Iris Long shrugged as she hugged Little Mochi in her arms. Jin Liwei adjusted Little Matcha with one arm and sat beside his wife. She rested her head on his shoulder.

    The two sat in silence while looking at the guests chatting with one another. Their twins were surprisingly well-behaved today—well, Little Mochi was remarkably well-behaved. It seemed that despite their young age, they must have sensed something amiss from the adults.

    Iris and Jin Liwei would have brought their children to the funeral to pay their final respects to their Great-Grandma Li, but the weather was too cold today. In the end, they could only leave their twins along with the other children to Dom and the nannies.

    "Are you tired?" Iris asked.

    He didn’t reply.

    Enjoy new adventures from empire

    "Be honest," she said.

    He sighed. "I am...a little."

    She rested her chin on his shoulder before rubbing her cheek on him. Little Mochi saw what she was doing and found it fun.

    The baby twisted his body on her lap and threw himself into his daddy’s arms. Jin Liwei caught his other son. Before he could discipline the naughty baby, Little Mochi mimicked his mommy and rubbed his face all over his daddy’s neck.

    Jin Liwei froze. He glanced at his wife who was looking at them with amusement. He sighed but his mouth was already curving upward.

    "Cha, yah yah yah!" (Matcha, let’s do it together!) Little Mochi tried enticing his twin brother.

    Little Matcha glanced at what his brother was doing and found it uninteresting. He targeted their mommy’s empty lap instead.

    "Ma!" he called out.

    It was already dusk when the Jin and Lu families said goodbye to the final guests. Only their closest friends remained.

    Lin Yehan and Jiang Ying Yue opted to stay at the Jin family house with their son, Little Jun.

    Yu Mo would also be staying. He had been staying at the Jin family house ever since they helped transfer Grandma Li from the mountainside hospital to the hospital here.

    Wang Yingjie, however, couldn’t stay the night because he had a scheduled major surgery tomorrow. He had already taken leave and rearranged his scheduled surgeries to be there with his Third Brother Jin Liwei during the wake and the funeral. He really needed to return to the operating room tomorrow.

    Lu Zihao, of course, would be staying with his wife and kids. Grandpa Lu was staying and he couldn’t leave the old man. He knew that the Jins would take care of him, but he still needed to make sure that Grandpa Lu was fine with his own eyes.

    Perhaps the death of Jin Liwei’s grandmother affected him more than he was willing to admit. Grandpa Lu was older than Grandma Li. He might look healthy and energetic but time continued to tick. One day, the old man would also need to surrender to the laws of nature.

    As Nikolai Vetrov, the former heir to the Vetrov criminal empire, he shouldn’t feel too affected by natural death. It was an unnatural death due to murder that he would always feel obligated to pursue revenge. With natural deaths, however, there was no choice but to accept it. After all, it was part of the natural process of life.

    Now, however, he couldn’t help but feel dread whenever he looked at the old man. Seeing the old man become skinnier from grief for his old friend, Li Zhiruo, made Lu Zihao feel anxious. He wouldn’t admit it, though.

    ’Too annoying,’ he thought.

    He watched as Grandpa Lu walked slowly, devoid of his previous energetic self, and sat down on the sofa. Lu Zihao sat beside him.

    "Old man, let’s go home," he said.

    "Not yet, my boy," Grandpa Lu said in a tired voice. "Not yet."

    Lu Zihao sighed.

    Long Jinjing originally wanted to call the grandfather-grandson duo to go rest in their rooms but refrained from doing so. It seemed that her husband was worried about his grandfather again. In the end, she didn’t disturb the two and took her babies upstairs with the nannies.