For "humans," the pain of childbirth was a kind of "price."
The price paid for freeing the hands, walking upright, and making the pelvis smaller. [Note: This theory is disputed.]
The price paid for gaining intelligence, for being born with spirit, and making the skull larger.
Compared with many mammalian creatures, humans were in fact thoroughly premature at birth—because by the standards of those animals, if humans developed fully, their heads would already be unable to pass through the birth canal.
That was why the young of many mammalian creatures could walk as soon as they were born.
Humans had to leave the body before they were fully developed.
Otherwise, their heads would be too large.
And in order to squeeze the fetus out of the womb, all viviparous creatures had evolved a special mechanism.
Through their own hormones, they created the sensation of "pain," prompting the womb's muscles to contract rhythmically.
Ai Qinglan had learned long ago how to alter her perception of pain. She could even endure the agony of her body being torn apart. Pain that would be fatal to other mothers, such as a torn birth canal, was no more than a breeze brushing her face.
But she had not been prepared for this spontaneous pain.
Her instincts had betrayed her will.
And after the birth was over, the instant she saw the baby, her body swiftly forgot the pain from just moments ago, even covering it with another emotion.
Even though this child had never existed in her thoughts before.
Perhaps many outsiders would think that once people acknowledged the existence of "maternal bloodline roots" and "motherhood bloodline roots," every sacrifice and devotion a mother made for her children would become meaningless behavior driven by bloodline instinct, like a clockwork puppet wound up in advance.