Chapter 176 Postpartum Confinement

Grandma Gu carried the cooked millet porridge and eggs into the bedroom, but she didn't see Yu Shanyue. Instead, she saw her granddaughter and her family of three.

She asked in confusion, "Did that woman leave?"

Lu Huailin took the millet porridge and egg from Grandma Gu, hummed in agreement, and changed the subject, saying, "Grandma, you rest for a while, I'll take care of things here."

Grandma Gu didn't ask any further questions upon hearing this, and said with a smile, "Alright, then Xiao Han is in your care."

As Gu Yihan watched Lu Huailin crack the eggs, her forehead throbbed with pain, and she felt a stench of chicken droppings wafting into her nose.

Lu Huailin glanced at his wife, who looked disgusted, with amusement: "Not to your liking?"

Gu Yihan looked at Lu Huailin with a wronged expression: "My mouth is so bland it tastes like bird's nest."

She's only been in postpartum confinement for a few days, and all she gets is either fish or chicken soup without any salt, or boiled eggs, and even the different kinds are just poached eggs with brown sugar.

Lu Huailin knew that his wife had been feeling a bit nauseous from eating eggs these past few days; even the best food can't withstand eating several eggs every day.

Gu Yihan reluctantly ate some millet porridge mixed with brown sugar, but she didn't want to eat a single egg.

Lu Huailin frowned. He had to go to the nearby villages to see if anyone was secretly raising pigeons in the mountains, so he could exchange some for his wife to change her appetite.

"Wow……"

Gu Yihan had just finished eating her porridge when the baby started crying.

She quickly picked up the baby to breastfeed, and told Lu Huailin to pour a glass of water and let it cool, so that she could give the little one some water after feeding.

Seeing his wife's actions, Lu Huailin asked, "Honey, should we change our son's diaper first?"

Gu Yihan was stunned: "It's the same whether you change it after you finish drinking the milk!"

Lu Huailin patiently explained, "Feeding before changing diapers makes it easier for babies to spit up."

He learned all of this from Leng Xiao; he has several children, and it's all based on experience.

Gu Yihan looked at Lu Huailin with a puzzled expression and handed the child to him.

The little guy had just started eating his food when, because of a single sentence from his father, his food disappeared, and he started howling at the top of his lungs.

Lu Huailin, being a former soldier, changed diapers and wiped bottoms efficiently and smoothly.

She quickly placed the baby in Gu Yihan's arms and adjusted his position so he could drink milk easily.

The little guy smelled the familiar scent, nudged his head, found his food, and sucked on it greedily. When he got tired, he knew to stop and rest for a while before continuing to suck.

Seeing his actions, Gu Yihan chuckled and said to Lu Huailin with a smile, "How did he manage to find the breast so accurately with his eyes half-closed..."

She stopped abruptly halfway through her sentence, halting what she was about to say.

Lu Huailin glanced at his wife's increasingly round and full breasts, trying hard to control the corners of his mouth from turning up.

...

Time flies, and before you know it, Gu Yihan is out of confinement. Grandma Gu made her stay for two more days.

Until the weekend, she fed the little one early and waited for him to fall asleep.

Carrying a change of clothes, she walked out of the bedroom and called out to Grandma Gu, who was sitting on the sofa, "Grandma, the baby is asleep. Listen to me, I'm going to the military bathhouse to take a shower."

Grandma Gu glanced at the clothes her granddaughter was carrying: "You can just boil some water at home and wash them."

Gu Yihan shook her head repeatedly. Heaven knows what her body looked like. If Lu Huailin hadn't secretly boiled water to wipe her body every night, she would probably have been stinking to high heaven.

On the way to the bathhouse, I ran into Battalion Commander Wen's wife, Wang Erya: "Sister Wang, so early, are you going to the bathhouse too?"

Wang Erya walked up to Gu Yihan with a smile, took her other arm, and said with a smile, "It's been so long since I've seen you. I've been wanting to thank you."

Gu Yihan was stunned for a moment upon hearing this: "What are you thanking me for?"

"Thanks to Xiaohan, I got a job as a factory worker in a textile factory," Wang Erya said with a smile.

Gu Yihan looked at Wang Erya with delight, genuinely happy for her: "That's wonderful!"

Wang Erya nodded with a smile, and the two walked into the bathhouse chatting and laughing.

There weren't many people taking showers at this time; there were only two or three scattered individuals.

Gu Yihan used a homemade loofah to scrub her bath towel, but it was covered in mud when she used it, which scared her so much that she quickly scrubbed it up and down vigorously.

One of the military wives looked curiously at the things in Gu Yihan's hands and walked up to her: "Hello, I am Song Zhi."

Gu Yihan paused in her scrubbing, then looked at Song Zhi, whose delicate round face and plump figure were the most popular looks of that era.

She smiled and said, "Hello, I'm Gu Yihan."

Although it was a bit awkward to stand there naked and greet people, she didn't want to ask them to leave since they had already come over.

Song Zhi pointed to the loofah bath towel in Gu Yihan's hand and asked with a smile, "I think the thing you have is very useful. Where did you buy it?"

When Wang Erya heard Song Zhi's question, she turned her body and looked curiously in the direction he was pointing.

Gu Yihan shook the loofah bath towel and smiled at the two of them: "This thing isn't sold outside; I made it myself."

Wang Erya, who came from the countryside, recognized the loofah and laughed, saying to Song Zhi, "That was made from loofah."

The three of them became acquainted instantly because of a loofah and a bath towel.

Gu Yihan also knew that Song Zhi lived on the third floor of the family building and had a daughter who was just four months old. Currently, her mother-in-law was taking care of the child, while she herself taught junior high school at the military academy.

Gu Yihan handed the bath towel to Wang Erya and asked her to help scrub her back.

Wang Erya took the loofah and bath towel and scrubbed her vigorously. After strips of mud came off, she couldn't help but ask, "Is it really true that you can't take a bath during postpartum confinement?"

Song Zhi smiled and glanced at Wang Erya, whose expression was hard to describe.

She began by saying, "When I was in postpartum confinement, I was sweating profusely every day. I wanted to wipe myself down, but I was afraid of catching a cold and it would be bad for the baby. By the time I finished confinement, I smelled terrible."

Upon hearing this, Wang Erya sighed and said, "Then you have to choose an auspicious day to get pregnant so you can have a proper postpartum period."

Gu Yihan and Song Zhi exchanged a glance and laughed.

After the three of them finished showering, they walked for a while and then headed home in their own directions.

On the way back, there were more military wives on the road. Gu Yihan would stop and chat with those she knew for a while.

Jiang Yue watched Gu Yihan walk away and questioned Li Duo beside her, "What's wrong with you? Why are you walking so slowly on purpose?"

Standing to the side, Liu Aihua glanced at Li Duo and said irritably, "That's right, I was also thinking of saying hello to Commander Lu's wife."

"We've been with the army for so long, but we haven't had a chance to thank Commander Lu for helping us arrange jobs."

Li Duo glanced at Jiang Yue and muttered, "Didn't we already agree to go this afternoon?"

Jiang Yue sneered: "Stop your little schemes. This isn't your rural hometown. Nobody will put up with you here."

After saying that, he pulled Liu Aihua, who was standing to the side, and turned to leave.

Li Duo stomped her foot in anger. What kind of person was he? He was just trying to curry favor with Gu Yihan because she was Lu Huailin's wife.