586. Life with a Daughter
Waking up groggy, Ning Chu hazily stared at the ceiling.
She yawned and reached out to feel the edge of the bed but grasped at nothing.
“Wen Yang…” she mumbled hoarsely, trying to roll over and curl up, but as soon as she lifted her legs, the pain from below halted her movement.
Furrowing her brows, she instinctively wanted to touch her wound, but from the living room came the sounds of a baby crying.
Right… I’m a mom now…
It felt surreal, almost like stepping into another world after just a few days.
Ning Chu’s drowsy brain finally clicked, and in the next moment, a wave of anxiety swept over her. She hurriedly flipped out of bed, barefoot, and rushed to open the door.
“What’s wrong?! Is she hungry?!”
In the living room, her mother was pacing with her granddaughter in her arms. Hearing the question, she looked up to see her disheveled daughter rushing toward her.
“Slow down, you’re not fully healed yet,” her mother chuckled, handing the baby over to Ning Chu. “She’s hungry; Wen Yang is heating up milk in the kitchen.”
“I’ll feed her; no need to heat it up…”
Ning Chu skillfully cradled the baby, turning her back to her mother and gently soothing her. “Shuqin~ don’t cry~”
She was doing surprisingly well; unlike Yan Xinya, who always struggled with milk production after giving birth and had to rely on formula (even her daily fish soup didn’t help), Ning Chu was only on her third day and already had enough milk to store away, giving her more time to rest—no need to wake up in the middle of the night to feed.
Maybe having a larger chest really helped?
After satisfying the baby, her drowsiness completely faded away. Ning Chu plopped onto the sofa, laid her daughter across her lap, and smiled while playing with her.
“Mom, don’t you think her eyes look like mine? Her nose is a bit like Wen Yang’s.”
Her mother, sitting nearby, teased, “You were the first to say she was ugly.”
“Well, isn’t she cute now? She was pretty ugly at first~”
Wen Yang yawned as he strolled out of the kitchen, clearly suffering from last night’s long hours with the baby and sporting heavy dark circles under his eyes.
“The milk is ready.”
“You drink it; Shuqin has been fed.”
“I…” Wen Yang awkwardly glanced at his mother-in-law, then switched the subject. “Do you think this name is a bit outdated? We could reconsider; we still have a month.”
But his mother-in-law seemed unfazed by Wen Yang’s apparent desire to drink milk instead of letting the baby have it. She turned her attention back to Ning Chu.
“I think it sounds lovely! Better than those overly common names, right?” Ning Chu muttered, slightly doubtful. “I thought long and hard about it…”
Wen Yang, standing nearby, leaned down to examine their daughter lying on Ning Chu’s lap, secretly doubting her naming abilities.
Looks like my wife’s naming skills really don’t have any credibility…
Just look at the names in that book “Little Emperor Wen,” all those double names like Lily, Qian Qian, Wen Wen; she must have exhausted her brain cells thinking of those.
“Honey, how long is your maternity leave?” Ning Chu suddenly lifted her head to ask.
“Fifteen days. During this time, I’ll handle the nights, and you and Mom can take turns during the day.”
“Won’t that mess up your biological clock?”
Wen Yang smiled and shook his head. “I fall asleep fast and sleep lightly. If I get woken up to deal with something, I can go right back to sleep. You, on the other hand, wake up and stay up all night.”
“Just two days out of the hospital; I need to rest well. You handle the nights.”
With their daughter just born, life now revolved around eating and sleeping, and she could sleep almost twenty hours a day, so there was no worry about losing her.
“That works. Just make sure to rest up.”
Ning Chu felt a bit fidgety. She placed the baby in the cradle and hurried to the bedroom.
“What are you doing?”
“You go get…” she began but then lowered her head and dashed into the kitchen, grabbing a milk storage bag and quickly slipping back into the bedroom.
Her daughter wasn’t eating enough, which made her chest hurt.
These last few days, Wen Yang’s meals had become more abundant. It seemed to taste pretty good without any of the notorious fishy smell; maybe because she was a succubus.
It had been two or three days since they came back from the hospital, but Ning Chu still struggled to adapt to this new life.
It felt like her world revolved around her daughter now. She worried if she couldn’t see her, and whenever she heard a cry, she tensed up. Even the intimacy with Wen Yang had dwindled—a mix of recovering from her wounds and not wanting him to have any bad thoughts, plus she was entirely invested in their daughter.
When she stepped out of the bedroom again, though, her mother was nowhere to be found.
“Where’s Mom? Did she go back?”
“Probably busy?” Wen Yang handed the baby back to Ning Chu and picked up a comb. “Want me to help you with your hair? Look at it; it’s a mess.”
“It’s still oily… I haven’t washed my hair in days.”
Ning Chu, holding the baby, lowered her head to sniff her collar and scrunched her lips in disgust, turning her back to Wen Yang. “Be gentle.”
“Okay.”
Wen Yang only combed through a few strands, and already a massive clump of black hair was stuck to the comb. He paused for a moment as if nothing had happened, casually tossed the hair into the trash, and covered it with some more garbage.
Ning Chu was completely oblivious, lazily leaning against Wen Yang while cradling the sleeping baby, gently rocking, and sweetly coaxing her, “Call mommy~ mommy~”
“She’s only a few days old; how could she talk?”
“You have to hear a lot to learn!” Suddenly, she yelped and angrily slapped Wen Yang’s thigh. “Be gentler! That hurts!”
“I’m already being very gentle…”
Ning Chu hummed in response, holding the baby while her thoughts began to wander. “Honey, do you think she’ll be beautiful when she grows up?”
“Of course! We have great genes, remember?”
“Being too pretty can be bad, though; she’s a succubus, and could easily get led astray.”
She sighed anxiously, “That’s why I kinda prefer having a boy, though. Being a little rough is fine; a boy can take a hit. If he doesn’t study well, it’s okay; he can just go work on a construction site—he won’t starve.”
Her thoughts were all over the place, then she asked suddenly, “What if we have another son? Only children can be so lonely, right? They could support each other when they grow up, and if something happens to us, they’ll have someone to lean on.”
Wen Yang couldn’t help but laugh. “Aren’t you afraid of the pain? Just a couple of days ago, you said you’d never have another kid again and were crying in the hospital.”
But Ning Chu froze for a moment, shook her head. “I’ve kinda forgotten how much it hurt…”
Maybe the pain hit its peak, and by the time she was in the delivery room, she was so numb from the agony that even now, she couldn’t accurately recall how intense it had been.
It was as if her brain had shielded her from that memory.
“I was just kidding! We don’t have the money for two kids!”
Ning Chu wiggled her hips, shifting into a more comfortable position against Wen Yang’s chest.
But then her lower back felt a warm sensation, her tail brushing up against him, sending tingles through her that made her want to nuzzle up a bit more.
“Stop it.” Wen Yang restrained the feisty succubus.
“I’m so tired; the baby is asleep again.” Ning Chu glanced down at her daughter snoozing in her arms. “And Mom isn’t here…”
As she spoke, her tail began to playfully tease Wen Yang’s nerves, lightly caressing his lower abdomen.
“I’m hungry~”
