"It's boys! Both are healthy young men!" The midwife's voice was filled with the ecstatic joy of surviving a disaster.
Lu Zheng's tense body suddenly relaxed, overwhelmed by a surge of immense joy and lingering fear. He looked at the two tiny, red-cheeked babies in the midwife's arms, then at his wife on the kang (heated brick bed), exhausted and unconscious, her face as pale as paper but her breathing steady. The tears he had been holding back finally burst forth. He leaned down, his forehead pressed tightly against Luo Qingrou's sweaty hand, his broad shoulders heaving violently, a suppressed, low whimper, like that of a wounded beast, rising as hot tears soaked her skin.
Madam Lu and Madam Luo were already in tears. Madam Lu patted her chest, crying and laughing at the same time: "Thank God! Two boys! Two! My good Qingrou! You are a great contributor to our Lu family!" She rushed over to look at her grandson, and then looked at her daughter-in-law with heartache.
Madam Luo, her hands trembling, brushed the wet hair stuck to her daughter's forehead, her voice choked with emotion: "It's alright, it's alright, it's all over... Rou'er, you did it, you're amazing..." She looked at her son-in-law kneeling by the kang, crying like a child, her eyes filled with complex relief.
The old military doctor slumped into a chair, exhausted. He wiped the sweat from his brow, let out a long sigh, and murmured to the unconscious Luo Qingrou, "Girl, you scared this old man to death... But you're really something! Two boys at once! That Lu family brat will be thrilled!"
Inside the delivery room, the stench of blood mingled with the scent of newborn milk, the tears of loved ones, and the overwhelming joy of surviving a near-death experience. Lu Zheng lifted his tear-streaked face, carefully pressing his wife's icy hand to his cheek, his gaze lingering on her sleeping face and the two sons lying side by side in their swaddling clothes, crying with their eyes closed. The wind and snow of the northern frontier howled outside the window, but this small Lu residence, warmed by the cries of newborns and the scalding tears, became the warmest fortress.
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