Cannon fodder of the era strives to rewrite their lives - Part 8. Please add to your favorites, muah...
As soon as we left the alley, we ran into Tang Siyu and her husband, who were taking their two children for a walk.
Han Xiao greeted Guo Xiangqian and rode his bicycle home with Chen Xia on the back. Guo Xiangqian glanced at the charming Chen Xia sitting on the back table with her arms around Han Xiao's waist, then looked at Tang Siyu, who had become somewhat unkempt since becoming pregnant, and felt a pang of unease.
They should have thought it through more back then. After all, Tang Siyu was just an ordinary female worker, and her monthly salary wasn't even as high as her allowance.
Chen Xia, on the other hand, is different. I heard that she has passed the engineer exam and earns more than 100 yuan a month. If he marries her, her salary will be more than enough to support his parents and make a living, and he can save all his allowance.
Looking back now, I really regret it. How could he have let beauty cloud his judgment? Before marriage, Tang Siyu acted quite convincingly, but after marriage, she became utterly vulgar.
All she talks about all day is money, money, money. When we first got married, she earned over thirty yuan a month, but she was always trying to ask me for money. Now that she's quit her job, she's become even more demanding.
Back home, Chen Xia put the things she brought back from her sister-in-law's house into the kitchen cabinet. Although their new home was only a two-bedroom apartment, there were no messy shared areas; it was all real space.
The outer room is the living room, the inner room is the bedroom, the kitchen is small but complete, and the balcony has been converted into a bathroom. Han Xiao had someone lay sewers and install a flush toilet, considering that Chen Xia would be afraid to go to the public bathroom alone at night when he was on a mission.
After moving to the family compound, Chen Xia started waking up even earlier than before. Since it was next to the military region, the loud reveille became her alarm clock.
She initially wanted to sleep a little longer, since Han Xiao would have to do morning exercises anyway, and after that he would buy breakfast and bring it back for the couple to eat together.
A few days later, the neighbors in the apartment building started gossiping that she was lazy, sleeping in until dawn and not getting up, and that her husband even brought her breakfast.
This infuriated Chen Xia. So what if she had to get up early? Who was afraid of who? So every day when the wake-up call rang, Chen Xia would get up on time to make breakfast. Her cooking skills were honed through practice, and with some ingredients and seasonings from her space, even a simple stir-fried vegetable dish tasted delicious.
Gao Mei, who lives next door, is furious. Ever since Chen Xia started getting up early every morning to cook, Gao Mei has been miserable, constantly being criticized by her husband and son for her cooking. Her little devil, the moment he opens his eyes, wails, "I want meat! I want something delicious..."
Chen Xia would occasionally give her son a bite to eat when he came over: "Auntie doesn't make much, Xiao Bao, come and try it and see if it tastes good. When you get home, ask your mom to make it for you, as much as you want. It's okay if your mom doesn't know how to make it, Auntie can teach her."
Gao Mei was so angry that she banged the pot loudly inside the house. That wretched Chen Xia! She had only said a few words to her casually, how could she be so petty as to deliberately retaliate against her?
Hearing the clatter of pots and pans from next door, Chen Xia smiled with satisfaction and praised Xiao Bao a few times. The little guy patted his chest and promised that he would definitely ask his mother to come to Chen Xia to ask how to make delicious vegetable dumplings.
After seeing Zheng Xiaobao off, Chen Xia hummed a little tune as she closed the door. She packed the remaining vegetable dumplings into a lunchbox, put them in her handbag, and planned to take them to her sister-in-law's house on her way to work, so that the mother and daughter could also try some.
Chen Xia is not stupid. The ingredients she uses are not unusual at all. She eats either seasonal vegetables, homemade pickles, or dried vegetables. The difference between her and others is that she is generous with oil and seasonings, making her dishes delicious and fragrant.
Having learned her lesson, Gao Mei knew Chen Xia was not someone to be trifled with, and dared not go out and spread rumors anymore.
Chen Xia and Han Xiao have been using contraception since they got married in 1958, partly because Chen Xia is young and it is not advisable for her to get pregnant and have children too early.
Han Xiao valued this more than she did. His second sister, Han Ying, was a military doctor. When they got married, she specifically told Han Xiao to prepare for pregnancy and regulate their bodies for two years before having children.
After giving birth to her eldest son, Song Tianming, the eldest sister, Han Jing, originally wanted to have another daughter, but her second sister, Han Ying, stopped her: "Giving birth one after another is not good for your health. It's better to have a child of high quality than many. You're so busy. If you have another child, you'll be busy with work, taking care of the family, and looking after the child. Do you even care about your health?"
"What, are you tired of living? Want to work yourself to death early so your brother-in-law can marry a younger woman, sleep on your kang (heated brick bed), and raise your kids?"
To be fair, the second sister, Han Ying, had a bit of a swagger. After she said that, the eldest sister, Han Jing, never mentioned having a second child again.
She herself is even more remarkable. After so many years of marriage, she and her second brother-in-law have never had children. Not to mention in this era, even in later generations, it is not uncommon for married couples to withstand the pressure of not having children. Nowadays, they are even rarer.
Of course, this is also related to my second sister and brother-in-law's jobs. One is a military doctor, and the other is a scientific researcher. They are so busy that they eat in the canteen most of the time. In their own words, they wouldn't have time to raise a child anyway, so they simply didn't have one.
Chen Xia had a mission to complete, and no matter how much she envied her second sister, she still had to have the baby. She bought twin pills from the system shop in advance, planning to complete the mission all at once. Although it would be busy at first, she would be able to free up her time once the children were two years old and started daycare.
While the desire for eugenics was one factor, another important reason was the timing. Starting in 1959, there was widespread drought in the north and flooding in the south, which submerged almost all farmland, in addition to other disasters such as frost and locust plagues.
Nationwide, there was a severe shortage of grain and non-staple foods, living conditions continued to decline, food was scarce, and famine was rampant. As a result, Chen Xia and her colleagues' quotas were reduced again and again.
Even though Chen Xia's family lacked nothing, everyone was still hungry, so she and Han Xiao had to follow the crowd and only eat until they were six-tenths full.
When they occasionally ate meat, they would go to their eldest sister Han Jing's house. When stewing meat, they would seal up the gaps in the kitchen door and windows. After eating the meat, they would have to let the smell dissipate and brush their teeth, for fear that someone would smell it and report them. Under such circumstances, she and Han Xiao would have to be crazy to consider having children.
Even their colleagues, relatives, and friends, if they weren't completely out of their minds, wouldn't choose to have a baby at this time. Seriously, when adults are already struggling to survive, giving birth to a crying, hungry baby is just adding insult to injury.
Tang Siyu was filled with remorse. After marrying Guo Xiangqian, she only thought about having a child as soon as possible to secure her position, but she forgot that the day of her death was fast approaching.
After giving birth to twin sons, she had no one to take care of her during her postpartum period, and even eating a decent meal became a luxury.
It wasn't that Guo Xiangqian was unwilling to buy it for her; it was simply impossible to find any. After much pleading and begging, he managed to get a little meat, but his two stepsons ate like starving ghosts, never getting enough of anything.
After Tang Siyu gave birth, her thinking changed. She felt that her two stepsons' future success would largely be due to their biological father, Guo Xiangqian.
Since that's the case, instead of trying to please them, she'd rather focus on raising her own son. With a major general like Guo Xiangqian as his father, she refused to believe that her son could be any worse than theirs.
The more Tang Siyu thought about it, the more feasible the plan seemed. She started to whisper sweet nothings in Guo Xiangqian's ear, wanting him to send his two annoying stepsons back to their hometown.
The excuse was readily available: she was simply too busy taking care of four children on her own, her in-laws were still in good health, and she had two sisters-in-law to help out. She would send the two older children back to school for two years, and then bring the two younger ones over when they were a little older.
Guo Xiangqian naturally disagreed, but he couldn't resist the pillow talk. In addition, the current food rations were indeed not enough, and Tang Siyu couldn't take care of four children by herself. The two older ones were always causing trouble in the family compound by playing with cats and dogs.
The root cause was that his former father-in-law's family had been sent to the countryside for re-education through labor, and he was afraid of being implicated. Just then, Tang Siyu suggested sending the two older children back to their hometown, and he readily agreed.
Tang Siyu successfully sent her two stepsons back to their hometown, but her hard-earned good reputation collapsed, and Guo Xiangqian's reputation also became infamous.
The eldest sister, Han Jing, couldn't help but sigh, "It's true that every stepmother has a stepfather! Xiao Guo's salary isn't low, it's not like he can't afford to raise them. The two older children are already in elementary school, and instead of sending the younger ones, he sent the two older ones back to their hometown. I don't know what he was thinking."
I heard that Xiao Guo's hometown was severely affected by the disaster, and they're even going hungry. Sending the two children back at this time, are they trying to deny them a chance to survive?
"Commander Guo is busy with work, and Tang Siyu is really struggling to take care of four children on her own. Sending them back to their hometown must have been a last resort. I heard that the two kids are particularly naughty."
Chen Xia felt that evil people would be punished by evil people. In the original owner's memories, those two stepsons were taught a lot of bad intentions by their grandmother. It was normal for Tang Siyu to not want to tolerate them anymore after having her own child.
In 1963, Chen Xia became pregnant, and her eldest sister, Han Jing, breathed a sigh of relief. For the past two years, she had been living in fear, worried that her sister-in-law would be led astray by her second sister and learn her unreliable ways.
But her heart quickly tightened again when she accompanied Chen Xia to see a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, who told her that Chen Xia was pregnant with twins. While twins are a good thing, the risks during childbirth are also multiplied.
Throughout her pregnancy, Chen Xia ate and drank as usual, not worrying about anything, and visibly gained weight. In contrast, Han Xiao looked like he had been drained of his life force by a demon, becoming more and more haggard every day.
Twin pregnancies are prone to premature birth, so Chen Xia was sent to the military hospital to prepare for delivery early. After taking a fertility pill, Chen Xia gave birth incredibly quickly. She gave birth in less than an hour after she started bleeding and entered the delivery room.
Han Xiao paced anxiously outside the delivery room. Han Jing tried to persuade him, "Xia Xia just went in not long ago, she's still a long way from giving birth. You should sit down and rest, this is making me dizzy..."
"Chen Xia's family, are Chen Xia's family members here?" a nurse asked, poking her head out of the delivery room.
Han Jing's heart skipped a beat, and she quickly pulled Han Xiao over: "Yes, yes, we are Chen Xia's family..."
"Chen Xia has given birth to twins, a boy and a girl. Both mother and babies are safe. The babies are being cleaned and will be brought out shortly. Family members, please wait outside."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
