Chapter 357: Baby boy

“Don’t touch it yet. We don’t know what will happen.”

“That’s my baby.”

“I can see that.”

“My baby…”

Tears streamed down Muchen’s temples and disappeared into his hair. The tiny hand remained pressed toward his face from the other side of the strange barrier, and after a few seconds, Muchen let out a breathless laugh through his tears.

“He’s awake.”

Qiu Yue didn’t respond.

His attention had shifted to something else.

The monitors.

Muchen’s contractions had stopped.

Completely.

His pulse, which had been fluctuating violently only moments earlier, was beginning to settle as well. Even the unstable gravitational disturbances that had followed him from the mansion and occasionally made small objects tremble had disappeared.

Qiu Yue slowly looked back at the floating sphere.

A strange suspicion began forming in his mind.

What if the baby had never actually been trying to come out?

What if Muchen’s body hadn’t truly been going into labor at all?

His power had been reacting violently, but perhaps it hadn’t been trying to expel the baby.

Perhaps it had been trying to protect it.

Qiu Yue carefully examined the open incision again. There was no ordinary amniotic sac where he expected one to be.

His gaze slowly returned to the sphere.

“Oh…”

The little girl beside him looked up. Yuki’s eyes were still fixed curiously on the floating baby. “What?”

Qiu Yue pushed his crooked glasses higher with the back of his wrist, his eyes never leaving the impossible thing floating beside Muchen’s face.

“That isn’t water.”

Muchen looked at him through wet eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I don’t think this is an ordinary amniotic sac at all.” Qiu Yue studied the sphere, his mind racing through possibilities faster than he could properly organize them. “Whatever is surrounding the baby is maintaining itself outside your body. It’s moving independently, reacting to us and keeping him alive.”

Yuki stared at the baby with wide eyes. “So the baby made it?”

Qiu Yue was quiet for a moment.

“I think so.”

The room fell silent.

He looked between the sphere and Muchen’s open abdomen again, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Muchen had flight and gravity-related abilities. Yunfeng possessed extraordinarily powerful fire abilities and, apparently, the ability to tear open space itself.

Their unborn child was only three months into development and had somehow created a stable protective environment around itself.

Qiu Yue slowly looked at Muchen.

“I think your child has awakened a power.”

Muchen stared at him, then turned back toward the tiny baby still floating beside his cheek.

“He’s three months old.”

“Which is precisely why none of this makes any sense.”

The baby kicked.

The sphere rolled gently across Muchen’s cheek again as if pleased with itself.

Muchen stared at his child in stunned silence.

Yuki finally couldn’t hold back her smile. The little girl’s face brightened as she watched the baby moving safely inside the sphere.

Qiu Yue stared at the floating sphere for several seconds before forcing his attention back to Muchen. Whatever had happened to the baby could wait a few minutes. Muchen was still lying on an operating table with an open incision across his abdomen.

“Yuki, heal him. Start from the inside and make sure there’s no internal bleeding before closing the incision.”

Yuki immediately moved closer. A soft golden-white glow gathered in the little girl’s palms and spread over Muchen’s abdomen. Warm light sank beneath the skin, slowly repairing the tissue Qiu Yue had cut through. The bleeding stopped first, followed by the deeper layers knitting themselves back together until even the incision across Muchen’s stomach gradually disappeared.

Muchen barely noticed.

Between the morphine and Yuki’s healing power, he couldn’t feel much pain anymore. His eyes remained fixed on the little child floating above him.

Now that the panic of the surgery had passed, he could finally see his baby properly.

The little boy was unbelievably small, no bigger than Muchen’s palm, yet his body appeared completely formed. Tiny arms and legs moved freely through the clear liquid surrounding him. His fingers opened and closed, his little feet kicked occasionally, and his eyes were already open.

He didn’t look distressed.

If anything, he looked curious.

The transparent sphere drifted slowly around the operating table, gently turning with every movement the baby made inside. At one point, one tiny foot floated close to his face. The baby caught it with both hands and immediately shoved his toes into his mouth.

Muchen stared at him.

A shaky laugh escaped through the tears still drying on his cheeks.

For the first time since the contractions began, some of the terror in his chest loosened.

His baby was alive.

That was all he could think about.

Alive.

As the sphere slowly rotated again, Muchen caught sight of the baby’s lower body. His eyes lingered for a second before widening.

“A boy…”

His voice came out almost like a whisper.

He and Yunfeng had a son.

Muchen’s eyes immediately filled again, but this time the tears came with a smile. He desperately wanted Yunfeng inside. Yunfeng had been terrified only minutes ago, believing their child might not survive, and now their little boy was floating around the operating room as though nothing unusual had happened.

But the longer Muchen watched him, the more his happiness became mixed with worry.

He was so small.

His entire body could have fit into one of Muchen’s hands. His arms were thin, his fingers tiny, his little chest barely wider than two of Muchen’s fingers.

Muchen slowly looked down at his own abdomen.

It was flat now.

The baby wasn’t inside him anymore.

That realization hit him harder than before.

His hand instinctively rose toward the sphere, wanting to touch his son, but Qiu Yue caught his wrist before he could.

“Don’t touch it yet.”

Muchen looked at him sharply.

Qiu Yue’s gaze remained on the clear membrane. “We don’t know how strong it is. Until I understand what is keeping him alive, we can’t risk damaging it.”

Muchen reluctantly lowered his hand.

The baby continued floating peacefully, completely unaware of the fear surrounding him.

Then Muchen’s expression changed.

“What does he eat now?”

Qiu Yue went still.

“He’s not connected to me anymore.” Muchen looked from his stomach to the tiny child. “How will he get nutrients? How is he supposed to grow?”

That was the question Qiu Yue had been trying not to think about until Muchen was stable.

He stepped closer to the sphere and carefully studied it without touching the surface.

“I didn’t see a placenta attached to him.”

Muchen’s face immediately paled.

Qiu Yue continued before he could panic. “But he’s alive and stable. That means whatever this membrane is, it’s doing more than simply holding fluid around him.”

He adjusted his glasses and moved around the operating table, examining the sphere from several angles. The liquid inside was perfectly clear. There were no visible blood vessels, no umbilical cord connecting the baby to anything outside the sphere, and nothing resembling the normal support system a fetus should have needed.

Yet the little boy was awake.

His color looked healthy. His movements were strong for his size, and he showed no signs of distress.

It made absolutely no medical sense.

Muchen watched Qiu Yue’s face closely. “How long can he stay like this?”

“I don’t know yet.”

The answer made Muchen’s fingers curl against the sheet.

Qiu Yue noticed.

“But we’ll figure it out.”

Muchen looked at him.

Qiu Yue gently placed a hand against his shoulder. “For now, don’t touch the membrane. Let me test it first. I need to know how strong it is, what the liquid contains, whether oxygen can pass through it and whether the baby is absorbing nutrients somehow.”

Muchen nodded, though his worried gaze immediately returned to his son.

The baby had survived something none of them had believed possible only minutes ago. Muchen wanted to take comfort in that, but every time he saw how tiny he was, fear crept back in.

“What if he gets hungry before we figure it out?”

Qiu Yue was quiet for a moment.

“We’ll figure it out before that happens.”

There was no joke in his voice this time.

Muchen slowly relaxed against the operating table.

Yuki had finished healing him completely and stepped away. The little girl looked exhausted after using so much of her healing power, but there was a satisfied smile on her face when she saw that Muchen was completely healed.

Qiu Yue checked Muchen’s abdomen once more before covering him properly with the sheet.

The immediate danger had passed.

For now.

The little sphere drifted closer again.

Muchen fought the urge to reach for it.

His son rolled slowly through the liquid, released the foot he’d been chewing and stretched both tiny arms. Then he turned toward Muchen, blinking with those wide little eyes.

Muchen’s throat tightened.

“Your dad is going to lose his mind when he sees you.”

The baby kicked.

The sphere moved away from the operating table and slowly floated toward the doors.

Muchen watched it curiously.

It stopped several feet from the entrance.

Then the baby suddenly became much more active.

His little legs kicked repeatedly, and both hands pressed against the inside of the membrane as though he wanted to move forward.

Qiu Yue noticed as well.

The sphere drifted closer to the doors.

On the other side, Yunfeng was waiting.

Muchen’s worried expression softened.

After everything that had happened, after the contractions, the blood, the surgery and the fear that they were going to lose him, their son was alive.

Muchen looked toward the doors.

“Let Yunfeng in.”