After the Cool, Sickly Beauty Is Forced to Become Pregnant

*SC, HE, alternate Republican-era setting

I'll start posting once I have enough interest in the collection, so add it if you're interested~

When Fu Chi was ten, the Fu army was defeated, his father died, and chaos engulfed the household.

In the midst of it all, he saw Wen Shuyue for the first time.

His father's most beautiful bird, hidden away in the back courtyard.

Amid the flames and screams filling the courtyard, the man wore a plain long gown. He looked like a porcelain Guanyin, once placed on an altar, then smashed to pieces.

He seemed cold and unfeeling.

Luckily, Fu Chi had known how to play pitiful since childhood. He slashed his own hand, collapsed in a pool of blood, and half closed his eyes, pretending to be an abandoned puppy.

“Save me...”

Wen Shuyue's heart softened, just as Fu Chi expected. He picked him up and carried him out of the sprawling residence.

From then on, the two depended on each other to survive in a world torn by war.

*

Only later did Fu Chi learn that Wen Shuyue was educated, but his family had fallen into decline and he held little status.

Even so, he was steeped in Confucian ethics and propriety, and valued rules and decorum above all.

Fu Chi couldn't read, so Wen Shuyue taught him his characters and his principles every day.

He taught him harshly. When the ruler came down, Fu Chi's palm swelled red.

Fu Chi would kneel before him, looking up at the wrist holding the ruler, the loose strands of hair, and the lips pressed tight.

So beautiful.

One day, Fu Chi was leafing through a book when he read, “One who has raised you should be respected as a mother.”

Then he called Wen Shuyue the first character he had learned.

“Mother.”

Wen Shuyue trembled with rage and cursed him for a scoundrel.

*

After Fu Chi came of age, Wen Shuyue gradually regained some standing, dressing in long gowns and teaching at a school.

The rumors grew worse. They said that Mr. Jiang kept his father's mad dog at his side, and that the relationship between them was too shameful to speak of.

Fu Chi stood outside the window, burning with jealousy.

So Wen Shuyue wasn't only his teacher; he could be someone else's teacher too.

So Wen Shuyue didn't just strike his palm; he could also hold someone else's wrist and teach them to write.

And Fu Chi could tell that the rumors had made Wen Shuyue consider leaving.

On a snowy night, Fu Chi did what he had done before. Kneeling before Wen Shuyue, he wept uncontrollably like the child who had once lain in a pool of blood, and asked, “Brother... even you want to abandon me?”

Wen Shuyue only said coldly, “There is too great an age difference between us. The rules of propriety forbid it.”

Fu Chi couldn't bear to hear it. Wen Shuyue shouted at him and hit him, so Fu Chi pinned him onto the bed, old robe and all, pried apart his tightly closed legs, and forced him to acknowledge the stirrings in his own body.

At last, the one he had called Mother became his wife in name and in truth.

*

But Wen Shuyue still left, his face dark, his body covered in bruises.

Fu Chi searched for him like a madman.

The next time he saw Wen Shuyue, it was at a remote inn.

His belly was slightly rounded, his body sickly, and the air around him was thick with the smell of medicine.

Wen Shuyue was half bent over, but his face had long since lost the composure he once showed at the lectern.

He tilted back his neck, his eyes veiled with tears, and pressed his swollen belly against a pile of clothes. As if overcome by an addiction, he murmured someone's name, haltingly.

His clothes were disheveled. He clutched an old garment to his chest and kept sniffing it desperately.

It was Fu Chi's old clothes.

Theme: Strive to be outstanding young people in the new era!