After staring at the sleeping babies to his satisfaction, He Yuan quietly turned around and left the room. Next, he headed straight to the doctor's office and knocked on the door.
"Come in," Came the voice on the other end.
As soon as He Yuan walked in, the doctor raised his head with a confused frown. He gestured at the seat opposite him and when the young woman sat down, he asked, "Mrs. Xu? Is there a problem?"
He Yuan shook his head a little with a polite smile. "No. I'll just like to run a DNA test for me and the babies."
The doctor twirled his pen between his fingers a little as he nodded in understanding. Although the babies had be born through gestational surrogacy, some parents still took DNA tests for some reason. He picked up the landline and spoke after it connected, "Have nurse Wang come in to take a sample."
Five minutes later, a chubby nurse walked in carrying an aluminium tray. After taking some of Xu Lifen's hair strands and placing them in a sterile bottle with forceps, she nodded at the doctor and walked out of the office.
The doctor wrote down some words on his board before facing He Yuan once more. "Mrs. Xu, the DNA test would take a minimum of two days to be completed. The results would be delivered to you in record time."
He Yuan poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue as he nodded. "There's one more thing." When the doctor signalled him to continue, he said, "I'd like to arrange for a wet nurse."
Breast milk was very essential for newborns. Rather than give Chen Meili an excuse to selfishly hold onto the twins as in the original timeline, it was better to stop her right before she could even have the thought.
With the wet nurse readily available, breast milk could be directly pumped into a feeding bottle and he could handle the feeding himself.
888 cleared his throat with a strange expression. [You want to feed them... Yourself?]
"En." He Yuan answered directly. There was no other option. If he left the feeding to the Hans, they would surely look for a way to let Chen Meili directly breastfeed. Besides... It wasn't his first time taking care of a baby. He'd done so indirectly before so he knew his way around.
In the office, the doctor cleared his throat. It was a little surprising that Mrs. Xu had requested for a wet nurse. Afterall, their surrogate was a live-in one. Most biological parents would prefer their live-in surrogates to directly breastfeed or indirectly provide the breast milk.
Although this event led to an emotional attachment between the surrogate and the babies, surrogates were generally trained for this. The doctor twirled his pen again before nodding. "A wet nurse would be arranged and sent over to the Han mansion latest tomorrow."
He Yuan nodded. "Thank you." And then he stood up and walked out of the office. When he arrived at the hallway containing the labour room and nursery, he eyed the nursery door for a few seconds before walking past the hallway and leaving the hospital.
Chen Meili would need to remain in the hospital for another 24 hours and the babies would need 48 hours until they were safe to leave so all three would end up returning to the Han mansion in two days time.
It was better to get things prepared before they returned.
Thirty minutes later, He Yuan arrived at the Han mansion in a cab. He'd contacted one of the Han family drivers to fetch Xu Lifen's car with the towing company so he wasn't bothered about that.
As soon as he stepped into the mansion, a group of anxious servants gathered around and He Yuan took a step back subconsciously.
On the other hand, the servants all stared at their mistress in confusion. They had woken up this morning to the news that Miss Chen was in labour so they'd all gathered here to wait for the good news.
One of the older ones eyed the door behind He Yuan. No one else stepped in. She frowned in confusion. What did this mean? Was there complications? "Mistress Xu..."
He Yuan straightened the cold dress on him. Now that he was past the mild surprise, he could see that they were all anxious to know the results. He smiled a little. "My baby boys have been born."
Happy cheers rang out in the living room.
"Congratulations Mistress Xu."
"Congratulations!"
"This is so good."
"Two big boys, congrats Mistress Xu."
At that moment, He Yuan felt satisfaction in his heart. This was good. At least there were some people who did not invalidate Xu Lifen's position as the mother of the twins. When the cheers died down, he smiled. "Call in some contractors to transform one of the rooms on the first floor of my family wing into a nursery."
Normally, this would have been done ages ago but Han Tao had been silent about it and he hadn't wanted to use Xu Lifen's own money for it. This was because he was going to need all the money he could get for when he moved out with the babies.
Unexpectedly, the babies came a month earlier than he expected. He still didn't have enough to buy a house so they would have to remain until the end of the year -which was three months away.
For now, he would just have the contractors do it and then shamelessly send them to the Han Madam for money.
He Yuan finally brought his attention back to the servants when he noticed no one was moving. Instead, they just stared at him strangely. He frowned. "What's wrong?"
"This..." A younger servant began before looking towards the stairs. "A nursery has already been set up."
He Yuan raised a brow. Did he miss something? "What nursery?"
The servant answered. "Y- young master Tao and Miss Chen had set up a nursery together, right next to Miss Chen's room in her family wing, months ago."
He Yuan's brows raised in bewilderment. "When was this?"
"Uhm.." Another servant began. "It was on the same day you had come home... quite late."
He Yuan blinked. So whilst he had gone to check the renovation of the flower shop in city Y, Han Tao had been busy setting up a nursery for his children in... his deceased younger brother's family wing?
Ha.
Which full grown man with common sense would go over his wife's head and set up a nursery for both of their children with a surrogate? Just what was this Han Tao's problem? How is it that he was praised as an outstanding policeman with this much IQ?
He Yuan chuckled humourlessly and looked from one servant to the other. "I want all of you to go up there and move every single thing in that nursery over to the second room on the first floor of my family wing. Now."
The servants hesitated for a second. What to do? Young master Tao had placed those things there and he was their employer. Mistress Xu wanted to move those things and she was also their employer.
An older servant looked at the other three. "Young master Tao did not leave instructions to not move those things."
The others looked between themselves. That settled it. They were not going to have their salaries cut short since there was no prior instruction not to move the nursery.
With that thought, they all dashed up the stairs to carry out He Yuan's instructions. He Yuan on the other hand, also walked up the stairs to the master's bedroom. He was going to move Xu Lifen's things down to the nursery and stay there. He would like to see who would dare to take the twins away.
The Hans remained in the hospital all day, fawning over the children whilst He Yuan spent the entire day setting up the nursery slash bedroom with the servants and also setting up the bedroom right next to it for the wet nurse.
-------------------------
Later that night, the Hans all returned to the mansion with mirthful eyes and hearts full of joy.
He Yuan watched as they all walked to the mansion, not failing to notice that Han Tao was not with them. He drew the curtains shut and walked over to the bed. Right before getting under the covers, he recalled something.
Months ago, he'd ordered a high definition camera to install in Chen Meili's room but had never really gotten around to doing so since the special one spent most of her time in there. Tonight was a perfect opportunity.
888 materialized then and watched as his host dug around Xu Lifen's stuff until he found the camera. He was a little lost. If He Yuan was planning on recording Han Tao and Chen Meili in the middle of an immoral act in order to push for divorce then that was kinda useless.
Although the event would bring shame to the Han family, he highly doubted Han Tao or Chen Meili would care so much. They would probably be too happy about the fact that they could be together to even let the shame register.
Besides, a divorce gotten this way would not guarantee that the leaser would gain full custody of the twins. It was mostly likely going to end with Han Tao and the leaser having to take a twin each.
Also, like in the original timeline, Xu Lifen had directly run away with the twins but didn't even succeed in the end anyways so what was his host doing?
At that moment, He Yuan grabbed the recording camera, tugged on his nightrobe and directly walked out of the room after sending his system a sweet smile.
A confused 888 mindlessly followed after.
He Yuan soon arrived at Chen Meili's room. The room was neat, as usual, with a large king sized bed that the special one had once shared with her husband whilst he was alive. He suddenly found himself wondering how Han Tao felt whenever he spent the night in his late brother's matrimonial bedroom, admiring said brother's wife.
Creep.
After choosing a suitable spot inbetween two intricately weaved art pieces on the wall, He Yuan inserted the tiny camera and dashed out of the bedroom.
Back in his new room slash nursery, He Yuan connected the live feed from the camera to Xu Lifen's phone.
At some point, 888 walked to stand at the edge of the bed, looking down on his foolishly smiling host with his arms crossed. "What use is recording Han Tao and that Chen girl?"
He Yuan suddenly paused and looked up at his gloomy system in confusion. "Ah?" He looked down at the live feed before looking back up. "Whoever says this is for Han Tao and Chen Meili?"
888 slowly cocked his head to the side. "It's not?"
"Of course not!" He Yuan burst into laughter.
888 was still staring in confusion when his host suddenly grabbed his arm and dragged him to the bed to sit beside him.
Before the system could let out a word of complaint, He Yuan raised his hand and gave him three soft taps on his cheeks, held his chin and pulled him forward until they were face to face -all the while wearing a mischievous grin on Xu Lifen's face.
"An amazing idea came to me months ago. Just you wait and see, I would definitely give you a good show!" He Yuan declared excitedly.
888 suddenly dematerialized and He Yuan froze. He stared at the empty space between his fingers where the system's chin had been just now. Did he go overboard? He slowly withdrew his hand with a guilty expression and decided to cultivate.
In the mind space:
888 paced around with an abnormally flushed face and fisted hands. A rogue! That's what his host was. He could've perfectly understood the point He Yuan was trying to make without being pulled about like a rag doll!
After walking about for a while, the silver haired man slowly came to a stop, adjusted his glasses and looked down at his shiny reflection on the obsidian floor of the mindspace. Looking at how red his face was, he reddened even more from embarrassment.
Rogue!