“The baby…” Ziqing said, disbelieving, clutching her stomach as the pain grew increasingly unbearable, leaving both Meng Duo’er and Situ Jing’er—one grown, one young, both utterly inexperienced—completely at a loss.
What should they do? What should they do?
Situ Jing’er’s usual maturity completely crumbled in the face of childbirth. She was utterly useless to help, and instead retreated far away, too frightened to even approach, let alone touch Ziqing.
Seeing Ziqing’s face twist in agony, her first thought was that she never wanted to have children. Her second thought was that, in order to never have to give birth, she’d simply never get married!
By comparison, Meng Duo’er proved to be the real adult. She helped Ziqing sit down on the heated couch, wiping her sweat while trying to talk to her, hoping to distract her from the pain.
But very quickly, she realized nothing she said was getting through to Ziqing at all. Ziqing, in agony, cried out, “Quick, find the midwife! Hurry!”
“Midwife? Midwife!” Meng Duo’er found herself shouting the words too, without even realizing it. With Hongyi gone, Situ Jing’er shot out of the room like an arrow.
Now the room held only the still-unconscious Baili Xiaosheng, Guxi, and Meng Duo’er.
Guxi stood by anxiously, wanting to go call for help, but afraid something might happen if Meng Duo’er couldn’t manage alone, so he stayed put to watch over things.
“It hurts too much! I can’t stand it!”
The pain came fast and hard. Though Ziqing knew this was a sign of impending labor, this time felt quite different from before.
Last time, even though it had been her first delivery, the baby had come after only a short while of pain.
She’d even teased Xiong Bao for being so impatient, unable to wait!
But this time, not only was the pain worse than last time, she didn’t feel any sense of the baby descending either—meaning the baby didn’t seem ready to come out at all!
Could this be a difficult labor?
Ziqing was terrified, her face deathly pale, drenched in sweat. In the face of this kind of pain, she felt utterly powerless—no medicine could help, nothing could ease the pain, not even knocking herself unconscious would work.
Meng Duo’er had no solutions either. Seeing her suffer like this frightened her too, and in her panic, she could only call Guxi over. “Give her some of your true energy! I’m afraid she can’t hold on!”
Guxi was even more at a loss about something like this, but with Meng Duo’er’s instruction, he had no choice but to comply.
Yet it actually worked. The moment Guxi channeled his true energy into her, Ziqing’s complexion improved considerably, her spirit seeming to lift as well. She opened her eyes to look at them, no longer asking about the midwife, and instead asked first, “Where’s Beiyue, why isn’t he here yet?”
“Mistress, please bear with it a little longer. The prince will be here very soon!” Guxi hurried to reassure her.
These words seemed to give Ziqing a great deal of strength. She began taking deep breaths, no longer as panicked as before. Watching Ziqing endure such torment, Meng Duo’er suddenly felt that she was, in a strange way, truly fortunate.
Even in the depths of hardship, there was still someone to hope for, someone to wait for.
She thought, as long as Jun Beiyue arrived, no matter how much pain Ziqing was in, she’d never be afraid again.
Sure enough, very soon, Jun Beiyue and Jun Buli came rushing in, one right after the other. Without a word, Jun Beiyue scooped Ziqing up and hurried off, while Jun Buli rushed ahead to clear the way for them.
In an instant, everyone swarmed after them, all heading toward the birthing room that had long since been prepared.
Guxi followed as far as the doorway, and was just about to step out when he suddenly stopped, turning back to glance at Baili Xiaosheng on the bed, hesitating slightly.
He deliberated for quite a while before finally withdrawing the foot he’d already stepped forward with, staying behind.
The room fell silent. Guxi simply stood in place, gazing at her from a distance, brow furrowed in thought for a long moment before finally looking away and sitting down on the threshold.
He was, by nature, a quiet man, rarely speaking up unprompted—but whenever he did speak, it was always something worth hearing.
When he’d first started working at Prince Yao’s manor, aside from Hongyi, who dared to talk to him, none of the other servants—guards, errand boys, maids alike—dared approach him first, let alone grow familiar with him.
This wasn’t just because of his additional status as one of Prince Yao’s consort’s men, but also had to do with his temperament.
In truth, he wasn’t particularly cold or fierce—it was just that when he stayed silent, he carried an air of severe, unspoken authority, and the young maids at the manor, who gossiped about him more than anyone, were all too afraid of him to approach.
Later, when he went to serve in the palace as commander of the Imperial Guard, he became the subject of whispered conversation among the palace maids too, yet no one dared get close to him there either.
He was taciturn, unwilling to actively grow familiar with others, so when alone, he could stand guard outside Jun Buli’s door for three or four days straight without saying a word.
Right now, he sat quietly, gazing out at the courtyard, whether resting or lost in thought unclear, his handsome, resolute face utterly expressionless.
Gradually, from the quiet room behind him came Baili Xiaosheng’s murmuring—though she wasn’t crying, her voice carried a heavy, unmistakable sob.
Guxi couldn’t quite make out what she was saying, and had no particular curiosity to find out.
He sat on the threshold, facing the courtyard, his back to the room.
A lone man and woman together in one room wasn’t proper to begin with—and strictly speaking, Baili Xiaosheng was his mistress’s adopted goddaughter, which made her a princess, while he was, after all, merely a servant.
The reason he’d stayed behind was, first, that he was uneasy about the girl, worried she might do something foolish once she woke—he’d stayed on his mistress’s behalf. Second, he also wanted to find an opportunity to grow familiar with this girl, to persuade her about destroying Shiliang.
If his mistress had felt confident about the outcome, she would have given him a definite answer already. But she’d said she needed to consult the girl’s wishes first, which meant even his mistress wasn’t sure whether Baili Xiaosheng would agree.
Guxi had no real understanding of childbirth. He’d assumed it would be over in a short while, that someone would come by eventually. But to his surprise, he ended up keeping watch there for a full day and night!
Because Ziqing was having a difficult labor.
In an era with such primitive medical conditions, difficult labor was an extremely painful and dangerous ordeal.
The doors to the birthing room remained tightly shut, Ziqing’s cries of pain echoing continuously from within, while everyone waiting outside grew more and more anxious, having no idea what was actually happening inside.
Though Jun Beiyue had long since become a father, he’d never experienced anything like this before—this was probably the most anxious he’d ever been in his entire life, feeling utterly useless, hearing his wife’s pained cries and unable to do a single thing to help.
He’d always known childbirth wasn’t easy, but he’d never realized it could be quite this difficult.
Just thinking of how Ziqing had once given birth to Jun Buli all alone in the world of poisonous beasts made his heart ache even more—he couldn’t even imagine how she’d endured that ordeal.
As for Jun Buli, this too was his first time experiencing something like this. Unlike Jun Beiyue, who paced endlessly in front of the door, he crouched by the railing off to the side, head down, his handsome, sharp-featured face dark with worry, brow furrowed tight.
He’d always believed he understood best just how hard Mother’s life had been—but only now did he truly realize that the hardships she’d endured were far beyond anything he could have imagined.