A Little Monster With A Wife Is Amazing – CH13

Chapter 13: Heartbeat

Jian Tang felt truly terrible about it.

He had heard that in human culture, letting a newlywed spouse stay in an empty room alone was a highly immoral act. Here it was only the third day, and he had already let this situation come to pass. Jian Tang felt very uneasy about it.

“I’m sorry, Feng Xun, I…”

“It’s fine.” The voice on the other end finally spoke, still calm and steady, devoid of any excess emotion.

“Our department is having a dinner tonight; it will also be quite late,” the man said. “No need to apologize to me; you haven’t done anything wrong.”

After these words, neither of them spoke. Silence—a wordless silence. Since there was nothing left to say, they should have hung up, but for some reason, neither of them made the move to end the call first.

“Feng Xun,” after a long while, Jian Tang spoke hesitantly, “If you want me to be back tonight…”

Jian Tang actually finished the second half of the sentence, but it was drowned out by a sudden outbreak of arguing behind him—

“Ahhhhhhh, I really can’t take it anymore!!” A monster, pushed to the limit, slammed its food bowl down and glared at a colleague nearby. “How many times, how many times do I have to say it: no giving birth everywhere! Is it that hard to keep track of your own spawn? They’ve all floated into my food bowl!!”

Little Mushroom, who was scrambling to protect his spores, was both aggrieved and angry: “I didn’t do it on purpose.” Then, pointing a hand toward some Little Dandelions nearby, “Aren’t they giving birth everywhere every day, too? Why don’t you go talk to them?”

The Little Dandelions who were “cued” began to shout immediately.
“Don’t falsely accuse us! We always go to the vents to give birth!”
“Exactly! And we just finished giving birth a few days ago! We’ve been bald for a whole week!!”
“Hey, hey, don’t bully our mushroom clan just because you’re numerous!” A few large poisonous mushrooms joined the fray. “We enjoy giving birth everywhere, in the sky, turning in circles—so what, so what? Are you practicing racial discrimination?!”

Then came the chaos—spraying and arguing, tugging and tearing, the entire factory floor became a mess.

Jian Tang had already vaulted out the window to escape the moment he sensed the trouble brewing, but the person on the other end of the phone still heard a bit of the background noise.

“…Are you in a hospital?”

“N-no,” Jian Tang feigned calmness. “I’m working overtime at the factory.”

“…Someone is giving birth in the factory?”

“Mm.” Jian Tang’s eyes blinked frantically out of guilt. “It’s… it’s just very sudden, s-so it’s a bit chaotic.”

There was silence on the other end for a moment.

“I can tell,” the man said, his tone complex. “It’s very chaotic, and it’s not just one person.”

Not just one person giving birth on the workshop floor.

“Yes, yes,” Jian Tang agreed hastily. “Not just one.”

Giving birth to more than one in the workshop—if you added up all the races, there were over a dozen cubs born every day.

Seeming to understand why Jian Tang had to work overtime through the night—with colleagues running off to give birth, the shortage of manpower was indeed severe—the person on the other end of the phone let out an “Mm.”

“Fine, I understand,” the man said. “After you finish your overtime, just get some good rest there. No need to rush back.”

Jian Tang froze, realizing the other person had still heard the second half of what he’d said earlier, and quickly added.

“If you want me back, I can think of a way…”

“No need.” The man cut him off crisply. “It’s just one night; there’s no need. Anyway…”

Anyway, we aren’t really cohabiting partners.
It wasn’t worth it to make a nineteen-year-old child run back and forth in the middle of the night for a fake relationship born of brainwashing; he wasn’t that bored.

Seeing the other person’s firm attitude, Jian Tang finally stopped insisting.

“…Alright.” He thought for a moment. “I can’t go back today, but I’ll definitely go back tomorrow night. See you tomorrow night!”

“Mm.”

“I hope you have a pleasant dinner tonight and have fun!”

“Mm.”

“Then… goodbye?”

“Goodbye.”

The call ended, and the phone screen automatically popped back to its original window. Feng Xun stared at the only “contact” in his address book for a while, switched off the phone, and walked back into the anatomy lab.

—

The remaining work in the anatomy lab was completely finished an hour later.

Director Li generously let Feng Xun leave work first to go home. The other colleagues still busy with finishing touches had no objections: Feng Xun had put in the most effort during the dissection; there was naturally no need to trouble this titan with the subsequent “scraps” work.

Feng Xun went to the locker room to change back into his casual clothes, greeted everyone, and left the specimen building.

It was just past eight o’clock. Walking out of the South Gate of A-City University, there was a snack street outside, which was at its liveliest at night. Connected rows of signboard lights extended into a bustling neon sea of light. The vendors at the snack stalls were set up: the sizzling of oil pans, the sound of spatulas stir-frying, and the energetic hawking of goods rose one after another.

The street was teeming with customers—couples holding hands sweetly, youths with arms slung around each other squandering their energy, and passersby just walking through. The colorful lights reflected on everyone’s faces, and the billowing steam blurred every single face.

Feng Xun stopped in front of a barbecue stall, ordered a few items, and picked an outdoor plastic seat to sit down.

Next to him were several college students who had dinner together, already tipsy and singing off-key love songs; on the other side were two office workers, eating skewers while complaining that their boss was an idiot, shouting back and forth with great relish; there were also those sitting alone, with one bottle of beer and a plate of peanuts, drinking and pondering.

Feng Xun watched everything—the people and things within his sight—quietly. Being in such an environment full of the “smoke and fire” of daily life, it felt as if he had never left this world too far behind.

—At least, not as far as several hundred years of time.

Gradually, it grew late.

There is no banquet that doesn’t end; the noisy crowds gradually dissipated, and the shop lights along the street extinguished one by one. The street, which had been bustling just hours ago, began to reveal its empty, cold, and exhausted state.

There were only a few people left in the outdoor seating area. Feng Xun stood up, walked to the stall, and ordered a few more new skewers.

This time, all of them were vegetarian.

“I’m not eating here; pack it to go,” he said.

Carrying the food boxes packed by the vendor, Feng Xun walked toward the other side of the street. When he reached the corner of the street, he turned his head and took one last look at the street—the lights were dimming.

Sometimes, sitting in the middle of a noisy crowd, one could have the illusion that they, too, were integrated into the bustle, integrated into the crowd.

But an illusion, in the end, was only an illusion.

—

It was past midnight when he walked back to Happiness Court.

The residents of this complex were mostly older and couldn’t stay up late. At this hour, basically every building was pitch black, with only the diligent streetlights along the roadside, shrouded in the darkness of night, barely supporting a small area of dim halo.

Feng Xun walked quietly.

The entire complex was asleep. The dense, almost oppressive silence completely stripped away the bustling “smoke and fire” of life the man had picked up earlier. Only the few food boxes in his hand still carried a faint, lingering warmth.

As he was about to reach the front of Building 44, Feng Xun looked up.

The entire high-rise was dark and gloomy. The windows on the fourth floor were also a deathly, pitch-black silence. Like a row of hollow, black eyes, they hung there numbly.

The man’s footsteps slowed, and slowed again, until he stopped completely.

He stood there, staring up at the fourth floor for a while, then suddenly turned in a different direction and walked into the small garden downstairs. This small garden was a playground for the children in the complex, and it was empty now. Feng Xun walked to a bench by the edge of the garden and sat down.

There was no particular reason; he just suddenly wanted to sit here for a while.
Just for a while.

Above the bench was a streetlamp with a drooping head. The light wasn’t very bright, enough to illuminate a range of only about two meters. The man sat quietly under the streetlamp for a while, then suddenly reached out his hand and gestured in the air.

A blue panel, visible only to him, appeared before his eyes. After a simple operation, he took out a book with a pink cover from the System space provided by the panel.

There was no particular reason; he just suddenly wanted to read something. And this book was the only one he could conveniently take out right now.

The man leaned against the bench, borrowing the light from the streetlamp, and flipped open a page at random.

[Tuesday, Sunny, Year XX, Month XX]
[Today is our first wedding anniversary.]
[At dinner, Wife was smiling adorably, asking me when I first had the thought of marrying her.]
[“I’ll say it first, I’ll say it first,” there was a strand of sweet white cream on the corner of her lips, and her voice was sweet as well.]
[“On the very first day we officially started dating, I already had that thought.” She smiled a little smugly. “Isn’t that unexpected? That early on, I already wanted to become your wife.”]
[“Oh.” I held back my laughter and chimed in supportively, “That really is very early.”]
[“What about you?” She looked at me expectantly, waiting for my answer.]
[This was a question that didn’t require thought, and I answered without hesitation.]
[“The third day I met you.”]
[She was stunned, repeating it in disbelief.]
[“The third day you met me? Merely ‘met’, not after we started ‘dating’?”]
[“Mm.” I nodded.]
[“Don’t you know that men, as a species, when they feel their first heartbeat, have already planned everything out—when to marry, how many children to have, and what to name them—all at once?”]
[Wife was amused by me and laughed for a long time, then suddenly reacted belatedly: “Eh? If you put it that way, did you only have a heartbeat for me three days after we met?”]
[She puffed up her cheeks, deliberately putting on an expression of dissatisfaction, but this made her look even cuter in my eyes: “I thought it was love at first sight, after all, I’m so~ cute~!”]
[“Sorry, it wasn’t love at first sight.” I laughed aloud. “You are very cute and very charming, but I’m not the type to be moved by mere appearance. When I first met you, I really didn’t have any extra thoughts.”]
[“Then why did you change your mind later?” She was curious. “What happened on the third day?”]
[“Do you really not remember?” I countered.]
[She shook her head blankly: “I don’t remember.”]
[“If you don’t remember, you don’t remember.” I kissed her cheek and licked away the sweet cream from the corner of her mouth.]
[“It was just a small thing, a very, very small thing that doesn’t need to be specifically recalled.”]
[But Wife disagreed, acting like a spoiled child, insisting on hearing me say it.]
[I was silent for a moment, then spoke softly.]
[“Because of that lamp.”]
[“What?” She didn’t catch the meaning.]
[“That night, you lit that lamp.” I looked at her quietly, my voice as gentle as my gaze.]
[“When I was at my most lost, when I was at my most confused, when I thought the whole world was moving away from me, rejecting me, and exiling me, you lit that lamp for me in the deepest night.”]
[I had always wanted to find the right words to describe my feelings at the time—perhaps surprise, shock, touched, joy, relief, etc.]
[But long after, I realized that the most accurate description was—]
[“It was a heartbeat.”]
[I looked at the person before me with a smile, this lover I had gone from that initial heartbeat to now deeply loving, cherishing, and doting upon.]
[“I couldn’t help but have a heartbeat.”]
[“Because that was a lamp lit specifically for me.”]

The page ended. The man sitting on the bench turned the page and looked at the next one.

The streetlamp above his head suddenly flickered a few times. With a slight sound of a short-circuiting filament, the streetlamp went out completely. The small garden fell into total darkness.

The man sitting in the darkness slowly closed the book in his hands and returned it to the System space. Feng Xun stood up and walked toward the garden exit.

Suddenly, his footsteps paused.
He looked up abruptly, staring dead-set in a certain direction.

His gaze penetrated the thick night and landed on Building 44—on the fourth floor, the window of the 404 apartment suddenly lit up. The warm-colored light, full of domestic atmosphere, was mundane in itself, but in this deep night where all was silent, in this black night where even the moonlight hid itself, it appeared so striking, so warm, and so bright.

It was a lamp… lit specifically for him.

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