Call Me Daddy

Because it wasn’t a special holiday, there were very few people visiting the cemetery. Su Aobai, with his head shaved and dressed in clothes that didn’t quite fit the season, looked somewhat out of place. The cemetery guards couldn’t help but glance at him several times.

Few people visited this place on ordinary days. The guards were sure they had never seen the man before.

After transferring three buses and spending 6 yuan, Su Aobai still had 194 yuan left in his pocket. There were vendors outside the cemetery selling flowers and offerings, and their prices were somewhat higher than elsewhere.

Su Aobai took out the money from his pocket, looked at the brightly blooming flowers on the small cart, and finally bought a lily and a pound of local strawberries. Just for these items, he spent 47 yuan.

The first time he and Ji Xing had strawberries was when they were 7 years old. A wealthy lady visited the orphanage and brought ten strawberry cakes. Each child at the orphanage got a small piece.

Because they were usually well-behaved, the caretaker favored them with a piece of cake that had a whole strawberry on top.

From that day on, Ji Xing firmly believed that strawberries were the best fruit in the world.

The orphanage’s finances were tight, and the fruits they bought were always relatively inexpensive apples, bananas, and oranges. When they left the orphanage, prices weren’t as high as now. At that time, freshly picked strawberries were only 7 yuan per pound, but correspondingly, he earned less money.

Ji Xing always carefully calculated her spending. When she was really craving strawberries, she would buy the cheaper ones that looked less appealing.

She always said that strawberries were fruits that didn’t store well and would often turn mushy within a day of being picked. However, this kind of damage didn’t affect their taste, but their price could be several yuan cheaper than freshly picked ones.

Even for these strawberries, she was reluctant to buy too many. Under the vendor’s disapproving gaze, she carefully selected about ten and then, holding the bag with the few strawberries, would happily take his hand and say she was truly happy now.

Fool!

Su Aobai repeatedly told himself that this was someone else’s life and he didn’t need to be so sad, but he couldn’t help it.

The sadness was overwhelming, almost suffocating, and the pain in his heart felt like it was tearing apart. The closer he got to Ji Xing’s gravestone, the more he couldn’t suppress it.

The intensity of this emotion felt too overwhelming, and Su Aobai even thought that this was his life.

In the previous worlds, the original owners were all somewhat flawed men. The process of their gains and losses was somewhat self-inflicted. Only this life was different; the loss was too brutal. They had been so happy, but life tore it apart just as they were moving toward something beautiful.

Is this really not my life?

This wasn’t the first time Su Aobai had such thoughts, but this time the feeling was especially strong.

Or perhaps, after inheriting the original owner’s memories and emotions, he had completely immersed himself in this identity?

Unfortunately, the system didn’t appear to give him an answer.

The layout of the cemetery hadn’t changed at all. Su Aobai found Ji Xing’s gravestone with precision. It was evident that someone occasionally came to clean; the picture on the gravestone was slightly faded due to prolonged exposure to sun and rain, but the gravestone itself was wiped very clean. There were two small plates in front of it, containing some cookies and dried dates.

Su Aobai thought of Dean Mother Ji. She might occasionally come with the child to pay her respects.

Would she be happy to see the child?

Su Aobai stared blankly at the offering.

If… just if

If, at that time, they hadn’t been so panicked, if they had understood some basic knowledge and had taken contraceptive pills immediately after the incident to prevent pregnancy, if they hadn’t muddled through that difficult period and had paid more attention to physical changes, discovering the pregnancy before the child grew too large for an abortion, would everything have been different?

If she were still alive, the embarrassing and painful memories would eventually fade in mutual comfort, and they could lead a happy life.

But there were no ifs!

***

During the pregnancy, Ji Xing’s emotions had been very poor. She often stared at her growing belly and would frequently cry silently. He understood her thoughts.

The word ‘mother’ was too heavy for Ji Xing, who had been abandoned since childhood. Being a competent mother had always been her dream. She wanted to be a completely different mother from her irresponsible parents; she wanted to love her child and raise her to be an excellent person.

But reality often did not meet expectations. Could she love this child? Could she fulfill the role of a mother?

She felt she might not be able to, which made her so distressed.

It wasn’t until just before she was about to give birth that she reconciled with herself. She began discussing with him which brand of diapers to buy, whether using old clothes to make cloth diapers would be more economical, discussing which swaddles and cost-effective baby clothes to buy.

The birth of this child had already become a destined event.

So, a few days before her due date, she seriously told him…

“I was abandoned at the orphanage door since I was little. I don’t know what my parents were like, or if the reason they left me was due to some disgraceful or unhappy circumstances. I resent them, but in their minds, perhaps abandoning me was actually a correct form of release.”

Compared to the children who were placed in welfare institutions because their parents had died and their relatives were unwilling to care for them, Ji Xing, who had been abandoned at birth, often led to many speculations.

Her parents might have abandoned her because she was a girl; perhaps her mother was just a young girl who had tasted forbidden fruit and didn’t even know the child’s father; she might even have been the product of a woman who was raped and thus discarded as a matter of course…

Such comments often reached their ears. Sometimes, it was merely classmates unintentionally repeating things their parents had said.

“Orphan, their genes must be bad!”

“Orphan, they must have character problems!”

“Orphan, you should avoid playing with such people in the future!”

“Orphan, you shouldn’t adopt children from the orphanage if you can’t have your own. Be careful not to raise an ingrate. As soon as they grow up, they’ll run off to find their biological parents. Such people are bound to have bad genes!”

Because of these remarks, they were even more cautious about making mistakes than their classmates. At school, they obediently followed the teachers’ instructions and often chose to endure bullying from their peers. Their status as orphans made their mistakes seem magnified. Because they were orphans, their errors were attributed to poor upbringing and the inferior genes left by their biological parents…

“If I give birth to her and then abandon her, will she become the next Ji Xing?”

Her heart softened. So, even though she might not be able to love her as much, she would try to treat her as an ordinary child.

At that time, as long as Ji Xing could pull herself together, the original owner wouldn’t oppose whatever decision she made.

But fate liked to play tricks. The girl who had bravely talked about her willingness to fulfill the responsibilities of a mother just a few days ago was, upon leaving the delivery room, already a lifeless corpse.

The joking remark about hoping he would live well if she had a difficult delivery had turned into reality.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t fulfill the promise I made to you.”

Su Aobai emptied the offerings from the original plate into a bag and then placed the lily and the large, red fresh strawberries he had just bought onto the empty plate.

He touched the picture on the gravestone. The girl in the picture had a sweet smile and clear eyes, with what seemed to be his reflection in her pupils.

He couldn’t live well, and he couldn’t be a responsible father.

On this day, Su Aobai didn’t leave the cemetery.

***

It was 3 days after Su Aobai’s release from prison that Dean Mother Ji saw him. During that time, she hadn’t heard from him and had started to think he no longer wanted his daughter, Su Yixing.

“It’s been a long time.”

Seeing the man sitting across from her, Mother Ji felt a bit disoriented.

He had changed so much from 9 years ago. Back then, at under 18, he had still looked somewhat childish. Even though working on construction sites had darkened and roughened his skin, it was clear at a glance that he was still a half-grown child. No one would have guessed that he was already a father at that time.

After 9 years, his features had fully matured, his face was now well-defined, marked by the resolute expression of an adult, deep frown lines, and eyes that seemed as still as a stagnant pool. These changes had added a level of weariness and age beyond his years.

He didn’t look like a man in his thirties, at the prime of his life. Instead, he resembled an old man nearing the end of his days.

Since he was a child she had once cared for, Dean Mother Ji couldn’t help but reflect on whether she had been too harsh in ignoring him for the past 9 years.

But seeing Su Aobai like this, she really couldn’t bear to hand Su Yixing over to him.

“I’ve come back with the hope that you can continue to care for the child. I’ll provide a living stipend every month. This request may seem excessive, but Mother Ji, I really can’t face a child who caused her mother’s death at birth.”

Su Aobai said expressionlessly, then took out 500 yuan from his pocket.

This was the money he had earned working on construction sites over the past few days. Due to his criminal record, many sites were unwilling to hire him. Even the contractor who finally took him on had reduced his wages.

For Su Aobai, who was now penniless and recently released from prison, his choices were limited. Although working on construction sites was tough, it was also the fastest way he could find to earn money in a short period.

“Do you even know what you’re saying?!”

Dean Mother Ji stood up angrily. How could he blame the child for Ji Xing’s death!? The child was innocent; if anyone should be blamed, it was him, the father who couldn’t control himself.

The elderly woman clutched her chest, unable to speak due to the pain. Thankfully, Su Yixing was at school today; otherwise, it would have been even more painful for her to know that her father thought of her this way.

She wanted to scold him fiercely, wondering what he had been thinking during those 9 years in prison. Before the incident, he had taken such responsible care of baby Yi Xing.

“You should meet your daughter. The child looks almost exactly like Ji Xing. How can you bring yourself to resent such a well-behaved child?”

Because of Su Aobai’s “Mother Ji,” the soft-hearted old woman couldn’t bring herself to say anything harsher.

“That’s terrible. Since she looks exactly like Ji Xing, every time I see her, I’m reminded of the mother she caused to die.”

Isn’t this excuse the most fitting?

Su Aobai placed the few hundred yuan he had on the table and then got up to leave.

“I’m sorry, just consider it as me avoiding responsibility.”

Sorry, but he truly couldn’t bring himself to like that child, even though she shared half of Ji Xing’s blood.

***

When Su Aobai opened the door to the dean’s office, he saw a little girl in an oversized school uniform standing at the door, tears streaming down her face.

Seeing him come out, the girl rubbed her eyes forcefully and stared at him with resentment, her eyes red and swollen.

In a daze, Su Aobai seemed to see the shadow of another girl, but he simply walked past her and left without looking back.