The Road Home

Chapter 40

Gui Xiao stepped up to the bedside, and a nurse placed a chair behind her.

She sat down only on the chair's edge so that she could be a little closer to him, and set her chin right beside his head on the white pillow, feeling that everywhere beside her ear was filled with the rumble of her own breathing, its rhythm distinct, at times heavy, at times light.

"I feel like we're still in school... and now I've given birth to your daughter." Her voice exuded a heavy nasal tone.

With great effort, Lu Yanchen lifted his arm and brushed his little finger against the corner of her eye. There was a sticky dampness. In his dazed state, it was as if he could even taste a slight saltiness on the tip of his tongue. "... Hurt so much you cried?"

Gui Xiao lay there beside his face, the end of her nose flaring ever so slightly. "Mm-hmm."

The sudden emotions that came over him choked up Lu Yanchen's throat, and the hospital room was quiet for five or six minutes.

She softly said, "I've been my dad's daughter for so many years but I've never gotten any special treatment from it for being a military dependent. You've got more face; you were able to let me get the green light to fly here. Otherwise, I would have only been able to take the train. Your daughter would have been born on the train... That would have been pretty fun, too. But I'm telling you now, I don't want to have this kind of special approval ever again in my whole life. We're going to agree to this now, okay? There really isn't going to be another time."

Previously, when she was seven months pregnant and flew to Kunming, the airline company had specifically looked over the little notebook containing the records from her prenatal check-ups and also reminded her to, as much as possible, try not to fly when she was beyond eight months of pregnancy. If she really did need to travel by plane, she would need a certification from the hospital to prove she was fit to fly. If it were too far into the pregnancy, though, even a hospital certification would be of no use because no one would dare to let her on board.

Gui Xiao had even been absolutely positive that she would not be doing any more long-distance travelling... Sure enough, you cannot have such thoughts. It was fortunate Xu Yao had accompanied her here.

On the same plane as her had been three or four others, all of them family of people who worked in foreign affairs. She had heard them weepingly say that their children were only in their twenties and had not even been in a relationship yet, but now they had already suffered injuries. For one of them, those were even serious injuries... Gui Xiao thought of her mother, who a few months ago had mentioned civilian evacuations. In war-prone countries, it is actually quite dangerous for those who work in diplomacy and foreign affairs. Their jobs are necessary, but when anything major happens, they are the last to be evacuated.

As Gui Xiao thought of this, she also grew worried. She wondered how those two young girls were doing.

However, afraid that Lu Yanchen might detect something, this thought had only just flashed through her mind before she switched to another. She said, "Let me tell you: You know how before you actually have the baby, you have to go in the labour room? There were a lot of people around me who had been in there for a whole night and some even for ten to twenty-something hours. The nurse attached the monitoring equipment to me and then left, thinking I'd be waiting in there for a while yet, like a slow boil." She was pouring out to him all the "hands-on" knowledge that she had just gained. "It was only two and a half hours, and then I was yelling, 'Nurse, nurse, the baby's coming!' The nurse thought I was just joking; my water hadn't even broken yet... But eventually when the nurse came and checked on me, she was shocked. And then a few people rushed over and wheeled me in and even called over a bunch of doctors and nurses to come look, saying that this was my first childbirth but my cervix had dilated really fast, even though my water hadn't even broken yet. So there I was, all teary and having the baby, and there they were, all happy and watching. Someone also asked about my medical history. Then someone said that I'm the spouse of a hero and I only came here at the last minute to have this baby. A young doctor went out to go grab my medical record, but he only managed to just step out the door and then I gave birth..." Before she finished recounting her story, Gui Xiao had already tickled herself with amusement.