Waking up to the beautiful sunrise, Lin Xue's eyes fluttered open and then widened in the next instant with horror.
"Oh no! I'm late for work!" Lin Xue quickly lifted herself up from the bed and undressed as fast as she could.
"Hyagaha!"
The baby laughed as he watched Lin Xue change. His innocent laugh echoed in the room as Lin Xue removed her clothes and became naked.
Stopping her actions, Lin Xue froze before turning her head over to the baby on the bed. She had almost forgotten all about the baby that she had adopted the previous night. Dressing up, but this time in loose clothing, Lin Xue picked up the baby tenderly and caressed his head.
The baby continued to giggle a little as his tiny hands played with Lin Xue's breasts.
"You're a pervy baby, maybe I shouldn't carry you anymore..." joked Lin Xue as she looked at the baby's laughing face.
The baby frowned after hearing Lin Xue's words and Lin Xue couldn't help but giggle. She placed the baby back on the bed and whispered to him, "We need to start packing, tomorrows a big day. We're moving!"
Before Lin Xue could move to do pack her things, the doorbell rang.
Looking over curiously at the door and then back at the baby, Lin Xue joked, "You wouldn't happen to have called someone over, right?"
Lin Xue walked over to the door and opened it. Upon opening the door, Lin Xue saw three women standing outside of her apartment.
Glancing at the three women, Lin Xue asked, "Hello. May I help you?"
"Are you Lin Xue?" asked a chubby woman with irritation in her voice. She had a certain arrogant aura about her as she glanced at Lin Xue with a frown on her thick lips and narrowed eyes.
"Yes, can I help you with something Miss?" Lin Xue frowned at the tone of the woman and made a mental note of limit talking with the woman in front of her.
"Nurse Lin! I'm sorry about Nurse Tang, we were sent here by Doctor Tang, he told us you were the last member who will go to Planet Roca with us." The tall older woman to the left of Nurse Tang quickly jumped into the conversation in fear that things will go south before they could even arrive at the clinic.
Nurse Tang frowned at the intervention of the other woman and turned to leave, leaving three women alone.
Shifting her eyes from Nurse Tang to the other woman, Lin Xue eased a bit before asking, "You are?"
"Di Yan. Feel free to call me Yan." Di Yan quickly introduced herself and held out her hand.
Looking at Di Yan's hand, Lin Xue took it and shook it with a smile, "Nice to meet you Sister Yan."
"Younger Sister Xue, nice to meet you. I'm Lin Yu," joined in the last woman. She was relatively older looking with a couple of grey hairs and few wrinkles on her face.
Lin Yu's appearance was a little unusual in this day and age. After all, those who gain a couple of geno points, even if they are Ordinary one, will slow down aging and stop grey hairs from appearing until their 70 years of age.
After exchanging greetings, Lin Xue finally got to asking who Nurse Tang was.
"Nurse Tang. Tang Ping, is a ferocious woman. She will do anything to get everything under her control. We three are unlucky to be placed with her in the same clinic," sighed Lin Yu sadly.
"Is she really like that?" Lin Xue couldn't help frowning at Lin Yu's words. If what she said was true, she will have to spend the rest of her years working with that woman in the same clinic. Either that, or she gets promoted to another clinic or hospital, leaving them alone.
"Yeah, I even heard she tried to kill her own husband! Luckily, he was an Evolver and was able to get her off of himself rather easily," added Di Yan.
Di Yan looked at Lin Xue and frowned, "We came here to help you because we heard that you joined us yesterday to the clinic, and we figured that you wouldn't have time to pack. However, we didn't plan to come together like this, it was totally unexpected that I ran into Lin Yu and Tang Ping."
Lin Xue slightly frowned as well before smiling and letting Di Yan and Lin Yu in to her apartment. They got to packing and Lin Xue would take care of the baby every now and then.
After an hour in, Lin Xue heard a knock on her door and opened it. Standing outside was Tang Ping, the chubby woman, with an irritated look in her eyes.
"I came here to help," Tang Ping still wore a frown on her face from the earlier talk. She walked into the apartment and looked around before turning to Lin Xue.
Tang Ping looked at the baby in Lin Xue's arms and slightly smiled at the baby's sleeping face. The smile quickly disappeared from her face as she looked at Lin Xue, she can't show anyone her soft side. Especially after all the awful rumors about her passed around, it would only make people talk more bad about her.
"What do I help with?" Tang Ping's tone eased when she noticed the baby in Lin Xue's embrace and her expression was no longer cold.
"Can you help me with packing my clothes?" Lin Xue said as she led Tang Ping into her room and showed her the little amount of clothes left to pack and took out a suitcase.
"It should be something easy to deal with this," Tang Ping nodded and took the small luggage from nearby.
"Thank you a lot for helping me," thanked Lin Xue. Although Lin Xue didn't like Tang Ping much because of earlier, she knew when to offer her thanks when needed.
"Your baby is beautiful." Tang Ping folded all of Lin Xue's unfolded clothes and placed them inside the luggage before commenting softly.
"Eh?" Lin Xue turned to Tang Ping in surprise. She didn't expect to see this 'arrogant' woman to act so mild and even like babies.
Noticing that she wasn't talking, Lin Xue quickly spoke, "Oh.. uh.. yeah! He IS very beautiful. Too bad I'm not his actual mother."
Hearing Lin Xue's words, Tang Ping looked at her through the corner of her eyes and asked carefully, "Are you taking care of the baby on behalf of someone else?"
Lin Xue smiled and shook her head, "No, I adopted this baby because he was abandoned and I couldn't bear seeing him all alone without a mother."
Tang Ping frowned and looked at the baby pitiably. Sadly, that's how life treats people. It doesn't care if you're young, old, the color of your skin, gender, disability, it will always treat you like shit at some moments.
Sighing, Tang Ping looked at Lin Xue and shook her head, 'Young people these days are so nice.'
…
Finishing right when night hit, Lin Xue was about to send off everyone else but Tang Ping stopped her.
"Let's go eat at a restaurant nearby. It's on me," Tang Ping announced to the three women.
"I'll go!" Lin Xue smiled and decided to go with Tang Ping to eat.
Lin Xue wanted to have one last meal on this planet before she left for Planet Roca. She didn't know if she would ever return to this planet after all. It was like doing a farewell party for someone who is going off to college, but eating at a restaurant.
Lin Yu and Di Yan scrunched up their eyebrows in displeasure. They didn't want to go with Tang Ping anywhere, but the restaurant was such a tantalizing thing and even more when Tang Ping was the one that wanted to pay. In the end, they still decided to refuse.
Lin Yu wryly smiled and said, "I have something to do, so I can't join you."
Following Lin Yu, Di Yan also rejected the offer, "I can't either. You see, I haven't said goodbye to my mom yet."
Lin Yu and Di Yan quickly said goodbye to both Lin Xue and Tang Ping before shuffling away quickly.
Lin Xue frowned at the actions of the two women who left hurriedly. She felt disappointed in the fact that they don't even try to get to know Tang Ping just because of a couple of rumors. Ignoring them, she looked at Tang Ping with a smile and hugged the baby closer to herself.
She had warmed up a lot to Tang Ping already, over the whole day while she was helping pack, Tang Ping would always make sneak peaks at the baby and make funny faces whenever she thought that Lin Xue wasn't seeing. Tang Ping would also help with taking care of the baby while she made a quick dash to the bathroom.
Having not eaten much all day and feeling her stomach grumble at Tang Ping's words, Lin Xue urged Tang Ping to hurry up and lead her to the restaurant. Lin Xue followed Tang Ping with the baby in her arms and was surprised when they arrived in front of a mid-rate restaurant.
Sitting in the section made for the ordinary people, Tang Ping ordered her side of the food and let Lin Xue order her side of the food.
"You can't order that for the baby, it won't sit well with him and hurt him," grumbled Tang Ping as she took the menu from Lin Xue. "He can't eat at all, he's just a newborn. Waiter! Get the baby some high-grade baby milk!"
After eating, Lin Xue and Tang Ping looked at each other. Tang Ping held a serious look on her face and Lin Xue had a nervous look as she squirmed on her seat.
SLURP!
Hearing the loud slurping noise, Lin Xue and Tang Ping turned their gazes to the little baby on the side sucking on the baby bottle filled with milk.
"Pfft!" Lin Xue couldn't hold in her laughter anymore and just let it out. Tang Ping only smiled at that and Lin Xue caught her smile from the corner of her eyes. "You can smile!"
"Of course I can," Tang Ping maintained the smile on her face and her gaze on the baby.
Lin Xue and Tang Ping talked more and more and Lin Xue finally asked a question that had been bugging her.
"Why did Miss Yu and Miss Yan say that you almost suffocated your husband?" innocently asked Lin Xue.
Frowning, Tang Ping kept quiet before drinking a bit more of water, "Because it's true."
Lin Xue looked at Tang Ping in surprise and heard her continue, "That useless excuse of a man that was my husband, was going behind my back and visiting brothels. I tolerated it for a couple of times thinking it was just a rumor, but then two women came to my house one day and accused him of impregnating them. That's when I couldn't stand that man anymore and tried suffocating him in his sleep."
"Miss Tang..." Lin Xue was about to stretch her hand to Tang Ping and console her until she noticed the wide smile on her face. She flinched her hand back thinking that Tang Ping had lost her mind while talking about her husband.
"Luckily, I filed for a divorce. After we divorced, that man went bankrupt trying to keep the two women satisfied until they broke it in that they weren't pregnant. I was mad when I heard that, but then, I laughed." Tang Ping chuckled a bit before turning her attention to the astonished Lin Xue and asked, "Do you know why I laughed?"
Lin Xue thought carefully as to why she could have laughed and couldn't think of anything, so she looked back at Tang Ping and shook her head. "No, why did you laugh?"
"Because, by then, I had realized that he wouldn't have supported the women if he hadn't really done it with them. That, and I took half of his money when I left him, so I am pretty satisfied." Tang Ping had a brilliant smile on her face as she sipped down the remaining water in her cup.
"That's amazing," whispered Lin Xue with a shocked expression. Never would she have believed that there was someone out in the universe like Tang Ping who could find the good and funny side of a terrible situation she had gone and experienced through.
"Too bad Lin Yu and Di Yan didn't join us, or we would have been able to waste all of his money before he came crawling back to ask for it," sighed Tang Ping sadly as she looked at her drink. She smiled and then turned to look at Lin Xue who was sitting across from her. "That's why I am glad that you came with me to this restaurant."
"And I'm glad I got to know you better Miss Tang," Lin Xue smiled while looking into Tang Ping's eyes.
"No need to call me Miss Tang, just Elder Sister or even Auntie Ping will do," Tang Ping laughed as she looked at Lin Xue who sat there with a weird expression.
"Well then… Elder… Auntie Ping," Lin Xue was about to call Tang Ping Elder Sister when she actually noticed her squinting her eyes disapprovingly.
"Well then, let's go shopping for the baby." Tang Ping stood up and looked right at Lin Xue's eyes.
"Huh?"