"Fu Yuanshan, are you even human?" Yun Tangyin's hand suddenly tightened, her nails digging painfully into her palm. "Is this child yours alone? You think you can just hit him like that?"
Fu Yuanshan turned around abruptly, his shoes leaving a white mark on the ground: "This is none of your business!"
"How is this none of my business?" Yun Tangyin took half a step forward, the firelight reflecting off her reddened eyes. "Dr. Zhang just said that my second sister-in-law's body can hold on. What gives you the right to make decisions for her?"
Jiang Jianhua suddenly grabbed Fu Yuanshan's arm, his nails almost digging into his flesh: "Didn't you want to stop being with me a long time ago?"
"What nonsense are you spouting!" Fu Yuanshan shook off her hand, but stopped abruptly when he saw the red mark on her wrist. "Back then, you had a severe hemorrhage, and the doctor said that getting pregnant again would be gambling with your life, I..."
"I'm willing to gamble!" Jiang Jianhua's voice suddenly rose, shaking the windowpanes. "I couldn't keep Da Bao, and I dream of him crying every night. Do you think I'm not heartbroken? Now God is giving me another chance, what right do you have to stop me?"
Yu Xia suddenly added a piece of coal to the stove, and the flames shot up: "Yuanshan, I know you feel sorry for your second brother's wife, but you can't say that. The other day I went to the commune and saw Li the blacksmith's wife. She also had a difficult childbirth back then, but she still gave birth to a big, healthy boy, didn't she?"
"She's just lucky!" Fu Yuanshan's fists clenched so tightly they cracked. "Jianhua is different. She's physically weak. Have you forgotten what Dr. Zhang said back then?"
Song Yushuang suddenly slammed her hand on the kang table, causing the teacup to bounce: "Back then, back then, the almanac of that time cannot be turned back! I asked someone to ask an old Chinese medicine doctor in the city, who said that as long as I take good care of myself, I am guaranteed to give birth safely."
She shoved a hot water bottle into Jiang Jianhua's hand, saying, "Mom will stand up for you, we'll keep this child!"
Jiang Jianhua's tears suddenly fell onto the hot water bottle, leaving a dark stain: "Mom..."
"What are you crying for?" Song Yushuang glared at Fu Yuanshan. "With me here, who dares to lay a finger on my grandson? Yuanshan, if you dare to say that again, then don't acknowledge me as your mother!"
Fu Yuanshan's Adam's apple bobbed, and he suddenly turned and walked towards the door.
The cotton curtain was knocked up by him, bringing in a room full of snow foam.
"Where are you going?" Jiang Jianhua suddenly called out to him, his voice trembling like a leaf in the wind.
Fu Yuanshan stood frozen at the doorway, snow falling on his shoulders and accumulating into a thin layer: "I'll go to the medical team and ask Dr. Zhang."
The room suddenly fell silent, with only the kettle on the stove whirring softly.
Jiang Jianhua squatted down, touching his stomach, his shoulders trembling violently: "He just doesn't want me to live..."
"Don't think the worst." Yu Xia squatted down to help her up, and some millet grains from her apron fell onto her clothes. "Yuanshan is just not good with words, but he cares about you a lot. I saw him buying you brown sugar at the supply and marketing cooperative the other day. He said it was an old brand from Yunnan."
Yun Tangyin suddenly remembered the way Fu Yucheng scooped brown sugar into her porridge, and a thought struck her: "Second sister-in-law, why don't we go to the city to find a good doctor? Acheng said that hospitals in Shanghai have pregnancy-preserving injections, I'll have him ask someone to inquire about it."
She can also use her Taobao space to buy a lot of good things for pregnancy.
Anyway...
Money is not a problem.
Several people took turns comforting Jiang Jianhua.
After a while, Fu Yuanshan's voice came from outside the courtyard gate, softer than before: "Dr. Zhang said... that if I take folic acid on time and have regular check-ups, it might work."
When he walked in, snowflakes still clung to his eyelashes, and he clutched a medicine bottle in his hand: "These are the medications she prescribed to prevent miscarriage; she said to take them three times a day."
Jiang Jianhua looked at the medicine bottle, then suddenly laughed, but the tears fell even more fiercely: "Why didn't you do this earlier?"
Fu Yuanshan looked at Jiang Jianhua and stuffed a cloth bag into her hand: "These are candied fruits from Dr. Zhang."
Yu Xia suddenly clapped her hands: "That's right. Yinyin, we haven't finished making the candied hawthorns yet. Add double the sugar and let your second sister-in-law share in the joy."
Just as Yun Tangyin picked up the hawthorn skewers, she saw Fu Yuanshan suddenly move closer to Jiang Jianhua and clumsily adjust her scarf: "Aren't you cold? Why don't you go back and sit down?"
Jiang Jianhua rolled her eyes at him, but the corners of her mouth curled up: "Don't think that giving me a bag of candied fruit is enough. From now on, you have to cook me millet porridge every day, the kind with red dates."
"Okay." Fu Yuanshan nodded, then suddenly remembered something, "Dr. Zhang said you can't eat hawthorn, and don't touch candied hawthorn."
"I won't touch it." Jiang Jianhua moved closer to Yu Xia. "Can I at least try a bite of what my sister-in-law made?"
Seeing this, Song Yushuang suddenly stuffed a red cloth bag into Fu Yuanshan's hand: "This is a longevity lock for my grandson, to match your wife's."
Fu Yuanshan's hand, which was holding the red cloth bag, suddenly tightened, the gold thread at the corner of the cloth digging into his fingertips until they went numb.
He handed it to Jiang Jianhua, his voice muffled as if he were holding a wad of cotton: "Take it."
Jiang Jianhua raised an eyebrow but didn't answer.
Fu Yuanshan's ears turned bright red, and he almost kicked the coal shovel as he turned around: "Mom had someone beat him up, how could it be bad?"
Song Yushuang chuckled and stuffed a handful of melon seeds into Jiang Jianhua's hand: "Yesterday he sneaked into the silversmith's shop, saying he wanted to add a protective talisman to his lock body, but I caught him and he still insisted on his word."
Jiang Jianhua suddenly covered his mouth, laughing with trembling shoulders: "With his taciturn nature, how could he come up with such a trick?"
"Who's keeping quiet?" Fu Yuanshan turned around abruptly, glancing at the radio on the windowsill. The cassette tape fell to the ground with a "click." "I...I'm doing this for the child's good."
As Yun Tangyin bent down to pick up the cassette tape, she discovered it was a piano piece. Suddenly, she remembered Fu Yucheng's words: "Second sister-in-law, Acheng said that there is imported pregnancy milk powder in Shanghai, and he asked me to get you two cans."
“No need to be so extravagant.” Jiang Jianhua added firewood to the stove. “I’ll just have millet porridge. When I was pregnant with my first child, I could drink three bowls in one sitting.”
She paused mid-sentence, her eyes slowly reddening.
Fu Yuanshan's hands crumpled the cloth bag, then suddenly shoved an oil paper packet into her hand: "The new malted milk powder from the supply and marketing cooperative. Dr. Zhang said it's good for your health if you soak it in water and drink it."
Yun Tangyin put the cassette tape back on the windowsill, and while Fu Yuanshan was chopping wood, she quietly tugged at Yu Xia's apron.
The flames in the stove licked the bottom of the pot, casting long shadows of the two men.
"Sister-in-law," she whispered, her voice barely audible, "how exactly did Second Sister-in-law lose her child back then?"
Yu Xia sprinkled some sesame seeds into the sugar pot, and the syrup sizzled and bubbled: "That year, it rained for a whole month in autumn, and most of the sweet potatoes in the fields rotted. Yuanshan was building an irrigation canal in the commune, and Jianhua, who was seven months pregnant, insisted on going to the fields to harvest them."
She tapped the edge of the pot with a shovel, "but the ridge was slippery, and she fell on a rock. Blood flowed down her trouser leg, and by the time she was carried to the medical team, the child was already gone."
Yun Tangyin's fingertips dug into her palm: "Then..."
“A grown man locked himself in the woodshed for three days and three nights,” Yu Xia added a piece of coal to the stove, sparks flying to the ground. “When he came out, his eyes were as red as a rabbit’s. Later I found out that he had secretly consulted an old Chinese medicine doctor and obtained a prescription for contraception, and had been trying it on himself for half a month.”
Yun Tangyin suddenly understood how much fear of losing him was hidden in Fu Yuanshan's stiff demeanor.
The emotional entanglement between these two is truly... complicated.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com