roughly understood what was going on. “Qiqi, how come you got a boyfriend and didn’t tell Mom?”
His father, lying on the hospital bed, abruptly chimed in. “Getting married is fine too. Mr. Heng is quite suitable; he even helped your mom take care of me recently and hired a caregiver.”
The development of the plot clearly exceeded Zou Beiqi’s control. He greeted his mother and then forcefully dragged Heng Shi out of the ward door. Worried about being overheard by his parents, he deliberately lowered his volume. “I’m not pregnant. The events of that night were fake.”
“Are you saying I slept with a dummy?”
Zou Beiqi hadn’t expected Heng Shi to approach the problem from such a bizarre angle. “I mean I lied to you. Nothing happened between us that day.”
Heng Shi laughed in exasperation. “Did you forget how the bite mark on your collarbone came to be? I’m not foolish enough to not even know what I did.”
Once the matter of the bite mark was brought up, Zou Beiqi clearly lacked a solid argument. He was just thinking about what evidence he could produce to make Heng Shi believe him when, before pieces could even assemble in his head, a wave of nausea rushed up without warning, forcing him to dash into a nearby restroom and retch.
He braced himself against the sink. Just as he finally managed to catch his breath, he turned his head to find Heng Shi standing right behind him. “You wouldn’t happen to want to say that talking to me is so disgusting that it made you throw up, would you?”
Zou Beiqi had nothing to say. Heng Shi stepped forward and reached out to support him. “I’ve booked a checkup for you. Let’s go line up now.”
Even though it was evening and a non-working day, the hospital was still very crowded. Zou Beiqi followed alongside Heng Shi, passing quite a few couples accompanying pregnant partners for checkups along the way, among whom were male expectant parents. Zou Beiqi constantly felt a sense of detachment from reality.
Waiting in line for an hour, checking for ten minutes. Zou Beiqi walked out of the examination room and soon arrived at the self-service machine to print his report. Although he didn’t understand many of the medical terms, the words “three weeks of gestation” were hard to miss no matter what.
How was he actually pregnant?
The original novel’s plot wasn’t supposed to go like this!
Zou Beiqi froze in place, momentarily not knowing how to react. Heng Shi snatched the report from his hand, clearly grasping the crucial information within it as well. He curved his lips in an unfathomable smirk. “Qiqi, turns out you dislike me this much, telling lies like that just to draw a clear line between us.”
“I didn’t intentionally lie, and I never thought I would get pregnant.”
“Is that so? Zou Beiqi, I really can’t read you.” Heng Shi rested one palm on Zou Beiqi’s lower abdomen. “Just recently you were willing to borrow money from me, but with a child, you never thought to come ask me for money. What is it that you actually want?”
“You can just consider that I changed my mind. I don’t need anything right now.”
“Very well, then it’s my turn to need you.” Heng Shi folded the report neatly, shoved it into Zou Beiqi’s pocket, and uttered the second half of his sentence with completely flat emotion. “Regarding marriage, think about it.”
Ah?
Zou Beiqi felt a deep sense of foreboding. This plot had bolted like a wild horse whose reins had snapped, impossible to pull back. However, recalling the tragic ending of Zou Beiqi in the original book, he felt he had better try to rescue himself.
He had even gotten pregnant with a child, meaning he and the primary male lead had genuinely gone to bed; so what about the primary male lead’s love interest? Could the primary male lead’s love interest still follow the original book’s plot? Wouldn’t something have already gone wrong?
What other plot elements had changed that he didn’t know about?
After thinking it over through various angles, he decided to test the waters. “Do you know a person named Xie Jingyuan?”
“Who?”
A male doctor. Was the progress this slow, with the primary male lead not even knowing the primary male lead’s love interest?
“Carrying my child while bringing up another man’s name, Qiqi, that’s not a good habit.” Heng Shi’s tone sounded calm, yet his gaze was rather stern. “I state in advance, I don’t advise you to still care about other men while pregnant, let alone flirt with other men. If you agree to this marriage, do it even less. Even if you must do it, don’t let me or anyone else find out. I don’t want to hop online one day and see gossip news about me wearing a green hat, understand?”
Zou Beiqi sighed inwardly to himself. “I’m not interested in men.”
“Not interested in men, yet you slept with a man?”
“I did it for my dad.”
“Women won’t do either. In short, once you have my child, you need to behave a bit. Can you understand that, Qiqi?” Heng Shi pronounced those final two words with extra force, devoid of any intimacy a nickname should carry.
“Don’t call me that. My parents aren’t around; there’s no need to act.” Zou Beiqi paused. “And thank you for not letting my parents know about the messy stuff between you and me.”
“I’m not interested in things like driving patients into the emergency room. There will probably be plenty of situations where you’ll need to cooperate with me for an act in the future. You’d better adapt in advance.” Heng Shi moved closer to him and spoke. “Regardless of what happens, you won’t be able to avoid interacting with me in the future. There’s no need for the atmosphere between us to be too tense, lest your bad mood affects the child.”
“Whatever, think what you want.” Zou Beiqi only cared about the plot’s direction now. If he married Heng Shi, what about Xie Jingyuan? Wouldn’t the plot completely collapse?
Well, rather than that, it had pretty much already collapsed.
Of course, the relational issues of the primary characters weren’t what he cared about; the key point was that the condition of the primary male lead’s love interest likely related to his own little life. Yet judging by the current progress, Heng Shi hadn’t gotten intertwined with Xie Jingyuan in the slightest.
Zou Beiqi increasingly failed to grasp where this world was heading.
Zou Beiqi was personally driven home by Heng Shi. Before the latter was about to leave, he mentioned that he would dispense medicine from his laboratory in a while, which would help alleviate early pregnancy symptoms.
In the end, he didn’t forget to remind him once more to seriously consider the matter of marriage.
He lay in bed, touching his currently still flat abdomen. Marriage was no trivial matter; he didn’t want to make a hasty decision, but the child inside his belly acted like a silent urge.
Without warning, Zou Beiqi recalled how his father used to work hard to support the family when he was little, always leaving early and coming home late. He was still young and not very sensible back then; when his father came home from work exhausted, he still had to play with him. Once, he accidentally caught a glimpse of his father falling asleep unknowingly right in the middle of working at the computer.
He was too tired. Recalling that period, Zou Beiqi finally understood the hardship of his father carrying the family’s responsibilities all by himself. He had always watched children being taken away by their mothers at the kindergarten gate, asking his father why Mom didn’t come to see him, did she really not want him anymore?
The palm Zou Beiqi pressed against his belly grew slightly warm; he didn’t want the child to lack another father.
The phone by his bedside vibrated. Picking it up, Zou Beiqi discovered that Heng Shi had proactively added him on WeChat: You don’t need to worry about the money issue; I will cover the expenses for your father and your prenatal care. I’m not often free, so if you can’t reach me, find Yan Ze. This is his WeChat.
Zou Beiqi’s fingers paused for a moment before he continued typing: Heng Shi, why must you marry me?
Heng Shi: I don’t want to be the kind of person who abandons their own child.
Everything was for the sake of the child. On this point, Zou Beiqi and Heng Shi had reached a surprising consensus.
Zou Beiqi hesitated for a moment before finally typing out a line: When are we getting married?
Heng Shi personally came over to deliver medicine to Zou Beiqi, with sticky notes attached to each medication detailing the usage and dosage carefully marked on them. He placed the items in a conspicuous spot in the house before stepping out the door together with the other.
“Have you ever drank alcohol? Earlier at the bar.” Heng Shi asked just before starting the car.
“No, smelling the scent makes me feel sick.”
“That’s good.” Heng Shi started the vehicle. “Appetite changes in the early stages, morning sickness, hypersomnia, fatigue, and dizziness are all normal, so there’s no need to worry too much.”
Zou Beiqi hadn’t felt a real sense of it while in the car, but until the marriage certificate was held tightly in his palm, he realized that the major milestone he once thought of in life had just drifted down so lightly with a small booklet.
He looked at the marriage certificate in Heng Shi’s hand that was identical to his own, his gaze unconsciously drifting upward to the other’s face. The expression showed not the slightest ripple, as if he were holding a tourist brochure handed out on the street.
Sigh, am I really going to spend a lifetime with someone this lukewarm and full of hidden thoughts? Zou Beiqi thought silently.
“Why are you looking at me?” Heng Shi noticed his gaze. “Is something wrong?”
“No, let’s head back.” Zou Beiqi consciously took the passenger seat.
Heng Shi blurted out unexpectedly. “Are there many things at your home?”
“Huh?” Why did this guy speak so cryptically, Zou Beiqi complained inwardly.
“We’ve already gotten the certificate. It’s entirely reasonable for you to move in with me.” Heng Shi’s fingertips tapped rapidly across his phone screen. “I’ll have the housekeeper tidy up a new room for you first.”