She put down the apple and the small knife in her hands, gently grasping Mengmeng's little shoulders. Her gaze was focused and urgent, carrying a yearning she herself hadn't realized.
She needed an explanation far too much—or rather, she was far too eager to catch from her daughter's perhaps unintentional words a glimmer of hope that could sustain her through her current predicament.
That shattered, suffocating home of hers, compared to the "big house with a garden" in Mengmeng's words, was nothing short of a contrast between heaven and hell.
And that "baby" had left her mind completely blank and her heart in a chaotic tangle.
Seeing both her mother and father looking at her with such strange, tense gazes, Mengmeng tilted her little head in mild incomprehension. Her dark pupils rolled around as if she were trying hard to recall.
She extended a small finger and gestured earnestly:
"It's just, a really, really big house! Much, much bigger than this place! Outside there's a green lawn, and red flowers, white flowers... Mengmeng can run all around, and there's... there's a tall swing, just like the ones in the park!"
She described it with radiant enthusiasm, her little face brimming with yearning as if everything was truly real and within arm's reach.
Lin Fan's heart beat even faster, almost leaping out of his throat.
He shifted his body carefully, trying his best not to frighten the little one, his voice laden with tension and anticipation:
"Mengmeng, then... what about Mommy and Daddy? What were Mommy and Daddy doing? And... that baby you mentioned just now... what kind of baby was it?"
He was desperate to know more.
If this truly was some fragment of the "future," it would undoubtedly give him a reason to keep going amidst the endless fog and crushing pressure of the present moment, even if it were only a tiny speck of light.
Mengmeng blinked her large eyes, her little brows knitting together slightly as if she were struggling to search through a pile of blurry images.
Her little mouth moved, and she said uncertainly:
"Daddy... Daddy seemed to be... smiling? Mommy too... Mommy was holding a... a tiny..."
"A tiny what?"
Mu Qingxue's heart leaped to her throat; she even forgot to breathe.
Lin Fan also held his breath, his fists involuntarily clenching as his palms grew slick with sweat.
"A tiny... baby..." Mengmeng said, her voice filled with bewilderment. Her little brows furrowed tighter and tighter as she struggled to make out the blurry image. "Mommy is holding the baby, and Daddy is beside us... watching us and smiling... The baby is so small... still... still in swaddling clothes..."
These words struck Lin Fan and Mu Qingxue's hearts like a sudden thunderclap!
A baby?
They had another child!
An infant still in swaddling clothes!
Mu Qingxue's complexion instantly shifted from astonishment to a deathly pallor, all color draining from her face. Her hands and feet grew uncontrollably cold, and her entire being went numb as a turbulent storm raged in her mind.
How could that be?
She and Lin Fan... in the future... would have another child?
This was too absurd!
Yet Mengmeng's tone had been so earnest...
Lin Fan's mind went completely blank, as if a deep-sea bomb had been dropped into it, leaving only words like "baby" and "baby in swaddling clothes" echoing frantically.
The immense shock stripped him of the ability to think for a moment. He could only instinctively look at Mu Qingxue, seeing the exact same incredulity reflected in her equally shocked eyes.
Just as the two of them were left soul-deafened and reeling by this massive influx of information, Mengmeng's little face suddenly wrinkled up even tighter.
Her tiny hands instinctively covered her forehead, her gaze instantly shifting from her earlier earnest recollection to confusion and pain, and her small body began to tremble slightly.
"Ugh... Mommy... the baby... I can't see clearly anymore..."
Her little mouth drooped, her voice taking on a crying tone, and fine beads of sweat seeped out onto her forehead.
"Mengmeng's head... hurts so much... it hurts..."
A mist of tears rapidly clouded those bright eyes, and her tiny body began to shiver slightly.
"What's wrong, Mengmeng?"
Seeing this, Mu Qingxue's heart tightened violently. All the shock and confusion regarding the future were instantly replaced by panic. She immediately pulled Mengmeng into her arms, anxiously checking her forehead as an urgent voice spilled out:
"Where does it hurt? Tell Mommy, don't scare Mommy!"
Panicking as well, Lin Fan rushed over in a single bound, wanting to step forward yet holding back for fear that his clumsy hands would only make things worse.
Looking at Mengmeng's small, pain-twisted face, his heart tightened in waves. That faint spark of fire and massive shock ignited moments earlier by the "future" and the "baby" were instantly extinguished by an even more intense wave of worry and self-blame.
"Mengmeng doesn't remember... sob... head hurts... Mommy, Daddy... Mengmeng's head feels like it's going to explode..."
The little one's tears rolled down like broken pearls, her voice choked with sobs as her small hands tightly grasped Mu Qingxue's lapels in search of comfort.
That pitiful sight was enough to break anyone's heart.
Mu Qingxue gently patted Mengmeng's back, soothing her in a soft voice:
"It doesn't hurt, it doesn't hurt, Mommy's right here. Mengmeng don't cry, we won't think about it anymore. If we don't think about it, it won't hurt."
She raised her head, her reddened eye sockets filled with terror and lingering fear. Her gaze shot sharply toward Lin Fan, her voice trembling with emotion and carrying suppressed anger and disappointment:
"Lin Fan! Look at what you've done! How old is Mengmeng, how could you pressure her like this?!
She's just a child! What if something happens to her? Is that illusory future more important than her health?!"
Her anger stemmed not only from Lin Fan's relentless questioning, but also from the way that newly ignited, astonishing hope regarding the "baby" had been instantly snuffed out, coupled with her deep concern and lingering fear for her daughter's physical state.
That gaze made Lin Fan's heart jolt, and a sense of guilt washed over him like a tide.
Taken aback by her look, Lin Fan felt his face burn hot. He opened his mouth, wanting to explain that he meant no harm,
that he was simply too desperate to know, completely stunned by the news of the "baby." But looking at Mengmeng's sobbing, trembling little shoulders, all his words became lodged in his throat, transforming into thick guilt and helplessness.
That's right, he had been far too eager.
Mengmeng was only a five-year-old child; how could she possibly know anything about the "future"?
Perhaps it was just a child's wild imagination, or perhaps she had overheard a similar story somewhere during the day, and had been frightened by the tense reactions of him and Mu Qingxue, which brought on the headache.
And yet he had actually kept pressing her...
"I... I'm sorry."
He lowered his head, his voice somewhat hoarse and filled with remorse:
"I shouldn't have asked. I'm sorry, Mengmeng, Daddy was wrong."
He really had been too desperate to grasp onto something, to prove that behind all this absurdity, a tiny glimmer of hope might still be hidden—especially when that "baby" appeared, pushing him to the verge of losing control.
Mu Qingxue paid him no more mind, focusing all her attention on the Mengmeng in her arms.
She gently rubbed her own cheek against Mengmeng's sweat-dampened forehead, her voice dropping to a softness that brushed past like a feather:
"There, there, Mengmeng, don't cry anymore. Daddy didn't mean it, Daddy knows he was wrong too. We won't talk about that big house anymore, and we won't talk about the little baby either, okay? Mommy will peel an apple for you, a nice sweet apple."
Enfolded in her mother's warm embrace and gentle soothing, Mengmeng's cries gradually subsided, turning into intermittent, halting sobs.
With red, swollen eyes and crystal-clear teardrops hanging from her long eyelashes, she raised her head slightly from Mu Qingxue's embrace. First, she cast a timid glance at the head-bowed Lin Fan, then asked in a small voice: "Daddy... does he want a big house too?"
Lin Fan snapped his head up, meeting his daughter's pure eyes that still carried a hint of cautious probing.
A big house... a garden... a swing... and... and a swaddled baby belonging to him and Mu Qingxue...
That "future" described by Mengmeng struck his heart like a violently vivid yet utterly unreachable oil painting.
If that was real... if he could really give Mengmeng a home like that,
if he and Mu Qingxue... were truly going to have another child...
His Adam's apple bobbed violently, and a complex mixture of emotions churned in his chest—a fierce yearning and panic for that astonishing future, a sense of powerlessness against the cruelty of reality, and a profound self-reproach for Mengmeng's recent pain.
He wanted it. Of course he wanted it. He dreamed of giving Mengmeng a home like that, of giving the mother and daughter a stable and happy future. He didn't even dare to deeply contemplate what that "baby" signified.
Yet what could he say right now?
By what right could he dwell on such things?
He looked at Mengmeng's expectant gaze, then glanced back at Mu Qingxue, whose expression remained ice-cold yet harbored a storm of complex emotions deep within her eyes.
In the end, he simply gave a strained, gentle nod, his voice rasping beyond recognition: "...Yeah."
A single word, yet it felt as though it drained every last ounce of his strength, bearing all the unspoken heaviness, yearning, and resolve he held at that moment.