Chapter 19

Chapter 19: A Sow’s Postpartum Care

Note: Non-graphic mentions of birth (QDD in a female body, ZMY getting the pregnancy symptoms) in this chapter

“Good.” Qian Duoduo reacted fast, calm—maybe numb. People dodging reality can be unflappably capable. “It might hurt when the time comes. You’ll have to bear with it.”

“O-okay, no problem, I can—bear with it?” Zhao Meiyou’s mind was a scrambled mess. He clawed out half a shred of reason. How was he the one who had to bear it? What kind of gender-bending kink was this?

Qian Duoduo didn’t explain. He shrugged off his jacket. The archaeologist’s uniform wasn’t tailored, but the female body he’d conjured strained the buttons. They looked ready to pop. He undid the collar and gave Zhao Meiyou a look. “What are you standing there for?”

He seemed to realize something as the words left his mouth. “Don’t tell me you don’t know how?” A beat. “Want me to teach you?”

“Uh, Qian-ge.” Zhao Meiyou dodged the question. “Couldn’t you do what you did last time—turn into an artificial human?” Those had reproductive functions, right? Less trouble. Fewer complications—preferably no dystocia.

“Artificial human takes a high-grade transformation. I don’t have the energy for it.” Qian Duoduo glanced down at his figure, as if something clicked. “Is this not your aesthetic? What do you like?” He added, “This body’s ovulating right now. Might be a little puffy, but it’s the best time to conceive.”

Zhao Meiyou almost blurted, I’m not picky. He swallowed the words. In the twenty-fifth century, Megalopolis had moved its moral debates to the human versus nonhuman line; sex no longer interested the moral police, and Level 33 wasn’t a place that put chastity on a pedestal. Born and raised in the Lower District, son of a dance-hall girl, Zhao Meiyou had seen and learned what there was to see and learn—plus a fair bit he probably shouldn’t have.

Only this time, the windfall felt too big.

Not a night’s romp—“childbearing.”

Qian Duoduo seemed to catch his hesitation. “You don’t want this child?”

If headliner or Diao Chan had been here to see Zhao Meiyou’s face, they’d have died laughing. He stuttered like a crashing computer: “I’ll take responsibility.”

“I’m teasing. Don’t be so tense.” Qian Duoduo sighed. “Relax. Too much tension makes it hard to get erect.”

“…”

“In reality you can’t conceive life inside the quantum domain. This is just theater—a simulated delivery to fool the ruin. Nothing will be born.”

“Unless you really want one?” He looked at Zhao Meiyou, now genuinely joking. “I owe the Megalopolis government a mountain of debt. Until I pay it off, I don’t have marriage or reproductive rights.”

Before Zhao Meiyou could answer, he hooked a finger in Zhao Meiyou’s tie and yanked him down. They toppled, Qian Duoduo straddling him, already tugging at his belt. “Don’t forget we’re on the run. Madame Butterfly will find this room in ten minutes.”

Most of Zhao Meiyou’s reason was out to lunch, but he latched onto the important part. “Ten minutes?”

“This is no time for pride. Average men last two to ten minutes; stress makes it shorter.” Qian Duoduo gave him a once-over, as if amused. “If you’re into more extreme play, there’s a specialized ruin. I can take you sometime.”

Before Zhao Meiyou could talk his way out of it, something warm and wet pressed against him.

Any bed that holds more than one person turns into a battlefield. Right now, the floor became the bed’s extension.

Gunfire. Flying flesh.

At least this round, Zhao Meiyou lost.

Time inside a ruin moves like a riddle. No telling how long passed—days, months. Either way, he came to understand exactly what Qian Duoduo had meant by “it’ll hurt a bit” and “you’ll have to bear with it.”

“I borrowed an ability,” Qian Duoduo said later. “It’s called Graft.”

He said it as he lit a cigarette. Zhao Meiyou was on the floor searching for his pants. They’d just escaped Madame Butterfly—tumbling through a corridor made of mirrors and collapsing into what looked like a dressing room. Silks in every color lay strewn about, dazzling to the eye.

“Have your after-sex smoke, no complaints,” Zhao Meiyou said. “But nicotine’s not great for a fetus.” He still couldn’t find his pants and had started to contemplate streaking; it was just the two of them in the ruin—Madame Butterfly didn’t count as a person—and shame had clearly lost all meaning between them.

Qian Duoduo didn’t answer. He came over and put the cigarette to Zhao Meiyou’s lips.

“Hm?” Zhao Meiyou cocked his head.

A second later, an indescribable sensation crawled up from his soles, flooding him. It felt like something took a bite out of him from head to toe; below his waist, a string of exploding firecrackers. “Qian-ge.” He rasped the moment he could speak. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do it. You did it.” Qian Duoduo patted his shoulder and took the cigarette back. “Graft transfers bodily sensation. Enjoy.”

Reap what you sow.

Forget pants—Zhao Meiyou could barely remember how to walk.

He had little practical knowledge about “childbearing.” Physiological walls kept it abstract. Aside from his mother, he’d heard one story—from headliner.

It was about a ruin, a cave with an S designation. Bottomless. Some enormous, unspeakable thing lived amid vast, uncanny architecture. “They say it has many eyes,” headliner had told him, “and they shine with a strange light. Everyone who sees it goes mad.”

“Except for one woman.”

The legendary archaeologists were almost always women. “She found a way to look into the light and keep her mind.”

“What way?”

“Childbirth,” headliner said. “More precisely, the pain of childbirth.”

God said, Let there be light.

When a mother is making a life, she is the maker of light.

“The pain of labor is the greatest pain a human can endure without dying. Put crudely, when a mother gives birth she can’t attend to anything else. Unless she dies, no one can interrupt that process. God, monster with a hundred eyes—same outcome.”

Back then, Zhao Meiyou was fascinated. His ability was shapeshifting; he even thought of morphing into a woman and trying it himself, until headliner broke it off with a punch. “Plenty of male archaeologists learned the hard way. Some never get it up again. Value your life.”

What was coming would come.

In the months of flight through the ruin, Zhao Meiyou bore Qian Duoduo’s sensations. Hormones like explosives—or a nuclear bomb or the sword of Damocles. The most devastating weapon humans had ever carried from birth. He understood, deeply, what it meant to say a woman’s body is a battlefield.

First, the vomiting. He felt like he was retching out his brain. Maybe he actually did. After Qian Duoduo’s body grew heavier, he moved slower. At first, Zhao Meiyou carried him. “Not like that,” Qian Duoduo said. “You’re jabbing my—” “Qian-ge, survival matters more—she’s coming again, deal with it!”

They didn’t get far. Qian Duoduo suddenly jumped down and shoved him away. “Qian-ge?” Zhao Meiyou had no idea what was happening before he folded in half, retching until the sky tilted. No transition. No warning.

Qian Duoduo backed way off. “I told you. That position jabs my stomach.”

Everything went black and weak under Zhao Meiyou’s feet. The only strength he had left was for a middle finger.

Then the taste buds went strange. He couldn’t fathom how someone could throw up that much and still crave bizarre things. He knew the saying—sour for boys, spicy for girls—but—“Qian-ge.” He wrestled with it for days and finally gave up. “Can you conjure me something to eat?”

They’d holed up in a library. Qian Duoduo had found books on female physiology. He set one down. “What do you want?”

Zhao Meiyou tried to keep a shred of pride. “…Something sweet.”

Qian Duoduo conjured a chocolate cake. Zhao Meiyou turned and vomited, pride abandoned. “Not that! I want dirt!”

“…?” Qian Duoduo stared. “Is that a metaphor? Are you broke?”

He snapped his fingers. A pile of gleaming gold coins clinked into existence. He peeled one open: chocolate.

Zhao Meiyou threw up harder. “No.” He felt as if his language center had come up with the bile. It took him ages to form a full sentence. “I want dirt. Dirt. The kind you plant cabbages in. I want to eat dirt.” He was on the verge of tears. “I just want dirt, goddammit!”

Qian Duoduo was a little shaken. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t think I am, Qian-ge.” Zhao Meiyou’s composure cracked for the first time. “Am I dying?”

“Wait, wait—I’m almost there.” Pages flew under Qian’s fingers. He skimmed fast. “Pregnancy can cause taste abnormalities; might be trace elements…”

“Fuck your trace elements.” Zhao Meiyou was so aggrieved he could have floated up to heaven. “I want dirt. Who did I offend?”

This was getting hard. Qian looked lost. “I can’t actually let you eat dirt… Do you really want it?”

“This is a ruin. You can die here—” He gagged. “What can’t you eat?” Iron-boned Zhao Meiyou couldn’t even get his words out between heaves. His pride lay in ruins. The Disease Butcher finally snapped and bellowed, “Do you not love me anymore?!”

“????”

“You don’t love me! You bastard!”

A pot fell from the sky and landed squarely on Qian Duoduo’s head. He buried himself in the books, flipping until he found: “Estrogen and progesterone levels change; hormonal fluctuations cause mood swings—manifesting as anger or unprovoked crying.”

“…Right.” He fell silent. His belly—or rather, her belly—was already showing. He bent with effort and wrapped Zhao Meiyou in his arms, patted his head, and said, stiffly, “I’m here.”

“You’ve got zero sincerity!” Zhao Meiyou sobbed on, scathing.

“My fault. All my fault.” Qian thought fast, grabbed a romance novel, and read aloud in a tangle: “Love is harder to hide than a murderous crime; in love’s dark night there is the noon-day sun…”

“…I will—at your doorstep—have them build me a wicker coffin; in your room I’ll summon up my soul. I will—write faithful love—and sing it through the night of death…”*

Zhao Meiyou didn’t know when he cried himself to sleep. He woke with his head and throat detonating. “You’re up?” He looked up into Qian Duoduo’s eyes. “Water?”

He nodded. Qian snapped his fingers and passed him a warm glass.

“Qian-ge,” he said after drinking, emotions finally leveling out. “Sorry. That was embarrassing.”

“No apologies. I didn’t expect the reaction to be that strong.” Qian said, “One graft lasts about six months. Hold on, and when it wears off, it’s over.”

“Don’t.” Zhao Meiyou covered his eyes and gave a wry smile. “All I’ve got left is this shred of dignity. Let me see it through.”

“…You sure?”

“Consider it a consolation.”

“You cried really hard. You also vomited really hard.”

“Then you’ll just have to coax me harder.”

“…”

“Come on, Qian-ge, after all that—what’s mine is yours.” He laughed hoarsely and held out his arms. “Come here. Hug.”

Qian Duoduo sighed, bent down, and held him full on.

Half a minute later, Zhao Meiyou was heaving again.

“…Must’ve pressed the stomach.” Qian Duoduo said, “I’m a little dull in this area. Sorry.”

“It’s not that, Qian-ge—your stomach—” He gagged. “Is so damn fragile—” Gag. He was finding a rhythm in his retching now. “That’s definitely chronic. You don’t eat properly, do you?”

“At least I don’t eat dirt.” Qian set down a ceramic pot. “Here. I made this while you were sleeping.”

Zhao Meiyou glanced between heaves. “…A flowerpot?”

“The dirt you wanted. I made it as clean as I could.” Qian hesitated. “Just a bite. It should be fine… maybe?”

Zhao Meiyou stopped vomiting. He grabbed it like a starving man at the canteen and crammed in a mouthful.

“Qian-ge,” he said, trying not to retch and forcing it down, “you can’t lie like that. You think kids from the Lower District don’t know what cocoa powder tastes like?”

“I knew it.” Qian sighed, snapped his fingers. A spray of roses burst from the soil.

“This time it’s real dirt,” he said. “Just one bite. No more.”

Zhao Meiyou stuffed the flowers in his mouth, too.

In the days that followed, he came to understand why his mother used to say, “The infant starts consuming the mother in the womb.” Especially when Qian Duoduo would never actually deliver a child. Exchanging everything for an unknown—if anything, that made the feeling more acute.

Seven months on, Zhao Meiyou’s symptoms eased. They learned to handle the hunting parties like old hands. You couldn’t kill the thing, but you could read the moment and slip away. Still, the lapses hit him sometimes. Once, after they half-crippled Madame Butterfly—literally—he started crying, murmuring between tears, “She’s already so miserable. We’re such awful people…”

Qian, by now, didn’t bat an eye. He kept punching as he wiped Zhao Meiyou’s tears. “Don’t cry. I’ll go easy.”

“Fine.” Zhao Meiyou could taste his own tears—maybe they were pouring straight from his tear ducts into his mouth. He wiped at his lips. “Brother, could you chop off one of her legs? Looks delicious.”

Madame Butterfly had a beautiful face, but her body changed shape. This time she was a spider-like crawler. Qian Duoduo eyed her and couldn’t tell which leg Zhao Meiyou meant to eat. “Which one—”

Before he finished, Zhao Meiyou had already hacked off a leg, drooling, then grabbed Qian Duoduo and ran.

They’d set up a little hideout, pots and pans and all. Zhao Meiyou was a capable cook; in the months he was lucid, he concentrated on improving their meals. Spider legs were like crab legs, he figured—braise or soup. He raised his voice. “Qian-ge, how do you want it?”

They went with spicy stir-fry. Scrubbed, brined, quick-fried, then tossed back in the wok with wine and finished on high heat. When he set it down, Qian got right into his well-practiced role. “Delicious,” he said on reflex.

Maybe he’d used too many chiles. Zhao Meiyou was in tears again after two bites. He waved him off. “You eat. I’m fine. It’s the spice.”

Qian Duoduo didn’t speak. He held half a hind leg and watched Zhao Meiyou carefully.

Sure enough, the faucet opened. Zhao Meiyou’s tears ran harder, and with them came feeling that wasn’t his. “Fuck, I’m really a piece of shit,” he hiccupped. “She’s so miserable. How can we eat her…”

His whole system had been off-kilter for months. He didn’t want to cry; he wasn’t even sad. His body said, You’re sad, cry. His soul was the only thing still normal, and it was stuck inside a spin cycle of a body. The tug-of-war produced an absurd tableau: he chomped down the leg with gusto while crying like his heart would break.

To cry because something tastes so good—there’s no better example.

Tears and saliva streamed. Between mouthfuls he looked at Qian Duoduo. “Qian-ge, you—”

“I’m not upset—I love you—you were right—I’m sorry—it’s my fault—what else do you want, I’ll make it—” Qian Duoduo rattled off his litany. If he ever got out, he could write a handbook on how to soothe someone. This was how they got by: a menu of options he’d recite, and Zhao Meiyou would pick the one he needed to hear. “Want a hug?”

“…I was going to ask if, since you’re not eating that leg, I could have it.” Zhao Meiyou held out a hand. “But a hug’s good too.”

Qian Duoduo leaned in; Zhao Meiyou shoved his face away. “Wipe your hands. They’re greasy.”

They ended up with oil all over both faces. Zhao Meiyou was delighted, grinning like an idiot.

Such distortion; such beauty; such absurdity; such grace. In ten months of uneven time in the ruin, Qian Duoduo and Zhao Meiyou lived through something like nothing else. Was it ruin or return? It felt like a train that never stops had pulled into an open plain, stars burning overhead. Pregnancy did have its gifts, Zhao Meiyou concluded at last. The fetus eats up your previous years and turns you into a child again—ridiculous, reckless, starting over.

When labor came, neither of them reacted with frenzy. Compared to the early chaos, they were almost serene—even if the pain blew past anything he’d imagined. Maybe he’d adapted. Bodies learn pain before they learn sadness or joy.

It still hurt like hell. Zhao Meiyou watched blood pour out of Qian Duoduo’s body and wept anew. Qian Duoduo sucked in a breath, sweat sheening his face, and gave him a helpless look. “You’re still crying?”

“For the last time, then.” Zhao Meiyou wiped his face. “Qian-ge, you’re bleeding so much. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. Trust me.”

It was hard to say which ran more—blood, tears, or sweat. Fluids mixed. From the torn gape came blood that thinned to translucent. For a second, Zhao Meiyou thought he heard water—the sound of a river.

Someone tugged his sleeve. He turned. Qian Duoduo stood beside him in his own body again.

“The door’s open.” In that white light, he smiled. “Let’s go.”

Come away, O human child.

Into the wild and the waters.*

Zhao Meiyou smiled, too. His soul slid back into place. The crying stopped.

“Let’s go.”

Author’s note:

* Shakespeare, Twelfth Night