Originally, Zhang Lian had no intention of involving anyone other than Zhou Mi in this unexpected incident.

But everything happened in such a disorderly yet natural way.

He had planned to return to Yi City in the afternoon, but the previous night he had a dream—his first dream about Zhou Mi. The setting had nothing to do with romance, although the girl in the dream was beautiful, like a little mermaid who had just come ashore, her entire body reflecting the watery white light of the silver sandy beach.

But the bizarre part was that when he walked toward her, she suddenly opened her mouth to reveal blood-red fangs. The impact of the image was almost identical to when he first saw a picture of a kuchisake-onna (slit-mouthed woman).

When he woke up in the hotel bed, Zhang Lian realized that he wasn’t as unconcerned and composed as he appeared. In his subconscious, there still existed elements of threat, rebellion, and impending crisis.

The source was that tiny bomb in Zhou Mi’s belly, even if its timer hadn’t truly started counting down yet.

No, perhaps it had already begun counting seconds.

He couldn’t delay any longer. So that night, Zhang Lian changed his flight to the morning.

After getting off the plane, Yi City’s familiar air and sunlight embraced him like an old lover, and the tension in Zhang Lian’s brow gradually eased.

While picking up his car, he received a call from his mother, Ms. Xun Fengzhi.

She asked if he could pick her up from F University. Her car seemed to be having some problems again—the trunk area made a low noise whenever she drove over bumps, even though she hadn’t placed anything there. The sound was even louder and more noticeable this morning, and she was afraid continuing to drive might cause a traffic accident.

Zhang Lian replied: If you’re still not planning to replace that antique of yours, the dealership will give you a lifetime warranty achievement award at the end of the year.

Xun Fengzhi said: Should I get one like yours?

Zhang Lian said: If you like it, I have no objection.

An hour later, his mother was sitting in his passenger seat.

She wore a misty blue shirt, her graying short hair permed into what looked like the wool curls popular among young girls recently. Though her color had faded, her vitality remained undiminished, as radiant as ever.

At school, she was a gentle, encouraging mentor, but in front of her son, she never spared her sharpness.

“It’s been a while. You seem to have aged a lot.” Her opening line was, predictably, a fabricated personal attack.

“Not at all,” Zhang Lian calmly looked at the road ahead.

“In all aspects,” Xun Fengzhi said, “The aura you carry now is even more old-fashioned than your father’s. Is this what happens when you’ve been steeped in capitalism for too long?”

Zhang Lian’s nostrils flared slightly: “Sorry, I only smell the car air freshener, not the literary and scholarly aroma of a literature professor.”

Xun Fengzhi laughed and began examining the interior of his car.

Zhang Lian’s car was a Porsche Cayenne Turbo with a 4.0T engine.

He bought it after returning to China. During his earlier years working in New York, he drove a second-hand Rossion Q1.

Both cars had somewhat flamboyant exteriors, but in Zhang Lian’s eyes, they were exceptionally calm, with smooth lines that carried a subtle tension.

Xun Fengzhi looked around for a while: “What’s so good about this car?”

Zhang Lian didn’t respond, knowing that once a debate started, the old lady wouldn’t stop and would devalue both him and the car to nothing with her literary translated tone.

Fortunately, she shifted her attention to what interested her most—storage space.

Storage, looking at storage in a car.

Zhang Lian resisted the urge to say, “Why not switch to an RV?” He guessed Xun Fengzhi might agree.

Suddenly, she opened the glove compartment below the passenger dashboard.

In that flash of a moment, Zhang Lian felt a slight tingling in his scalp as he realized he had overlooked a crucial detail.

Zhou Mi’s medical report was still inside.

Since the ultrasound film was quite large, and unless he was on a business trip, Zhang Lian didn’t like to and wouldn’t use a bag. The day before yesterday, in the morning before returning to the company, he had casually and carelessly stuffed it in there.

But now, it had noisily and dramatically transferred to his mother’s hands.

In his peripheral vision, Xun Fengzhi, who had been looking around since getting in the car, seemed to have been hit by a pause button, becoming a static screenshot.

Zhang Lian stopped at a red light, planning to give himself the same sixty seconds of preparation time—it had to be rigorous banter, a foolproof lie.

“Whose is this?” Xun Fengzhi’s tone rose incredulously high: “Zhou Mi? I have a student also named Zhou Mi!”

This exclamation severely disrupted Zhang Lian’s thought process.

The traffic light turned green, but his brain was no longer unobstructed.

Because after connecting all the clues at the fastest speed, he instantly realized that the “Zhou Mi” his mother mentioned should be the same Zhou Mi he knew.

Last night’s nightmare was indeed a harbinger of Murphy’s Law.

“You have a new girlfriend?”

“And got her pregnant?”

“Just checked these past two days?”

Xun Fengzhi held up the report, suddenly chattering like a busybody.

Zhang Lian’s hands remained steady on the steering wheel as he said with near honesty: “She’s not my girlfriend. She is indeed pregnant.”

He deliberately made these two sentences sound separate, without cause and effect, attempting to expand his mother’s range of speculation and direct it elsewhere.

But Xun Fengzhi had always been good at uncovering key points in a text: “Then how did this young girl’s pregnancy test report end up in your car?”

“I gave her a ride once, and she left it here.”

“Zhang Lian!” Xun Fengzhi’s face had sharply reddened, like a hysterical woman in a foreign novel: “No one can tell when you’re lying better than your mother, especially since you become calmer than usual when you do it!”

Zhang Lian exhaled softly: “She’s interning with me.”

“Do you have her WeChat?” Xun Fengzhi didn’t want to entertain his evasiveness anymore.

“Yes.”

“I have her WeChat too. I’d like to compare, you shouldn’t mind, right?”

Sly son, slyer mother.

—

Zhang Lian believed he had misjudged the situation. He should have directly said, “Yes, I have a new girlfriend named Zhou Mi.” At the very least, when the car pulled over to the side of the road, Xun Fengzhi’s attitude while reprimanding him would have been better than it was now.

She had also called his father to report his “egregious behavior” in detail, concluding with clichés: “We shouldn’t have sent him abroad for school in the first place. Since then, he hasn’t been as good as he was when he was little; he’s changed. Not only did he fail in love, but now he’s done something so lacking in decency. He’s over thirty, living in such a mess. Can you stand to see it?”

She put the call on speaker, deliberately letting him hear her husband’s constant agreement and approval.

Zhang Lian didn’t argue throughout, facing the windshield with a calm expression.

Women need to explode, while men keep quiet.

This was something he had learned the essence of from his father. The difference was that his father was more patient—he wouldn’t just silently receive, but would sometimes comply with his mother’s wishes to avoid more conflicts.

“I want to call Zhou Mi,” the little old lady demanded, holding his phone.

Zhang Lian finally showed some reaction, turning to look at her with a hint of pressure in his eyes: “Let me make the call.”

Having elders step in to solve problems was something he found most shameful.

But Xun Fengzhi had precisely grasped his dignity, knowing her son wouldn’t be improper enough to “snatch” the phone. She began looking through the contacts: “Why isn’t there a name ‘Zhou Mi’?”

Zhang Lian’s thumb brushed against the steering wheel: “Half Moon Serenade.”

The next moment, Ms. Xun’s eyes looked as if she wanted to devour him alive.

—

Due to his mother’s emergency approach being too abrupt, offensive, and self-centered, Zhang Lian couldn’t help but argue with her on the way to pick up Zhou Mi.

He advocated that a stable sexual relationship was a two-way choice, and if unexpected situations arose, they should be decided and handled by the parties involved after mutual discussion.

His mother, on the other hand, maintained that pregnancy without a formal relationship was an absolute harm, exploitation, and plunder of women.

Zhang Lian kept his composure: “We’re not even discussing the same premise.”

Having obtained her student’s agreement to meet, Xun Fengzhi’s agitation had somewhat subsided, and she became calmer: “You should take responsibility.”

Zhang Lian replied: “Tell me.”

“First, apologize to her,” Xun Fengzhi said seriously, “Then inquire about her marriage intentions, and finally visit her parents together with me and your father.”

Her three-step thinking made Zhang Lian inwardly astonished: “Are you writing a novel?”

“You should consider marriage now,” Xun Fengzhi sighed slightly.

Zhang Lian argued: “If pregnancy is harmful, exploitative, and plundering to women, then isn’t hasty marriage due to this unexpected situation also harmful, exploitative, and plundering to both parties?”

“What have you been exploited for? A sperm?” Xun Fengzhi was blunt: “You don’t need to sacrifice anything. In your contacts, she doesn’t even qualify for a name. If I hadn’t accidentally discovered this report, you would be harming my student. Right now, she’s still at the hospital, with a friend accompanying her. And you? Impeccably dressed, driving your Porsche?”

Zhang Lian surrendered to her conventionality: “Yes, I’m impeccably dressed, driving my Porsche to accompany you to pick her up.”

“Can you fix your attitude first?”

“This is a shared responsibility.”

“Don’t beat around the bush with me.”

“What I mean is,” Zhang Lian glanced at her, “Do you think your student is just as you perceive her to be?”

“Her private life is none of my business. But at least she performs well at school and is an excellent and kind girl.”

Zhang Lian’s lips curled slightly, as if saying, “Is that so?”

This subtle reaction didn’t escape Xun Fengzhi’s notice: “Zhang Lian, your expression just now made me very uncomfortable.”

Zhang Lian said flatly: “Your feudal oppression also makes me very uncomfortable. Finally found an opportunity to realize your selfish desires?”

Xun Fengzhi felt congested with anger: “Yes, you’re very trendy. Two years ago, you suddenly insisted on being anti-marriage, saying you’d manage your life well on your own. Your father and I have tried our best to respect your choices, turning a blind eye, not interfering with your relationships. And what’s the result? What kind of answer sheet have you turned in?”

She raised the ultrasound report in her hand: “An ultrasound report of another girl’s accidental pregnancy?”

As if passing final judgment, she flung it onto the center console with a whoosh: “If you won’t say it, I will.”