Translator: Lala
Quality Check: Mukyuu
“Don’t move, Xiao Lei.” Lei Jue and Xiao Lingyu carefully walked to where Xiao Lei was lying on the ground. They didn’t dare to pull the fur on Xiao Lei’s underbelly up immediately, because they were worried that if Xiao Lei got up suddenly it would scare the little thing under him. So Lei Jue stroked Xiao Lei first, telling him to stand up slowly.
Xiao Lei was very cooperative. This was his first time ever getting up so slowly. After he got up, he followed Lei Jue’s directions and stayed still. It was then that Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue caught sight of the little baby that had been hidden under Xiao Lei’s belly—the bona fide eldest child of the Xiao family’s latest generation, Xiao Xiao.
Xiao Xiao had a head of thick black hair. There was a green sprout, smaller than a pinky finger, on the top of his head too. He was curled up on the ground with his butt stuck up in the air, his eyes closed. His tiny chest, a pale pink color, rose and fell. He looked like he was deep asleep.
The only problem was that he was a bit too small; he looked about forty centimeters tall at most, but even so, Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue’s hearts melted into puddles. Xiao Lingyu stooped down, happiness swelling up within his eyes. He was so happy that he didn’t know where to put his hands.
Seeing this, Lei Jue gently lifted up the child, catching sight of the object between the kid’s legs. It wasn’t small at all. He shot a side glance at Xiao Lingyu, his tone a little sour as he said, “Is this even inheritable?”
Although it was merely a newborn, from the looks of it, it had a solid foundation for growth!
Xiao Lignyu smiled as he gently, very gently, stroked his son’s cheek. “Little thing, you scared the wits out of your dad.”
Xiao Xiao felt the warmth and moved, lightly humming. His small fist, looking like a tangyuan[1], was still clenched very tightly. He did not open his eyes, merely wriggling his small body before humming again.
“Could it be that he’s cold?” Xiao Lingyu asked.
Lei Jue had never raised a kid before, he didn’t know anything about them. Seeing that the child was burrowing into his embrace, he hurriedly walked inside. “Didn’t mum bring us some small square blankets when she visited? Bring one out.”
Xiao Lingyu opened the cupboard and pulled out the nearest one, a light blue one, and then spread it out on the bed following Lei Jue’s instructions. He then asked, “What do we do? Do we give him a bath first?”
Lei Jue observed the child. His body was very clean, without the amniotic fluid and other substances human babies were born with. He also looked very healthy, so Lei Jue put the child down on the blanket before bringing the edges over him and wrapping him up again. “Let’s leave the bath for later. What if we mess up, and he catches a cold?”
Xiao Lingyu nodded, little lost in thought at the way Lei Jue held his son like holding a delicate ceramic object.
As if the same thought had come into his mind too just then, Lei Jue raised his head too and met Xiao Lingyu’s gaze.
The couple stared at each other for a moment, before abruptly turning to look at the child.
This was seriously their son, then?!
As if they were finally coming to terms with this, the two simultaneously let out a small gasp.
This morning really had been too hard on their nerves; just as they thought they had lost their kid, they found him fast asleep on the ground. But how exactly did he fall?!
Seeing that the child was sleeping peacefully within his arms, Lei Jue asked, “Has your communicator gone back to normal yet? If it’s functioning, can you ask Carrera what happened?”
It was all too strange. He was such a small child, so how did he do that? Crawl? If not, then how else did he get under Xiao Lei’s belly?
Perhaps because the child had gotten his electric abilities under control once Lei Jue picked him up, their communicators had gone back to normal now. Xiao Lingyu immediately asked Carrera to replay the important parts from last night’s recordings once his communicator started up again.
An image was projected onto the white walls. Lei Jue and Xiao Lingyu held their child as they watched intently. They saw the little fruit swing about like its life depended on it, and, upon reaching the summit of a swing, it suddenly fell and landed on the net. The net was seemingly successful in protecting the fruit.
Only seemingly, however, because what happened next was impossible to make out, as the screen had gone black.
“My apologies, sir. I was just about to send you a message when the communicator shut automatically.” Carrera said, “After that, I waited in your aircraft, until now.”
“I understand. This isn’t your fault.” Xiao Lingyu replied, “First, quickly activate our security measures against outsiders. You must be sure to report to me the approach of an outsider as soon as it happens.”
“Yes sir.” Carrera fell silent after speaking.
Xiao Lingyu recalled how that net had been completely undamaged. “Could it be that our son has some other ability aside from metal elemental abilities? How else was he able to get down from the net?”
Lei Jue gently touched the small sprout on the boy’s head, and realized that, although it looked like only a small sprout, it was quite sturdy, and not something that would fall off with a prod or two. Relieved, he stroked it a few times. “Perhaps. He is our child after all, I wouldn’t be surprised no matter how much of a freak he turns out to be.”
Xiao Lingyu felt quite at a loss for words at the ‘freak’ description. But he knew too that his and Lei Jue’s powers were indeed just a little bit…
“What use is there in thinking so hard about it?” Lei Jue spoke up again, “No matter what, the most important thing is that he arrived safely.”
“You’re right.” It was just that, being unable to understand how it happened was inevitably a bit worrying.
Xiao Lingyu stroked his son’s hair, and repeated Lei Jue’s words in his head—No matter what, the most important thing is that he arrived safely.
He was right. What use was there in so much worrying?
But just when Xiao Lingyu thought it might be difficult to find the answer, his son showed him just how it happened through actions—or rather, his son used his actions to tell Xiao Lingyu just how ridiculously freakish he was.
He electrocuted Lei Jue.
Lei Jue had been holding his child at the time and wondering whether he should prepare something to eat for him beforehand, so that his son would not go hungry when he woke up. Right as he was doing so however, he saw his son pucker up his lips, and, with a loud ‘WAHH—’, began wailing, as if he had been put through immense suffering. When he cried, the sprout on his head straight up wilted, as lifeless as if all the moisture had been sucked out of it. Accompanying the situation came an attack too, as strong as an actual strike of lightning!
Lei Jue felt like his arms had lost all sensation from being electrocuted. There was a burnt smell coming from his body too.
Intense pain, something he had not felt in ages, swept through him. He even forgot to react, from the sensation of being fried so hard that he stopped breathing for a moment.
And, right when his self-reparation abilities kicked in, he saw his newborn son let out an immense ball of healing energy. This energy was much, much purer than Lei Jue’s, and very rich. His wounds only took up to five seconds to heal with its help, so fast it made him suspect whether he had even been fried just then at all.
Xiao Lingyu’s jaw almost hit the ground in surprise. Right after coming out, his son had not only messed up the communicators with his strange electric surge, he had even released an elemental power that was scarier than Lei Jue’s! Even more shocking was that the strange attack and healing didn’t stop with just that. When Lei Jue’s wounds had almost fully healed, the little brat let out another attack, before healing him again!
With this, it would appear that the kid most likely crawled onto the ground by himself, but wasn’t injured by the fall.
Lei Jue was currently experiencing agony one moment and then comfort the next. The contrast in sensations was even stronger than when he and Xiao Lingyu made love!
Xiao Lingyu quickly took the child into his arms. “It’s probably better for me to hold him. Are you still in pain?”
Lei Jue’s expression looked worse than it would if he had eaten a turd. “Didn’t you realize that I wanted to pass him to you the whole time, but my arms wouldn’t listen to me?!”
He was happy that his son was powerful, but this was too much! How was he supposed to hold him in the future?!
Xiao Lingyu felt the electricity coursing nonstop from his son. He stood up and gently rocked the baby, asking Lei Jue whether he should get something to eat for the boy.
Lei Jue’s brain had almost stopped working from the shocks. Hearing Xiao Lingyu’s question, he slapped his forehead and replied, “I’ll go heat up the milk.”
Xiao Lingyu let him. He walked around while holding the child, and when he once again felt the electricity coursing into him, he tried releasing a small current in reply to the naughty little demon.
Xiao Lingyu didn’t expect the casual test to actually work! After detecting a sense of familiarity from his father’s reply, the child abruptly stopped crying. He chewed on his tiny fist with his unadorned gums, staring dazedly at his father.
Seeing that the baby wasn’t crying anymore, Xiao Lingyu once again tried sending a weak current through his son’s body—metal elemental users were born immune to them.
As he predicted, the child in his arms let out a sudden, happy gurgle, and the sprout on his head stood to attention once again, as if it had drunk its fill of water. The child even sent a current back.
Xiao Lingyu felt the numb tickle again, and then ‘hit back’ at his son, tickling his little feet. “Naughty child,” he laughed.
And just like that, the pair began playing together. Meanwhile, Lei Jue was studying how to heat up the instant baby milk that Luo Yuling had gotten someone to send over. After he finished heating it, he unscrewed the lid slightly and dripped a little on the back of his hand to test the temperature, before pressing the feeding bottle’s nipple gently against his child’s mouth.
He didn’t know who the inventor of this ‘instant baby milk’ was, but it was incredibly convenient. They were individually packed, and after heating the package for ten seconds, all he needed to do was twist the cap off, and there would be a single-use nipple within, making it very simple and easy to use.
Xiao Xiao stuck out his little tongue and licked at the nipple. He appeared to find it to his tastes, because not a moment later, he bit down on the nipple and started drinking.
Lei Jue motioned for Xiao Lingyu to take over. “You do it.”
God knew whether the milk packaging could conduct electricity!
Lei Jue definitely felt a bit wary of his son now. Despite his small size, and how he was soft everywhere, and how he really was very cute, his tantrums were no laughing matter. If Lei Jue had been a normal person, there was no doubt at all that he would’ve instantly turned to ash.
“Say, in the future, aside from you and I, who else would be able to hold him?” Lei Jue looked at his son, seemingly harmless while drinking his milk. “It can’t really be just the two of us, right?”
“Dad will definitely be able to.” Xiao Lingyu didn’t know how to feel about his son, although love was definitely a part of it. “But this is fine too. At least, like this, anyone who wants to take advantage of him won’t get away with it easily. Isn’t that right, my little darling?” With a smile on his face, Xiao Lingyu had only just finished asking when he felt something warm on the arm he was using to support the child from underneath.
“This is bad!” Lei Jue suddenly frowned.
“What’s wrong? Didn’t mum already bring us nappies?” Xiao Lingyu placed the child on the bed to change him into the nappy he found.
“Not that.” Lei Jue said. “It’s his seed. The seed for the mother tree.” Didn’t all Golden Fruit Clan children come with their own tree seed when they were born?! Where did Xiao Xiao’s go?
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[1] 汤圆: tang yuan: A type of food, a small ball of glutinous rice with some kind of sweet filling inside eaten during the Lantern Festival.