Pei Yu had originally thought that the little puppy only swallowed things whole when scavenging for stolen food. Now, in such a comfortable and elegant environment, holding a large plate of pastries, she was still shoving them into her mouth one bite after another.
She ate in a rush, yet chewed slowly. But after only a few chews, she would swallow, looking like she had a remarkably strong stomach.
Pei Yu frowned, her hand raising to stop her, only to forcefully press it back down again.
This was something Jiang Wu’s mother should have taught her. Even if this foolish dog choked to death on food right here, it had nothing to do with her.
The silk ribbon at her waist was disturbed by the rippling water, floating far away. Pei Yu hooked it gently with her fingertip, then quietly pulled it back.
Ahead, the person who had just swallowed after a few chews caught sight of the ribbon and instinctively intercepted it.
The water-stained silk ribbon wrapped tightly around her clearly jointed fingers. As she lifted it, clear droplets of water dripped down, and the alpha, while holding the pastries, seemed to lower her gaze in thought about where this thing came from.
Pei Yu leaned against the edge of the pool, letting the flowing liquid gently wash over every crevice of her body, unconsciously tilting her swan-like neck where her pulse beat, a faint watery sheen coloring her peach-blossom eyes.
She remembered the puppy’s fingers were very pretty, with a thin layer of calluses on the pad of the middle finger that curled slightly as it brushed past, capable of pulling up a large swath of sticky wetness.
That obsidian gaze finally dropped. The alpha tilted her head, swam over holding the pastries, and the ripples beneath the water churned deeper and more violently.
Shallow teeth marks were gradually bitten into Pei Yu’s slightly parted red lips.
Until the alpha swam right up to her, her hot, scorching breath falling against her shoulder. The puppy very preciously placed the pastries to the side, hooked the ribbon with her fingertip, and casually gathered the clothes floating in disarray nearby.
No matter how she tried, she couldn’t figure out how to tie a butterfly knot. Jiang Wu dove down a bit, her line of sight leveling with Pei Yu’s waist and abdomen, the silk sliding out of her palm time and time again. She lowered her gaze, staring at the smooth, fair waist and abdomen of the woman.
The tip of her tongue swept across the marking teeth that had popped out at some unknown moment, and she parted her lips, pressing close against Pei Yu’s lower abdomen.
Pei Yu instinctively assumed she was listening to the baby’s movements, her expression softening slightly. Immediately afterward, a mild, pinching pain of being lightly bitten spread across her waist and abdomen.
A few minutes later, Jiang Wu was holding a dark red bathrobe, curled up by the edge of the pool with a crimson handprint stamped on her cheek.
The woman on the other side slowly submerged the hand that had slapped her into the pool water, rinsing away the scorching heat carried over from the alpha’s face.
Her gaze landed on the puppy before her, who was intentionally or unintentionally sniffing lightly at her bathrobe. The woman’s stiff lips curved into an expressionless arc.
She should have slapped her harder just then.
A foolish dog whose pheromones have gone to her brain.
“Do you know where you went wrong?”
The woman’s slightly husky tone fell, filled with a dense, cloying sweetness radiating from her lingering iris pheromones.
The puppy, whose consciousness stubbornly refused to yield to her, lowered her gaze and kept silent.
Finally, just as Pei Yu’s patience was about to run out, she spat out a few dry words.
“Because Your Majesty thinks I am very ordinary.”
Pei Yu laughed out in exasperation. Her fingertips pinched the face of the person refusing to look at her, forcibly turning it around to make her meet her gaze directly.
“Are you losing your temper with Me?”
So sarcastic, without a single shred of realization of her own wrongdoing.
An omega in early pregnancy is weak, and before three months, any activity other than marking should be avoided as much as possible.
That foolish dog just now had been sniffing while raising her head upward. Was she really that fond of that scent?
In all theoretical materials, omegas receive far more feedback and sensation from such matters than alphas, and they are also far more prone to sinking into it.
Yet Jiang Wu, the moment she touched her, was like a bull rushing in blindly, her entire body screaming that she wanted to bite, wanted to get closer, and even vaguely giving Pei Yu the feeling that she wanted to replace their child and curl up in that very spot.
Utterly lacking in boundaries, completely impudent.
The woman took her clothes and put them on, walking along the steps to the edge of the bank. Lowering her gaze, she looked down condescendingly at the bottom of the pool, her eyes tracking the person following her.
Her thin lips parted slightly.
“Considering this is your first offense, I will spare you this once.”
“Go to the bedchamber shortly.”
Jiang Wu’s gaze fell behind Pei Yu, onto her waist and abdomen that were still as flat as could be, without a trace of a curve.
It seemed this was the fortieth day.
When Jiang Wu arrived at the bedchamber, a woman in deep red official robes was standing below the steps. Her back was terribly familiar, and looking at her sent an inexplicable pang of panic through her heart.
She slammed on the emergency brakes and prepared to retreat backward, but the female emperor sitting on the soft couch raised her eyes slightly.
“Come here.”
“Rub my waist for me.”
Jiang Wu halted her steps, stepping forward with a smile. As she passed the chancellor, she could practically feel the heavy resentment rolling off her in waves.
If it were a little imperial princess, the chancellor probably wouldn’t even be able to hold her own granddaughter.
Would she and the chancellor end up kneeling side by side to pay their respects when the child grew up?
Frightened by this thought, the fingers Jiang Wu pressed against Pei Yu’s waist and abdomen trembled, losing their strength.
The woman let out a very soft murmur, tilting her peach-blossom eyes through the mist, giving her a heavy yet restrained sidelong glance.
The figure standing below the steps remained silent for a few minutes before speaking again, her voice stained with a thick, obscure edge.
“Your Majesty, affairs of the imperial court are not suitable for the inner palace to overhear.”
Pei Yu let out a cold chuckle.
“The chancellor probably underestimates her own child’s capability.” The woman added with a smile, “She does not understand a word of it.”
Cheng Jin lowered her gaze, concealing a trace of exasperated disappointment in her eyes.
Jiang Wu’s presence posed no threat to her in the imperial court, but when it came to motherhood, she was entirely capable of destroying her reputation.
Children of the same age could master poetry, books, rites, painting, and music all by this point; as for her own family’s product, the one year she finally took an interest in the pipa, she insisted on playing it horizontally.
She had chased away several music tutors in frustration.
Not to mention she had inexplicably been docked a month’s salary, with the imperial edict bearing only Jiang Wu’s name written in sharp, ruthless strokes.
At that instant, she didn’t even want to ask anymore.
That worthless daughter of hers must have committed some colossal blunder in front of Her Majesty once again; she could only pray that if Her Majesty ever reached her absolute limit of tolerance, she would at least spare Jiang Wu an intact corpse out of regard for her face.
Jiang Wu indeed did not understand, and she felt zero burden. Everyone has their own strengths; for a paramour, taking good duty of Her Majesty was the only thing she ought to do.
Besides, her mission required at least making Pei Yu lower her guard against her before she could extract what her ideals were.
What twin imperial princesses, who had already arrived where, Her Majesty’s personal handmaiden, emissaries from the northern kingdom, she had only caught a few fragmented keywords.
She quietly raised her eyes and, seeing that Pei Yu and Cheng Jin were deep in conversation, lowered her gaze, her fingers slowly migrating from the waist and abdomen down toward the pubic bone.
Though she hadn’t joined the authoritative, 7 AM-to-10 PM group of medical students when filling out college choices back then, she did have a friend who was a medical student.
She was often pestered into helping her grope around to figure out the locations of human bones.
At forty days of pregnancy, the uterus is the size of an egg, situated just slightly above the pubic bone.
When her fingertips brushed against a small, soft, slightly convex curve, Jiang Wu raised her eyes in pleasant surprise.
The person who felt the little puppy moving around haphazardly lowered her gaze helplessly, freezing slightly when she met those bright, clear obsidian pupils, her heart gently jolted as if struck by something light. And then, her hand was guided to rest directly on that convex spot.
“Your Majesty, the baby is right here.”
The guided fingers vaguely carried the lingering warmth unique to an alpha, and Pei Yu’s palm curled over her own lower abdomen, wrapping around that tiny spot.
As if she wanted to scoop that unborn child, along with its other mother, right into the palm of her hand.
How strange. Previously, there had only been an aching soreness in her waist and abdomen; why was her heart now jammed full of something as well, her heartbeat losing its order with every single beat?
Below the steps, the person who had been earnestly reporting only to be interrupted by her own biological daughter raised her eyes.
At the edge of her vision, the alpha in the moon-white translucent robe lowered her gaze, quietly watching a specific spot on the emperor’s waist and abdomen, her brows lifting with excitement and an inexplicable curiosity.
Like a puppy wagging its tail, begging for praise.
Cheng Jin was exceptionally familiar with this expression; that child had been like that since she was little, even if she just helped an old lady cross the street, she would demand praise upon returning.
Yet this was Pei Yu.
The woman’s gaze flickered across her own lower abdomen before finally settling slowly and lightly into Jiang Wu’s eyes.
The look was a masterclass in profound affection.