Chapter 2

It wasn’t just the blood type.

Only today, when I studied Liu Xiaobao’s face properly for the first time, did I realize something strange was going on.

That was why I felt so uneasy.

Li Wenli and I had met on a blind date arranged by our elders.

At first, I was very pleased with her.

Once both families agreed to the match, my mother handed over the betrothal money without hesitation.

The wedding was set for two weeks later, making it a whirlwind marriage by any standard.

It wasn’t until a few days before the wedding that Li Wenli confessed she was already three months pregnant.

Being saddled with another man’s child completely blindsided me.

In the days before the wedding, I got drunk every day, agonizing over what to do.

In the end, I decided to keep it a secret and go through with the marriage.

My mother had just been diagnosed with cervical cancer, and I was afraid the shock would worsen her condition.

After the wedding, I treated Li Wenli coldly.

Once the child was born, I barely ever looked after him.

That child made me feel humiliated as a man.

I hated him and didn’t want to hear him call me Dad.

He was three now and already in his first year of kindergarten.

But in those three years, I had never taken him to an amusement park.

I had never played a single game with him either.

Sometimes, after I’d been drinking at home, he would come over to me, and I would usually yell at him to get lost.

So he had never been close to me, knowing only distance and fear.

I had never felt the slightest guilt or pity over it.

He wasn’t mine, so I had no obligation.

In fact, I often thought I was being quite generous.

He was a permanent brand of shame on my life, and it was already good of me not to abuse him…

But everything that happened today shattered my sense of self-justification.

Suddenly, I felt uneasy.

If Liu Xiaobao wasn’t my son, why did he have the same blood type as me?

And why did he look so much like me?

…………

Three days passed in a flash.

Liu Xiaobao had already been discharged, since it was only a small cut that needed three stitches.

I hadn’t asked about him again during those three days.

Li Wenli hadn’t volunteered any updates either.

After three years, everyone was used to this arrangement.

In our home, his mother and I stayed out of each other’s business and left each other alone.

It was as though we were merely tenants sharing a place.

As soon as I got off work, I hurried to the hospital to collect the paternity test results.

I made a point of taking Xiao He with me.

Of all my colleagues, I was closest to Xiao He because he often drove me around on business.

He already knew about the paternity test.

The truth was, I specifically asked him to come because I felt nervous and frightened.

After collecting the results, I didn’t open them immediately.

Instead, Xiao He and I went to a restaurant, and I broke the seal only after we had sat down and ordered.

Clearly curious too, Xiao He leaned over to look.

The next moment, when the results appeared before us.

Xiao He broke into a grin.

But my eyes widened in terror, and cold dread shot up my spine…

The results were crystal clear!

The probability that I was Liu Xiaobao’s father exceeded 99.99%!

There was no question that we were biological father and son.

Yet to me, this was precisely the most impossible and unacceptable outcome.

My head seemed to explode with a thunderous boom, and I went completely blank.

As though talking in my sleep, I muttered: "No, this isn’t right, so where exactly… did things go wrong?"