Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Li Yanchenâs desire for a baby was getting stronger every day.
Lin Wanâs words made sense, but he couldnât help feeling a little disappointed.
âYou can hire as many helpers as you want. When the children get married, they will live with their own families separately. There will be no conflict between you and the daughters-in-law. You can make the rules. The first rule will be that no one can disobey the mother-in-law,â said Li Yanchen.
âI donât want to,â said Lin Wan. âGiving birth makes people age faster. The skin becomes saggy.â Lin Wan made an excuse.
âWeâll be the same age then,â said Li Yanchen without thinking.
Lin Wan pretended to be angry. âI knew you were holding a grudge because of our age difference! You just want me to have a baby so I will look older, and you will feel more secure about your age, right?â
Li Yanchen was stunned. âDid I say something wrong?â he wondered.
âIf I can have children, I will.â He lowered his head. âScience has advanced. We can find another way to have a baby.â
Lin Wan was speechless. She didnât want to have a baby. Besides, she felt that Li Yanchen would start to be biased toward his sons if he had a child since he was already acting like this. She didnât want the children to feel left out, especially now since they knew that they werenât the biological sons of Li
Yanchen.
It was already sad that they lost both their parents. If Li Yanchen had a baby, and he ignored them, it would be like being abandoned not once but twice!
Lin Wan couldnât do it because she didnât want a baby. The other reason was that in these few months, she had seen how much the children cared for her and Li Yanchen. She didnât want to mess up that relationship.
She lay down on the sofa and closed her eyes. âXuanxuan and I had similar experiences growing up. Didnât you go back to my world? Did you learn nothing?â
Li Yanchen was silent for a while. âSo⦠Do you mean you canât have children in this world?â
âWhat?! No! I am as able as any woman in this world.â
âOh⦠go on.â Li Yanchen sat up straight.
âHave you ever wondered why I appeared at your place instead of anywhere else in this world?â Lin Wan thought about the conversation she had with Yang Ruoxi. âYou do remember that Yang Ruoxi also came from my world, right? I think that we receive whatever we lacked in our original world. My arrival, thus, also brought you what you lacked in this world.â
âI donât really understand.â Li Yanchen frowned.
âDonât interrupt me.â Lin Wan glared at Li Yanchen. âCould you just stay quiet and listen? Maybe you will understand then.â
âThe parallel world makes up for the shortcomings of other worlds. Our meeting in this world wasnât an accident. It was a necessity! All five of us lacked love. We found each otherâ said Lin Wan.
Li Yanchen was still confused. âSo⦠what does that have to do with you having children in this world?â
âI already told you. I donât want a baby,â said Lin Wan. âIn my original world, I already decided I didnât want a baby. Being a mother seemed just too painful and difficult. However, I did want a family because I lacked love. That was why I ended up here. I met you and I now have three children. You are trying to go against my wish. If you insist and force me to have a baby, donât you think that would interfere with whatever rules there are and transport me back to my own world?â
Li Yanchen thought it all made sense. Every world seemed to have its own rules, and anything surviving in that world, whether humans, animals, or plants, had to abide by those rules.
âI wonât bring this up again, â he said. He wasnât prepared to lose Lin Wan.
âI know I am scaring you,â said Lin Wan. âBut there is another reason as well. You and Xuanxuan werenât on good terms before. Even now, you clash sometimes. Itâs not easy for children to adjust to new things. If another baby comes along competing for love from the family, the other children will feel distressed. I donât want them to feel abandoned. Sometimes, children can get over it. But in some cases, they become depressed when something like that happens.â Lin Wan remembered that Li Zexuan had issues in the original novel which stemmed from family problems. âThey are all children. Right now, they deserve all our love and attention.â
âXuanxuan would want a little sister too,â said Li Yanchen. âI will never treat any of them differently. I promise I will love them all equally no matter what happens.â
In the afternoon, Xiao Tianlin had been talking about how men in their 40s got insecure as they aged. Some asked him about adopted and biological children in the livestream. Xiao Tianlin thought that biological children were always more reliable than adopted ones. If the husband died, the adopted children could put their stepmother in the nursing home instead of taking care of her. Li Yanchen had been worried about that.
Xiao Tianlin didnât know that Li Zexuan and the others were not Li Yanchenâs biological children. But he did know for a fact that they werenât Lin Wanâs children. He told him that if Xia MO had a fight with him, she couldnât leave because they shared a child, Xiao Yi, so she would never abandon him. It would keep her tied to him.
Li Yanchen thought that if they ever had a serious fight, Lin Wan would just leave because she wouldnât have a child to tie her down to him.
âAre you serious?â asked Lin Wan.
âYes,â he said. He cupped her face in his hands. âBut I respect your wishes. If you donât want it, then I donât want it, too.â
âLet me⦠think about it, okay? I need time to think about it.â
The next morning, Li Zexuan got up and decided to make breakfast for everyone. He wasnât going to make porridge like his father. He wanted to cook some noodles.
He poured a bowl of cold water into a pot, then put in the noodles and left it to boil. By the time the water boiled, the noodles were all mushy.
When Li Zexuan opened the lid of the pot, he was shocked to see that the noodles were all soggy. They didnât turn out like those cooked by Auntie Huang. The noodles she cooked were always tasty. They didnât look soggy as his.
âCould it be because I used less water?â
He added two more bowls of water to the pot. He took out a porcelain bowl and scooped the noodles out. Some parts of the noodles were a lumpy mess, while others had just broken apart.
He raised his chopsticks and tried a bit of the noodle. He almost spat them out.
When his father made porridge, he added water and rice together. It always turned out well. So, why was this not working?
Li Zexuan couldnât figure it out. He took the bowl of noodles and went to Xiao Yiâs house.
Xiao Yi was still in bed. Li Zexuan showed the bowl of noodles to Xia MO and asked what he had done wrong. She told him that the noodles had to be put into the pot only after the water had boiled.
Li Zexuanâs head drooped down. He had woken up to make breakfast for everything. He had not only failed but also wasted a roll of noodles. âI will eat this. Ms. Lin said itâs shameful to waste food.â
âHow will you eat this? Noodles cooked in cold water will taste soggy and bland. The pigs in the pigsty havenât eaten yet. Just give it to them.â
âAlright,â he said. âThank you, Auntie Xia..â