Chapter 25: Two Lines

The doctor brought a portable scanner to Cedar Hill at nine the next morning.

She set it up on the drawing-room table and asked for two chairs.

Xiao Chen sat in one with his shirt open and his jaw set.

Shen Yan sat in the other and held the arm of it with both hands.

They had not spoken since the sofas.

"Mr. Xiao first," the doctor said, and put the cold probe on his belly.

A grey screen woke up.

She turned a dial, and a small bright flicker appeared in the middle of it, fast and steady.

"There," she said. "Six weeks. A strong heartbeat."

Xiao Chen looked at the flicker.

He had read ten thousand pages of evidence in his life, and none of it had made his chest feel like this.

"It is very small," he said.

"They usually are."

She wiped him down and moved to the other chair.

Shen Yan lifted his jumper without being asked.

The probe went on, and the screen showed the same bright flicker, a little lower, a little faster.

Shen Yan laughed.

It came out of him as a wet, helpless sound, and he put his hand over his mouth.

"Two," he said through his fingers. "That's two."

"That is two," said the doctor. "Congratulations to you both. Rest, eat properly, no more running in front of vans."

She left them the images, one each, printed on thin paper.

Xiao Chen folded his and did not put it away.

He held it.

Shen Yan looked across the gap between the chairs.

For a moment his whole face was open, and there was no clause in it, and no will, and no ring.

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