Rebirth: Inheriting Millions In The Eighties
Chapter 539 - 537 Speak Up_1

Chapter 539: Chapter 537 Speak Up_1

As he cradled her, Lu Tingli softly inquired with lowered brows, "How was today, is the child still fussy?"

Meeting his concerned gaze, Xia Ningxing replied, "I’m feeling much better staying here. Lu, focus on your work, don’t worry about me all the time."

Lu Tingli sighed and stretching out his hand, he tap her nose, "How could I not worry?"

She was the most important person in his life. If he didn’t worry about her, who else would he concern himself with?

Her fair and slender fingers wove through his hair, gently stroking as she spoke in a soft tone, "Try to be present if you can."

Lu Tingli held her restless hand and smiled without a word.

Missing her was something he simply couldn’t restrain.

Thinking of the chickens in the yard, Lu Tingli couldn’t help asking, "Why did you think of raising chicks? Aren’t they noisy?"

"Not at all," Xia Ningxing shook her head with a smile, meeting his anxious look, "Lu, you’re overthinking it."

Even without him spelling it out, Xia Ningxing understood his concern was that the crowing chickens would disturb her.

"As long as you don’t find them noisy, it’s fine." Lu Tingli didn’t fuss over the matter of the chicks anymore and bent down to kiss her forehead, "I’m going to wash up."

"Go ahead."

Xia Ningxing nodded.

At bedtime, Lu Tingli gave Xia Ningxing a full-body massage.

After becoming pregnant, muscles often swelled or ached, and massage could help alleviate this.

His strong fingers massaged with just the right amount of pressure, each movement precise, honed by practicing on himself many times before.

Watching his earnest expression, Xia Ningxing couldn’t help saying, "Lu, stop massaging, haven’t you had a long day yourself? Aren’t you tired?"

"Compared to you, this bit of tiredness isn’t worth mentioning," Lu Tingli spoke as he continued to massage her shoulders, his thin lips curved in a gentle smile.

Xia Ningxing’s heart felt wrapped in honey.

...

The chicks were growing day by day. By the time they were big enough to lay eggs and be butchered, Xia Ningxing was nearly three months along.

Three months, still not showing.

Early in the morning, Xia Ningxing got up.

Wearing a wool coat with a beige sweater underneath, her delicate and stunning features and smooth, jade-like skin made her look like a seventeen or eighteen-year-old girl, rather than an expectant mother.

Stepping outside, the morning light of spring danced in golden halos through her sleek black hair.

She lifted her eyes and saw the boss tidying the chicken coop.

Usually, these chores were Nanny Wu’s job, never falling to him.

But Nanny Wu’s mother-in-law had passed away a few days earlier, and she had to go back for the funeral. Meanwhile, new domestic help had to undergo thorough identity verification and screening before starting, so chores like cleaning the chicken coop and housework fell on Lu Tingli’s shoulders.

It wasn’t that Xia Ningxing was too lazy to do them; it’s just that Lu Tingli wouldn’t allow it, fearing it would overexert her.

Xia Ningxing felt quite helpless about this.

By then, Lu Tingli had deftly cleaned out the coop, the chicken manure collected and bagged, ready to ferment into fertilizer.

"You’re up?"

Turning his head, Lu Tingli saw Xia Ningxing watching him.

"Mhm." Xia Ningxing nodded while stepping towards him, her eyes smiling as she took the hen’s eggs from his hands, "Eight again, these hens are really laying a lot!"

Right, two hens were actually laying eight eggs a day.

And all of them were double-yolked.

"They sure are prolific layers," Lu Tingli said with an encouraging look, glancing at the chicks, oh no, they were now called old laying hens.

Chickens grow up in just two or three months.

"Lu, it’s getting late, better wash your hands and get ready to head to the lab," Xia Ningxing urged after checking the time.

Lu Tingli responded in a gentle voice.

After he left, Xia Ningxing was about to return to her room with the eggs when she saw Mrs. Song approaching with a smile at the gate, "Xia, you found so many eggs again?"

While speaking, she stared enviously at the eggs in Xia’s hands.

"Yes," Xia Ningxing nodded at her, neither too friendly nor too cold to break the harmony.

"It’s amazing, I’ve never seen such prolific laying hens in my life," Mrs. Song couldn’t help but praise, then with a puzzled face, "They all came from the same batch of eggs, why aren’t my hens laying as much, Xia, do you have some secret to raising chickens?"

"Right! Xia Ningxing, do you have any tricks for raising chickens? Don’t be stingy, do share with us too!" Next door, Mrs. Jiang, with her sharp ears and long tongue, who had been washing clothes in the yard, rushed over to Xia Ningxing’s side as soon as she heard this.

Xia Ningxing: "..."

The soundproofing is really terrible!

"Come on, tell us!" Mrs. Jiang looked at her expectantly.

Living next door to Xia Ningxing, she was well aware of how well her chickens laid eggs. God knows how envious she was every day, and how much she wanted them for herself.

At a loss for words, Xia Ningxing replied, "There’s no secret, I just raise them casually, feeding them leftover rice or vegetable leaves on a regular basis."

Upon hearing this, Mrs. Jiang immediately scoffed: "If you don’t want to tell us, forget it."

After tossing out those words, she left in a huff, but as she passed by the chicken nest, something seemed to occur to her, and a calculating, smug smile flashed in her eyes.

If Xia Ningxing didn’t want to share her secret of the high egg yield, then fine, she shouldn’t blame Mrs. Jiang for not being merciful!

Ningxing was unaware that someone was coveting her laying hens until she returned from the prenatal check-up at the institute’s medical team in the afternoon and noticed something odd about the chicken nest.

It wasn’t that the chickens had been stolen or anything was missing.

It was that the chickens seemed to be different from the ones she had been raising previously.

Xia Ningxing frowned, squatting in front of the chicken nest, examining the chickens pecking inside over and over again.

Indeed, these were not the hens she had raised.

Although the hens all looked rather similar and were hard to distinguish, Xia Ningxing had a photographic memory, and with nothing better to do during her pregnancy, she often observed every blade of grass and tree in the yard, so she could clearly recognize the differences between the hens.

Someone had swapped her chickens while she was not at home!

As Xia Ningxing stood up, her face quickly turned cold as she surveyed the surroundings, until she saw a wet footprint in the vegetable garden by the corner of the wall. She couldn’t help but snicker, her gaze falling on Mrs. Jiang’s yard next door.

Indeed, capable of stooping to such lows as theft.

The reason she was certain that footprint belonged to Mrs. Jiang was that in the entire research institute, only Mrs. Jiang practiced foot binding, making her "Three Inch Golden Lotus" footprints quite unique and easy to recognize.

However, Xia Ningxing was not planning to expose her just yet.

She thought Ningxing’s chickens laid so many eggs, well, then let her see whether these chickens would lay as many eggs in her yard.