Chapter Text
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
At first it was far away, low enough that his sleep-addled mind barely registered it, and he drifted back to sleep. But the sound came closer, again and again, until even he couldn’t ignore it anymore. Sure enough, warm breath huffed against his cheek a moment later, and he frowned, forced to open his eyes.
Not that opening them did much. The world he woke into was dark, the same as always. He lay there a moment, unmoving, some quiet part of him not particularly interested in getting up at all. It wasn’t as if he had anywhere to be. He didn’t have any reports to write, any examinations to invigilate, any bugs to fix—he could just sleep the day away, just like how he often wanted to back then when he was still in the system. But the dog barked again, insistent, nosing at his shoulder now, and that was usually the signal that meant if he didn’t get up soon, it would just keep barking until he did. He reached out across the mattress instead, toward the space beside him.
Empty. Cold enough that Qin Jiu must have been up for a while already—his scent still there, but faint. You Huo exhaled the leftover scent through his nose and then reached for the nightstand, fingers finding the familiar shape of his watch by feel alone. He fastened it to his wrist without sitting up.
“Xiao Xi, what time is it?”
“Good morning,” the AI answered, pleasant and even. “It is currently 9:22 AM. You have one message from Qin Jiu.”
“Play it.”
Qin Jiu’s voice filled the room a second later, warm through the speaker on the nightstand, a little rushed the way it always was when he was running behind schedule.
“Honey, I have to train early today. I have left your breakfast ready—don’t forget to eat it, okay? I’ll try to call at lunch.”
The message ended, and the room went quiet again except for the dog’s tail thumping against the mattress, patiently waiting for You Huo to get up. You Huo reached out blindly until his hand found the animal’s head, scratching behind one ear. Nine twenty-two. That meant Qin Jiu had already been gone for hours—training started before sunrise most days now, something about the new recruits needing more supervision.
Sitting up took more effort than it used to, his balance shifting these days in ways he still hadn’t fully adjusted to, five months along now. The babies had made their presence felt very well. The dog—Mantou, a name Qin Jiu had picked out—pressed against his side as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, steadying him. His cane leaned against the nightstand where it always did, and he took it. You Huo wasn’t sure if the dog was trained to be a guide or service dog, but it seemed to be one of the reasons Qin Jiu adopted it—one more set of eyes to go with the cane.
“I’m up, I’m up,” he muttered, and she huffed, apparently satisfied, trotting off toward what he knew was the bedroom door.
He found his way to the kitchen the same way he found his way everywhere now: not by sight, but by count, and by the tap of the cane against the floor ahead of him. Seven steps to the hallway. A left turn at the second doorframe, the cane’s tip finding the corner, hand trailing the wall out of habit. Eleven steps after that, the tile turned cool and different under his feet, telling him he had reached the kitchen.
Breakfast was exactly where it always was, exactly the way Qin Jiu always left it—covered, still faintly warm, sitting at the same spot on the counter every single morning without fail. You Huo didn’t need to see it to know what it was before he even lifted the cover. Rice porridge, plain, the kind that didn’t upset his stomach the way richer food did. A little dish of pickled vegetables on the side, probably cut small enough that he wouldn’t have to worry about anything catching wrong in his throat. Qin Jiu had gotten good at this. If only he would allow him to eat more meat…just because meat used to make him nauseous early in his pregnancy, Qin Jiu started forbidding him from eating too much of it.
Huft.
He ate slowly, one hand resting against the curve of his stomach out of habit, feeling for the small flutter of movement that had started showing up more consistently over the last couple of weeks. Twins made themselves known early, apparently. The doctor had said as much when he came to check, something about needing more room. You Huo pressed his palm flatter, waiting, and after a moment felt it—a small shift, barely anything, but enough.
He smiled, alone in the kitchen.
It was a strange kind of morning, sitting there in the quiet with a bowl slowly going cold in front of him and nothing waiting for him afterward. Back then, he didn’t even have time to savour his food. But now…no reports to file. No invigilators calling in. No system voice cutting through his thoughts and activities with some new anomaly that needed solving or with some new complaints. Just this—a house, a dog underfoot, a weight in his belly. He had wanted this. A life outside the system.
He had it now. All of it.
Having nothing to do was the one thing he hadn’t planned for. But it was alright. The quiet just took some getting used to; that was all. This quiet was different anyway from the one he was used to—it was not the tense quiet where he had to be ready to listen to any bad news.
He finished the porridge. Rinsed the bowl by feel, set it in the rack where it always went. Called for Mantou, who came trotting back immediately, nails clicking against the tile.
“Xiao Xi,” he said, drying his hands on the towel that hung exactly where it always hung, “remind me to call Qin Jiu at noon if he doesn’t call first.”
“Noted,” the AI said. “Would you like me to read today’s news summary, or play something else?”
You Huo considered it, standing there in his kitchen with a full morning and nothing in it.
“News is fine,” he said, and settled onto a stool to listen, rubbing his belly and feeling the babies move.
The news summary ran long enough that by the time it finished, the porridge bowl had been dry in the rack for a while and Mantou had given up waiting for scraps, curling into a patch of sun by the door instead. You Huo sat a moment longer than he needed to, then pushed himself up and made his way toward the bathroom.
The shower stall was built low and wide, a fold-down seat fixed against the tiled wall and a grab bar within easy reach the moment he stepped inside—Qin Jiu had put all of it in himself, back when the pregnancy was officially confirmed, when he wasn’t even showing yet. You Huo lowered himself onto the seat once the water ran warm, steam curling up around him, and let it run over his shoulders. One hand drifted down to rest against the swell of his stomach beneath the spray. It was quiet, mostly, save for the sound of water hitting his body and the floor, along with the twins shifting now and then, small ripples of movement he had started looking forward to instead of finding startling.
It had felt strange the first time they moved—now it was the thing he waited for.
“Xiao Xi, play something. The parenting thing again, whatever’s next in the list.”
“Continuing from where you left off,” the AI said. “Episode fourteen: physical changes in the second trimester, partner bonding, and scent attachment.”
The recording started up, some calm voice explaining things he had already half-memorized from repetition—appetite changes, the shifting center of gravity, the reason his back had started aching. He let most of it wash over him, half-listening.
“—it’s common for expecting parents, particularly the carrying partner, to develop a heightened craving for their partner’s scent during this period. This isn’t unusual; it’s tied to the same hormonal shifts responsible for nesting behavior, and many describe it as a need to be near, or marked by, their partner more than usual, even without a clear reason why—”
You Huo went still under the water.
He thought about it. Qin Jiu’s scent used to linger easily. Lately, though—he frowned, trying to place exactly when it had started fading faster than it should have. Qin Jiu left before he woke and came back late. He hadn’t thought much of it before. With everyone still trying to settle back down into living in the real world, with the rebuilding of the system and everything, with You Huo absent, Qin Jiu and Chu Yue were two of the busiest ones as former chief invigilators. But now, sitting under the warm spray with a recorded voice explaining hormones and nesting instincts, the craving hit: he wanted Qin Jiu back. He wanted to bury his face against Qin Jiu’s neck the moment he walked through the door tonight, wanted to stay there until something actually stuck, wanted Qin Jiu marked into every pillow and every shirt in the house.
He was almost annoyed by how much he wanted it, and more annoyed that Qin Jiu hadn’t left enough behind this morning to tide him over until then.
“I’m demanding it tonight,” he muttered out loud, mostly to himself, mostly to Mantou, who had wandered in and settled just outside the stall. “The second he’s home. No excuses.”
The recording moved on to something about folic acid. You Huo let the water run a while longer before reaching over to shut it off and easing himself back onto his feet, one hand steady on the bar the whole way up.
Dressing took longer than it should have, mostly because he stopped halfway through to deal with the bed.
It wasn’t rational, and he knew it wasn’t rational, and he did it anyway—stripping the blanket back, refolding it, tucking one of Qin Jiu’s discarded shirts into the same crease at the corner where it always went, close enough to the pillow that he would catch the scent of it the moment he lay back down later. If the shirt had been moved even slightly, some small, insistent part of him wouldn’t calm down until he had fixed it. He couldn’t have explained why it mattered this much.
By the time lunch rolled around, he was back in the kitchen, dressed, hair still damp at the ends, waiting impatiently for a phone call without admitting it. When his watch finally chimed, he answered before the second ring finished.
“Xiao Xi, put it through.”
“Unfortunately, this is not your dear Qin Jiu,” Chu Yue’s voice greeted him, warm, a little apologetic, and still with a tinge of mischief— a little annoying to You Huo’s ears. “Sorry to disappoint. He got pulled into a meeting right before lunch—something about the restructuring schedule; I didn’t get the full story either. He asked me to call and check on you first before he tried to get free.”
“Oh.” You Huo sat down at the table properly, some of the anticipation deflating, but also replaced by the familiar comfort of her voice instead. “It’s fine. How are you?”
“I’m always fine, you know that.” Chu Yue answered. “How are you doing, though? Really.”
“I’m fine.” He said it easily, automatically, perhaps too quickly. “The twins are moving more. I had the porridge. I’m about to eat lunch.”
“Good. And your walk? Did you go yesterday?”
You Huo hesitated, just slightly.
“I was going to go today.”
Truthfully, he didn’t want to go out. Part of it was the cane and the dependence on Mantou to notice the things he couldn’t. But part of it, if he was honest, was that he couldn’t think of a good reason to do so beyond what others told him.
“You said that yesterday too,” Chu Yue said, not unkindly. “Come on, don’t just sit at home all day. Take Mantou, get some air; it’s good for you and good for the babies. We are free now, enjoy it.”
“I know,” You Huo said. He had heard some version of this exact sentence enough times by now. “I’ll go after lunch.”
“Promise?”
“I said I would.”
“That’s not the same as promising, but I’ll take it.” He could hear the smile in that. “Call me if you need anything. I mean it.”
“I know,” he said again, and after a few more exchanged pleasantries, the line went quiet.
He sat there a moment with his hand still resting near the watch. The conversation was familiar. Okay, not just familiar, but repetitive, because they had had similar calls for months by now. She was worried about him. She had always worried about him, more than she probably needed to, ever since—well, ever since everything. She probably felt sorry, too, though You Huo wished she didn’t.
He finished eating, rinsed his dish, clipped Mantou’s leash on, and picked up the cane from where it stood by the door.
“Come on,” he said, and the dog was up immediately, tail wagging, leading him toward the door confidently.
They stepped out, and You Huo let Mantou set the pace, one hand loose on the leash, another on the cane.
The neighborhood was quiet. Not surprising—when he bought the house, he chose a quiet neighborhood. Though sometimes, it was a bit too quiet, so quiet that he suspected he had accidentally chosen a haunted neighborhood. But well, this was just what he had chosen, wasn’t it? A quiet street, away from the noise of the city. Quiet was the whole point.
Mantou tugged him along at an easy pace, familiar enough with the route that You Huo barely had to think and just let her take him wherever. Today, near what he was fairly sure marked the edge of the neighborhood, Mantou stopped pulling him forward and pulled back instead with a firm, insistent tug—the kind she gave when something ahead didn’t sit right with her.
You Huo paused, frowning slightly, cane probing in front of him, but found nothing.
“What is it?”
Mantou huffed, turned in a half-circle, and tugged again, clearly asking to go the other way. You Huo let her lead him back the way they had come. He had learned that dogs did that. Smelled something, heard something, decided against it for reasons that made sense only to them. It wasn’t the first time she had redirected him somewhere on their route.
He let Mantou drag him back. Walking back the way they had come, the neighborhood felt smaller than it used to. Probably because he had gotten used to it. A street felt long the first time you walked it blind, and shorter every time after that. He found the bench by feel—the same one Chu Yue had first pointed him toward weeks ago, warm now under early afternoon sun. He lowered himself down carefully, one hand bracing against the armrest, and let Mantou settle at his feet with a sigh that sounded almost human.
The sun felt good. He tipped his face up toward it, letting it warm his skin, to enjoy their freedom, just like how Chu Yue kept telling him to. It took more effort than it should have.
“You two feel this?” he asked out loud, quietly, mostly to his own stomach. “The sun, I mean. It’s warm today.”
He felt ridiculous saying it—talking to two people who couldn’t yet understand a word, who currently existed only as flutters of movement. But Chu Yue had told him voices mattered this early, that they would know him by sound before they knew him any other way, and Mantou made a poor conversational partner even on her best days. It was strange, doing this. But it was also, he found, not entirely unpleasant.
He was midway through telling them something about Mantou when he finally heard the sound of footsteps approaching him.
“Excuse me—sorry to bother you.” A woman’s voice, bright, a little breathless. “We just moved in a few streets over, and, well, we’re still getting used to this area. Do you mind if we ask you a few things about the area?”
You Huo turned his face toward the voice, adjusting instinctively the way he always did, using sound instead of sight to place a person in space. Honestly, he was still too lazy to have conversations with strangers. But Qin Jiu and Chu Yue kept telling him to try to do it. He decided he would try now—hopefully, he had enough patience.
“I don’t mind. But I might not be much help.”
“Anything’s better than nothing,” she said, and he heard her settle onto the other end of the bench. The second set of footsteps stayed standing, closer to Mantou.
“Is there a market nearby? Somewhere close?” she asked again.
You Huo opened his mouth to answer and found that nothing came. He knew there was a market, but when he tried to remember where it was exactly, nothing came. No street name. No rough distance.
“I—” He paused, frowning. “I’m not sure, actually. I don’t go out much. My partner usually handles that kind of thing.”
“Oh.” A small pause. “That’s alright. What about this street—does it connect through to the main road, or does it loop back?”
He fell silent. He wasn’t sure how to answer. His hand moved to touch his ear, feeling the earring embedded there, the warmth of the iron calming him down a little. Once again, this blindness made him feel helpless.
“I honestly don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve never really gone past the bench, I suppose.”
The second person scoffed at the answer, and You Huo felt himself tense slightly at the tone of it, though he couldn’t have said exactly why it bothered him as much as it did.
“Useless,” the second voice muttered, low, clearly not meant to be fully heard, though You Huo heard it anyway.
“Hey,” the woman said, sharper now, aimed sideways rather than at You Huo. He heard the man walk away. The woman apologized, “Sorry about him. He’s not great with people when he’s frustrated. I’m Shu Xue, by the way.”
“You Huo.”
“Sorry again,” Shu Xue said once again, and she sounded genuinely apologetic.
“It’s fine,” You Huo said, and found, a little to his own surprise, that he meant it. There was something easy about her that put him at ease despite the strange start.
“Can I tell you something kind of random?” she said, not waiting for an answer. “I’m pregnant too. About five months.” A small laugh, self-deprecating. “It’s nice, actually, running into someone else dealing with the same thing. Everyone I know keeps treating me like I’m made of glass.”
Something in You Huo loosened at that, unexpectedly. “People do that,” he agreed. “Mine’s also about five months. Twins.”
“Twins,” she repeated. “That explains why you’re bigger—no offense.”
“None taken.” An almost-smile tugged at his mouth. He couldn’t remember the last time he had such an uncomplicated, ordinary conversation. Perhaps Qin Jiu and Chu Yue were right—talking to strangers could feel fine.
They talked a little longer—nothing of substance: her complaining about having a hard time moving around, his complaints about porridge being the only thing that didn’t upset his stomach lately. It was nice.
Then, abruptly, Shu Xue’s tone shifted, apologetic again. “I actually have to run—I completely forgot I need to go to town with my family. I’m sorry, I know that’s rude after just sitting down.”
“It’s fine,” You Huo said, and meant that too. “It was nice talking to you.”
“You too. Maybe I’ll see you around again.” Her footsteps retreated, quick and light.
You Huo sat there a while longer with Mantou’s head resting against his knee, turning the conversation over. It had been nothing—he was a little confused by how much he didn’t want it to be over.
His watch chimed.
“Reminder,” Xiao Xi said. “Your doctor’s appointment is scheduled for this afternoon. You have approximately one hour before they arrive.”
“Right.” You Huo pushed himself up off the bench, one hand finding Mantou’s leash again. “Come on, then. Let’s go home.”
He had barely taken off his shoes when Xiao Xi reminded him, “Your appointment will begin in fifty-three minutes.”
“I know.”
He actually didn’t want to install an AI system in his house, it reminded him over the system watching him all the time. Qin Jiu knew this, but he wanted You Huo to be safe. He probably spent a lot of money getting this AI installed.
At least this AI didn’t keep questioning his life choices.
Qin Jiu called while he was changing.
“My Dear,” he said when You Huo answered, his voice coming through the speaker with a faint layer of static beneath it. “How was the walk? Did you go all the way to the park this time, or did Mantou drag you home early again?”
“There is no park.”
“There should be one near the south entrance.”
You Huo stopped with one hand on the back of the chair. “Have you been there?”
“Of course I have,” Qin Jiu said. “We went there last month, remember?”
You Huo frowned. He did remember a bench. He remembered sitting in the sun with Mantou’s head against his knee. But he couldn’t remember a park, or going there with Qin Jiu.
“I don’t remember.”
“Your pregnancy brain case is really severe,” Qin Jiu said with a laugh.
“Shut up,” You Huo said before telling him, “The doctors are coming soon.”
“I know. I’ll stay on the call.”
“Aren’t you working?”
“I can spare an hour. Besides, I want to hear whether the twins are cooperating today.”
The doorbell rang forty minutes later.
Two people entered the house. One was an obstetrician. The other said he was there for the eye examination. The obstetrician guided him toward the examination room and explained that the ultrasound machine had already been prepared. You Huo paused at the doorway.
“We have one here?”
“You do,” she said. “You and Qin Jiu arranged it some time ago.”
You Huo touched the machine’s casing as he passed. It was cool beneath his fingers, a solid, complicated shape. He had no memory of buying it, arranging delivery, or learning where it was stored. But apparently he had done all three. There were too many things he had forgotten lately. That was probably what happened when someone was pregnant with twins, recovering from blindness, and no longer had any work to keep his mind occupied. He wouldn’t be surprised if his brain was also a little damaged from destroying the system.
He lay back while the obstetrician applied gel to his stomach. The eye doctor remained nearby, asking questions about light, shadows, headaches, and whether he could distinguish anything at all.
“Nothing,” You Huo answered. “It’s been completely dark since the operation.”
“And no flashes? No changes in brightness?”
“No.”
“Okay, that’s good,” the man said too quickly.
You Huo turned his face toward him. “Good?”
Good felt like a mockery.
“It means the condition is stable.”
The ultrasound machine began making soft electronic sounds, and the obstetrician started describing the examination in a calm voice.
“The babies are active today,” she said. “I can detect two separate heartbeats.”
You Huo listened. Beneath the machine’s hum, there was a rapid, rhythmic sound—then another, slightly different but just as steady. The two beats overlapped until they became difficult to separate.
His hand tightened against the sheet.
“One is an omega boy,” the obstetrician continued. “The other is an alpha girl. Both are developing normally.”
“You can tell that already?” You Huo asked.
“Yes, the equipment is advanced.”
“Have you been experiencing dizziness?”
“Sometimes.”
“And fatigue?”
“Obviously. I’m pregnant.”
The man laughed. But, beneath that, something moved in the hallway.
You Huo heard it: a footstep, then the faint scrape of something being moved against the wall. Another sound followed from farther away, a drawer sliding open and shut.
The obstetrician continued speaking, her words becoming more deliberate. “You should avoid unnecessary exertion. Your body is under considerable strain. Rest is important.”
There was another footstep.
This one was closer.
You Huo turned his head toward the door. “Who else is in the house?”
“No one,” the eye doctor answered.
The answer was immediate. Too immediate.
On the call, Qin Jiu’s voice crackled through the watch. “What’s wrong?”
You Huo ignored him. A scent had entered the room.
Qin Jiu’s scent.
It was faint at first, caught beneath the smell of disinfectant and the ultrasound gel. Then it grew stronger. Too strong. It spread through the room in a heavy wave, unmistakable in its first impression but wrong in its details. It resembled Qin Jiu’s scent without being Qin Jiu’s scent. The familiar warmth was there, but the undertone was different—sharper, flatter, missing the note that belonged only to him.
You Huo’s stomach tightened.
“Qin Jiu?” he said.
“I’m here,” Qin Jiu answered.
The scent grew stronger.
You Huo sat up.
“You should remain still,” the obstetrician said.
“Who is moving around outside?”
“No one is moving around.”
Another drawer opened. Something metallic struck the floor. Mantou barked from somewhere near the front of the house, followed by hurried footsteps.
You Huo swung his legs over the side of the bed.
The obstetrician caught his shoulder. “You need to lie down.”
“Let go.”
“You’re pregnant. You could hurt yourself.”
Her grip tightened instead of loosening. The eye doctor grabbed his other arm, and the movement was clumsy enough to pull him painfully off balance. Neither seemed to understand how much force they were using.
“I said, let go.”
“Please, stay calm,” the obstetrician said. “You need to stay here until the examination is complete.”
“Someone’s outside,” You Huo said.
The people holding him froze.
Not Qin Jiu. The scent was wrong. But someone was outside. Someone was searching the house. Someone had brought Qin Jiu’s scent in here deliberately, and whoever had done it had done a poor job of making it convincing.
The obstetrician’s breathing changed.
The eye doctor’s grip tightened again. “You are confused. Your condition—”
You Huo twisted hard, driving his elbow backward. The man made a startled sound and released him. The obstetrician tried to hold on, but You Huo caught her wrist and forced it away from his shoulder.
“Be careful!” someone shouted from the doorway.
The voice was Shu Xue’s.
She rushed into the room, breathless. “Don’t hold him like that—he’s pregnant!”
For one second, everyone stopped moving.
Then the house became noise.
Someone ran across the hallway. A door slammed. The dog barked again, frantic now. Qin Jiu’s voice came through the speaker, distorted by static.
“You Huo, answer me. What’s happening?”
Qin Jiu rarely called him by his name.
You Huo pushed himself fully upright and shoved the obstetrician away. She stumbled back into the ultrasound machine, knocking it against the wall. The machine continued to hum. The recorded heartbeats continued to pulse from its speaker.
Two heartbeats. One omega boy. One alpha girl.
…that wasn’t right. It was different on the last checkup. Before, his babies were two omega boys.
He turned toward the woman who had called herself a doctor.
“What is your name?”
She said nothing.
You Huo turned toward the man. “And yours?”
His silence lasted too long.
Shu Xue made a small, frightened sound. “You Huo—”
He didn’t look at her. His attention had narrowed to the details he had been refusing to recognize.
The doctors had never used his name. They had never discussed his medical history beyond what he volunteered. The ultrasound machine had been ready before anyone arrived, but he couldn’t remember where it came from. They couldn’t answer basic questions without redirecting him. Their hands had been careless around his stomach. The supposed eye doctor had called a complete lack of vision “good” because he didn’t know what else to say—or perhaps, because it was beneficial for him.
And he couldn’t remember either of their names. Not because of pregnancy.
You Huo’s breath caught.
The room around him seemed to shift—not physically. The doctor’s voices, the house, everything. He had been told he was free. He had believed it because he had wanted to believe it.
The memories came back in fragments first. Qin Jiu’s body slipping from his. The rebellion. The failure.
Failure.
You Huo’s grip tightened around the edge of the bed.
He and Qin Jiu had failed.
No—Qin Jiu had been hurt. He remembered that now; he remembered smelling the blood on his body.
Qin Jiu.
The call was still connected. The voice was still speaking.
But was it really Qin Jiu?
“What happened to Qin Jiu?” You Huo whispered.
The silence that followed was answer enough. No one could answer.
The examinees moved at once. The eye doctor lunged for him again, and You Huo met him before he could reach the bed. He drove the man’s arm aside and struck him hard enough to send him stumbling into the wall. The obstetrician shouted something. Someone grabbed for You Huo’s robe. Shu Xue was yelling at them to stop, but panic had already broken through whatever role they had been playing.
You Huo fought through them with the cold precision that had once made him one of the system’s most dangerous invigilators. He did not fight blindly. He listened—to shoes scraping the floor, to breath catching, to bodies shifting around him. The darkness had taken his sight, but it had not taken everything else.
A hand reached for his stomach.
He caught the wrist and twisted.
“Don’t touch him!” Shu Xue shouted.
The scent in the room grew thicker. Qin Jiu’s scent, almost right and yet completely wrong, pressed against You Huo’s lungs. He felt nauseous.
He remembered the first time he had realized the system could imitate a person.
And then he remembered nothing.
[ Exam #10 of Examination Room 2312 Ends ]
[ Exam #12 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
A doctor came.
He examined You Huo carefully, checked his blood pressure, listened to the babies’ heartbeats, and explained what he was doing at every step.
The babies were healthy.
“They’re both alphas,” he said. “Twin girls.”
You Huo rested a hand over his stomach. The information should have surprised him. Instead, a strange sense of recognition passed through him, followed by an ache he could not explain.
“Are you certain?”
The doctor hesitated. “Yes.”
Perhaps, this time, it was true.
[ Exam #14 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
He played Qin Jiu’s message. The voice had told him to eat breakfast. The voice had promised to come home soon.
There was no Qin Jiu beside him. There was no trace of Qin Jiu in the room either.
You Huo sat in the cold bed, one hand pressed against the space where his lover should have been. Even the shirts he had scattered across the bed didn’t have any scent. His body hurt—from a bond not renewed, from longing manifesting as pain.
“Why can’t I smell him?”
The dog barked from the doorway.
You Huo pulled the blanket around himself and told the AI to play Qin Jiu’s message again. It played again. The words were right. The pauses were right.
But the scent was absent.
He missed him.
[ Exam #20 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
Shu Xue found him in the hallway, holding his stomach, trying to hide himself from those he remembered now as examinees instead of neighbors.
“I’m Shu Xue,” she said. “Remember? Your neighbor.”
You Huo gripped the wall.
“You said that before.”
“I know.”
“Who are you?” He asked, and then quietly, “You’re an examinee.”
She went very still.
You Huo did not know how he knew. He only knew that she was not an NPC…but an examinee didn’t sound right, either. An examinee shouldn’t be familiar.
“It’s okay,” she said quickly. “Your babies are fine. I’m not here to hurt you.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep forgetting.”
[ Exam #23 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
Two examinees broke into the house before noon.
They did not sound like doctors or neighbors. They moved carefully, touching the walls and opening drawers. One of them spoke in a low voice.
“Maybe the hint is in his stomach.”
“Are you crazy?”
“He’s connected to the exam. The system keeps protecting him.”
“The babies aren’t even developed enough to be born.”
“Are you sure it was babies on his stomach?”
You Huo stood at the end of the hallway, one hand braced against the wall.
“Leave.”
The examinees froze.
“We only want to ask you some questions.”
“You can ask them from outside.”
“We need the hint.”
“You need to leave.”
One of them stepped forward.
You Huo moved first.
He fought without seeing, using sound, distance, and the position of the walls. The intruders were stronger than ordinary people, but they were not prepared for him to fight back. They underestimated him. When one of them reached toward his stomach, You Huo stopped holding back.
The babies were too young to be born.
They were also his.
When the examinees retreated, You Huo remained in the hallway, breathing hard.
He knew they were trapped.
That did not mean he would let them hurt his children.
[ Exam #26 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
His belly was big enough now to make moving around harder. Getting up off the sofa took longer than it used to. Bending down to find something he had dropped took longer, and some days he just had to give up.
He spent a lot of time just sitting there, poking at his own stomach, feeling the babies shift beneath his palm. He talked to them, and to Mantou, more than he ever used to talk to anyone. It struck him, more than once, that he had spent his whole life being the one who listened, and now he was the one doing all the talking, to an audience that couldn’t answer and a dog that only ever huffed.
He used to be good at silence. He wasn’t sure when it had started feeling wrong with him.
Qin Jiu was barely home. Chu Yue and the others couldn’t visit. He couldn’t walk outside without needing to stop and rest every five minutes now. Being blind and pregnant made him clumsier than he had ever been in his life, and more than once his foot had caught on something he should have known was there, his hand shooting out for a wall that was not close enough to catch him. He kept waiting for the day his luck ran out entirely—for the fall he wouldn’t see coming, in every sense of the phrase—so more and more, he just stayed inside.
He told himself it was practical. Rest was good for the babies, and it was safer to just stay still instead of moving around.
He tried to tell himself that he didn’t hate it.
Some mornings, the porridge went cold in the bowl because he couldn’t bring himself to get up and eat it right away. He would sit there listening to Mantou’s tail thump against the floor, to the clock ticking, and think: this was supposed to be the reward. The quiet house. The dog. The waiting.
He just hadn’t expected the waiting to feel so much like being erased.
[ Exam #28 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
The pain began before noon.
He had spent the morning restless—dragging blankets out of a closet he hadn’t touched in weeks, refolding the same towel twice over, needing the space around the bed arranged just so for reasons he couldn’t explain. He didn’t think much of it. Nine months in, his body had stopped making sense to him a long time ago. And then, it started.
At first, he thought it was another false symptom. Then his water broke, and the warm liquid soaked through his clothes.
He called for Qin Jiu.
The AI answered with a message.
He couldn’t hear the message.
By the time the examinees found him, he was on the floor beside the bed, one hand gripping the sheets and the other pressed over his stomach.
“He’s losing blood!”
“How the hell are we supposed to help him? I’m not a doctor!”
“Find towels!”
“Where’s the medical kit?”
“There is no medical kit!”
You Huo heard them moving around him, panicking, searching for things he himself wasn’t sure exist or not.
“Qin Jiu,” he called out.
No one answered.
The contractions came closer together. His body shook with the effort of resisting them.
“I can’t—”
“You have to keep breathing,” Shu Xue said, kneeling beside him. “Listen to me. Don’t close your eyes.”
“I’m not—”
“You are. Stay awake.”
Qin Jiu.
Where are you?
It hurts so much.
It really hurts.
I need you.
The room dissolved into sounds he could not comprehend: frightened voices, hurried footsteps, the dog barking, his own barely-there breath.
Then one baby cried.
A second cry followed.
You Huo did not hear either of them clearly. He felt something being placed against his chest, then another weight beside it.
“Two girls,” someone said, sobbing with relief.
You Huo tried to move his hand.
He could not.
[ Exam #29 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo could not wake up.
[ Exam #31 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
The first days after he finally woke up blurred together.
You Huo was too sick. His fever rose and fell. He had lost too much blood. He could barely sit up, much less carry both babies at once. Everything hurt too much.
The examinees and NPCs took turns helping him.
Someone changed the babies’ clothes. Someone else brought water and soft food. Shu Xue cleaned the blood from the bed and wiped his sweat.
The one thing he would not allow, even half-conscious, was for the twins to be carried out of his arm’s reach. Someone tried once, gently enough, probably meaning only to let him rest—and something in him came awake all at once, trying to fight them off despite the pain. They learned quickly not to try again. After that, the twins stayed against his side, tucked into the same blankets he had once fussed over.
You Huo could not trust any of them.
He still let them help.
He did not have any other choice.
[ Exam #34 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
Two mouths to feed, but a barely working body to do it with.
He learned to nurse them one at a time at first, then both together, an infant tucked into the crook of each arm. He learned to tell, by weight and warmth alone, which of them had already fed and which had not. His body ached in ways it never had before. His milk came in unevenly on a body that had barely survived giving birth to them.
More than once, his hands kept working while the rest of him stopped working. He would wake minutes later with no memory of the time in between, one baby asleep against his chest and the other making a small, impatient noise beside him.
It was something close to a miracle that his body could still do this at all.
He tried calling Qin Jiu. He tried calling Chu Yue. Neither of them came.
When he asked the AI to connect him to Qin Jiu, it played a message instead.
“Eat something, my dear. I’ll be home soon.”
You Huo told himself Qin Jiu was only busy.
[ Exam #38 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
The babies were several weeks old.
He knew that because someone told him so. He did not know whether the number was accurate. He could not keep up.
He learned their breathing before he learned their cries. Qin Lin’s cry rose sharply when she was hungry, while Qin Hua made a low, stubborn sound and continued making it until someone paid attention. He learned how to hold both of them against his chest while lying down, because standing was still difficult and sitting upright for too long made his visionless world tilt.
There were no doctors this time. No proper medicines. Only the examinees, the NPCs, and sometimes Shu Xue.
You Huo remembered Qin Jiu less clearly every day. Each time he woke and remembered he was still trapped, that frightened him more than the pain.
Once, he woke certain that Qin Jiu had come to the house the night before. He remembered a hand smoothing his hair and a voice saying that the babies were beautiful.
The twins had been awake at the time, he thought.
When he asked Qin Lin if she remembered Papa coming, she only stared at him.
“Ba?”
“Your father.”
She made a small, questioning sound and snuggled against his shirt.
You Huo blamed the fever.
[ Exam #42 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
Sometimes, it took him a while to remember the babies’ names.
Qin Lin and Qin Hua.
He had named them himself.
Qin Jiu was not here. He did not have the right to name them.
He repeated that to himself whenever the memory became uncertain.
“Don’t forget to eat.”
“Sleep early, okay?”
“I’ll call again tonight.”
The twins learned the voice before they learned about the person. Whenever the watch chimed, Qin Lin turned toward the sound. Qin Hua reached for You Huo’s wrist and held on.
“Papa,” You Huo told them. “It’s Papa.”
Qin Hua touched the watch with one small finger.
“Ba?”
“Yes. Papa.”
“Ba?”
“He’s outside.”
She waited for the door to open.
Nothing happened.
[ Exam #48 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
Shu Xue came more often.
She never explained why, and after a while he stopped needing her to. She moved through the house without hesitation—no groping along the walls the way a stranger should, no pause at doorframes to get her bearings. She always seemed to know which room he was in before she reached it.
The examinees searched and left when they got frustrated. Shu Xue stayed.
Sometimes, she brought him and the babies out. It was the same wrongness he had noticed once before, except now he was too worn down to ignore it.
“You’re not an examinee,” he said.
A pause. Long enough to be its own answer.
“No,” she admitted. “I’m not.”
“Then what are you?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I can move between examination rooms.”
“You chose to come here.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I think you are like me. Or not. You feel real.”
Real.
“But I think you should stay here for now,” she continued. “This one isn’t kind to you. But it isn’t trying to kill you, either—not you, and not them.”
He did not understand all of it. Some part of him filed the information away. When the next exam started, he forgot Shu Xue again but remembered that he was still in the system.
He stopped lying awake thinking about exits.
Some part of him had started to believe that staying alive might matter more than getting out.
[ Exam #56 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
The twins had been crawling for a while.
They moved through the house by following sound, their hands patting along walls and furniture. They knew the location of the sharp corners. They knew which floorboards creaked. They knew the route from their room to the kitchen better than You Huo did.
That frightened him.
He had taught them to stop when he called their names. He had taught them not to open doors without telling him first. He had taught them that strangers were dangerous.
Because the examinees kept coming. Sometimes, they took pity on him and helped care for the children. He did not attack them unless they came for the twins.
They searched the house. He listened. If they found food, medicine, or anything useful, they left it near the kitchen. If he heard them approaching the children’s room, he asked what they wanted before reaching for his sword.
It was not peace.
It was simply a truce.
[ Exam #79 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
The twins began walking.
The babysitter told him excitedly, though You Huo had already known. Their steps made a different sound from crawling: soft, uneven taps across the floor, followed by a thump and an indignant cry.
“Again,” Qin Lin said after falling.
“Again,” Qin Hua echoed.
“You can rest.”
“No rest,” Qin Lin said.
They understood simple commands now.
“Come here.”
“Stop.”
“Don’t touch that.”
“Where is your sister?”
Somehow, they had learned that You Huo could not follow a silent movement. If they wanted him to find them, they called out first. At least, they tried.
“Step step,” Qin Hua warned when she left.
“Table,” Qin Lin said when she tried to climb it.
“Dog here.”
Mantou huffed, offended by the need for an announcement.
You Huo kept talking to them. He told them about Qin Jiu, about their past history. He wasn’t sure if they understood the stories he was telling them, but they seemed to know Qin Jiu. He told them Qin Jiu would come back soon.
One evening, after another message finished playing, Qin Lin asked, “Papa come now?”
“Not now.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Maybe.”
Qin Hua frowned.
“Papa never comes.”
You Huo went still.
“He comes home.”
“Voice yes,” she said. “Papa no.”
Qin Hua touched the watch.
“Papa in watch.”
“No,” You Huo said.
He said it too quickly.
[ Exam #91 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
The twins had begun putting words together more often. Their sentences were still short, and half of what they said was missing, but You Huo could usually understand them better now. Qin Lin was very talkative and never seemed able to stop moving. She narrated everything she found with half-formed words, whether or not anyone was listening. She was also curious about a lot of things.
“Xiao Xi,” she said once, tapping the floor, “whathis?”
“It is a screw.”
“Scroo.”
“Do not put it in your mouth.”
“No mouth.”
“You were about to put it in your mouth.”
“No.”
“You absolutely were.”
You Huo, unable to see, had a hard time tracking her even with her announcing that she was moving—by the time he had placed her voice in one corner of a room, she had already been halfway to another. Often, he was panicking, certain from the sudden silence that she had wandered somewhere she shouldn’t have, only to have her reappear a moment later, entirely unbothered, holding something she absolutely should not have been holding.
Thankfully, Mantou seemed to have appointed herself Qin Lin’s personal watcher, trailing after her with patience, and the house AI had taken to sending unprompted little reports of its own.
“Qin Lin is currently attempting to climb the bookshelf,” Xiao Xi announced one afternoon.
“Stop her.”
“I have alerted Mantou.”
He heard, a second later, the scrape of small hands losing their grip, an indignant shriek, and the thump of a dog planting herself on the floor.
Qin Hua was quieter. She could sit still for a frighteningly long time, absorbed in whatever object had caught her attention. For a while, You Huo had actually found her easier. No footsteps to track, no narrated adventures to interrupt. Just a small, contented silence in whatever corner he had left her in.
He came to regret ever thinking that.
Because sometimes—sometimes he was fairly sure that girl could single-handedly bring the entire house down around them if left alone for long enough. She had already taken apart two of Mantou’s toys down to pieces he still hadn’t found all of. She had unscrewed a cabinet hinge with what he could only assume were her bare hands. And one day, somehow, she managed to set something on fire.
He never did get the full story on how. He remembered the smell of smoke, faint at first and then very much not; and then a man’s voice, sharp with surprise and then pain, somewhere near the back window; and then Xiao Xi’s alarm blaring through the house a half-second too late to warn him of anything he hadn’t already figured out for himself.
“There is a fire,” Xiao Xi informed him, helpfully.
“I know.”
“There is also a man on fire.”
“I—what.”
It turned out one of the neighbors had been in the middle of sneaking through the window when Qin Hua’s latest experiment, whatever it had been, went spectacularly wrong. Or perhaps right, depended on who you asked. Qin Jiu probably would say that it was right.
You Huo spent the next several minutes putting out a very small fire by feel. The man ran away before You Huo had a chance to confront him, and he just let him go. Afterward, he sat on the kitchen floor, one daughter smug in his lap and the other trying to reach the remains of whatever had started the fire, and trying to figure out how a toddler who couldn’t yet reliably use a spoon had managed to weaponize the house against a grown man.
“Again!” Qin Lin shouted.
“No,” You Huo said.
Qin Hua made a pleased little sound.
“No,” she agreed, apparently satisfied after creating one big chaos.
Not for the first time, You Huo felt that he was nowhere near equipped to be doing this alone.
At least the house was not as quiet as before they were born.
[ Exam #112 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
The twins had begun asking more questions. Not important questions, usually. But it became the questions that made him more focused, questions that made his rusty brain try to come up with real or clever answers.
“Why dog have four feet?”
“Why rain loud?”
“Why Xiao Xi no sleep?”
Xiao Xi answered every question with the same calm patience. You Huo answered the ones he could. Some questions came back repeatedly.
“Where Papa?”
“Working.”
“Where work?”
“Far away.”
“How far?”
“Very far.”
“Why?”
“Because he has to.”
One evening, Qin Jiu’s voice came through the watch while the girls were playing on the floor.
“Hello, little ones,” the recording said. “Be good for your mama. I’ll be home soon.”
Qin Lin stopped pushing a wooden block across the floor.
“Papa?”
“Yes,” You Huo said.
Qin Hua looked toward the front door.
“Papa come in?”
“Not yet.”
“Door go open?”
“Yes.”
They waited. The recording ended. The door did not open. Qin Hua looked back at him.
“Papa voice comes.”
You Huo swallowed.
“His voice is on the watch.”
“Papa in watch?”
“No. He is outside.”
Qin Lin shook her head.
“No.”
“Papa came before,” You Huo said.
“When?” Qin Lin asked.
He opened his mouth.
No answer came.
Qin Hua crawled into his lap and pressed her cheek against his chest.
“Only voice,” she said.
[ Exam #132 of Examination Room 2312 Starts ]
You Huo woke up to the sound of a dog’s bark.
.
.
.
The twins were sitting on the floor near the bed.
He knew where they were from the soft movement of their clothes and the occasional touch of a hand against the mattress. They had been quiet for too long, which meant they were probably doing something they were not supposed to do.
“Come here,” You Huo said.
“Coming,” Qin Lin answered.
“Comin’,” Qin Hua echoed.
Their feet slapped against the floor. One child reached him first. The other followed more slowly, bumping into the bedframe with a small thud.
“Ow,” Qin Hua said.
“You’re all right?” You Huo reached for her.
“Okay.”
A small hand found his wrist.
“Mama,” Qin Lin said.
The word was clear now.
Qin Hua climbed into his lap. “Mama, where Papa?”
You Huo froze.
“He’s working.”
“Again?” Qin Lin asked.
“He works a lot.”
“Where he work?”
“Far.”
“Where?”
He could not answer.
Qin Hua touched the watch on his wrist. “Papa talk here.”
“Yes.”
“Papa not come.”
You Huo’s hand tightened around the watch.
“He comes home.”
Qin Lin shook her head.
“No. We wait. No Papa.”
“Maybe you forgot,” You Huo said.
“We remember,” Qin Hua replied.
She sounded so sure that it made You Huo’s head hurt.
The girls were almost two years old. He knew that because the babysitter told him. He did not trust the number completely, but he trusted the changes beneath his hands: their limbs had lengthened, their faces had lost the roundness of infancy, and their words came faster than he could always follow.
The girls’ memories were usually steadier than his.
They remembered where the cups were kept. They remembered which drawers held snacks. They remembered that Qin Jiu’s voice came from the watch and that he never opened the front door.
You Huo remembered Qin Jiu sitting beside him at the edge of the bed. He remembered Qin Jiu carrying Qin Lin after she fell. He remembered Qin Jiu laughing when Qin Hua pulled apart one of Mantou’s toys.
He remembered Qin Jiu coming home.
But the girls did not remember any of it.
He wasn’t sure whether he passed out.
There was no transition. No dream, no darkness, no sense of falling asleep. One moment, Qin Hua’s fingers were curled around his sleeve. The next, he was remembering Qin Jiu’s voice close to his ear.
“My Dear.”
The memory carried the warmth of Qin Jiu’s body, the familiar scent at his throat, the pressure of an arm around his waist.
Then it broke.
The warmth vanished first. The scent followed. Beneath them was only the watch against his wrist, the girls’ breathing, and the dog scratching once at the bedroom door.
You Huo’s head throbbed.
He was still in the system.
Qin Jiu was not here.
His hand tightened around the watch.
How many mornings had he woken up here?
How many times had he forgotten?
Was Qin Jiu still alive?
“Mama, okay?”
Qin Lin’s voice reached him from very far away.
You Huo turned toward it. “I’m fine.”
The answer came automatically.
It was the same answer he had given Chu Yue. The same answer he had given the doctors. The same answer he had given himself every time the world changed and he decided not to look too closely.
You Huo reached for them. His hands found small shoulders, warm skin, and hair long enough to brush against his fingers. They were real beneath his hands. But the system could create warmth. It could create voices. It could create the illusion of a heartbeat and fill a room with a scent that almost belonged to Qin Jiu.
Could it create children?
What if the twins had never existed before the system made them part of his punishment? What if their bodies, voices, and memories were only another layer of the examination room? What if the system had built them from his longing for Qin Jiu, then placed them in his arms so he would keep choosing the illusion every time he remembered the truth?
Qin Lin tugged at his sleeve.
“Mama?”
You Huo could not breathe.
“I’m here,” he whispered.
The first sob escaped before he could stop it.
The girls went quiet. They understood that he was crying, but they didn’t know why.
“Mama sad,” Qin Lin said.
“No sad,” Qin Hua told him firmly.
Qin Lin crawled closer and pressed her forehead against his stomach.
“Here,” she said. “I’m here.”
Qin Hua wrapped both arms around his neck as far as they would go.
“Mama hold.”
You Huo made a broken sound and held them carefully, not too tightly this time.
Qin Lin rubbed her cheek against his.
“No cry. We here.”
“Here,” Qin Hua echoed.
They had learned that word for him. That was how he comforted them when they cried. That was also the word they had learned to announce where they were because he couldn’t see them. He felt their breathing against his skin, felt their warmth. It was not proof. He knew that. The system probably could imitate heartbeats, too. It had imitated Qin Jiu’s voice, his scent, his presence in memories that might never have happened.
The artificial sky outside the window did not change.
The children pressed against him, warm and alive.
You Huo listened to their breathing.
…for now, they were real to him.