Chapter 73

Chen Jue held her wrist and felt her pulse for a full minute. Not only was Zhou Hehua frightened, but Zhou Qingzhu beside her also grew a bit nervous. Mostly because Chen Jue's face was expressionless, making it impossible to tell anything from it.

The less they could read his face, the more nervous they got.

By the time Chen Jue released Zhou Hehua's wrist, she was already stammering with her mouth open. Zhou Qingzhu asked on her behalf: "What's wrong with her?"

Chen Jue just went, "Oh": "She's pregnant, about a month along."

He said it so flatly that Zhou Hehua took another full minute to believe he was telling the truth. Then she let out a loud shout that nearly startled the rooster in the tree into falling off.

Fortunately, Chen Jue and Zhou Qingzhu were mentally prepared and had already covered their ears in advance.

By the time the people clearing land nearby came running over at the sound,

Zhou Hehua was already sitting on a stool with her hand on her belly. She had fully assumed the role of a mother within a single minute.

Huo Jilin was the first to rush into the yard, looking at Chen Jue: "What happened? Is he giving birth?!"

Chen Jue was speechless. He was only eight and a half months along—give birth to what? A premature baby?

Seeing Chen Jue was fine, Huo Jilin finally let out a sigh of relief. He slowly crouched down in front of him and, after a moment, reached out to touch his belly. He felt he'd been having some pregnancy-related anxiety lately—any little commotion, and he'd think Chen Jue was about to give birth.

Right behind him came Zhao Chun, still shouldering a shovel. He asked Zhou Hehua cautiously: "Hehua, are you okay?" He'd been digging a ditch when he heard her yell, and it had scared him half to death.

Zhou Hehua lifted her face, streaked with tears. That made Zhao Chun's hands tremble even more: "It's okay, it's, it's fine!"

Zhou Hehua said to him: "Zhao Chun, I'm pregnant. I'm going to be a mother, and you're going to be a father. Chen Jue got me pregnant!"

Zhou Hehua pointed at Chen Jue with a trembling voice.

Huo Jilin had just calmed down when he heard her words. He laughed in exasperation—what kind of talk was that? What did she mean Chen Jue got him pregnant? Didn't she see him standing right here?

A big green cuckold's hat being dropped on his head out of nowhere—who'd appreciate that?

Huo Jilin let out a gloomy, low cough.

But the couple, Zhou Hehua and Zhao Chun, were clearly too excited to care whether they'd said something wrong. Ignoring the laughter from those around them, the couple hugged each other excitedly.

Seven years—finally having a child. No one could understand how thrilled they were.

The people who came later, hearing such happy news, all smiled and congratulated Zhao Chun.

Zhao Chun grinned so wide he couldn't shut his mouth, cupping his hands in thanks to everyone one by one. Especially when it came to Chen Jue—he felt like getting on his knees and thanking him.

That whole morning, Zhao Chun dug the ditch with incredible energy, covering over ten meters by himself.

Huo Jilin was planning to set fire to the wasteland, so the first task for the fifty workers was digging firebreaks.

Setting fires and preventing them—Huo Jilin had plenty of experience from his years in the military. He first had people dig a trench around the perimeter to prevent the fire from spreading and burning the whole mountain. That was no joke.

By the afternoon, the firebreaks around the area, stretching the length of ten houses, were all dug, and the fire was lit.

Everyone backed off to a distance, but all kept their eyes on the flames. Uncle Zhou, Village Head Zhou, and the others looked serious. They burned their fields every year too, but in the past the grass was sparse, not this lush, and at most they'd burn one mu at a time—nothing this spectacular. Watching the raging fire, they felt a bit scared.

But when the fire died out right at the edge of the trench they'd dug,

they finally understood the purpose of the one-meter-wide firebreak Huo Jilin had them dig.

Village Head Zhou breathed a sigh of relief. He no longer had to keep watch here. He said to Huo Jilin: "Don't rush, take it slow. Be careful not to let it spread to the mountain."

Don't burn the ancestors' graves—that would be a grave sin.

Huo Jilin smiled: "Don't worry, Village Head. I plan to burn these twenty-plus mu over five days, and I'll dig a firebreak before every burn."

He'd already mapped out the sections—burn one plot per day, and as soon as a plot was burned, they could start making mud bricks on it.

Besides the soil from digging the trenches, they also used soil from the fields. People dug on-site, leveling the mounds, and used the earth for mud slurry. Plant ash was excellent fertilizer for the land and could also be mixed into the mud bricks for disinfection.

The work that followed was coordinated by Zhou Qingshan, getting underway with as much energy as the fire itself.

The most basic task in building a house was making mud bricks, and with fifty people, the work went quickly. The whole worksite was buzzing with activity.

Although Chen Jue's household didn't supply meals, they had plenty of water.

Chen Jue added sugar and wild chrysanthemum to the water, a makeshift version of chrysanthemum tea. When he had time, he also brewed honeysuckle tea and ginger-grass tea.

In this late autumn season, when people got hot from work and wore just a single layer, the wind blowing through could easily make them catch a chill.

Chen Jue didn't want people getting sick before the medicine workshop was even built.

Zhou Hehua's job now was to brew the tea. She was being very careful with her belly these days.

She used to enthusiastically climb trees and mountains, but now she was the picture of a proper lady—except when she smiled and showed all her teeth and gums.

Even her walk had become soft and graceful.

Zhou Hehua added sugar to the wooden bucket. This time she was brewing ginger tea. She added sugar while looking at it longingly: "Chen Jue, do we really need this much sugar? They're just a bunch of rough men—do they need sweet water? Didn't you say eating too much sugar is bad?"

The Huo family was quite generous too. Sugar was a precious commodity. Though her family had it often, other families only got to taste it during festivals.

Chen Jue was weighing out medicine packets and replied without looking up: "It's just you who can't have sugar. They do hard labor and use up a lot of energy—a bit of sugar water is fine for them."

Besides, this was ginger tea. The old ginger dug from the mountain, when pounded in the stone mortar, the pungent smell hit him right in the nose. Without sugar, he was afraid they couldn't stomach it.

Zhou Hehua swallowed hard: "I'm so miserable. When I wasn't pregnant, you wouldn't let me add sugar to my medicine. Now that I have a sweet tooth, you won't let me have sugar either. What did I ever do to offend sugar?"

It was fine for normal people to eat a little sugar, but for pregnant women—especially one like Zhou Hehua with a family history of obesity—sugar was a no-go. Sugar intake had to be strictly controlled to avoid gestational diabetes.

She'd already been pre-diabetic.

Chen Jue didn't say much. Seeing he wasn't going to persuade her, Zhou Hehua quietly backed off.

Ever since Chen Jue had agreed to treat her, helping her slim down, and her body felt lighter and more comfortable day by day, she'd come to trust him completely. And especially now—Chen Jue had gotten her pregnant!

Oh, but she must never say that in front of Huo Jilin. That petty, jealous guy.

Huo Jilin wasn't there at the moment. Uncle Zhou was now roaming the mountain looking for good timber for the house, and Huo Jilin had gone with him. He was looking for limestone.

There was limestone on the mountain. Chen Jue had brought some back earlier and used it to whitewash the walls.

Huo Jilin planned to fetch some this time too—just a little.

He had no intention of using the limestone to turn a profit anytime soon. Not only because he wanted to protect the mountain and didn't have the money or manpower to mine it on a large scale, but also because, although limestone could be used to make quite a few things, he couldn't remember many of them.

He wasn't a computer. Though he'd studied chemical engineering, he'd later joined the military. Being able to remember how to make explosives, firearms, and gunpowder was already pretty impressive.

And remembering was one thing—actually producing them took a lot of effort. The formulas from later generations had evolved and improved over centuries. Right now, everything was lacking materials and precise measurements, and it would take time to develop.

He'd been wiping himself with leaves for a long time now, ever since Chen Jue started doing it.

Every time he squatted in the outhouse staring at the leaves above his head, he kept thinking about the formula for making toilet paper, but he still hadn't cracked it.

Because he was just a medicine merchant—his knowledge only went so far.

If he'd known he'd end up time-traveling, he would have brought a whole team of scientists and researchers with him.

Mining, drilling for oil, making paper, producing cement—flip the whole world upside down.

Huo Jilin shot down each idea in his head one by one as he searched for limestone.

No amount of money can buy hindsight; better to stick to what he could actually do.

There were plenty of mineral deposits in the mountains, but you needed experts to find them. Limestone was the most common and easiest to recognize, since it sat right on the surface.

When Chen Jue had first collected limestone, he'd treated it as a medicinal ingredient, and only later figured out he could use it to whitewash walls.

Quicklime killed germs and bacteria—the medicine workshop absolutely needed it. Cement wasn't something he could whip up anytime soon, so slaked lime would do for the walls.

Huo Jilin found the spot where Chen Jue had previously gathered limestone and had some dug up and brought back. He was just waiting for the house to be finished before whitewashing.

But Huo Jilin never expected that before his house was even built, the wild boars would come down from the mountain and stir up trouble first.

What Zhou Qingshan had said on the mountain last time had turned out to be right.

Huo Jilin heard about it one morning. He'd been waking up early these days—not because of poor sleep, but because his sleep had actually gotten better.

He wasn't sure when it started—maybe after he started sharing a bed with Chen Jue.

He hadn't meant to crawl into Chen Jue's bed. Though his temper wasn't great, he was at least an honorable man. He liked Chen Jue, and until Chen Jue accepted him, he wouldn't do something like that to take advantage.

He genuinely didn't know how he'd ended up there. Maybe he'd gotten too close—leaning against Chen Jue helped him sleep, and his instincts just pulled him closer.

It wasn't just that Chen Jue wanted him close—there was also the kid in his belly.

That kid wouldn't let him get close.

Sleeping under the same blanket as Chen Jue, he instinctively wanted to hold him, to fall asleep holding his hand. But Chen Jue wouldn't let him, so he was like a cat—if you put your hand on its paw, it would just move its paw on top of yours.

Chen Jue wouldn't let him hold his hand, so when he was half-asleep, he'd place his hand on Chen Jue's belly. But even the little one inside wouldn't let him press down—pushing back with his hand, kicking with his foot. Not even born yet, and already a little rebel.

Huo Jilin laughed, half annoyed. Chen Jue wouldn't let him hold his hand—did this little one hate him too?

He was determined to go toe-to-toe with the kid.

Wherever the baby kicked, he'd put his hand right there.

At first, there was still a layer of clothing between them. But feeling he couldn't really reach the kid that way, he slipped his hand inside the undergarment, pressing directly against Chen Jue's belly to go head-to-head with that little rebel.

Wherever he touched, the baby would push up—not forcefully, but clearly noticeable, as if challenging him.

Huo Jilin couldn't help but think of whack-a-mole.

He thought, if Chen Jue knew he was using that term to describe the child in his belly, he'd probably wring his neck.

Huo Jilin covered the baby's little hand with his whole palm while quietly watching Chen Jue.

After this little wrestling match with the kid, he was wide awake.

Chen Jue woke up later than him, since he'd gotten up once in the middle of the night to use the latrine. He'd been needing to get up at night lately. In his medical notes, he'd written that as the belly drops, it presses on the pelvis and messes with the urinary system, making the pregnant person have to pee all the time.

Huo Jilin saw Chen Jue's brow furrow and slowly pressed his hand closer, soothing the baby inside, as if to tell the kid to knock it off.

He knew it was his own messing with the kid that had woken Chen Jue. He hadn't meant to—he just couldn't help himself.

The child in Chen Jue's belly was as clever as Chen Jue himself, getting smarter every month. He was playing a classic trick—when Huo Jilin grabbed his little fist, he'd kick out in another direction, luring Huo Jilin's hand away.

When Huo Jilin went to feel his foot, the child would cheerfully wave his little fist, curl up his tiny foot, and tuck it away inside Chen Jue's belly.

Through the layer of skin, he couldn't see the child's exact movements, but the kid was clearly a master of strategy.

This little one was this capable already—Huo Jilin couldn't help but want to test him a few more times. But messing with him too many times ended up waking Chen Jue up.

Huo Jilin instinctively patted the child lightly, as if telling the kid to go back to sleep, but Chen Jue was already disturbed. Eyes still closed, Chen Jue first pushed Huo Jilin's hand away, then tried to roll over. Huo Jilin quickly helped him turn onto his other side. Chen Jue faced away from him now, but after a moment, he turned back to look at him: "Why are you in my bed?"