Chapter 161: Fighting Violence with Violence – Human Trafficking Village (12)

Chapter 161: Fighting Violence with Violence - Human Trafficking Village (12)

When Wei Laizi went out again, the smell of firewood drifting from the outer walls made him feel nauseous.

It was as if someone was burning coal and another was cooking porridge over an open fire.

His sense of smell had become unusually sharp, and strangely, his stomach felt even worse after taking the anti-inflammatory meds, with a kind of indescribable heaviness in his lower abdomen.

"You finally up?" said someone basking in the sun under the old locust tree. "Still not going to the hospital? It's a boy."

Wei Laizi felt a shiver at the sound of the voice and glared fiercely at Huang Yuxin. "Madman! Get lost! Don't force me to beat you to death!"

Huang Yuxin looked at his belly with a sharp gaze and shook his head. "You're the first, but there are six or seven more behind you. The apples are ripe, the pomegranates are ripe, and they're all about to bear fruit."

Wei Laizi spat, cursing, "Damned dog thing," before turning away to head to the scheduled poker game.

He had a disabled elderly mother at home and received several low-income subsidies, so he didn't need to work hard for a living.

Every day, he spent his time drinking, playing drinking games, and chatting with his brothers—that was basically his whole life.

Lately, he had been sleeping too much, and by the time he arrived, it was already 11 a.m. Three or four farmers were sitting under an umbrella outside a small shop, and someone was roasting sweet potatoes and potatoes over a charcoal stove.

"You're here?" said Old Cui. "We've been playing since morning. Where were you?"

"Sleeping."

"Quite the sleepyhead." Old Cui threw the cards onto the square table impatiently. "Lousy luck, your turn."

Wei Laizi took his seat and waited for his cousin next to him to shuffle the cards.

The smell of cigarette smoke was still bothering him.

The irritation came from deep within, like he was about to lose it—like he needed to smash something or get out of this godforsaken place.

Strangely enough, that weird late-night hunger was back.

Suddenly, he had this crazy craving for sour apples.

The kind that made your teeth hurt, ideally a bit fermented, so one bite would make your face scrunch up.

"Your turn!" Old Cui slapped his shoulder hard. "Daydreaming about someone's wife? Come on, hurry up!"

Wei Laizi hesitated, then tossed the cards on the table.

"Not playing."

"Hey! What are you doing!"

"Such a bad temper, come on Laizi, keep playing!"

Wei Laizi felt an overwhelming sense of panic and quickly walked away from them, not daring to respond.

His heart was racing, and he couldn't shake this weird feeling of guilt.

County hospital, Department of Gastroenterology.

"Wei Laizi, 36 years old, right? Any previous medical history?"

"No."

"What are your symptoms?"

"Everything smells awful, and I keep craving sour foods. I can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke or coal stoves—it makes me feel sick and want to throw up."

"On an empty stomach?"

"Yeah."

The young doctor gave him a quick glance, then scribbled out a long list of tests. The whole consultation took less than five minutes.

When he paid, it came to over 500 yuan.

Wei Laizi figured he was just his usual unlucky self. He went through a long series of tests, and by the time he got his results, it was almost the end of the hospital's working hours.

The female doctor took a quick look and raised her eyebrows. "All indicators are normal, but you have a bit of fatty liver, and you should watch your uric acid levels too."

Wei Laizi asked hurriedly, "What's wrong with me exactly? Why am I feeling so nauseous and craving sour stuff like a chick?"

Just then, an older doctor came over with a thermos cup and took a look at the test results over the young doctor's shoulder.

"Did you check his HCG?"

The young doctor smiled. "He's a man!"

The older doctor said, "Run the test, and I'll get it expedited."

Wei Laizi didn't understand what the two women were talking about, but hearing those English letters made him anxious. "Do I have stomach cancer?"

He'd seen Old Chen's son die from stomach cancer, puking blood all over the place—it was horrifying. He'd heard that chemotherapy was both expensive and torturous; he'd rather die.

"No, go get a blood test."

Wei Laizi thought the hospital was unreliable but had no argument. Seeing that the price wasn't high, he steeled himself and went for it.

If he didn't figure out what was going on with his stomach, he wouldn't be able to sleep a wink.

As soon as he finished paying, Huang Yuxin greeted him with a smile. "Turn left for the blood draw."

"Fuck!" Wei Laizi cursed. "Why is it always you!"

"I'm here to give you some good news."

Wei Laizi cursed loudly and dodged him like he was avoiding the plague.

Back in the day, he would've already thrown the first punch. But this outsider from Haozi's family was eerily strange. He had heard that four or five men couldn't take him down in a fight. Wei Laizi decided to hold back.

When the HCG results came out, the numbers were shockingly high, so much so that the man at the testing department kept staring at him, making Wei Laizi uneasy.

He flipped the paper back and forth, and when he turned around, he saw Huang Yuxin standing ominously in the corner. For a moment, he thought he was in some absurd nightmare.

He couldn't care less anymore.

Once he got better, he'd tie this guy up and teach him a lesson.

Wei Laizi hurried back to the gastroenterology department and handed the slip to the older doctor.

He didn't trust the young doc. He'd rather stick with the old one.

The two doctors huddled around the paper, staring at the numbers as if they couldn’t make sense of them, their expressions blank.

The older woman looked at him, then at the paper, and then back at him.

Wei Laizi shrunk back in front of the doctors, looking sheepish.

"I went to solicit prostitutes a few times, could I have caught something dirty?"

"……Doctor, doctor, say something."

The younger doctor took the paper, her voice slightly shaky.

"What we tested for you is progesterone."

"Your HCG level is 5682, which is consistent with a pregnancy of 6 to 7 weeks."

"Progesterone? What the hell is that?"

"You're pregnant," the female doctor said, rubbing her temples. "Everyone has already clocked out for the day, you should go to the obstetrics department or the urology department."

Wei Laizi stood frozen, saying, "Are you out of your mind?"

"Look, we’re doctors—we wouldn’t lie to you," the older doctor said. "If you don't believe us, you can go to another hospital, maybe a larger one in the provincial city, and get tested again."

Wei Laizi's face turned red from his neck, furiously saying, "I'm a man! How could I possibly give birth!!"

"In medicine, there are many rare cases," the older doctor said. "We’re in the gastroenterology department, so we can’t help you further here."

"If there’s nothing else, we’re off."

With that, while Wei Laizi was still stunned, the two doctors quickly packed up and left, their expressions quite complicated.

Wei Laizi stood alone in front of the green painted wooden door, when Huang Yuxin appeared again, clapping his hands and laughing. "You’re having a baby boy! You’re having a baby boy!"

The madman seemed to be deliberately provoking him, making a scene before running off on his own.

Wei Laizi slumped to the floor, feeling like he’d fallen into a surreal nightmare.

A janitor mopped the floor nearby, and a security guard chatted idly, both giving him occasional glances.

Wei Laizi couldn’t go home, so he booked a hotel room and didn’t sleep a wink all night.

The next day, he was practically waiting at the hospital’s opening, heading straight to the urology department, handing over all the messy test results from the previous day to the male doctor.

The latter was utterly confused until he found the lone HCG value in the data, which made him jump out of his chair.

"Fuck! Is this real?!"

"Let’s run another test—maybe it’s a machine error."

The middle-aged doctor stared wide-eyed, almost more panicked than Wei Laizi.

Wei Laizi saw a glimmer of hope. "Could it be a mistake?"

"It has to be a mistake!!" the male doctor was going crazy. "You're a man, your Adam’s apple is so pronounced, an HCG level of 5682, how could this be possible."

They tested again, and the numbers did change.

The HCG level had risen from 5682 to 5947, even higher than the day before.

The male doctor was stunned and said, "Are you, like, intersex or something?"

"I’ll drop my pants and show you!"

They closed the door and double-checked, but everything was still clearly male.

The doctor scratched his head, muttering under his breath. "You need to get an ultrasound, go drink water and hold your urine, but whatever you do, don't pee."

During the half-hour wait, Wei Laizi received several calls from his parents, asking where he had been and why he hadn't come home yet.

His expression was numb, his eyes hollow, and he struggled to form words.

When he entered the ultrasound room, the doctor in charge looked at the form and was startled. "Did they mess up your test results?"

Wei Laizi began to feel humiliated.

He had to explain what the hell was going on and showed her the HCG results.

The two doctors crowded over, looked closely, and repeatedly said, "Lay down, and we’ll take a look."

When the cold, slippery ultrasound probe touched his belly, Wei Laizi felt like a fish out of water, helpless and exposed.

He couldn't describe this helpless feeling of being manipulated.

But given his circumstances, being able to come to the county hospital had already cost him a lot of money. Usually, when villagers had minor illnesses, they went to small clinics. This hospital was the best place within dozens of miles.

The more the two doctors looked, the more they exclaimed, and eventually, they couldn't control their expressions. One of them even went to call someone else.

"Chief! Chief!"

"Chief, come quick!"

Soon, she brought another chief over and pointed at the screen.

"Look! How is this possible?!"

The chief was astonished, personally took the instrument, poked Wei Laizi's lower abdomen, and reviewed the images on the screen from different angles. She rubbed her eyes and said, "I'll go get my mentor, wait here."

Wei Laizi lay silently on the bed.

He didn't accept this reality, nor did he accept any reactions from these people.

They were all crazy. They must all be crazy.

These things couldn't possibly be happening to him.

Over the years, his wives had gotten pregnant and had miscarriages. Both had conceived and given birth, all handled at the village without coming to a hospital. The family didn't have the extra money for that.

But what was he now?

Had he become a woman?

Was there a bastard in his belly? Whose child? How could it be there? How was it possible?

The quack’s words kept ringing in his ears as he began to shiver uncontrollably.

Several chief physicians were gathered around, watching the ultrasound images, and they even called the vice president.

Finally, one of them asked him, "You’ve been living as a man all this time?"

Wei Laizi gritted his teeth and said, "I've always been a man, I've married wives and had children, you've definitely made a mistake."

"Impossible..." a young doctor blurted out, "You can’t get a woman pregnant."