Chapter 2, "You can't even hold a baby?"...
Leng Cuizhu has gone mad.
Yin Yuan said it himself.
Her stab didn't do much good, only leaving a small scar on the baby's back.
The little boy was already skin and bones, and his mother had left such a long scar on him; anyone who saw it would feel sorry for him.
The new wet nurse sat by the bedside, soothing the baby, while Leng Cuizhu lay on the bed, her throat dry.
"water……"
The wet nurse didn't hear it.
She repeated, "Auntie...I want to drink water."
This time, she was certain that the wet nurse hadn't ignored her, but simply didn't want to pay attention to her.
She covered her chest.
Thump, thump.
If it were a girl, the husband would have driven her away long ago.
Thankfully, it was a boy, just as she had hoped.
Because she was a boy, the mistakes she made were seen as even more unforgivable by others.
She, a lowly woman, actually tried to kill a fully formed baby boy.
Yes, how could she do that?
Her eyes welled up with tears as she looked at the crying baby in the wet nurse's arms.
It was a child she had longed for, but now she felt an intense loathing for it, almost to the point of wanting to vomit.
He was like a leech, sucking her blood and destroying everything she had.
He is such a terrible thing!
Especially after hearing the word "Christine," something seemed to burrow into her head, turn her flesh inside out, and settle there, coexisting with her.
That's what symbiosis is, not just her relationship with the child she cherishes.
Clearly, at the beginning, he was just a piece of flesh the size of a fingernail, which grew larger and larger after being satisfied, crawling out of her body.
Leng Cuizhu realized.
She doesn't even love her own child.
She didn't love him.
How could she not love him?
But why doesn't she love herself?
Why place such faint hope in a man instead of yourself? For a fleeting moment of being loved, she almost gave her life.
He despised her, and she loathed her.
She doesn't even love herself.
Because she was a concubine, the child took her surname, and Yin Yuan named the child "Leng Zhen".
The peach tree is young and tender, its leaves are lush and green. May it flourish and grow strong like grass and trees.
Yin Yuan came to see the child in the evening. She sat on the bed, staring at him expressionlessly.
She wanted to drink water, but no one was willing to pour her a glass.
"Leng Zhen is hungry." Yin Yuan looked up and handed her the swaddled baby.
She was asked to breastfeed the baby.
"..." She did not resist. After unbuttoning her collar, she took off her damp clothes and brought them to the baby's cheek.
The baby had fair skin and a high nose bridge. It struggled in her arms, waving its hands and hitting her chest.
"Wow--"
"You can't even hold a baby?"
The man took the baby away again and gently patted the baby's shoulder and back with his hand, which was adorned with a jade thumb ring.
"Slave..." She closed her lips, her mouth so dry she couldn't speak.
One hand rested on her aching chest, her palm damp with breast milk.
Yin Yuan carried the child and walked around the room, taking off his ring to amuse the child. Congratulations from neighbors could be heard from outside the door from time to time.
Everyone was happy, except for her—she felt like crying.
Summer days in Chrysanthemum Month are so hot; blood and sweat mix together.
She lifted the blanket, revealing a wound on her abdomen, which she had made with scissors and hastily covered with gauze.
The gauze was removed, revealing the torn skin and flesh, and the stretch marks on her belly were shocking.
She ran the back of her hand over the wound and murmured softly.
“Christine…”
She also hoped that he could hear her call.
The scars on her waist and abdomen remained permanently attached to her, never fading, causing a dull ache on damp days and wasting her life.
Fifteen years have passed in the blink of an eye, and it remains the same, unchanged.
It's raining again, and it's summer again.
Leng Cuizhu covered the vegetables in the yard with a tattered cloth and went to pick up Leng Zhen from school with an oil-paper umbrella.
Pedestrians hurried along the street, and she walked close to the wall, one shoulder getting wet from the rain.
She remembered the things she hadn't done that day.
“Christine…can you hear me?” she murmured.
Since those two soft calls fifteen years ago, she has never heard anyone say those four words again.
Christine abandoned her, so she talks about him every day, hoping he will come back, or at least see her one more time.
It's completely useless.
Leng Zhen was just as dull-witted as her; she wasn't suited for studying, only recognizing characters, and couldn't even understand some simple poems.
Once he was past the age of adulthood, Yin Yuan arranged for him to learn how to dispense medicine at the old pharmacy in town.
Inside the Jishetang pharmacy, a man was leaning against the medicine table, dusting the medicinal herbs in a winnowing basket.
As dust billowed out, he looked down and sneezed, his already pale face turning even paler.
"Hey, who told you to do this! Is it enough that I don't let you identify medicinal herbs? Who asked you to do this! My herbs, how can they withstand such dusting..." The old master came in cursing, snatched the winnowing basket from his hand, and touched the herbs with heartache.
"Your mother is here. Go back with her quickly."
Leng Cuizhu stood at the entrance of Jishetang, holding an umbrella in one hand and waving the other in the air.
"Zhenzhen!"
She looks remarkably like her son.
His face was pale, covered with small moles, and his lips were thin; he looked like someone who had suffered many misfortunes and was not blessed.
Leng Zhen refused to leave: "You clearly agreed to teach me for four hours, but you only taught me for half an hour. The rest of the time you spent drinking in the backyard. You're completely irresponsible. According to the contract, you should have taught me for another three and a half hours!"
"Oh dear, it's so late. How can I teach you if I close the shop? Come back tomorrow, come back tomorrow. Go home and have dinner, kid. You're so skinny, I don't dare teach you anything else."
Leng Cuizhu also came in to persuade him, grabbing his wrist.
“Zhenzhen, we should go home. Your father is coming tonight, and your mother has stewed a pigeon on the stove. If we don’t go back soon, the water will boil dry.”
Leng Zhen glared at her, then hesitated, as if she wanted to say something but couldn't.
The streets were sparsely populated, and the two walked one after the other, chatting idly.
"What did Zhenzhen learn today?"
Even if I told you, you wouldn't understand.
"Is Zhenzhen hungry? We'll have to wait for your father to come back before we can have dinner. Would you like to buy something to eat first?"
She stopped at a steamed bun stall, where steaming hot vapor was rising from the steamer baskets. She pointed to the steamed buns.
Leng Zhen felt a fire burning in her heart, and left her behind to walk forward alone.
"Didn't you say you wanted to go back quickly? Why waste time buying those guys?"
She withdrew her hand and hurriedly lifted her skirt to chase after him.
Walking back to the cottage, her light pink hibiscus dress was already covered in mud.
Leng Zhen went into her room, lifted the tattered cloth in the yard to check the vegetables, covered them up again when she saw they were fine, put on her coat and went to the kitchen to cook.
She used to work in a brothel and didn't know how to cook. She couldn't even cook noodles properly. Every night after work, she would go out with her girlfriends to eat at street stalls, or when one of the girls received a dish as a gift from a customer, they would all gather together to eat.
After leaving the government, life became poorer than before. He relied entirely on the money given to him by his official. If he continued to eat at street stalls as before, he was afraid that he would spend all his money in less than ten days. Therefore, he started cooking.
Counting the days, she has been cooking in this kitchen for fifteen years.
The walls were charred black like crocodile skin, trapping her tightly. The walls on all sides had no windows, making it hard to breathe.
She stayed in the kitchen, and after preparing five dishes and a soup, she was covered in sweat.
The dishes were set on the table, and Yin Yuan arrived just in time. She was overjoyed and pulled Yin Yuan to sit in the main seat. Then she went to the side room to call Leng Zhen out for dinner.
The three sat at the table, and Leng Cuizhu, with a smile, was busy serving food to Yin Yuan even before she had started eating.
Yin Yuan remained silent for a moment, then placed a piece of pigeon meat into her bowl.
Eat more.
Leng Zhen picked up her chopsticks and grabbed a large handful of green vegetables, piling them on top of the rice.
Without saying a word, he took the bowl and went into the room.
"..."
She stood up: "My lord, I'll go take a look."
"Um."
Leng Zhen sat on the bed flipping through medical books. The bowl of rice was placed on the bedside table, and the wooden chopsticks had fallen to the ground at some point.
Leng Cuizhu picked up her chopsticks: "Zhenzhen, did I do something to make you angry?"
Leng Zhen isn't usually like this. He likes her as his mother, but they always argue.
"Can you please shut up? You're annoying me as soon as you start talking."
She didn't understand: "Why? Why can't Mom talk at home... Don't always stay in bed, you'll get bored. Go out for walks more often, clear your head..."
He interrupted, "You want me to go out in this downpour? Mom, can you please stop interfering in my affairs? I don't want to argue with you about this. Let's just mind our own business from now on."
"Don't tell me about your relationship with Yin Yuan. You're husband and wife, not the other way around. You talk to me about his faults to make me pity you, but then you treat him with the same respect. What am I then? Mother, are you just joking with me?"
“Zhenzhen…” She was speechless with emotion.
"If you hate him so much, why don't you leave him?"
"Don't talk about him like that. He gave birth to you and raised you, and you've always known his temperament..."
"You gave birth to me, you raised me! Not him!"
Leng Zhen became more and more agitated as she spoke, tears welling in her eyes: "You and I are family, we are mother and son, he is nothing to me!"
"Stop deceiving yourself! He doesn't love you! He doesn't like me either! He thinks he can trap you and control my life with that little bit of money? Impossible!"
How could the cold green candle not know?
She knew it better than anyone. Yin Yuan didn't love her that much; they weren't even husband and wife, and their sexual encounters were always perfunctory.
But what should she do without him?
She is thirty-two years old, old and faded. In her youth, she could still cling to life by relying on her beauty, but now she is completely useless.
She was like a horse whose tendons had been severed, unable to run anymore; like a sparrow kept at home, its wings too weak to fly over the fence. A heavy iron chain was around her neck, making it impossible for her to walk.
As she stepped out of the room, she could almost hear Leng Zhen's loud and angry words echoing in her ears.
Yin Yuan remained seated, head down, eating his food without any emotion, like a Buddha statue.
He always remained silent, even though the argument was initiated by him.
She sat back down at the table and looked up at him.
His narrow eyes, high nose, and tightly pursed lips... She loved her husband, yet for some reason, she wanted to kill him.
Twist his neck, listen to his screams, reach into his throat, rip out his trachea and rupture it.
Just like killing a chicken.
"Oh."
Yin Yuan raised his eyelids.
"What's wrong?"
"...It's nothing." Her smile vanished.
How could one even think about murder? That's a crime, punishable by arrest, interrogation, and torture.
Right, Leng Cuizhu?
She should devote herself entirely to taking care of her husband and son.
But would Christine do that?
She thought it probably wouldn't be the case.
A note from the author:
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The peach tree is young and tender, its leaves lush and green. —From "Peach Blossom" in the Book of Songs (Zhou Nan)
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