Distorted Fairy Tale - Chapter 25

Song Zhen dreamt of the day he found Song Heng on the beach. It was a late summer evening, an ordinary day still clinging to the lingering heat.

On his way home from work, Song Zhen had passed a bakery and noticed a sale. He bought the smallest cake available, then stopped at the neighbouring general store for a box of matches.

He walked through dilapidated streets and pushed through bustling crowds, a solitary figure passing through the lives of others.

The summer twilight always brought people out in droves. There were couples with interlaced fingers, children playing and shouting, and parents strolling with prams. These people were vibrant, full of colour; Song Zhen felt like a sketch forgotten by the artist, a monochrome blotch in a technicolour world.

He walked to the shore, faced the vast ocean, and sat down.

He took the small cake out of its box. The cream had begun to melt in the sweltering heat. He stuck a candle in it, lit it, and whispered softly to himself, “Happy Birthday.”

Closing his eyes, he made a wish: I hope that in my next life, I can have a complete and happy home. I want a family that loves me, and a life as ordinary and peaceful as everyone else’s.

Then, he blew out the candle.

Song Zhen used a spoon to eat the first and last birthday cake of his life.

Because it was a discounted item, the taste was that of overly sweet, low-quality imitation cream. Yet, he swallowed it greedily, as if trying to savour the last bit of sweetness he would ever know.

When the sky turned pitch black and the beach had emptied, he intended to leave this world on the same day he had arrived in it.

Even that date wasn’t entirely accurate. He didn’t know his true birth date; he only marked today because it was the day his foster parents had taken him from the orphanage ten years ago.

He was five then, believing he finally had a home.

But the love he received lasted less than a year. In his second year with the family, his supposedly infertile foster mother suddenly fell pregnant and gave birth to an Omega son.

The foster parents doted on their biological son, and their attitude towards Song Zhen grew colder by the day. They wanted to return him to the system, but since he was already eight, the law required his consent to dissolve the adoption. Song Zhen had cried and begged to stay, and eventually, they relented.

From that day on, however, he was treated as a servant. At eight years old, he had to learn how to cook for the family, wash the clothes, do the dishes, and clean the entire house while caring for his younger brother. He worked tirelessly, hoping his foster parents might love him just a little bit more.

His efforts didn’t earn their affection; instead, they became expected, and then exploited.

When he was in secondary school, his foster father took up gambling, and money became scarce. Because of the endless chores, his grades were mediocre. His foster mother wanted him to drop out and work to support the family.

Song Zhen begged to continue his education. During that time, he slept only four hours a night. His mock exam results improved drastically; he was on track to get into the city’s top public high school.

Exasperated by his crying, the foster mother gave in partly because the foster father had hit a stroke of luck with a lottery win that temporarily eased their financial troubles.

But high school was suffocating. The academic pressure combined with the heavy housework left him exhausted. He wanted to live in the school dormitory.

His foster parents refused immediately. If Song Zhen leaves, who will do the cooking, cleaning, and laundry? No one wanted to lose a free live-in maid.

He often stayed up late doing homework, leaving him drowsy in class. Slowly, he fell behind. His grades slipped. Seeing his report card, his foster mother told him to quit and find a job.

Desperate for university, he started borrowing notes and asking questions of the top Alpha student in his class. To his surprise, his grades began to recover.

Then, that classmate confessed his feelings to Song Zhen. Embarrassed, Song Zhen turned him down. What followed were the darkest days of his life.

The bullying began, harassment at school that he didn’t dare tell his foster parents about. He came home later and later, and his parents’ resentment grew.

By the middle of his second year of high school, he recorded his worst result yet: dead last in the class. On the day the results were posted, the Alph who had confessed to him accused Song Zhen of stealing his watch.

The Alpha was brilliant, handsome, and wealthy. The teachers and students adored him; no one believed he would lie. And Song Zhen? He was poor, silent, and lived on cheap bread. Obviously, he needed the money.

His parents were called in. In front of the entire class, his foster mother slapped him across the face and dragged him by the ear to apologise.

Song Zhen cried, insisting he hadn’t stolen anything. He received another slap for his “lies.”

The school “encouraged” him to withdraw exactly what his foster mother wanted.

At seventeen, Song Zhen dropped out and entered the workforce. With no qualifications and no experience, he was an apprentice barber, a convenience store clerk, a waiter…

From seventeen to twenty-five, he had struggled alone to survive.

Last week, his foster mother had suddenly contacted him, asking how he was.

Song Zhen had been lying in his rented room with a fever. Hearing her gentle voice, he remembered when he was six and had a high fever; she had stayed up all night taking care of him, singing lullabies. He felt a sudden urge to cry.

She asked for his address, saying she wanted to visit him. Song Zhen nodded through his tears.

She arrived the next morning. She cooked him a meal and spoke of the family’s struggles. She looked thinner, her cheeks sunken. She said she had divorced the foster father, and that the younger brother had made it into university. She claimed she regretted not letting Song Zhen finish school.

Song Zhen listened in silence. He said it was alright, that it was in the past, and that he was doing fine now. With red eyes, she said she was glad.

She tucked him in and sang that old lullaby. Song Zhen closed his eyes, feeling as though he were a child again. For once, he had a beautiful dream.

When he woke, she was gone. His heart felt hollow. Before bed, he went to check his small “gold mine” the savings he kept hidden under the bed.

The bank cards and cash were gone. Every penny.

In eight years, he had saved ninety-eight thousand, one hundred and fifty-five yuan by living as frugally as humanly possible. He was so close to a hundred thousand.

He called her, only to find he had been blocked.

He went to the police. They told him his foster mother was already a fugitive, having fled after racking up massive debts due to a drug addiction. They had no idea where she was. His money was likely gone forever.

Furthermore, she had taken out loans in his name over two hundred thousand yuan. With her missing, the debt collectors had come for him.

Song Zhen had wept until he could weep no more. He thought, with a bitter ache, that she hadn’t even left him enough for a meal. He had only a hundred yuan in change left, and it was twenty days until payday.

He lived in a daze for a week. At the end of a shift, his boss spoke to him at length. Song Zhen listened until he distilled the essence: he was fired. The boss offered three months’ severance, but Song Zhen declined.

He wouldn’t be needing money anymore.

As the sun set, the clouds looked like a raging fire, burning the sky red—and his eyes along with it.

His life felt like a theatre of the absurd. He had reached this day having known almost no warmth or care. He was stupid, cowardly; he had swallowed every bitterness, telling himself things would get better.

He had lived a numb existence until his foster mother’s final blow. Suddenly, the idea of living seemed pointless.

He sat by the sea until dark. Once he was sure the beach was deserted, he stood and walked towards the boundless ocean. He had chosen his own grave. He couldn’t choose his birth, but he could choose his death.

He was a solitary bird with no flock, a man with no kin, walking alone until today. He was too tired. There was nothing left in this world for him.

One step, two steps. he walked towards the end.

Song Zhen had long understood that God didn’t like him, and that fate enjoyed mocking him. But he hadn’t expected the road to death to be so bumpy. Just as he was about to submerge himself, he tripped over something.

It didn’t hurt. He had landed on something soft.

He felt around a warm, soft sensation. He turned on his phone’s torch and suddenly found himself staring into the eyes of a man covered in blood.

Terrified, Song Zhen tried to scramble back, but the man gripped his wrist with a final, desperate strength. “Save me…” the man rasped, before losing consciousness.

When Song Zhen woke again, the room was filled with the glow of a sunset. The entire ward was stained red by the evening light.

Turning his head slightly, he saw Fu Yuhang sitting in the twilight, reading a book. The light carved out the sharp profile of his face; it looked like a meticulously crafted oil painting, ethereal and beautiful.

He had once truly used this man as an emotional anchor.

People need something to depend on to stay alive. On the day he found “Song Heng,” Song Zhen had intended to end his life. He didn’t want to die, but he had no reason to live. He was a human being with basic emotional needs family, love, friendship and he had none.

But on the day he chose to die, fate made him save someone. This person needed him. This person couldn’t survive without him. This person’s entire world was him.

And so, Song Zhen had a reason to live again.

Fu Yuhang’s insults usually didn’t bother him much, but that one comment about him being “starved of love” had pierced him deeply. Because it was true.

The love of parents, the friendship of peers, the romance of a partner, he had either never had them or had them snatched away cruelly. The truth is often the sharpest blade. He could no longer lie to himself.

“Fu Yuhang,” Song Zhen said suddenly.

Fu Yuhang looked up, his pupils shrinking slightly. “You”

“You were right,” Song Zhen whispered, cutting him off. “I am starved of love.”

His anchors were all gone. The baby in his womb had given him hope for the future—a true relative, someone of his own blood who would depend on him.

Gone. All of it.

He began to cough violently. Fu Yuhang frowned and reached out to support him, but Song Zhen slapped his hand away with sudden ferocity.

“Don’t touch me!” Song Zhen stared at him with pure loathing.

This was the man who had killed his child. The last treasure Song Heng had left him had been destroyed by this man.

“Can you just. stop appearing in front of me?” Song Zhen hissed through gritted teeth. “Looking at you makes me feel sick!”

If it was insults he wanted, Song Zhen could give them. He had learned from the best.

“Do you think I ever really liked you? If it weren’t for Song Heng, you would be absolutely nothing! Fu Yuhang, you were right in my eyes, you are nothing but Song Heng’s corpse!”

“Every second I’ve spent with you has been utterly repulsive!”

“You arrogant, hypocritical scumbag. You cruel, vicious bastard. You will never have a single person in this world who truly loves you!”

“Because you don’t deserve it!”

Song Zhen had never spoken such vitriol to anyone in his life. He poured all his malice into the man who had murdered his child.

Fu Yuhang’s expression twisted violently at the words “nothing but Song Heng’s corpse.” He let out a derisive, hollow laugh.

“So you finally admit it. All that affection you performed. it was all for that idiot?”

“You aren’t fit to be compared to him!”

“I’m not fit?” Fu Yuhang’s face contorted, his calm eyes suddenly roiling with an overwhelming, monstrous jealousy. “Was he really that good? A stupid, useless fool who couldn’t do a single thing what was so bloody good about him?!”

“Song Heng this, Song Heng that! Is this person even real, or are you just obsessed with a ghost?!”

Song Zhen was weak from his ordeal. Screaming at Fu Yuhang had exhausted his strength. His chest heaved as he struggled for breath, and he began to cry—not out of weakness, but out of sheer grievance.

“You bastard!” he sobbed.

A doctor, hearing the commotion, hurried in. He found Fu Yuhang standing by the bed, his face as dark as a thundercloud, looking uncharacteristically helpless while Song Zhen wept silently.

After a long struggle, Fu Yuhang pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe Song Zhen’s tears, only for it to be swatted away again.

Seeing the doctor, Song Zhen wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Doctor Zhou,” he mumbled.

Zhou Zhicheng felt like resigning. He had witnessed everything from the start of the pregnancy to the loss of the child. He was the one who had performed the procedure.

Fu Yuhang had stood outside the operating theatre smoking for the entire night. His Rut hadn’t even ended. Zhou Zhicheng had told him to rest, but Fu Yuhang had simply injected three high-strength suppressants in front of him.

In all his years, Zhou Zhicheng had rarely seen anyone so eager to court death. This was the first time he had seen this Alpha’s eyes so red. For a moment, when Fu Yuhang lowered his head, the doctor thought he saw a man about to cry.

But of course, Fu Yuhang didn’t cry. He just smoked like his life depended on it and refused to leave until Song Zhen woke up.

“Sigh,” Zhou Zhicheng lamented. “You two truly are.”

“I know the child is gone, but you’re both still young,” the doctor tried to comfort Song Zhen. Beta conception rates are low, but there are new drugs in development to help Beta reproductive organs. They should be available soon. Don’t lose hope.

Song Zhen said nothing. Most Betas can only ever have one child. He knew the doctor was just trying to give him something to hold onto out of pity.

Fu Yuhang, however, took it seriously. “Do you have a lead on those drugs?”

“They’re still in development,” Zhou Zhicheng replied, wishing Fu Yuhang would actually listen to the whole sentence for once.

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