xymnovel Chapter 1144 - 827: Does It Hurt?
Chapter 1144 - 827: Does It Hurt?
For a moment, everyone forgot what they had just been about to say, all turning and walking into Chengqian Hall, even Yu Wencheng, whose expression had always been somewhat gloomy, was peering inside with curiosity.Inside the inner hall, light and shadow swayed once more.
Before long, in a nearly blazing brightness, a midwife came out from within, holding in her arms a swaddled bundle that kept letting out loud, clear cries, her face full of joy. She had just opened her mouth, about to offer congratulations to Yu Wenye, when at a glance she saw the imposing figure standing at Prince Qin’s side—His Majesty the Emperor, whose very presence commanded awe without anger. Startled, she hurriedly started to kneel and kowtow, but Yu Wenquan immediately raised his hand: "No need for formalities. Where is the child?"
The midwife hastily said, "Congratulations to Your Majesty, felicitations to Your Majesty, it is a boy. Princess Qin has given Your Majesty an Imperial Grandson!"
At those words, Yu Wenquan’s eyes suddenly lit up.
He quickly took a few steps to the midwife, reached out to gently lift a corner of the swaddling and leaned in for a look, only to see a tiny, wrinkled, bright red baby curled up inside. His two fists, scarcely bigger than Yu Wenquan’s thumbs, were clenched tight, and he was wailing, but at the instant the swaddling was lifted, it was as if he was immediately enveloped by a powerful aura. His crying stopped at once, his tightly shut eyes seemed to twitch, yet in the end he could not manage to open them. After a brief quiet, he let out a sound that was like a murmur, yet also like a soft little laugh.
"This, this—"
For the first time, Yu Wenquan felt his hands trembling. He wanted to speak, but the countless words crowded in his chest at this moment, joy swelling without limit, making his voice choke. After struggling for a long while, he finally rasped hoarsely, "The Imperial Grandson, my grandson!"
Just then, a pair of hands suddenly reached over from the side and took the swaddled bundle from the midwife’s arms.
Yu Wenquan’s thick brows knit together. Turning his head, he saw it was Yu Wenye. Yu Wenye had almost stopped breathing, not daring to draw even a deep breath, carefully watching the tiny baby in the swaddling who was slightly turning his head, as if listening, as if sensing the world around him. On that cold, resolute face, a faint, delighted smile slowly surfaced.
Compared to Yu Wenquan’s long anticipation for his grandson, the time Yu Wenye had spent waiting for his own child might not have been as long, yet his feelings were no less intense.
Especially at this moment, seeing this little thing that was as wrinkled and ugly as a skinned kitten, he actually thought him very beautiful. He even carefully discerned that the child’s narrow eye-slits were like Shang Ruyi’s, while the corners of his eyes lifted sharply like his own. When he opened his eyes in the future, would they be bright and lovely almond eyes like Shang Ruyi’s, or a pair of peach blossom eyes? His nose bridge was like his own, his little mouth like Shang Ruyi’s...
This was their child.
He could barely restrain his smile from growing wider and wider, completely forgetting the peril he had just gone through here. In the bloody tang hanging in the air, there was still a trace of that heart-palpitating reek of strong liquor, yet he was grinning as wantonly and joyfully as a child, murmuring over and over, "My child, our child..."
Yu Wenquan watched him, feeling somewhat displeased for a moment, yet also at a loss as to how to express it.
At that moment, Eunuch Yu, who was standing behind him, suddenly dropped to his knees, knocking his head repeatedly on the floor toward Yu Wenquan: "Congratulations to Your Majesty, felicitations to Your Majesty, the Imperial Grandson has been born!"
The few little eunuchs serving nearby, the midwives, and the palace maids who had come along all hastily knelt down as well, kowtowing in unison to Yu Wenquan in congratulation, shouting long live. Their voices echoed again and again in the vast Chengqian Hall, as if tens of thousands of commoners were also offering congratulations to this Holy Master. Yu Wenquan immediately felt joyful again, flicked his sleeve and said, "Rise. All of you shall be heavily rewarded!"
"We thank Your Majesty for your boundless grace!"
After hearing these words, Yu Wenye suddenly thought of something again. He handed the swaddled bundle back to the midwife, then lifted his foot and walked inside.
Yu Wenquan’s brows knit once more.
Yet the others who had likewise been left behind by Yu Wenye all said nothing, standing stock-still where they were. Just as Eunuch Yu had worried earlier, although it was only a wall’s thickness away, the inner hall was, after all, the "blood room." As men, they all avoided it. Only Yu Wenqian, who had remained silent the whole time, slightly lifted his eyes when he saw Yu Wenye’s figure vanish ahead.
Facing the brightness all around, his pupils only grew a shade darker.
In the span of a breath, Yu Wenye had already entered the inner hall.
The atmosphere here was still tense. Tushere and Wo Xue were still moving back and forth; some were carrying basins of water, others holding medicine chests, yet everyone’s faces were alight with joy. The tension in the air came more from the thick, almost cloying smell of blood. Yu Wenye saw Su Qinglan bent over by the bedside; after a flurry of movements with her hands, she finally let out a long breath, slowly straightening up, but perhaps because she had been bending for too long, she staggered a little.
A midwife beside her immediately reached out to support her.
Su Qinglan caught her breath. When she turned her head, she suddenly sensed a dark figure rushing to the bedside.
It was Yu Wenye.
Everyone hurriedly moved to salute, but Yu Wenye’s eyes did not fall on them at all. From the moment he stepped into this inner hall so thick with the stench of blood that even he—a man who had long fought on battlefields and bathed in blood countless times—could hardly breathe, his gaze had been locked on the figure on the bed, now visibly thinned. At this moment, seeing that somewhat pale little face, which, because the tip of her nose and the corners of her eyes were red, appeared all the more pitiful, the joy he had just felt completely melted into heartache and guilt. He slowly bent down, half-kneeling by the bed. One hand brushed aside her hair, completely soaked with sweat, and at the instant his fingertips touched it, cold sweat flowed down along his fingers, between them, across his palm. That little face, likewise drenched in sweat, slowly rested against his palm.
Fortunately, her body was still warm.
What’s more, she even curved her eyes at him, smiling weakly, yet incomparably beautiful.
Yu Wenye even found it a bit strange—why had he once thought she wasn’t all that pretty?
He opened his mouth, but his throat, swollen with too many surging emotions at this moment, could not produce a sound. Instead, this little woman on the bed, so weak that she was constantly panting, even causing the clothes covering her body—his own robes—to tremble without cease, softly said to him, "Did you see him?"
Yu Wenye’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and he nodded. "I saw him."
"It’s a son."
"Mm."
"Is he handsome?"
"A bit ugly."
Shang Ruyi immediately furrowed her brows, but before she had time to complain, she felt her face being gently caressed by a pair of large hands whose breath was so familiar, yet trembling so much that even she found it strange. Yu Wenye gazed deeply into her eyes and asked in a hoarse voice, "Does it hurt?"