“But…” Shen Fangyu faltered.
Jiang Xu had indeed never said it outright.
But wasn’t that what he meant?
He had once told Jiang Xu that if he chose to keep the child, in order not to make things too difficult for him or let the child have too great an impact on his life, he (Shen Fangyu) could raise the child on his own.
Now that the visa and the paper’s progress were both stalled, Shen Fangyu knew Jiang Xu had no choice, he’d weighed the pros and cons and could only decide to give birth. As for that night, when Jiang Xu had simultaneously brought up old memories and spoken so vaguely, Shen Fangyu hadn’t fully understood what Jiang Xu had meant.
Lying in bed afterward, he had analyzed it and concluded that Jiang Xu must have been agreeing to his idea.
But what did Jiang Xu’s words just now mean?
Could it be… Jiang Xu was letting him raise the child together?
Shen Fangyu felt like his thoughts were exploding.
Jiang Xu shot him a sidelong glance, pushed the shopping cart to the checkout, and by the time the dazed, tangled Shen Fangyu realized what was happening, Jiang Xu had already paid swiftly.
Shen Fangyu belatedly reacted to missing his “chance to shine” in front of their daughter. “You already paid, then what am I supposed to do?”
Jiang Xu pointed at the several huge shopping bags the cashier had packed, and said matter-of-factly: “You carry them.”
“Carry them where?”
“Back to the community.”
The mall was about a twenty-minute walk from Jiang Xu’s apartment. Taking a stroll was fine, but carrying a heavy load was another story altogether.
Shen Fangyu stared, dumbfounded, at the bulging, waist-high bags. “You’re not going to drive back and pick me up?”
“Do I need to?”
Jiang Xu countered lightly.
“Or is it that… you can’t?”
Shen Fangyu: “…”
He remembered, provocation was supposed to be his specialty. Since when had Jiang Xu learned it too?
On the tree-lined street from the mall to Jiang Xu’s home, two men of nearly the same height walked a step apart. The one closer to the road had both hands full with the heavy bags; his forearms, lean and strong, showed veins bulging from the strain.
The young man beside him strolled at ease, occasionally reminding him not to let the bags bump into obstacles on the roadside.
It was honestly… a pleasing sight.
“I don’t know why,” Shen Fangyu couldn’t help saying, “but I feel like a sugar baby being kept by you right now.”
Jiang Xu sipped the soy milk he’d bought from a street vendor and, at Shen Fangyu’s words, commented: “Your cost-performance ratio isn’t bad.”
“You’re enslaving me.” Shen Fangyu’s face was full of indignation.
Jiang Xu walked with an elegant stride. “I’m training your arm strength.”
“What for?”
Jiang Xu lightly bit down on the straw, his gaze carrying a faint, deeper meaning.
It suddenly dawned on Shen Fangyu.
Could it be, training his arms so he’d be strong enough to hold the baby in the future?
So Jiang Xu did want to raise the child together with him?
The thought, briefly interrupted, resurfaced again. Shen Fangyu’s heartbeat grew faster and faster; sweat broke out in the palms holding the bags.
He almost didn’t dare ask. But if he didn’t, he felt like his heart would soon pound itself to death against his chest.
“Jiang Xu,” Shen Fangyu finally spoke, for the sake of his heart’s health, “what exactly did you mean back at the mall?”
“Do you want to raise the child alone?” He swallowed with difficulty. “Or are you saying… you want to raise her with me?”
Jiang Xu paused, then said to him: “Everyone says you have high emotional intelligence.”
“…” Shen Fangyu took a deep breath. “Just take me as your exception.”
If he were to rank everyone he knew, Jiang Xu would undoubtedly be the hardest one to deal with.
Not because Jiang Xu’s personality was particularly complicated, but because whenever Shen Fangyu faced him, he simply couldn’t stay objective or rational.
From sworn rivals in the past, to now this ambiguous, unclassifiable relationship, the truth was, whenever Shen Fangyu was with Jiang Xu, his emotions were easily stirred. That made it hard for him to step back and assess his own actions, the way he could with others.
He didn’t even understand himself why this exception existed. Often, he spoke impulsively before thinking, acted on impulse before reflecting, as if Jiang Xu had been born just to counter him.
Maybe because of that veil of subjective emotion, despite having known Jiang Xu for so long, Shen Fangyu always felt like he didn’t truly understand him.
When he had rashly invited Jiang Xu to live together, he regretted it several times afterward. He’d thought, given Jiang Xu’s personality, not only would he refuse, he’d mock him mercilessly.
But in reality, Jiang Xu hadn’t sneered at his offer, he’d actually let him move in.
Even though that invitation had been sudden, delivered more like a command than a request, when Shen Fangyu thought back on it, it still felt absurd.
This was Jiang Xu, after all.
And Jiang Xu had tolerated him living in his home, forcing a surface-level peace between them.
In the end, Shen Fangyu had chalked it up to pregnancy being too hard to bear. Even someone like Jiang Xu, so proud and uncompromising, would need occasional help.
But what Jiang Xu had said today, combined with what he’d hinted that night, felt far too much like an implication or even a direct statement.
Rationally, Shen Fangyu knew this was exactly what Jiang Xu meant. But that inner, confused subjectivity whenever Jiang Xu was involved told him: impossible.
This wasn’t a matter of days, or months. Raising a child meant eighteen years until adulthood. If Jiang Xu was choosing to raise the child with him, that meant the two of them, rivals who hadn’t even known each other for eighteen years, would have to live together for at least that long.
And they weren’t even friends.
Jiang Xu would have to be insane to suggest such a thing.
Sure enough, after Shen Fangyu muttered “you’re an exception,” Jiang Xu fell silent. Shen Fangyu even saw him swallow back words, his ear tips faintly red.
That confirmed it, he must have misunderstood Jiang Xu, put him in a spot where he didn’t know how to answer.
Shen Fangyu suddenly felt embarrassed.
In the past, he never would have asked such a question. But now he’d realized Jiang Xu wasn’t the same as he’d always thought, so he couldn’t help it. And now… clearly, he’d overthought it.
Trying to smooth things over, he said, “I didn’t mean anything else. I just thought… since you’ve already suffered so much carrying her, I—”
But unexpectedly, Jiang Xu cut him off.
And said to him: “Would you be willing?”
Caught off guard, Shen Fangyu bit his tongue.
The noisy street seemed to fall into silence. His mind buzzed, and all he could hear was the pounding of his heart.
For a moment, he even wondered if another soul had taken over Jiang Xu’s body.
Jiang Xu shifted his gaze away naturally, looking straight ahead. “You’re not the only one who understands responsibility.”
“I’m her biological father. I’ll raise her until she’s grown. Whatever a two-parent family can give her, I’ll try to give her.”
In fact, when he had first told Shen Fangyu he’d decided to keep the child, Jiang Xu had intended to say all this. But Shen Fangyu had completely failed to catch his meaning, and Jiang Xu had been too irritated to explain further.
Now he pressed his lips together. “If you’re willing to raise her together with me, we can live under the same roof for now, like roommates, co-parenting. If you decide to leave halfway, I won’t stop you. But… you know, children get attached to the adults they live with. If you want to leave, you’ll have to be the one to explain it to her.”
“If, after your explanation, she still doesn’t want you to go… then for the sake of her mental health,” Jiang Xu glanced at him, “I won’t agree to let you leave.”
“So I want you to think carefully before you answer,” Jiang Xu said. “Either don’t get involved from the start—or if you do, you accept the risk.”
“Of course,” Jiang Xu added, unlocking the door and stepping aside so that Shen Fangyu, burdened with the heavy bags, could enter first. “You’re her family too. If you don’t want to co-parent, I won’t stop you from occasionally coming to see her. You can rest assured about that.”
“Besides, I can also promise you this: I’ll do my best to care for and protect our child. You don’t have to worry she’ll be wronged when she’s with me.”
It was a statement full of sincerity. If one party in a divorce case at the civil affairs bureau could say something like this, the mediators wouldn’t be pulling their hair out all the time, maybe they’d even reconcile the couple.
But he and Shen Fangyu weren’t a husband and wife who fought by the bedhead and made up at the bedfoot. They weren’t a couple whose feelings had fallen apart.
A sudden, unexpected child had bound together two people who were supposed to be lifelong rivals, throwing their lives into chaos, a tangled mess. The steady, predictable path of marrying and having children as their parents had envisioned for them had come to an abrupt end.
Jiang Xu thought, maybe Shen Fangyu could still walk away from this whole mess. But for him, there was no way back to the life his parents had wanted him to live.
He could, over time, move past the fact that he had slept with a man. But even if he were to end the pregnancy now, he could never go find a woman to marry.
His conscience would never allow him to hide something like having been pregnant from a future wife. And no matter how young, wealthy, and promising Dr. Jiang might be, what woman could accept a husband who had once carried a child?
Maybe there were saints out there who could. But Jiang Xu had no desire to rip open that scar over and over again in front of others.
Fortunately, he had never longed too much for marriage or romance, so he wasn’t overly sad or disappointed now. The only real problem was how to explain it to his parents.
Sometimes, Jiang Xu thought, if not for listening to his parents’ urging to marry, he wouldn’t have pursued Zhong Lan at this time. He wouldn’t have ended up in bed with Shen Fangyu, wouldn’t have had a child with him. And so, his chances of ever marrying anyone else in this lifetime had vanished.
In a way, it was ironic.
As if fate were mocking him, punishing him for not standing firm in his own choices.
So this time, he had no intention of changing his decisions just to meet his family’s expectations.
Jiang Xu didn’t reject the idea of Shen Fangyu co-parenting. Doctors were busy, and Jiang Xu was in the golden stage of his career, always overwhelmed with work. Even if he had three heads and six arms, raising a child alone would stretch him thin.
Maybe he wouldn’t be able to reconcile with Shen Fangyu for now, but when it came to the monumental task of raising a child, their past grudges and that absurd night together seemed insignificant.
Still, just as he’d told Shen Fangyu, he didn’t want him to join in only to leave later. That would inevitably hurt the child. So he had to be clear about whether Shen Fangyu was truly willing.
Shen Fangyu had been silent all the way back. When Jiang Xu glanced at him, he was standing in the entryway, spraying disinfectant alcohol on the plastic bags.
It was Jiang Xu’s own habit, but at some point, Shen Fangyu had memorized nearly all of his habits.
To be honest, Jiang Xu didn’t know what answer Shen Fangyu would give him.
But he thought, whether Shen Fangyu’s answer pleased him or upset him, he wouldn’t show it on his face.
Then, under his gaze, Shen Fangyu spoke.
“Jiang Xu,” he said, “I’ve been first place at everything since I was little, until I met you in college.”
“…All these years, neither of us could ever win completely. I’ve always wanted to truly beat you one day.”
As he spoke, he deftly sprayed the bags with alcohol. The reassuring scent tickled Jiang Xu’s senses.
“But if one day I finally beat you, it was only because you had to spend most of your energy raising our child while I stood by doing nothing… then that kind of victory would feel meaningless.”
Because his hands were occupied, he didn’t have to look Jiang Xu in the eye. For some reason, Shen Fangyu, who had never once known social anxiety, actually felt a faint sense of relief because of it.
But when he reached the final sentence, he set down the spray bottle, forced himself to meet Jiang Xu’s gaze, and said, “I’ve already been single for years because of you. I don’t mind staying single forever.”
His eyes were bright, and in the dazzling daylight pouring in from outside, they shimmered with a touch of warmth and tenderness. Jiang Xu turned his face aside, unnerved.
“What do you mean, ‘because of me’? Back in college, I never stopped you from dating.”
He was clearly rebutting Shen Fangyu, but the corners of his lips tugged up, almost imperceptibly.
“You didn’t stop me from dating, no,” Shen Fangyu said with a laugh, recalling the past, “but you did take up all my time for it.” His expression was full of old scores waiting to be aired.
“Think about it, was there ever a self-study session after class when I wasn’t with you?” he said shamelessly. “Other than eating, drinking, and sleeping, the time we spent together was probably the most in our whole class. Even the couples didn’t spend as much time together as you and I did.”
Study rooms at A Medical University were always scarce; the library was packed to the brim. Med students were already notorious for being obsessive competitors, and the eight-year clinical track students, recruited with the highest entrance scores, were even less tolerant of not having a place to study.
So a few years before Jiang Xu’s class, after countless sharply worded petitions from the eight-year students, the administration had finally caved. They designated a special classroom for them and instructed the staff not to lock it, open twenty-four hours a day, so this group of relentless grinders could study whenever they wished.
Thus, while others spent holidays, went to events, or attended mixers with girls from other classes, the two of them sat, rain or shine, in that quiet, empty classroom, locked in their silent contest.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice, Shen Fangyu.” Hearing him bring up the past, Jiang Xu couldn’t help retorting. “Every time you turned someone down, you used me as your excuse.”
And so, plenty of girls had come to Jiang Xu, urging him not to study so hard, asking if he could please take a break now and then.
At the time, Jiang Xu hadn’t understood. He thought they were just being kind. Until one day, he couldn’t resist asking, and a girl explained:
“Shen Fangyu said if you didn’t rest, he wouldn’t either. But I really wanted to have a meal with him. Could you please just take a single meal’s break?”
Hearing that, Jiang Xu felt a black line crawl across his forehead.
University life had a much freer dating atmosphere compared to high school. Many people, both men and women, had pursued him, but he had always turned them down directly, never once dragging Shen Fangyu into it. Even after all these years, bringing it up still annoyed him.
“I only said that because I didn’t want to be too blunt and hurt their feelings. I’ve always been soft-hearted like that.” Shen Fangyu looked piously at nothing in particular. “Besides, what I said was true,” he added. “If it weren’t for you, I really wouldn’t have worked that hard in college.”
That much, Jiang Xu actually believed because the same had been true for him.
Before university, both he and Shen Fangyu had their own study rhythms, balanced, steady, with enough leisure mixed in. That pace was more than enough to keep them at the top of every exam.
But once they met at university, neither of them willing to lose to the other, their rhythms were completely thrown off, changed by each other.
Jiang Xu glanced at Shen Fangyu, who was tidying up the baby supplies, and suddenly felt how strange fate was.
If he hadn’t met Shen Fangyu at university, he probably would have continued studying at his own pace, taking first place more easily. He would’ve had time for dates, maybe fallen in love with a girl at the right age, walked her back to her dorm under the campus lights, maybe even gotten married someday.
And Shen Fangyu’s life would likely have gone the same way.
But because of this irrational twist of fate, the two of them now had to team up to raise a child together, maybe even spend the rest of their lives as partners.
And yet… Jiang Xu thought, this kind of life didn’t actually seem quite as bad as it sounded.
“What are you daydreaming for? Your phone’s ringing.”
Shen Fangyu waved a hand in front of Jiang Xu’s eyes, accidentally brushing his hair at the forehead. Jiang Xu jolted and snapped back to attention, seeing Shen Fangyu pointing at his phone, buzzing wildly.
“Don’t touch me.” Jiang Xu lowered his gaze, his expression subtly shifting.
“Not even your hair?” Shen Fangyu pouted. “Didn’t I blow-dry it for you just fine the other day?”
Jiang Xu didn’t respond. Realizing he’d just let himself be distracted by Shen Fangyu for so long, something about it felt… off.
But there was no time to dwell on it. He pulled out his phone and glanced at the caller ID.
Before answering, he assumed it was the hospital and thought his rare day off was about to be ruined. But when he saw it was his mother calling, he let out a small breath of relief.
“Mom?” he answered. “What’s up?”
“Xiao Xu,” his mother’s voice was warm and familiar. “What are you doing? Did you go out with a girl today?”
A few days ago, when she’d called to remind him to rest, Jiang Xu had told her today was his day off.
No girl. But there was a boy.
He glanced at Shen Fangyu, then replied helplessly, “I’m resting at home.”
But this time, his mother didn’t launch into another lecture about how he ought to find a girlfriend. Just as Jiang Xu was wondering if the sun had risen in the west today, he heard her say:
“Your father and I are downstairs at your building. We’ve come to visit you.”
The breath he’d just released suddenly caught in his throat. Jiang Xu snapped his head toward Shen Fangyu.