CHAPTER 680: ETFS AND BABIES

As the dinner came to an end, everyone was sitting on the sofa, watching the News as the news anchor started talking.

"Today’s financial story, the stock market has suffered a massive dip. The Guangzhou composition index had dropped 5% with its closure.

This came after the head of the security exchange, Muxie, had stated that all government employees can no longer own stock."

Kate immediately looked over to Yuqi, who only sat there in silence as if she herself was stunned by the policy itself.

"Yuqi, you created this?"

"No? I never told Muxie to ban government employees from holding stocks... But he isn’t wrong in banning it."

As the two of them fell into silence, the TV started displaying a graph of an even worse stock drop, dropping a total of 10% before it rebounded to a 5% drop at the end.

"When we asked one of the representatives at the security exchange for an explanation, they told us that it is to avoid government employees from insider trading.

The representative had also told us that many of the investment accounts are currently going through liquidation to prevent further conflict of interest.

Although this sent a bearish signal towards the stock market, Muxie had also revealed the creation of Exchange-Traded Fund, or ETFs, within the next week.

In the future, he had stated that the creation of ETFs is intended to protect both small investors and avoid an outright ban on government employees owning stock."

"Thank god. No wonder the stock rebounded 5% at the end of the day."

Kate murmured as she could see the name of the stock she owned scrolling on the side, with only a 3% drop.

"Hey, honey, should we invest some of our money in the ETFs?" Leyan suddenly asked as a short ad break started playing.

"Not happening," Yuqi answered first.

"It’s going to be a conflict of interest for me or you to hold any stocks, regardless of whether it is in an ETF," Xiaoyun answered.

"I guess..."

"How come sister Kate could own stock?" Lily curiously asked, her head unable to wrap around the conversation.

"She’s not a government employee like Xiaoyun... And technically, she had her investment account under Anna’s company."

"Nami is absolutely right... Wait a moment, how do you know I have the account under the company’s name?"

Kate quickly cornered Nami on the sofa, not letting her get away as Nami awkwardly swirled her finger around her own hair.

"I might have seen a thing or two on the security exchange computer. Hey, I just got a little curious, okay?"

"Bullshit. That’s my privacy. You can’t access that on a whim like that." Kate questioned as she felt a little violated.

"Blame the IT department. They were the ones who gave me access... Besides, what are you scared of? Do you have something to hide?"

"I-I got nothing to hide. This is vicious, outlandish slander——"

"Be quiet, you two. I can barely hear the TV." Shuli complained as their argument was starting to get way too loud.

"Sorry!"

---

As the news came to an end, all of the girls headed upstairs to take a shower, leaving Xiaoyun the only one in the living room to take care of the babies.

"Daddy! Can I hug you?" Lianrong suddenly requested as she slowly wobbled over to his legs.

"Of course."

Xiaoyun gently lifted her into his arms, letting her wrap her hands around his neck before letting her sit down on the sofa.

"Daddy, why are you always so busy?" Yongyi curiously asked as he turned around to look towards him.

"Daddy got work, okay? I’ll be spending more time with you guys when it’s..."

Seeing both Qiaolan and Xuanhua turning around to look towards him, he fell into silence as he couldn’t give them an answer.

His mind thought of just making a date up, but he felt guilty about it. He just couldn’t bring himself to lie in front of them.

"I’ll spend more time with you guys on the weekend. I promise."

"Yay!"

"Whoa, be careful."

As Xiaoyun gently lowered Lianrong back down to the ground to her siblings, they were all celebrating with a smile on their faces.

"Waaaa!"

The crying noise made him quickly turn around as he looked over to the crib, only to find Wenwen and Bingbing both crying at the same time.

"What’s wrong? Are you guys hungry? Needing to go to the bathroom?"

Despite asking the two babies the question, they all stopped crying as soon as he lifted them into his arms.

"Alright, you guys just want to spend time with me, right?"

Xiaoyun slowly swung his arms left and right, trying to put them to sleep as their eyelids looked to be closing on their own.

"Da da la la la da da, it’s time for you to sleep now... Goodnight."

Putting the two babies back into their cribs, they were finally back asleep as he gently rolled the two cribs back towards the baby’s bedroom.

After walking back to the living room, he turned around towards the three babies who were circling Xuanhua as if they were playing tag.

"Okay, enough playing. It’s time for you guys to go to sleep as well..."

Xiaoyun picked up Xuanhua first as he gently swung her around in his arms, helping her fall asleep before putting her into the crib.

With her crib rolled into the guest bedroom next, there was now just one last obstacle before he could take a shower.

"Hey, you three. Stop running. I said it’s time for you guys to go to sleep."

"Waaaaa! D-Daddy is a monster!"

All three of them kept on wobbling around the sofa, going away from him as he kneeled on the floor to ’catch’ them.

After a while, all three of them finally ran out of energy as they stopped right in the middle of the living room.

"Now you guys have nowhere to go, MUAHAHAHA!"

As Xiaoyun grabbed all three of them in a single swoop, they were all laughing as they didn’t resist a single bit.

"Why are you all laughing?"

"Daddy is h-horrible at acting!" Lianrong pointed out, showing zero fear as he lifted them into the air.

"Yeah!" Both Yongyi and Qiaolan answered at the same time.

"Okay, fine... Anyway, time for you guys to go to sleep. No more fooling around."

"Boo!"

Despite their protest, he continued carrying them towards the baby’s bedroom before opening the door.

The moment he walked inside, none of them made any noise as if they knew their siblings were already asleep.

"Sleep well..."

After leaving the room and closing the door, Xiaoyun finally let out a sigh of relief as he finally finished putting them all to sleep.

Taking out his phone, he checks the camera, only to see all of them peacefully asleep on the bed with only little movements.

"Thank god for the invention of the baby camera... Why do they not wake each other up, though?"

The more Xiaoyun thought about it, the more confused he felt. He still couldn’t understand how his kids were all so well-behaved.

It was just the complete opposite compared to Yueyue, Yuqi, or Nami back when they were still kids.

He had personally experienced having them wake them up in the middle of the night and even purposely wake each other up for the most random reason possible.

"Honey, where are all the kids?" Leyan curiously asked, walking down the stairs with a towel over her wet hair.

"I already put them into bed... You guys finished taking a shower?"

"Yeah... You can go take a shower now."

As Xiaoyun got up and started heading towards the staircase, he froze for a second as he felt something invisible in front of him.

Before he knew it, a blindfold was put over him as everything turned dark.

"What are you guys doing?"

"Shhhh, just go up the stairs... We have a little surprise for you. Trust me, you won’t regret it a single bit."

Xiaoyun’s mind hesitated for a second, but he eventually agreed to it as he began walking up the stairs while still blindfolded.

"Just keep walking... We’re just going to bring you to the shower area to clean up your body first."

"Why not just let me take off the blindfold?"

"It will ruin the surprise... Just be patient, okay?"

Leyan murmured as she held onto his hand, guiding him forward until he stopped again. He could feel his clothes being taken off.

"Can I take it off now?"

"Not yet. Keep walking now... Okay, stand here. Don’t move and don’t take off the blindfold until I tell you so."

Standing still, he could hear footsteps walking further and further away from him. Soon, he could hear the bathroom door closing.

"Leyan, you there?"

Hearing no response, he immediately thought of taking off the blindfold. But he chose to keep it on in the end as he didn’t want to ruin the surprise.

"Is anyone there? If no one is going to answer me, I’m going to take off the blindfold in three minutes."