1122 - Chapter 14

In the hospital room, Chu Beiheng wrapped his breathless brother in the small clothes Jiang Yi had prepared earlier. Struggling to contain his emotions, his tears still overflowed the moment he touched those tiny, slightly cold hands.

Those hands were so very, very small. They should have had the chance to grow, yet they left this world like this.

Without even getting to see their father once.

He wiped the tears from his face, picked up his brother, and walked to the hospital bed, placing him beside Jiang Yi, who remained unconscious.

Jiang Yi, having lost too much blood and suffered severe physical strain, was still in a coma. His face was terrifyingly pale, his warm breath fogging up the oxygen mask as he lay there, unaware he had even given birth.

Chu Beiheng pressed his lips tightly together, bent down, and placed the brother whose body still held a trace of warmth next to Jiang Yi’s pillow.

Late at night, the unconscious father and the child who had already lost all vital signs lay together on the pristine hospital bed. It was so quiet now, so quiet that not even breathing could be heard.

He took out his phone and took a photo of the child, capturing this moment, thinking that perhaps someday, when Jiang Yi was ready to see it, he would show him.

Just then, as Chu Beiheng was taking the photo, he inadvertently captured another moment.

Jiang Yi had moved.

Jiang Yi’s cheek had brushed against the brother’s body.

Because the brother weighed only three pounds so very, very tiny Jiang Yi’s face could press entirely against him. The oxygen mask, exhaling weak breaths, happened to touch the brother’s stomach.

Like a final kiss goodbye.

Chu Beiheng lowered his phone and watched this scene silently. Unable to hold back any longer, he tilted his head up, tears falling once again. He never could have imagined that in their family, where all the elders were healthy, the first to leave would be this child who had lived for only nine minutes.

Those eleven minutes, the Secondary Differentiation Gene Defect had mercilessly stolen the child’s life.

So when he had first eagerly awaited the birth of the children, recording their cries, the loudest one.

Had it been the brother?

He gripped his phone tightly, not daring to listen to that recording again. Perhaps he would never want to hear it in this lifetime, yet it was the last sound this child had left in the world.

So loud had it been a plea for his father to see him one last time?

Chu Beiheng bent over, bracing his hands on the edge of the bed as he gazed at Jiang Yi, unconscious. He placed the phone by his pillow and decided to play the recording.

The moment the sound of the child’s cry rang out in the recording, one cry was exceptionally loud so loud it seemed to demand that everyone hear he had been born, even as he was leaving this world.

His heart felt as though it were being wrenched apart. He opened his mouth slightly, the pain in his chest making it hard to breathe. Unable to bear it, he turned away, not daring to look at Jiang Yi.

Maybe this sound would wake Jiang Yi? Maybe it would let Jiang Yi see the child one last time.

Suddenly, the heart monitor in the room emitted an abnormal alarm, the rhythm fluctuating wildly.

Chu Beiheng immediately rushed forward and hit the emergency button by the bed.

Soon, hurried footsteps echoed down the hallway.

On the bed, Jiang Yi’s eyes flew open. His gaze was dazed, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes, his breathing ragged. The oxygen mask fogged up with heavy white puffs.

“Puppy.”

A faint call, nearly drowned out by the heart monitor’s alarm, yet it repeated over and over.

Puppy.

It hurts so much.

“Jiang Yi!” Chu Beiheng noticed Jiang Yi had opened his eyes. He bent down and called out, then heard Jiang Yi murmuring “puppy.” “Can you hear me?” he asked.

“Baby!” Jiang Yi whispered again softly, as if sensing something. Struggling to clear his mind from the haze, he turned his head and froze when his gaze landed directly on the infant lying beside him.

Wrapped in a blue towel, the baby lay tightly against his pillow, just like the image they’d seen on the ultrasound tiny hands clenched near the cheeks, curled up on its side in sleep.

So quiet.

So tiny.

How could something be so small?

But this was his baby.

Summoning some strength from his weakened state, hope flickered in Jiang Yi’s eyes. With great effort, he lifted his hand to remove the oxygen mask and leaned down to kiss his child. But the moment his lips touched the baby’s cheek, the temperature made his expression freeze.

Chu Beiheng couldn’t bear to watch and turned his face away.

The medical team from Galaxy Hospital rushed into the room, witnessing the scene.

“Chu Beiheng.” Jiang Yi looked at Chu Beiheng in panic. “Why is the baby cold?”

Chu Beiheng’s hands clenched at his sides, jaw tight as he turned away, unable to meet Jiang Yi’s gaze.

“CHU BEIHENG!!!! WHY IS THE BABY COLD!!!” Jiang Yi nearly lost his voice, but he was too weak to shout. The emotional outburst triggered the heart monitor’s alarm again, and his attempt to sit up sent the medical staff rushing forward to restrain him.

Five or six medical personnel held Jiang Yi down on the bed. Fresh from a C-section and massive blood loss already surgery intolerant, if he tore his stitches and hemorrhaged again from reckless movement, his life couldn’t withstand such recklessness.

Pinned and unable to move, Jiang Yi could only gasp for air through the oxygen mask, his red-rimmed eyes fixed on the motionless child beside him. “Why isn’t the baby crying? Chu Beiheng, what’s going on? Where’s the other one?”

“The sister is in the incubator. She’s too small,” Chu Beiheng replied, voice choked.

Jiang Yi stared at the baby, smiling through tears. “So this is the older one, right? He’s asleep? No, he looks so small too. Why isn’t he in the incubator?”

“Jiang Yi, this child is gone.” Chu Beiheng pressed a fist to his lips, trembling violently, fighting to keep from breaking down.

Jiang Yi’s expression froze. In an instant, his mind went blank.

As if all surrounding sounds had suddenly become distant and muddled, accompanied by ringing in his ears, leaving him utterly disoriented.

“What?”

“When you were at home, you suddenly developed pregnancy-induced hypertension and lost consciousness, triggering premature labor. This child had an acute manifestation of Secondary Differentiation Gene Defect. He didn’t make it. Passed away eleven minutes after birth.”

Jiang Yi struggled to rise, but the medical staff held his limbs firmly in place. Yet he wanted to hold his child, how could this be? How had he given birth already?

The baby…

How could it just be gone like this?

His gaze remained locked on the child by his pillow, still unmoving, just as before quiet as a doll. “Baby, I’m your dad.”

The room fell silent, save for the sound of oxygen flowing.

“Baby, won’t you even look at Daddy once?” Jiang Yi’s tears fell uncontrollably as he choked back sobs, pressing his face close to the child. “Not even one glance at Daddy? Don’t you want to hug Daddy?”

The medical staff turned their faces away, unable to bear the sight.

Chu Beiheng felt suffocated witnessing this scene. Why had things come to this? Why had everything gone so terribly wrong.

“Please don’t hold me back, let me hold my child, okay?” Jiang Yi pleaded weakly with the medical staff.

The staff glanced at Chu Beiheng, as if seeking his approval.

Chu Beiheng stepped forward, motioning a nurse aside. He returned to Jiang Yi’s side, bending down to place the deceased older brother on Jiang Yi’s chest. “Jiang Yi, we recorded the older brother’s first cries when he was born. Would you like to hear them?”

“Yes,” Jiang Yi replied through tears, smiling bitterly. “Of course I do. How could I miss hearing his last sounds?”

Suppressing his own anguish, Chu Beiheng held his phone to Jiang Yi’s ear and pressed play.

When two loud newborn cries rang out, Jiang Yi broke into heart-wrenching sobs. He lifted his arms to embrace the cooling body on his chest, tears streaming down his face. “My child.”

The scene was utterly devastating.

No one could bring themselves to consider the impropriety of cradling a deceased child this way only that the most profoundly moving love in this world is unquestionably a parent’s love for their child.

But a patient who had just regained consciousness shouldn’t experience such emotional turmoil. As the medical staff looked to Chu Beiheng, signaling him to take the child away, they saw Jiang Yi lower his head to kiss the baby’s cheek.

Tears fell like rain, hearts were pierced with grief.

Finally, Jiang Yi closed his eyes while clutching the lifeless older brother tightly against him.

The heart monitor’s alarm sounded again but this time with a single, flatline tone.

The doctor’s expression darkened instantly as he rushed forward. He began chest compressions, but when they proved ineffective, he barked urgently: “Cardiac arrest! Bring the defibrillator, now!”

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