Raise a Baby in an Apocalypse 1
How to Raise a Baby in an Apocalypse - Chapter 1 - After Divorce
In a small town outside the Northwestern Military Region, there was a small hotel run by a soldier's family.
The twin bed was in disarray but the man lay on it, content. His strong, tanned back bore scars, the latest being a healing bullet wound near his shoulder blade.
An Ran, wrapped in a large towel, sat on the toilet. Her long, messy hair obscured her face and hung down to her fair-skinned chest. She felt vexed, wishing she could just end her life by hitting her head against the wall.
She couldn’t tell whether she came all the way from Huazhong Xiangcheng to Northwest China to divorce Zhan Lian, or to have sex with him!
Before arriving, she had made up her mind. They were vastly different. Her desire was simple, to have a warm and small family, go to work with no future prospects, wait for her husband to come home everyday, raise two kids, hold hands together and grow old while depending on each other day.
Zhan Lian, on the other hand, lived to fight for his country and home. He walked a typical path of devoting and dedicating himself. From the moment of their blind date to marriage, they had only met each other three times. During the first year of their marriage, Zhan Lian only came back to Xiangcheng for a day to celebrate the Mid Autumn Festival. Even during the Spring Festival, he was out performing whatever mission he was assigned.
Forget about communicating through letters, he would take on average about three to four days just to reply her text messages. Sometimes there wouldn’t be any responses for half a month.
This was not the image of a couple living together. And this was absolutely not the marriage that An Ran wanted.
How did she get possessed and agree to marry someone who she had met via a blind date and had only seen not more than three times back then?
The reason was probably because Zhan Lian looked quite manly! On top of that, he came to the blind date for the purpose of marriage as well, which hit it off with An Ran right away. Both of them decided to skip the process of falling in love and immediately proceeded to the subject of marriage.
As proven in this case, without going through the process of falling in love while still getting used to each other, they ultimately lacked understanding and emotional foundation between them!
An Ran lowered her head in distress, lifted up her hands and held herself tightly by the shoulders. As she did that, a burning sharp pain arose from her right shoulder. An Ran couldn't help but take a deep breath as she tilted her head to see five purplish-red fingerprints on her white fair skin. This was caused by Zhan Lian!
Before she arrived, she had already informed Zhan Lian three months prior. When she tried to call his number, his phone was switched off. She then tried to make a call to his unit, where one of his officers answered the call and said to wait until Zhan Lian came back from a mission to give her a call himself.
The waiting game lasted for three months, and by that time, Zhan Lian finally returned her call, which was also the day before yesterday. An Ran hung up, quickly took her divorce papers with her board and boarded the plane, switching over to a car and then to a bus. She then traveled to Shaxian in Northwest China just to end the mistake that was her marriage as soon as possible.
In the end, Zhan Lian came after successfully taking leave from his unit for a day. He thought that An Ran came to look for him because she missed him, so he was over the moon about it. Once they entered their hotel room, he proceeded to toss a pile of Northwestern specialty goods and blocked An Ran at the back of the door without waiting for her to explain the purpose of her visit. As if he had been holding back for a lifetime, he quickly lowered his head and kissed her.
And this was how things progressed to this stage. She had come to ask for a divorce, but ended up having sex with him instead!
Ten Months Later
"Ah! It hurts!" cried a woman early that morning, rousing An Ran from her dreams. She realized ten months had passed since she divorced Zhan Lian.
She was now on the fourth floor of the hospital's maternity ward, sharing a ward with two other mothers. An Ran occupied bed number 16. Bed number 17 held a woman who had a C-section and was in pain, snapping An Ran back to reality.
The woman on bed number 18, who had a vaginal delivery, seemed quite delicate. Her family seemed to be on the wealthy side too, since they were able to hire a confinement nanny to look after her. Relatives and friends came by one after another to visit her. Number 18’s husband had also been roaming around and shouting at doctors and nurses since the previous evening to upgrade his wife to a VIP room with a dedicated bed.
The husband and mother-in-law of the woman who had the C-section were supposed to accompany her by the bedside. However, due to some unknown reason, both of them began to vomit and experience diarrhea. One of them would faint and the other would continue to throw up whilst assisting the fainted one to see a physician.
As a result, the woman on bed number 17 was left all alone in the bed, groaning in pain.
As for An Ran, needless to say, she was laying down on the bed alone after her divorce. Given that the relatives of bed number 18 had been trooping in and out, An Ran felt quite uncomfortable and decided to close the curtain.
She laid on her bed and stretched her hand under the pillow to pull out her cell phone. While thinking about the dream she had, her fingers unconsciously began to press on a bunch of numbers on the dialpad. When she regained her senses, she realized those numbers were Zhan Lian's.
