These days, Ye Yun has been filled with anticipation, hoping that when she wakes up, she will see a familiar car at the door, and that Mu Jingsheng and Ye Xia will get out.
Unfortunately, hope was always dashed.
Even on the seventh day of the lunar new year, when the baby was to be born and celebrated with relatives and friends, the car was nowhere to be seen.
A heart that had been hanging in suspense finally died.
Relatives came to visit Xiao Chuqi in waves, and seeing her thin and frail condition, the rumors that she was not premature were dispelled.
Bags of eggs and brown sugar filled the table, and clothes given to Xiao Chuqi were piled up on the kang (a heated brick bed).
But she couldn't be happy.
Compared to the quiet inner room, the yard outside the window was bustling with activity—
Several chefs who came to prepare the banquet busily prepared the ingredients, setting up several large pots with fires roaring in the stoves, and the fish and meat cooking in the pots emitted an enticing aroma.
Qin Xiang'e also boiled a large pot of water. In the steaming mist, Aunt Tian and I talked loudly while boiling the auspicious eggs.
At a baby's birth celebration, the host family will distribute a batch of eggs before the meal.
Eat what you want on the spot, and put what you don't want in your pocket first. There are eight people at the table, and each person gets two, which means good things come in pairs and it's a lucky omen.
Locally, when people hold banquets, they buy the ingredients themselves and hire a nearby chef who knows how to stir-fry to cook.
Qin Zheng was meticulous and attentive to his daughter's birth banquet. He booked twelve tables and did everything himself. He and Gu Jin personally went to order all the ingredients and even brought in more than a dozen turtles that were bigger than an adult's palm.
Good ingredients also made the chef happy, and he worked with great enthusiasm.
The experienced chef was in charge of cooking, while the two younger staff members worked together: one prepared the ingredients, and the other made simple fried foods. Their roles were clearly defined.
The fried meatballs had just come out of the fryer when they attracted a group of drooling little gluttons.
The mountain village was poor, and the children had never eaten anything good since they were little. When they saw this food, they were incredibly tempted, and their drool dripped down, soaking their cotton-padded jackets.
Qin Zheng picked up a plate of fried meatballs and placed it on the table next to him without any expression.
"Eat."
Several young children looked up at him, swallowed hard in fear, but dared not utter a sound.
Qin Zheng turned and left.
As soon as he left, the children swarmed around him, their dark little hands reaching eagerly for the fried meatballs on the plate!
"Mine! My!"
"Give me one! Give me one!"
"Don't steal it! Don't steal it!"
Gu Jin was also busy entertaining her relatives.
He was naturally indispensable at such an important occasion. He couldn't attend his brother's wedding, and if he didn't come to help out at his child's banquet, how could he be called a brother?
"Qin Zheng, how about I give you a big gift later, two hundred?"
Qin Zheng was slightly taken aback, "You only gave twenty yuan as a wedding gift when I got married, why are you spending so much on my child's birth celebration?"
Gu Jin shrugged and said mysteriously, "Why don't you figure it out yourself?"
Qin Zheng: "What am I thinking?"
Gu Jin clicked her tongue and held up two fingers, saying, "I'll give twenty when you get married, and two hundred when you have your child's wedding. Think about it, think it over carefully!"
What am I tasting?
Qin Zheng frowned, getting a little impatient with his pretentious antics.
Sigh! Gu Jin thought he was incredibly stupid, so she simply moved closer to him and cheekily reminded him, "That must be because your daughter looks like me, of course I have to go to great lengths for my own daughter!"
"..."
Qin Zheng grabbed his wrist, gritted his teeth, and pulled him toward a corner, his tone calm and collected: "Come here... come with me for a moment, I promise I won't hit you."
"Huh? We're not going to pick up relatives?"
Bang!
He kicked Gu Jin down the slope.
I'll beat you to death!
...
...
Human joys and sorrows are not shared.
The lively atmosphere outside drifted into the room. Ye Yun quietly watched Xiao Chuqi sleeping soundly, her calm mood remaining completely undisturbed.
The room was empty at the moment.
The relatives who came to visit her and her child took one look and then went outside to find seats to wait for the meal to begin.
This aunt, that old lady, and some relatives from her maternal family that she didn't know about—she herself didn't even know she had so many relatives in Yejiagou.
Even people she had never met would call her "Yun girl" so affectionately.
After the extreme excitement comes emptiness.
Sadly, while everyone knew of the moment she became a mother, her mother was not present.
"young married woman."
The curtain was lifted, and Qin Zheng walked in carrying a plate of food.
The plate contained the vegetables and fish he had carefully selected, topped with a large white steamed bun, just like the dish he had specially chosen from the banquet for Ye Yun on their wedding day.
When Ye Yun saw the dish, a smile involuntarily curved her lips.
"Are you hungry? These are the dishes I just picked out. Eat first." Qin Zheng bent down and put the food on the kang (a heated brick bed), not forgetting to remind him, "I have to go out to entertain relatives. I'll come back to keep you company later. Tell me what you want to eat then."
Ye Yun nodded. "Mm."
After Qin Zheng finished putting the dishes down, he didn't get up immediately. He glanced at the sleeping Xiao Chuqi, then turned back and gratefully kissed Ye Yun on the forehead.
He looked deeply into Ye Yun's eyes and said with great solemnity, "Wife, thank you."
Throughout the day, many people congratulated him, allowing him to truly experience the joy of becoming a father.
But he knew that all of this was something Ye Yun had bought with half her life.
Ye Yun couldn't help but laugh.
"Alright, stop joking around and go out to greet the guests." She gently nudged Qin Zheng, wanting to stay by herself for a while.
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