“Let me help you carry him,” my husband said.
“Oh my gosh, am I holding him correctly?” I asked as I cradled the baby in my arms.
“Yes, you're doing great.” He helped me adjust my hold and then picked me up and flew us to the courtyard we were going to use for the postpartum seclusion period.
I sat down on a white chair and waited for the others to arrive. Prince Baiyu knelt in front of me, and we examined the baby from head to toe.
“He’s adorable,” I whispered.
Eggy’s eyes were closed, and he seemed to be fast asleep. I marveled at his tiny fingers with their pearly nails. He was like a doll, with porcelain skin, rosy cheeks, wispy blue hair, and a rosebud mouth that was slightly open. His arms and legs were round and chubby, and I was relieved to see that he had a normal belly button. I was worried that he wouldn’t have one since I hadn’t had a normal pregnancy. His soft, shell-like ears were pointed.
“He’s perfect,” said Prince Baiyu.
Alas, we were only given these few moments alone. The midwife, wet nurse, doctor, and nanny joined us after a few minutes. The midwife whisked the baby away to examine him and record his height, weight, and general features in the royal genealogical book, while the doctor sat on the chair beside me.
“Lady Violet, how do you feel?” asked the doctor.
“Oh, I feel…” Suddenly, I realized something was off. I looked down at my feet and wiggled my toes inside my boots. “Uh, my feet feel cold? Actually, my whole body feels cold.”
I was confused since the room was heated by the System and shouldn’t be making me shiver. Still, I turned up the thermostat.
The doctor asked me a series of questions. “Do you have a headache? How do your limbs feel? Are you in any pain?”
“No headache, but… I feel tired. Like I ran a marathon.”
He took my pulse as Prince Baiyu looked on, frowning in concern. The doctor then wrote something down in his notebook and said, “Qi exhaustion. I will prepare the medicine. In the meantime, eat a nourishing soup. I’ll let the kitchen know.”
He left, and I whispered to my husband, “Aren’t the chef and his assistants still cultivating?”
“I’ve no doubt that the very capable Fengying has had the soup prepared beforehand.”
That made sense. The doctor’s diagnosis of “qi exhaustion” reminded me to check my stats, and I was shocked to see that my energy bar was completely empty. A player should lose consciousness when that happens, but I was still fine, although I did feel drained.
I decided to put my feet up, so I took my boots off, put on some thick socks, and lay down on the fainting couch. Like everything else in my courtyard, it was pure white, the better to show that it was perfectly clean. After a few minutes, the midwife gave the baby back to my husband, saying that there were no abnormalities.
The wet nurse approached and offered her services, but just as my husband was about to hand Eggy to her, there was the sound of hooves clattering in the courtyard, and we were all shocked to see a qilin there.
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“The qilin appears when a sage is born,” said Prince Baiyu.
I stood up, and we all went out to the courtyard to bow to the creature. It was exactly like the qilin I had seen before, and I wondered if it was one of the creatures that had hatched on the farm. The qilin had a deer's body, a horse's hooves, an ox's tail, a lion's golden mane, multicolored fish-like scales, and a single horn on its forehead.
Even though we had all heard the sound of hooves striking the ground, the qilin’s feet never touched the earth as it pranced over to us and coughed up a small jade tablet. Then it lightly touched the wet nurse’s arm with its horn before turning around and flying away.
We all turned as one to the wet nurse, who looked dazed. She put a hand over the spot that the qilin had touched and said, in a trembling voice, “The qilin said the baby doesn’t eat or drink.”
“What?! He doesn’t?!” I remembered that the Eggy in the dream rarely ate, but he did enjoy eating a fish or two whenever we went to a river.
“If the qilin said so, then it must be true,” said Prince Baiyu. He handed me the baby and picked up the jade tablet. “This says ‘Heaven and earth rejoice at the birth of the dragon king.’”
“Cool, cool.” I wasn’t paying much attention since I was busy cooing at my baby. “Oh, who’s a little baby? You are! Cuuuute!”
“My dear, you should sit down and rest,” said Prince Baiyu.
After I sat on the couch again, he took care of the wet nurse and the midwife, who both left, leaving us with the nanny who helped us wrap Eggy in a soft white cotton cloth diaper.
“Thank you, Nani,” I said.
No one understood when I laughed about the nanny’s name being Nani, but I thought it was a good sign.
It must be fate!
Nani was a large woman from one of the Azure Dragon clans that claimed to be descended from one of the old dragon kings, but Prince Baiyu explained that almost all of the clans claimed that. She was almost seven feet tall, with lean, wiry muscles, and a handsome face with large blue eyes. Her hair was also blue, swept up in a neat bun, and she habitually dressed in all white.
She expertly draped the cloth sling across my body, pulling it over one shoulder to form a deep pouch. “My lady, there’s no need to fully wrap him. Skin contact is better for a newborn.”
“Right.”
She had shown me how to do this before with a doll. I loosened my robe and carefully settled Eggy onto the sling fabric, holding him close as she helped position his head. Then I wrapped the loosened robe around the sling and baby. Eggy’s skin was warm and indescribably smooth and soft. I half-reclined on the couch with my baby lying on my chest and stomach.
A thought struck me, and I giggled. “Sweetie, if Eggy doesn’t eat or drink, does that mean he also doesn’t poop or pee?”
He laughed. “That would be a blessing. I haven’t been looking forward to changing his diaper.”
We had a special diaper laundry machine, courtesy of the System’s Cash Shop, but it would be awesome if our baby didn’t even make a mess in the first place.
I kissed the top of Eggy’s head. “It’s okay, baby. Mommy will always love you even if you poop a lot.”
We were laughing at that when a maid arrived with my food and the medicine. I turned the baby over to my husband, who also used a sling for skin-to-skin contact, while I ate the soup and drank the foul-tasting herbal concoction the doctor had made for me. I drank soda water and popped a piece of honey candy in my mouth afterwards to try to drive away the taste.
“I hope I recover my energy soon,” I said. “Please give him back to me.”
“No, no, you can’t put something heavy on your stomach right now. You need to digest the food first,” said Prince Baiyu.
“Okay, but you can’t hold him all day long.”
“But he is so sweet, I don’t ever want to let him go.”
I pulled him down for a kiss on the cheek. “Be good.”
He kissed me on the forehead. “Alright, but I wouldn’t let go of him for anyone but you.”
And so, for the rest of the day, we took turns holding Eggy, who never dirtied his diaper.
“I can’t believe how lovely he is!” I couldn’t stop smiling and making silly baby noises at Eggy. “Who is kissing my baby? I am. I’m kissing Eggy-poo.”
Prince Baiyu was just as silly as I was. “My love, he’s so small and precious. I can hardly bear it. Who's a teeny-weeny-weensy-woo? Yes, you are! You're a little snookums-pookums!”
We were so absorbed in playing with the baby that we almost forgot to eat dinner, and it was past midnight when exhaustion finally caught up with me, and I reluctantly let go of my baby so I could sleep on my bed. We put Eggy in the cradle beside our bed and fell asleep with the nanny in the other room in case we needed her help.
“Good night, love,” I said to my husband.
“Good night, beloved,” he said.
I yawned. “What a wonderful day. I hope tomorrow I can hold my baby for longer.”
But it was not to be.
The next day, when I woke up, the baby was gone.
*****
Author's Note:
- I can't believe we're I'm chapter 290! It feels like it was just yesterday when I started writing, and now Violet is already married and has (had?) a baby!
- Advanced chapters on my Patreon!
- Thank you very much for reading.
- Please let me know if there are any errors.