I was still in a state of shock. If my son hadn't dropped his cake on the ground with a wet *splat*, frozen for a second, and then started throwing a dog-like tantrum—shouting, rolling around, and poking me from the inside—I wouldn't have snapped out of it. Lu Daoshi silently produced another piece of cake for him to hold. My son immediately went back to purring and rubbing against it, pacified.
"Can he eavesdrop?" Lu Daoshi reached out to tickle a small pincer through the skin of my belly. The pincer he nudged slowly retracted to hug the cake tighter.
"They’re already capable of murder; what *can't* they do? Just ignore them."
Lu Daoshi shrugged. "You might not be human. You mentioned before that you transmigrated into a bunch of background characters—could it be a past life thing?"
"He won't tell me. And after my roommate destroyed part of Zhang Litian’s godhead, Zhang Litian came looking for me. He said they serve me and told me to remember who I am as soon as possible."
Lu Daoshi pondered for a moment, then said he had a lead. "Old Chu and Zhang Litian appeared in Central America four or five hundred years ago; that might be related to you. Later, Zhang Litian was taken back to the Abyss by the Abyssal Warden, leaving a portion of his godhead behind in a crystal skull. You, still active in the mortal realm, took on the identity of Hong Xincai to safeguard that godhead. That’s why Old Chu follows you. But you might die, or be reborn, or as your husband says, you might forget everything every few cycles. Your allies are all ambitious people. Zhang Litian thought he could obtain a complete godhead, and combined with your heart, he could take down your husband. But once he realized the godhead was destroyed, he decisively switched back to your side."
Me: "What exactly is my heart?"
Lu Daoshi widened his eyes. "We’ll have to wait and see."
Me: "Is it impossible for me to just be a background character now?"
Lu Daoshi picked his nose. "I’m not going to acknowledge you as a goddess."
Me: "Have they caused any trouble lately?"
Lu Daoshi hummed. "I have noticed some interesting phenomena, though. In the past two years, agricultural yields in the surrounding areas have skyrocketed to an incredible degree, accompanied by unnervingly warm winters and year-round outbreaks of infectious diseases. I think we can use big data from the natural world to track the movements of the Divine Race. For example, in the last two weeks, wave heights along the Bohai coastline have increased by fifty percent. From that, we can infer that your roommate is very excited—after all, he’s about to become a dad."
"..."
"Oh, right. Jin Mu told us that Zhang Litian recently met with someone. Previously, that person was just an ordinary photographer who ran a studio. Then he suddenly moved to Africa for many years, taking photos of starving children for NGOs and the Red Cross. He’s quite famous internationally now."
I narrowed my eyes. "What does that mean?"
Lu Daoshi pushed up his new glasses. "He wouldn't meet with just anyone. Old Chu is very familiar with that journalist. The three of them seem to be close buddies."
After we finished exchanging information, Lu Daoshi patted my shoulder. "I get the feeling you and your husband have a grudge—and not just a small one."
"What kind of grudge could it be? My roommate pampers me so much; is it because he did something terrible to me in the past and pissed me off? And I caused all this trouble just to get revenge?"
Lu Daoshi curled his lip. "You know how myths often mention nonsensical, eternal oppositions? At their root, the attributes of two gods simply cannot be reconciled—like light and darkness, or chaos and order. If that’s the case, you might just be picking a fight with him for no reason at all."
I let out a dry laugh. "So you're saying my man is the supreme power, the protector of the world, and my mission is to destroy world peace? I'm the Big Bad?"
Lu Daoshi hissed, squinting at me for a long while before saying, "Doesn't seem like it. You're too stupid and cowardly."
I hit him for a good while before closing the door on my guest and going inside to cook. My roommate had been very excited lately. Even when I was "persecuting" small animals (cooking meat), he would hover around me to look at his sons. This time, he was even holding a cat with bristling fur, telling his sons they had to love cats in the future. The man was a lunatic.
"I want to give them names." He suddenly looked at me seriously.
"Go ahead." I was feeling restless anyway. I might have a grudge against you; maybe we’ll go our separate ways once the kids are born. Besides, since you're the Chief God, you surely won't pick names like 'Dog-Leftover,' so I’m relatively at ease.
Then Liu Wukong actually said: "The eldest will be called Greater Than; the second, Equal To; the third, Less Than."
Holy shit! At first, I thought the eldest was named Da Yu, like the legendary flood-tamer! But no! My roommate literally dipped his finger in water and started drawing mathematical symbols on the kitchen counter. Is he their real father?! Is he?! Even the kids I pick up off the street have proper names! I chased him around with a spatula for half the night.
My roommate was baffled as to why I was hitting him. "They must be named with logical symbols. Otherwise, while the names might work in this universe, they won't work in others. The rules of every universe are different; even numbers don't represent the same meanings. But logic is eternal and unchanging. 'I am greater than you'—in another universe, I might not be 'I' and you might not be 'you,' but the logic of 'Greater Than' still exists. These are universal names."
Screw you! I am absolutely not letting my sons go to school later with "Liu >," "Liu =," and "Liu <" written on their notebooks, and then having to sign them as their parent. I’ll sign my name as ">o<~", you want to bet?
That night, I was mentally exhausted and went to bed early. But after lying down, I couldn't sleep; my heart was filled with trepidation. I desperately wanted to know who I was and what I had done, but my roommate was keeping it so tightly under wraps that I was starting to get suspicious.
Right then, I noticed Liu Wukong quietly getting out of bed. What the hell? Usually, once he’s asleep, he’s like a pig—you can't wake him up for anything! I’m already suspecting you’ve done bad things; don't go being all sneaky and devious on me now!
I faked sleep to see what he was up to.
He left soundlessly and returned just as quietly, standing by the bed watching me for a long time. Then I felt him move stealthily to unbutton my pajamas.
Holy crap! Since when did he get so romantic!
I continued to play dead, curious to see what new tricks he’d learned.
Instead, I felt a chill on my stomach as he lightly traced a pattern over it.
Then I felt the things inside my belly crawl out. One of them even squealed excitedly, "Skreeee-ak-ak-ak-ak—!"
"Shh—" My roommate seemed to tap its head. "Silence."
It made a squelching sound and went quiet.
My roommate rummaged in a plastic bag, the sound of rustling filling the air, and pulled out a cake. I smelled a cloying, sweet scent of cream.
"Less Than, take this."
I felt a kick. It was definitely my third son, sticking his butt up and scrambling forward for the sake of cake.
Then the bed sank beside me. My roommate sat on the edge, motionless, likely watching the child eat. Dammit, my stomach was exposed, covered in cake crumbs, and I still had to pretend to be asleep.
My roommate reached into the plastic bag about a dozen times before finally saying, "No more. Go back to sleep. Don't tell Mama. Eat less junk food in the future."
My third son was furious: "Skreeee-ak-ak-ak-ak—!"
My roommate simply pressed him back into my belly, traced another pattern, and lay down to sleep.
When I woke up the next day, a serious problem occurred to me. "Liu Wukong, did you peel the paper liner off the cupcake for Less Than?"
My roommate looked at me with an expression of pure innocence. "Huh?"
I nearly strangled him. "You bastard! What if he just leaves the paper liner inside my stomach?!"
Seeing he couldn't lie his way out, my roommate had to admit the truth. "It's fine. Greater Than will eat it."
You lunatic! I can't take this! There is definitely something wrong with this parenting style! The younger brother eats the cake, and the older brother chews the paper cup? Is this ever going to be okay?! What about the second one?!
He said blankly, "Sleeping."
"I think your sons are about 'ripe' enough. Hurry up and deliver them for me." Counting the days, the Level 4 English exam was coming up soon. I was bored to death in this artificial space; I wanted to go back and take my exam.
Liu Wukong thought about it and said okay. He went to the kitchen and tore off a piece of plastic wrap, holding it in his palm. Before I could even process what was happening, he reached his hand directly into my body, plucked one out, placed it on the plastic wrap, and bundled it up. Looking at that bloody, messy, misshapen lump of a thing, I freaking fainted!
When I woke up, my roommate was lying beside me, holding me on his side. I was about to lean in for a kiss, puckering my lips with my eyes closed, but the distance was wrong. Dammit, on the pillowcase between us sat three messy lumps, all wrapped in plastic. That combination of bloody skin and cling film was as disgusting as it could possibly be—even uglier than Old Chu’s son. I immediately felt unwell. "Why do they look like this!"
Seeing I was about to faint again, my roommate stuffed the three brothers directly into his coat pockets and said calmly, "All babies look like this when they're just born. They'll look better in a few days." He acted like I was the one making a fuss over nothing.
I had my doubts, because these three brothers looked like they had grown in a state of total lawlessness where no one was watching. My heart felt heavy with grief.
We left the seaside villa that same day. My roommate said he wanted to go back to the Abyss, and I nearly hit him. "We agreed that after the kids were born, you'd come with me to the human world. Don't you dare try to back out."
Silent and dejected, my roommate followed me back to school. Halfway there, when no one was around, he suddenly knelt on the ground, pried open a manhole cover, pulled the three brothers out of his pocket, unwrapped the plastic, and tossed them inside. I was speechless. They might be ugly, but throwing them directly into the sewer—isn't that a waste of all my hard labor?! Isn't it?!
"What are you doing, Liu Wukong?"
He replaced the manhole cover, squatted by the roadside, and covered his face with his hands in distress. "It's too clean up here. I'm afraid they won't survive."
I suddenly felt a pang of sympathy. Honest migrant worker Old Man Liu, can you please get it together...
"How about you take them back to the Abyss?"
He shook his head firmly. "Your Level 4 exam is more important."
I’m such a bad person; I can't stand the guilt! "It's not important. The children are important."
Old Man Liu stood up and pulled me into his arms. "There's a sewer. It's fine."
Fine, I finally understood. I couldn't control this cheap husband of mine or those three cheap sons. But I couldn't suppress the urge to nag them. "Liu Wukong! Don't pick up cigarette butts off the ground to smoke."
My roommate pointed at a person ten meters away. "He's eating them too."
Me: "He's a beggar. His wife is lying right there next to him. You want us to go onto the overpass like that? You kneel, I'll lie down?"
My roommate gave an "oh" and dropped the cigarette butt. After walking for a bit, he said to me, "That thing just now tasted pretty good."
Me: "That's for smoking."
I took him to the most expensive luxury store to look at cigars. We looked at Zippo lighters. He manifested one for himself to try. The overall image was that of an honest migrant worker using a Zippo lighter like a brick to knock the head off a cigar, then a cluster of flames rising from his fingertip to light it, before he began to melancholically chew it piece by piece.
Old Man Liu and his three sons were beyond saving.
He peeked at me quietly. "Is this not how you eat it?"
I shook my head. "As long as you like it."
He looked a bit shy and a bit dejected as he held the cigar, squatting down. "You know, I don't understand. Don't look down on me."
I squatted down beside him, slowly smoothing his beautiful, thick black hair. "I know."
He was an old piece of seafood who had woken up from a seven-thousand-year dream and recklessly given up his favorite sulfur mines to come ashore and find me.
He was so powerful; he feared no one on this planet. Yet in front of me, he was awkward and helpless.
He told me he still didn't understand anything.
Based on that sentence alone, if anyone dared to laugh at my Old Liu for chewing a cigar, I’d pick up a beer bottle and swing it at them.
"I don't look down on you. You're so... *moe*."
My Old Liu gave a shy laugh. "What does *moe* mean?"
"It means you." I leaned in, pressing my forehead against his temple. "I like you."
Old Liu pulled me close by the shoulder, smiling until his eyes were mere slits. "You're *moe* too. You're the most *moe*. I like you most."
My eyes grew inexplicably wet. I hoped every word he said was true. I hoped that no matter what, we would never hurt each other.
We squatted happily by the roadside for a while, picked up the many coins passersby had dropped in front of us, and went back to school.
***
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My Roommate is a Non-Human | Chapter 54 | The Logic of Fatherhood | Novela.app | Novela.app
