At almost seven in the evening, Zhou Mi left the company and walked into the subway station.

Mingling in the bustling crowd, her eyes followed a pregnant woman who boarded the train. The pregnant woman didn’t look well, her hair loosely tied in a low bun. Her prominently protruding belly seemed to contain a bomb, causing the crowd to part like the sea around her.

A man carrying a briefcase hurriedly stood up to offer her his seat.

The pregnant woman thanked him and unhurriedly sat down, her face as calm as if she were naturally entitled to such privileges.

Zhou Mi stood still in front of her, staring at her belly in a daze, until the woman gave her a puzzled glance, which made Zhou Mi uncomfortably shift her gaze.

The middle-aged woman sitting next to the pregnant woman looked at her belly several times before starting a conversation: “How many months along are you? It must be seven months, right?”

The pregnant woman smiled: “Eight months.”

The middle-aged woman had a congratulatory expression: “Then it’s almost time! You’ll be liberated soon!”

“Yes,” the pregnant woman unconsciously placed her hand on her abdomen. “It’s inconvenient to do anything now.”

“Where’s your husband? He’s not accompanying you,” the middle-aged woman expressed dissatisfaction on her behalf. “You should be more careful at this stage.”

The pregnant woman paused for a few seconds: “He had something to do today.”

It was also at this moment that Zhou Mi turned her eyes away, no longer looking at the two of them, belatedly realizing she had been overly focused on this pregnant woman.

She quickly found the reason.

It was because she had gained a new understanding of her own identity, like some kind of biological instinct that could keenly sense one of her kind.

After her cousin had a miscarriage, she would often stare at pregnant women passing by in shopping malls or children running around when out with Zhou Mi, because she had briefly and expectantly been a mother herself.

After returning home, Zhou Mi threw herself, along with her bag, onto the bed, completely exhausted.

Her mother asked from outside: “You’re back quite early today. Have you eaten?”

Zhou Mi raised her voice to reply: “No.”

Her mother said irritably, “Then why did you go straight to your room as soon as you got back? Come out and eat. Do you want to wait until the food gets cold?”

“Oh—” Zhou Mi let out a breath, rolled off the bed, and slipped on her slippers.

The dining table was set with two dishes and a soup, one of which was steamed bass, garnished with green and red pepper strips, presented with great care.

The fish’s eyes were dim and pale white, but for some reason, Zhou Mi felt it was still alive and glaring at her hatefully, making her feel nauseated.

But her mother was like a chef promoting her signature dish: “Quick, try this. I just learned a new way to make soy sauce on my phone.”

Zhou Mi forced herself to suppress her aversion and, to save face, picked up a piece and put it in her mouth.

Fish, which she used to enjoy eating, now tasted extremely fishy and unpleasant.

Realizing the reason, Zhou Mi painfully swallowed it down, afraid her mother would notice something.

She smiled, pressing her lips together: “It’s very fresh.”

Then she asked: “Where’s Dad? Working overtime?”

“Yes,” her mother was very pleased with her praise and picked out a large piece of fish belly meat to put in Zhou Mi’s bowl. “Eat more. I don’t even know if he’s coming back tonight.”

Zhou Mi thought to herself: Kill me now.

Then she watched her mother, as usual, set aside the fish head and suck on it, holding it with both hands.

The sight made Zhou Mi’s heart ache, and her eyes quickly heated up. She lowered her head and began eating rice vigorously.

This was terrible.

Terrible.

After showering and returning to her bedroom, Zhou Mi locked the door, opened her laptop, and typed in what she wanted to search for:

“Can I alone…”

Unexpectedly, the first suggestion in the Baidu search bar was: Can I go for an abortion alone?

Zhou Mi immediately laughed out loud, a brief, light “Ha.”

Her rock-bottom mood somehow lifted slightly. So many people were in the same boat as her. The white screen reflected in Zhou Mi’s eyes made them shine brightly. With an Ah Q spirit, she clicked on it and found that all the advice was: It’s best to have someone accompany you.

It’s best to have someone accompany you.

If she parsed those words literally, didn’t that just mean “it’s not completely impossible without someone accompanying you”?

Zhou Mi was determined to resolve this matter quietly without anyone knowing. She quickly asked Ye Yan for a day off on WeChat, using the excuse that Zhang Lian had taught her earlier.

Ye Yan was a quite reasonable boss, and since Zhou Mi had performed well during her internship, she agreed without asking for details.

After making an appointment with a gynecologist through a medical app on her phone, Zhou Mi let out a breath as if releasing something, feeling that her mood wasn’t so terrible anymore.

She even felt somewhat moved by her decisiveness and efficiency.

With everything arranged, Zhou Mi had a decent night’s sleep.

The weather wasn’t good the next day, with a drizzle. She left home at seven.

Her mother was surprised that she was leaving so early, but Zhou Mi remained composed, saying she needed to get some materials from school first.

After getting out of the taxi, Zhou Mi opened her umbrella and heard her heartbeat, as chaotic as the dense raindrops above her head.

The hospital was bustling with people coming and going. By the time she reached the waiting area of the department, it was crowded. Women wearing masks sat there with numb and indifferent expressions, in various postures and appearances—some with elaborate makeup, others with wrinkles covering their faces.

This was Zhou Mi’s first time in such a place. Her face showed slight embarrassment, and she instinctively walked around, avoiding the most crowded areas.

Unable to find a place to settle, she could only stand by the wall and wait.

Worried about running into someone she knew, she purposely pulled her mask up high and kept her head down the whole time, aimlessly scrolling through Weibo without reading a single word.

After standing for who knows how long, Zhou Mi heard her name called out in a mechanical female voice, one syllable at a time: “Number 042, Zhou Mi, please proceed to Regular Clinic Room One.”

Zhou Mi was stunned for a moment.

The slightly older nurse at the guidance desk called out sharply: “Is Zhou Mi here?”

Zhou Mi blushed to her ears, hurriedly glanced at the red numbered list on the display screen.

It was indeed her turn.

She nervously put her phone back in her pocket, clutched her consultation card tightly, and walked quickly into the stark white corridor.

—

The attending doctor was a young, fair-skinned woman whose eyes above the mask looked somewhat stern.

Zhou Mi handed her the consultation card and medical record, then stood stiffly by the desk, somewhat at a loss.

“Sit down.” After scanning the card, the doctor looked at her strangely.

Zhou Mi hurriedly sat down, placing both hands on her thighs, unconsciously making slight fists.

“Zhou Mi,” the doctor casually confirmed her name and asked, “What’s the matter?”

Zhou Mi took a deep breath: “I’m pregnant.”

The doctor glanced at the display screen, clicked the mouse a couple of times, then looked back: “Did you test it at home yourself?”

Zhou Mi nodded, took out the pregnancy test strip from her pocket, and placed it on the table in front of her.

The doctor raised her eyebrows and glanced at it: “When was your last period?”

Zhou Mi thought for a moment and gave the date.

The doctor nodded slightly: “Do you want to do another examination to further confirm?”

Zhou Mi’s hands had somehow become entwined, her chest slightly rising: “I want to terminate it.”

At that moment, the doctor’s expression became somewhat complex: “You’re not particularly young.”

Zhou Mi swallowed and began reciting the script she had prepared the night before: “I’m still pursuing my master’s degree. I don’t want a child right now.”

The doctor asked: “What about your partner?”

Zhou Mi’s eye twitched impatiently: “We’ve already discussed it.”

The doctor raised her eyebrows noncommittally.

Seeing her subtle expression, Zhou Mi anxiously asked: “In my current condition, can I have a medical abortion?”

The doctor said, “Hard to say, need to check first. Let’s do a transvaginal ultrasound and see.”

Transvaginal ultrasound.

This term was relatively unfamiliar to Zhou Mi.

She used a more familiar term: “An ultrasound?”

The doctor made an “mm” sound: “A transvaginal ultrasound.”

She could roughly imagine what kind of examination this was. Zhou Mi’s eyes widened in alarm, and fear rose in her heart.

But the doctor had already indifferently written out the examination slip, then glanced at her: “Remember to empty your bladder before the examination.”

—

When she walked out of the ultrasound room holding the examination slip, Zhou Mi’s legs were weak, making it difficult to stand.

She found a chair at the end of the corridor and sat down.

This was the first time she had known of such an examination, having to face cold instruments in a position that was humiliating to the point of nearly stripping away her personhood. She had been in such a position before, but that was an entirely different experience. The current situation made her feel like this was a kind of irony and punishment for her past recklessness.

During the procedure, she bit her teeth hard, but due to extreme panic, she still involuntarily made sounds. The doctor operating the probe said emotionlessly from the side: “It doesn’t hurt, right? You need to relax. How can you feel comfortable when you’re so tense?”

It wasn’t painful.

It was just like having a solid embarrassment moving around freely inside her body.

Zhou Mi felt as if her entire being had been penetrated, with an indescribable discomfort. So the moment she came out, she began to cry, her tears blurring her vision to the point where she couldn’t even see the results on the slip.

She also didn’t dare to look.

As if suffering from a severe cold, her nasal passages were completely blocked, her brain muddled. She was constantly being pulled down to the ground by a kind of chaotic and heavy opposing force.

Zhou Mi kept wiping her tears with her hands. Passersby would all give her an extra glance, but she didn’t care about losing face.

The fearless are the ignorant. It was only after truly experiencing it that she realized she wasn’t strong at all, nor was she brave at all.

Without any support, she was terrified now, completely unable to imagine the various situations she would still have to face.

Zhou Mi took out her phone from her shoulder bag, hunched over as she scrolled through her contacts. Her tears dripped onto the screen with plops, causing it to malfunction several times.

She wiped it with her sleeve. “Mother,” “Dad,” “Cousin,” “Yanyan”… a string of names flashed beneath her eyelids, but there wasn’t one she dared to actually call.

This was truly terrible.

There couldn’t be a more terrible experience than this.

Except for Zhang Lian, no one knew about her situation, and even Zhang Lian couldn’t feel what she was going through at this moment.

Zhou Mi bit down hard on her molars.

She had changed her mind.

Since both parties were responsible, why should she let Zhang Lian off so easily?

At the very least, during this difficult time, she had to drag him to the scene, make him witness her predicament, her panic, and then reflect on his sins, his wrongdoings.

At the very least, before this mistake was eliminated, they were in the same trench, grasshoppers tied to the same rope.

She drew in a long breath, scrolled back to the “Brother Wolf” line, and pressed down with determination.

The phone only rang twice before being answered.

Zhou Mi pressed her lips together and, with a heavy nasal voice, called him directly by name: “Zhang Lian.”

The other end didn’t speak right away, seemingly waiting for her to continue.

“Can you come… here…” Zhou Mi started crying again, completely unable to control her shameful sobbing voice, though she had been so strong just the day before. “I’m alone at the hospital for an examination. I just had an ultrasound, and I don’t know what to do.”

From the other end: “Which hospital?”

“Just… just People’s Hospital.” She was completely overwhelmed by vulnerability, her words stuttering and unclear.

Zhang Lian said, “I’m coming now. I’ll be there in about half an hour.”

“Okay.” Zhou Mi responded, feeling as if she had an ally, her heart oddly moved, and she couldn’t help but sob again.

The man didn’t hang up.

She waited for a while, and the screen still showed they were connected.

Zhou Mi said, “Hello?”

Zhang Lian: “Mm.” Indicating he was still there.

Zhou Mi asked curiously: “Why don’t you hang up?”

Zhang Lian said without much emotion: “Just listening for a while longer.”

Zhou Mi was blowing her nose with a tissue and didn’t immediately understand: “Listening to what?”

Zhang Lian laughed once, very obviously, as if deliberately letting her hear it, the meaning self-evident.

“Are you crazy?” Zhou Mi took a breath and hung up.

A moment later, Zhang Lian sent a text message, asking her to send him her specific location.

Zhou Mi didn’t respond, but her heart was much calmer now, able to properly examine her ultrasound results. There were some terms she had previously known nothing about: “anteverted uterus,” “gestational sac,” and several numbers in centimeters.

After roughly reading through the medical information she found on her phone, she couldn’t help but compare the size to her fingernail, then shuddered all over and turned off her phone.

This process stopped Zhou Mi’s tears, her emotions no longer pouring out like a flood, smoothing into a gentle breeze.

Turning her head, she saw a man rounding the corner into the corridor.

Zhang Lian had arrived faster than she had imagined.

Almost everyone waiting in the ultrasound area looked at him, as he was dressed in a white shirt and black pants, noticeably tall, with long legs striding rapidly.

His every move carried just the right aura, as if entering a scene in a film, the air calling out “action” that only he could hear, causing him to become the main character in every environment.

He also quickly located Zhou Mi, his brows slightly furrowing, then quickly relaxing.

Zhou Mi stood up from the chair, momentarily at a loss, not knowing what attitude or expression to show him. The breakdown and crying during their earlier phone call had already drained too much of her energy, making the situation extremely awkward.

She thought for a moment, and before he approached, she held out the examination slip horizontally, using it as a shield or a boundary line.

Her movement was a bit sudden, causing Zhang Lian to abruptly stop and take it.

He barely glanced at it before lowering his hand, then took something out of his pants pocket and handed it to her.

Zhou Mi took it and found it was a well-packaged white mask, folded once by him.

Zhou Mi unfolded it, looked up at him in confusion, and her eyes were bright red.

The man had probably rushed here directly from the parking lot without an umbrella. There were damp marks on the shoulders of his shirt, and moisture remained on his meticulously combed black hair.

He looked down at her: “Not crying anymore?”

Zhou Mi reflexively stared back, her eyes not friendly.

Zhang Lian’s expression remained unchanged as he raised his chin slightly, indicating the mask on her face that was pulled down and already soaked through: “Put this on. Yours probably can’t hold any more tears.”