After making the announcement to his mother, it was only fair that Chu Yun and Xiao Zai called everyone together to introduce the twins formally and receive everyone's well-wishes and gifts.
By the end of it Chu Yun thought his polite smile would be stuck in place. Something Gu Wei didn't fail to notice when he approached him with a knowing look in his eyes.
"Almost over now," he said, touching the top of Xiao Yin's forehead with two fingers. "You'll have your children all to yourself soon."
Chu Yun narrowed his eyes at him. "I don't mind other people paying them attention."
Gu Wei's knowing look stayed in place. "I'm sure."
He was saved from having to defend himself by the appearance of the Queen Dowager. She looked very dignified, although absent the finery she'd used to war when Xiao An had been King. But if anything, she looked much healthier now.
Her skin looked less sallow, and even her rheumy eyes looked clearer. She approached Chu Yun with a rare smile. "Well, as expected the two of you made pretty children."
Chu Yun thanked her politely, but couldn't help preening a little at the praise. His opinion might be biased, but he thought his children were the most beautiful babies in the world. Especially now that they had outgrown their turnip phase.
The Queen Dowager didn't touch the twins but she smiled kindly at them.
"And neither of them is an alpha?" she asked.
Chu Yun smiled tightly. "No. They're either betas or omegas, too soon to tell which."
Surprising him, she kept smiling. "Well, that will mean more work for you and Xiao Zai, but I'm sure it's nothing the two of you can't handle, considering all that came before."
"Of course you won't be able to have any more children," Gu Wei interjected, cutting a shrewd look to Chu Yun and answering a question that had been circling around his mind. "Unless you're willing to wait twenty years until the next batch of pills are refined."
Chu Yun grimaced. "As long as they're not expecting them to be alphas."
"I don't think that is as much a topic of discussion. You should be worried instead that they're hoping that the children will be able to fly, or bring rains from the skies."
"Right now they can't even walk so I'm afraid the people of Haolin will have to be disappointed."
Tan Ruo smiled again. "Well, the expectations for them are very high indeed, since everyone already thinks so highly of their parents."
Chu Yun couldn't hide his surprise; nor his delight. "Really?"
"His Royal Highness will have do disguise himself as a commoner one day and walk into any teahouse in Haolin, to hear for himself how every second toast is to the King's long rule, and the Consort's health."
"Maybe soon they'll have even more reason to wish Xiao Zai a thousand year rule."
Tan Ruo was barely holding herself back from asking what he meant by that, and Chu Yun would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy the expectant look on her face.
Their good cheer was interrupted by Hua Nanyi's sudden frazzled appearance.
"I've been informed that there is someone outside the palace walls requesting an audience ," she chanced a quick look towards Tan Ruo, who excused herself with a polite bow. "An elderly blind man, accompanied by a young girl, who claims to have been Chu Hean's teacher."
A silent look passed between the two of them. But with that description alone Chu Yun would have been able to identify the old Master of Harmonious Resonance.
Chu Hean was still chatting animatedly with Lieba Chun, their father, and Chu Yun's mother. He was more at ease in the months since he'd met Lieba Chun than Chu Yun thought possible after everything he'd found out about his brother's double life. He didn't want the past to come barrelling into Chu Hean's life.
"Tell him there are no audiences for the time being," Chu Yun said. "Make excuses give him money for the journey back and to rest at an inn, but make it clear neither I, nor Chu Hean will be seeing him."
Hua Nanyi's expression remained troubled. "The problem is that he's requesting an audience with the Queen Dowager," she grimaced, "I have to let her know."