“Get lost.” The pain was so bad I was falling apart—where was I supposed to find a lady’s poise?
“Why do you care so much?”
Time ticked by slowly. I’d bitten my lips countless times to keep from making a sound. Even with Su Liumeng beside me talking, I was almost at my limit, drenched in sweat, my words just a whisper, “Su, Su Liumeng, c-could you check how dilated I am now?”
“Ah—”
My words came out in broken fragments, my hand clutching the bedsheet below, a cry of agony slipping out.
“You’re at three centimeters.”
My eyes brimmed with pain—never had time crawled so slowly.
Only the faith in my heart kept me from giving up long ago.
Why did it hurt so much?
“How is it only three centimeters? How long has it been?”
“Just two and a half hours,” Su Liumeng checked the time.
“Fetal data is all normal,” Chunqiao, like a clock, gave her regular report.
“Eat something first.” Su Liumeng brought over some chocolate to my lips.
I turned my head away, “I don’t want to eat. I have no appetite.”
“Eat a little, you need your strength.”
“Come on… be good, open your mouth.”
I really didn’t have the strength to speak anymore and could only open my mouth.
It wasn’t tasty, but I swallowed it whole.
Outside the delivery room in the obstetrics ward of First Hospital.
When Shangguan Xiyue heard Xiaoyan’s first scream, her heart leapt to her throat and she sprang up, pacing the hospital corridor.
“How’s it going now?”
“What’s the situation?”
Shangguan Xiyue was nearly frantic. It was her first time seeing a friend give birth.
She had no experience at all.
……
“Su Liumeng, how many centimeters now?”
I was already out of breath, and it was getting more and more painful.
I, who barely had any strength, now spoke with a near-scream.
“Wipe your sweat.” Su Liumeng wiped my forehead and cleaned my body.
“Just reached five centimeters.”
I closed my eyes in despair, not wanting to know how many hours had passed.
At this rate, if it didn’t take at least ten hours, there’d be no way to deliver Zhizhi.
After that.
I didn’t even have the strength to ask anymore. Mostly I just kept screaming.
Exhausted by the screaming, I’d lay down for a bit, then scream again.
If I didn’t cry out to vent, I doubted I could stay conscious.
Pain—
It really hurt—
I swear.
This was the most painful thing I’d ever experienced.
So painful I never wanted to go through it again.
If not for the resolve in my heart, I’d have given up long ago.
Is this… the source of motherly love?
A sudden clarity hit me like a dream.
Even if there was a second time, knowing it was my own baby, I’d still make the same choice.
Time slipped away to the sound of my occasional screams.
I’d lost all sense of time.
The pain was so intense, I couldn’t think at all, nor did I care how long it had been—just a stubborn will was left inside me.
I had to deliver Zhizhi.
“The last ultrasound showed no sign of umbilical cord around the neck, so asphyxiation shouldn’t be an issue. Fetal position is normal, best for natural delivery,” Chunqiao repeated from the charts.
At last, some good news.
Su Liumeng said simply, “Now you’re at ten centimeters. In the second stage, you need to work with the contractions and push as hard as you can to get the baby out.”
“The baby might be a bit big, hope her head doesn’t get stuck.”
……
That string of dots was all I had left.
Can’t you say something nice?
Maybe Su Liumeng was my other source of resolve. My scattered mind could only mechanically follow her orders.
With every wave of brutal screams, labor continued.
Blood had already begun to soak through the sheets.
An hour passed with no progress.
I was almost out of strength, my face deathly pale, eyes half-open as I stared into space, feeling like the end was near.
“No, it’s not coming out,” Su Liumeng was sweating buckets.
She wasn’t the one in labor, but she was exhausted.
“This must be almost eight jin—way more than we thought.”
“It’s a problem.” Even Su Liumeng’s fingers trembled.
I could feel the baby stuck, not descending at all.
The tearing pain left me wailing.
“Su Liumeng.”
“It hurts.”
“I… it hurts so much.”
“Cut me, I… just cut me.”
“Let me go, I really can’t hold on.”
It wasn’t cowardice.
I was truly at my limit.
My thoughts grew weaker, about to lose consciousness at any moment.
“Are you sure you want surgery?” Su Liumeng’s eyes were conflicted, afraid I’d regret it.
Her words shocked me awake.
No! I remembered my own promise, and suddenly another resolve welled up inside.
With what little strength I had left, a courage I’d never had before surged within me.
“No, don’t cut.”
I silently used my cultivation to shift something inside myself.
At last, I felt that downward movement again…
“It’s out!” Su Liumeng cried excitedly, “The head is out!”
I managed a smile, not telling Su Liumeng that I’d just used up my last bit of strength, “Su Liumeng, I might not make it…”
“Please… let me sleep a while.”
Suddenly, alarms blared in the monitoring room—shrill and piercing, making Su Liumeng’s face change.
A gush of blood thoroughly soaked the sheets.
“Postpartum hemorrhage.”
“Blood transfusion, now!!” Su Liumeng panicked for a second, but then forced herself to calm down and gave orders coolly.
But her trembling fingertips betrayed her true feelings.
Su Liumeng grabbed my arm, interlacing her fingers with mine, “Baby, don’t sleep yet, hang on just a bit longer, it’s almost over.”
“Okay.” I knew my own state, but still managed to say so.
Su Liumeng breathed a sigh of relief, handling the situation as she talked to me.
Listening to her muttering at my ear, my world grew quieter.
I forced a weak smile toward her, my vision growing completely blurred, “Su Liumeng, I have no regrets. Meeting you was my luck.”
“Please, take care of my daughter.”
I stretched my little hand toward her face.
The next moment, my arm fell limply.
Su Liumeng was still stopping the bleeding when she saw this, her pupils shrinking, “Xiaoyan!”
A massive tear, a terrifying amount of blood loss.
Pa—
Without hesitation, Su Liumeng shattered her necklace, taking out a jet-black pill.
The moment she took out the pill, the whole delivery room was suffused with a pleasant fragrance.
Her hands trembling, she tried several times to get the pill to Si Xinyan’s lips, but kept missing.
The alarm still blared.
Su Liumeng suddenly slapped herself on the left cheek, using the pain to regain control of her body.
After feeding the pill, the hemorrhage was finally staunched.
Watching the instruments return to normal, Su Liumeng finally smiled.
“Thank goodness.”
“I still had this one and only Grade Seven pill.”
The mother slipped into a coma, but labor continued.
Because contractions would still happen automatically.
But without the mother’s cooperation, things were many times harder.
So, she could only wait for the mother to wake up.
Su Liumeng wiped the cold sweat from her brow, “Prepare oxygen, let the mother have some.”
Instead of pinching the philtrum, she brought out a silver needle and quickly stuck it into a few acupoints.
Half an hour later.
I finally drifted awake, still terribly weak.
Seeing I was alive, I was even a bit surprised.
I knew best what state I was in.
The moment I tore, I’d thought I was done for—never expected to wake up again.
Though I didn’t know what happened, I knew Su Liumeng must have done something, perhaps at a cost.
“It’s okay, you’ll succeed.”
“Baby, I believe in you,” Su Liumeng held my hand, giving me constant encouragement, a prayer in her eyes.
“Rest for a bit, then listen to my commands. When I say push, push. When I say rest, rest.”
“Mm.”
Another two hours passed.
“Mommy, baby’s going to sleep now.”
“You are the best, bravest mother in the world.”
“Your daughter will always love you.” That was a daughter’s natural devotion, an indelible imprint of blood, a relationship unchanged through time.
“Teach me to talk soon, and… don’t teach me weird things, I want my first word to be to Mommy.”
“Zhizhi can’t do much, but I’ll thank you this way.”
Hearing Si Zhiruo’s tearful voice, my heart ached.
With one last push.
At Chunqiao’s delighted announcement, I finally couldn’t hold on, my vision going black as I slipped into the deepest coma.
I didn’t even get to see my daughter before I lost consciousness.
Su Liumeng cut the umbilical cord, picked up the baby, and handed her out to Chunqiao, “Wipe her clean, then wrap her up.”
“The baby is healthy, fair and chubby. She doesn’t need to go in the incubator for now.”
Su Liumeng wiped her sweat again and handled the follow-up tasks.
The placenta hadn’t even been delivered yet.
No steps could be skipped, or it would be laughable.
After finishing everything, Su Liumeng cleaned up Si Xinyan and dressed her in fresh patient clothes, finally drawing back the curtain, “Monitor both baby and mother, and if there’s no problem after two hours, move them to a regular ward.”
After ten-plus hours of effort, Su Liumeng was utterly exhausted, slumping wearily into a chair.
Before her words even faded, countless silver dragons appeared in the sky, all striking at a single spot in the hospital.
Even though Si Zhiruo had thought of countless solutions—
She was still locked in place by the Heavenly Dao.
No one could escape the rules.
Returning from the dead was defying the heavens, already breaking the basic rules of the Dao.
Su Liumeng’s face changed, her gaze snapping to the quietly sleeping baby.
Because this was no ordinary baby. She could breathe right after birth, so Su Liumeng didn’t spank her as others did.
Rumble—
The scene was world-ending.
A vision of destruction only cultivators could see.
Suddenly.
The baby started giggling. It was Chunqiao’s first time hearing a newborn laugh minutes after birth. Faced with a tribulation that could destroy her, the baby just instinctively lifted her arms and legs, and a faint silvery halo appeared outside the delivery room. Its source was at the baby’s brow, where a delicate spot of light emerged, looking beautiful—almost like a faint, clear tear stain.
The instant the silver tear appeared, Heavenly Retribution suddenly stopped, as if losing its target, fading away in reluctant regret.
Under the rules, there were no true miracles.
Where destiny gathered, that was where miracles appeared.
The ambiguous connection Si Zhiruo always felt, nearing Si Xinyan’s final breakthrough, was actually an invisible thread of fate between them.
That faint tear stain, traversing countless ages, once again came into play.
That thread of fate was too faint to truly confront the Heavenly Dao.
Fortunately, Si Zhiruo was clever, choosing to sleep and masquerade as a true baby.
Thus, she dodged the greatest tribulation of returning to life.
In a sense, Si Zhiruo hadn’t been wrong—the process just differed a little.
She really did accomplish resurrection.
This time—
She was just Si Xinyan’s daughter.
Out of danger, a pale girl was wheeled into the ward, with a fair and chubby baby sleeping quietly in the crib beside her.
Eight jin, four liang.
A number far beyond the reach of normal people.
Placed beside the young girl, so that when she woke, the first thing she would see would be the daughter she fought so hard to bring into the world.
really touched that mc survived.