Shen Xingruo nicknamed the unborn baby in her belly “Xiao Guai,” hoping that the little one could be well-behaved in the future. But Little Lu Guai may not like this name; already in the womb, he or she seems destined to disappoint the expectations of the mother.
Since discovering her pregnancy, Shen Xingruo has been experiencing severe morning sickness, with symptoms worsening day by day. One day, while out socializing, Lu Xingyan encountered a dish of sashimi. He didn’t even touch it, worried about getting the smell of alcohol on himself. Once back at the office, he even changed his clothes to ensure he didn’t smell of alcohol.
However, upon returning home that evening, Shen Xingruo saw him and immediately rushed to the bathroom, vomiting violently. Lu Xingyan, clueless about what was happening, nervously followed her into the bathroom without even changing his shoes.
As he approached, Shen Xingruo’s vomiting worsened. “Lu Xingyan, are you trying to kill me?” she weakly exclaimed after she finished vomiting, using a towel to cover her mouth and nose, her face pale as she looked at Lu Xingyan in the mirror.
Confused, Lu Xingyan responded, “What did I do?”
Shen Xingruo replied, “Your body odor of fish is so strong, stay away from me.”
Lu Xingyan instinctively sniffed his clothes but before he could defend himself, Shen Xingruo, avoiding him like a snake, covered her mouth and nose and walked past him out of the bathroom.
Back in the bedroom, she stood at the door, warning in a muffled voice, “Don’t come into the room tonight.”
Lu Xingyan, puzzled, stood there for a few seconds, then went to knock on the door. “But where will I sleep if not in the room?”
He listened carefully at the door, hearing nothing from inside. He began to feign a pitiful tone.
“How about this, just throw me a set of pajamas, I’ll take a shower outside and then come in, okay? You haven’t been feeling well lately, how can I leave you alone at night?”
One second, two seconds, three seconds.
With a click, the door opened a crack, and Shen Xingruo handed him the pajamas, her voice still muffled, “Make sure you clean up properly.”
—Being pitiful worked.
Shen Xingruo’s morning sickness was severe, and anything with a strong odor was out of the question. Meanwhile, things with mild odors couldn’t whet her appetite, resulting in her visibly losing weight.
Lu Xingyan watched her with aching heart and growing anxiety. He scoured the internet daily, occasionally venturing into other departments to seek advice from female colleagues who had given birth. He tried every means to get the cook they hired to make delicious food for Shen Xingruo. Unfortunately, the results were minimal.
One night at 1 a.m., the two were cuddling in bed, whispering. Suddenly, Shen Xingruo felt hungry and expressed a desire to eat dumplings from a renowned old shop.
Since the shop didn’t deliver, Shen Xingruo originally intended to have Lu Xingyan take her there. But without hesitation, Lu Xingyan got out of bed and tucked her in, saying, “I’ll go buy it. You stay here; it’s cold outside.”
Unfortunately, as soon as Lu Xingyan stepped out, it started pouring rain, occasionally accompanied by lightning and thunder.
After waiting for a while, Shen Xingruo realized that her phone was vibrating under the pillow. Unable to sleep, she got up and walked to the balcony, staring out the window. It wasn’t easy to drive in such heavy rain, so Lu Xingyan had been gone for over two hours.
As soon as Lu Xingyan returned home and opened the door, Shen Xingruo, wearing pajamas and barefoot, ran out of the room. Seeing her, Lu Xingyan raised the thermos in his hand, “Got it. Hungry? Wait here; I’ll make it for you.” He muttered as he changed his shoes, “You have no idea how heavy the rain was. I knew something was wrong when I saw it, so I bought a thermos from the store and asked them to prepare a bowl of soup base for me. I bought the dumplings raw, so I’ll cook them and put them in the soup later…”
Before he could finish, Shen Xingruo suddenly moved forward and hugged him tightly. This embrace lasted for a long time. Outside the window, the rain pattered, while inside, the warm light enveloped them, mingling with the aroma of the soup base.
With Lu Xingyan’s meticulous care, Shen Xingruo’s struggles with morning sickness for over a month weren’t particularly difficult. After fifteen weeks of pregnancy, her morning sickness gradually lessened, her appetite returned slowly, and she gained some weight. However, just as her morning sickness eased, Little Lu Guai began to wreak havoc in his mother’s belly.
At first, feeling the baby move was wonderful for Shen Xingruo, and Lu Xingyan often watched her belly with anticipation. Before going to bed, he would solemnly play music, claiming it would cultivate Little Lu Guai’s character. However, the increasing frequency of fetal movements became torture for Shen Xingruo.
As the pregnancy entered the mid-term, Shen Xingruo couldn’t sleep well every night. Sleeping on her side for too long left half of her body numb, and she often lay awake until dawn, her mental state deteriorating significantly.
Initially, Shen Xingruo would vent her frustration on Lu Xingyan, but eventually, she didn’t even have the energy to get angry. Every day, she seemed tired and disinterested in everything. Lu Xingyan was particularly afraid that Shen Xingruo might suffer from depression, so he tried various ways to cheer her up, even booking a pregnancy pain experience for her.
His original intention was to prove to Shen Xingruo that he would always be there for her. However, when they went to the experience center together, seeing him in pain made her worry even more about the impending childbirth, adding another layer of concern to her physical torture.
Since birth, it was the first time Shen Xingruo had endured such a long ordeal. And this ordeal lasted for a full ten months, right up until the difficult delivery. Just before she was pushed into the delivery room with her cervix almost fully dilated, Shen Xingruo trembled all over with pain. Sweat soaked her forehead, and she held Lu Xingyan’s hand tightly, emphasizing each word, “Lu Xingyan if you ever dare to treat me badly in the future, you’re finished.”
With tearful eyes, Lu Xingyan nodded incessantly. Pei Yue, standing nearby, hastily added, “No, no, don’t worry, if Lu Xingyan dares to treat you badly in the future, Mom will be the first to kick him out of the house! Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid!”
Soon, Shen Xingruo was pushed into the delivery room, and for the next half hour, there was no sound. Lu Xingyan stayed at the door, pacing back and forth. He wanted to ask the doctor to let him in, but Shen Xingruo had warned him not to enter the delivery room; she didn’t want him to see her in such a miserable state.
Half an hour passed, then another half hour. Pei Yue and the nurse both tried to persuade Lu Xingyan to rest, but he remained unmoved. He could still recall the feeling during the childbirth simulation, and the thought of Shen Xingruo enduring such pain made him wish he could bear it for her.
Two hours later.
Lu Xingyan sat in the smoking room near the delivery room. He had just opened his lighter when he heard a nurse announcing outside, “Shen Xingruo’s baby, a boy, was born at ten o’clock and five minutes in the evening, weighing three points one kilogram.”
Lu Xingyan paused for a few seconds, then rushed out. Pei Yue was already there, taking the baby from the nurse’s hand, saying, “Oh my! My lovely grandson!”
Shen Xingruo, still pale and sweaty, was being pushed out of the delivery room in a wheelchair. Lu Xingyan hurried over, bent down to hug her, and carefully kissed her. “Baby, are you still in pain? How do you feel?”
Buried in his arms, Shen Xingruo shook her head without saying a word.
On the way back to the ward, Lu Xingyan was constantly concerned about Shen Xingruo, asking the nurse how long she would have to stay in the hospital if she could eat if she could shower. Pei Yue, holding the baby, also kept inquiring about Shen Xingruo’s well-being.
The nurse couldn’t help but feel that something was off.
When she finally escorted the family into the ward, she suddenly realized—the family was extraordinary. Did they not plan to care for the newborn baby at all? Especially the father, who didn’t even glance at the baby. Wasn’t this baby his?
As the nurse left, she couldn’t help but start to imagine an epic and tear-jerking story about the heroic father.
Lu Xingyan had no idea that his nervous concern for Shen Xingruo was misinterpreted by the nurse’s overactive imagination. But he was indeed preoccupied, momentarily forgetting to pay attention to his baby.
It was Shen Xingruo’s soft voice saying, “Bring the baby over; let me see,” that finally reminded Lu Xingyan of the newborn.
He took the swaddle from Pei Yue and placed it by Shen Xingruo’s bedside, then pulled it down slightly, eagerly anticipating a look at the baby.
However, both Shen Xingruo and his smile gradually froze and then disappeared.
“Why is he so ugly?” Lu Xingyan blurted out what was on Shen Xingruo’s mind.
Pei Yue rolled her eyes and corrected him, “Watch your words. All babies look like this. He’ll look better when he grows up. Look at his nose and mouth; they’re just like yours when you were little!”
“It’s better if he looks better when he grows up. Doesn’t that mean he’s ugly now?” Lu Xingyan’s expression of disgust was undeniable. “And his face is so small now. If he’s ugly now, won’t he be even uglier when he grows up?”
Pei Yue was so angry she wanted to go over and twist his ear. Shen Xingruo was also shocked by how ugly the newborn baby was, so she obediently lay down and realized belatedly that childbirth was completely different from what she had imagined.
Despite the painful and arduous process, Shen Xingruo had natural childbirth and was discharged from the hospital after three days, returning home.
Pei Yue had arranged for two confinement nannies, one to take care of the baby and the other to care for Shen Xingruo. With Pei Yue and Aunt Zhou also staying, the house suddenly became lively.
While the liveliness had its merits, it also brought about inconveniences. Both Pei Yue and Aunt Zhou held traditional beliefs, insisting that during the confinement period, Shen Xingruo couldn’t bathe or come into contact with clean water. However, Shen Xingruo cherished cleanliness the most. Not being able to bathe for over forty days was worse than death for her. Moreover, with frequent visitors coming to see the baby, she refused to appear in front of anyone looking unkempt.
Lu Xingyan found himself caught in the middle, feeling that both sides had valid points. He had to boil water every day, let it cool slightly, and personally supervise Shen Xingruo’s bathing to ensure she didn’t catch a cold.
The newborn baby changed every day.
Initially, Lu Xingyan and Shen Xingruo didn’t know what went wrong. They felt the baby was so ugly that it was suffocating. Both of them tacitly refrained from posting the baby’s front-facing photo on social media, only sharing a picture of three tiny hands placed together.
However, after Shen Xingruo spent over forty days in confinement, the baby gradually started to look more human-like. His nose was a nose, his mouth was a mouth, his eyes were bright, and his skin was fair and tender.
But Shen Xingruo still didn’t quite like him. There was no other reason except that this little fellow was simply too much of a handful. He didn’t make feeding or sleeping easy, often crying in the dead of night just as she drifted off to sleep. Moreover, he inherited his father’s temperament, stubbornly refusing to sleep in his crib and insisting on cuddling with his unfamiliar mother.
Unfortunately, Shen Xingruo had no clue how to handle him. She couldn’t reason with a one-month-old baby. The only thing she could do was patiently learn from the confinement nannies how to soothe him.
Having stayed home for over a month, Shen Xingruo already felt suffocated. Yet, before she could get two decent nights of sleep, she began to feel a bit nervous.
One night, after being awakened by the little troublemaker, she sank into a strange calmness and despair. Leaning against the headboard, she fed the baby while messaging Lu Xingyan on WeChat.
Shen Xingruo: 【Lu Xingyan, I’m going to be killed by your son.】
Three minutes passed with no response.
Shen Xingruo: 【Lu Xingyan, are you sleeping soundly as if nothing’s wrong?】
Shen Xingruo: 【Did I owe you in my past life? Marrying you is the beginning of the miserable life I’ve had in this lifetime.】
She started bringing up old grudges…
During the confinement period, Shen Xingruo and Lu Xingyan slept in separate rooms. Lu Xingyan’s phone was always on silent at night, and he would sleep through until morning. Seeing the dozens or even hundreds of WeChat messages from Shen Xingruo, he broke out in a cold sweat.
This was serious. Shen Xingruo was bringing up grievances dating back to their sophomore year in high school when he ditched hygiene duty.
He rushed into the bedroom, just as the little troublemaker began crying loudly in the early morning.
Shen Xingruo gave him a cold glance.
He scratched his head, quietly hiding any trace of innocence from his face. After the little one stopped wailing, he pretended to pick him up and sternly scolded, “What are you crying for? Don’t you know you woke Mom up? I’ve never seen such a noisy kid like you. What is ‘little obedient’? Where are you obedient?”
The little troublemaker innocently stared at his father, as if unaware of being scolded. Suddenly, he leaned forward and planted a wet kiss on his father’s face, leaving him covered in saliva.
Lu Xingyan was stunned for three seconds, suddenly feeling elated in his heart: My baby is showing affection!!!
Of course, he didn’t show any hint of joy on his face. He leaned in close to the baby’s ear and whispered, “How about kissing Mommy too? If you kiss Mommy, she won’t be angry anymore.”
The little troublemaker, whether understanding or not, continued to gaze innocently with his big eyes.
Lu Xingyan sat down on the edge of the bed, wanting to give it a try.
But he wasn’t very skilled at holding babies, and kissing them was even more challenging. So, he just decided to press the baby’s face against Shen Xingruo’s.
Despite Lu Xingyan’s somewhat clumsy actions, Xiao Guai was surprisingly adept. With a “smack,” he managed to kiss his mother’s tender cheek and even generously smeared her face with saliva.
Shen Xingruo was stunned for three seconds before instinctively returning a kiss to the baby.
Before she could fully gather her thoughts, Lu Xingyan leaned in and planted a kiss on her lips, his expression full of tenderness. “Ruobao, you’ve worked hard. It’s all my fault.”
Shen Xingruo inexplicably felt a shiver run down her spine, and a hint of vulnerability appeared on her normally expressionless face.
Lu Xingyan wanted to kiss her again, but she quickly raised her hand to block him. “Could you please not speak without brushing your teeth? And don’t touch me either.”
“…”
“You act like you’ve brushed your teeth.”
They locked eyes for three seconds, then swiftly averted their gaze in unison to look at the baby.
Their plastic-like marital affection had collapsed.