Chapter 1204 Apathetic to Romance
"And that's what happened," Bacon confessed to his parents without any guilt whatsoever.
"Yep yep! The cute and mighty Ketchup saw it with my own little eyes, too! Meow!"
Iris was shocked. She looked at her husband. Unlike her, he didn't look surprised at all. "You know about this?"
"En. My subordinates from the security staff reported to me this morning about what they witnessed last night outside the clinic. Then Bacon and Ketchup told me after I asked them. I didn't bother asking the doctor for confirmation because she won't tell me anyway due to doctor-patient confidentiality agreement."
Jin Liwei peeled a tangerine and fed it to his wife piece by piece. He had just returned from the company to eat lunch with his wife. When there were no important meetings, he usually went to the company and worked for half a day. Then he would return to the mansion to spend time with his wife and make sure that she was doing well while both of them worked from home.
As for Iris, she spent the morning attending a virtual lesson with Professor Kalisha Schwarz and completing her translation assignments. Her academic workload wasn't as heavy as before in consideration of her pregnancy but the content had increased in difficulty.
She was, after all, still a Cross Academy student. There was no excuse for her to have it easy. If she wanted it easy, then she should've just enrolled in a regular school. Good thing that her health had been improving at a steady rate thanks to Theresa's personalized guide.
Back to the present, Iris was still too shocked at the revelation that the piece of tangerine in her mouth was left unchewed.
"Chew it, love. Don't choke." Jin Liwei had a doting smile as he continued peeling one more tangerine.
She started chewing but looked distracted. Jin Liwei allowed her to contemplate what happened by herself. His wife had a deep bond with her brother that spanned two lifetimes now. It was understandable that she would be shocked by this kind of development about her brother.
"Big Brother is going to have a baby," she whispered. There was disbelief but also wonder in both her tone and expression.
"En."
"Wow." She touched her belly and tilted her head to the side.
Then a smile bloomed on her face,
"Our twins are going to have a playmate the same age as them. Oh, this is wonderful! I hope they'll be best friends with their cousin."
"I'm sure they will be. Just as I'm sure that they'll all get along with their Big Brother Jun."
She continued smiling while finishing the last tangerine that Jin Liwei peeled. There were more tangerines in the fruit basket in their master suite but she couldn't eat too much or she wouldn't be able to eat lunch properly later.
"It all makes sense now why Big Sister Jinjing was so dazed and out of it last night at dinner. I offered to give her a day off but she declined. I wasn't surprised that Big Brother called me this morning to give her a day off in her stead because she really looked stressed out last night. I thought that she was stressed from work but now it turns out that it's because she's pregnant."
Jin Liwei wiped his hands with a serviette. "She should be more careful now. Your brother will lose his shit if she miscarries his child. All of us have been traumatized by what happened to you. Thank the heavens that you're okay now."
Iris turned solemn as she rubbed her belly. Indeed, her near miscarriage left all of them a strong lingering fear. She didn't want Long Jinjing to experience something like that. The baby in Long Jinjing's belly was her niece or nephew both ways—through blood in the mother's side and through the soul in the father's side. She already loved her brother's baby almost as much as she loved her own babies.
"I just hope that Big Brother handles his relationship with Big Sister Jinjing better now that she's pregnant. Although he had a lot of women he slept with in the past, I know that he doesn't know much about having a normal or what you call a traditional relationship. Well, I didn't know much about romantic relationships either before I met you."
"The two of you are truly siblings," Jin Liwei murmured.
"Mommy, Daddy!" Ketchup interrupted, unable to resist herself after listening to her parents' conversation. "Uncle Haohao definitely is NOT handling his relationship with Auntie Jinjing better! Oooooh, poor Auntie Jinjing was crying so hard just now! But don't worry, Mommy and Daddy! The cute and mighty Ketchup and my naughty little kitty brother Bacon scolded Uncle Haohao real good. We said many things to him, but in short, we told him to stop being such a gigantic bombastic fantastic Titanic scumbag! Meow~"
"Bacon, you explain," Jin Liwei said. If he let Ketchup do all the talking, the story wouldn't be finished until sunset.
Bacon obeyed and told them about his Uncle Zihao and Aunt Jinjing's fight in their room just now. The black cat AI was better in providing short, succinct summaries that didn't waste any words. This was his advantage over his chatterbox older sister.
Jin Liwei clicked his tongue and shook his head.
Iris felt sorry for Long Jinjing and also guilty at the same time. It was because she wasn't surprised at all that her brother did something like that. In fact, she would be even more shocked if her brother made a romantic proposal on his own without consulting others.
Romance just wasn't something that the Vetrovs practiced. Marriage and procreation were duties to continue and strengthen their family and organization's lineage and legacy. Falling in love wasn't in the equation. In most cases, it was even discouraged and viewed as a weakness.
If she hadn't experience falling in love and romance firsthand with Jin Liwei, she would most likely continue being as apathetic to romance as her brother until now. Well, her brother wasn't as apathetic to romance as before either but his romantic sensibilities were still negligible.
"In hindsight, I'm now glad that I fell in love with you and not someone similar to my big brother," she said.
Jin Liwei chuckled. "I'm glad of that, too."