He Yuan draped the outer wear over his little figure and rushed out. He knew Wan Ruo was going to die today but he wasn't going there to save her. He was going there to make sure no mishap occurs to the child.
Although nothing happened to the child in the original storyline, He Yuan had done nothing but anger Cao Luomei since he got here. Who knew what the vengeful lady would get Yu Ming to do to the child?
When he got closer to the isolation courtyard, he could see teams of servants entering and leaving in a hurry.
Once he entered, he ran into the matriarch who was on her way out with two of her personal servants supporting her. Even if the old lady disliked Wan Ruo, the child in her stomach was still her grandchild.
"Grandmother," He Yuan greeted with a perfect curtsey.
The old woman only humphed and continued on her way. She was old so even if she wanted to stay for a bit longer, her body wouldn't let her.
He Yuan ignored the old woman's salty attitude and held the robe of a passing servant. "Where's father?" After all that was his child on the way.
The servant looked around once and sighed. "First miss suddenly developed a stomach ache so master had to stay there with the physicians to watch over her."
He Yuan's eyes widened. Just wow. So Wan Ruo was giving birth to a Cao family descendant but the only people who would be in attendance were the servants and midwives?
He really wanted to go in there and ensure Wan Ruo survived out of spite for the Cao family members. In fact, that was exactly what he was going to do!
In Cao Yuemei's past life, this baby had been dumped in the hands of a wet nurse to raise. Even the matriarch, who had originally been happy over the birth of a second grandson, grew tired of the child in a week because of his constant cries.
Things got worse as the child grew older because people started to compare him to the aloof and intelligent Cao Feng. Until the moment he died, he had no name.
The Cao family had forgotten to name him and even Cao Yuemei had been caught up in her own grief and was too clueless to name him. The child was the most pitiful of them all. Being born to the wrong parents, he'd known nothing but sadness all his life.
He Yuan grit his teeth. Even if he had said he was under no obligation to help the people connected to the leasers, there was no way he would let this child have a repeat of his former life. He knew all too well the hurt that came with being born to the wrong parents.
As soon as he rushed into the delivery room, he was hit with the smell of blood. He knew it was inappropriate to be here but he really had to make sure Wan Ruo lived for the child.
So he kept his eyes up and made his way over to Wan Ruo's side. The midwives were still on their way and the servants were too busy preparing the birthing tools to pay any attention to him.
"Yuemei!" Wan Ruo cried out when she saw him. Then she stared at the door expectantly. "Where is your father?"
He Yuan shook his head.
Wan Ruo suddenly burst out laughing as tears streamed down her face. "I deserve this don't I?" She held out her hand to He Yuan, who took it hesitantly. "I'm sorry, I was selfish. I did it for myself but honestly, I was also hurt whenever you were ignored. No mother would want to see her child in pain."
The midwives entered then. When they tried to chase He Yuan out, Wan Ruo rebuked them.
He Yuan just stared as Wan Ruo screamed in pain. He still did not like her for choosing to sell a child to a whorehouse but looking as she struggled to give birth, he also felt that he was in no place to judge her.
And so, he watched the midwives closely and also monitored Wan Ruo's pulse to make sure she wasn't sneakily poisoned.
In the early hours of the morning, the child was born. He Yuan watched as the child, covered in so much blood, was lifted and he had to bite his lips to keep himself from fainting. Being a woman was no joke.
The crying child was cleaned and brought over to the heavily breathing Wan Ruo to hold. "Yuemei," She called out. "Be sure to look after your brother."
It was at this time He Yuan noticed something was wrong. He quickly held Wan Ruo's wrist to check her pulse, his eyes widened. Impossible. How was she dying? He had made sure none of the midwives managed to poison her so what was this?!
He checked her pulse over and over again and realized she was indeed not poisoned but she was dying.
He Yuan realized something then. The storyline for the counterattack he'd received had come from two sources. One was Cao Luomei in her first life and the second was from both Cao Luomei and Cao Yuemei after Cao Luomei was reborn.
In both storylines, there was no indication of what happened to Wan Ruo. So it was possible that in Cao Luomei's first life, Wan Ruo had gotten her retribution for selling off Cao Luomei by dying at childbirth.
Whether or not Yu Ming sent someone to drug her, Wan Ruo would have still died because even in the second lifetime, she still tried to sell off Cao Luomei.
Dying at childbirth was Wan Ruo's karma.
He Yuan was absentminded as Wan Ruo pushed the baby into his little arms. "His name is Cao X..." She didn't get to finish. Death took her before she had the chance.
He Yuan looked down at the crying child in his arms. Just how was he supposed to raise this child? He knew that he already planned on looking after this child on Cao Yuemei's behalf right from day one.
But now that he was faced with the reality of things, he felt a bit lost. At first, he planned to let the child develop like before with the help of the wet nurse but now, he didn't want the boy to turn into that coward with no self confidence in Cao Yuemei's memories.
The kid deserved better than that. Normally, he had no emotional connection to the inhabitants of the task realms but this child felt different. Maybe because he saw his once helpless self in this child.
He had been abandoned by his parents for the first half of his life. He lived on the streets until he was found once again by them at the age of sixteen.
It turned out he was an organ baby. A child that was conceived with specific genetic material in order to keep their first child, who had a strange genetic ailment, alive.
There was a glitch in his creation process and he ended up botched and so they discarded him by a gutter to start the process of making another organ baby. That one was successful.
When it was time to make use of the much needed organs, the second organ child figured out their plans and ran away and they found out that there was actually no defect in He Yuan and had come in search of him.
They had a higher chance finding and deceiving a street child than the organ child who had grown up with them. They were successful.
He Yuan was happy to find that he had parents and was even happier when they wanted to take him home. He followed them with no reservations. A family was something he'd always wanted.
It wasn't until he was strapped to an operation bench that he realized their purpose. Luckily, he had been released by one of the surgeons out of compassion and that was how he got to keep his life.
At seventeen he was back on the streets looking for ways to make it to the top where they wouldn't be able to hurt him ever again. Where he was safe.
'Turns out I wasn't so safe if I could get killed by my own chandelier after all my struggle to keep my life.' He Yuan thought with a chuckle.
[He Yuan~] 888's voice did not have the edgy note it normally had when speaking to his host. Although he had been sent He Yuan's file, he hadn't bothered to look through it because systems bound to novice taskers usually didn't live long just like the taskers themselves.
He still wasn't sure if they would live long but being with He Yuan for some time, he'd come to acknowledge this host of his a little bit. Who knew this was what his host had to go through in his origin world? Dying prematurely on top of all that was really unfair to him.
He Yuan chuckled. "It's fine. I'm over it." They both knew that wasn't true so He Yuan diverted his attention to the child in his hands.
"Cao Xiwang," He called out softly. He didn't know what Wan Ruo was about to call the child but that name felt right.
This chapter is updated by freew(e)bnovel.(c)om