…taken to go see him.”
With that, he yanked his sleeve free from her grip; saving lives took precedence.
Mia stood there, trembling all over with anger. The Moon King again…
This actually swept away her previous worries. Calmly directing the panicked group of maids, she listened to Rhoden and the midwife’s instructions, preparing to assist the Consort with her delivery.
Xueyi Wright could clearly feel that something was wrong with her body, so she remained completely unperturbed, she needed to preserve her strength to successfully bring this child into the world.
Seeing Rhoden, Xueyi Wright understood as well. Most likely, something had happened to the Moon King yet again. She took a deep breath; now was not the time to dwell on that. Placing a hand over her abdomen, she could feel, for reasons unknown, that the situation inside was turning dire. Biting her lower lip hard, she leaned toward the midwife and whispered a single instruction that nearly caused the midwife to drop what she was holding.
Once Sprewell took action, he realized he had severely underestimated that dark elf soul. Although he had successfully saved the life of this fetus, however… he frowned as he looked at Qi Fei’s hair, which was pitch-black without a single trace of any other color. The danger borne by the soft, floppy little fetus was far beyond what his previous physical vessel could have measured.
Regardless, he had managed to pull him back from the brink.
Meanwhile, the midwife and everyone else waiting for Xueyi Wright to successfully deliver were growing frantic.
For some reason, although that fall earlier hadn’t been ideal, she had successfully begun showing blood, her water had broken, and contractions were normal. Why on earth was the baby nowhere in sight?!
Sweat dripped in beads down the midwife’s forehead. Looking over at Consort Xueyi on the bed who, despite being drenched in sweat and disheveled with messy hair, still possessed a breathtaking, peerless beauty the lips she had just been biting down on so tightly had moments ago uttered something utterly earth-shattering~ This wasn’t something she had the authority to decide! Yet rumor had it that His Majesty had gone off to the Moon King’s quarters again; should this matter be reported or not?!
Fortunately, after a wave of inner turmoil, the area the midwife had been monitoring finally showed signs of movement. However, the sight gave her a sudden urge to rub her eyes: if the head was supposed to come out first, why on earth had she caught a flash of white an instant ago?
When the infant’s head truly emerged, the midwife finally understood why she had seen white!
“My Lady, the little prince… the little prince…” Before she could finish, a strange unease washed over her.
Xueyi Wright’s belly hadn’t shrunk down by much at all. The midwife’s face turned as pale as the hair of the baby she held in her arms: It’s not what I’m thinking, is it?!
005. Black and White Twins (Part 4)
Qi Fei had been unconscious the entire time, remaining completely oblivious to what transpired during his birth.
In truth, Qi Fei should have been born first, but alas, he had lost consciousness. This wasn’t a case of being stuck in a birth canal where a push from behind could force someone out; her water had broken, and with both of them trapped inside without coming out, both would ultimately have perished. With no other choice, Sprewell had forced himself to tunnel his way out first.
In his past life, he had died when his cultivation caused his body to rupture; in this life, he hoped to avoid suffocating inside a womb. As for that other fetus, its fate would simply depend on its own luck.
A portion of the maids bustled about in a panic to clean up the newly born Seventeenth Prince, while another group trembled as they awaited the midwife’s instructions.
Rhoden’s head was beaded with sweat as well. Twins were a rare miracle across the Zeyadian Continent. They were deemed miracles for two reasons: first, very few people on the continent who conceived twins successfully carried them to term without miscarrying midway due to nutritional deficiency; and second, the number of twins who managed to be born successfully was minuscule!
Glancing back at Xueyi Wright, whose gaze was already growing unfocused, an extra layer of sweat broke out across Rhoden’s brow. This is a disaster.
The physician had Xueyi Wright bite down on a slice of ginseng, then stepped nervously to Rhoden’s side and asked, “What should we do?”
Rhoden desperately wanted to grab the physician by the collar and roar, You’re asking me, but who the hell am I supposed to ask?!
“My Lady, what did you say?” Mia had stayed right by Xueyi Wright’s side. Seeing her lips move, she immediately leaned in close.
Xueyi Wright glanced at the newborn child, now washed clean and bundled tightly, and remembering that there was an unexpected second life inside her womb, she gritted her teeth: “Let me… see him.”
Mia hurriedly ran over to cradle the little prince. Forcing a smile, she said, “Look, My Lady, the little prince’s hair is snowy white! With hair that long, his innate talent is bound to be extraordinary.”
Xueyi Wright smiled. Newborn infants generally looked wrinkled and tiny, but this time despite being a twin the child had emerged tender and adorable.
After gazing at him for just a moment, she caught her breath and declared to the midwife, the physicians, and everyone present: “I know… I don’t have the strength to deliver the second child.”
The faces of everyone in the room turned ashen. Indeed, although it was only a few days shy of her full term, falling down had triggered this premature labor… The first child had taken far too long to deliver, and her amniotic fluid had completely drained away.
The healing spells Rhoden cast offered virtually no special benefit to Xueyi Wright. This wasn’t an external wound; how could healing magic wield any massive effect? The physicians exchanged glances, virtually ready to give up on the remaining child in her womb. They couldn’t be certain whether the baby inside was still alive, but they knew that if things continued like this, neither the child nor Consort Xueyi would survive.
The midwife’s lips twitched as she recalled what Consort Xueyi had told her earlier, and she shuddered. Yet glancing out of the corner of her eye at the little prince sleeping soundly nearby, a wave of relief washed over her: Since there’s already one child…
“Please… please cut open my belly.”
This weak sentence landed in the room like a thunderbolt. Everyone stared in sheer disbelief at Xueyi Wright a woman so weak, with a face as pale as death, struggling with every ounce of her remaining strength just to keep her eyes open.
They heard her repeat: “Cut open my belly… take… take the child out. Hurry!”
At that moment, everyone was bathed in a cold sweat of shock, so no one noticed that the infant, who had been completely still, fluttered his eyelids slightly. Beneath delicate white lashes, a flash of golden light swept past.
006. Black and White Twins (Part 5)
Yet none of the people inside the room knew that a Caesarean section wouldn’t even be the most spine-chilling plot twist of the day.
What proved most horrifying was that when the physicians sliced open Xueyi Wright’s abdomen, what met their eyes was not the pristine white they had anticipated, matching the older prince born just moments earlier, but an inky, pitch blackness that even the profuse gush of blood failed to conceal.
With trembling hands, the physician dragged an infant wrapped like a cocoon in long, jet-black hair out from the uterus. Despite the soft texture, for reasons unknown, the physician felt a freezing chill ripple straight down his spine the moment his fingers brushed against the baby.
Not a single person stepped forward to receive the newborn. The maids stood frozen by the side like terrified statues, completely forgetting to clean him up.
Everyone was jarred back to their senses only when the infant in the bassinet let out a faint sound. Mia stepped forward to take the jet-black cocoon of a baby into her arms. How she wished this fetus had been stillborn. Neither of the twins had cried at least the first one out had wailed a couple of times, whereas this one was so quiet it felt devoid of life.
Only when she held him in her hands did she realize the infant was breathing, albeit faintly.
As long as he was alive, Mia would do nothing to harm him, because this was the child Xueyi had risked everything to bring into the world.
Mia took a deep breath, turning her head to see Rhoden tirelessly casting healing spells while the physicians worked with practiced dexterity to stitch Xueyi’s abdomen back together. Exhaling the turbid air from her chest, she ordered the dazed maids to quickly fetch another basin of water, then gently laid the baby onto a soft, large cloth to wipe away the traces of blood clinging to his skin.
By the time Mia finished washing the dark prince, Xueyi Wright’s emergency treatment was complete.
The two infants lay side by side, wrapped in identical swaddling blankets, their delicate, elf-like features mirror images of one another. Yet one sported a head of pure white hair, while the other was ink-black. Even their eyelashes were of two completely different colors.
Rhoden let out an internal sigh, then said to Mia, “Consort Xueyi is out of danger; she simply suffered massive blood loss and exhausted her vital energy, so she will require careful recuperation for some time. Furthermore, her constitution will be rather frail from now on.”
The physicians bustled about writing up numerous medicinal prescriptions, intending to have pills prepared and sent over later. Having served in the imperial palace for a long time, they knew the golden rule: pretending ignorance was a virtue—seeing nothing as though it were unseen, and hearing nothing as though it were unheard. Thus, the three physicians kept their eyes fixed straight ahead, bade Mia farewell, and promptly withdrew.
“This child…” Rhoden pointed to the little black bundle. “His birth cannot be kept secret. Once His Majesty returns from the Moon King’s quarters, he will receive word of this.”
Mia nodded. “I understand.”
Before leaving, Rhoden offered a final word: “That infant appears congenitally deficient. Even with careful rearing, he may not live long.”
Mia’s body stiffened slightly, but she simply nodded without speaking.
The four maids standing nearby were at a complete loss. Naturally, the servants selected to enter Xueyi Wright’s quarters and tend to her childbirth were fiercely loyal.
In the Zeyadian Continent, where golden and light tones were revered as the pinnacle of beauty, a head of ink-black hair was far beyond merely “ugly.” It concerned imperial dignity a matter far weightier than the life of a single prince. Moreover, these were the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Princes. Given a sufficient number of exceptionally talented heirs, what sort of end awaited an existence that might bring disgrace upon the imperial family? None of them dared to imagine.
“Alright, stop standing around like posts. Hong’er, take good care of the two princes; keep an eye out for when they pass their meconium, and summon the wet nurses to feed them as soon as they do,” Mia said, completely shedding her frantic demeanor from before labor to transform into a picture of calm, decisive authority. “Zi’er and Lü’er…”