Chapter 623 "She hates him!"
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A section of the relatively intact hold had been temporarily cleared out and covered with some fairly clean old canvas.
The Japanese woman lay on the canvas, her face as pale as paper, sweat soaking through her disheveled hair and sticking to her cheeks.
Her hands gripped the canvas beneath her so tightly that her knuckles turned white from the effort, and she let out a suppressed, painful groan, like that of a wounded wild animal.
The two Han women knelt beside the Japanese woman. One wiped the Japanese woman's sweat with a cloth, while the other nervously held the Japanese woman's hand and whispered words of comfort in Japanese.
Li Qiutian and Wang Xiaoying were among the few women in the Zhenhai Army Women's Battalion who had production experience.
The majority of women in the female soldiers' camp were unmarried women, because women who had never given birth were more likely to endure the pain of the "Mysterious Yin Body Tempering Technique".
The fact that Li Qiutian, a woman who had given birth, could endure it was thanks to Li Shiyue secretly feeding her a lot of good things.
Those with exceptional talent like Wang Xiaoying, who manage to get through even old age and having children, are ultimately a minority.
At this moment, Wang Xiaoying quickly instructed the female soldiers to prepare hot water and clean towels;
Li Qiutian then squatted down, lifted the Japanese woman's skirt, and checked her condition. Li Qiutian also asked the Han woman to relay a message to the Japanese woman, trying to comfort the Japanese woman who was about to give birth.
Only Li Shiyue, Ding Haisheng, and Dana, who were standing behind her, stood aside, watching the chaotic scene unfold.
However, the Japanese woman's reaction was unexpected.
She wasn't afraid because of the excruciating pain of childbirth; what shone in her eyes was a deep-seated disgust and resolute resistance.
She abruptly shoved away the Han woman's hand, which was trying to comfort her, and screamed out a string of Japanese words with all her might. Her voice was sharp and shrill, filled with despair.
What did she say?
Li Shiyue stood aside, somewhat surprised, and asked one of the Han women.
The Han woman, who had been pushed to the ground, quickly turned to Li Shiyue to translate. Her voice trembled noticeably as she said, "She... Bamboo, Bamboo said... she doesn't want to give birth!"
She doesn't want the child!
Bamboo said, "Please...please kill her...don't let her give birth to the child!"
After the Han woman finished speaking, not only Li Shiyue, but everyone in the cabin felt a sudden sinking feeling in their hearts.
Li Qiutian was so shocked by these words that she was stunned on the spot, while Wang Xiaoying reacted faster, "Ah! How... how can we not want this baby?"
Isn't this her doll?
How can we not have children?
Wang Xiaoying was met with the bamboo's desperate struggle and its high-pitched roar.
Li Shiyue waved to Li Qiutian and Wang Xiaoying to calm down, and then she turned her gaze to the woman struggling with pain and hatred.
Before the cervix was fully open, in the short span of a quarter of an hour, through the back-and-forth narration of the two Han women, Li Shiyue and the others roughly understood the ordeal of the Japanese woman named Bamboo.
Bamboo was originally an ordinary woman from a poor fishing village on the coast of Japan.
Three years ago, Zhu Zi's parents sold her to a human trafficker in order to obtain food to keep the family alive.
After changing hands several times, she was eventually given as a gift to Hirota Koki by a Japanese merchant.
From that moment on, she fell into hell.
Hirota Koki was a violent man, and she was merely one of the tools he used to vent his lust.
This child was conceived unexpectedly amidst countless acts of coercion and humiliation.
She said...
The Han woman's voice choked with sobs, "Ever since she found out about this bastard child... she's tried so many methods... jumping off the boat, strangling herself with a rope, eating all sorts of weird and wonderful things..."
But this child is like a demon; I just can't get rid of him...
She hates him!
She hated this thing that had that demon's blood flowing through its veins!
Bamboo seemed to understand, or rather, she seemed to understand that the Han woman was relaying her words to Li Shiyue;
At this moment, Zhu Zi stopped screaming, turned her head, and looked at Li Shiyue.
Those eyes, unusually bright because of pain and hatred, stared straight at Li Shiyue.
There was no pleading in Bamboo's eyes, only an almost frantic affirmation, as if asking: Do you understand? Do you understand this disgust and despair?
Li Shiyue understood.
She thought of Jian'an, of the fishing villages burned down by Japanese pirates, of the women and girls who were raped and killed, of the orphans who lost their parents...
The flames of hatred burned in Li Shiyue's heart, but she was not facing the brutal Japanese pirates, but a pitiful woman whose life had been destroyed by them.
This unborn child was not what Bamboo had hoped for;
Rather, it was the mark of the evil spirits' brutality and humiliation inflicted upon her, living evidence of the torment they inflicted upon her day and night!
How could she not hate? How could she not despise?
Li Shiyue stepped forward, squatted down, and looked directly into the bamboo's eyes.
She didn't speak; her eyes held no judgment, no pity, only a deep, almost cold understanding.
She nodded gently at the bamboo.
This subtle movement seemed to give the bamboo some kind of power, or rather, confirmation.
Bamboo's tense body relaxed slightly, but the determination in her eyes remained undiminished.
The production process remains painful and lengthy.
She stopped screaming and just bit her lower lip hard. Even when her lips bled, she only let out a few suppressed sobs.
Bamboo strained in accordance with Li Qiutian and Wang Xiaoying's instructions, but not because of her desire for new life, but because she was eager to get rid of this burden that she hated.
Finally, after a series of intense contractions, the baby was born.
It was a baby boy, his skin wrinkled, covered in sticky vernix caseosa and blood, and he let out a weak cry.
Li Qiutian deftly cut the umbilical cord, wiped the tiny baby clean with a clean cloth, and then wrapped the baby in another clean cloth.
Turning around, Li Qiutian was holding the child, and she instinctively wanted to show the baby to his mother.
"No!"
Covered in sweat and utterly exhausted, Zhu Zi suddenly felt as if she had been scalded. She jerked her head away, her voice hoarse and shrill. Imitating the Han woman's Mandarin, she shouted again, "Get away! Get away!"
Bamboo refused to look at the baby any longer, as if it were some extremely filthy and dirty thing.
There was no joy on Zhu Zi's face as a new mother, only an overwhelming sense of disgust and exhaustion.
The cabin fell silent for a moment, save for the baby's faint cries and the heavy breathing of the bamboo.
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