The yellowish lamplight filled the bedroom as the woman reclined against the headboard, staring blankly at her phone. The phone screen was dark, reflecting her blurred features—a face that could easily be engulfed by her hair, filled with dejection and lethargy.
The woman slowly pushed herself upright and smoothed out the wrinkled thin blanket. She paused when she saw her prominently protruding belly. She stared at it for a while, her row of snow-white teeth unconsciously biting her somewhat chapped lips. Her empty hand slowly caressed her abdomen, rising and falling, then rising again—slight blue veins emerged on her hand, and the palm resting on her belly carried a hint of hostility.
Suddenly, she felt a strange rolling sensation beneath her palm. It felt like something round was rubbing against her palm, then that thing disappeared somewhere, leaving her palm empty, and her heart feeling equally hollow. As she searched around in confusion, an inadvertent sense of loss leaked from her eyes, until—something bumped into her palm again. The woman burst into laughter, her previous lethargy and dejection completely vanishing. Her gaze focused on her belly, carefully chasing those slight movements that went up and down, using her palm to feel the playfulness and vitality of the fetus within.
Finally, her belly grew still. According to the doctor, this meant the baby was tired. The woman also relaxed, letting out a long sigh as she leaned back against the headboard. Though a smile still hung at the corners of her mouth, her eyes had grown cold.
The woman lifted her hand to gather her messy hair, took another deep breath, and dialed the last phone number. The record showed that the number had called at five in the afternoon.
“Oh! You called me! Have you made up your mind? About the divorce?”
“You say you’re Hu Cheng’s mistress, and that he agreed to marry you. Do you have evidence?”
“Hmm! Indeed! I have photos and recordings. Do you want them? I’ll send them to you on WeChat!” The cheerful and joyful response from the other end of the phone revealed her inexperience in life.
“Fine. I want to see them. But I don’t use WeChat, and my email has been blocked for a long time. How can you send them to me?”
“Such a housewife! What era are you living in, not even having WeChat? Do you use Weibo? Do you have an Instagram account? Do you know what Facebook is?”
The voice on the other end rambled on while the woman lying on the bed remained expressionless as if she was hearing mere noise. Only the bed sheets, crumpled in her grip beside the bed, betrayed her emotions.
“Although your email is blocked, you should still know how to use it, right? I’ll create an email account and give you the username and password, then you can check it yourself.”
“Fine, I’ll wait.”
The other party hung up. She lifted her head, the veins in her hand rising and falling, rising and falling, but ultimately she didn’t smash the phone.
The other party quickly sent over the email account and password. The woman took another deep breath. She did have an email account and used Weibo—this roundabout approach was only because she understood Hu Cheng. She knew what kind of women annoyed him: for instance, idiots who actively exposed things he didn’t want to talk about and left evidence that he couldn’t explain away!
An emotional storm like a Pacific hurricane slowly crawled up from a bottomless abyss, rapidly consuming her. As she prepared herself for battle, her eyelids swept down, and caught sight of her protruding belly.
This child…
Why were there so many regrets in this world?
The woman moved her gaze away and clicked on the email. Her finger paused as it hovered over that message. She could imagine the contents inside—once opened, it would likely burn away her last shred of rationality! Her fingers trembled slightly as her gaze moved from the phone to her steady belly in the warm lamplight, hesitating.
Unconsciously, her trembling fingers slowly moved to her belly—he wasn’t moving. He was sleeping in his mother’s womb, embracing complete trust. Did he know that his mother, his protector in this world, had already decided not to keep him?
The woman suddenly remembered seeing that black round mass during the ultrasound. When the doctor’s instrument moved near him, his little hands had made a defensive gesture!
Was he being shy? Did he have feelings too? Were his emotions connected to hers? Did he receive happiness, sadness, joy, and despair from her?
Tears slowly rolled down the woman’s cheeks.
This woman’s name was Ning Yue. She had previously lost a child and suffered some physical damage due to carelessness. Her husband, Hu Cheng, was a capable man who had strongly urged her to quit her job and rest, saying she could return to work after recovering. This rest stretched to two years, and whether she had recovered or not was unclear, but in the third year, she was pregnant again! Work was impossible—from the early pregnancy vomiting, low pregnancy hormones, and high risk of miscarriage, to the mid-term high blood pressure, high blood sugar, various dietary controls, and medications. Now past thirty weeks, everyone had breathed a sigh of relief, and Ning Yue had been without work for three years.
Ever since the doctor told the Hu family that the child in her belly was a boy, she had become a first-class protected species. Her mother-in-law, who used to find fault with everything, made a complete 180-degree turn in attitude toward her, carefully protecting her in every way. Except for Hu Cheng who remained too busy to come home, Ning Yue had essentially become the queen of the household.
The door sounded—Hu Cheng had returned.
Ning Yue raised her head, her gaze cold yet unable to hide a touch of softness in her eyes. She didn’t know that the moment she made her choice, she could never return to the past!
Hu Cheng looked at the text messages on Ning Yue’s phone, then glanced at her. From her expression, he read the message of a woman about to go crazy. However, Ning Yue was waiting for his reaction.
“You believe this?” Hu Cheng contemptuously returned the phone to Ning Yue. “She was just a college student who came to help during the company’s exhibition. Young and naive, I spoke to her a bit more, and she started having wild thoughts. These students, ‘ thinking is too complicated. Next time I’ll talk to the procurement department, people like this should be blacklisted, never to work with us again!”
Ning Yue smiled and asked, “What about the email? She’s certain, shouldn’t we see for ourselves? However…” Ning Yue paused, looking up directly at Hu Cheng, “Should you look or should I?”
Hu Cheng looked at Ning Yue, seeming somewhat disbelieving yet somewhat relieved. He carefully crouched beside the bed, reaching out to stroke Ning Yue’s belly: “Yueyue, we’re a family. You and our son—you’re my family. I need to protect you both, you must trust me. That email, do you want me to look at it?” He emphasized the word “you” heavily.
If Ning Yue wanted to make trouble and wanted to separate, she could have opened the email herself and thrown it at him. Why ask here who should look? Ning Yue was giving him a chance.
Ning Yue seemed somewhat dazed, pausing for a moment before saying: “You’re right, we’re a family. Hu Cheng, you’re my husband, my closest person. If I don’t believe you, who can I believe?” Ning Yue suddenly sighed, “Yes, I believe you, I must believe you! No matter what others say, as long as you say it didn’t happen, I’ll believe it didn’t.”
This was an enormous gamble, and also the final bottom line. Ning Yue looked directly at Hu Cheng, while her hand pressed against her abdomen. She felt slight movement from within, which cleared away the violence and anger in her heart. She had gambled, betting on a future without light, betting on a stable life that could exist without love and trust, maintained only through exchange!
Hu Cheng felt nothing special; Ning Yue’s words had made him breathe a sigh of relief. Ning Yue was just going to let this matter go like this. Thinking this, his face unconsciously relaxed. However, seeing Ning Yue’s solemn expression, he immediately realized the matter wasn’t over.
Hu Cheng stood up and called their company’s advertising and public relations procurement manager, tactfully and politely mentioning the girl’s name, indicating that she was somewhat unstable, her interactions with audiences at the exhibition were inappropriate, and she had sticky fingers… The other end seemed very shocked and angry. Ning Yue vaguely heard them talking about complaining to the girl’s company and not working with them in the future. The voice wasn’t very clear; Ning Yue just felt a constant ringing in her ears.
Then, she saw Hu Cheng make another call. This time he called the girl by name, saying he didn’t know her and didn’t want any entanglement with her. He told her not to harass his family anymore, or he wouldn’t be polite.
Ning Yue listened, feeling a vast emptiness in her heart.
She seemed to be walking into a wilderness, a place of chaos, where day and night didn’t matter, direction didn’t matter, and there was only despair-inducing desolation and loneliness. Bitter wind and rain blurred her vision, and bone-chilling cold wrapped around her consciousness, only her palm still held a slight warmth, like a tiny flame, weak but stubbornly burning. Ning Yue unconsciously gathered that thread of warmth, feeling it, relying on that slight warmth to support herself as she continued forward…