Chapter 251: Extra   - Lu Chenzhou And Cheng Xi: I’m Only Happy When I'm With You (VI)

Cheng Xi happily watched Lu Chenzhou and Chen Jiaman bicker back and forth for quite a while. When she finally had her fill, she slowly got up, had some breakfast, and then went to the hospital.

Chen Jiaman was very curious about Cheng Xi’s pregnancy, to the point where she was even willing to accompany her to the hospital. Chen Jiaman actually insisted on tagging along, no matter how much Lu Chenzhou objected.

In the end, the three of them went to the hospital together.

Su Feng was still treating a patient when Cheng Xi arrived, so she requested that they all wait outside. Not long after, Su Feng had only Cheng Xi come in at first. She started with a standard preliminary checkup and then asked her about the details of the bleeding before calling Lu Chenzhou inside as well. Su Feng expressionlessly said to him, “Mr. Lu, this is Cheng Xi’s first pregnancy. So, for safety reasons, you can’t have sex with her during the first three and last three months of her pregnancy. It’s fine to do it a little during the middle, but you should do your best to limit yourself and be careful about hurting her.”

“......”

Lu Chenzhou stared back at Su Feng expressionlessly, but it seemed that her words had struck a great blow to him.

I’m going to have to become a monk again...... He felt all empty inside, and even his initial joy at having a daughter had considerably decreased!

The worst thing was, he had explicitly told Cheng Xi’s parents that he was sterile, but now, Cheng Xi was clearly pregnant. Cheng Xi felt sympathetic for his plight, and she even offered to speak to them on his behalf.

Lu Chenzhou brushed her aside. “That’s not necessary.” He could clean up his own messes.

In the end, Cheng Xi’s parents became suspicious about the whole affair, perhaps because Lu Chenzhou’s tone was too bitter, and they once again closed their restaurant for the day, ran over, and sneakily asked her, “Cheng Xi, tell us the truth. Is this child actually Lu Chenzhou’s?”

“......”

Cheng Xi once again felt the urge to drag Lu Chenzhou over and give him a thorough beating! How on Earth had he explained the whole thing to her parents?!

After Cheng Xi’s parents heard the entire story from her, even they were stunned speechless. “If it’s his child, then why was he so upset when he told us the news? He looked like he was about to cry at any moment, and it made us think that......”

Even Cheng Xi’s father couldn’t help himself from cursing Lu Chenzhou’s sulky attitude.

Cheng Xi naturally couldn’t say that it was because Lu Chenzhou had been told that he had to become celibate. She awkwardly coughed twice before abruptly changing the topic. Cheng Xi’s mother also took advantage of this opportunity to lecture her about all the things that she had to avoid during her pregnancy. “Don’t work too hard, and definitely don’t try to take on too much. You’re not young anymore. Actually, you’re having an advanced maternal age pregnancy, aren’t you? You really have to be more careful about everything then.”

“Advanced maternal age” was a harsh blow for Cheng Xi to bear.

In truth, Cheng Xi’s pregnancy went relatively smoothly, all things considered. Besides the serious symptoms at the beginning of the pregnancy, there were no more huge issues for the rest of her pregnancy, and she never had particularly strong reactions to anything.

When Cheng Xi first started throwing up, Lu Chenzhou felt like the sky was collapsing. Cheng Xi couldn’t stand being around his germophobic self and thus lived with just Chen Jiaman for two days before he finally adjusted to it.

Lu Chenzhou also didn’t even want to work anymore; one day, he randomly called Lu Chenming and told him, “Your sister-in-law’s about to give birth, so you have to take over the company for the moment.” From that moment on, regardless of whether Lu Chenming was qualified to handle it, the company was his responsibility.

All Lu Chenming had ever wanted to do was be a salesperson. He had never desired the responsibility and public visibility of an upper management position, but now he had been forcibly dragged into it. Luckily, under the...... helpful guidance of Cheng Yang, he actually did a decent job—honestly, perhaps even a better job than Lu Chenzhou. Lu Chenming was detail-oriented and looked into everything thoroughly. On the other hand, Lu Chenzhou only cared about results, and didn’t care too much about the process. As such, many Donglai employees resented Lu Chenzhou in their hearts as they saw him as someone who freely assigned tasks to his subordinates but never did any work himself.

Lu Chenming’s new position was very stressful, but he eventually gained the approval and trust of his subordinates, allowing Lu Chenzhou to fully focus on taking care of Cheng Xi. When Lu Chenzhou’s grandparents found out that Cheng Xi was pregnant, they were overcome with joy. At that point, they didn’t dare to make any overbearing requests, and they didn’t even ask Cheng Xi and Lu Chenzhou to move into the Lu household with them. All they did was send Cheng Xi rare medicinal herbs and healthy nutritional supplements from time to time.

But Cheng Xi really did feel fine. She went to work as usual, wasn’t picky or fussy about what she ate, and essentially ignored all of the worries and headaches that normally came with pregnancy. The pregnancy seemed to affect her very little; her life was basically the same as before.

By the time Cheng Xi entered the second trimester of her pregnancy, almost all of her friends and relatives had learned that she was pregnant. Baldy and Tian Rou had the funniest reaction; they came over to Cheng Xi’s place every day for free meals along with their son. Afterwards, Tian Rou would play with their son, who was just learning how to speak, in front of Cheng Xi. She would guide his small chubby hands to Cheng Xi’s stomach and cajole, “This is your wife. Quick, say, ‘Wifey, wifey, grow well. Your husband is out here waiting for you.’”

Even Shen Wei joined in on the festivities, commenting, “Cheng Xi, you can’t promise your daughter away this early! When the time comes, all our sons should be given a fair chance to compete for her.”

Shen Wei’s bantering words struck Lu Chenzhou so deeply that he even started treating Shen Wei and her son a little better.

Everyone seemed to firmly believe that Cheng Xi’s baby would be a daughter, and due to this, all of the gifts that Cheng Xi received were for girls: from the clothes to the socks, and even the hats. Cheng Xi’s mother had initially prepared a few baby boy clothes as a contingency plan, but when Lu Chenzhou found out, he threw them away as he resolutely said, “That’s impossible. Our baby will definitely be a daughter!”

He was so convinced that Cheng Xi’s mother suspected that the two of them had already secretly confirmed it at the hospital. Thus, she also started buying baby girl’s clothes. One day, she saw a little bib. “My goodness, this is so cute! The baby’s sure to look great with this.”

And then the next day, she saw a dress. “Yes! I’m sure that my granddaughter will look amazing in this.”

And the day after that, as she flipped through a dictionary with her husband, she called Lu Chenzhou. “We thought of a name for the baby. It’s really pleasant to the ears.”

When Lu Chenzhou asked what the name was, she answered, “Shutong, from Su Shi’s “Diviner”. ‘The waning moon hangs upon the sparse wutong tree. In the deep of the night, no longer does the water clock drip.’ If not that, then Chujing would also be a good name.”

Lu Chenzhou distractedly muttered, “Shutong, Shutong,” under his breath before disdainfully replying, “That’s a manservant’s name! My daughter’s going to be a princess. How could I possibly give her such a boyish name?” [TL: Lu Chenzhou is making a pun here—manservant (lit. 書僮) is a homonym for Shutong (lit. 疏桐). Chinese is naturally a language with a large number of homonyms, so choosing a name for your child that doesn’t have any homonyms with negative connotations is quite important.]

He wasn’t going to use that name.

Their conversation continued with a few more names being tossed out, causing the discussion to become heated.

Ten months later, before they had settled on a name for their little princess, Cheng Xi went into labor.

The weather was wonderful that day, and it was a clear and refreshing autumn day with the sun shining bright in the sky. When Cheng Xi felt the first contraction, she was sunbathing on the balcony. Chen Jiaman was sitting by her side and drawing something for her “brother”—at this point, she was the only person left who insisted that Cheng Xi’s baby would be male. She was creating a manga-style comic based on the stories that Cheng Xi had once told her. She planned on showing them to her “brother” when he arrived.

But she wasn’t even halfway done when Cheng Xi noticed it, and Cheng Xi was so excited about her work that she couldn’t resist taking a photo of the incomplete art and posting it on her feed. Chen Jiaman’s art style was very colorful with detailed sketches, warm color palettes, and cute and puerile dialogue. When one of Cheng Xi’s friends who worked in a publishing firm stumbled upon it, she immediately messaged Cheng Xi, asking whether Chen Jiaman would consider publishing it as a children’s book.

Chen Jiaman wasn’t that interested in making money. She insisted that this book was for her brother and that he was the only one who could read it. But afterwards, when she considered the fact that she needed to help Cheng Xi provide for her soon-to-be brother, she decided to cut a deal with Cheng Xi’s publisher friend. The work could be published, but her brother had to be the first reader.

And Chen Jiaman even wrote in the acknowledgements page: To my cherished brother.

o(╯□╰)o

Luckily, Lu Chenzhou didn’t find out about this, or he would have definitely blown a fuse.

But when he did find out, he couldn’t even explode anymore, because when Cheng Xi gave birth right...... It was unexpectedly a baby boy!

A bolt from the blue!