Chapter 32 Chapter 32 The question on a woman’s mind is whether…
Qin Zhanwu returned to the military academy in a state of despair. He Zhixiang was still lying in bed, sound asleep. Qin Zhanwu found his snoring annoying and threw a book in his face: "What time is it? Still sleeping?"
He Zhixiang shuddered and complained, "Zhanwu, you didn't even get any sleep on your day off?" He then asked, "Those guys must have drunk a lot of you last night. You didn't come back yet, so you must have been drunk." He sat up, not brushing his teeth or washing his face, but first poured a glass of water from the thermos and drank it. "I told you to leave midway, and now you're leaving, and you're going back again. I don't understand what you're thinking."
He poured another glass of water and handed it to Qin Zhanwu: "Here, you'll be thirsty after drinking, drink more water."
As He Zhixiang walked in, he smelled a faint fragrance. He sniffed and asked, "What's that smell, Zhanwu? Why are you wearing perfume?"
Qin Zhanwu raised his arm and smelled it, and it was indeed a faint scent of gardenia. He remembered that Su Yan was very tired last night and she woke up with this shirt as her pillow in the morning. It must be the scent on her body.
Qin Zhanwu's face darkened as he took off the clothes he was wearing and put on another one.
He Zhixiang figured it out and leaned over to ask, "Who provoked you? When we were fighting on Hill 352, that was such a difficult hill to conquer, but I never saw you look so gloomy."
Who had offended him? Of course it was the Lu family's youngest daughter. She had denied everything as soon as she opened her eyes. She was just a little girl. She had clearly stated that she didn't want to get married, and he couldn't force her.
Qin Zhanwu sighed, lay down, and put his hands behind his head, staring blankly at the white ceiling. "Old He, do you think this woman's thoughts are different from ours?" He had no flaws. In terms of talent, appearance, work, and education, everything was impressive. Why did she look down on him? He had already slept with her and given her his body, so why didn't she want to marry him?
He Zhixiang had a look on his face that said, "Zhanwu, are you looking for that girl from the machinery factory again? She's just a girl, how pretty can she be? Look how much she's captivated you."
Qin Zhanwu sneered, "You only think about whether a woman is pretty or not, whether she is virtuous or not. Do you consider beauty and virtue when you marry a wife?"
He Zhixiang immediately stood up and said, "If you don't look at beauty or virtue when marrying a wife, then what do you look at?"
Qin Zhanwu stopped talking and pulled He Zhixiang over: "Let's stop talking. Come on, play ball with me. I'm really angry today."
Su Yan thought that there were too many miscellaneous things in the space, so she went in and sorted them out for the whole afternoon. She wrote notes on the things and put them in different categories. She was so tired that her back and waist ached, but she still couldn't find the women's health gift package.
She sighed, deeply regretting the way she'd let herself go to sleep the previous night and gotten drunk. In this day and age, hooliganism was a crime, and Su Yan, an unmarried young woman, didn't dare go to the hospital to ask about contraception.
Su Yan took out the calligraphy and painting that she had exchanged for grain last time and looked at it again. It was a painting from the Ming Dynasty, and there were also a few books. She found a special box to put them in.
Just as I was about to make lunch, I heard someone crying outside: "Sister Yingzi, Sister Yingzi!"
Su Yan opened the door and saw Dahua next door. She was crying with her hair disheveled. "Sister Yingzi, I have something to talk to you about. Can you let me in?"
Su Yan quickly pulled her in and asked, "What happened? How come your hair is messy and a button on your shirt is missing?"
There was a scratch on Dahua's hand. She looked out the door and saw no one followed in. She shook her head and said, "It's okay, Sister Yingzi. I fell down and it hurts."
Su Yan poured her a glass of water. Seeing her constantly looking outside, she smiled and said, "You're such a grown-up, and you're still falling down. Sit down for a while and have a glass of water. I'll go get Yan Zi and Xiao Gang to come back. You've been playing so much that you don't even know the time."
Su Yan opened the courtyard door and looked into the alley. There was no one there, only a few children playing with sandbags. Su Yan waved and called Xiao Gang over: "Did you see anyone just now?"
Xiao Gang thought for a moment and said, "I wasn't paying attention, but I saw Sister Dahua coming over from the alley over there crying. She said she had fallen and it was a terrible fall."
Su Yan nodded and smiled: "Go play, bring your sister with you."
When she returned, Dahua had combed her hair again, but there was a slap mark on her face, as if she had been beaten.
Su Yan was worried that she was being beaten by her family and that she couldn't control them. She was also afraid that if she pointed it out, she would be embarrassed to stay and would leave instead. So she said to her, "I'm about to cook. You can stay today and teach me how to stew rice. Our Yan Zi and Xiao Gang both say that Sister Da Hua stews rice well."
Dahua was a little dazed: "It's been a long time since I ate polished rice. The last time was when my brother was sick, so my mom asked me to stew rice."
Su Yan took out the needle and thread and asked her to mend the button. She smiled and said, "Please sit down first. I'm going to the kitchen."
Su Yan had been here for a few months. Her cooking wasn't very good, but she wasn't just cooking noodles anymore. She peeled potatoes while looking at Da Hua. Da Hua, who had suffered some kind of injustice at home, sat there crying, but she didn't want Su Yan to hear her, so she kept her tears to herself.
Su Yan sighed after seeing this. Although Dahua's mother was kind-hearted and a nice person, she was too patriarchal and always beat or scolded Dahua.
Since Dahua was eating here, Su Yan didn't dare to cook too much. She just steamed the cornmeal buns brought back from the canteen, and took a handful of cornmeal to make cornmeal porridge, adding a little more sesame oil, and cooked a small bowl of noodles that Qin Zhanwu had rolled in the morning.
Even so, Dahua was amazed: "Sister Yingzi, your family's lunch is so delicious? There are noodles? I haven't eaten noodles for half a year. I only had them during the Chinese New Year."
Su Yan took a spoon and scooped her a bowl of cornmeal porridge, and smiled: "Try it, I'm not very good at making it."
Dahua picked up the bowl and took a big sip. "It smells so good, Sister Yingzi, do you usually put so much oil in your cornmeal porridge?"
Su Yan shook her head and denied it: "Aren't you the guest here? How can we be stingy when entertaining guests?"
After hearing this, Dahua held up her bowl and said, half crying, "Sister Yingzi, you are such a nice person. I came to your house for a meal and you didn't give me a hard time. If I ate too much at home, my mother would scold me. I ate one of the peanuts my sister-in-law's family sent from her hometown, and she scolded me for being greedy and lazy."
Su Yan wanted to help her, so she handed her a boiled potato. "Didn't you find a job after graduating from junior high school? If you had a job, you'd have money to buy food, and your mother wouldn't say anything to you. If she says that, just say you're paid like your brother."
Dahua took a bite of a potato and shook her head. "Sister Yingzi, you don't know. I used to have a job. I washed milk bottles in my mother's factory. I made 18 yuan a month, and my mother never asked me to pick up my salary; she would go to the accountant to collect it herself. Later, my sister-in-law gave birth to twins, and my mother asked me to stay home to take care of the children. I didn't want to, but she said that my salary was the lowest among the family, so it would be most cost-effective for me to stay home to take care of the children. She also said that when the children were older, she would find me a higher-paying job."
She lowered her head and said, "My mother just said that and didn't take it to heart. Now my sister-in-law and brother's children are in kindergarten, but she still won't find me a job. She said it's not like before and it's hard to find a job now."
Su Yan wanted to help her become independent, so she asked, "Do you want to go out and work? If your mother doesn't agree, can you work?"
Dahua hesitated and said, "But I don't know any factories. My mother's dairy factory is definitely not hiring."
Su Yan was thinking about asking the Jiangzhou Machinery Factory if they were still short of people, but she hadn't asked yet. It was hard to give Dahua hope, so she just encouraged him, "If you have the courage to be independent, then nothing will be difficult for you."
Dahua listened, her face still showing worry. She drank a bowl of rice porridge, ate two steamed potatoes, and prepared to leave: "Sister Yingzi, I will come to see you tomorrow."
Su Yan sent her out and felt that Dahua was acting strangely today. In the past, her mother would scold her and hit her with a stick, but she had never hit her on the cheek.
When Su Yan was sleeping at night, she found a watch on the cabinet beside the bed. Su Yan didn't have a watch, so this one must have been left by Qin Zhanwu.
Su Yan casually put the watch in the cabinet and immediately became irritated. "Don't get pregnant, don't get pregnant!" She scolded herself again. "You used to fantasize about young men, but how could you actually do it in the 1960s?" She also blamed Qin Zhanwu. "Don't you know how to refuse? Don't you seem quite conservative? Why do you just go along with me when I get mad?" He really looks honest.
She drifted off to sleep and vaguely heard someone banging on the door. A large group of people, young and old, crowded in: "Lu Yingzi, you are not decent. You have promiscuous relationships with men and women. You have committed the crime of hooliganism. Do you know that?"
Su Yan's eyes widened as she retorted, "Nonsense! How am I promiscuous? How am I a hooligan? You're slandering me."
An older woman wearing a red armband walked up and smiled. She pulled back Su Yan's blanket and pointed at her belly. "Look, Lu Yingzi's belly is so big, and you still refuse to admit it. Tell me, who were you having an affair with?"
Su Yan saw that her belly was frighteningly large. She still tried to argue, "I'm not pregnant. I've gained weight. I'm a person who tends to gain weight easily. It's true."
The woman with the red armband sneered, "What are you trying to say? You've done this shameful thing yourself." She then turned to the group that had come up behind her, "Let's call the Public Security Bureau to arrest Lu Yingzi and convict her of hooliganism. We can't tarnish the reputation of our factory."
Su Yan wanted to run, but she couldn't move. She was so scared that she was sweating profusely. She wanted to call for help, but suddenly she couldn't make a sound.
The woman with the red armband approached, and Su Yan suddenly woke up. She sighed, checked the time, and saw that it was only 4:20. She took a sip of water and fell on the bed: "Su Yan, Su Yan, if you are really pregnant, it will be a misstep that will bring eternal regret!"
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