Liu Fen's heart sank suddenly; the warmth that had just risen was instantly extinguished by these harsh words.

"Mom, I..."

"What do you mean, 'you'!" Granny Li slammed her shoe on the table with a "thud," raised her triangular eyes, and glared at her like knives. "You've been gone all morning, taking that good-for-nothing out to slack off. You sure know how to enjoy yourself! Is the food ready? Are the clothes washed? Is the floor swept?"

A barrage of questions lashed at Liu Fen's face like whips.

She shrank back, holding her child, and whispered an explanation: "Mom, I'm not going out to slack off, I'm sick, I have a high fever, my milk ducts are really blocked, and the baby is crying from hunger. I'm going to see Dr. Su..."

"Looking for that vixen from the city?" Granny Li spat, stood up, took a few steps to her, pointed at her nose and cursed, "I think you're just lazy! Just greedy! Trying to avoid working the fields and getting out of bed just to have a baby girl! Our Liu family must have had the worst luck in eight lifetimes to marry a jinx like you who can't lay eggs and has a bunch of bad habits!"

"I didn't..." Liu Fen's eyes welled up with tears, "I was really sick, I had a high fever, Dr. Su helped me squeeze out the pus and milk, otherwise..."

"How dare you talk back!" Granny Li didn't listen to her explanation at all. Seeing that she still dared to be defiant, her anger flared up. She raised her rough, fat hand and slapped Liu Fen hard across the face.

"Smack!"

A crisp sound.

Liu Fen staggered from the blow, her head buzzing and her ears ringing. Instinctively, she tightly protected the child in her arms, afraid of startling him.

But Granny Li was still not satisfied. Seeing her cowardly way of protecting her child, she became even angrier. She grabbed the bamboo stool used for sewing shoe soles in the corner and smashed it on her back.

"I'll teach you to be lazy! I'll teach you to talk back! I'll teach you to treat a worthless brat like a treasure!"

One after another.

The bamboo stool slammed against her back with a dull thud. Liu Fen felt a wave of pain wash over her, her vision blurring. She gritted her teeth, daring not to utter a sound, only holding her child even tighter in her arms. That was her life.

Exhausted from beating, Granny Li threw down the bamboo stool, panting heavily as she pointed to a large basin overflowing with dirty clothes in the corner.

"Go! Wash all of this! If you don't finish washing it today, neither of you will eat!"

Liu Fen swayed precariously. She looked at the basin of clothes, which contained a mixture of men's sweaty work clothes and her mother-in-law's clothes, and her stomach churned.

She carefully placed the sleeping baby on the bed, covered him with the blanket, then turned around, her voice trembling, with a final plea: "Mom... I'm still in my postpartum period... I can't touch cold water..."

"Postpartum confinement?" Granny Li laughed as if she had heard the biggest joke in the world. She put her hands on her hips and laughed loudly and shrilly. "You? You're not worthy of postpartum confinement? You can't give the Liu family a son, so you're a useless thing! You want to act like a pampered young lady from the city? Let me tell you, we don't have that custom in the countryside! Women who give birth to girls are livestock! If you don't work in the fields, are you just going to be kept around to eat for free?"

She stepped forward, grabbed Liu Fen's hair, and dragged her into the yard.

"Go wash up! If you dare utter another word, I'll throw your brat up the mountain to feed the wolves!"

A biting wind blew in through the open door, chilling Liu Fen's thin frame. She was dragged to the well in the yard, where Granny Li shoved her hard, and she staggered to her knees on the cold cement ground.

The well water was freshly drawn and was chillingly cold.

Looking at the pile of dirty clothes in the basin, and then glancing back at the small figure on the bed in the room, Liu Fen finally broke down in tears.

The warmth and hope I had just felt at Dr. Su's house were now completely washed away by the icy well water and vicious curses.

Her postpartum period, her life, it seems, really is just as her mother-in-law said, worthless.

She stretched out her still slightly trembling hands and dipped them into the icy water. (This chapter has been read. Please click to continue reading the next chapter!)