PTGWD Chapter 34: Prenatal Checkup

For the prenatal checkup in the obstetrics department, Fang Xingzhou also booked an appointment with a familiar colleague.

As the family member, he stood to the side, watching Lu Jianchuan, who was wearing a mask, his tall frame awkwardly lying on the examination table. His doctor friend, Dr. An, was utterly dumbfounded, looking back and forth between Lu Jianchuan and Fang Xingzhou, his brain clearly overloaded and unable to process the information.

Lu Jianchuan spoke up first: “Hello, Dr. An. I’m Xingzhou’s wife.”

He emphasized the word “wife,” and Fang Xingzhou couldn’t help but cough lightly, covering his smile with his hand.

Dr. An’s gaze slowly traveled from head to toe, taking in Lu Jianchuan’s nearly 1.9-meter-tall frame and entirely masculine attire, before finally settling on the Adam’s apple on his neck.

Lu Jianchuan silently pulled up his collar to cover the Adam’s apple a bit.

“You, your….. wife,” Dr. An’s lips twitched as he struggled to form words, “…is quite tall, huh.”

Fang Xingzhou calmly replied, “Yes, he’s been tall since childhood. I like tall people—they make me feel safe.”

Dr. An: “…And he has an Adam’s apple?”

Fang Xingzhou: “Mm, his androgen levels were high during puberty, so it developed. You’re an obstetrician; you should know this.”

Dr. An was even more crushed: “Androgen levels high enough to develop an Adam’s apple, yet he can still get pregnant normally? You… you two are really something!”

Fang Xingzhou remained expressionless: “He took some medication to supplement estrogen for a while. Polycystic ovary syndrome isn’t an unsolvable condition.”

Dr. An: “…”

Utterly confused, he looked down at Lu Jianchuan again, feeling as though his intelligence and professional expertise were being insulted. He suspected Fang Xingzhou had come today specifically to mess with him.

“Let’s take a look at the ultrasound then,” he said through gritted teeth, gripping the equipment tightly. “How many months along is he?”

Lu Jianchuan: “A little over three months.”

As he said this, he secretly extended a tentacle under his coat, warning the embryo inside not to pull any tricks like last time, when it had pretended to make a scary face during the ultrasound.

[Pretend to be a human fetus properly. If you scare the doctor, I’ll move you from the abdominal cavity to the stomach and digest you!]

The tentacle gently tapped the belly.

The little thing inside shivered and quickly quieted down, playing dead.

The doctor said, “Lift your shirt.”

Lu Jianchuan quickly retracted the tentacle and lifted his sweater, revealing a slightly rounded belly that still showed traces of abs.

Dr. An’s gaze fell on Lu Jianchuan’s abdomen, and his pupils contracted. He stared in disbelief at the slight bulge, unable to move for a long time.

How was this possible?

The faint outlines of abs on either side proved that the bulge wasn’t a beer belly. This man… was actually serious?!

“Doctor?” Lu Jianchuan called out with a slight smile.

Dr. An snapped out of his shock and looked up again, his brows furrowed as he glanced uncertainly at Fang Xingzhou, desperately seeking confirmation from his fellow doctor.

Fang Xingzhou was also staring at the bulge on Lu Jianchuan’s belly, his expression growing tense. He took a deep breath and nodded at Dr. An. “Let’s begin.”

Dr. An looked somewhat dazed. Mechanically, he applied the ultrasound gel to Lu Jianchuan’s belly and tremblingly placed the ultrasound probe against the skin, where there was even a very familiar name tattooed…

Good heavens, Fang Xingzhou always seemed so serious and proper in public, but in private, he was… Dr. An closed his eyes for a moment, feeling as though his pure heart had been tainted by something unknown.

Lu Jianchuan adjusted to a more comfortable position, following the probe’s movements as he looked at his own belly, the smile on his lips deepening.

[This is your first lesson in survival: how to pretend to be human in human society.]
[If you fail today, you’ll become the older brother your younger sibling never had.]

The belly received the parent’s threatening lesson and gave a slight twitch.

This movement startled Dr. An so much that he nearly dropped the probe.

“Don’t be afraid, Dr. An,” Lu Jianchuan comforted him instead. “There’s just a harmless, adorable human fetus inside.”

Dr. An: “…”

His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his hairs stood on end. He couldn’t help but say, “Shh, don’t talk for now. It’s kind of creepy.”

Fang Xingzhou also felt a chill run down his spine at Lu Jianchuan’s words.

A human fetus… really?

He quietly tightened his grip on the diagnosis in his pocket, his heart pounding as he tried to hide his nervousness and calmly looked at the ultrasound machine.

This would be the first time he saw their child with his own eyes.

What would it be…?

…Human?

Or… a monster?

However, the ultrasound screen showed only a grayish-white chaos. After searching for three or four minutes, the probe couldn’t find the fetus at all. Dr. An frowned slightly, growing more suspicious that he was being pranked. He gave Lu Jianchuan a hesitant look.

Lu Jianchuan’s voice was deep: “Keep looking.”

Out of professional duty, Dr. An applied more gel and repositioned the probe, patiently searching from the side of the waist toward the center.

Slowly, something appeared on the screen.

All three of them held their breath.

Fang Xingzhou’s scalp tightened slightly, a strong premonition washing over him that he was about to witness the most bizarre miracle in the world, one offered by his lover and meant for him alone.

On the ultrasound screen, the faint outline of a fetus emerged from the black, white, and gray.

It was still very small, but it already had the appearance of a normal human fetus—a large head, a tiny body, curled up in a comfortable position, its “mouth” clamped onto the umbilical cord. It even moved its undifferentiated hand slightly as if waving at them.

Fang Xingzhou’s breath hitched.

His pupils dilated slightly as he stared in disbelief at the ultrasound screen, his heart almost leaping out of his throat. An unprecedented strange emotion surged within him, overwhelming all rationality.

It was a… normal human fetus.

A new life created by him and Lu Jianchuan, inheriting their genes, blood, and intense love.

A… nearly impossible… true miracle.

All his suspicions melted away the moment he saw the ultrasound image. He felt intense dizziness, as if the very fabric of the world’s logic was collapsing, taking his sanity and perceptio with it, utterly and effortlessly destroyed.

All that remained in his mind was a sense of crazy love. His eyes unconsciously turned red, and he even began to entertain the unthinkable idealistic notion that love could transform everything.

A hand with distinct knuckles gripped his, and he immediately clasped it tightly in return, his palm sweaty but refusing to let go.

“Honey,” Lu Jianchuan said, satisfied with the embryo’s performance, “isn’t our baby adorable?”

The room was silent.

After a long while, Dr. An finally snapped out of the suffocating tension. He stared at the ultrasound machine, his hands trembling slightly. For a moment, he felt as though he was witnessing a Nobel Prize-worthy discovery.

Calm down, don’t overthink it.

Maybe Fang Xingzhou wasn’t lying. Maybe the person on the examination table really was female, just… uh, with an Adam’s apple, nearly 1.9 meters tall, and a preference for men’s clothing. With billions of people on Earth, of course, anything is possible!

He took a deep breath, desperately clearing his mind, and began the ultrasound examination, pressing the machine’s buttons to record the fetus’s condition.

“…The embryo seems to be developing well,” he said, his voice still unsteady, trapped in immense self-doubt. “The fetal heart rate is normal. The head circumference is 13.5 cm, and the biparietal diameter is 4.2 cm. For three months, it’s a bit on the larger side. You’ll need to control your diet… Mm… It’s moving again. It seems very lively… A bit too lively for a three-month-old fetus…”

Lu Jianchuan wasn’t focused on the embryo’s full performance. Instead, he looked at Fang Xingzhou, who was completely unresponsive, and gently scratched his palm. “Zhouzhou?”

Fang Xingzhou slowly took a deep breath.

He had almost forgotten how to breathe, his gaze fixed on the little life he and Lu Jianchuan had created, his brain oxygen-deprived.

Perhaps sensing the other parent’s gaze, the embryo moved again.

A smile crept onto Fang Xingzhou’s lips. He intertwined his fingers with Lu Jianchuan’s and answered hoarsely, “…Adorable.”

Dr. An glanced at his friend and teased, “You look like you’re about to faint from happiness, Xingzhou.”

Then he pinched the bridge of his nose, giving Lu Jianchuan’s Adam’s apple a indescribable look, and muttered, “I’m about to faint too. I think my mental state is a bit unstable right now…”

He picked up the probe again, confirming that every structure in the abdominal cavity was familiar and correct, with no artificial traces, and that the fetus was indeed healthy.

The more he looked, the more confused his brain became, until his vision started to blur. Lu Jianchuan finally said, “Doctor? Are you done with the examination?”

Dr. An forced himself to look away, grabbed a tissue, and handed it to Lu Jianchuan. “The ultrasound is done. Clean yourself up.” Then he walked to the sink, splashed cold water on his face, and tried to calm himself.

When he returned to the desk, Lu Jianchuan had already put his clothes back on and was standing next to Fang Xingzhou, intimately holding his waist. At nearly half a head taller than the 1.8-meter-tall Fang Xingzhou, with broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and long legs, Lu Jianchuan’s physique was undeniably masculine. Yet, he was genuinely pregnant with a human fetus…

He was pointing at the ultrasound image, smiling as he said to Fang Xingzhou, “Its head is so big. It looks a bit ugly, like an octopus… or a jellyfish. What do you think?” Fang Xingzhou, however, was still staring blankly at the ultrasound machine, his mind clearly elsewhere.

Dr. An began to feel dizzy again. If this kept up, he might need to visit the psychiatry department downstairs tomorrow.

He printed out the results and eagerly ushered them out:

“Alright, I need to call the next patient. Go ahead and finish the other tests, then come back.”

Lu Jianchuan shook the doctor’s hand, thanking him, then took the report and led Fang Xingzhou out to continue the prenatal checkup.

It wasn’t until all the tests were done that Fang Xingzhou began to recover from the shock of seeing the fetus. In the car, he took out the ultrasound report again and stared at the fetal images all the way home, from the hospital to their house.

While driving, Lu Jianchuan smiled and asked, “Zhouzhou, you’ve been looking at it for so long. What do you see?”

Fang Xingzhou, still clutching the diagnosis in his other hand, murmured in confusion, “It really is a human embryo.”

Lu Jianchuan: “Of course. You’re human, and I’m human. Naturally, what we create is a human embryo. It’s obvious.”

Fang Xingzhou murmured again, “…Adorable.”

The embryo inside heard this.

A faint, almost imperceptible sense of joy welled up from the heart—an emotion that didn’t belong to Lu Jianchuan.

Lu Jianchuan sat up straighter, feeling the embryo excitedly moving around, still maintaining its human fetus appearance, as if it had gotten addicted to acting.

He smiled. “Say more, honey. The baby loves hearing it.”

Fang Xingzhou’s eyes showed uncertainty and confusion. “I thought…”

“Thought what?”

He fell silent for a long time, then shook his head and smiled, his shoulders relaxing slightly. “It’s nothing. He looks so lively. I wonder who he takes after?”

“Hmm,” Lu Jianchuan also had no clue. “That part doesn’t seem like you. You were always so well-behaved as a child, like a little adult.”

The embryo quieted down after hearing this, no longer thrashing around.

It seemed the Research Institute was right—prenatal education was indeed significant. Lu Jianchuan thought.

Fang Xingzhou also looked up from the report, his gaze settling on the driver.

He smiled and asked, “How do you know I was so well-behaved as a child?”

Lu Jianchuan’s heart tightened.

But years of instinctive disguise were ingrained in him. He calmly reached out with one hand, taking Fang Xingzhou’s still-damp palm, and smiled. “Of course. You just look like the type who was a straight-A student since childhood.”

Fang Xingzhou didn’t respond. After a moment, he brought Lu Jianchuan’s hand to his lips and kissed it gently, temporarily suppressing the trembling in his heart as he brought up the pregnancy-related matters the doctor had mentioned earlier.

By the time they got home, it was almost dark.

After a long day at the hospital, with emotions rising and falling repeatedly, Fang Xingzhou felt unusually tired. After dinner, he went to take a bath, then stood in front of the washing machine in his bathrobe, looking at the dirty clothes from today.

The jacket still contained the diagnosis with the reminder written on it.

Lu Jianchuan was in the kitchen cutting fruit. Ever since the incident where Fang Xingzhou caught him trying to cut his wrist, he had been banned from entering the kitchen or touching any sharp objects, even though today’s checkup results were completely normal.

…Completely normal?

If everything was normal, why did he still feel that his lover might be a monster pretending to be human, even after seeing the fetal image today?

Fang Xingzhou half-squatted.

Just thinking about that tiny fetus made him uncontrollably smile, his mind filled with complex joy and worry.

He even unconsciously reached into the jacket pocket, hesitating whether to tear up the diagnosis to avoid upsetting Lu Jianchuan if he found it.

But…

After a long while.

He ultimately did nothing, leaving the diagnosis in the pocket. He sprayed the clothes with alcohol spray to disinfect them and hung the jacket back in the closet, placing it in the middle.

Based on his clothing habits, he would likely choose this jacket again in about a week.

Fang Xingzhou stared at it for a while.

A week… should be enough time for Lu Jianchuan to fulfill his promise and handle the gossip and trouble caused at the hospital today.

Just then, Lu Jianchuan’s voice came from downstairs, calling out, “Honey, I cut some apples for you. Come down.”

Fang Xingzhou closed his eyes for a moment, then shut the closet door.

He left the bedroom and saw his lover holding a carefully cut fruit plate arranged in the shape of a heart, leaning against the dining table and smiling affectionately at him.

Fang Xingzhou pushed the chaotic thoughts to the back of his mind and couldn’t help but smile as well. He walked down the stairs, step by step, until he stood in front of Lu Jianchuan. He reached out and gently stroked his lover’s belly through the fabric, allowing himself to be swallowed by endless love and joy.

“The doctor said the baby is healthy. Just six and a half more months…”

Lu Jianchuan picked the sweetest piece of apple from the plate and brought it to Fang Xingzhou’s lips.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said eagerly, looking at Fang Xingzhou, impatiently wanting to enjoy today’s self-service meal. “Right now, it’s our time alone. We need to celebrate properly, to celebrate your psychological evaluation being completely normal!”

Fang Xingzhou opened his mouth and bit into the apple, his tongue accidentally brushing against Lu Jianchuan’s fingertip, tasting the lingering sweet juice of the fruit.

He stared into Lu Jianchuan’s eyes, slowly chewing.

Once.

Twice.

…Before he could take a third bite.

Lu Jianchuan’s breathing had already become rapid and uncontrollable. He gripped the back of Fang Xingzhou’s neck, leaned down, and sealed his lips, prying open his teeth to compete for the sweet juice inside.

In the midst of their intense kiss, they drew closer and closer. The embryo inside seemed to taste something incredibly delicious, thrashing around to show its strong vitality to its parents…