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This wasn\'t ideal.

For one, it was early.

Second, there was no way he wanted hundreds of people to know what was happening.

He tried to make his way towards the stairs leading to the back of the stage, but each step cost him, and he couldn\'t help the grimace of pain on his face.

Xiao Ziyi caught his eye, when he was walking behind her. "Are you alright?" she mouthed at him.

Chu Yun shook his head, and nodded meaningfully to his abdomen.

Xiao Ziyi got up from her seat without a word and helped him off the stage with a hand supporting his shoulder and another his back. With great difficulty, Chu Yun made it down the stairs.

He was panting by the time he cleared the last step.

"I\'m going to call Xiao Zai," Xiao Ziyi said, pale and sweaty all at once.

Chu Yun was momentarily annoyed that she looked so scared about something that had nothing to do with her, but still stopped her with a hand on the sleeve. "Be discreet, don\'t let anyone else hear, and tell him to make an excuse."

He looked around the back of the stage where several guards were milling around, trying to find a way out of the square without attracting too much attention.

The problem was that all the roads were extremely congested, how could they get back to the palace?

The pain was making it hard to think, his vision blurry, going in and out of focus with each breath. For a dizzying moment he thought he was going to faint, but he listed only into a firm chest, and immediately a familiar pair of hands came around his waist.

"Now?" Xiao Zai\'s voice sounded terrified, but his hands on Chu Yun\'s body were steady.

Concern overrode his panic. He too was looking at possible exits out of the square, but already their presence was attracting attention.

"What did you say?" Chu Yun\'s words came out slurred, as hard to hold on to as his sight.

Was it normal to feel this ill? He didn\'t think so.

"I told everyone to enjoy the celebrations and left it up to Xiao Yuan."

Chu Yun let out a small laugh at the mental picture of Xiao Yuan\'s flustered face, but it caused something to pull painfully in his middle, and the sound died with a wheeze in his throat.

Xiao Zai\'s expression grew darker. "We don\'t have time to go to the palace."

Without a word he lifted Chu Yun into his arms and carried him in the direction of the carriages stationed several zhang away, in full view of several people, and even more beyond, once he made it there.

Xiao Zai ignored the curious looks of the people of Haolin, who couldn\'t hide their surprise at seeing their King moving through the throngs of them, carrying his husband in his arms. Chu Yun hid his face in Xiao Zai\'s chest, and hoped they arrived at the carriage soon.

He could never bear for others to see his weakness.

The only exception was, and would always be, Xiao Zai.

---

Chu Yun had almost no memory of the carriage ride to the Second Prince\'s estate -- that palace where he and Xiao Zai spent the first few heady months of their young marriage, and that his pain-addled mind told him it made sense to return now, as he was about to give birth.

He remembered only the impression of Xiao Zai\'s thighs under his head, and his warm hand carding through his sweaty hair, lulling him with comforting words. They were almost there when at last Chu Yun gripped Xiao Zai\'s hand in his and admitted: "I\'m scared."

He expected to see some of his own fear reflected in Xiao Zai\'s eyes, but it disappeared the moment Chu Yun uttered those words. Instead, Xiao Zai smiled down at him, and brushed the hair away from his face.

"Don\'t be, I\'m here."

---

The next thing he knew, Chu Yun was lying down on the floor on top of two stacked mattresses in the bedroom that used to belong to him and Xiao Zai when they still lived at the estate.

He could feel someone holding his hand. When he looked to his right, Xiao Zai was kneeling by his head, and holding his hand in a tight grip.

But his gaze was focused on Gu Wei.

"How long have you been feeling pain?" Gu Wei asked, and it was only then that Chu Yun realised that he had been undressed down to his inner robes, which now fell open around his swollen stomach.

Gu Wei\'s hands touched his abdomen delicately but with purpose, feeling for something in particular.

The knot between his fine eyebrows worried Chu Yun. "I-- for days, but I suppose it got worse this morning." He felt suddenly ashamed of the fact.

It never occurred to him that the unusually sharp pain he felt that day could be anything but another of the pregnancies\' indignities.

"It\'s early," he said weakly, trying to defend himself.

"Not by much, and twins usually come early," Gu Wei said, matter-of-fact.

Chu Yun\'s eyes flickered up to meet Xiao Zai\'s. "Twins?"

Gu Wei continued his clinical inspection, feeling around Chu Yun\'s stomach with propriety. "If I\'m not mistaken, yes. Perhaps it\'s common in this kind of pregnancy..."

He said, as if Chu Yun\'s wasn\'t only the second of its kind.

"We have to get them out now," Gu Wei said, his expression growing more serious. "It\'s possible they have been in distress for some time."

His words filled Chu Yun with a cold dread. Even through the pain he knew he would never forgive himself if his carelessness had injured his children.

Children he was suddenly desperate to meet.

He returned Xiao Zai\'s tight grip.

"Forgive me, you are going to be in a lot of pain, but there is no other way," sounding remorseful now. "One last sacrifice."

And it was only then that Chu Yun noticed the medical instruments resting over an open brazier, their sharp blades getting heated by incandescent coals.