Chapter 1

My roommate bought a pregnancy test to bring her order up to the required total.

I teased her without thinking.

“Fine, but don't actually get two lines.”

“As if!” she laughed. “I've been single since the day I was born!”

Two hours later, she rushed out of the bathroom in a panic, grabbed me, and shook me hard.

“Oh my God. Look at this for me. Are those two lines?”

Su Jiarui came charging at me with the test while I was still wrestling with a braised chicken foot.

She was beside herself.

“Oh my God, stop eating! Look at this. Are those two lines?”

Unconcerned, I bit off a piece of skin and answered through a mouthful.

“What's the panic? Haven't you been single since birth?”

“Look!”

I finally spat out an intact bone and leaned over to glance at the tiny stick.

Two unmistakable lines stared back.

“It's only two lines, what's the—cough, cough—”

I nearly choked on my own spit.

“Holy shit. You're actually pregnant?”

“Whose is it? Which bastard?”

Su Jiarui looked at me as though she were about to die. She said nothing.

In the silence, I finally remembered.

Su Jiarui. Single since birth.

“Wait...”

I gave her a suspicious look.

“You haven't been seeing someone behind my back, have you? A baby can't just drop out of the sky. What is this, the Monkey King reborn?”

“Qin Huan...”

She looked ready to cry, but no tears came.

“We've been together since middle school. Don't you know whether I've ever dated anyone?”

“True.”

I rubbed my chin and nodded.

Three seconds later, my entire understanding of the world collapsed.

“Your baby's really the Monkey King reborn?”

Obviously, the Monkey King was out of the question.

That afternoon, Su Jiarui and I stood outside First People's Hospital.

The doctor who performed the ultrasound spoke coolly.

“The pregnancy is about a month along. Nothing appears wrong at present. Go home and rest. Make sure the expectant mother gets more nourishment.”

Su Jiarui asked anxiously, “Doctor, can I get pregnant all by myself?”

The doctor turned to look at her.

“Are you so happy you've lost your senses?”

Helpless, I could only support Jiarui as we slowly left.

Behind us, I could faintly hear the doctor talking to a nurse.

“Young people these days... Doesn't even know who the father is. What a mess their private lives must be.”

Me: “...”

Su Jiarui: “...”

After a while, I tugged her sleeve.

“Girl, be honest with me. Have you ever been to a bar or somewhere like that?”

“Girl...”

She threw back her head and shouted at the sky.

“Name one night you haven't seen me in the dorm!”

“This is so weird,” I muttered.

Traffic streamed past. We stood at the bus stop looking like a pair of lost children.

Su Jiarui was on the verge of tears.

“Qin Huan, what's happened to me?”

I turned and hugged her, gently patting her back.

“Whatever happened, this baby didn't come out of nowhere. Think carefully. Was there any time about a month ago when you lost consciousness?”

Her face had gone white, but she lowered her head and tried hard to remember.

After a long time, she suddenly shuddered and looked up.

“About a month ago, during rehearsals. Sun Lin and I were practicing in the auditorium with the others.”

She was clearly frightened, but forced herself to continue.

“I think I slept much longer than usual that afternoon. I didn't feel well when I woke up, either.”

Growing anxious, I pressed her.

“Was anyone else in the auditorium?”

“I don't remember.”

She searched her memory.

“But I definitely couldn't have been alone.”

Something felt wrong. This wasn't the time to work through it all, though.

I sighed.

“Let's ask Sun Lin first. She should be back at the dorm by now.”

“I don't remember.”

Sun Lin's tone was flat, almost dismissive.

I frowned.

“Sun Lin, this is important. Could you please try a little harder?”

“I remember the rehearsal. How am I supposed to remember everything else?”

She turned to hang a wet garment on the drying rack.

“If you're that curious, ask to check the security footage.”

“But I'm warning you, you'll probably come away empty-handed.”

There was something oddly cryptic about her words.

I turned and took Jiarui's hand.

“Come on. Let's check the footage.”

We were in too much of a hurry, our minds too tangled, to notice Sun Lin's terrifying pallor, or the eyes as still and empty as dead water.

The man in the security room was smiling at his phone. I wondered which lady he was messaging.

I led Jiarui over and asked to see the footage.

His smile faded a little.

“What date? Which location?”

“Around the middle of last month. The main auditorium.”

“I can't just let you look at the cameras.”

He looked uncomfortable.

“You need approval. Have you asked your academic adviser?”

Jiarui hesitated.

“Sir, it's really urgent. We may have left something valuable there. Could you make an exception and let us have a quick look?”

“No.”

He shook his head.

“They'd dock my pay.”

There was nothing for it. We hurried back toward the teaching block.

Our adviser was a very young man with a ferocious temper. He regularly scolded students to tears.

After following the winding corridor, we found his office door ajar.

I gathered my courage and knocked cautiously.

“Come in.”

“Sir...”

We pushed open the door.

“We'd like permission to check the security footage.”

He looked up from a thick, untidy stack of papers.

Behind his glasses, his eyes were frosty.

“What happened that you need the footage?”

Without a blush or a falter, Jiarui repeated our ridiculous excuse.

“You only remember to look after all this time?”

He snorted.

“What do you expect to find? Ask the cleaner whether she picked it up.”

I tried coaxing and pleading.

“Sir, we mainly want to establish whether we lost it in the auditorium that day. If it wasn't there, we can look somewhere else.”

He pushed up his glasses and snapped.

“Always losing this and that. Do you call yourselves proper university students?”

“The Education Bureau's inspection team is here. The school leadership is taking this seriously, and you choose now to cause trouble.”

Embarrassed, we silently cursed the inspectors' terrible timing.

“Then, sir, couldn't we—”

“Not now.” He waved us off. “Senior staff are visiting the security room every few days. How can we have you wandering in to check things?”

“Even if you want to look, it will have to wait until the inspection team's gone.”

Jiarui sounded hurt.

“But when will they leave?”

“Don't put it like that. You make it sound as though the school doesn't welcome them.”

He tapped his desk solemnly.

Us: “...Right.”

Then he thought for a moment.

“Not long. Two weeks at most.”

“All right,” I said helplessly. “Thank you, sir.”

By the time we left the building, evening light covered the sky.

We trudged back toward the dorm like defeated soldiers.

After thinking it over, I said, “Why don't we call the police?”

Jiarui started. “Huh?”

She hesitated.

“Not yet. We don't even know what's happened. My head's a complete mess.”

I sighed. Mine was too.

We'd only just become adults. Something like this felt as though a piece of the sky had suddenly fallen on us.

“Qin Huan,” she said abruptly. “Should I get rid of it?”

The question startled me.

“Why are you suddenly talking about that?”

“I can't actually have this baby.”

My head hurt. I crouched down and rubbed it.

“But we haven't found the father yet. If you get rid of it, we won't even have the chance for a DNA test.”

Wouldn't that mean simply swallowing what had happened?

Clearly, Jiarui had thought of that too. She looked as though she'd swallowed a worm.

Whether she had or not, all we could do now was wait another two weeks.

Back at the dorm, Sun Lin had just come out of the bathroom.

She was pale and looked terribly weak.

I started.

“Sun Lin, are you ill?”

For some reason, she seemed embarrassed. She turned her face away, left us with a cold “I'm fine,” and climbed into bed.

Jiarui looked baffled.

“What's with her today? It's like she's swallowed gunpowder.”

I shook my head blankly.

Only half of those two weeks had passed before staying quietly in the dorm became impossible.

Jiarui grew unbearably sleepy. She was wasting away before my eyes.

I'd seen pregnant women before, but she looked far too ill. It left me uneasy.

“Jiarui, why don't we go back to the hospital?”

I gently patted her back.

“You can't let yourself collapse first.”

Curled up in her chair, she took a long time to nod.

It had been over a month, but her belly was still flat. You couldn't tell she was pregnant.

This time, though, the gate guard stopped us.

“Girls, it's not that I don't want to let you out. There's a major assembly today. The leadership says nobody leaves unless it's an exceptional situation.”

I grew anxious.

“Sir, my friend's ill. She needs the hospital. Surely that counts as—”

“Go to the campus clinic first. If they can't help, come back.”

His voice was gentle. His expression made it clear he wasn't letting us through.