Chapter 276
The aunt brought back some ginseng chicken soup and a few side dishes for her. It was breakfast time, so she handed another bowl of chicken soup to the woman in the next bed, saying, "I disturbed your sleep last night, so don't be offended by this little bit of chicken soup."
The woman in labor and her husband hurriedly said that the aunt was too polite, and after refusing several times, they had no choice but to accept it.
At noon, the aunt brought her some crucian carp soup. She wasn't hungry at all and said, "I can't eat any more. I'll be fat to death if I don't."
"It's better to be fat. During confinement, I'm afraid of malnutrition and the development of diseases. I also need to increase my milk supply, so I don't have too little milk."
The husband of the woman in labor in the next bed glanced at them, seemed to say something to the woman, and then walked out.
The baby fell asleep after feeding. Wang Jiazhi felt very accomplished. It was her first time feeding a baby. This kitten was exactly as she imagined. So pretty, cute and well-behaved.
She couldn't help but rub against it, but she had to control herself so as not to wake the child.
Wang Jiazhi took out the Chu Ci and started reading. The girl in the next bed also managed to coax her child into reading a novel.
She smiled at her and said, "What book are you reading?"
She picked it up and showed it to her, "It's an old book."
The girl was reading "Gone with the Wind", which she must have bought at a used book stall. The pages were badly curled before, probably because she had carefully flattened them after buying them.
She smiled and said, "Is this your father's book, or your husband's book?"
Wang Jiazhi lowered her head and smiled.
She smiled and said, "That belongs to you, Lord."
Wang Jiazhi just smiled and said nothing. That's right, she had kept it under her pillow, thinking he was there to accompany her during childbirth. She felt so sad when she thought about it. Other people had someone to accompany them when they gave birth, but she had no one to accompany her during her pregnancy and childbirth.
This woman was a year older than Wang Jiazhi, very pretty, and well-spoken. Her husband looked about her age, not ugly, but plain, with a rather ordinary demeanor. Their daily interactions were rather dull, and he certainly didn't seem bad to her, but he wasn't great either.
Although her husband was indifferent to her, he was very perfunctory when talking to others. He said he opened a hardware store somewhere, and that meeting them was fate, so he would go and have fun if he had the chance. He didn't say directly that he would have the opportunity to take care of the business.
He left yesterday afternoon and never came back. Looking at his expression, Wang Jiazhi guessed something.
"Your husband must really dote on you."
Wang Jiazhi was surprised. This was the second time someone had said that. The first time was from Mrs. Liao's daughter. Perhaps they were just flattering her. Didn't they always say that Mrs. Yi loved him dearly?
She smiled and said, "How can I put it?"
The girl smiled and said, "Whether a person's marriage is happy or not is written on their face. Even if someone tries to hide it and say how good it is, their expression can't lie."
Wang Jiazhi said sadly, "He was very good to me, but in this life, probably..."
When the two families were communicating, the aunt had already answered for her, saying that her husband had gone out for business and had not returned yet.
The girl smiled and said, "In fact, being with someone you truly love, even for just a few days or years, is much happier than being with someone you don't like for the rest of your life."
Wang Jiazhi also felt that it was really unfair for a talented person like her to be paired with a husband like that.
Asked: "Your husband..."
The girl smiled and said, "He has fulfilled his responsibilities to me. Our marriage is a pure partnership. We both fulfill our responsibilities, so there is no emotional pressure."
Wang Jiazhi thought she was probably feeling incredibly depressed, but she had no one to confide in. She was a casual acquaintance, someone she might never see again, and she felt like the safest person to share her anguish with.
"I actually wanted to just leave home and run away. I could find a job anyway so I wouldn't starve to death. But my mother cried and knelt down to beg me, so I had no choice. Actually, there is at least one good thing about this. He has no feelings for me, and I have no feelings for him. If he had some feelings for me, I would feel like I owed him another emotional debt."
Wang Jiazhi probably understood what she meant. It was disgusting to be liked by someone you hated.
The girl explained that she had excellent grades, always getting top marks in her exams. However, her father refused to allow her to continue her education after finishing high school, urging her to get married. The family could afford to support her, but her father felt it was not worthwhile to spend any more money on her.
His father was determined to get his younger brother educated. His younger brother was very naughty and had been held back three times. He kept clamoring and refusing to go to school, but his father refused to allow it, insisting that there must be a scholar in the family. He took exams for several years but never passed, and now, in his twenties, he was still being forced by his father to repeat his studies.
Her younger brother lives a luxurious life, trying to keep up with his classmates from wealthy families, which increases the family expenses even more.
Her husband's family wanted to save face and, because of her beauty, they were willing to pay a lot more for such a beautiful daughter-in-law. Of course, her father agreed.
She said, "Even though I have a child now, I still think that if I can pay him back one day, I'll still leave. But if I can't, I can't just walk away. That wouldn't be fair to him. I think that day is very far away." She sighed and said, "He wouldn't be happy if I had a daughter. Out of responsibility, I have to give birth to a son. I hope the next one will be a son. They say that men and women are equal, but you see, men and women have been unequal since birth."
Wang Jiazhi saw that even with her swollen face from the postpartum period, she was still so beautiful. But if she continued to have children with someone she didn't love, it meant she wouldn't have to have any more children. So, what was the point of a man marrying such a beautiful woman? The thought of this made her feel horrified and disgusted.
The same thing can be treated differently by someone you like than by someone you hate, and it can also be treated differently by someone you like than by someone you love.
Especially, she is so beautiful. If she spends her whole life with people she doesn't like, and never once with someone she likes, it would be such a waste of her talent.
Wang Jiazhi could only console him guiltily, "It's always possible. Everyone should live the life they want in their lifetime."
She knew it was incredibly difficult. It must be a substantial sum, and with two children to support, how could she possibly find a job? How could she repay it? Perhaps this was how her life would be, a beautiful and talented woman left to live with a detestable husband, a life of oppression and daily necessities. It was scarier than any horror movie.
"Yeah, everyone says it's a new era, with equality between men and women, but we don't know when this equality will actually be realized." At this point, he sighed, "Our two families are pretty much the same. Your father sold you, and my father abandoned me. If he was so poor he couldn't take care of me, I wouldn't blame him. But he's clearly rich. He has the money to run away, to raise a son, to marry a stepmother, but he doesn't have the money to give me a chance to live."
The girl said, "All men are born of women, yet many men look down on women. They say it's democracy, it's gender equality. Millennia of male superiority and female inferiority, how can these thirty-something years of new thinking change millennia of thinking? I'm afraid it won't work even in a few decades. Men rule the world because women are given too few opportunities. In this environment, when women and men have the same abilities, society always gives the opportunities to men. To achieve the same success as men, women must possess greater energy and make far greater sacrifices."
Wang Jiazhi thought of the boys in her small circle. Not only were they talentless and morally incompetent, they lacked any masculinity at all. They were nothing but morally devoid of common sense. Only after calming down did she realize that even Kuang Yumin, in terms of moral character, was their intelligence and courage inferior to hers.
Wang Jiazhi recalled an incident and smiled, "One of my classmates' older sisters has a master's degree. She's beautiful, talented, quiet, and gentle. She hasn't met anyone she likes, so she's in no rush to get married. She's found work and isn't having any problems making ends meet. But her parents are incredibly anxious. Once, someone introduced her to someone, and her mother met with the man's mother to exchange information. The man graduated from an ordinary university, and his mother was indignant when she heard about it. "Your daughter has such a high level of education, and you didn't hide it? You told the blind date the truth. Who would dare marry your daughter? You could have concealed the fact that she graduated from high school or college, dated him for a while, and if he's satisfied with you and doesn't mind, you could have told him the truth. That might have been better. With your family's situation, I'm afraid your daughter will never get married."
The girl laughed and said, "How can there be such a shameless and perverse logic."
Wang Jiazhi laughed and said, "The funniest thing is that the girl's mother actually thought what the other party said was very reasonable. She said it was her daughter's excessive reading that harmed her. If she hadn't read so much, she would have been married long ago, had many children, and would have been a perfect wife and mother."
The girl said, "It's truly tragic that a woman's virtue lies in her lack of talent. At least men are always proud of their gender. As for women, it's one thing for men to look down on them, but some women even look down on themselves. From ancient times to the present, women, though humble, have been indispensable. Often, women aren't like human beings, but rather like necessities like firewood, rice, oil, and salt. As long as they're a woman, can sleep with men, or give birth to children, no matter how ugly or stupid, they'll always be useful."
Wang Jiazhi laughed and said, "As a parent, if you have a stupid son, you have to raise him for his entire life and won't be able to rest even if he dies. If you have a stupid daughter, you either kill her at birth or raise her and sell her. There's absolutely no reason to keep her at home. Actually, I think it's the few men who hold high positions of power and authority who take up the majority of all male wisdom, while the rest of the ordinary men get less wisdom. That's why I always feel that most men are much dumber than women."
The girl said, "That might be a bit of a generalization, like I'm criticizing most men, and it's unfair to those smart men. But it's true for the men I've seen. My father and brother are like that. My husband... you told him it wasn't right, and I don't know if he truly didn't understand, or if he was deliberately trying to maintain his pride as the head of the family. In short, he just insisted on doing the wrong thing."
When the girl asked her how much she had studied, she smiled and said, "I wanted to continue studying after graduating from high school, but..." She did not say that she had been to college.
The girl asked, "Is it your family that wants you to get married?"
Wang Jiazhi smiled and said, "Not really, but I wasn't old enough to get married when my father passed away. Otherwise, he would have wanted to sell me off for a fortune."
"But looking at you, your husband treats you very well, which is something to comfort you."
Wang Jiazhi smiled and said, "He's very good to me. Being with him has changed me a lot. In the past, I was too submissive, and because of that, I suffered a lot from others and endured a lot of hardships. But he allowed me to make trouble and act as I pleased, and he actually made me change a lot of things in my personality."
The girl said, "They say men are afraid of choosing the wrong career, and women are afraid of marrying the wrong man. I don't think a woman's life should be decided by a man, but due to the limitations of the environment, women have to be influenced by men for most of their lives."
The two of them talked a little more, and then the woman who was taking care of the girl came in after washing her things, and they stopped talking.
Wang Jiazhi thought the woman was her daughter's in-laws' aunt, staying to care for her during her confinement. The food she ate wasn't exactly austere, just a few slices of chicken breast or lean meat. Judging by her husband's demeanor, he wouldn't have considered it a burden even if it were better. Perhaps she had given birth to a daughter and didn't deserve the nourishing benefits of killing chickens and fish.
Her husband looked at Wang Jiazhi strangely, and what he meant was, "How could she deserve such a pampered life when she gave birth to a cheap kid?"
At this time, the aunt also came back and brought black chicken soup and some side dishes and snacks.
"How can I eat so much?"
At this time, the woman from the girl's husband's family also looked at them.
"Replenishing your body is important. You can't let it get in the way. It's not like we can't afford to eat. Otherwise, how will I explain it to your boss when he comes back?"
Wang Jiazhi whispered, "What?"
I don’t know what secret conflict this aunt had with the woman in the next bed.
Wang Jiazhi looked at the girl awkwardly. Far from looking unhappy, she even felt a little relieved that she had dealt a blow to her in-laws' pride.
The girl was discharged from the hospital early the next morning. She had suffered some pain during childbirth, and the doctor said it would be safer for her to stay for another day. However, her mother-in-law said that she was not that delicate, and it would be the same if she went home to recuperate.
The girl said goodbye to her before leaving, and Wang Jiazhi felt a little sad. For some people, this is just the last time you see them.
Such a good person was destroyed by the terrible reality at such a young age. Her tragedy was not even a glorious death, but a frog in boiling water, an endless stream of trivialities.
Even if such a beautiful person were to be destroyed, it would be through a head-on collision, a splatter of blood, a poignant beauty. Silently and without a trace, the helpless passage of time slew them. But isn't that how most beautiful things are destroyed?
The bed next door was empty, and then the aunt said that on the day the girl gave birth, her family made chicken soup for her. When they saw that she gave birth to a girl, they took it home and drank it themselves.
"What the hell!" the aunt said indignantly.
Although that girl was so beautiful, her daughter didn't look like her. The girl still looked more like her father. Her child couldn't be called ugly, but she was definitely not pretty. She cried a lot at night, so of course she had to take care of her when she got home.
Marry a husband you don't like, give birth to an ugly child, and work hard in a depressing environment all your life.
"It's better to die." Wang Jiazhi said to herself.
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