Axolotl Translations

Wei Jiajia woke up in the middle of the night, momentarily disoriented as she stared at the unfamiliar ceiling. It wasn’t until the sharp pain in her lower body hit her that reality came rushing back.

She had just given birth. She was now the mother of three children…

“Wife, you’re awake? Are you feeling okay? Are you hungry?” Qiao Haoyu had been keeping vigil at her bedside. The moment he saw her open her eyes, he immediately leaned closer, his voice filled with concern.

Seeing her husband bending over her, his face full of worry and affection, a wave of emotion surged through Wei Jiajia. She suddenly felt incredibly wronged, and her lips trembled as she pouted pitifully. “It hurts so much! I’m never having another baby again.”

“Alright, alright, we won’t have any more. Never again.”

Hearing her say she was in pain made Qiao Haoyu’s heart ache just as much. He pressed a reverent kiss to her forehead and agreed without hesitation. Even if she wanted to, he wouldn’t let her go through this ordeal again.

This birth had truly terrified him. When he saw her unconscious, being wheeled out of the delivery room, her face completely pale, his heart nearly stopped. It was only after the doctor reassured him that she had simply fainted from exhaustion that he finally felt his limbs regain sensation. At that moment, he had sworn to himself—he would never let her go through such pain again.

Now, their family was complete. They had a son and a daughter, and an unexpected little third. He was more than content.

Hearing her husband agree so easily, Wei Jiajia smiled in satisfaction. She had only been half-joking when she said it, but deep down, it was what she truly felt.

Three babies in one go—that was more than enough. Besides, childbirth was excruciating. The pain had been so overwhelming that, for a moment, she had felt as if her soul was about to leave her body. If not for a mother’s instinctual strength, if not for her sheer willpower to bring her last baby into the world, who knew how much longer the little one would have been trapped inside her?

Wait—where was the baby? She hadn’t even seen her youngest son yet! The doctors had shown her the first two when they were born, but the last one… she had passed out before she even had a chance to look at him.

“Where are the babies? Bring them here so I can see them. And the little one—how is he? Is he very small?” she asked, turning to her husband expectantly.

Qiao Haoyu gently brushed a few stray strands of hair from Wei Jiajia’s forehead and said softly, “The babies are all asleep. They’ve been very good, and they’re all healthy. The doctor said that aside from being a little smaller than his older siblings, the youngest one is just fine. He was in the womb a bit longer, so he’s a little blue and doesn’t look as fair as the others, but that’s nothing to worry about. He’ll grow, and his skin will lighten over time. Don’t worry.”

Hearing her husband’s reassurance, Wei Jiajia finally let out a sigh of relief. She was just about to ask him to bring the babies over so she could see them when her stomach let out a loud grumble. In the stillness of the night, the sound was especially prominent.

“I’m hungry…” she murmured, placing a hand on her stomach and looking up at her husband with a pitiful expression. She hadn’t eaten dinner, and now it was nearly midnight—of course, her body was protesting.

“There’s some food warming on the stove in the doctor’s office. Wait here, I’ll go get it,” Qiao Haoyu said immediately, getting up and heading out.

He returned quickly, carrying an insulated food container. Opening the lid, he revealed a bowl of three boiled eggs placed on top, with a large serving of warm millet porridge sweetened with brown sugar beneath them.

“Great-aunt said you’ve just given birth, so you should eat something light,” Qiao Haoyu explained as he poured a bowl and brought it over to feed her.

When Wei Jiajia had gone into labor with their youngest, Great-aunt had worried that the older two children would catch a cold from staying out too long, so she had taken them back to the hospital room, leaving Qiao Haoyu alone to wait outside the delivery room.

Later, when Wei Jiajia had given birth and was moved to the recovery room, Grand-aunt had returned home to prepare a meal.

This millet porridge had been made at home and brought over by Great-aunt, along with their twins after school. But since Wei Jiajia had been in deep sleep, Qiao Haoyu had kept it warm near the stove in the doctor’s office, afraid it would go cold before she woke up.

Only after Wei Jiajia had eaten and regained some strength did Qiao Haoyu wheel the crib with their sleeping triplets over to her bedside.

Looking at her three little ones sleeping side by side, Wei Jiajia felt her heart melt. She knew that from this day forward, she had found both her greatest weakness and her greatest strength.

“Which one is the older brother? And which one is the older sister?” she asked. As for the youngest, there was no need to guess—he was the one sleeping at the edge, clearly two sizes smaller than the other two.

In the womb, the youngest hadn’t been able to compete with his older siblings for nutrients. From the moment he was born, he looked noticeably different from them. He was small and fragile, his tiny body tinged with a bluish hue. He looked just like a helpless little kitten, so delicate that it tugged at one’s heartstrings.

Naturally, this also meant he received more attention—especially from his father, who had shown favoritism toward his daughter even before she was born. From the moment their youngest entered the world, Qiao Haoyu’s gaze lingered on him far more than on their daughter.

Seeing her youngest son looking so pitiful next to his brother and sister, Wei Jiajia felt her eyes well up with tears. The doctor had assured them he was healthy, just a little smaller than the others, but she still couldn’t help worrying.

“Don’t cry, you can’t cry right now,” Qiao Haoyu said quickly, noticing her shift in emotions. He bent down and gently wiped her tears away. Before leaving, Great-aunt had specifically warned him that Jiajia would likely tear up when she saw her youngest son, and he had to make sure she didn’t cry too much. Excessive crying during postpartum recovery, she had said, could harm her eyesight.

“I can’t help it…” she choked out between sobs. She had endured excruciating pain during childbirth without shedding a single tear, but the moment she laid eyes on her children, she couldn’t hold back anymore.

She knew what the doctor had said—her son was perfectly healthy. She also knew that with the help of her spiritual spring water, she could carefully nurture him back to full strength. His body wouldn’t be any weaker than his siblings’ in the long run. And yet, she still couldn’t stop herself from crying.

At that moment, she finally understood the meaning of a mother’s heart aches for her child’s illness. She didn’t even dare to imagine—if something had truly gone wrong because he had been deprived of oxygen in the womb, she would never be able to forgive herself.

With Qiao Haoyu’s gentle words of comfort, her sobs gradually subsided. She gazed at her children in silence, praying in her heart that they would grow up healthy and strong.

She didn’t reach out to hold them, afraid of disturbing their peaceful sleep. If they woke up and started crying, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to soothe them properly. As for her husband… she glanced at him and decided he probably wasn’t much better at it than she was. At least she had some experience from raising the twins.

What Wei Jiajia didn’t know was that, in order to help care for the children and make things easier for her, Qiao Haoyu had been secretly learning childcare techniques from Great-aunt for quite some time. He had even practiced for hours in private, using a pillow as a stand-in.

Sitting beside her on the bed, Qiao Haoyu gently held her and pointed out, “The baby wrapped in the blue blanket is the older brother, and the one in red is the older sister. As for our youngest, since we didn’t prepare anything in advance for him, Great-aunt brought over a checkered quilt she had made at home.”

The unexpected arrival of their third child had caught them completely off guard. They hadn’t had time to prepare many things for him, which only made them unconsciously more protective of him.

Of course, the older two had no idea that from the moment they were born, their youngest sibling had nearly stolen all of their parents’ affection. If it weren’t for the fact that both Qiao Haoyu and Wei Jiajia still had a shred of rationality left, they might never have realized the little one’s subtle tricks. Who knew how long he would have “bullied” his older siblings otherwise?

And among them, the one with the worst luck was undoubtedly the eldest. After all, the second child was a girl, which naturally made her more favored by their father. But that was a story for another time.

For now, all three of them remained blissfully unaware of these dynamics. They simply lay there in peaceful slumber under their parents’ adoring gazes. Occasionally, their tiny mouths or hands would twitch in their sleep, prompting Wei Jiajia to let out soft exclamations of delight, utterly enchanted by their cuteness.

Eventually, exhaustion took over. Her body, still weak from childbirth, could no longer resist the pull of sleep, and she drifted off.

That left Qiao Haoyu as the sole guardian of his wife and three children in the quiet hospital room. His heart was filled with warmth as he watched them. No matter how long he stared, it was never enough.

Later that night, when the babies woke up crying, Qiao Haoyu did not wake his wife. Clumsily, yet determinedly, he changed their diapers and prepared formula, running around the room in a frenzy but accepting it all with joy.

He had no intention of disturbing Wei Jiajia—he simply wanted to shoulder as much of the burden as he could while he was there. After all, he was their father. This was his responsibility. His only regret was that his time with them was limited. He wished he could always be by their side to help her.

When Wei Jiajia woke up the next morning, the first thing she saw was the red veins in her husband’s weary eyes.

“Taking care of them must have been exhausting, right? Why didn’t you wake me up last night?” Wei Jiajia asked, stroking her husband’s face with concern.

She had slept soundly through the night, so deeply that she hadn’t heard a single cry from the babies. She could only imagine how much effort her husband had put into tending to all three of them.

“It wasn’t too bad. They were quite well-behaved,” Qiao Haoyu reassured her. “As long as they had clean diapers and full stomachs, they didn’t fuss much.”

Just then, Great-aunt walked in, carrying a bag of breakfast. “You’re awake? How are you feeling?” she asked, looking at Wei Jiajia.

“I feel much better after a good sleep. What did you bring for breakfast? I can already smell how delicious it is!” Wei Jiajia wrinkled her nose, a happy smile on her face. After sleeping through the night, the millet porridge from yesterday had long since digested, and now she felt hungry enough to eat an entire cow.

Great-aunt chuckled at how, even after becoming a mother, Wei Jiajia still acted like a child. “Just porridge and eggs for breakfast. You can’t eat anything else for now. But once we’re discharged this afternoon, I’ll make you fish soup at home.”

“That’s it? Nothing else?” Wei Jiajia asked, visibly disappointed. She understood that postpartum recovery required a light diet, but did it really have to be just porridge and soup every day?

Seeing Great-aunt’s firm shake of the head, Wei Jiajia had no choice but to reluctantly glance at her husband before picking up her bowl and spooning up the porridge.

Qiao Haoyu, watching his wife’s pitiful expression, felt a pang of sympathy. But he also knew that Great-aunt had her best interests at heart, so he turned away, pretending not to notice her disappointment.

Grand-aunt, on the other hand, found their reactions amusing. Since Haoyu clearly had no defenses when it came to Jiajia and would undoubtedly give in if she pleaded, it was up to her to stay vigilant. She had to make sure Jiajia didn’t try anything reckless during her recovery.

Take this childbirth, for example. Her water had already broken, and yet she had calmly insisted on washing her hair first—only she would think of doing something like that!

When they arrived at the hospital the day before, the doctor had examined her and was shocked to find that she was already five centimeters dilated. She had been rushed into the delivery room immediately. If luck hadn’t been on her side, she might have ended up giving birth on the way to the hospital!

And yet, she had remained composed the entire time, even reassuring herself along the way. Great-aunt couldn’t help but think that after this whole childbirth episode, her perception of Wei Jiajia as a sensible and obedient young woman had taken a serious hit. When had she become so stubborn and headstrong?

Later that morning, after the doctor conducted a final check-up and confirmed that both mother and babies were in good health, they were officially discharged from the hospital.

As soon as Qiao Haoyu secured a cart and wheeled his well-bundled wife and their newborn triplets into the compound, the entire place erupted into a frenzy. Wei Jiajia had given birth to triplets—two boys and a girl!

This was earth-shattering news. In their community, even twins were rare enough that many had never seen them before, let alone triplets.

How blessed could one person be? A handsome and accomplished husband with a promising future, her own beauty and intelligence, younger siblings who were obedient and clever, in-laws who treated her well, a supportive family of her own, and now, with just one pregnancy, she had both sons and a daughter—achieving in a single birth what others could only dream of.

Previously, some people had found satisfaction in making envious remarks about her, but looking at her life now, they realized she had never even paid attention to their petty gossip. The more people envied her, the better her life seemed to get. And some things—no matter how hard they tried—they simply couldn’t compete with.

Take this triplet birth, for example. Could an ordinary person just will themselves to have three babies at once? No, without the right genetics, all the wishing in the world wouldn’t make it happen.

Of course, not everyone in the crowd was celebrating. There were some who had never quite accepted her happiness—like the woman who had once tried (and failed) to marry her sister off to Qiao Haoyu, and instead, blamed Wei Jiajia for her failure. Or, more notably, Li Linlin—the woman who had once dreamed of marrying Qiao Haoyu but, in the end, chose to save face and settle for Wang Jianjun.

Now, with her own due date fast approaching next month, Li Linlin had been out on a stroll with her mother-in-law when she suddenly came face to face with the returning Wei Jiajia and her husband, along with their newborns.

She watched as the crowd followed behind them, chattering excitedly about the miraculous triplet birth. Upon hearing their words, Li Linlin clenched her fists, barely restraining the urge to lash out. But no matter how hard she tried to suppress her fury, her stomach twisted painfully with rage.

Why was Wei Jiajia’s life so unfairly perfect? No matter how much she struggled, she could never seem to catch up…

“She’s not about to go into labor, is she?!”

A few experienced onlookers immediately recognized the signs and rushed to help, quickly escorting Li Linlin to the hospital.

Watching the commotion as the group hurried away, Wei Jiajia instinctively shrank back. This has nothing to do with me… right? She hadn’t even had the chance to say a single word!

Qiao Haoyu, however, paid no attention to the situation and continued pushing the cart carrying his wife and children straight home. It wasn’t that he was heartless. Though he had never spoken directly to Li Linlin, that didn’t mean he was unaware of her.

Because of her, his relationship with Wang Jianjun had gone from mutual respect—born out of an early scuffle—to complete estrangement. Though he had done nothing wrong, he understood that ever since Wang Jianjun had fallen for Li Linlin and married her, their friendship had fundamentally changed.

If he had been alone here today and she had gone into labor, his duty as a soldier would have compelled him to take her to the hospital. But that wasn’t the case. There were plenty of other people around to help—so why should he go out of his way to involve himself? His wife and children were waiting for him. That was where his responsibility lay.

Upon arriving home, Wei Jiajia officially began her postpartum confinement.

And Qiao Haoyu? Well… his days of washing diapers had just begun.

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