TMDP CH 7

Chapter 7: Bastard!

As soon as Han Mingxiu entered the Han family home, he noticed a crowd gathered in the living room. The moment they saw him, they all stared at him angrily.

“…” Han Mingxiu felt exhausted. Han’s father was seated on his favorite couch, fuming. “So, you finally decided to come back. Take a good look at the mess you’ve made…”

The others were crouched around in a small circle, all buzzing at the center with excited chatter: “Come on, don’t be scared; your dad’s back now.”

Han Mingxiu’s head began to ache, and he tried to explain, “Dad, Mom, listen to me, this really isn’t…” Before he could finish, a timid little boy was pushed to the front, looking up at him expectantly.

“…” Han Mingxiu looked down at the tiny kid in front of him, utterly speechless. Over the phone, they’d said the child resembled him. He’d dismissed it, thinking his family had gone crazy wanting a child and that, with this boy being the one he’d brought home, they were just projecting.

But he hadn’t expected this kid to actually look like him.

He stared at this miniature version of himself in Q-version form, utterly dumbfounded.

The child had woken up, unable to find Xiaye, and had been brought to this strange big house by an unfamiliar uncle. He’d been feeling very scared for a while but remembered how Xiaye always told him to be brave, so he managed to stay calm. The grandpas and grandmas around him didn’t seem like bad people. They offered him apples, then asked if he wanted milk. He refused it all, only asking to find his dad. Now that his dad was finally here, he was excited to run up to him. But when he looked up, he realized this man was so tall! Definitely not his dad.

Little Li couldn’t hold it in any longer. His lips quivered as he started to cry, “That’s not my dad. He isn’t… my dad…”

Han Mingxiu: “…”

It looked like he and the child shared the same feeling—neither recognizing each other.

“Hmph,” snorted Han’s father angrily. “Now that you want to recognize him, he doesn’t want you! Bastard!”

Han Mingxiu paid no attention to the others. As soon as he saw the child crying, he quickly picked him up and tried to comfort him. The child’s features were clearly his own, but those eyes—they were Xiaye’s eyes. Every time the child squinted or cried, Han Mingxiu’s heart ached.

He held the child upright and clumsily patted his back, trying to soothe him. At first, Little Li struggled, but then suddenly quieted down, slowly leaning against Han Mingxiu’s shoulder. He still cried intermittently, but gradually calmed. Within a few minutes, only occasional sniffles could be heard.

Seeing that the child had stopped crying, Han Mingxiu let out a sigh of relief. His posture holding the child was awkward and stiff, but he continued trying to comfort him, his hand gently patting the child’s back. The child, buried against his chest, murmured something.

“What?” Han Mingxiu asked softly. “What did you say?”

The child looked up at Han Mingxiu and said two words: “Zhu Zhu.”

“?” Han Mingxiu was puzzled. Han’s father, who was nearby, added fuel to the fire: “He says you’re a pig! He’s right!”

“…”

“Zhu Zhu!” The child emphasized again, then twisted his body to get down. Han Mingxiu, afraid the child might fall, quickly set him down. Little Li ran with small, quick steps to the side of the sofa, grabbed his small dinosaur backpack, pulled out a handkerchief, and sniffed it a few times. He then ran back and raised the handkerchief up to Han Mingxiu.

Han Mingxiu squatted down, confused, and took the handkerchief. Upon closer inspection, it was sewn into a ball shape in the center, with four corners hanging down, resembling the figure of a “Sunshine Doll.”

“You said it’s called Zhu Zhu?” Han Mingxiu smiled gently to avoid scaring the little boy, shaking the doll in front of him.

“Mm, Zhu Zhu.” Little Li nodded vigorously, sniffing his nose and pointing at the round head of the doll.

Han Mingxiu squeezed the doll’s round head, which felt hard. Upon further inspection, he noticed that the doll’s neck had a thin, elastic band that could be pulled open. He turned the doll over, pulled apart its skirt, and from the loosened elastic, a wooden bead rolled out and landed on the floor.

Little Li chased after the wooden bead, calling out, “Zhu Zhu, Zhu Zhu…” The bead rolled to Mrs. Han’s feet, and she picked it up and handed it to Little Li. After receiving the bead, Little Li shyly smiled at the kind grandmother, quietly saying thank you. He then sniffed the bead before slowly walking back to Han Mingxiu’s side, handing the bead to him and saying, “Bead, fragrant, the same.”

He threw himself into Han Mingxiu’s arms, taking a deep breath in satisfaction.

Han Mingxiu, holding the child with one hand and the wooden bead with the other, felt his nose suddenly become stuffy. He blinked, trying to clear the moisture from his eyes so he could see more clearly. But really, there was no need. He had recognized it at first glance—the wooden bead in his hand was the one that Xiaye had asked for all those years ago.

So, all these years, had he been using the scent lingering on this cedar bead to comfort the child?

Han Mingxiu couldn’t keep his composure anymore. He plopped down on the floor, holding the child, feeling completely lost. He didn’t understand why this was happening. The child in front of him was clearly his own. Forget about the resemblance—just the fact that the child was calmed by his scent meant that the pheromones within him not only didn’t reject him, but were drawn to him, which usually only happened with blood relatives. The more he thought about it, the more confused he became, but one emotion became clearer and clearer.

He was scared.

It seemed like he had done something terribly despicable, something unforgivable. He didn’t even deserve to say the words “I’m sorry.”

Cold sweat beaded on his forehead.

With difficulty, he turned to face his furious father sitting on the sofa. “I—I’ll look into it.”

“Look into it? I’m waiting for you to look into it!” Han’s father snapped, grabbing a brown paper bag from the coffee table and throwing it in front of Han Mingxiu. “The child’s other father is Xia Ye, right? I remember when you two had such a good relationship back then. You even brought him home to meet us. How could you be so cruel to ruin a perfectly good child like this? He was a top student, always top of his class, receiving scholarships every year, and look what you’ve done—he dropped out of college in his senior year.” Han’s father grew more agitated as he spoke, raising his voice but then lowering it again, not wanting to scare the precious grandson. “Do you know how dangerous that time was? An Omega without an Alpha to care for him, unable to calm the fetus, leading to a premature birth. He almost died on the operating table.”

Han Mingxiu stared in horror at his father. Xia Ye almost died? Trembling, he picked up the paper bag but hesitated, not daring to pull out the documents inside.

“Little Li, hungry.” The child tugged at Han Mingxiu’s sleeve, his soft voice bringing him back to attention. “Although Daddy says not to eat food from strangers, Little Li held back, but this uncle seems so familiar, so he shouldn’t be a stranger, right?” The child comforted himself, clearly very hungry.

“Come, come, come, let’s go to Grandma,” Han’s mother finally waited until the child spoke and was willing to eat something. She happily waved at Little Li. “Grandma will take you to eat something. Do you like fish? Your daddy loves fish the most!” She was referring to Han Mingxiu when she said “daddy.”

But the child shook his head. “Little Li likes fish, but Daddy doesn’t like it,” the little one said seriously, looking at Grandma. “It has thorns, it hurts. Daddy twice.” Little Li held up his short, chubby finger and made a thumbs-up gesture. Han’s mother looked puzzled. “Huh?”

Han Mingxiu understood immediately.

Xia Ye actually liked fish, but he didn’t like fish with too many bones. When they were dating, Han Mingxiu had noticed this and would always carefully pick the fish with the fewest bones for him.

The precious person he had once protected with all his heart… After he left, even fish became difficult for him to eat. According to Little Li, he had been pricked by fishbones at least twice.

Little Li. Han Mingxiu repeated the name in his mind. His heart twisted painfully.

The sudden abandonment three years ago, still wrapped in the cruel guise of “I no longer love you.”

And now, in these two encounters, he had only received malicious humiliation from his own hands.

Han Mingxiu was filled with both pain and fear.

He patted the child’s back, telling him to follow his grandmother to have dinner. Holding the investigation report his father had thrown at him, he went upstairs alone to his room.

This document was his crime, and he couldn’t calm down in front of everyone.

The investigation report was detailed, each line striking him hard, hitting the bullseye. Han Mingxiu was the target, and he deserved to be pierced by a thousand arrows.

Just as Han’s father had said, Xia Ye had dropped out of college in his senior year, two months after Han Mingxiu had broken up with him. The report mentioned that Xia Ye had been in poor mental health during those two months, frequently taking sick leave, and his five-month pregnancy had started showing. The rumors began to spread at school. Han Mingxiu and Xia Ye had always been inseparable, but now the weak and pregnant Omega was alone. Rumors could hurt, but they were also facts: Xia ye had been abandoned.

An Omega from an ordinary family couldn’t match the noble Han family. The sparrow dreaming of becoming a phoenix was always a joke in the end.

Xia Ye could endure physical discomfort, but he couldn’t withstand the harm of rumors. The rumors were hurtful, yet they weren’t wrong. Han Mingxiu had given him the reason: he no longer loved him. Xia Ye had no way to refute it and ultimately left the campus in silence.

Without an education, without experience, and weakened by pregnancy, Xia Ye had no advantages to find a good job. He could only rely on his foreign language skills, doing translation work for others’ theses. He translated many graduation theses, but none were his own. He never had the chance to graduate.

When Xia Ye’s grandfather came to visit him, he had hoped it would be a pleasant surprise, but it turned into a shock. The old man found Xia Ye, once so brilliant, now slumped in a small rented apartment, gaunt and without books to study.

And he was pregnant.

In a fit of anger, Xia Ye’s grandfather turned to leave, but in his distraction, he tripped and broke his leg. The old man had already been in poor health, and after this injury, his condition worsened. His vitality leaked out like air from a punctured balloon, and he never recovered. Less than a month later, he passed away.

Xia Ye was heartbroken, guilty, and miserable, and after taking care of his grandfather’s funeral, he collapsed.

During the entire pregnancy, the remaining pheromones in the cedar wood bead were not enough to soothe the baby in his womb, and even his own body was tortured by the chaotic hormones to the point of madness.

The day he collapsed, there had been an explosion at a chemical factory in the industrial district. It was difficult to secure an ambulance, and when they finally arrived at the hospital, no one was available to take care of him. The hospital was overwhelmed with patients, and all the doctors had been summoned, including the obstetricians who were drafted to help elsewhere.

The doctor accompanying the ambulance was sweating anxiously, making calls to find a supervisor. Han Junzhou was in the next operating room performing a laparotomy. On the phone, he instructed his student to find a place in the operating room and sent two senior nurses to help. So, the young doctor who had only assisted his mentor in surgeries before, now found himself performing the surgery for the first time under his mentor’s guidance over the phone, delivering Xia Ye’s baby in a corner of a modest operating room.

The eight-month-old fetus weighed only 1,500 grams. As soon as it was born, its body was completely black, and the nurse quickly wrapped it in a blanket and rushed it to the adjacent neonatal intensive care unit.

As for Xia Ye, his heart stopped beating during the stitching of his abdominal wound. A nurse quickly called for help, and other doctors who had just finished their own surgeries rushed in to assist. Amid the chaotic rescue efforts, they managed to save his life.

Han Mingxiu panted heavily as he finished reading the attached medical records from the investigation report. The records were straightforward, but one could imagine how heart-stopping the process had been. He recalled the uneven surgical scar he had seen in the club’s room that day. At that time, he had been furious, hating Xia Ye for allowing himself to be ruined for someone unworthy.

He looked at his own frail, pale body, and, in his cruelty, even took a perverse pleasure in the fact that Xia Ye was suffering.

But he never expected that he himself was the one who had caused all this destruction.

Xia Ye’s only close relative had fallen, breaking his leg and eventually losing his life over this. And yet, while trampling on Xia Ye, Han Mingxiu had used his grandfather’s death to stab him in the heart.

Who the hell is to blame for this?!

Han Mingxiu buried his face in his hands. At this point, he could barely bring himself to read on. But there was no need to read any further—Xia Ye had barely survived, and now he had to care for a child. He could easily imagine how difficult and dangerous life was for an Omega with no one to rely on.

It reminded him of that day at the Jump Horse Club, when an Alpha had tried to buy an Omega, and no one could stop him or even cared to try.

Han Mingxiu was relieved. He was glad that he was that Alpha.

But then, cold sweat broke out on his skin. How could he be that Alpha? How could he be the one, again and again, continuously hurting Xia Ye?

Three years had passed since their last encounter, and Xia Ye hadn’t wanted to ask for anything in return. It was Han Mingxiu who selfishly took, forcing Xia Ye to put up a price of “one million,” making Xia Ye awkwardly explain, “I’m not selling,” and ultimately forcing him to ask, “Why are you doing this?” Every word was filled with despair and pain.

Back then, Han Mingxiu had said he no longer loved Xia Ye, and Xia Ye hadn’t begged him to stay. Now, those words “Why are you doing this?” crossed over the span of three years, and the melancholy and heartbreak that Xia Ye had thrown at him completely overwhelmed Han Mingxiu.

Xia Ye was right—he was a bastard!

He was the bastard!

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– End of chapter –

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