And so, our life of prenatal care began. To be more precise, it was just me; after my roommate showed me around the place, the bastard just keeled over and fell asleep. I didn’t know what was going on and assumed he was just tired, so I told him to take a bath. When he didn't come out for ages, I went in to check, only to find the idiot kneeling on the floor with his head dunked in the bathtub, fast asleep! I panicked and gave him mouth-to-mouth; he opened his eyes, gave me a kiss, and then slumped against the toilet to sleep some more.
This was getting difficult. My Big Brother Liu and I had just moved in together to start our life of "illicit cohabitation," but he spent all day sleeping, making it impossible for me to get into the swing of things. There were so many unresolved issues. For instance: who was going to do the housework? What about meals? I was pregnant, for heaven's sake. My roommate would mumble in his sleep: "Time has stopped... no housework... clothes stay clean... floors never get dusty... leave the cooking to the but—" The bastard would get halfway through the word "butler" and start snoring again. For crying out loud!
During the first few days, I went swimming in the sea every day. The fish, shrimp, and dolphins in the water all seemed to really like me. I played with them during the day and caught them to stir-fry in the kitchen at night. On the rare occasions my roommate was awake, he’d watch me cooking and think I was being cruel. "You were friends with them this morning."
"I was just playing around," I said, vigorously stir-frying squid with a spatula. "They’re cute little animals, sure, but I’m a higher intelligent lifeform! I didn't evolve to the top of the food chain just to be a vegetarian! My complex organism requires energy!"
My roommate looked puzzled. "What part of you is complex?"
My biology wasn't great, so I couldn't give a proper answer. Finally, I blurted out, "I have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes!"
My roommate looked even more confused. "I have eight hundred thousand pairs of chromosomes, and I don't eat them."
23 versus 800,000. As a human, I was so frustrated I could cry; it was pure bullying. His tone was like me saying, "I made a hundred bucks today, isn't that great?" and him casually replying, "I'm Bill Gates, lol."
Later, when we were in bed, I leaned against him in my soft pajamas of some unknown material and finally couldn't help asking, "Brother Liu, in your eyes, am I basically the same as a paramecium?"
My roommate toyed with my fingers as he drifted off, letting out a long "Mmm," before shaking his head. "A paramecium has forty-seven chromosomes, one more than you—Ye Xiao, why are you grabbing the pillow? Wait, why are you hitting me? Why? I don't understand, stop it, I'm getting angry, I'm really getting angry..."
A single tear belonging to all of humanity leaked from the corner of my eye, and then I beat him for half the night. He eventually fell asleep under my blows, but then I realized a very serious problem: I was hungry.
Ever since I got pregnant, no matter how much I ate, I couldn't get full. Eating a half-ton dolphin was nothing to me. Moreover, I wanted to eat almost anything. Once, after it rained, I saw a slug on the corner of the eaves; before I even realized what I was doing, I’d popped it into my mouth—*crunch*. I was terrified and told my roommate, but he didn't have much advice: "I have never been pregnant."
After a pause, he added, "Humans eat everything anyway."
Finally, he warned me, "Don't eat my cats."
So, with things having reached this point, you can imagine my state of mind. When I got hungry, I’d even eat myself; basically, if I saw it, I’d grab it and crunch it down. My husband, this supposedly badass primordial big shot, was so spooked by me that he hid his cats.
That day, after I got hungry, I searched the whole house but couldn't find anything to eat. My roommate didn't eat, so while our house had everything else, it had no food. I was so hungry I couldn't stand it. Seeing my roommate lying there with his fair, tender skin, my brain suddenly short-circuited. In a fit of madness, I pounced on Liu Wukong and bit him. When he woke up from the bite, he just let out an "Eh" and said, "If you want to eat, then eat." Overjoyed, I nearly bit his neck right off. Then I discovered that my husband was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted! Those eight hundred thousand pairs of chromosomes were definitely not just for show, and he was incredibly filling. He regenerated faster than I could eat; no matter how much I consumed, he remained handsome as ever.
After that, I stopped going to the sea to play. Every day, I stayed home gnawing on my roommate. I’d gnaw on him, he’d sleep; on the rare occasions he woke up, I’d be gnawing on him and he’d be doing me. It was honestly too much—too decadent, too carnal. I knew this state of mind wasn't right. I asked him when the birth would happen, worried it might take years. My roommate solemnly flicked my belly button. "Almost ripe."
"Are you picking out a watermelon...?"
The words had barely left my mouth when the skin on my stomach suddenly bulged. A pair of very sharp things—I couldn't tell if they were pincers or a mouth—nipped my roommate's finger. My roommate seemed a bit pleased. "It bit me." I was worried. What the hell was this thing? A crab? A scorpion? It had pincers? Was I about to give birth to a pile of seafood? How was I supposed to face the world...?
My roommate gave a gentle response, and a whole bunch of sharp outlines began competing to bulge out from my belly. I didn't know which part of their bodies these were, nor did I know how many I was carrying. Regardless, they all loved playing with my roommate, keeping him so busy his fingers were nearly cramping.
I could only marvel at how elastic my skin was.
After that, my roommate turned over a new leaf, moving away from his decadence of sleeping twenty-four hours a day and doing me whenever he woke up. He had me buy a lot of things on Amazon: sets for Chess, Go, and International Chess. He also had me buy lunchboxes, plastic wrap, and shirts and trousers with lots of pockets. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he wanted to start prenatal education and prepare for taking the children away from here later. I suspected he meant wrapping the kids in plastic wrap and putting them in lunchboxes. He really was a father from the sea; no biological father would do such a thing.
I didn't know how the courier delivered the items, but since we were online shopping anyway, I went on a shopping spree. I even bought a new flute for our Mr. Butler to compensate him. He liked it very much. He said that back when he was human, he was a wealthy son of the Qing Dynasty's Eight Banners, skilled in music, chess, calligraphy, and painting. Later, he had wandered in here, seen the melancholic silhouette of my roommate looking at the sea, and his life was ruined by that single glance—my roommate had turned around and killed him in a split second.
Later, seeing him drifting around with nothing to do, my roommate ordered him to guard the gates. He said I was the only human he had seen my roommate bring here in all those years. He said he hadn't even known my roommate could speak before, thinking he was just a total blockhead. Now he saw it wasn't so: "Meeting you, Sir has truly come to life."
I respected him for being a man of letters, and I also appreciated him leaking my roommate's little secrets—what "wife" wouldn't love to hear such things? But then his next sentence was: "I also like to smoke hemp. Can you buy me some opium online?"
I replied, "Young Master, over a hundred years have passed outside. Smoking opium is illegal now; it's been banned."
He gnashed his teeth. "In the end, Lin Zexu succeeded."
Me: "..."
Butler: "Then can you buy me a head and two hands and two feet online? This set I'm using wandered in a few months ago, and it's starting to rot and mildew again."
Me: "That's enough out of you."
When Amazon finally delivered the goods to us, my easy days came to an end. Every day, I sat face-to-face with my roommate with a game board between us, and he played chess with my belly. Those things inside me were incredibly active and had terrible tempers. It seemed I was carrying more than one, because every time a move was made, they would fight. Whoever stuck their "finger" out first would be smacked away by the others. They’d get into a scuffle, making my stomach look like a stormy sea. Although it was a bit creepy to watch that much commotion every day, it didn't hurt, and you couldn't even tell I was pregnant. Though my waist had thickened, that was entirely from eating. I didn't know how big the little ones had grown. Since it didn't hurt, I didn't bother with it; I just focused on eating beef jerky. I bought tons of snacks from Yihaodian.
When the bratty kids inside finally managed to make a move, only to be countered by my roommate, they would try to take the move back. It was lucky my roommate had a good temper and plenty of patience, waiting for them to finish fighting and retract their moves.
He never lost, but he never won either. When the game reached a point where they were about to lose, the things in my belly would drag me forward to lunge at the table, scattering the pieces. My roommate would then say tepidly, "Daddy's going to get angry. Daddy's going to lose his temper. If you're naughty again, you'll get a spanking." His tone wouldn't change at all; you could tell just by listening that he wasn't actually angry.
But my bratty kids would just shrink back into my belly and ignore him.
I felt this wouldn't do. "If you keep acting up, I'll miscarry the lot of you."
They immediately behaved and came back to touch fingers with Liu Wukong to say goodnight.
"See, that's how you deal with children."
My roommate frowned. "You're too fierce. They're still small."
"Believe it or not, I'll hit you along with them."
I was pregnant, so I was the boss. Who would dare argue with me?
Because life was too boring with nothing to do but accompany my roommate in playing chess with the brats, I was very restless. Wanting to cheer me up, my roommate suddenly invited Lu Daoshi and Ren Xing over one day. The four of us had a BBQ on the second-floor balcony while playing Double Rise. My roommate must have told them I could eat a lot, because they both brought those very sweet cream cakes for me. I ate a bit but found it too cloying, so the cakes became the stakes—whoever lost had to eat.
Originally, Ren Xing was my partner, making us a team. My roommate wouldn't have it, claiming Ren Xing kept looking at me sideways and threatening to turn him into oil again. What the hell was that about? Ren Xing wasn't "looking" at me; he was clearly signaling for me to cheat and swap cards under the table. We had won several rounds that way. After Ren Xing swapped places with my roommate, my roommate didn't know how to play and wouldn't cheat, so the two of us kept losing. It was driving me crazy.
As we played, the things in my belly wouldn't stay still. Like crazy, they extended two pincers, dragging me toward the cake on the neighboring table. I told them it didn't taste good, but they wouldn't listen, nearly poking through my stomach with their pincers. I got a bit annoyed, stood up, and rolled up my T-shirt. "Fine! Go get it, go get it! Even if you reach it, you can't eat it!"
Ren Xing and Lu Daoshi were shocked. They saw something weirdly shaped, like a spiked ball, rolling around under my skin, pointing its pincers at the cake. Lu Daoshi took a piece of cake and held it in front of my belly. "Come on, call me Uncle."
My unlucky sons couldn't speak at all, but at that moment, they actually let out a *zhi-ya-ya-ya-ya* sound, like a small animal excited to the point of climax, reaching out with their pincers to grab it. Lu Daoshi was delighted and placed the cake between those two tiny pincers. The thing hugged the cake and let out a purr, rubbing against the cake through my belly and smearing cream all over me. Can you imagine? Finally, when Lu Daoshi and I stood on the balcony at dusk to talk business, I still had a cream cake clamped to my stomach. This world is too cruel; being a pregnant man is just too hard. Bratty kids really are capable of anything.
"If you have something to say, say it fast, otherwise my roommate will get impatient and turn you into oil."
Lu Daoshi looked around and handed me a photograph. "A family photo of Hong Xincai that I found."
I took it and glanced at it. "Holy crap," I cursed, pointing at a young man in a traditional robe and jacket, holding a cane and wearing a wide-brimmed hat. "Him?"
Lu Daoshi nodded.
This was a big deal.
Because Hong Xincai was the spitting image of me.
***
