Book 4 Chapter 27.4 - Motherhood
“Li, don’t worry, I am just controlling its speed of growth. It will still be born after three months instead of a single month. If it’s not controlled, you’ll lose your life.” Su reached out his hand towards Li as he said gently.
After some hesitation, Li asked, “My child will be okay?” Only when Su nodded did she grab Su’s hand and support herself up.
Su took Li into his embrace. He sensed her body’s weakness and said, “Li, for me, you are much more important than the child.” Li was a powerful individual who had five levels of ability, but right now, she was even weaker than an ordinary person. Her vitality had been substantially concentrated in the infant inside her stomach.
When she heard Su’s words, Li immediately shook her head. With a soft but resolute tone, she said, “No, this child is yours, as well as mine. I will definitely give birth to it, no matter what price I have to pay!”
“The child will be born.” Su said. His arms that were wrapped around her tightened a bit further.
Only after receiving Su’s promise did Li feel the same warmth and safety from Su’s embrace as before. Her mind relaxed again, and then an endless fatigue immediately surged. Her body became weak, and just like that, she entered a state of sleep while in Su’s arms.
Su returned Li to the sleeping bag and properly covered her up. Then, he emerged from the tent to inquire from Li Gaolei the details of what happened after he left.
Soon after Su left, Li discovered that she was pregnant. However, the maturation speed of her pregnancy was far faster than what she expected, the extraction and demands on her body quickly passing a critical point. Li’s mind became weak, and in just a few days of time, her body became weak to the extent where even her ability levels began to slowly decrease, no matter how hard she tried to ingest nutrients. Only Li Gaolei, Kane, and a doctor knew about Li’s pregnancy. After carefully examining Li’s body, that doctor was clearly frightened badly, insisting that Li wasn’t pregnant, but rather that what rested in her body was a parasitic abnormal creature. After the examination, the doctor decided to carry out a surgery on Li who hadn't left the operating table yet, as well as to kill the irregular life form that hadn't finished growing yet.
Then, based on what Li said, that doctor insisted on carrying out the surgery despite her opposition, and so she had no choice but to kill him. Li Gaolei and Kane had no way of verifying the truthfulness of her words, and their status and experience of fighting together naturally put them on her side. However, Li Gaolei and Kane always suspected something. During the body examination, everything below her cervical vertebra should have had a general anesthetic applied, so she shouldn’t have been able to move for half an hour. Meanwhile, that doctor had three levels of ability as well, yet died under Li’s hands. This process was full of riddles. At the very least, Li Gaolei knew that he definitely wouldn’t be able to resist the anesthetic effects if he was in Li’s place, let alone kill a third level ability user in under three minutes of time.
The scene of the crime within the hospital room was a mess, with body parts everywhere. The doctor had already been completely torn apart, without a single larger piece of flesh to be found. As such, it was impossible to deduce what exactly happened.
This matter was thus covered up. Li Gaolei wanted to wait until Su came back to talk about it, as he believed that what was in Li’s stomach truly was Su’s child. He could feel a bit of aura from Li’s stomach that only Su had. However, in the following few days, Li’s body quickly weakened, sleeping most of the day, and even when she was awake, she was a bit dizzy. Several days later, Li seemed to be sleeping all day. The worst thing was that her appetite was no longer as great, sometimes even forgetting to eat. It was Li Gaolei who discovered that something was wrong, forcing her to eat a bit.
Right at this time, Spike started the rebellion. At the most crucial point, the rebel army received powerful reinforcements. Meanwhile, Li, who occupied both the position of an army commander and the most powerful individual combat strength, was in a state where she couldn’t fight at all. Apart from small troop alley fights, Li Gaolei’s skill of command couldn’t compare to Li’s at all, and his individual combat strength was much inferior as well. Under the sudden besiege of a group of fourth level ability users, he had no way of turning around the battle situation. After paying the price of heavy casualties, he could only withdraw from Steel Gate and hold his position in the steel mill, borrowing the terrain here to fend off intruders. If Su still didn’t come back, he could only withdraw to Base N69. He might be able to hold on for a bit longer, but Li’s body’s situation was worsening, and only the base had sufficient medical conditions.
“Ledesma, I truly haven’t paid attention to this fella…” Su said a bit self mockingly. Then, he asked, “Then during this rebellion, what was Victor doing? Did he stand by Ledesma’s side?”
Li Gaolei thought for a bit, and then he shook his head and said, “I don’t know. After Spike started up the armed rebellion, there was no news at all from Victor. From the intelligence we obtained from the rebel army, Sinking Blade’s five membered committee’s active members only consisted of Ledesma and Lora, the remaining three without any information, almost as if they disappeared. What I am sure of, however, is that Sinking Blade is currently under Ledesma’s control. I heard that he had recently substantially expanded his army, the plan being to enlarge it to ten thousand men before attacking Kelan City.”
“Ten thousand? It seems like he wants to give a gun to every strong man he has.” Su said with a slight smile. Now that he saw that Li Gaolei, Li and Kane were all still alive, his mood improved considerable. Li’s situation wasn’t good, but after the speed of the embryo’s growth was controlled, she would gradually recover as well.
In Li Gaolei’s eyes, hidden behind Su’s pretty smile was an indifferent coldness. A ten thousand member army, in Su’s heart, was perhaps just a bunch of numbers and symbols, not representing much at all, not something he paid much attention to at all.
After muttering to himself for a bit, Li Gaolei still spoke his own thoughts. “Ledesma’s tactics have a large chance of succeeding. Kelan City has an advantage in ability user numbers, but they don’t have many fifth level ability users, and not a single sixth level ability user. With their overwhelming superiority in ordinary soldier numbers, they could completely overtake Kelan City. As long as they can obtain Kelan City’s formulations, together with Steel Gate’s military and Midnight City’s ability to supply goods, Ledesma could establish a thirty thousand man army in theory. An army on this scale could not only control all of the region west of the great lakes, it can defeat the surrounding Alloy Brotherhood and other independent organizations, thus expanding their strength southward, to the extent where they might even arrive at the Carribean Sea. This is probably Ledesma’s true goal.”
“He wants to be the father of the new era federation?” Su who now understood a bit of history laughed, and then said rather indifferently, “To achieve this goal, I fear that thirty thousand men aren’t enough.”
Li Gaolei looked at Su with a somewhat complex expression. He sighed and then said, “Thirty thousand men? In front of true high level ability users, no amount of numbers are enough. Even if they truly create a ten thousand membered army, they still might not be your opponent. I’m not wrong, am I, leader?”
Su gave Li Gaolei a look. After thinking for a bit, he decided that he would still speak the truth to this subordinate who had followed him through life and death.
“It would still take a bit of time.”