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Cheng Yujin felt a pang of sadness in her heart. She leaned closer, put her head on Li Chengjing’s shoulder, and said: “Your Highness, there will be more people waiting for you to go home in the future.”
Li Chengjing smiled, and the hand holding Cheng Yujin’s hand tightened. There was no distance between the husband and the wife. Although there were no romantic words or intimate actions, they were the closest existence to each other. Li Chengjing’s gaze swept to the chessboard in the corner of the hall and suddenly said with a smile: “Yujin, do you remember how long the imperial physician said you have been pregnant?”
“A month and a half.” Cheng Yujin raised her head and asked suspiciously, “What’s with that?”
Li Chengjing pointed to the chessboard in the corner and smiled: “A month and a half. Counting the time, wasn’t it exactly the time we played chess?”
Cheng Yujin glared at Li Chengjing icily. Sure enough, the tenderness just now was an illusion. How could she expect this person to say something good!
However, Li Chengjing didn’t stop there. His smile deepened, as if recalling the events of that day: “It seems that once our child is born, we have to let him or her learn chess well. After all, this child is the prize I won from playing chess.”
Cheng Yujin was so angry that she wanted to hit Li Chengjing: “You dare to speak nonsense!”
Li Chengjing didn’t dare to let Cheng Yujin do physical work, so he quickly held Cheng Yujin’s hand and said: “You can hit me when you are angry, but you shouldn’t move too much now. Just bear it for now, okay? After the baby is born, you can hit me as much as you want.”
Seeing Li Chengjing so anxious, Cheng Yujin also didn’t dare to continue getting angry, for fear of accidentally harming the child. She took advantage of the situation and said softly: “You should be careful of your words. There is a child now. What to do if he or she hears your improper words?”
Inside, Li Chengjing wanted to retort. The child was still too young to understand their words, and in case he or she understood, wouldn’t it be too late to be careful now? However, Li Chengjing didn’t dare to go against Cheng Yujin now, so he was very obedient no matter what she said: “Yes, yes. You’re absolutely right.”
When Cheng Yujin saw how Li Chengjing obediently nodded despite clearly wanting to retort, she couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
…
For the next month and a half, Cheng Yujin became the most fragile and precious porcelain doll in the Eastern Palace. Whenever the palace servant saw her, their movements became much more careful, for fear that the dust blown by their breathing would hurt the Crown Princess. Cheng Yujin was made very helpless by this. Except for the discomfort on the first few days, she felt very good afterward. In any case, she wasn’t so fragile that she would get hurt when touched.
However, the main culprit was obviously Li Chengjing. Seeing how cautious Li Chengjing was, Cheng Yujin was helpless, and she had no choice but to go along with him.
Soon, it was the end of the fourth month, and it was also the day of the follow-up examination by Imperial Physician Zhao.
When the day came, Li Chengjing made sure that he returned earlier to accompany Cheng Yujin. The one whose pulse was being examined was Cheng Yujin, but Li Chengjing was much more nervous than her.
This time, Imperial Physician Zhao was much quicker. After examining the pulse on Cheng Yujin’s both hands for a while, he stood up and congratulated Li Chengjing, “Congratulations, Your Highness. The Crown Princess is indeed pregnant.”
Although Li Chengjing was already mentally prepared, when he really heard this sentence, his nervous heart, which had been hanging up for a month and a half, finally fell back to its place. He was in a trance at first, but soon overwhelmed with emotion. His eyes lit up, and his whole body exuded joy.
However, Imperial Physician Zhao’s expression told that there was something else he was hesitant to speak about. Li Chengjing was the best at capturing the smallest details. When he saw Imperial Physician Zhao’s expression, his heart froze.
From the corner of his eye, Li Chengjing glanced at Cheng Yujin, who was too immersed in the joy that she failed to notice Imperial Physician Zhao’s abnormal reaction. Li Chengjing didn’t say anything. He stood up and said: “Imperial Physician Zhao, can we go out and have a talk? Give us the precautions we need to be careful of during pregnancy.”
Having been working in the palace for so long, Imperial Physician Zhao immediately understood the Crown Prince’s intention. He followed Li Chengjing to the side hall. Li Chengjing waved his hand and dismissed all the servants before asking, “Is there anything wrong with the Crown Princess’ pregnancy?”
Imperial Physician Zhao sighed. With a heavy feeling, he replied: “Your Highness, the fetus in the Crown Princess’ belly is very well. However, they may be a bit too well.”
It was a strange way of expression. Li Chengjing frowned. His brows moved suddenly, and his eyes lit up: “You mean, she is pregnant with twins?”
Imperial Physician Zhao nodded silently. He stood respectfully by the side, maintaining his silence. Inside, he also felt very regretful. If it was an ordinary family, which one would not be overjoyed when the wife was pregnant with twins? But, when it came to the imperial family…
If Crown Princess gave birth to a pair of daughters, it would be fine. But if they were sons…it was a taboo.
Li Chengjing couldn’t help pacing back and forth. He was the Crown Prince, the Emperor’s eldest di son. His children were naturally also the direct heirs to the throne. If Cheng Yujin gave birth to a pair of daughters, it was a good omen worthy for the whole country to celebrate. But in the case of sons…
When the eldest di sons were twins, it would bring chaos to the matter of succession, which was a great taboo.
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Transmigrating into the Genius Cannon Fodder's Aunt
Thank you for updating!!!!
I’m thinking, what’s it called again… dragon-phoenix twins, I think? A boy-girl pair of twins would be great.
Thanks for the chapters!
I’ve wondered before if dragon-pheonix twins are considered lucky because there’s less potential for conflict lol.
I would be pissed if I lived in a society with strict older-younger sibling customs and I missed out on being the eldest son/daughter by like 5 minutes.
Yes! Dragon-Phoenix twins are considered auspicious because they are very rare
I always assumed it was because of the “opposites complete each other” principle. In one pregnancy, you have both yin & yang, male & female. They balance each other.
Though just look at Yujin/Yumo too see how twins of the same gender can go against each other. Yumo missed being eldest be a dozen minutes, and it poisoned her against her sister for life (amidst other factors).
With 2 of the same gender, add the fact that both need the same types of resources at the same times, which makes comparisons inevitable. If they’re eldest & second son, add inheritance issues to the mix. A couple minutes makes your inheritance reduce to half or less of what the twin gets? Guaranteed to cause drama.
This is interesting 🤔 Cnovels love to mention auspicious dragon-phoenix (fraternal) twins but this is the first time I’ve come across a story mentioning same sex twins and especially that boy twins are verboten 😳
Thanks for the chapter 🤞🏼
when i was younger i read some historical book about archaic custom and culture, some custom truly see twin boy as a bad omen. there’s even a custom in which the twin be raised separately in insolation until specific age and they will be sent to jungle to hunt and kill each other, the survivor will get the right to life ( ･ั﹏･ั)
an old custom in my birthplace also stated, twin different sexes mustn’t be allowed to grow together, it is believed that they were a fated lover from the past life so they should be separated b4 their feeling grow ¯\_ಠ_ಠ_/¯
yes, somehow twin girls wins the favor no matter whichever era 〜(꒪꒳꒪)〜
There’s another same sex twin in Chinese novel, but the father is in love with his wife and he is an orphan too, strong enough to face the storm so he didn’t apply such custom. However the logic why it was taboo in many empires (not only in China) was rather logical, at least according to the successions rules and the complication as well as the lack of knowledge about science in that era. It’s cruel but I can understand why they applied it.
Do you know the film played by Leonardo Di Caprio “The Man in the Iron Mask”?
The other twin was put in a secret prison and forced to wear a mask of iron, which can’t be taken off without a special lock.
The mask was necessary to not let public know that there is another person who looks identical to the king and can impersonate him without anybody noticing it.
The real king can be replaced without anybody knowing it. That’s the worries.
I supposed he was out in secret prison because the parent couldn’t bear to kill him,
But it was also possible that the other child was imprisoned as a back up plan in case the chosen heir is not good enough or had a sudden death.
But in fact… There must be a ruthless enough father who chose one baby and kill the other one. There might even be a mother who did that because she feared of people thinking that twins bring calamities so both of babies must be killed so she is forced to make the bitter choice and kill one personally then pretend as if there was only one baby with the help of her attendances.
There is at least another another possibility, that the second child is raised outside far from capital by others, as the common folks would never recognise the identical face anyway. Public couldn’t see the royal family face afterall.
This can be done if the parent is still rather kind and couldn’t bear to kill nor imprison one of their child.
It’s still so unfair and heartless, yes, especially since twins coming out of two eggs will not be identical, and as babies one can not know if it is an identical twins or fraternal one. They don’t have USG afterall.
But at that age where there is no DNA test nor high tech method to check finger print , it’s a given that there is no fool proof method to identify the person, so for a royal family is same sex twins really troublesome… Not a good thing.
In my country, there is this belief that if a twin gets sick, they must be separated. I think that’s the story behind my grade school and high school classmates. Everyone knew they were identical twins, as they looked alike and shared the same birthday. Legally, however they were cousins and had different surnames.