Chapter 28

Welcome back! When we last left off, Xi was pregnant with hers and Nate’s second child. Happy on the outside, she was in fact miserable. She was terrified that Nate would cheat on her, and let the fear consume her. Although she was pregnant, she stopped eating.

Nate was oblivious to Xi’s problems. She hid them so well. It didn’t help matters that Nate was wholly preoccupied by trying to max out his photography skill.

 

Soon, Xi went into labor.

 

She travelled to the hospital alone, and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Alana. She was born with Artistic locked in, and rolled Charismatic. Her favorites are: Orange, Cookies, and Egyptian music.

 

Nate didn’t make it to his daughter’s birth, because he was getting a tattoo.

His tattoo consisted of an Egyptian symbol combined with Chinese writing, to signify his union with Xi.

Xi, unsure of Nate’s whereabouts, was very upset upon returning home. Her husband was nowhere to be found; she could only assume he was gallavanting with another woman.

Little did she know, Nate had already returned from the tattoo parlor and was visiting with his children in the opposite wing of the house. He spent hours snuggling the new baby, and playing with Chase.

Nate stayed in the nursey until he was starved, and rushed to the kitchen to eat. He was so hungry that he didn’t even notice Xi walking by.

 

Xi took Nate’s food-induced blindness to mean he truly was indifferent to her. She was heartbroken.

 

Xi retreated to the upstairs bathroom, clutched her chest, and crumpled to the floor.

 

The whole family rushed upstairs to see what was wrong, and were astonished. Nate couldn’t believe his eyes.

 

Nate couldn’t believe he’d driven the love of his life to such measures.

 

He was devastated. At the same time, however, he couldn’t help but smile when he looked at the empty bed and realized he’d finally be able to sleep all splayed out again.

 

Nate was incredibly lonely after Xi’s passing, and took to carrying around his old toy bunny. He’d had that in his inventory since he became a toddler.

 

Everyone worried about Nate, especially his parents.

 

At night, Xi’s ghost would visit and take care of regular household chores. Nate would wait up to see her.

 

He tried to believe she was his wife and alive again; however, she was only a ghostly embodiment of her former self. She did not recognize him.

 

Ziyi handled her mother’s passing well, but was still distraught.

 

She did her best to help Nate with the kids…

 

… although, he’d taken to spending every moment of every day with them.

 

In a few days, Nate began to return to his old self. He even started playing chess with Ziyi again.

 

Rose and Farid were encouraged to see their son thriving again, and decided to throw a party for Aaron’s birthday.

 

The whole family was invited, as the youngest member of the 8^th generation grew to an adult.

Aaron quickly moved out after he grew up. Farid helped him buy a nice little shack, thus depleting the family coffers.

 

Nate was feeling especially jovial, and decided to move the party down to the park.

 

He even made some hot dogs!

 

… Or at least attempted to.

 

The party wasn’t over yet, though! It was time for both Chase and Alana to grow up.

 

Alana grew up to be the cutest toddler ever. I probably think/say that for every toddler, but I mean it this time.

Chase grew up to be very cute as well. He rolled Grumpy as his third trait.

 

As soon as Alana was mobile, she took off and did cute things. Of course the camera folled her everywhere.

 

Nate kept to his recent habits, and immediately began teaching his daughter life skills.

 

First, though, he stopped to unload some pictures he’d taken.

 

Chase was jealous of the attention his sister was getting, and began to resent Nate.

Nate did drag himeself away from the nursery long enough to help Chase with his homework…

 

… and always played chess with Ziyi.

 

Ziyi had led a lonely life since her mother’s passing, but didn’t mind.

 

Her birthday soon arrived, and the household gathered to celebrate.

 

Surprisingly, she grew up into a beautiful young woman.

Nate was proud that he’d raised his stepdaughter to adulthood, and felt confident in his parenting abilities.

 

As the party wrapped up, though, he couldn’t help but think of how beautiful Ziyi turned out to be.

 

When things finally quieted down, Rose sat down with Ziyi and asked her what her plans were. Was she moving? What career did she want? What were her goals? She’d always wanted to become a chess grandmaster, but that was about it. She didn’t have any skills other than logic, and really had no interest.

 

Ziyi tried to find a job, but no one would take her. Finally, she decided to put her good senses to use and signed up as a Private Eye.

 

Rose, glad to have helped a young girl find direction, decided to congratulate her son for being so close to accomplishing his goals.

 

She barely finished talking, when suddenly, she became a ghost.

 

The grim reaper was very busy that evening: he took both Rose and Farid.

 

As she and Nate were the only adults left in the house, Ziyi quickly stepped up and helped out in the sad situation. She called Louisa and Charlie to let them know their parents had passed, but couldn’t get ahold of Aaron.

 

She quickly caught up with him at one of his local haunts, and had to share the sad news then and there.

 

Aaron handled the information worse than anticipated.

 

Fortunately, Ziyi was there to comfort him.

 

Although Nate was seemingly over Xi’s death, he still visited with her nightly. He’d grown almost as close to her ghost as he was to her in life.

 

The two were very much in love again.

 

One night, when Xiyi couldn’t sleep, she woke up and caught Nate and Xi chatting in the kitchen.

 

She was shocked that Nate could still be in love with Xi’s ghost; after all, Ziyi could sense no part of her mother in the creature.

 

She couldn’t fault her stepfather, though. He deserved some happiness after all the hard times lately.

 

In fact, Nate’s staying up late was finally catching up to him. He was worn out, and one day passed out while feeding the fish. Will Nate be okay? What will happen to the children if anything happens to Nate? Will Ziyi stay or move out? Read the next chapter to find out!

 

In the meantime, though, here’s one last picture of Alana doing cute things.