Stroking the woman's sweat-dampened hair, the old man felt a pang of surprise.
Today, Shen Xue was so proactive that he could barely keep up.
Normally, he would be the one dominating, and it was only after Shen Xue begged for mercy repeatedly that he would happily embrace her and fall asleep.
But today, the woman's intensity stirred an ineffable feeling in Chen Yang's heart.
She was clearly hiding something!
Especially while watching the movie, Shen Xue's emotions were very unsettled.
At that time, he had thought it was because Shen Xue was too happy about building the house. But the usually shy woman's frenzied passion tonight was almost too much for him to handle.
Shen Xue's uncharacteristic behavior only strengthened Chen Yang's suspicion.
"Wife, is something bothering you?"
He held her close, gently wiping the fine beads of sweat from her forehead.
"Chen Yang, let's have another child."
Shen Xue looked at Chen Yang, her face still flushed, clearly not yet recovered from their earlier state. She was like a budding red rose, utterly captivating.
Under normal circumstances, hearing her words, Chen Yang would have been ecstatic.
However, the more abnormal Shen Xue acted, the more Chen Yang felt something was wrong.
"Silly girl, don't keep anything bottled up. Tell me. I'm your man. If the sky falls, I'll catch it for you."
Chen Yang held the woman who was wriggling closer to him like a little snake, radiating warmth. He didn't want Shen Xue to keep her worries to herself; her sadness pained him too.
Hearing Chen Yang's words, Shen Xue froze.
She looked into Chen Yang's eyes, and suddenly, plink, plink, tears streamed down her face uncontrollably.
"Don't cry, don't cry."
"Tell me what's wrong, and we'll face it and solve it together."
"We've gotten through tougher times, what difficulty can defeat us now?"
Seeing his wife's eyes instantly red with tears, Chen Yang panicked.
He fumbled to wipe her tears, but the more he wiped, the more she cried.
Chen Yang tried everything he could, but Shen Xue's tears flowed like a breached dam, unstoppable.
She choked back sobs, almost unable to breathe, before finally stopping.
"Chen Yang, if you hadn't become successful and made money, I would have taken this secret to my grave."
"I've wronged you, and I've wronged your Chen family."
Before Chen Yang could react, Shen Xue knelt before him.
At this moment, Chen Yang was dumbfounded.
What was his silly wife doing?
If he didn't know her character, Chen Yang would have suspected that Shen Xue had done something to betray him with another man.
But he knew that was absolutely impossible.
A woman who was willing to divorce him and raise their daughter alone for his future – how could she possibly do anything to betray him?
"Wife, please, tell me what's going on. You're killing me with worry."
Chen Yang rushed to help Shen Xue up, but she stubbornly remained kneeling before him, refusing to move.
"I, I lost our child."
Shen Xue seemed to muster all her strength to utter these words.
After saying them, her body felt so weak she almost collapsed. If Chen Yang hadn't held her, she would have fallen.
"Wife, what are you talking about? Our precious little cotton-padded jacket is right there, look how soundly Yan Yan is sleeping."
Chen Yang glanced at the little baby sleeping soundly in the crib beside them, and his heart suddenly skipped a beat.
The child was lost? Then who was Yan Yan?
At this moment, the old man's heart began to race with panic.
But he couldn't believe it. He refused to believe Shen Xue would do anything to betray him.
"Chen Yang, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"I lost our other child."
Looking at the baby, Shen Xue clutched her chest.
They say a child is a piece of a mother's flesh, born from ten months of gestation. How could she not feel the pain in her heart?
"Wife, what are you talking about?"
"We only have Yan Yan, where did another child come from?"
Hearing Shen Xue's words, Chen Yang quickly touched her forehead. She didn't have a fever. Why was this silly woman talking such nonsense, especially since she hadn't had anything to drink today?
He might not be sure about other things, but he knew for certain that his wife had been a virgin on their wedding night. He wasn't so foolish as to not see it.
Since they got married, Shen Xue had only been pregnant once.
No matter how much of a scoundrel he had been and how neglected his family was, he would still know if his wife had been pregnant for ten months.
"Chen Yang, I'm not joking."
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have given our other child away."
Having confessed, Shen Xue seemed less hesitant than before.
"I was pregnant with twins."
"We have another child."
Shen Xue's words struck Chen Yang's heart like a thunderbolt, a lightning strike.
He, he had another child?!
This was a secret Chen Yang had never known in both his lives!
"Why, why?"
Chen Yang looked at Shen Xue, unable to believe it.
Having twins was nothing shameful, so why had he never known about it? Why had Shen Xue given their child away?
"It rained for several days straight, and the Liu River overflowed. That night, you went to reinforce the riverbank."
"That year there was a famine, and many people in the village starved. That child was born later and was congenitally weak."
"The doctor said that the baby needed to be kept in the hospital for careful observation, otherwise he wouldn't survive. But given our situation, I didn't even have one yuan to spare."
"I couldn't just watch him die."
Shen Xue's face was etched with pain. At that time, her father and Chen Yang had been drafted by the village to reinforce the riverbank. The Liu River had flooded, and if the embankment wasn't reinforced, the entire Shen family village would be displaced.
Coincidentally, that night her water broke. It was her first birth, and she was in so much pain she was almost unconscious, but the baby wouldn't come out. It was her mother who pushed a cart and rushed her to the hospital in the pouring rain.
That night, her life was almost lost.
She almost died making her way to the hospital in the rain. The baby wouldn't come out, and she had practically walked through the gates of hell.
Fortunately, heaven had eyes. A highly skilled obstetrician happened to be stationed at the Liu River County Hospital. When all the doctors at the county hospital were helpless, she put down her mop, put on a surgical gown, and pulled Shen Xue back from the brink of death.
Their daughter was born smoothly, but the son born afterward, perhaps because he was the last one and hadn't developed well in the womb due to lack of nourishment, or perhaps because of the prolonged difficult labor.
The baby didn't cry when he was born, and his face was bluish-purple.
Although he was revived by the doctor, he needed to stay in the hospital for treatment, and she couldn't afford the fees. But if she didn't pay the medical expenses and took the baby home like this, the child might die.
Just before her, another woman who had given birth not long ago had a difficult labor and couldn't save her child. That family agreed that they would pay for the child's treatment.
But whether the child was cured or not, he would belong to that woman afterward.
As a mother, she couldn't stand by and watch her other child die.
Shen Xue agreed to the woman's terms, enduring the excruciating pain in her heart.
She had never told Chen Yang about this matter.
Poverty, it was all caused by poverty!
Now that she and Chen Yang had money, they would have bread and milk, but what about her and Chen Yang's child?
Shen Xue was filled with self-reproach. She was unfit to be a mother, and she had wronged that child!