Dr. Jiang Is Pregnant with His Archrival's Baby

[Signed for print publication and an audio drama. Follow wb@Hulu Jiang Jiang Jiang~ for updates on the schedule.]

Everyone knew that the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at Jihua Hospital, affiliated with A Medical University, had two associate chief physicians who could never get along.

From their first year of college to graduation with their PhDs, then through residency training and the professional title evaluations, Jiang Xu and Shen Fangyu competed like their lives depended on it. They were at each other's throats, determined to outdo each other at every turn: if you got a 96, I'd get a 97.

In the end, they even fell for the same woman.

Who could have guessed that before the two of them could settle the score, the person they loved would walk up to them hand in hand with her girlfriend and come out to them with a beaming smile?

The two straight men, who had spent three months at each other's throats for nothing, had their worldviews shattered. United against their common foe, they drank themselves into a stupor and somehow ended up in bed together.

Afterward, Jiang Xu dragged himself upright, his lower back feeling like it was about to fall apart. His mind went into meltdown for half a minute, then he resolutely decided to forget the whole thing.

Three months later, he clutched his vanished abs and stared at his urine test results, then looked at his reflection in the mirror in disbelief.

“Ugh, ”

*

The first time he came clean

Shen Fangyu felt Jiang Xu's forehead. “You don't even have a fever. Is it April Fool's Day?”

Then his face was swollen for seven days.

The first time they calculated the due date

Shen Fangyu couldn't help laughing. “Well, would you look at that. The kid's really due on April Fool's Day.”

Jiang Xu's expression was icy. “That only proves that meeting you was one big joke.”

On April Fool's Day

The heavy smell of alcohol washed over him. Jiang Xu spoke irritably. “Can you do this or not?”

Dr. Shen was as sharp-tongued as ever. “Don't worry. With all my years of experience, I guarantee that if you don't make it off the operating table alive, I'll pay for your grave.”

Jiang Xu turned his head away. “Who the hell is scared, ”

The oxygen mask was pressed over Jiang Xu's face, cutting him off.

“I can't kiss you right now, but I'll stay by your side the whole time.”

The sharp scalpel opened the body of the person he loved, layer by layer. When he looked up again, the usually flippant Dr. Shen's eyes held nothing but love laid bare.

“Even though this baby is being born on April Fool's Day, believe me, I'm not here to make a joke of it.”

“Dr. Jiang,” Shen Fangyu said. “I love you.”

Reader's guide:

1. Feel-good, satisfying, sweet romance, happy ending, both are each other's first.

2. An emotionally icy, short-tempered bottom who is queenly in fits and starts × a clownish, dramatic top who becomes a devoted puppy from time to time.

3. Written for fun and relaxation. Sweet romance, with a wish-fulfillment career storyline.

4. Readers with medical backgrounds, readers who scrutinize every detail, and readers who demand airtight logic, proceed with caution. No matter how many sources I cite to make male pregnancy sound plausible, the premise is inherently implausible.

5. The main story only runs through the birth. The baby-raising is in the extras, and there won't be much of it. If that's a dealbreaker or a selling point, you can decide for yourself.

6. The setting is fictional, fictional, fictional! That's important, so I'm saying it three times. The hospital policies in the story are loosely based on those in China, but I've changed things for the sake of the plot. Please treat it as a parallel universe. Don't argue with me: if you do, you're right.

7. I'm open to constructive feedback, but not baseless advice from non-experts. I'm fine with trigger warnings, but not made-up ones based on imagined content.

8. [IMPORTANT] The bottom's career is not affected by pregnancy or childbirth. If you've imagined plot points out of thin air, put your own name on them instead of attributing them to my work. Thank you.

*

Here's a new project I'm collecting interest for: “My Youth Is Back: The Ship I Loved Became Canon.”

Top-tier star Fu Xinghui is known throughout the entertainment industry as a workaholic. In his thirteen years since debuting, he's worked harder than anyone on a 996 schedule and become the company's most lucrative cash cow.

His boss was raking in the money when he remembered that his model employee was nearly thirty and had never dated. With a wave of his hand, he sent him off to appear on a dating reality show.

The women on the show were all stunning, one more beautiful than the next. But no one expected Fu Xinghui to fall for one of the male contestants instead.

That man was none other than Ji Lang, Fu Xinghui's co-star in the first film he made after debuting. They had acted opposite each other, then avoided being seen together for ten years. He was Fu Xinghui's former colleague

*

Ten years ago, fans all thought Fu Xinghui and Ji Lang were a real couple. Then they suddenly stopped playing it up for the cameras. For all those years, fans couldn't dig up even a scrap of evidence that the two were still in touch.

Ten years later, fans had accepted that the two weren't actually close. Then, after the show wrapped, Ji Lang confessed his feelings to Fu Xinghui.

*

Fu Xinghui still remembered when sixteen-year-old Ji Lang caught a chill, came down with a high fever, and lay in bed with red eyes as he asked, “Brother, would you take care of someone else like this too? Are you this good to your other little brothers?”

He was like a pitiful, damp little kitten.

But Fu Xinghui never imagined that one day the kitten would grow into a tiger.

When twenty-six-year-old Ji Lang pinned him to the bed, his eyes were still red and his voice slightly hoarse, but the words he spoke were a threat whispered intimately against Fu Xinghui's ear.

“Brother, if I'd known you liked this sort of thing...”

He said, “I wouldn't have kept pretending.”

2022.4.23 Screenshot saved

Theme: Unite, be kind to one another, face setbacks with courage, and build a better future.