Chapter 165

The sky gradually lightened, and from inside the room came Fu Tingjun's muffled groans.

Zhao Ling stood beneath the window lattice, drenched in sweat from anxiety, repeating, "Ajun, it's alright, it's alright, I'm right outside... just bear it a little longer, it'll be over soon..."

This isn't an illness—how can bearing it make it better?

Fu Tingjun wanted to laugh at that, but the moment she tugged at the corners of her mouth, another wave of pain struck...

She could only bite down tightly on the cloth that Old Madam Lü had placed in her hand.

Old Madam Lü gently stroked her forehead. "Do exactly as I say, and you'll be fine." Her tone was kind and gentle. "Look, your husband is right here with you too!"

Fu Tingjun nodded.

Old Madam Lü nodded to Mrs. Tong, who immediately brought over some brown sugar water. Old Madam Lü personally fed it to her.

Outside, Zhao Ling heard no more sounds and called out anxiously, "Ajun, Ajun, what's wrong?"

"I'm fine!" Fu Tingjun said with effort, her voice sounding somewhat weak.

"That's good, that's good!" Zhao Ling murmured, then asked Fu Tingjun again, "It's been two hours since you had those boiled eggs—are you hungry? Is there anything you particularly want to eat? I'll have someone make it..."

Fu Tingjun was about to answer him when Old Madam Lü, who had been speaking softly and gently all along, suddenly said with displeasure, "She needs to save her strength for childbirth. If you'd ask fewer questions, that would do her more good than anything she could eat!" She then scolded Fu Tingjun, "Instead of spending your breath talking to him, you'd be better off conserving your energy."

Her face flushed red, and she lowered her head to focus on drinking the brown sugar water.

Zhao Ling dared not make another sound, pacing back and forth.

Zhenzhu and Kou'er hardly dared to breathe.

When Zheng Sanniang came in carrying hot water and saw this, she couldn't help but urge him, "It's always like this with a first birth. Ninth Master, why don't you go rest in the room for a while? You haven't closed your eyes all night. Once the child is born, I'll bring him to you right away."

How could Zhao Ling possibly sleep?

He knew perfectly well that worrying himself sick out here was useless, but if he weren't here, his heart would be even more restless.

"Then... how much longer will it take?" he asked anxiously.

It had been a whole night already, and still no sound of a baby's cry.

He was tired just from standing—how much more so Fu Tingjun, who had been in pain this entire time.

"Soon, soon!" Zheng Sanniang could only console him this way.

Zhao Ling heard the perfunctory tone in her voice, and his expression darkened. His lips pressed tightly together, and a hint of intimidating sharpness emerged between his brows.

Zheng Sanniang's heart trembled at the sight. She hastily said, "Old Madam Lü is still waiting for my hot water," and hurried into the inner chamber.

Zhao Ling stood with his hands clasped behind his back on the steps of the main hall, motionless, watching the morning glow slowly tinge the pomegranate tree beside him red.

Suddenly, a crisp infant cry rang out from the inner chamber.

Overjoyed, he cried, "Ajun, Ajun..."—and disregarding Old Madam Lü's instructions, he hastily pushed open the lattice door of the hall.

"Quick, quick, quick—stop him!" Old Madam Lü shouted upon hearing the commotion. "Careful—he'll bring in the cold wind and startle the mother and child!"

Hearing this shout, Zhao Ling's steps came to an abrupt halt right before the curtain of the inner chamber. Yet he couldn't help craning his neck and asking anxiously, "Ajun, how are you?"—completely ignoring the fact that the silk curtain hung before him and he couldn't see a thing.

"I'm doing quite well." Fu Tingjun's voice, tinged with joy and exhaustion, reached his ears through the curtain. "It's a daughter... a daughter..."

"Wonderful, wonderful..." Zhao Ling answered through the curtain, suddenly finding his vision blurred with moisture. "Quick, bring her out for me to see, bring her out for me to see!" As he spoke, the infant's crying stopped, and he grew alarmed. "What's wrong? What's wrong? Why has the child stopped crying?"

"In all the births I've attended, I've never seen a more talkative father than you." Old Madam Lü said angrily. "Both mother and child are perfectly fine. The child stopped crying because she's being bathed."

Zhao Ling felt embarrassed by Old Madam Lü's rebuke, but then her voice came through again, tinged with a hint of teasing: "Though, your young miss is quite amusing—her eyes wide open, placed in the water, neither crying nor fussing..."

Zhao Ling was so eager he could scratch his ears and cheeks, wishing he could see his daughter that very instant...

Hearing the rustling sounds from beyond the curtain, Old Madam Lü let out a "pfft" laugh and said to Fu Tingjun, "Your husband treats you so well—you're a fortunate woman."

She had been in pain all night, and Zhao Ling had been making a fuss outside all night long.

"Old Madam Lü, you must be amused by us." Fu Tingjun smiled shyly, yet the corners of her eyes and brows betrayed an irrepressible sweetness.

Old Madam Lü chuckled and said, "Next time, I'll deliver your baby again."

Next time?

She'd only just given birth this time!

Fu Tingjun was taken aback.

Old Mrs. Lü had already risen and walked over to Mrs. Tong, taking the bundle and the swaddled child to examine her carefully for a moment. She turned to Fu Tingjun with a smile and said, "Your daughter takes after you—thick brows and big eyes, truly beautiful." With that, she handed the child to Zheng Sanniang. "Hurry and take her out for your master to see, or else the bricks at the entrance to the inner chamber will be worn through by his pacing!" By the end, her tone carried a hint of teasing.

The others all smiled at her words.

...

Zhao Ling lay propped on the edge of the kang, gazing with a grin at the pink-and-jade-like infant sleeping soundly with closed eyes in the crimson swaddling clothes, unable to tear his eyes away.

Fu Tingjun drained the brown sugar water in one gulp, handed the empty bowl to Zhenzhu, rinsed her mouth with Kou'er's assistance, and leaned back against the large bolster. She pulled out a handkerchief to dab the corner of her mouth, only then noticing that Zhao Ling had maintained the same posture without moving.

She couldn't help but purse her lips and smile, saying, "Weren't you the one who kept insisting you wanted to hold the child? What's this? Now that you're free to hold her, you won't?"

Zhao Ling gave an awkward laugh: "Isn't she asleep? I'm afraid of waking her and making her cry again! It won't hurt to wait until she wakes up to hold her." But he didn't admit that he actually didn't dare hold the child—when she was first born, Zheng Sanniang had brought her out and placed her in the crook of his arm, and that tiny, soft little body had made him so nervous, afraid that a single careless moment might hurt her...

Fu Tingjun didn't expose him either. Her eyes flowed with warmth as she looked at him, and she said softly, "Why don't you go rest for a bit? You've barely closed your eyes for nearly two days and nights!"

"I'm not tired." Zhao Ling's gaze involuntarily fell back on his daughter. "Tell me, who does she really look like?" he murmured to himself. "I think her nose takes after me—tall and straight—and her mouth is a bit like yours, red and bright..." With that, he lowered his head and gently brushed his cheek against his daughter's. "Why is she so small? When will she ever grow up!"

All childish talk.

Fu Tingjun couldn't help but laugh, saying, "With all that effort, wouldn't it be better to think about what to name your daughter?"

"I already thought of it long ago." Zhao Ling looked rather pleased with himself when he heard her say that. "Our daughter was born at the beginning of the si hour on the twenty-fourth day of the fourth month, just as the morning sun was rising, and she's our eldest daughter. I think her formal name should be 'Hui,' and her childhood name 'Little Dragon'!"

Si is the month of the fourth lunar month, and in the heavenly stems and earthly branches, it corresponds to the snake, which is also called the little dragon.

"A girl, called Little Dragon?" Fu Tingjun stared at Zhao Ling in surprise, shaking her head like a rattle-drum. "No, no!"

"Then, then the childhood name could be Chun'er..." Zhao Ling started, but before Fu Tingjun could respond, he shook his head himself. "That sounds like a maidservant's name, not good... Or maybe Xu'er, which also means the morning sun..."

Seeing him getting more and more off-track, Fu Tingjun said, "I think we should call her Youyou. 'Youyou the deer cries, feeding on wild duckweed'—look how impatient she is: when she's hungry, she wants to eat right away, and if it's even a little slow, she starts wailing. I think Youyou is a good name." The more she said it, the more she liked it.

Zhao Ling looked at the daughter now lying quietly beside her mother, and thought of the thunderous, startling cries she had let out earlier. He burst into laughter. "Then Youyou it is." He then talked to his daughter on his own. "Youyou, your mother thinks you cry too loudly, so she specially gave you this name..."

"Nonsense!" Fu Tingjun chided. "Little children have ears too—whatever you say, she'll remember it all."

"Really?" Zhao Ling laughed. "Then she should know me best. Before she was born, I talked to her every day." The moment his words fell, Youyou, who had been sound asleep, suddenly opened her eyes.

Her dark pupils were clear, reflecting Zhao Ling's image.

Zhao Ling was overjoyed and quickly said, "Ajun, look, look... Youyou opened her eyes. She must have known I was talking about her, so she opened them."

"Where? Where?" Fu Tingjun hurriedly leaned over to look.

Their daughter's eyes were big and round, bright and clear, as beautiful as flawless crystal.

Perhaps because having two heads hovering over her made her uncomfortable, Youyou burst into loud crying.

"What's wrong with her?" Zhao Ling asked hurriedly. "Is she hungry?"

Fu Tingjun clumsily picked up their daughter: "No, she just nursed."

"Then maybe she's thirsty?"

"We gave her some water before nursing."

"Or maybe she's wet herself?"

The two heads came together again to unwrap the swaddling clothes.

The diaper was dry and clean.

They clumsily tried to wrap the child back up.

But the child waved her arms and kicked her legs this way and that. Zhao Ling and Fu Tingjun were drenched in sweat from the effort, yet the child was still the child, the swaddling was still the swaddling, and the child cried even louder.

"What do we do?" Fu Tingjun asked Zhao Ling, sweating profusely.

Zhao Ling didn't know what to do either, but he was full of ideas, so he immediately said, "Call the wet nurse in."

Before Youyou was born, a wet nurse had already been arranged. But after giving birth, Fu Tingjun had only eaten a few brown sugar boiled eggs before her milk came in. The wet nurse's child had been born a month earlier than Youyou, and when Fu Tingjun went into labor, she had sent someone to bring the wet nurse over. She was in labor for a day and a night. According to custom, the wet nurse could not bring her child into the residence, and her milk had dried up and was coming back in. Youyou was smacking her little lips, and Fu Tingjun, seeing this with a pang of sympathy, tried to nurse her. The baby drank greedily, in big mouthfuls, until she was full. By the time the wet nurse came in to take the child, Fu Tingjun couldn't bear to part with her. She simply told the wet nurse to take good care of her own health, and kept her daughter by her side, nursing her herself.

When Zhao Ling learned that the wet nurse's milk wasn't even as good as Fu Tingjun's, he felt sorry for his daughter and simply pretended not to know.

Hearing the crying, Zheng Sanniang walked in: "What's the matter?" Seeing the swaddling clothes loose, she was startled and hurried forward to wrap the child up: "Let me, let me!"

The two of them let out a long sigh of relief together.