Episode 2
Chapter 2
“Hmm… What should I say?”
Airi whispered quietly in a soft, gentle tone.
Now, having become a mother with two children—no, three counting the one in her belly—her personality had softened greatly, but Airi had originally been such a fiery tomboy that she used to beat up men.
And Jyupeto had found even that side of her lovely.
“Your hands are warm.”
Jyupeto smiled gently and lightly placed his hand over hers as she stroked her swollen belly, waiting for his beloved woman to gather her thoughts and speak.
The hand stroking her swollen belly slowed.
“What’s strange is… This time, unlike the other children, I only had morning sickness at first, and then it stopped completely.”
Usually, morning sickness begins between the 5th and 6th week of pregnancy.
It is worst around the 9th and 10th weeks and begins to fade from the 16th week.
In severe cases, it lasts until the 18th week, but there are cases where it lasts even longer.
Airi was precisely that last case.
When she gave birth to her first, she had morning sickness until the 20th week, and with her second, until the 24th week—renewing(?) the kingdom’s morning sickness record.
But with the third, she started morning sickness at 5 weeks, yet by the 8th week, it stopped completely.
Secretly anxious, she had called a healer to check if she had perhaps miscarried, and only after hearing that the baby was growing very healthily could she feel relieved.
“Also, I strangely feel like my body is getting healthier. It’s not my imagination—my mana is really increasing. Only by tiny amounts, but steadily. It’s fascinating.”
“Mana… is it truly increasing?”
Jyupeto’s eyes widened.
* * *
While that conversation took place outside(?) Airi’s belly, Yuminhyeon was in a state on the verge of sleep, unable to overcome the surging drowsiness.
‘Hmm. Good. I finished my breathing exercises safely today as well.’
The reason Airi’s mana was gradually increasing.
It was none other than the effect of Yuminhyeon’s breathing exercises!
Yuminhyeon was not merely accumulating internal energy in his upper dantian through breathing exercises; he was also sharing qi with Airi—his mother—through the umbilical cord.
He was sharing it so that when the time came for her to give birth later, she could deliver him safely.
‘If I create my lower dantian before being born, I’ll grow up healthily… right……?’
Let’s just keep growing well like this.
Unable to withstand the crashing wave of drowsiness, Yuminhyeon fell asleep just like that.
And so, repeating his breathing exercises every day, eight months passed.
Combined with the previous eight weeks, a total of ten months had passed, and the time of birth was imminent.
* * *
“Baroness! Please push a little longer!”
“……!”
Airi bit her lower lip and pushed.
The old woman lifted the silk covering her lower body and checked the situation.
The head was slightly showing.
“It’s almost out. Just a little more, please push just a tiny bit more!”
“Aaack! You wicked brat!”
Unable to endure the pain, Airi grabbed Jyupeto’s hair with one hand and yanked.
“Urk!”
Jyupeto endured the pain of his hair being torn out and staggered.
Still, this time was better.
When their first was born, she had grabbed fistfuls of his hair with both hands, leaving two small bald patches on the back of his head.
The same happened when their second was born.
It was only because his hair had grown back before the third was born.
He had faced a crisis where the bald patches might have increased to four instead of three.
“Hey! You! Wicked……!”
Airi, who had been screaming a near-shriek, suddenly went limp.
Jyupeto staggered and tried to rush to her, but the old woman stopped him with a wave of her hand.
The old woman was a commoner; it would normally be unthinkable for her to dare stop a noble with a gesture, but at least when assisting a woman in childbirth, she wielded an unbridled authority that even the king would envy.
Now was precisely the time to wield that unbridled authority.
“I apologize.”
Jyupeto was aware of that fact as well, but when Airi suddenly went limp, he had approached her unconsciously.
He bowed his head slightly in apology and stepped back.
The old woman nodded that it was fine, then carefully pulled the newborn out from beneath the silk covering Airi’s lower body and wiped the blood away with warm water and a soft fur-lined cloth prepared in advance.
“Haa. Haa.”
Limp and exhausted, Airi looked at the bloodied little thing in the old woman’s hands.
Its eyes were still shut and its skin wrinkled, but to her eyes, it looked cuter and more precious than anything else in the world.
But.
“The baby, the baby isn’t crying.”
The old woman spoke with a slightly stiffened expression.
* * *
‘Holy cow. My head hurts.’
Yuminhyeon understood the feelings of Sun Wukong suffering in torment.
To escape into the outside world, his head had hurt as if being squeezed countless times.
If he could move his body, he would have crawled out, but his short arms and legs still wouldn’t move as he willed.
More than anything, he was worried that his mother—the one giving birth to him—might get hurt somehow, so he couldn’t do that.
Thanks to that, he had to endure for a long time like Sun Wukong suffering prolonged agony, and it felt like a full thirty minutes before he could finally slip out into the outside world.
‘Ha, being unable to move my body is truly frustrating.’
Finally born!
He spent more than half the day sleeping and used the remaining time to slip in breathing exercises.
He had thought he would go mad from the frustration.
The fresh air tickling his skin was a welcome sensation.
He wanted to smile, but the muscles around his mouth wouldn’t budge.
‘Who cares! It seems I was born safely, so that’s enough!’
Worried that there might be something wrong with his body, he checked with his Primordial Spirit.
It was very sturdy and healthy.
He just had to grow up healthy like this.
Soon, a towel soaked in warm water wiped his body.
‘For a towel, this is very soft. Hmm. I don’t know if this is the martial world or the modern world, but since I’m a newborn, I suppose they use the best possible towel so as not to damage my skin?’
Even if he had been reborn in a martial arts world rather than the modern one, it would be nearly impossible to find a towel with this kind of texture.
Unless one was born as the child of a high official, a wealthy magnate, a major sect, or a martial clan, it was impossible.
‘It’s best to be born into a wealthy family.’
In the modern world, being born to good parents was considered a skill of its own.
It was no coincidence that terms like golden spoon, silver spoon, and dirt spoon were born.
The martial world was no different from modern times.
People with outstanding martial talent—the talent to learn martial arts—would often be born as dirt spoons and live ordinary lives, or as henchmen to thugs.
There were cases where they caught the eye of a martial arts expert and were accepted as disciples, but that was literally a case of extreme luck.
Of course, Yuminhyeon wouldn’t have minded even if he were born as a dirt spoon.
He could just keep training in martial arts and earn tons of money as an adult!
Since he had been training in martial arts before even being born, it was certain he would become an incredible expert.
Perhaps because of his experience of having risen from nothing twice—once in the modern world and once in the martial world—he thought things would be even less difficult now that he was born with his memories intact.
Still, it was only natural that being born with a golden or silver spoon would be nice.
‘Huh? My vision is blurry.’
He wanted to open his eyes and look around.
If possible, see the faces of his parents.
But his eyelids were as heavy as a thousand-pound weight.
After struggling to open them with great effort, the world looked hazy.
And then.
Slap!
Someone smacked his bottom.
‘Aack!’
Yuminhyeon forcefully swallowed the scream that tried to burst out.
His pride(?) as a man would not allow him to scream over a mere slap on the bottom.
But soon.
Slap! Slap!
A voice seemingly belonging to an unknown(?) old woman said something in an incomprehensible language and then smacked his bottom fiercely several times in a row.
‘I-I can’t take it!’
Unable to endure, Yuminhyeon spat out a scream.
But it was strange.
“Waah, waah, waah-!”
What burst out was not a scream, but a baby’s cries.
‘Good heavens! How embarrassing!’
Perhaps because he was born with the mental age of fifty-seven, he felt excruciatingly embarrassed.
* * *
“Waah, waah, waah-!”
“Phew.”
The old woman wiped away the beads of sweat dotting her forehead.
A newborn has never breathed with its lungs while inside the mother’s womb.
Surrounded by amniotic fluid, it had lived for months in an environment akin to aquatic life, like a fish living in water.
Therefore, crying is the signal that it has begun breathing with its lungs.
What happens if a newborn is born but does not cry?
It simply dies.
The reason they strike the bottom or soles of a newborn is precisely for the reason above.
That was why the old woman had broken out in a cold sweat.
She had experience delivering nearly a hundred children in the Perian estate, but if she were to let a noble’s child die in stillbirth, the old woman herself would not be safe.
Of course, Jyupeto was not an unreasonable noble who didn’t know the circumstances, but one never knew.
She might be expelled from the Perian estate where she had lived her whole life.
Fortunately, the baby burst into tears only after being smacked five times on the bottom; otherwise, she nearly would have died of fright before being expelled.
“A very healthy and sturdy boy.”
The old woman could not hide her exhausted expression.
She felt like going back and sleeping the whole day immediately, but she had to hand the child over to the parents first.
“You’ve… worked hard. I will reward you generously; you shall not be left wanting.”
“Heh heh. Thank you.”
The old woman did not even pretend to refuse.
It was bad manners to refuse a noble’s words, but truly, she had never suffered such mental exhaustion as she had today.
Jyupeto received the third child from the old woman’s hands and watched as she left through the door.
There, outside the door, he saw their first, a six-year-old son, and their second, a four-year-old daughter, standing tense with their fists clenched.
“Come in. This is your younger sibling.”
The son and daughter cautiously entered.
Before showing the newborn to the two children, he first placed Yuminhyeon into the arms of Airi, who had managed to gather some strength and sit up.
“Precious…”
Airi mumbled as she looked at the wrinkled, bloodied little thing with bloodshot eyes from pushing so hard.
Those wrinkled folds looked beautiful to her.
The tummy that rose and fell with every flare of its tiny nose was adorable.
This was her third childbirth, but the emotions she felt each time were new.
She was reminded once again of the preciousness and mystery of life.
Thinking that she had carried this tiny yet great bloodied little thing for ten months made it feel so precious and lovely.
“Little one. I am your mother.”
Airi embraced the bloodied little thing’s body as carefully as possible, worried that it might break.
* * *
Yuminhyeon’s vision was hazy, and he could see nothing.
He could only feel that something warm was holding him.
Perhaps that was why?
A single worry filled his mind.
‘Ah, I hope my face isn’t swollen.’
Ideally, he wanted to make a good impression on his parents seeing him for the first time.
But since he had burst out crying, his face might be so puffy it was twice as large.
‘They say a man cries only three times in his life.’
The first is when he is born…
Yuminhyeon was startled.
‘Isn’t that exactly right now?’
Indeed.
Because he had been practicing his breathing exercises since inside the womb, he had forgotten—he had just been born.
‘Then it was okay to cry.’
Smirking inwardly, Yuminhyeon surrendered his body to the wave of drowsiness.