Chapter 123: Liancheng, You Don’t Hate Me That Much
The last time Lian Cheng saw the child was on Bai Ying’s home-made ultrasound machine; it was just a vague, blurry little dot.
Enveloped by a large, grayish-white oval, the female doctor told her it was the gestational sac.
Lian Cheng felt the shape of the gestational sac resembled an eggplant, and later she searched online.
The netizens were very experienced, saying that a round gestational sac meant a son, and a long, narrow shape meant a daughter.
Her wish came true.
Bai Ying poured cold water on it when she learned of it.
“The shape of the gestational sac depends on the direction of the ultrasound probe. The doctor can adjust the probe to satisfy whatever shape you want. This time it’s an eggplant, next time it’ll be round. If you have a son, a mini Liang Chaosu, he’ll be bossing you around all day. The great King Yama is gone, and a little King Yama is here.”
Lian Cheng took her words to heart and was also afraid of being like Liang Chaosu, but she was reluctant.
The harsh words she spoke after falling out with Liang Chaosu truly churned in her heart.
There was a tug-of-war, a battle between heaven and man.
Yet she could never bring herself to be cruel, always finding excuses to save him.
Bai Ying was furious, calling her hormones addled, her mind controlled. She said that once the baby was born and the hormones were gone, there would still be an invisible umbilical cord tying her down for a lifetime.
Lian Cheng didn’t know if she was controlled by hormones; she didn’t want a child at first. But as time went on, she felt the child taking root and blossoming in her bone and blood, accompanying her through wind and rain, all the way until now.
Some children are fragile and are lost with a single fall. This child, like her, could ride the wind and waves and was saved even after a hemorrhage.
Lian Cheng began to believe in fate.
After going downstairs, the room was already prepared.
Lian Cheng lay down on the bed and lifted her clothes.
The female doctor was exceptionally kind, gently applying gel to her lower abdomen. “NT is the first screening for fetal abnormalities. It mainly checks the nuchal translucency to assess the risk of Down syndrome.”
She picked up the probe, “Relax, don’t be nervous. If the fetal position is wrong, it can’t be seen.”
Lian Cheng fell silent.
If she were living alone in Iceland, she would definitely be overjoyed. She would smile and politely ask the doctor many questions.
But with Liang Chaosu standing by her side, her limbs felt heavy as if pressed by an invisible boulder, and her chest felt suffocatingly heavy.
Liang Chaosu noticed her gaze and held her hand. It was soft and boneless, cool and clammy with sweat.
He was always taciturn and indifferent in front of outsiders, his sharpness and coldness palpable. Yet now, he separated her fingers one by one, interlacing them, his tender gaze unable to be concealed.
The female doctor moved the probe.
After a long moment, she frowned, “When was your last menstrual period?”
Liang Chaosu replied, “October.”
He had returned from a business trip to Dian Province and hadn’t failed to bring Lian Cheng a gift. However, with Shen Lichuan’s appearance and his multiple detours to see Lian Cheng during peak morning hours, he had to be wary.
“Are you sure you’re twelve weeks pregnant? The fetus is small.”
Liang Chaosu stared at the ultrasound screen, his expression serious. “Is the development poor?”
“It’s not that severe. Just strengthen your nutrition in the future, eat more meat, eggs, and milk, and get enough rest…”
The female doctor gave many more instructions. After putting away the probe, the assistant came to clean the gel from Lian Cheng’s lower abdomen with a paper.
Liang Chaosu stopped her. He was of the rare type among Asians with deep contours and sharp facial features, and he had a tall, strong build. Perhaps he was dissatisfied with the prenatal check-up results, for he frowned. Dressed in a black shirt and western pants, his profound coldness exuded an overwhelming sense of pressure.
The assistant handed over the paper without hesitation and retreated to a position away from the bed.
Lian Cheng stared blankly at the strip lights on the ceiling.
The harsh, intense light and shadow did not seem to bother her. The gentle pressure on her abdomen was clearly restrained, and occasionally the faint, warm touch of Liang Chaosu’s fingers would brush against her skin.
At first, it was occasional. After the cold sensation of the gel disappeared, his palm covered it, and his dry, warm touch stroked her lower abdomen.
Lian Cheng heard the doctors and their instruments retreat, the wheels of the instruments rolling away with a joyful sound, and the engine sound in the courtyard.
Everything returned to silence.
Every second she spent in this situation was saturated with despair and anxiety. She wished she could transform like the Monkey King with seventy-two changes, become one of the instrument’s wires, and be pushed away with the doctors.
“Did you hear everything?” Liang Chaosu straightened her clothes, slipped his arm under her neck, and pulled her into a half-embrace. “Since you became pregnant, your body needs careful nurturing and utmost care. Yet you’re running around the world. Can the child withstand it?”
Lian Cheng pushed him away and got out of bed from the other side, “You care a lot about the child?”
Liang Chaosu walked around the foot of the bed and took her arm, noticing her bare feet on the floor.
Lian Cheng had become thin recently, her foot skin so pale it was almost transparent. The blue veins snaked and bulged beneath her skin and flesh, giving her a fragile, fragmented appearance, as if she could disappear with a single touch.
Liang Chaosu, already angry, felt his anger swell from three parts to six. “That’s my blood, I care. You are his mother, have you ever cared about him even a little?”
Lian Cheng’s chest heaved instantly, and dense bloodshot veins appeared in her eyes. “I want to care for her, to raise her peacefully. Can you not appear? Can you be thousands of miles away from me? Liang Chaosu, don’t you understand how much I hate you? How disgusted I am. One minute spent with you is tens of thousands of times more tiring and uncomfortable than sailing in rough seas or taking a long flight.”
The sudden outburst of temper was actually the result of long-accumulated suppression.
Once it erupted, it was difficult to contain.
“Have you ever seen ants? What does it feel like when thousands of them appear in a swarm? Liang Chaosu, when you’re within ten meters of me, those ants crawl inside my veins, gnawing at my heart, adding another layer of wounds to my already riddled heart. I hate you, I’m disgusted by you on a physiological level. At times like this, why don’t you care about the child? Get away from me?”
Liang Chaosu’s gaze was sharp as a knife, wanting to flay her with each glance, yet he restrained his violent temper. “Lian Cheng, provoking me won’t do you any good. Once the baby is born and things are stable domestically, I—”
“Will marry me, right?”
Lian Cheng gagged. “Why don’t you just kill me? People get married for happiness, for love. What do I get from marrying you? Disgust, perversion?”
Liang Chaosu took a deep breath, his chest stiffening, and rapidly expanding. “You hate me so much, yet you kept the child.”
He concluded, “Lian Cheng, you don’t hate me that much.”
Lian Cheng’s entire body trembled violently, and she gritted her teeth. “I hate you, and it has nothing to do with the child. She is innocent, and she is not yours. Liang Chaosu, among the countless men in this world, you are the only one not qualified to be a father.”
Liang Chaosu tightly gripped her arm, his jaw taut, sharp, and menacing. “Who is qualified? Lian Cheng, this child will bear the Liang surname. You are Mrs. Liang. Beyond that, any other possibility, I will destroy it as it appears.”
Lian Cheng shivered uncontrollably. “Can you do that? Your father, your mother, your sister, the Liang family, the worldly affairs of the entire world. Do you think you’re Gu Xingyuan? He had mutual love. What do you have? Deceiving on both sides? That’s why you lit all the candles on the island as soon as you arrived, making empty promises and drawing impossible pictures.”
Hearing the undisguised sarcasm in her words, Liang Chaosu lost his patience and gripped her chin, forcing her closer.
His expression was solemn, sinister, and overlaid with a layer of firm frost. “I can.”
Lian Cheng completely lost the desire to speak.
To this day, it wasn’t that she had nothing; she clearly had an illness, a lunatic, a lunatic with a warped train of thought.
She pried his tightly clasped fingers open one by one, breaking free from his restraint.
She turned, walked out, and went upstairs to lock the door.
Still unable to contain her anger, she resentfully shoved the console table by the door to block the door.
After a moment, the corridor was silent.
Liang Chaosu did not follow her.
