After the incident where the little king of jealousy was whisked away to his grandmother’s house before being fetched back by Lu Chenzhou in the middle of the night, their relationship seemed to improve a little.
The little king of jealousy was much nicer to Lu Chenzhou afterwards.
For example, he now often tried to feed his father a handful of rice during dinnertime.
Once, when Lu Chenzhou came home from work, the little king of jealousy even made tea for his father following Cheng Xi’s instructions.
“Daddy, for you.”
Lu Chenzhou formally sat down and watched on with a stern expression as the little king of jealousy stumbled over with his short, stubbly legs. When his son drew close, he held out his hand, ready to accept the teacup.
But before he could properly grasp it, his son tripped over his feet, spilling the hot tea all over his pants.
The tea…… was hot.
Mr. Lu…… was scalded.
Or, for yet another example, one day, the little king of jealousy finally learned to not fight with his father over Cheng Xi. Before they all went to bed, he pointed at the master bedroom and said, “Daddy, go sleep there.” And then he pointed at the guest room, pointed at himself, and then said, “I’ll sleep there.”
Lu Chenzhou instantly felt gratified by his actions, as if he had finally gotten through to his son.
But after Cheng Xi showered with their son, he stubbornly held onto Cheng Xi as he dragged her towards the guest room while wearing a disposable diaper.
Lu Chenzhou’s face was ashen.
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The little king of jealousy made a big mistake when he was two-and-a-half years old.
In general, he wasn’t punished for most of his mistakes. Whenever he accidentally dropped a plate, destroyed something, or peed in bed, there was always someone to clean up after him.
And if it wasn’t especially serious, then Cheng Xi would just turn a blind eye to it.
Lu Chenzhou cared about his son’s mistakes even less than she did. That’s right—he wasn’t patient enough to wait for his son to make a serious enough mistake to warrant a beating from Cheng Xi. Thus, he simply didn’t bother with his son’s mistakes.
But on that day, the little king’s mistake was very serious. It was during the weekend, and both Cheng Xi and Lu Chenzhou were at home. The weather was very good that day, and Cheng Xi had gotten up bright and early in the morning to start a big spring cleaning project with the housekeeper, and they spent the majority of the day washing and drying everything.
After Cheng Xi finished cleaning her items, she even went on to help Chen Jiaman with hers.
While Cheng Xi was helping Chen Jiaman, the little king of jealousy ran over from behind.
Cheng Xi and Chen Jiaman were both preoccupied, so they didn’t pay him any attention. He wobbled past them into Chen Jiaman’s drawing room and then climbed over stacks of books and chairs until he finally reached the top of the desk, where he saw colorful and pretty drawings scattered everywhere.
In a stroke of genius, the little king of jealousy grabbed a nearby pen and started tracing over the drawings, learning to draw himself.
When Cheng Xi and Chen Jiaman finally found him, he had ruined all of the drawings that Chen Jiaman had spent a whole week working on to submit to a contest.
When she flipped through her manuscript, every page had his doodles scrawled all over them.
Cheng Xi was so angry that she immediately grabbed him, flipped him over, and then heavily smacked him on his butt a few times.
That was the first time that Cheng Xi had truly gotten mad at him, and she was so furious that she even scared Chen Jiaman, who wanted to protect her little brother but didn’t dare to do so. The little king was in pain and scared as he burst into pitiful tears .
When Cheng Xi was finished with her beating, and before anyone could speak up for her son, she forced him to stand up straight. “Since I didn’t tell you that you can’t come in here and draw wherever you want, I’ll punish myself along with you. Your punishment is to stand still, right here, for ten minutes. And I’ll stand here for an hour.”
Cheng Xi then followed through with her punishment, forbidding him from speaking, moving, or even crying.
She herself also stood there for an hour, facing the wall and ignoring her son no matter how he tugged at her or pleaded with her.
He was so scared by the event that he was docile for the rest of the day; he didn’t pick at his food during dinner, ate all of the vegetables on his plate, and drank all of the chicken soup in his bowl.
When Cheng Xi went to wash up for bed, Lu Chenzhou and the little king were sitting in the living room. One was calmly reading and the other playing with his blocks.
As the little king played, he climbed in front of Lu Chenzhou. “Daddy, is Mommy still mad?”
“Yes. That’s why you should obediently sleep by yourself at night.”
The little king didn’t understand how his mother being angry and him sleeping by himself was connected. “Why?”
“Because when your mother gets mad, she’ll become a large bug.” Lu Chenzhou then took out his phone, searched up a grotesque image of an insect, and showed it to his son. “This sort of bug.”
The little king was greatly frightened.
And Lu Chenzhou was quite pleased with himself.
When Cheng Xi finished her shower, the little king pointed at Lu Chenzhou, clapped his hands, and crisply said, “Mommy, mommy, mommy. Daddy said that you were a big female bug.”
Cheng Xi had been drying her hair, but when she heard her son’s words, she froze as she looked towards Lu Chenzhou. “?”
Lu Chenzhou’s face darkened.
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The day before the little king’s third birthday, a major event occurred in the Lu household: Cheng Xi was pregnant again!
This pregnancy was even more unexpected than the last one, especially because neither Cheng Xi nor Lu Chenzhou wanted another child. Honestly, after having their little king, both Lu Chenzhou and Cheng Xi had become more conscientious about their pregnancy prevention measures. In fact, the culprit behind their pregnancy was actually the little king himself.
He had managed to find the condoms that the two of them used and then secretly poked a hole in all of them.
How did this happen? One day, he found one of those old-fashioned awls while playing outside. He brought it home with him and then poked everything he could get his hands on. While he was having a good time poking the condoms, Cheng Xi’s mother caught him. Since she doted heavily on her grandchild, her embarrassment at seeing him holding condoms was completely overcome by her fear at seeing her grandson playing with a sharp object. After she successfully coaxed the awl from his grip, she hurriedly stuffed the condoms back into their original packaging, and completely forgot about them.
And when Cheng Xi and Lu Chenzhou used them durinig sex, they didn’t notice that something had happened to the condoms. And then…… they got lucky.
Cheng Xi’s reaction to this pregnancy was much more severe, not just because of her more advanced age, but also because she was having twins this time.
The Cheng family actually had a history of having twins; Cheng Xi and Cheng Yang were twins themselves. When Cheng Xi had first had the little king, many people were secretly regretful that he wasn’t a pair of twins instead.
And now, she was going to fulfill their wishes, but the timing wasn’t right. Neither of the two wanted any more children, and she was also getting quite old! The little king was bad enough, but for two more to pop out…… Even if they were both daughters, Lu Chenzhou had a feeling that he might not be able to handle it.
Because Cheng Xi was truly suffering greatly throughout the whole ordeal.
She had all sorts of reactions right after they learned about the pregnancy. When she had been pregnant with the little king, she had only suffered during the early and late stages. But for the twins, she started vomiting as soon as she smelled something that was even a little off.
Cheng Xi almost vomited as often as she ate, and her stomach was like a persimmon, expelling everything that entered in. But she also had to force herself to eat, as she was eating for two additional little bodies. If she didn’t take in enough nutrition, then it would be very dangerous both for her babies and for her.
So, for quite some time, Cheng Xi’s days revolved around eating and then vomiting, or vomiting and then eating. Her throat was damaged by her stomach acid from her frequent vomiting, so she even spat out mouthfuls of blood from time to time.
She was in very bad shape.
But just as the nausea abated, the swelling began. During the later stage of her pregnancy, Cheng Xi essentially couldn’t move, as her feet were excessively engorged. Lu Chenzhou didn’t even have the presence of mind to worry about the gender of the twins. Every day, he would hug her and beg, “Let’s give up on these children, alright?”
And every time, Cheng Xi would adamantly reply, “No way!” She was already this far into her pregnancy, and if some distress on her part meant that their children would grow up healthy and strong, then she had no reason to give up on them. She didn’t want Lu Chenzhou to have negative feelings towards their yet to be born children, so no matter how much pain she was in, she always did her best to look relaxed and smiling.
Even the little king didn’t dare to mess around as much as usual, and he no longer bothered Cheng Xi constantly. When he really couldn’t bear to be away from her, all he would do was hold her hand and call out, “Mommy, shall I tell you a story?”
He was only three, and he couldn’t pronounce a lot of characters. However, he had a very good memory. Cheng Xi only needed to read a story to him twice for him to have memorized it enough to parrot her words back.
In the end, Cheng Xi couldn’t last the whole nine months. She kept them in her body for 36 weeks, and then she had to get a Caesarean section.
Two beautiful daughters entered the family.
Although Cheng Xi had given birth to them a bit early, they were as healthy as could be.
Both of them were the spitting image of Cheng Xi: each with a pair of bright eyes, a smile that was as warm and gentle as the spring wind, and two particularly cute dimples that appeared whenever they smiled.
