Un vent glacial souffle, une aura fantomatique imprègne les lieux, des lys araignées fleurissent dans le monde souterrain, et l'on reste assis, seul

Chapitre 9

Although it was daytime outside, Cheng Rui felt as if he had just escaped from an ice cellar.

As soon as Bo and Han closed the door of their car, Cheng Rui eagerly started the engine, but...

There was a knock on the car window. Cheng Rui looked out nervously and saw that it was Lu Xianglai.

"What...is there something you need?"

Cheng Rui tried his best to make his voice sound the same as usual, but the cold sweat on his palms couldn't lie to him.

Lu Xianglai laughed, opened the car door, and made a "hug" gesture, "You took Xiaoguai away..."

Cold sweat trickled down Cheng Rui's forehead. Lu Xianglai smiled slightly, as if he were holding something in his arms, and slowly walked from the car toward the apartment.

The three people in the car stared at Lu Xianglai, their palms sweating.

Cheng Rui stared at Lu Xianglai's retreating figure, then suddenly his eyes widened...

child!

Through Lu Xianglai's shoulder, Cheng Rui could indeed see a tiny head!

Swallowing hard, Cheng Rui took deep breaths, his heart pounding so hard it felt like it was about to burst out of his chest…

"Senior...you...what's wrong?" Han Xinnuo asked worriedly from behind the car.

"N-nothing," Cheng Rui said, gripping the steering wheel tightly as he left the apartment that had brought him endless fear.

That child... is not human.

That thing is not my child.

"It" has now bewitched her husband, bewitched her neighbor, and now it wants to bewitch her.

It will kill me, and then kill my precious biological child! My real child.

Mao Weiwei's gaze shifted to the window, where golden sunlight streamed evenly through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The three children sat in the sunlight, occasionally giggling, looking like angels.

Staring at the child in the middle, Mao Weiwei bit her lip.

That's "it"...

She only had two children of her own; "it" was the extra third.

Since it's an extra one, then... I'll just make "it" disappear.

It came out of my stomach, so... I can just put it back in...

Staring out the window, Mao Weiwei smiled gently.

Chapter Six: Fetus

Mao Weiwei walked to the window and smiled at the child in the middle.

The little child saw her, gave his mother a toothless smile, and stretched out his chubby little arms. Mao Weiwei gently picked up the child, and then...

He fell heavily to the ground...

The meat is sliced, the bones are simmered into broth, and no seasonings are added—it's all about the original flavor.

With her stomach full and plenty of time to spare, Mao Weiwei casually cooked a few dishes that her husband loved. Sitting at the dining table, she smiled and hummed a song.

At 12:25 pm, Lu Xiang came back. He looked at the table full of dishes and felt a little strange. Weiwei was not usually this diligent. Although she was a good cook, she rarely cooked because she hated the smell of oil fumes.

"What's the wind blowing today? Weiwei actually made so many delicious dishes." Taking off his sun hat, Lu Xianglai kissed his two darlings on the cheek, then sat down at the table where Weiwei had pulled out a chair for him.

After all, the last time he enjoyed such preferential treatment from his wife was before they got married. Lu Xianglai was a little flattered, wondering what good thing had happened today.

"She's a great cook! Here, honey, try this soup. Is it good?" With a sweet smile, Mao Weiwei picked up a spoon, gently scooped up a little soup, blew on it lightly, and brought it to Lu Xianglai's lips.

Although still completely baffled, Lu Xianglai was happy to enjoy his wife's gentleness and cuteness. He gently swallowed the soup from Mao Weiwei's spoon, deliberately making a slightly impatient slurping sound, which Lu Xianglai was quite supportive of.

"It's delicious. My Weiwei made it, so of course it's a good soup. Strangely, I can't taste what kind of soup it is. I can't tell..." As he spoke, Lu Xianglai took a few more sips of the soup.

Mao Weiwei smiled with satisfaction.

"This is Xiao Guai soup, made with Xiao Guai."

"Huh?" The spoon in his hand fell to the ground, and Lu Xianglai looked at his wife in surprise.

"That thing came out of my belly; it shouldn't have been there. I just put it back in. I only gave birth to two sons; there was no third."

Grinning, Mao Weiwei touched her stomach. Lu Xianglai looked at Mao Weiwei like this, feeling an indescribable strangeness in his heart.

After a moment, as if suddenly remembering something, Lu Xianglai picked up the two brothers who had been playing by the window and laughed, "What are you talking about? Weiwei, you only had two sons. Look, Da Guai and Xiao Guai, aren't our sons adorable!"

Lu Xianglai smiled at his wife as he played with the child in his arms.

The two children seemed to sense their father's happiness and giggled as well. Mao Weiwei, however, suddenly widened her eyes, listening to the noticeably higher-pitched sound from the left compared to the right. She stared at the child on the other side in disbelief…

"How...is this possible..."

As if confirming her terrifying suspicions, Mao Weiwei seemed to see the infant on her right facing her, revealing a smile that did not belong to a child…

"I think there seems to be something wrong with Weiwei." In the same room, in the same midday lounge, Cheng Rui was sitting in the middle, with Bo Xiaoxue and Han Xinnuo standing on either side.

The only difference is that the person opposite Cheng Rui is no longer Mao Weiwei from last time. This time, the person who came to talk to the three of them is Mao Weiwei's husband, Lu Xianglai.

"When I got home, I didn't notice anything unusual. No... something was unusual. Weiwei, who rarely goes into the kitchen, cooked a lot of dishes that day. When I got home, she even made me drink some soup first. But after I drank it, she told me that the soup I drank was made by my son."

"What?!" Lu Xianglai's words clearly startled everyone.

"Don't look at me like that. You know I was even more terrified than you were!" Lu Xianglai shrugged, looking at his two sons by the window, and sighed.

"You come home tired after a long morning, and your wife, who rarely cooks, prepares a delicious soup and a good meal for you. Before you can even fully enjoy the feeling of being pampered, your wife suddenly tells you that the soup you just drank was cooked by your son. How would you feel?"

"I was stunned at the time, but then I suddenly remembered that I had just kissed Da Guai and Xiao Guai, and that put my mind at ease. I thought Weiwei was better..."

"All done?" Han Xinnuo asked, puzzled, as she couldn't understand the hidden meaning in Lu Xianglai's words.

"Yes, back then... Xin Nuo, you found out that Weiwei was actually pregnant with triplets, not the twins that were originally detected, right?"

"Mm." Xin Nuo nodded.

"That's right, it was this test that convinced Weiwei that she was pregnant with triplets. She told me that she had a dream a while ago. In the dark, she suddenly woke up and saw a little child standing in front of her bed. When the child saw that she was awake, the child jumped into her belly."

"The test results told us she was having twins, but ever since that dream, she suddenly felt like she was having triplets. Xin Nuo, that test really made her happy."

Lu Xianglai spoke lightly, but upon hearing such a bizarre story, the other three exchanged glances, all agreeing that this fantastical tale could only be described as bizarre.

"It turned out to be twins, right? Although I felt disappointed, I suddenly felt a sense of relief. That dream... you all thought it was weird, right?" At this point, Lu Xianglai gave a wry smile, and everyone nodded knowingly. "However, Weiwei couldn't accept the fact: she insisted that she had given birth to triplets."

"What?!" The descriptions of the husband and wife were so similar that the three of them were speechless once again.

Cheng Rui swallowed hard, feeling like he had suddenly become a psychologist. He nodded and gestured for Lu Xiang to continue.

"She believes that we not only have Da Guai and Xiao Guai, but also a third child—Er Guai."

Hearing this, the three of them were moved again, but none of them spoke, and they just listened to Lu Xianglai continue speaking.

"At first, I thought she was just too sad about losing her child, and I wanted to go along with her. I thought that after a while, she would get over it and things would be better. I bought strollers for the triplets and things for 'Erguai' (the second child). She favored the child who didn't exist, so I could only keep an eye on the little one who was neglected by her mother. I thought that would be the end of it, but..."

"Things are getting worse and worse, and Weiwei's personality is becoming more and more eccentric. I know she came here to see you, right? Her paranoia is getting more and more severe, to the point that I once thought of sending her to the hospital. But yesterday, when she told me that she had killed a child, I suddenly felt a little happy."

"I thought her so-called 'killing' referred to eliminating the 'Second Child' that didn't actually exist, which arose from her delusions. When I thought that her delusions had disappeared, I was genuinely happy, however…"

"When I brought Da Guai and Xiao Guai to her, she screamed and wanted to..."

At this point, Lu Xianglai deliberately lowered his voice, "She wanted to kill Xiao Guai."

"You just need to know this. I didn't mean for the police officers outside to know that she was hysterical for half the afternoon and even called the police herself to turn herself in, saying that she had killed her son. She was holding that pot of soup and said that it was soup made from the child she killed, but the police's test results showed that the soup was just chicken soup."

Lu Xianglai sighed deeply.

What he said was true, and all three of them knew that Lu Xianglai had come in a police car this afternoon. Rumors were flying around the hospital, after all, the hospital had just been visited by the police a few days ago because of the suicide of the hospital director's son.

The police are still taking Mao Weiwei for a mental evaluation and also to find out about her recent childbirth at the hospital.

The maternity record clearly states that Mao Weiwei gave birth to twin boys naturally at 4:10 PM on August 12th.

The irrefutable facts dispelled the officers' suspicions about her claim on the phone that she had killed her son—after all, she already had two children, and still had two. Where would a third child come from that she would use to make soup? Unless the third child was a ghost?!

Therefore, Mao Weiwei is currently undergoing a mental evaluation, accompanied by two female police officers. If the evaluation results confirm that she does indeed have mental health issues, then the next step will be handled by a psychologist, not the police.

Xin Nuo saw Mr. Jin Zi again when he came out of the hospital's archives.

After receiving the test results from her female police officer subordinate, Jin Zi glanced sympathetically at the young man who had come out with Xin Nuo.

"Take her to get proper treatment; your wife does have quite serious...psychological problems."

Out of politeness, Jin Zi used a more tactful way of putting it, but everyone understood his unspoken meaning: Mao Weiwei indeed…

"Mothers are always very concerned about losing a child, to a degree that we men can't even imagine." As they went out together, Jin Zi suddenly spoke up, "Children are the same as mothers. A mother is a child's first person to talk to; he knows everything about his mother."

In response to Mr. Jin Zi's感慨 (sentiments/reflections), Han Xin Nuo smiled and asked, "Is this an expression of emotion?"

Mr. Jin Zi smiled too, "This is experience. Don't forget I'm a father, and fathers are very strong too. It's getting late, I need to go pick up my son."

With a wave of his hand, Mr. Jin Zi's tall figure slowly disappeared from Xin Nuo's sight.

Xin Nuo couldn't yet imagine what a father's feelings would be for his child, but she now had some understanding of a mother's feelings for her child.

Bo Xiaoxue carried her lunchbox and walked down the corridor of the special ward on the third floor.

Mao Weiwei is currently being placed here. Originally, the hospital she was in wasn't a specialized hospital for this type of illness, but according to Mao Weiwei's father-in-law, it seemed that if his daughter-in-law were arranged to go to a specialized hospital, it would make the Lu family lose face. So, with just one phone call, Mao Weiwei was essentially placed under house arrest here.

Lu Xianglai pleaded and earnestly begged, and the all-white ward was filled with soft cushions all around, without any sharp edges or weapons, and naturally there was no entertainment.

Mao Weiwei was placed here after the afternoon's examination.

With a vacant look in her eyes, Mao Weiwei seemed like a completely different person compared to the woman who came here a few days ago to pour out her heart. The current Mao Weiwei was wooden and lifeless.

I remember Mao Weiwei was a cheerful and lively woman before she gave birth. How did she become like this?

Bo Xiaoxue had heard of many women suffering from prenatal depression, but it was truly rare to see one turn out like this after giving birth.

Looking at Mao Weiwei sitting on the bed, muttering something to herself, Bo Xiaoxue opened the lunchbox, which contained only vegetables and some thick porridge.

In order not to provoke Mao Weiwei's memories in any way, Bo Xiaoxue deliberately avoided making soup.

"Come on, have something to eat," Bo Xiaoxue said gently to the woman on the bed.

After a long silence, Bo Xiaoxue looked up and realized that Mao Weiwei was staring intently at her. That look… it couldn't be called a look… it was a glare!

Mao Weiwei was glaring at her intently! That gaze sent a shiver down Bo Xiaoxue's spine.

"W-What's wrong?"

"You think I'm crazy too, don't you?" Mao Weiwei suddenly asked.