What appearance? What build?
Chen Guan didn't care. He only wanted "Bear's Strength!"
"Why isn't the young master making a sound?"
But just then, many people noticed that Chen Guan was silent.
The midwife saw it too and panicked a little. She laid Chen Guan flat and began patting him a little harder.
"Maybe he choked on some water..."
The midwife had handled plenty of babies. She knew that when a baby didn't cry or fuss, it was probably because they'd choked on something.
She figured a few pats would do the trick.
"Ma'am, if you keep patting me, I'm really going to die..."
Chen Guan was quietly looking at the entries and didn't have time to argue with them, so he decided to cry first and put their minds at ease.
"Waaah..."
And as soon as Chen Guan began crying,
the servants and maids nearby, along with the anxious master who had just come in, all smiled.
"Come, let me have a look!"
"Master! The young master has a very loud cry!"
"It's all right... He's all right..."
Chen Guan's cries and the master's laughter brought the room back to cheerful chatter.
"Master..." Third Madam, lying on the bed, looked a little pale as she reached out, wanting to see Chen Guan.
Just like that, Chen Guan went from the midwife's hands into the master's, then back into his mother's arms.
After that, Chen Guan didn't think much about anything. Or perhaps it was simply a baby's instinctive closeness to his mother.
On top of that, a baby's brain was still underdeveloped, and his loud crying had worn him out.
So before Chen Guan could make any choices, he drifted off to sleep.
"Has... a whole afternoon passed, or a whole day?"
Dazed and groggy, Chen Guan woke up.
But as a baby, his eyesight was terrible, and he couldn't make out anything.
He could only tell from the light in the room that it was dark.
Then, without wasting time, he quickly looked at the choices in his field of vision before he fell asleep again.
Out of curiosity, and to make sure the other choices weren't more useful, Chen Guan decided to look at the remaining options first. It would also let him compare the differences between these "inherited talents."
First, he looked at 1.
[Bear's Sense of Smell: Ordinary, suitable for creatures with a sense of smell] [Effect: Can detect ordinary scents within a radius of 200 meters] [Note: Not a talent-type ability; cannot grow or improve]
"This one must be a fixed-level entry."
After looking it over, Chen Guan also realized that Bear-Type Strength probably belonged to the "growth talent" category.
The kind that could be upgraded.
Then he took a look at the fat-related one.
[Fat Energy Storage: Ordinary, suitable for some creatures with fat cells] [Effect: Can expand the number and capacity of fat cells by 100%]
This one was fixed-level too.
At last, Chen Guan looked at Bear-Type Strength.
[Bear-Type Strength: Ordinary, talent, growth-type, suitable for all creatures] [Effect 1: At the current proficiency level, can increase physical strength by 1,500 jin] [Effect 2: As talent proficiency increases or the talent is upgraded, the effect will increase accordingly] [Note 1: When the reincarnated body reaches adulthood, it can gain the full bonus for a short time, but will need a large amount of food or spiritual-energy breathing] [Note 2: When the reincarnated body is young, it will gradually gain the full bonus as it grows older]
Perhaps because it was an "ordinary entry,"
he couldn't gain Bear-Type Strength right away, not as a newborn.
Of course, even if he had been born with it,
with his current baby body, so sleepy he could barely stay awake, he probably wouldn't have been able to make much use of it.
But the main reason was probably that it was an "ordinary entry."
"I'm a baby now. I can't go anywhere.
"Perfect time to try grinding proficiency while I'm young and see if I can level it up..."
Chen Guan mulled it over. He'd only been awake a few minutes and had barely thought through anything before exhaustion came over him again.
Before falling asleep,
Chen Guan looked at the talents he had inherited in this life.
[Inheritable legacy in this life: Basic Blade Technique talent] [Basic Blade Technique: 0/1000] [Effect 1: You have an innate familiarity with ordinary bladed weapons] [Effect 2: You learn ordinary blade-technique manuals slightly faster] [Inherited legacies (2): Low-grade Fire Spirit Root, Primary Bear Strength]
In the blink of an eye, half a month passed.
Something bad happened.
Third Madam passed away.
Chen Guan didn't know what he felt about it. Could he say he was utterly heartbroken?
He and his mother hadn't really been that close.
But he did feel melancholy and grief.
He even thought that it would be better if he really were a baby, since then he wouldn't remember so much.
At most, he would one day hear someone mention that he'd had a mother.
"What did she look like..."
On the day of the vigil,
in his mother's room,
Chen Guan still couldn't see well. He couldn't make out the wet nurse who cared for him, and he had never once seen the mother who had watched over him all night as he slept.
But the faint sobbing outside the room made it clear that his "unfamiliar" mother had passed away.
Chen Guan's heart sank. He stayed silent for a long time, neither crying nor fussing.
"Young master? Young master?"
The wet nurse anxiously felt him, then checked his steady breathing before finally letting out a sigh of relief.
"Goodness, you scared me half to death. You and your mother...
"Sigh..."
In the eyes of the people in the Zhao Family residence, the Fifth Young Master was a quiet child.
From "babyhood" to six months old, he rarely cried or fussed.
The wet nurse even said he was the best baby she'd ever cared for.
But during that first month, Chen Guan had hardly cried at all.
It had frightened her terribly.
She would wake up now and then at night to check his breathing.
By the time Chen Guan was half a year old,
the year-end festivities had arrived.
The wet nurse carried Chen Guan to the Zhao Family's main hall to take part in this ancient-style "New Year's Eve."
By then, his eyesight was fairly clear.
Chen Guan saw his father for the first time: a middle-aged man with a somewhat portly build.
After his mother had passed away,
Chen Guan hadn't been able to see much, but from the voices around him, he knew his father had come to see him.
After that, he hadn't seen him again.
At the same time,
when Patriarch Zhao saw the wet nurse carrying Chen Guan in, he gave a slight nod, then went back to chatting with the people beside him.
Seated on either side of Patriarch Zhao were the family's newly adult Eldest Young Master, as well as Patriarch Zhao's brothers, nephews, and others.
Chen Guan sat with the wet nurse at a table with the womenfolk, including First Madam.
Across from them sat two young masters, around two or three years old.
They were sitting with their own mothers, though.
Chen Guan was cradled in the wet nurse's arms.
"Why does this child have so much body hair?"
"What's with his ears?"
Just then,
a few madams began curiously examining Chen Guan.
They thought he had far more body hair than other six-month-old babies.
He was also a little chubby, and his ears were round and set slightly higher than usual.
Overall, he looked quite strange.
Fortunately, First Madam was composed. When she saw her younger sisters-in-law inspecting Third Madam's child, she coughed softly, reminding them to look away.
At the same time, First Madam began serving herself food. No one spoke at the table.
The other madams noticed that First Madam seemed a little displeased, so they followed the household's order of seniority and began eating one after another.
The wet nurse was the last to pick up her chopsticks. She took some boiled fish from the nearest dish.
She didn't eat it herself. Instead, she took good care of Chen Guan, crushing the fish on her plate and carefully picking out the bones before feeding him tiny bits of the fish.
But then Chen Guan suddenly heard something and turned to look toward Patriarch Zhao's seat.
Before you continue