Chapter 268:
The Xie Family’s attitude toward him had always been this cold, but Lu Ziyan didn’t take it to heart.
He only felt even more convinced of that outrageous guess in his heart.
—The woman inside truly had an unusually close relationship with his eldest brother-in-law.
He glanced at the door of the delivery room that had closed.
It was very quiet inside.
Yesterday’s cries had stopped, but with his keen hearing, he could still make out the midwives’ hurried footsteps, soothing voices, …and the rapid panting of the woman in labor as she suppressed her pain from beyond the door.
A familiar dull pain came from his chest once again, and Lu Ziyan frowned slightly.
He had long grown accustomed to this heart condition; now he could even derive a trace of pleasure from the pain.
There were many ways to punish himself, but the one he liked most was the pain from the tip of his heart.
Such direct, irresistible pain was what he deserved.
It reminded him at every moment just how much of a failure he was.
Having lived two lives, each more failed than the last.
Lu Ziyan closed his eyes and turned to leave.
But as soon as his foot crossed the threshold, Xie Yanyu hadn’t even caught his breath yet.
A cry of unbearable pain came from the delivery room, followed closely by the infant’s wail.
She gave birth!
“She gave birth!” In the delivery room, the midwife quickly wiped the child clean and said cheerfully, “Congratulations, Madam, it’s a healthy little young master.”
Xie Wanning didn’t know who was outside at that moment; exhausted after being tormented by the child all night, she barely managed to hear those words before her head lolled to the side and she fainted.
The midwives hurriedly tended to the fainted Xie Wanning.
The newborn baby had surprisingly good lung capacity, crying loudly and persistently.
Lu Ziyan, who had been about to leave outside, paused in his steps and turned back.
“Do you think this child came out just as I was about to leave because it was eager to see me?”
He raised his brow lightly, devoid of his previous world-weary air, instead brimming with rare enthusiasm.
Even the composed Xie Yanyu couldn’t help but change expression upon hearing this, actually finding the plague god’s words reasonable.
He was about to leave on his front foot, and the child was born on his back foot.
If that wasn’t an intention to ask him to stay, what was it?
Meanwhile, Ji Chengfeng, the child’s “birth father,” smiled insincerely and said, “Your Highness is joking.”
Lu Ziyan couldn’t be bothered with their thoughts and directly ordered, “Bring the child out for me to see.”
No one dared to defy such an order.
The midwife soon brought the child out.
The baby in the swaddling clothes was fair and tender; its eyes weren’t even open yet, and it was wailing with its mouth wide open.
The three men crowded around.
The newborn baby looked more or less the same.
It was impossible to tell who it resembled.
Xie Yanyu looked lovingly at his little nephew for a moment, then raised his eyes to see the plague god beside him; the usual cold severity in his eyes was gone, replaced now with pure tenderness.
At this moment, he thought of father-son nature.
Even someone like Lu Ziyan, who had killed countless and nearly lost all humanity, would still be swayed by blood ties when unaware that it was his own child, softening at a single glance.
He thought for a moment and said, “Since there’s this connection, why doesn’t Your Highness hold the child?”
The words were abrupt, yet Lu Ziyan actually reached out his hand.
But just as the child was about to be handed over, he withdrew it.
“Never mind,” he said, “I carry a body full of sin of killing; this child might not be able to bear it.”
Xie Yanyu was shocked once again.
These words were no different from saying he was a plague god who might affect the child.
Though he had always thought this man was a plague god, he hadn’t expected the man himself to be so self-aware.
Was this still the wild, untamed, supremely arrogant Lu Ziyan?
