"Just a bit more. Push!"
Lying on the hospital bed, Liang Yue was out of breath as she tightened her grip on the handlebars, using the remaining strength left in her feeble body to push out the baby from her womb before her sight turned black and she sank into oblivion.
"The baby is ou—"
"Uwaaak!!!"
The nurses and attending doctor stared foolishly as a dumbfounding scene unfolded.
Throughout their medical career, they had assisted countless mothers in giving birth to their children and had witnessed babies crying their lungs out after being born. Some of them even excreting and urinating.
However, it was their first time seeing a baby vomiting her guts out barely a second after coming into the world.
"... Doctor Wen, is there something wrong with the child?" One of the nurses wondered as she cut the umbilical cord with adept hands.
"Give her to me."
Taking over the child, Doctor Wen examined it from top to bottom, front and back, confirming that there's nothing wrong before returning it to the nurse. "Don't worry. Help me clean her up first."
"Will do."
The nurses breathed a sigh of relief and hastened with their work, one of them cleaning up the baby while the other two took care of the fainted mother.
A few minutes later, both mother and child, dressed in clean clothes were sent to a VVIP ward where their family members were waiting.
"Doctor, how is our Madam?" A middle-aged man in a butler's uniform stepped forward and asked anxiously when he saw the unconscious Liang Yue who was pushed into the ward in a wheelchair.
"Nothing major. Just fainted from exhaustion and needs ample rest. Where's the patient's husband? I need him to sign some papers."
Butler Xiao coughed. His eyes drifting towards the sofa where a man in a black business suit laid, dead to the world, with his breathing even.
Doctor Wen's face sank. "His wife is having a hard time giving birth. How can he be so uncaring as to sleep at a time like this?"
"No. No. Doctor, you misunderstood. It's not that my master didn't care. It was just that he was so nervous earlier so..." Saying up to this point, Butler Xiao pursed his lips, feeling a little embarrassed and helpless.
Doctor Wen nodded in realization at his words. "Fainted from anxiety. I see. It's nothing to ashamed of."
Butler Xiao "..." It was simply just another misunderstanding, however, he could only force himself to nod as it would be even more embarrassing to tell outsiders that his master, the cold and callous business hegemon who never once blinked in front of billions worth of business deals would spin around the room in circles as if his buttocks were on fire while gasping for breath and sweating profusely, hence he, this old man had no choice but too use the tranquilizer gun that the old master had given him sometime ago to stun him in place.
"Indeed. That's the case."
Forgive me, master. For the sake of your public image, I had to choose the lesser evil between these three choices.
Doctor Wen didn't know about Butler Xiao's complicated thoughts. "Well, since the patient had been handed over, I'll now take my leave. Remember to have President Xiao settle the papers tomorrow morning when he wakes up."
"Yes. Thank you very much Doctor Wen." Butler Xiao sent her out before slumping on the couch to relax his tense nerves.
Tonight had been so thrilling that his already graying hair nearly all turned white.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Meanwhile, inside the crib, the baby who had her eyes closed earlier when she was brought in opened her eyes leisurely and scanned her surroundings. That gaze contained not the purity of a child but a calmness way beyond her age as well as a tinge of curiosity.
She had been too dizzy to pay much attention to her surroundings earlier but now that she finally recovered her sanity, she realized that she was in a very unfamiliar place.
Unfamiliar and strange.
She had successfully reincarnated.
However, all the memories of her previous life were retained.
Recalling what happened in her previous life, Xiao Xi barely stopped her lips from twitching.
She was born as the eldest daughter of the emperor and empress of Yunling Country. However, because of some complications during her birth, her imperial mother ruined her health and was deemed unable to bear another offspring. The emperor had countless women in his harem and if news of the empress being unable to give birth to an heir were to be known to others, she'd undoubtedly lose her position. For fear of being deposed, her empress mother concealed her true gender and raised her as a boy.
However, contrary to the empress' various expectations of her, she had not the slightest interest in inheriting the throne and grew up as a complete waste who often lingered around fragrant houses and entertainment establishments.
Many times, the empress berated her for her uselessness. There were even incidents where she was threatened and abused. However, she wasn't fazed in the slightest bit.
For her to participate in the battle for the throne where brothers kill brothers is tantamount to seeking death, especially when she had such a secret to keep.
Her imperial mother said that her only way out was to become the emperor. She would lose her life otherwise. The rhetoric sounded somewhat convincing but was that result really what she desired?
Xiao Xi shook her head.
Right from the start, she already knew that family affection never existed amongst royalty. Her mother never had her interest in mind.
Donning a phoenix coronet and crimson imperial robes while treading on thin ice amidst the gilded hallways of the blood-soaked Forbidden City, innocence and kindness had long faded away. Beliefs and principles ages gone, having crumbled to dust until all that ever remained is an overwhelming greed for wealth and power.
A selfish mother.
A debauched emperor as a father.
Bloodthirsty half-brothers.
And an ailing country that is rotten to it's roots.
She wants no part of it.
The more was expected of her, the more she portrayed her uselessness. As her brothers aimed swords at each other and schemed for another's downfall, she watched with cold eyes from the sidelines.
Even when her maternal family rebelled and were executed. Even when she was removed from the Xiao Royal Family's genealogy, she never had an ounce of resentment. Perhaps, the day when she was exiled to the borders was the happiest she had ever been in her life.
At that time, her heart that had been as calm as an untouched lake in the mountains for years gave birth to countless expectations. Where was she going now? How will she live her life? Will she fall in love?
All those notions and fantasies crossed her mind.
But unfortunately, just as she was traveling towards her destination with her companion and escort guards, they encountered a mudslide midway and were buried alive, forfeiting their lives in an unforseen disaster.
After her unexpected death, she arrived in the underworld and spent more than a hundred years in boredom standing in line for a bowl of soup from Meng Po*.
As a result, when it was finally her turn, she got into a little bit of trouble. It turned out that Old Lady Meng once went to play in the mortal world disguised as a young girl in her budding years and was flirted on by the charming playboy persona she portrayed herself as when she was still alive.
Heheh!
Being confessed and proposed to by an aged hag that was as old as heaven and earth themselves...
Of course, she refused. As if that wasn't convincing enough, she even revealed her true gender.
What happened right after? It's nothing, ah!
She was only chased all over the reincarnation platform with a saber by a manic Meng Po who wanted to hack her to pieces to salvage "her dignity that was heartlessly trampled upon by a scumbag."
In order to escape from her relentless pursuit, Xiao Xi was left with no choice but to jump off the reincarnation platform without drinking a drop of Meng Po's soup which also ended up in a tragedy.
Those old philosophers and bearded scholars who idled around all day while preaching nonsense really didn't lie, ah!
Everything that exists in heaven or earth has a reason for it's existence and good things come in small packages while bad things come in droves!
It turns out that Meng Po's soup not only had the effect of erasing memories, it was also equipped with a knock out function!
As a result, she who had been perfectly conscious while going through the process of reincarnation had firsthand experience being blasted here and there by torrents of turbulent spiritual energy and being sucked into a whirlpool.
Xiao Xi wanted to cry but had no tears.
Truly, ah!
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!*
This retribution coming from the wrath of an enraged admirer is way too much!
.......
Meng Po - is the goddess of oblivion in Chinese mythology, who serves Meng Po Soup on the Bridge of oblivion or Naihe Bridge (Chinese: 奈何桥; pinyin: Nàihé qiáo).
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned! - a woman who has been rejected by a man can be ferociously angry and vindictive.
"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorned" is the full quotation from William Congreve's 'The Mourning Bride' (1697).