"Going to see your mother tomorrow?" Tang Zihe asked after listening to Jiang Wei’s schedule. "My parents already booked a restaurant for tomorrow night. If we won't make it back in time, I’ll let them know so they don't waste the money."
"No need," Jiang Wei shook his head. "There’s no conflict. It’s just a morning trip to visit the grave; I’ll be back by noon. Besides... I really want to spend this birthday with all of you."
"Alright." Tang Zihe agreed with a smile, then added, "Do you want me to go with you tomorrow?"
"You haven't met my mother yet, so of course you’re coming." Jiang Wei picked out the clothes he wanted to wear the next day and set them on the nightstand. "I think she’d really like to meet you."
"Mm, whatever you say."
After their usual nightly chatter, Jiang Wei lay down early, intent on being an exemplary youth of the new era who slept and rose early.
Jiang Wei’s birthday fell on the same day as his mother’s.
It should have been a blessing from the heavens—if only his mother hadn't suffered from a fatal case of dystocia.
In the quiet of many late nights, Jiang Wei’s mother used to ramble to her husband about anything and everything, but the conversation always circled back to the child soon to arrive.
"The savings I have are enough to buy this child an apartment. I’ll go look in a couple of days and pick a good one. When he turns eighteen, I’ll give it to him as a coming-of-age gift."
"What do you think we should name him? How about a single character, just like Jiang Yi..."
Jiang Wei’s father, a man who spent his days in a laboratory, hadn't even had time to say goodbye to his colleagues on the day his wife went into labor. He rushed out the door and bought his wife’s favorite strawberry cake on the way, planning to celebrate a "double blessing" birthday with his beloved the moment she woke up from the delivery room.
But his anxious, restless waiting outside the ward ultimately resulted in only a single question from the doctor.
"Save the mother or the baby?"
"Save the mother!" the father grabbed the doctor, his voice frantic. "Doctor, you must save the mother!"
A child could be replaced, but he had spent his entire life loving only this one person. If she left, he didn't know how he would go on living.
"Chief! Come quickly!"
A terrified young nurse ran out and shouted. The man talking to the father didn't stay a second longer, rushing back into the operating room.
The light outside the door stayed on, a piercing, solid red.
In the end, he only received the worst news.
Despite their best efforts to save the adult, they couldn't keep her. Conversely, the infant who had been marked for abandonment at the start let out a faint, weak cry at the very last moment.
The cake box slipped from the man’s trembling hands and hit the floor. He covered his face, but tears escaped through the gaps of his fingers, soaking his collar.
Fate was a cruel jester.
After that day, he didn't even have time to process his grief before he had to rush back to the lab to pick up the slack on his experiments.
Only in the dead of night did he have the chance to hide in the kitchen and sneak a cigarette, staring at his own reflection in the window by the range hood and shedding a few tears.
As for the boy who had "cheated death," he was raised entirely by a nanny. It wasn't until the boy started elementary school that the father shifted the burden of child-rearing onto his eldest son. After all, the father only had time to come home once a year, and he truly felt no affection for this younger son. In fact, looking at the child’s features, which hadn't yet fully matured, he only saw a haunting resemblance to his late wife.
He didn't know how to face this child.
His wife and his research were the only two loves of his life.
His wife was gone.
Therefore, his research could not be allowed to fail.
The early stages of development were very successful, but it was the clinical trial phase that truly stumped him again.
His research topic was the use of drugs to alter a person’s matured secondary gender. It was a novel topic, even timely—there were always people dissatisfied with their secondary gender who wanted to change but had no opportunity.
He could provide that opportunity.
However, the demographic that wanted to change certainly didn't include Alphas who wanted to become Omegas.
And yet, the results of his research were exactly that.
It was at this time that his younger son’s secondary gender report was placed before him.
Jiang Wei. Secondary gender: Alpha.
His hands trembled as he held the report, and a thought that filled him with a dark excitement bubbled up—
This was the greatest value this child, who had taken his wife’s life, could possibly offer to this world!
And so, on the first day after Jiang Wei finished his middle school entrance exams, the father personally cooked a meal at home.
Though Jiang Wei felt a slight estrangement from the father he rarely saw, and his speech was inevitably a bit stiff, he never harbored a single thought of wariness toward the man.
After all, this was his biological father.
Jiang Yi, as his older brother, had taken meticulous care of him all these years. His father had to be a wonderful person just like his brother.
Thus, without any defense, he ate the lunch that would change the course of his entire destiny.
When Jiang Wei woke up again, he found himself strapped to a leather medical chair.
He struggled with all his might, crying out for help, but he received no response from the people in white lab coats standing around him.
"Jiang Yi!! Dad!!"
He screamed until his voice cracked, and it took three people to barely hold him down.
Until he saw a familiar face among the crowd.
His voice nearly failed him in that instant, but his eyes remained locked onto the man wearing glasses standing in the corner—Jiang Yi.
Then, he began to howl even more violently, tears falling from sheer terror: "Jiang Yi! Brother! Where is this?! Brother! Save me! I don't want to be here, save me—"
"Good morning, Professor Jiang."
No one cared about Jiang Wei’s frenzy. At that moment, everyone in the lab spoke in unison toward the door, except for Jiang Yi, who silently turned his head away.
Jiang Wei felt a chill surge from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. He turned his head slowly and stiffly—
Standing by the door was none other than his father.
"This vial of medicine must be administered with extreme caution, so I will complete this step of the experiment personally."
The father put on white gloves and took a small syringe from a nearby cart. Throughout the entire process, he did not make a single moment of eye contact with his son, who lay in despair on the medical chair.
Jiang Wei stared fixedly at the syringe filled with a few milliliters of pale green liquid until the needle was fully submerged in his arm.
Half an hour later, he felt as though every bone in his body had turned soft, yet it also felt as if ten thousand ants were devouring him. It was an unbearable itch, an agonizing torment.
He howled hoarsely, but his body couldn't muster even a shred of strength. He could only silently endure this "metamorphosis."
For better observation, he was released from the medical chair. He curled up on the floor, shivering in agony.
The long torment finally ended after five hours, three minutes, and twenty-nine seconds.
Inside clothes soaked through with tears and sweat, beneath the blood that flowed from crawling and slamming his head against the walls, the rebellion of his bones under the influence of the drug concluded.
At that moment, Jiang Wei was like a heap of blood-red mud; one could no longer see a single trace of his former self in his physical form.
In the six months that followed, he underwent every kind of physical examination imaginable, over and over again.
From full-body scans to retinal probes.
Aside from the most intense pain that could still stimulate his nerves, he often sat like a docile, lonely ghost, huddled in a corner, staring blankly at the sterile white floor.
He had attempted suicide several times, but all ended in failure.
By now, he no longer had the strength to put up even a sliver of resistance.
For two whole years, the reports on Jiang Wei as Experimental Subject 001 grew to be five thick file folders.
From head to toe...
From physiological health to psychological integrity...
Even down to how many points his IQ had dropped, his sensitivity in identifying Alpha pheromones during his heat, and his physiological system's reactions...
His entire life was contained in the room next to the laboratory.
He lived within a sanctioned, private cage.
"Jiang Wei? Jiang Wei!" Tang Zihe gently patted Jiang Wei’s face. "Are you having a nightmare?"
"Mm..." Jiang Wei woke up with a frown.
He had indeed had a very long dream.
The dream was like a revolving lantern of his life; things he had seen and things he hadn't, things he had experienced and things he hadn't, all played out vividly before his eyes.
"It’s nothing," Jiang Wei leaned over and kissed the corner of Tang Zihe’s mouth. "Luckily you woke me up. If I were late today, my mom would definitely never forgive me."
Strange as it was, even though he had never met his mother, he felt an undeniable sense of closeness to her in his heart.
Seeing that he didn't want to talk about it, Tang Zihe didn't press further. He just told Jiang Wei to hurry and wash up; breakfast was already on the table.
When the driver dropped them off at the cemetery, Jiang Wei couldn't help but sneeze as he got out of the car, rubbing his nose.
"It’s so cold..."
Immediately, a scarf was wrapped around his head. "I told you to dress warmly today, but you wouldn't listen."
"Don't I have you for that?" Jiang Wei laughed, clutching the scarf. "This way."
Tang Zihe followed Jiang Wei deep into the cemetery to a tombstone in a relatively quiet corner.
"This is it. Mom, good morning." Jiang Wei placed the bouquet of carnations in front of the tombstone and nudged Tang Zihe with his elbow. "Hurry up and say hello to my mom."
"Ah, Mom..." For some reason, Tang Zihe felt a bit awkward facing the gently smiling woman on the tombstone.
"You sure switched titles quickly," Jiang Wei teased. He grabbed Tang Zihe and made him squat down so they were at eye level with the photo on the stone. "Mom, see this? The little bride your son kidnapped for you. Handsome, right?"
"Who’s a little bride?" Tang Zihe shot Jiang Wei an annoyed look.
"We’re in front of my mom; you have to be nicer to me. She knows exactly what you say and do."
"You little ingrate, am I not good to you usually?"
"Yes, yes, yes..."
The two laughed and teased each other for a while, successfully dispelling the last of Tang Zihe’s awkwardness.
"Hey, wait a second," Jiang Wei brushed some snow off the ground and pulled out a document envelope that was partially soaked. "What’s this?"
"Did someone leave it at the wrong spot?" Tang Zihe had intended to pull Jiang Wei up to leave, but he squatted back down when he heard this.
"No..." Jiang Wei fell silent as he looked at the three large characters written on the back of the envelope.
"This was left for me..." Jiang Wei felt the thickness of the envelope and weighed it; it was very light. "Who would have the leisure to leave something for me in front of my mother?"
He carefully opened the envelope. Inside were a few sheets of paper and a plain white card.
"What does it say?" Tang Zihe leaned in curiously.
Jiang Wei’s eyes widened, and his mouth hung open in disbelief. "A... a house for me?"
"I visit my mom’s grave every year, and she was so moved by my sincerity that she gave me a house?"
"Look closer. Our mom isn't the Queen Mother of the West; what kind of pipe dream are you having?" Tang Zihe said mercilessly, picking up the white card that had fluttered onto the snow. "Look at what’s on this."
Jiang Wei took it.
"Tang Zihe... my mom really did manifest..." Jiang Wei’s voice trembled, whether from shock or suppressed excitement.
Tang Zihe: "..."
"Then I hope I can take back what I just said about the Queen Mother."
"I’m teasing you," Jiang Wei stood up first, brushing the snow off his pants. "I still recognize this handwriting."
"Then who left it for you?"
Jiang Wei remained silent for a long time before finally letting out a soft sigh.
"My father."
Tang Zihe fell silent as well.
"We’ve finished the visit, let’s not make the atmosphere so heavy," Jiang Wei blinked. They had already walked back to the cemetery entrance. He seemed to have made a major decision. "Didn't you always want to hear my story? When we get back to the room tonight, I’ll tell you everything..."
Eighteen years ago.
"I’ve already bought the house. It’ll definitely appreciate in eighteen years; it might be worth a fortune!" Jiang Wei’s mother leaned against his father’s chest, showing him photos of the house on her phone. "Isn't it pretty?"
"Mm, it’s pretty," the father echoed. "You’ve always had good taste."
"Of course. Not just the house, I’ve even thought of what to say when I give him the gift. I’m not one for mushy words, so I’ll just tell him directly," she paused and said with a smile, "This is a gift from your most adorable mother. Happy eighteenth birthday, my child."
***
| Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 扫墓 | Sweeping the grave / Visiting the grave | A traditional Chinese custom of visiting ancestors' graves. |
| 难产 | Dystocia | Difficult labor/childbirth. |
| 保大还是保小 | Save the mother or the baby | A common ethical dilemma in medical dramas. |
| 双喜临门 | Double blessing | Literally "two joys entering the door." |
| 实验体001号 | Experimental Subject 001 | Jiang Wei's designation during his father's experiments. |
| 结合热 | Heat | The "mating fever" period for Omegas in ABO settings. |
| 康乃馨 | Carnations | Flowers often associated with mothers. |
| 王母娘娘 | Queen Mother of the West | A major goddess in Chinese mythology. |
| 小媳妇儿 | Little bride / Little wife | A playful, often teasing term for a partner. |
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