Should I Cry Now?

After ten months of pregnancy, a child was born in a single day.

In any era, childbirth was a pass through the gates of hell that a pregnant woman could scarcely avoid.

Even with the constant nourishment flowing back from Innate Qi, Chen Yun grew visibly haggard at a rapid pace, until the day of delivery arrived.

Because of this, Li Boyang's father in this life, Li Yu, had to return home early to stay by his wife's side.

As the village's only hunter, Li Yu held a fairly high position in the village.

Coupled with the rumor that "Chen Yun might be under the mountain god's protection," a midwife had been waiting at their home since early that morning.

"How is Yun'er?"

He paced anxiously outside the delivery room.

At that moment, Li Yu looked nothing like the big, burly man he was.

The midwife's assistant, long accustomed to such sights, simply carried on with her work, perfectly calm and too indifferent to pay Li Yu any mind.

Instead, the old village chief beside him was trying to soothe Li Yu, who had asked the same question who knew how many times.

"Don't you worry!"

"Your wife is in such good health, and we've hired the best midwife within a hundred li. Nothing will go wrong."

Before the old village chief had finished speaking, Chen Yun suddenly let out a scream from inside the delivery room.

"Ah!"

The moment Li Yu heard her scream, he darted to the doorway and tried to pull the door open.

But before he could reach for it, the midwife's voice came from inside.

"Don't come in!"

"You rough men have too much Yang Qi. You absolutely mustn't come in!"

After that, the midwife could be heard calling to Chen Yun.

"Push! Whatever you do, don't lose heart now!"

"You're just one breath away. Push a little harder!"

Distraught, Li Yu listened to the voices inside and could only pace back and forth in agitation.

Fortunately, miserable as Chen Yun's screams sounded, her voice remained strong throughout. She didn't sound like a woman in labor at all.

No one could say exactly how much time passed.

The only thing certain was that Chen Yun's screams continued from sunset until the bright moon hung high in the sky.

"Ah!"

With one final scream, Chen Yun, who had held on for so long, finally passed out as she wished.

Immediately afterward came the midwife's voice, tinged with alarm.

"This is..."

Realizing something was wrong, Li Yu could no longer concern himself with much else. He immediately shoved open the delivery room door and rushed inside.

What met his eyes was the midwife holding the baby in trembling hands, while her assistant shivered beside her.

"What's wrong? What happened?"

"Where's my wife? And what's wrong with the child? Why can't I hear him crying?"

Li Yu spotted the baby in the midwife's hands at once and managed to breathe a small sigh of relief before hurriedly pressing her for answers.

But in response, the midwife held out her trembling hands to him.

"Y-you... your wife gave birth to a freak..."

Li Yu instinctively took the baby from the midwife. Only then did he get a clear look at the newborn.

The baby neither cried nor fussed, and had a head of scarlet downy hair like flames.

The baby seemed to notice Li Yu's horrified gaze.

In his arms, the baby slowly opened his eyes and surveyed the world with a look of curiosity.

Heaven and earth bore witness, Li Boyang swore he had never meant to frighten the midwife or Li Yu.

Li Boyang had gone to great pains to conceal the unusual phenomena he had been born with.

During his birth, he had not only worked hard to control the Sword Pill's power.

He had even deliberately kept the Heavenly Eye between his brows tightly shut, not daring to open it in the slightest.

Unless one looked closely, one could only make out a faint slit between the newborn's brows.

Li Boyang had considered many things, and considered them thoroughly, but he had overlooked the effect Xiluo's chunks of meat had on him.

Perhaps out of curiosity, and also to ensure Li Boyang could be born safely.

The chunks of meat Xiluo had fed Chen Yun were no ordinary beast meat, but the flesh and blood of the mountain spirits.

Only the flesh and blood of such spirits could provide Li Boyang with sufficient nourishment as a fetus, allowing him to extract a constant supply of Innate Qi.

Unfortunately, having developed and taken shape in this way, Li Boyang had naturally been affected by the flesh and blood of those spirits.

His thick, flame-red downy hair at birth was one of the lingering effects.

Because the vision in his ordinary eyes had yet to fully develop.

Li Boyang, who had managed to open his eyes, couldn't actually see clearly what was happening around him.

But judging from the midwife's words and Li Yu's behavior...

It wasn't hard for Li Boyang to tell that something was probably wrong with him.

Just as Li Boyang was hesitating over whether to open the third eye between his brows and see what was going on, Li Yu finally spoke.

"What freak?"

"Don't talk nonsense, old woman!"

"This is my son. No matter what he looks like, he's still my son!"

Li Yu glared fiercely at the midwife, and the domineering bearing he had gained from years of hunting fierce beasts in the mountains was laid bare in that instant.

"His hair is just a little red, that's all. We can shave it off."

As Li Yu spoke, he reached out and rubbed Li Boyang's head.

Feeling the softness of that red hair, Li Yu added another sentence.

"Oh, right, I hung twenty jin of cured meat in the next room..."

"There's also some gold and silver on the table. Don't forget to take it when you leave."

Recovering from her fright, the midwife immediately realized that Li Yu was buying her silence.

After a moment's hesitation, the midwife turned to glance at her assistant, then nodded without further hesitation.

"Boy from the Li family, don't you worry."

"I didn't see a thing today, and no one will say a word about it outside."

Taking the midwife's hint, her assistant immediately understood and nodded as well.

"Mm, then I won't keep you for a meal."

Only then did Li Yu breathe a quiet sigh of relief. He carried Li Boyang over to his wife's side.

He looked at Chen Yun, whose face was pale but who was otherwise unharmed.

Li Yu hesitated, but in the end, he placed Li Boyang, who still hadn't cried or fussed, beside her.

Whatever was going on with this child, he was still his and Chen Yun's own flesh and blood.

"Yun'er, this is our child!"

Li Yu gently bent down and pressed his forehead against Chen Yun's face, paying no attention even to when the midwife and her assistant left.

"Although he looks a little strange and doesn't cry..."

"That face looks exactly like yours."

Hearing his father in this life say that, Li Boyang finally realized what he had overlooked.

From the moment he was born until now, he had been so tense, controlling the unusual phenomena of his birth, that he had forgotten to cry like an ordinary baby.

If I cry now... won't it seem a little deliberate?