How could Zhou Sicheng not think Shen Ku and Chu Ren were utterly useless? All their key information had come straight from his own wife’s practical experience!

He had always thought that when Xiang Zhen said he got struck by lightning, it was just unexpected mountain weather—a lightning bolt hitting a lone rock that accidentally caught his wife in the crossfire. It turned out the earth-shattering thunderbolt was aimed directly at his wife! It had even scorched his hair off!

Kneeling on the bed, Zhou Sicheng felt a pain like an arrow piercing his heart. He cupped Xiang Zhen’s face and gently stroked his cropped hair. How could that lightning be so ruthless, aiming right for Xiang Zhen’s head? If his luck had been just a little worse, it wouldn’t have just been his hair that got hurt.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” If he hadn’t gone on a hunger strike to force Xiang Zhen’s hand, Xiang Zhen might not have left, and he wouldn’t have had to face the heavenly thunder alone in the mountains.

Xiang Zhen: “Hubby, don’t worry. No spirit has ever been killed by a lightning strike. The lightning is actually useful—have you ever heard of the Awakening of Insects?” If it were dangerous, the Guide to Becoming Human would definitely have emphasized it.

Zhou Sicheng: “If it was really so kind, why did it aim for your head?”

Xiang Zhen: “It opens up the mind.”

Zhou Sicheng: “…”

Shen Ku’s head was about to explode, and Chu Ren was fidgeting restlessly. Under the aggrieved, pleading, and accusatory stares of three imposing, 1.9-meter-tall men, Li Guihua thought to herself: if she had known there was such a massive information gap, she wouldn’t have come.

Li Guihua: “Just hide somewhere with a lightning rod for the first three months of pregnancy, and you’ll be fine.”

Xiang Zhen saw that Bai Qi had sent a photo of the coffee bean baby to their group chat. It was dark green, about the size of a soybean, and hidden among dense foliage. No wonder Manning hadn’t noticed it. It wasn’t like a sunflower’s disk, where a little melon seed stood out so prominently.

Xiang Zhen forwarded the photo to the Little Sunflower AI: “Little Sunflower, how many months old is the coffee bean baby?”

Shen Ku had just been about to knock on the door next door to find Dou Manning, but upon hearing this, his legs were nailed to the floor again. At this moment, he began to understand why Zhou Sicheng hated the little spirits holding meetings: the meeting results were only shared internally, making it incredibly difficult for the humans to find out anything.

Little Sunflower played its analysis out loud: “Zhenzhen is such a good baby who is great at observing plants! This coffee bean is visually estimated to be 0.6 centimeters in size, placing it in the green fruit expansion stage, 2-4 months after flowering. The coffee bean baby is growing rapidly, and the seed inside has already taken a basic shape. Do you want to know when it can be harvested?”

Xiang Zhen: “Go ahead.”

Little Sunflower: “Analyzing the date watermark of the photo, this is a Southern Hemisphere coffee bean. Southern Hemisphere coffee trees flower in September and October, which matches perfectly. It takes 7-8 months for a coffee bean baby to reach the fully ripe red fruit stage. I recommend harvesting it next April. May 1st is Labor Day, so you can experience the joy of picking coffee beans on that day!”

At this exact moment, Dou Manning and Bai Qi walked in one after the other. Hearing Little Sunflower’s suggestion, they looked thoughtful.

Dou Manning: “I think that works.”

Xiang Zhen: “Little Sunflower is very reliable.”

Bai Qi: “I’ll keep that day open.”

Shen Ku: “…” Isn’t this a bit too casual?

Little Sunflower’s developer, Zhou Sicheng: “…” Sending an ultrasound—or plant—photo to an AI to calculate the due date? These three illiterates really know how to invent new tricks.

The moment he realized people were actually doing this in reality, Zhou Sicheng suddenly felt that Little Sunflower’s medical function carried a grave responsibility and had to be strictly regulated. But on second thought, the one who should be having a breakdown right now was Shen Ku. With that, Zhou Sicheng felt an optimistic, lighthearted sense of relief.

Whistling, he picked up the little melon seed baby and placed him on the changing table for a fresh diaper.

Li Guihua said: “Manning, you’re two months pregnant, which means the lightning tribulation should happen sometime this month. Be careful on your way back.”

Hearing this, Shen Ku flatly refused to leave the building. Even though the drive home was only ten minutes, he was absolutely terrified. Since Zhou Sicheng had booked out the entire floor, Shen Ku promptly opened a suite next door for Dou Manning to stay in for the next two months. It was a luxurious convalescent center, complete with indoor sports courts and other facilities. Without a second word, Shen Ku climbed up to the roof to personally inspect the lightning rod.

After seeing the melon seed baby, Li Guihua wanted to head back to the countryside.

Zhou Sicheng said dutifully: “You rarely visit; stay a few more days.”

Shen Ku: “I have empty rooms at my house. Auntie, you can stay in peace for a year or a half.”

Chu Ren: “We couldn’t even invite you over before, how can you just stay for one day?”

Li Guihua: “…” She knew this was a trap.

…

Xiang Zhen was overjoyed to suddenly have good friends to keep him company during his postpartum confinement.

Zhou Sicheng and Shen Ku began discussing their compulsory education. The plan was to hire a few teachers for Politics, History, Geography, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology—these six general subjects, six classes a day. The teachers couldn’t just read from a textbook; they needed to actively fill in the gaps in the little spirits’ knowledge.

Where Xiang Zhen and Dou Manning were knowledgeable, they were very knowledgeable. But they were also deeply ignorant about the things they didn’t know. However, one thing the little spirits weren’t exaggerating about was that they learned incredibly fast.

When the tutoring teacher first arrived, she assumed they were two handsome, uneducated slackers about to debut in a boy band. They had already dyed their hair popular colors and were sent for emergency tutoring so fans wouldn’t realize they lacked a basic 9-year education. They were also probably signed under Changsheng Media, because she had run into Chu Ren in the elevator. President Chu was truly unconventional—sending his artists to a hospital for tutoring. His rivals would never guess it in a million years.

The teacher also discovered a huge secret: the great beauty was secretly married. Teaching such a gorgeous person was a feast for the eyes; she could have tolerated it even if he was functionally brain-dead.

However, after the very first class, the teacher completely overturned her assumptions—such smart students, such effortless teaching! The great beauty even looked at her with such polite, eager-to-learn eyes. She would have been willing to pay to work this job.

While Lord Sunflower was taking his classes, the baby sunflower slept in a cradle by the window, basking in the sun. During the break, Xiang Zhen gently rocked the cradle, catching the kicking, milky-soft little legs of the baby sunflower.

He asked Dou Manning, “Which university did your husband graduate from?”

Dou Manning: “Tsinghua University, Civil Engineering.”

Xiang Zhen: “My husband studied Finance at Peking University. Do you think our babies will be able to get into top universities like our husbands in the future?”

Dou Manning: “Little Melon Seed has the aura of a top scholar.”

Xiang Zhen’s eyelashes fluttered slightly, the sunlight highlighting a faint smile in his pupils. “Your baby does too. They can go to school together in the future.”

Speaking of school, Xiang Zhen started worrying again: “Will the melon seed baby and the coffee bean baby get bullied by other babies?” After all, there were bound to be little cliques in a class.

Xiang Zhen: “If Bai Qi gives birth to a snake baby, the three of them definitely won’t be bullied.” His husband had told him that three was a very powerful number. Sister Wang had also said that a pampered wife’s biggest threat was a ‘little third’ (a mistress).

Zhou Sicheng went to work in the morning, parented in the afternoon, and tutored his wife at night. The melon seed baby started attending classes straight from the swaddle, and the coffee bean baby received precise prenatal education. Deep love meant planning far ahead for them.

Zhou Sicheng felt highly satisfied with the educational prospects of his son’s childhood friend. The future was bright. At least their descendants wouldn’t just be two illiterates teaming up to cause trouble.

Leaning into his husband’s arms, Xiang Zhen opened his physics book to the section on electrical circuits. “Hubby, let’s preview this tonight.”

Zhou Sicheng: “Preview?”

Xiang Zhen explained: “Because the teacher said this part is quite difficult. Engineer Shen will definitely help Manning preview it tonight. I don’t want to fall behind Manning’s pace tomorrow.”

Speaking of this, originally there was no such thing as “nighttime tutoring” for his wife. It was just a whim of Zhou Sicheng’s to check on his wife’s learning progress—though in reality, it was just an excuse to bully him, making Xiang Zhen do this and that if he answered incorrectly. Xiang Zhen got bullied, but he also genuinely absorbed the knowledge, over-completing his homework and earning the teacher’s praise the very next day.

When Shen Ku found out about this, Engineer Shen firmly believed that Zhou Sicheng harbored ulterior motives to secretly widen the academic gap between them. He couldn’t let Dou Manning fall behind Xiang Zhen and suffer a blow to his confidence, so he immediately started tutoring his own wife at night too.

The next day, the little spirits compared their study progress. The moment one realized he was falling behind and feared dragging the other down, he would immediately rush his husband to tutor him more. And just like that, an intense academic rat race began.

Every day, the teacher would arrive with her lesson plans, only to find that the great beauty already knew the material. Whenever she asked, the answer was always that his master’s-degree-holding husband had taught him.

“…” Then why did they even hire a teacher!

The experienced teacher quickly learned to adapt; she would teach chapter one, then jump straight to chapter three, leaving the middle section to the “greater expert” at home.

To Zhou Sicheng, middle school physics was as simple as 1+1. By merely teaching 1+1, he basked in his wife’s starry-eyed gaze, looking at him like he was a mathematical genius. The same went for history: he would casually mention some ancient emperor’s gossip, and Xiang Zhen would think his husband had mastered 5,000 years of history like a contemporary royal historian.

Xiang Zhen: “Hubby, there is so much knowledge in your head. You know everything about astronomy above and humanities below.”

Zhou Sicheng pursed his lips, being appropriately modest: “My astronomy knowledge is still lacking a bit. I’ll work harder.”

Xiang Zhen’s eyes were round and sparkling, filled with nothing but his husband. “You are the sun, no one understands celestial bodies better than you.”

Zhou Sicheng suppressed his rising ego and said, “You’re praising your husband to the heavens. I’m not that outstanding. Ahem, let’s look at voltage first. The unit is the volt.”

“Household electricity is 220V.” Zhou Sicheng felt a lingering wave of fear. “Zhenzhen, be careful when using electrical appliances. Never touch plugs with wet hands.”

Xiang Zhen: “Hubby, what is the voltage of lightning?”

Zhou Sicheng: “100 million to 1 billion volts.”

Zhou Sicheng’s eyes stung, and he pulled his wife and son tightly into his arms. How could he have let his wife and child endure a heavenly lightning tribulation out in the wild? Being the first one to get pregnant really put them at a disadvantage; he hadn’t even known he needed to prepare a lightning rod for his wife.

Xiang Zhen, however, was incredibly proud: “The baby and I withstood a billion volts!” After saying that, he observed Zhou Sicheng’s expression, thought for a moment, and offered comfort: “Engineer Shen must be really anxious about this lesson, unable to teach Manning well. He’s not as good as you.”

Zhou Sicheng was also experiencing delayed anxiety. It was fine when he wasn’t actively thinking about it, but now he had literal trauma regarding thunderstorms. Even though their first time had been during a thunderstorm, with the thunder and heavy rain masking their heavy panting… It brought joy, but it also brought pain.

Zhou Sicheng: “Let’s stop studying and go to bed early tonight. Engineer Shen probably can’t teach this either, so you can just keep the same pace as your classmate.”

Xiang Zhen smiled: “Okay, I’m getting sleepy too.”

Zhou Sicheng coaxed his wife and child to sleep… Actually, no coaxing was needed. The big and little sunflowers both followed strict circadian rhythms and fell asleep effortlessly at night. Instead, it was him who needed time to wind down.

He picked up his phone to check the time, only to unexpectedly notice that the weather forecast was now showing thunderstorms. When he had checked that morning, it was supposed to be rain-free for the entire week, with crisp autumn weather.

Zhou Sicheng suddenly froze. Is it the lightning tribulation? Could it target the wrong spirit? They were so close to Dou Manning!

Unable to trust this unreliable, makeshift world for a second, Zhou Sicheng fired off a warning text to Shen Ku and hurriedly shook his wife awake: “Wife, wake up!”

Xiang Zhen, eyes heavy with sleep: “What’s wrong? Does the baby need milk?”

Zhou Sicheng helped him sit up and turned his back to him. “It’s nothing. Just get on my back.”

Xiang Zhen sleepily and obediently draped himself over his husband’s back. In a daze, he felt himself being lifted, followed by a very bumpy ride.

Carrying his wife on his back and holding his child, Zhou Sicheng sprinted down the emergency stairwell, making it all the way to the second basement level in one breath. Fortunately, his leg injury was fully healed, enabling him to shoulder the weight of his entire family. A man definitely had to be strong and healthy.

His son didn’t cry, and his wife didn’t wake up. He tucked Xiang Zhen and the baby into the car parked in the underground garage, finally breathing a long sigh of relief.