Radeus

Cries echoed through the somewhat plain wooden room as the complicated work of delivering the babies gradually drew to a close.

Li Hongyun felt his body grow lighter. A pair of strong hands supported his armpits and back, lifting him off the warm cloth pad.

Paul scooped Li Hongyun up, while Zenith held Rudeus.

He strained to open his eyes wider, having only just adjusted to the light. Before him was a man's face, drenched in sweat and beaming brilliantly.

The man had slightly tousled flaxen hair, and his firm jawline conveyed the strength of a grown man.

Li Hongyun looked at the man before him, who seemed to be his father, and reached out.

This infant body had far too little strength, and his wrists were limp, but he still reached forward instinctively, his tender fingers lightly brushing the stubble on Paul's chin.

A sense of reality followed. It felt a little prickly.

"Ah, ah!"

Meaningless monosyllables came from his throat.

Is this my father in this life?

He quietly accepted this fact. Since he was here, he might as well settle in. At least he no longer had to face that asshole boss who made him work overtime every day.

Paul lowered his face slightly, bringing the tip of his nose close to Li Hongyun's face and looking straight into his eyes.

"Oh my, this child's eyes are actually blue. What beautiful eyes!"

Besides the joy of becoming a father for the first time, Paul's voice held a trace of undisguised surprise.

Newborns' eyes were generally a murky grayish brown, or inherited features of their parents' hair color.

But this child's eyes were different. They were an azure like the sky high above, washed countless times, without a trace of impurity.

If Paul had to describe them, they were the blue of a perfectly clear sky.

Paul brought Li Hongyun over to Zenith.

Zenith half-reclined against the head of the bed, her face pale but unable to hide her excitement. She lowered her head slightly, looking past the other infant in her arms at Li Hongyun's face.

Those gentle eyes immediately lit up.

"Wow! They really are! Such beautiful eyes. My children really are adorable!"

Zenith's admiration came from the heart.

That pure blue seemed to hold a kind of magic. Merely meeting those eyes once could soothe the agitation in one's heart.

The maid standing nearby, handing over towels, also turned toward the voices.

"The young master's eyes really are beautiful."

Lilia also leaned in for a look.

She had neat, short burgundy hair and a very steady voice, but when her gaze met those azure eyes, it noticeably lingered for a moment.

With the mother and children confirmed safe, and the children being rare twins at that, the atmosphere in the room became exceptionally warm.

The heavy rain outside had stopped at some point, and a few rays of sunlight fell beside the bed through gaps in the wooden window.

"Darling, what should we name our children?"

Zenith asked, holding Rudeus.

Her fingers gently stroked the fine down on the infant's cheeks, her tone full of anticipation for the future.

Paul straightened, holding an infant in each arm.

He looked up at the wood grain on the ceiling, his brows slightly furrowed, seemingly giving it serious thought.

After a long while, his brow relaxed, and his lips spread into a broad grin.

"All right, let's call the older one Radeus, and the younger one Rudeus."

Paul looked at his two beloved sons, his face full of happiness.

He walked to the bedside and placed the two little lives, wrapped in cotton cloth, side by side next to his wife.

Then Zenith kissed Radeus (Li Hongyun) and Rudeus on their heads in turn.

Soft lips touched his forehead. This was the first day of his new life.

Time seemed to pass particularly slowly in this village far from the bustle of the city.

An infant's growth was full of sleep and repetition. Aside from nursing, he spent most of his remaining time staring blankly at the unchanging wooden beams overhead.

A few months later, Radeus and his younger brother Rudeus lay on the bed. Rudeus was asleep at the moment, and Radeus could already understand this world's language.

As an adult who had received a higher education in his previous life, learning a language anew was not particularly difficult, especially when he could do nothing all day but listen to the adults' conversations.

The patterns of vocabulary and pronunciation soon formed a language model in his mind.

He learned a few things.

His father's name was Paul, his mother's name was Zenith, and the burgundy-haired woman was the family's maid, named Lilia.

His own name was Radeus, and the fellow lying beside him was his younger brother, named Rudeus.

As for Rudeus, Radeus had discovered something: his younger brother was a pervert.

It had happened half a month ago...

Lilia had just finished washing clothes and set a wooden basin in the hallway. His younger brother, who had only just learned to crawl around, had unerringly pulled a piece of white fabric out of the pile of clothing and put it over his head, grinning lewdly.

Radeus still did not know much about the world he had reincarnated into, but his parents' and younger brother's names always struck him as somewhat familiar. He must have heard them somewhere in his previous life, but he could not remember.

Whenever he tried to search deep in his mind for a connection between those three names, his memories seemed completely blocked by a thick fog.

Since he could not figure it out, he stopped forcing the issue.

A faint movement suddenly came from the bedding beside him. The blanket bulged with a bout of wriggling, and after a while, Rudeus slowly began to wake.

A little head poked out from under the covers. He neither cried nor fussed. The first thing he did upon waking was crawl over his older brother and down to the floor. Before long, he had left the room.

The sequence of movements was outrageously smooth.

Radeus sighed.

Radeus was still a little surprised by his younger brother's mischievous cleverness.

Rudeus's behavior was highly abnormal for an infant, but he could not rule out the possibility that all children in this world matured early.

Of course, that was his only reasonable explanation for now. Surely his younger brother could not also have a grown man's soul inside his body, just like him?

Seeing his younger brother disappear in an instant, Radeus hurriedly crawled after him.

As an adult with a mature soul, he needed to protect his foolish younger brother at all times.

He rolled over, his movements equally deft, braced his palms against the edge of the bed, and landed steadily on the wooden floor.

Sensing his younger brother's location, Radeus crawled in that direction.

That direction was-the bathroom!

Incredible as it sounded, Radeus seemed to have been able to sense his surroundings in every direction since birth, without needing to look.

Whenever he wished, the structures of buildings and the outlines of objects within a dozen or so meters would appear in his mind in something like a holographic projection. Walls posed no obstruction to him.

Radeus thought this might be the cheat he had been reincarnated with, though it was still a bit of a shame he had no system.

Without a progress bar or chiming notifications, it always felt as though something was missing.

As he thought, his movements did not slow. His four limbs alternated so rapidly that he almost left afterimages as he crawled across the wooden floor.

Radeus quickly crawled to the bathroom. The moment he entered, he saw his perverted fool of a younger brother fiddling with a piece of white underwear, an indescribable smile on his face.

It was the underwear Lilia had changed out of that morning, which had lain quietly atop a wooden bucket full of clothes waiting to be washed.

At this moment, Rudeus was stretching that fabric open with his chubby hands.

His cheeks, still plump with baby fat, were abnormally flushed with excessive excitement. Whether it was saliva or something else trickling from the corner of his mouth, combined with his gradually dilating pupils, the sight was simply unbearable.

Seeing that Rudeus was about to put the underwear over his head and start cosplaying as Pervert Superman, Radeus hurriedly rushed in front of him, swatted his hands aside, snatched the underwear away, and put it back in the bucket.

Radeus struck with speed, precision, and ruthlessness.

The entire process took no more than three seconds.

"Ah, ya, ya, ya! (You can't play with this.)"

Radeus said to Rudeus.

Though his body was still small, Radeus felt that, in terms of presence, he had already taken the role of an elder brother as a father figure to its utmost.

"Ya, ya, ya? (What do you mean?)"

Rudeus scratched his head, looked at the fabric that had been returned to the wooden bucket, then looked at his own older brother blocking his path.

Seeing that his own older brother had snatched away his treasure, Rudeus could only turn around and head to the living room to play with Lilia.

The little fellow turned and crawled out the door with a patter.

Watching his younger brother being so lively, Radeus wiped nonexistent sweat from his forehead.

"Ya, ya! (So tiring!)"