Help! The Little Monster Keeps Calling Me Mom!

[A story about a male mom, set in an alternate Republican-era China] Qin Qiutong was once the young master of a wealthy family in Changping Lane. He had been treasured and pampered from childhood, and everyone who met him had to defer to him. His family had doted on him and raised him like a daughter. Later, the family fell into decline, and creditors surrounded their home. He left Changping with a servant to board a plane bound for overseas. But the servant betrayed him. When he woke, he found himself in a pitch-black cage. On the platform in the center was a memorial tablet. And a ceramic doll. -- Qin Qiutong felt as if he were about to die. Something was touching his fingers. He struggled to look and saw a tiny figure. The child crawled along the ground like a monster. It called out to him in a small, grating voice. It called him "Mama." He was so frightened that he cried himself unconscious on the spot. When he woke, everything that had happened before seemed to have been only a hallucination. He boarded a plane leaving Changping. Yet whenever he hallucinated, he could see the small child's figure. -- From the doll's perspective: I found myself a mama. Mama is sweet and smells nice, and he's very afraid of me. I want him to stop being afraid of me. I'll stay with Mama. Don't leave me behind. I'll protect Mama, because... Mama was the one who woke me and saved me. + Reader's Guide: A story about a male mom. The child is the protagonist. Possibly a crime investigation and supernatural story. The protagonist's male mom really is a coward. You can think of him as a beautiful canary kept in a cage until adulthood. (There's no romance at all.) The child is a heartless, emotionless monster. [Lots of emotional push and pull between father and son. Love and growth.] Blurb: January 9, 2023 Theme: Growth between father and son