Su Ling curled up in her arms, but his eyes were always fixed on her stomach.
Ten months. Just ten months, and the child would be born.
“Little thing, you should be nice to me, since I’m carrying your child now. Shouldn’t you treat me better?” Gu Qingyuan lifted her head and looked at him bewilderedly.
After a long time, he seemed to react, raising his hand to sign frantically. Su Ling’s signing was chaotic, some signs he had learned, some he made up himself.
But Gu Qingyuan understood. She withdrew her smile and looked at the little fellow seriously. “I’m not planning to do the linking!”
Su Ling’s movements froze, his face full of shock as he stared at her.
“Little thing, you know? Your body is very weak. If you do the linking, you could very well die! I don’t want you to die!”
Su Ling avoided her gaze, but his heart began to beat frantically. She didn’t want to do the linking. But the linking was something that had to be done!
In all the education Su Ling had received since childhood, his family, friends, and teachers all told him that the linking was necessary. As long as you did the linking, you could bear all the pain of pregnancy for a woman, including childbirth.
In this world, women naturally held the dominant position, and childbirth brought them great inconvenience. In this world, if you didn’t do the linking, you were dragging a woman down, creating useless burden for society. But they were different. Males were always physically weak. They couldn’t do anything and could only cling to women to barely survive in society. The linking could perfectly solve this, allowing women to have no impact even while pregnant and still contribute to society.
Gu Qingyuan saw the little thing’s suddenly low mood and instantly guessed the little fellow’s thoughts. She couldn’t help frowning. She took a deep breath, grabbed the little thing’s face, and turned his head toward herself again.
“Listen, little thing, I know what you’re thinking. But those things are all used to fool you little boys. Ever since this linking thing was invented, the death rate of males has been expanding. Do you know why the Young Slave Pavilion appeared?”
Su Ling shook his head blankly. He completely couldn’t understand what she was saying.
“It’s because of this. Because of the linking, many little boys like you can’t bear the pain and die. And to make up for the death toll, they opened the Young Slave Pavilion! They make you little boys continuously give birth to fill these gaps! To ensure that only boys are born, they even give you medicine. Every year the number of little boys’ deaths increases, but they still haven’t stopped!”
“Because they saw a kind of balance: constant births, constant deaths, keeping the number of you little boys forever within a range that is sufficient but not excessive! Do you understand? All the education you received since childhood is brainwashing!”
Su Ling shook his head, looking at her with dazed eyes. He didn’t understand any of this. He couldn’t even comprehend what she was saying.
Seeing this, Gu Qingyuan gave a bitter smile, feeling that she had lost her head, actually telling the little thing these things. She knew clearly that all boys were implanted with a special interference device at birth. As soon as related content was mentioned, their brains would automatically erase these things. So the little thing couldn’t understand at all. Saying all this was completely wasted effort.
“Hold me tight!”
Su Ling obediently hugged her tightly, pressing his whole body against her. Smelling the pleasant fragrance on Gu Qingyuan, he slowly closed his eyes. He was so tired, so sleepy.
Gu Qingyuan felt the little thing’s steady breathing and a bitter smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She didn’t go to the bed but lay down right there, holding the little fellow tightly, and closed her eyes too!
Su Ling’s tail was limp at his side, and his ears were drooping. His little face was flushed red. He opened his eyes hazily, trying to get up from the bed, but his body seemed to have lost all its strength, unable to rise.
Gu Qingyuan looked up at the little fellow’s movements and gave a bitter smile. She wasn’t much better off either; her head was throbbing with pain. She really should have gone back to bed to sleep. She was starting to regret it now. Just because she craved that moment of peace, she didn’t go back to bed. Now, not only did she catch a cold, but the little thing also caught one!
Her own cold was fine. She had a strong body. Even without medicine, she would recover after a while. But the little thing was different; his body was naturally weak. Even with medicine, it would be hard for him to recover.
No! Seeing the little thing’s suffering, she forced herself to sit up. After carrying the little fellow to the bed, she immediately went upstairs to find some medicine and took it. Her head was so dizzy she rested a bit before picking up the medicine she had found and returning to the basement.
But seeing the little thing who had already fainted from the fever, she felt anxious. She shouldn’t have rested. The little thing’s body was so weak, it couldn’t withstand any turmoil. She immediately pried open the little thing’s mouth, stuffed the pill in, fed him a mouthful of water, and tightly covered his mouth, forcing him to swallow.
After doing all this, she slowly climbed into bed. Her head really hurt too much. She decided to sleep for a while, and once the medicine took effect, she would take the little thing to the hospital. Anyway, the little thing had taken the medicine, so there shouldn’t be any problem.
Gu Qingyuan had a dream. In the dream, she was holding a stove. At first, the stove burned at a comfortable temperature, and it felt nice to hold. But gradually, the stove got hotter and hotter, so hot that she wanted to let go, but in her sleep, she couldn’t let go at all; instead, she seemed to be holding it tighter!
She tried several times, and finally, after one hard struggle, she suddenly opened her eyes!
Shaking her still dizzy head, Gu Qingyuan turned to look at the little thing in her arms. Seeing that he was still sleeping, she couldn’t help wanting to shake him awake. But the moment her fingertips touched Su Ling’s skin, her whole body froze.
Hot! Scorchingly hot! That temperature was not from an ordinary cold; it was burning, scalding, like holding a piece of red-hot charcoal.
She had fallen into a deep sleep just now and hadn’t noticed the little thing’s fever was this severe.
“Su Ling?” She called in a low voice, her voice trembling involuntarily.
The person in her arms’ eyelashes fluttered slightly, but he couldn’t open his eyes. His cat ears hung limply, and his tail was curled weakly by his legs, without a trace of strength. His breathing was weak and rapid, his little brows tightly furrowed, as if bearing some invisible pain.
Gu Qingyuan’s heart clenched. She was really crazy. She knew clearly that this little thing’s body was so weak it couldn’t withstand the slightest wind or rain. She knew that even an ordinary cold could take half his life. And yet she had held him and slept on the floor all night!
“Little thing… don’t scare me…” She reached out and gently patted his flushed little face, her entire arm trembling. An unprecedented panic enveloped her, leaving her momentarily at a loss for what to do.
Su Ling just instinctively curled deeper into her arms, letting out faint, painful whimpers from his throat, like a small beast that could barely hold on.
Gu Qingyuan took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll take you to the hospital. It won’t hurt soon.”
She picked up the little thing and walked upward step by step with difficulty. Each step felt like stepping on a knife’s edge. She still had a cold herself; although she felt a bit better after taking medicine, the cold wind still made her uncomfortable. The basement’s chill clung to her, but the temperature in her arms burned her heart with panic.
Gu Qingyuan looked down at the lifeless face in her arms, her throat tightening. If Su Ling really… She didn’t dare think further. She only knew that such a thing absolutely must not happen!