Meng Chijian has been acting like he's gone mad these days.
He carried back a lot of rattan, scraps of cloth, and the like, constantly making useless things.
Ah Mian had tolerated him for quite some time, but now that she saw him foolishly going to boil rattan (wasting firewood) and daring to refuse her brilliant idea, she decided to tell him a cruel truth as well.
"Why did you make such a small quilt? The chickens in the coop wouldn't even want it; they'd definitely prefer the straw I laid out. And this weird thing you knitted—"
This is a very strange thing. It's supposed to be a large vegetable basket, but it also has a handle-like thing extending out from one side, and a square wooden frame underneath. It looks completely out of place.
Ah Mian looked into his eyes and shattered his illusions, word by word: "This thing definitely won't sell."
No one bought a single copper coin.
Meng Chijian didn't cry like those good-for-nothing children.
He closed his eyes, took two deep breaths, and then slowly opened them: "If it doesn't sell, it doesn't sell. I'm just making it for fun. Besides, it's not finished yet, which is why you can't tell what it is."
"Then you do what you want to do, why can't I do what I want to do? I'm not forbidding you from doing these weird things."
In the summer, an extra small room was built in the house. Now Meng Jing practices calligraphy in it, while A Mian usually reads books there. In the corner, there is a pile of junk that Meng Chijian brought back, with scraps of cloth made into long handkerchief-like pieces of fabric.
Amian and Xiaojing both agreed that even if these scraps of cloth were sewn into clothes, people would only laugh at them if they wore them out.
Moreover, Ah Mian curiously touched it and found that it wasn't linen, but all cotton.
The price of a bolt of ordinary linen is about three to five hundred wen, while the price of ordinary fine cotton is three to five times that, costing one or two taels of silver.
Even scraps of cotton cloth are more expensive than hemp cloth, costing around 200 coins per pound.
However, it's still much cheaper than a whole bolt of cotton cloth.
You need to be lucky and wait around to snag some fabric at the shop's entrance.
Seeing that she was sulking, Meng Chijian had no choice but to say, "Come with me to a place tomorrow, and I'll see if I can let you go."
In a dramatic turn of events, the tears that had been welling up in Ah Mian's eyes vanished without a trace, and she dusted herself off and walked away.
The next day, I arrived at the clinic.
A-Mian patted his shoulder with feigned sorrow: "Great, you've finally decided to come and see your brain."
Without saying a word, Meng Chijian pulled the person into the clinic.
Wen Qiao felt a dull ache in her temples whenever she saw the two of them.
"Doctor, my husband seems to be having some kind of headache lately..."
"Dr. Wen, please take A-Mian's pulse. She's been sleepy and doesn't like to eat at mealtimes since last month, and her period hasn't come this month either." A-Mian's periods have been irregular since they started, and only got better in the second half of this year.
"Have you forgotten what happened last time? Dr. Wen said it was from eating too much." She was a little puzzled as to why Meng Chijian never learned his lesson.
"One at a time, Ah Mian, roll up your sleeves first so I can take a look."
Ah Mian stretched out both hands, a strange feeling creeping into her heart. Could it be...?
This time, the pulse diagnosis was much faster than last time. Wen Qiao got the results in no time: "A very obvious slippery pulse. Congratulations, you're pregnant."
Amian was dumbfounded.
"Is it...is it really true?"
"Absolutely true. But it's still early stages, um, let me tell you some things to be careful about..."
Amian was lost in thought, not listening at all. "We have to tell my mother... she'll be so happy to know!"
Meng Chijian couldn't care less about anything else at the moment. He had been worried all month, afraid that telling A-Mian in advance would disappoint and sadden her. "Wen Qiao, do you have any way to contact Doctor Mo Man... I don't know if she still remembers A-Mian who learned martial arts from her. Could you write her a letter and tell her about A-Mian's situation? A-Mian trusts her a lot and will feel at ease with her here."
Nowadays, giving birth is considered a life-threatening ordeal for women.
That fish bladder method seems to be quite unreliable; it became ineffective after only a few months.
The two were farmers who grew up in the countryside and had never had any modern ideas about not having children. It was just midnight, and they were thinking about having children after A-Mian opened her shop and everything was ready.
The blacksmith shop was very noisy. Adults could tolerate it, but babies certainly couldn't stand the noise and heat.
The tofu pudding stall has no roof to shelter it from the wind and rain, and the customers are a mixed bunch, so it's not suitable for leaving children there.
Things often turn out differently than expected; such is the way of the world.
After her initial shock, Ah Mian stammered, "No wonder the tofu pudding stall has been doing so well since it opened; it turns out it's a baby with good fortune..."
Wen Qiao coughed twice to bring the two back to their attention: "I tried my best to contact Dr. Mo, but I heard that she is now highly regarded by the Imperial Hospital, so I'm not sure. However, a few days ago, she was teaching 'Twelve Lectures on Pregnancy and Childbirth Strategies' in the capital, which was originally intended to teach midwives and nurses in various places. But the response was lukewarm, and everyone felt that the old methods were still the safest."
"If you believe her, you can ask the midwives you know. It is said that there are some incantations or something."
After leaving the clinic, A-Mian kept smiling foolishly, and then went to find Sister-in-law Song to explain that she would not be going to Zhoucheng for the time being.
"You knew?" Song Dongjia covered his mouth and chuckled. "I guessed it when I saw you last time. Congratulations to you both." After all, A Mian has been married for almost two years, and there's been a lot of gossip going on about her.
Upon hearing this, A-Mian went home and looked at herself in the bronze mirror, but couldn't see anything different from before.
The Meng family also learned the good news. Meng's mother said that it was still early, so they should not tell outsiders yet, and it was enough for the family to know.
Many villagers had previously been envious of Ah Mian's stall profits, and their words were always tinged with sourness.
Such statements as, "Don't be fooled by how much money her family makes; they don't even have a child. In the end, it'll just benefit someone else."
Claims such as "I have no money at all, all the money I earn goes to buying medicine and seeing a doctor" are false.
Xiao Jing and A Mian didn't care much about these things. They had already slipped into the study, flipping through books randomly while excitedly thinking about what names to come up with.
“I think this character ‘静’ is quite good.” Meng Jing’s thoughts were easy to guess; the character sounded the same as her name.
"No way."
"All right."
Meng Chijian was still pondering in the courtyard, listing the preparations he needed to make one by one in his mind.
He went into the study and told A-Mian, "From now on, if anyone asks you if you've made money or how much you've made, just say you haven't made any money. You used the money to buy medicine and treat your illness. Also, let Wangwang and Aunt Liu run the stall for now. In a couple of days, I'll go with you to the midwife in the city and ask her what this 'Twelve Lectures' is all about."
He inquired around and learned that the thing had a more common name: 'New Parents Training Class'.
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