Chapter 8 Raising a child.
The hot water and towels had been placed aside long ago. Shu Lan wrung out the towel, carefully wiped the child clean, and then put him on the quilt to clean herself.
The original bed sheets were too dirty to be used anymore, so Shu Lan simply rolled them up and threw them away. She had new ones among the supplies she found in the city.
She didn't know where she got the strength from, but she did all this as if she was in her last moments of life. After changing the bedding, she fell down. She was so tired that she couldn't even lift a finger, but she still tried to keep her eyes open to observe the newborn baby.
The baby's breathing is very light, and the rise and fall of his little belly is proof of the existence of life.
Shu Lan carefully placed him in the quilt, right next to her belly, feeling extremely safe and satisfied.
She whispered to him in a low voice, "Thank you for being alive. Mommy loves you."
The next second, exhaustion dragged Shu Lan into sleep. She didn't know how long she slept before she vaguely heard the cry of a child. She opened her eyes almost the next second, but before her brain could react, she felt nervous.
"Baby!"
As soon as she made a sound, the baby stopped crying immediately and looked at her eagerly, opening and closing its mouth like a little fish.
As if by telepathy, Shu Lan immediately knew that he was hungry.
Her eyes softened and she breathed a sigh of relief: "I forgot, you haven't eaten yet."
She sat up, her stomach rumbling, so she held the baby in one hand and let him eat his first meal in his life, while pouring out the hot water in the thermos to soak the cereal that she usually hated to eat.
Giving birth is so hard, Shu Lan wants to reward herself and be a little extravagant.
She drinks two bags of cereal at a time!
In the first month after giving birth, Shu Lan found herself bleeding all the time. She was terrified and thought she would die from excessive blood loss. She ate most of her stored food in fear and cried more than her baby.
"Baby...you've just been born, and your mother is about to die. What are you going to do in the future?"
Later, Shu Lan learned from others that after giving birth, the bleeding would continue until the wound caused by delivery healed.
She was young and didn't understand. Neither did the baby. When they saw her crying, they immediately stopped eating and stared into her eyes.
He didn't continue sucking until Shu Lan calmed down.
"You're so good, you're really good." Shu Lan sniffed, feeling comforted by him: "It's okay, it's okay, I won't cry anymore, eat quickly, and grow up well."
With a child, Shu Lan finally has someone she can talk to, although her child can't speak yet and she talks to herself most of the time.
"Baby, you will be called Shu Maomao from now on. In my mother's hometown, Maomao is a general term for children. When I was in high school, my grandma came to school to bring me snacks and kept calling me Maomao, Maomao. Other classmates used this as a nickname to laugh at me, and I even got angry with my grandma and told her not to call me that anymore."
That was the thing Shu Lan regretted most in her life. After her grandmother passed away, no one called her Maomao in such a loving way anymore.
She said to Shu Maomao gently, "If you want to change your name in the future, Mom will change it for you, but no matter how old you grow, you will always be a child to me."
Although the baby is small, has a small mouth, and has no teeth, he is inexplicably strong and will hurt her when eating.
At first Shu Lan endured it, but then his teeth started to grow, rubbing her skin. Shu Lan gasped in pain and pretended to be angry: "Shu Maomao! Be gentle!"
The baby could actually tell from her frown that she was uncomfortable, and really slowed down his movements.
Shu Lan felt that her son Shu Maomao seemed to be able to understand what she said since birth.
He basically doesn't cry. He only howls when he needs to eat or when he accidentally poops on himself. He doesn't shed tears, just howls to remind Shu Lan that he needs care.
And he is very calm every day, with an expressionless face, rarely crying or laughing.
She didn't know that babies need adults to guide them from rolling over to crawling. Shu Maomao couldn't see her, so he'd roll over on his own. Occasionally, when she put him on her lap, he'd kick his legs and try to stand. So Shu Lan didn't really understand the worry involved in raising a child.
Perhaps maternal love blinded her eyes. Shu Lan thought that her son Shu Maomao was cuter than all the babies in the world. He was fair and clean, and had a sweet milky scent. She wanted to hold him all the time, but her hands would get sore after holding him for a while.
But Shu Maomao was obviously not heavy at all. She used to be a strong woman who could easily carry 20 kilograms of rice on her shoulders and walk all the way.
After the rain, Shu Lan wanted to carry the bucket full of water under the eaves, but she couldn't lift it after trying for a long time. She tried to chop the wood with all her strength but couldn't. Only when a mouse jumped on her foot did she swing the knife.
Shu Lan discovered the truth.
She became a very weak human being, unable to carry anything on her shoulders or lift anything with her hands.
There was no other way. Frail as they were, they had to keep on living. The barrels were eventually placed outside. Shu Lan covered them with various boards, and the wood went into the stove in chunks, turning to ash. She ignored the mice that scurried around, as they would soon be extinct anyway.
The vegetables planted underground have grown to some extent, including tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, potatoes, and some green leafy vegetables.
However, staple foods like noodles and biscuits can only last for more than two months at most. Before that, Shu Lan must go to the city.
She found an old backpack, put Shu Maomao in it with his head sticking out, and after putting it on her back, she wrapped two circles of straps cut from old sheets around the outside to secure it and prevent him from falling out the side.
"Baby Maomao, Mommy is going to find something to eat, don't move around."
To be honest, Shu Lan was still a little afraid of encountering zombies, but she was a brave person and loved gambling. Rather than living off her savings and starving to death, she would rather go out and try her luck.
She had blocked the exit herself, and it took quite a while to clear the way again.
Shu Lan was still riding the scrap tricycle, carrying her child on her back. Halfway through, her hands and feet became so tired that she had to stop to rest for a while.
Alas, she used to be able to run all the way.
After entering Ci'an, Shu Lan avoided the places she had been to before and searched for unknown areas.
Ci'an is still the same dead city. There are corpses on the streets and a lot of flies are hanging around. You can't look at it for long.
I wonder if the virus will affect insects? Shu Lan thought, if humans really become extinct, who knows what kind of creatures will become the second generation of residents of the Blue Planet.
She walked around the streets for a long time. The doors and windows of places like supermarkets had been pried open and smashed. There were very few things inside. She only found some things in residential buildings.
There might be bodies lying in open doors in residential areas, but there might also be some leftover food that has not been discovered. The unpacked rice has already gone moldy, but the vacuum-packed rice is still edible. In addition, there is flour, beans, grains, sugar and salt, which can be stored for a long time.
Shu Lan found a lot of children's clothes and took them away, preparing to give them to Shu Maomao when he grows up.
In addition, she also took some daily necessities such as toothpaste, toothbrush, towels, soap, and paper towels.
When there was no more room in the tricycle, Shu Lan felt very reluctant.
Why doesn't she have a spatial ability? Not only can she carry more, but she doesn't have to pedal.
However, she was already very satisfied that she did not encounter any wandering zombies on this trip into the city.
Shu Lan rode her bike back the same way. Halfway through, Shu Maomao, who had been very quiet in the backpack, suddenly started babbling.
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