Chapter 47: Sleeping with Mama

Xiao Ze was shoved into the trunk.

Lin Jianxi had been tied up for too long—his hands and feet numb, his steps unsteady. In the end, the leader of the group simply scooped him up and carried him to the car.

As he passed the trunk, which was just about to close, Xiao Ze blinked up at him in confusion. Lin Jianxi’s heart ached at the sight of those innocent eyes.

“What are you—!”

“Don’t move.” The man pinned him down on his lap. “No room back there for you. Sit on my leg.”

Lin Jianxi’s breathing came in ragged gasps from sheer fury. “Isn’t there space in the back for one more person?”

“Oh.” The man reached for his chin, but Lin Jianxi jerked away. Unfazed, the man continued, “Would you rather I play with you alone, or have the two guys in the back join in? You’d better have a realistic sense of your own looks, Professor. In this cramped, sealed space with no laws holding us back, no one’s going to play nice and suppress their urges.”

“…”

Lin Jianxi closed his eyes.

He could feel the man’s scorching body heat pressing against his back. Gritting his teeth, he resolved to play dead, refusing to clash head-on with these scoundrels.

The vehicle lurched into motion.

The road was littered with corpses and rubble, making the ride brutally bumpy. Lin Jianxi felt himself bouncing up and down on the man’s thigh.

He tried to steady himself, only to earn a low chuckle from the man.

“Hey, Professor Lin, why don’t you grind down a little harder?”

“…”

The man’s hand landed on the back of his neck, but Lin Jianxi twisted sharply away.

“What’s with the dodging?” the man laughed. “I thought you were Jiang Yan’s little sheltered treasure. Behave yourself, and maybe you’ll suffer a bit less.”

“How exactly should I behave?” Lin Jianxi shot back.

The man replied without shame. “Let me cop a feel, and that’ll count.”

Lin Jianxi drew in a deep breath. The car jolted violently over some road debris, and another hand snaked from the back seat, pinching hard at his waist. In the struggle, his shirt rode up, exposing bare skin. Lin Jianxi let out a hiss—sensitive as he was, the pain made him instinctively burrow his head into the man’s chest.

But awkward positioning kept him from nestling fully in. Instead, he managed to tuck his face into the crook of the man’s neck.

Soft strands of hair brushed the man’s cheek and throat, carrying a faint fragrance that tickled him like a kitten’s paw. He glanced sideways at Lin Jianxi’s profile—only a sliver of pale skin visible now—and chuckled.

“This feels…” one of the men in the back seat remarked. “No wonder Jiang Yan guards him like the apple of his eye.”

Lin Jianxi’s hands still tingled with numbness, and that latest pinch had struck a tender spot. His whole body trembled faintly.

The man noticed and swatted away the hand reaching from the back again. “Back off. You’ve gone and made him cry.”

Lin Jianxi’s face remained buried in the man’s neck. He felt a hand gently ruffling his hair. “Told you to behave. Now look—you got pinched and it hurts? Where’s it bothering you?”

“My hands…” Lin Jianxi mumbled miserably.

The man took hold of them, turning them over to inspect. They were pale with a rosy undertone—unmarked and quite beautiful.

The man frowned. “What’s wrong with your hands? They look fine to me.”

“They’re numb.” Lin Jianxi lifted his eyes, glistening with physiological tears. “It hurts.”

“Damn…” The man cursed under his breath. “Alright, alright, don’t cry. I’ll untie you. So damn delicate.”

“Mm.” Lin Jianxi’s response came out nasal and soft.

As the man worked on the ropes, he muttered, “I’m not trying to scare you, but this is nothing. With skin as soft as yours, how long do you think you’d last in prison? Better compromise early—plenty of folks would love to keep you.”

“What’s the point of keeping me?” Lin Jianxi’s tone was cool, laced with weary exhaustion and the softness of recent tears. “A bit of fun while it lasts? You’d get more mileage thinking how to change our situation and survive.”

The man paused, then scoffed. “That’s a job for the higher-ups. What does it have to do with us?”

“…”

Lin Jianxi’s hands finally relaxed. He rotated his wrists slowly, every motion graceful and poised, exuding an air of natural authority even in these dire straits.

The man asked, “Does your husband treat you like royalty or what?”

“What answer are you hoping for?” Lin Jianxi lowered his lashes, rotating his wrists as he spoke softly. “I’ll tell you everything.”

The man swore again.

Things were tense in the car the whole ride. When they arrived, a group of guards took custody of him. They’d just hauled in another prisoner and wore looks of irritation as they roughly shoved Lin Jianxi into the cell.

It was a dank, shadowy place, lit only faintly by a narrow vent high on the wall.

Lin Jianxi shuffled to the wall and leaned against it, steadying his breathing. His heart was still racing when Xiao Ze was tossed in after him.

Xiao Ze seemed oblivious to pain, hitting the ground with a blank stare. Spotting Lin Jianxi, he crawled right over and sat obediently beside him. “Mama.”

Lin Jianxi’s clothes were smeared with filth from the cell floor, his hair a tangled mess from the rough handling. He pulled Xiao Ze into a tight embrace. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”

The guards’ voices drifted in from nearby.

“Who’s this guy? Looks too pretty.”

“That kid called him mama—is he a woman?”

“What woman? That’s Professor Lin.”

“…”

“Jiang Yan’s husband?”

“No way, they caught him back already?”

“Tsk, easy on the eyes.”

“You think that kid’s his? Their bunch are scientists—creating humans and all. Maybe they figured out how to make guys give birth.”

The guards burst into laughter.

The sound grated, but Lin Jianxi barely registered it.

Suddenly, the voices grew muffled and distant.

It was Xiao Ze.

Xiao Ze had covered his ears.

Lin Jianxi pulled back slightly, and Xiao Ze’s arms stretched impossibly to keep his hands in place over Lin Jianxi’s ears.

“Don’t listen.” Xiao Ze leaned in close. “Mama tired. Sleep. I make bed.”

Lin Jianxi blinked in mild surprise, then let out a soft laugh.

Xiao Ze actually knew how to care for someone.

Lin Jianxi tried to push Xiao Ze’s hand away, but Xiao Ze stubbornly refused to budge until the guards’ murmurs finally faded into the distance. Only then did he rise from the ground and gather clean grass from the nearby weed pile, spreading it out in the one sunlit spot beneath the vent.

Watching this, Lin Jianxi let out a sigh.

He smoothed down his hair and joined Xiao Ze in making the bed.

As they worked, thoughts of Jiang Yan inevitably crept into his mind.

Why had it come to this… Was it all just a misunderstanding?

Lin Jianxi gripped a handful of grass, his hand trembling faintly.

It had to be a misunderstanding.

His husband often pulled all-nighters—in fact, went days without sleep—working tirelessly to create New Humans. There was no way he would do something to harm other people.

It was definitely a misunderstanding.

Lin Jianxi gathered the grass into a pile and sat down in the middle, lost in quiet thought—

He had to get out of here. He had to find proof that his husband was innocent.

Everything would turn out all right.

Xiao Ze had no complaints about their surroundings. He truly seemed ready for sleep—and not just any sleep, but curled up right next to Lin Jianxi.

Seeing this, Lin Jianxi pulled him even closer.

On ordinary nights, Lin Jianxi would return Xiao Ze to the growth chamber, no matter how much reluctance filled the boy’s eyes. He had no choice; reaching fourteen required an enormous amount of nutrients that ordinary food from outside simply couldn’t provide.

Lin Jianxi gently patted Xiao Ze’s back.

But at this stage, regular human food was sufficient, and Xiao Ze grew quickly. In another two or three months, he would reach the build of an eighteen-year-old young man and then hold steady at that for a long time, only beginning to age gradually after eighty or ninety years.

They were fortunate the crisis had struck at this precise moment. A few months earlier, and it would have been a disaster.

Lin Jianxi lay down beside Xiao Ze as well.

Xiao Ze cracked his eyes open for a sneaky peek, then nestled his face back into Lin Jianxi’s chest. “Mama, are you comfortable?”

“Mm, very comfortable. Go ahead and sleep.”

Even if it wasn’t, he would say it was. He couldn’t afford to be more fragile than a child.

Xiao Ze nodded. “Good.”

Lin Jianxi gazed silently at the crown of Xiao Ze’s head, steeling his resolve to fight on and survive.

He would scrounge food for Xiao Ze and raise him properly. And he would clear his husband’s name.

~~~