Chapter 1: I’m Pregnant with Your Child

It was a rainy evening, and the cold wind, swirling with fallen leaves, was rampaging through the city. Leyao and I stood under umbrellas at the entrance of the city’s Maternal and Child Health Hospital. Amid the bustling crowd, she looked at me with a slightly pale face.

“Zhaoyang, I’m pregnant.”

I was stunned for a moment, then widened my eyes and said, “Go find whoever got you pregnant! Why did you call me out here?”

“I’ve only slept with you in the past year. If not you, then who else should I go to?”

“Are you saying I only slept with you in the past year? Do you believe that?”

“Zhaoyang, are you even a real man?”

“We’re all just having fun, right? Don’t pin this on me now. If you want me to take responsibility, show me some proof. Don’t play games with me and expect me to take your word for it. Who in their right mind would want to be a fool and take responsibility for something like this?”

Leyao was silent for a while before she said to me, “The child is already gone. What proof do I have left?”

I became quite angry, “Do you think I’m some kind of sucker? You had the child removed, and then…” I raised my hand and then, feeling helpless, said, “Then you come to me saying it’s my child, Zhaoyang’s child. Is your act of innocence fake or am I really that stupid? Leyao, we’re both adults. Can’t we handle this in a more decent way?”

Leyao looked at me with her lips tightly pressed together. After a while, she said, “You don’t want to take responsibility, right? Then tomorrow I’ll go to your company…”

“What the hell! Is that necessary?” I shouted angrily.

Leyao continued to look at me with her lips tightly pressed, but I thought she was a good actress. We met in a bar, had a one-night stand, and now she claims she’s only been with me in the past year. If I believed her, I’d be an idiot.

I didn’t want to get further entangled with her. I took out my wallet and pulled out all the crisp hundred-yuan notes and handed them to her, “You just want money, right? Take it, and don’t bother me anymore!”

Leyao didn’t say anything and didn’t try to stop me. She nodded and turned around, walking into the hospital under her umbrella, as if there were still some fees left to pay…

Watching her lonely back figure in the rain, I suddenly felt an indescribable emotion. Although I didn’t believe the child in her womb was mine, and although I was very annoyed with her, I felt she must be having a hard time now, otherwise she wouldn’t try to pin this on me.

After a long silence, I finally called out to her, “Wait…”

Leyao turned around and looked at me.

I pulled out a bank card from my wallet and handed it to her, “This card allows overdrafts. You just had surgery, buy yourself something to recover.”

But Leyao didn’t take it, “No need. Seeing you willing to take responsibility was my only purpose. I came to you because I didn’t want to be carelessly slept with and then carelessly get pregnant!”

…

In the bar, I was drinking alone, waiting for Fangyuan, my only close friend and colleague in this city.

Since the first day I came to this bar, I had seen too many lonely women and empty men drinking all kinds of liquor here, either silent or looking for something called “drunken life and dreamlike death” with eyes full of desire.

In fact, when we cast off our physical bodies from the day and let our souls get lost in this colorful and dazzling world, we had already been living a drunken life and dreaming a dreamlike death.

I forgot from which night I started to regard this place as my home. I liked the women here who swayed their hips, the flickering lights, the colorful drinks, the smell of perfume mixed with tobacco, and this drunken life and dreamlike death. In this drunken life and dreamlike death, I carved my messy past into a tombstone.

Lighting a cigarette, I peeled off the thin film from the cigarette pack and put it in front of my eyes, looking at the flickering lights. My body swayed along with the lights refracted through the film, and I seemed to see a kind of decadent, careless life! I couldn’t help but get lost in it!

…

Fangyuan took the film from my hand, and suddenly my world became clear again.

“What’s the rush to find me for?” Fangyuan put down his briefcase and took a cigarette from my pack, lighting it.

“Lend me some money. I’ve been scammed!”

“Did you get another girl pregnant?” Fangyuan said as if it was nothing new.

“Like hell! This time I was really scammed…”

“Who scammed you this time?”

“Why do you ask so many questions?”

“I’ve been lending you thousands every time. At least let me know who the hell is taking my money!”

“Leyao.” I lit a cigarette angrily.

“That fashion model?”

“Of course her. Her circle is so messed up. She says she only slept with me in the past year. Do you believe that? Fangyuan, if this happened to you, would you believe it?” I pounded the table with my fingers in excitement, making a clattering sound.

“This kind of thing would never happen to me. Besides, she wouldn’t scam you for just a few thousand, right? Last month, all the promotional posters for our department store were shot by her. The fee alone was over ten thousand…”

I interrupted Fangyuan with disdain, “Don’t you know what kind of lifestyle she has? Can ten thousand yuan last her a month? Now she’s gotten into trouble with someone else, can’t afford to fix it, and thought of me, her cheap fling… I’m such an idiot. I shouldn’t have kindly introduced her to our company in the first place. I paid her a lot of money, and now she turns around and scams me. Does she have any professional conscience at all!”

Fangyuan didn’t pay attention to my anger. He lowered his voice and asked me, “When you slept with her, did you use protection?”

I thought for a long time, only remembering that I was almost blackout drunk at the time. I couldn’t recall whether I used a condom or not. After a while, I said, “I did… Otherwise, I wouldn’t say I was scammed!”

Fangyuan looked at me suspiciously. After a long time, he sighed and said to me, “Zhaoyang, we’ve been friends for almost ten years. Sometimes I really want to advise you. I know that breaking up with Jianwei was a big blow to you, but it’s been two years. You really don’t need to keep degrading yourself like this… Youth doesn’t wait. Find a girlfriend and settle down, okay?”

When the name Jianwei was mentioned again, I instinctively hesitated before saying, “Stop worrying about me. I’m doing just fine!”

“You’re not short of troubles, right?”

…

Fangyuan tried to counsel me for half a while, and I impatiently responded for half a while. Finally, he left with the remark “Mud cannot be propped up on a wall,” taking his dissatisfaction with him, but he forgot about the money I had asked him for.

Luckily, after frequenting the bar for two years and often bringing friends to consume here, I had become quite familiar with the bar owner, so this round of drinking expenses was temporarily put on credit.

Walking out of the bar, I held my umbrella and walked on the rain-soaked street, truly experiencing what it meant to be utterly alone. I had struggled in this city for two years, but what I gained was endless emptiness and loneliness. To escape this poison-like emptiness and loneliness, I had to live with a mask that concealed my shame. With this mask, I could indulge myself in a life of recklessness and feel at ease.

But no matter how hard I struggled at the edge of pain, she would never come back again!

…

I walked aimlessly for several stops before finally returning to my residential community. It was an old community, so old that there wasn’t even a property management company. When I first came here a year ago, I was told by the aunties in the community that this community was built in the early 1990s. After being eroded by the long years, every building in the community looked so dilapidated, yet each was tightly packed next to another, as if afraid of being lonely. So it seemed as if each building had a life of its own. This made me think: in the dead of night, they might exchange a few whispers to relieve their decades of loneliness.

Holding a cigarette in my mouth, I took out my keys from my pocket and walked toward the building where I lived. This was the only building in the community with ivy. Every summer, the south-facing walls would be very green. If these buildings had genders, this building would undoubtedly be a woman, a cold woman.

Someone who often feels sorrow for her!

…

To my surprise, a red Audi Q7 was parked in front of this old building. From my impression, in the two years I have lived here, this community seemed to have never seen a car worth more than 500,000 yuan.

Without thinking too much, I whistled as I walked up the stairs to my apartment. When I reached the top floor, I was surprised to find that the door was slightly ajar. I clearly remembered locking it when I left. Instinctively, I thought a thief had come to my house. I calmed myself down and remembered that I hadn’t paid the rent to Old Li, the landlord, for two months. It was likely that Old Li had come to collect the rent.

Pushing open the door, I found the landlord Old Li and a strange woman sitting on the sofa. On the coffee table was a set of Audi Q7 car keys, undoubtedly belonging to this strange girl downstairs.

Then a question flashed through my mind: What kind of power does Old Li, this petty and cunning man, have that he brought such a noble girl, as untouchable as a white lily, into this shabby house? This really confused me!…