Fu Shinian saw the wide-eyed look in Su Mu’s eyes and felt her imminent resistance, but he didn’t relent; he pinned her directly onto the bed, bit her ear, and said in a low hoarse voice:
"I’m giving you a chance, if you say you don’t want to, I’ll let you go right now..."
As Su Mu stared at the chandelier overhead, her thoughts paused for a few seconds. She knew that Shinian had already softened his approach this ti, and she was aware that after this intimate encounter, their cold war would co to an end. There was no need to bring up the past, for whatever reasons. Yet she couldn’t shake off a feeling of resentnt, as if there was a breath stuck in her chest that she couldn’t release.
But what if she refused Fu Shinian? They would still get through this night unscathed, play the part of a loving couple in front of Grandma tomorrow, but once they left the old house, it would probably take another opportunity to fully reconcile.
Su Mu’s hesitation was clearly reflected in Fu Shinian’s eyes. He saw it all. As he was about to get up and leave, Su Mu suddenly stretched out her arms and embraced him. There was no surprise in Fu Shinian’s eyes, just a shallow smile:
"Are you sure?"
Su Mu didn’t speak at once. Her arms remained tightly around his neck, and as she looked at Fu Shinian—attentively and sincerely—she said:
"Fu Shinian, do you want because of physical need, or is it because..."
"Because of what?"
Su Mu wanted to say ’do you have, even just a little bit of, affection for ,’ but she didn’t ask in the end. Instead, she just slightly shook her head, then smiled desolately, raised her head, and kissed his lips. A few seconds later, Fu Shinian took over control, shattering all of Su Mu’s thoughts.
So it seed that Fu Shinian’s desire to have children had beco urgent, but why?
When Su Mu awoke in the early morning, she felt exhausted in body and soul. She quietly looked out the window for a few seconds, and suddenly realized she had made up with Fu Shinian. But it was an unexpected reconciliation, lacking the usual ease of their past encounters. Afraid to delve deeper into what this difference might an, she hurriedly got dressed.
As she went downstairs, Grandma and Auntie Wang were chatting in the living room. Seeing Su Mu co down, Grandma beckoned her over. Su Mu took a seat next to Grandma and managed a small smile:
"Grandma, good morning."
"Good morning, did you sleep well last night?"
Su Mu nodded: "Very well, how about you, Grandma?"
"Grandma is well too. Don’t you see I look much better?"
Su Mu smiled slightly:
"Grandma is always so beautiful."
Fu Shinian, whom she thought had already left, appeared at breakfast ti, pulled out the chair beside Su Mu, and sat down without a word. Considering Grandma was there, Su Mu passed him a pair of chopsticks to place on his setting. Fu Shinian took them and began to eat as if it were the most natural thing. Grandma saw this and smiled faintly.
After breakfast, Fu Shinian ntioned he had to go to the office, and Su Mu said she also had to leave. Seeing that the two appeared to have no problems, Grandma, still slightly worried, let them go. After all, she believed that young people needed to sort out their own issues. As an elder, she could offer advice but couldn’t presu to forcibly change anything.
The night’s snow had already lted halfway since it wasn’t very cold. Fu Shinian drove the car himself, at a speed that was neither fast nor slow, allowing Su Mu a good opportunity to bring up sothing she wanted to discuss:
"There’s sothing I want to talk to you about."
Fu Shinian glanced at her from the corner of his eye:
"What is it?"
After a few seconds of silence, Su Mu still spoke up:
"About having a child... could we possibly not, for now?"
The car abruptly braked hard. Due to inertia, Su Mu lurched forward, but thanks to the seatbelt, she wasn’t hurt. However, the pain she felt was nothing compared to the danger of the person beside her. Su Mu had anticipated his anger, but she hadn’t expected him to brake so recklessly.
This was the conclusion she had co to after pondering all morning, and she didn’t want to compromise. She tried to explain her thoughts:
"I think now is not the right ti to have a child, I..."
"Don’t want to?" Fu Shinian interrupted her with a cold sneer, "Then when do you think the right ti is? Su Mu, when I didn’t want a child, you went out of your way to get pregnant. Now when I do want one, you say it’s not the right ti. What’s your angle? If you want to negotiate terms with , you don’t need to beat around the bush—just tell straight. You might even gain more of my respect!"
Su Mu glanced at him, unable to suppress her emotions:
"Do you still believe that the previous pregnancy was deliberately orchestrated by ? But have you ever considered what I actually gained from that miscarriage? Aside from harming my body, what did you lose? Why do you always think I have ulterior motives toward you? If I really wanted to gain sothing from you, would it make sense that after two years of marriage, I still have to work to clear those debts?"
"Are you complaining?" Fu Shinian looked at her, his gaze so cold it could freeze everything, "What right do you have to complain? From the mont we began treating each other as husband and wife, I made it clear you had no right to bear my child, and I asked you to take your own contraceptive asures. How did you respond? You said you understood, you said you’d prevent accidents. So you think it’s my fault that I took you on the roadside, you didn’t take dicine afterward, and you ended up pregnant and subsequently miscarried?"
"It was an accident, I didn’t want..."
"Even if getting pregnant was accidental, what about the miscarriage? Are you sure you didn’t feel any unusual signs in your body? Or did you sense sothing but chose not to ntion it?"
Su Mu rembered the night before the miscarriage—indeed, there had been a fleeting doubt when she returned ho, but she hadn’t told Fu Shinian because she feared he wouldn’t believe her, and because they had only had intercourse that one ti, she didn’t think she would be so unlucky.
"Am I right?" Fu Shinian spoke mockingly, "Did your previous miscarriage fail to leverage anything from , so now you’re trying to use pregnancy as a bargaining chip? Spit it out, let’s see if I can satisfy you."
Su Mu lost the desire to speak:
"I don’t want anything; I just genuinely think that now is not the ti."
Fu Shinian was silent for a few seconds. Su Mu’s peripheral vision caught his hands on the steering wheel, his knuckles white from gripping too hard. She even entertained the notion that Fu Shinian might lash out at her the next mont. He was holding back, but wasn’t Su Mu too?
"Are you saying you don’t want to have one right now, or is it that you just don’t want to bear my child?"
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