60.060 The First Ally
Ever since Xiao Dan's stepmother gave birth, Su Yu has clearly sensed Ning Jin's growing interest. The most obvious sign is that he no longer takes the initiative to use condoms during sex, and he is no longer proactive when washing.
It was springtime in 1972, and the family planning policy should have been introduced by then, but this policy had clearly not yet reached this small town.
To make matters worse, Su Yu's third sister, Su Hesheng, also had her third child, a little girl, turn one month old. Ning Jin was also at home when the banquet was held. He went to school to ask for leave for his two sons, saying that he wanted to take them to see their little cousin.
Suhe looked very tired after giving birth, with sunken eyes and a sallow complexion. She also seemed to lack energy when she spoke.
Su Yu avoided her third sister's mother-in-law's hand that was about to take the hen and eggs, and said to her round, wrinkle-free smiling face, "No need to trouble you, Auntie, I can carry them in myself. I also need to go inside to see my third sister."
"Just give it to me, I'll take it to the kitchen." Her outstretched hand was dodged again. Granny Ke finally realized that Su Laoyao was deliberately avoiding her. She wasn't ashamed at all. She put her hand back in her sleeve and said, "It's been two years. Laoyao, you've become much richer. It's just that you're still a bit lacking in your work. You're too stingy."
"What is 'being a big shot'? Does stealing eggs from your daughter-in-law during her postpartum period and sharing chicken soup make you a decent person? You shameless old woman." Su Yu was talking about this old woman. Whenever her three daughters-in-law gave birth and went into postpartum period, she had to eat with them. She had to drink the crucian carp soup to promote lactation, and she couldn't do without the brown sugar and egg soup to replenish blood and qi. She would even scramble to eat the stewed hen soup. Her figure was even rounder than her mother, that old lady who had never worked in the fields.
There are so many strange people and strange things happening.
Su Yu carried two hens and eggs into the bedroom and saw baskets full of eggs on the floor, all of which were gifts from her relatives.
"Give the baby to Xiaoyu so she can share in the joy and hold a baby next year." Before Su Yu could even sit down, her mother shoved a baby into her arms.
"Hold her properly, don't act strangely. It's not like you've never given birth before." Yu Anxiu saw that her arm was stiff and thought she was trying to cause trouble and didn't want to hold the baby. If the baby wasn't in her arms, she would have slapped her twice.
He's so stubborn! They've been married for over two years, and he still hasn't conceived. He won't take the medicine she's given, and when she took him to see a shaman, he threatened to report her, his own mother. Yu Anxiu was furious at the thought. What sins had she committed to deserve such stubborn children who took after her husband?
Fortunately, she was wrapped in a blanket. Su Yu supported her neck with one hand and hugged her waist with the other. With the blanket supporting the soft little girl, she was able to hold her tightly.
"Let me see." Ping An tugged at his mother's arm, even standing on tiptoe to get a look.
"I'll sit here and watch."
“Ping An, isn’t your little sister pretty? Why don’t you ask your mom to have one too? You and Xiao Yuan can play with her. Your little sister is always waiting for you to come home from school.” Su Min probed Ping An’s opinion.
Ping An chuckled without answering. He touched the doll with its eyes open, watched it open its mouth and blow a bubble, and was first surprised and then delighted. He said, "It's quite fun, your face is so smooth."
"Ping An, do you want a younger sister or a younger brother?" Su Tao asked as well.
"have no idea."
"How could you not know? Or do you want both?" Su Tao pressed.
"I just don't know." Ping An was getting a little anxious when asked. "I'm going to find my dad." He hurriedly ran out the door.
Su Tao chuckled, "This child, it's good that you still have Xiao Yuan." She sensed that Ping An was somewhat unhappy about Xiao Yu having a baby, so she was also unhappy and said to Su Yu, "Youngest, hurry up and have one or two more. You'll be thirty soon, and the older you get, the more uncomfortable it is to get pregnant. You can see that from your third sister."
“We already have two children, so it’s better not to have any more. It would be a waste of time and affect our health. Besides, if I favor the youngest, it wouldn’t be good for the older and younger children either,” Su Yu revealed her thoughts.
"How can you not have children? Ningjin didn't tell you this, did he? Don't be silly. You and he don't have any biological children. When you get old, he can just dump you. If Xiaoyuan doesn't care about you anymore, you won't even have a place to live. Will you have to beg for food?" Su Min immediately scolded her: "I used to say you were smart. How could you be silly again? What will you delay? What will your health be affected? Mom, your second sister, your third sister, and I have all had so many children and we're all doing just fine."
Su Tao also told her not to listen to Ning Jin's nonsense and to have a baby while she was still young. Only Yu Anxiu stared at her youngest daughter without saying a word. She didn't know the situation with her eldest and second children, but she knew perfectly well that Ning Jin wouldn't fool Xiao Yu. Xiao Yu managed everything at home and outside, and she held all the money. She was now starting to wonder if her youngest daughter's lack of pregnancy in two years meant that she herself had no intention of getting pregnant again.
"What are you all talking about? Oh, is Xiaoya here? My brother-in-law just said he wanted to hold her to share in the good fortune, but Xiaoyu didn't give her any?" Su He pushed open the door to get some eggs and said with a smile, "You two both like little girls, you'll definitely be able to hold your little daughter next year."
The mother and her three daughters looked at each other, unsure whether Ningjin had been there before.
"I'll take Xiaoya out to see if he's being bothered by someone." Su Yu carried the child out, but didn't see Ning Jin in the yard. She called over Xiao Yuan, who was playing with his older cousins, and asked, "Where's your dad?"
“He was just in the yard.” Xiao Yuan glanced around. “He was outside, talking to my uncle.”
"Okay, you can keep playing."
"What are you talking about with your older brother?" Su Yu walked over, handed Xiaoya to him, and asked directly, "I just heard from Third Sister that you were going to hold Xiaoya to share in the good fortune, why didn't I see you go in?"
The man smiled, bent down to take the little girl, and expertly bounced her around, then flicked his tongue to tease the sleepy baby. "I tripped over something, and then I ran into my older brother. Let's have a chat."
Seeing that he seemed normal, Su Yu breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed he hadn't heard what she said. She had been telling him that she wanted to postpone the birth for two years, without revealing that she didn't want to have the child.
"Xiao Wu, you're quite skilled at holding the baby. You've even managed to lull the child to sleep," Li Weiguo said.
“I raised Ping An myself, and I’ve gotten so used to it that I know exactly how much pressure to use when burping a baby.” Ning Jin turned around to shield the child from the sun.
"Little sister, did you hear that? If you have another one, you can leave it to Xiao Wu to raise. I raised the eldest son myself, so the younger son can't be left behind either," Li Weiguo joked.
“He’s not home often, so even if I gave birth, I wouldn’t be able to soothe him for more than a few days.”
"How do you know I can't coax you for more than a few days if you don't give birth?" Ning Jin asked her, tilting her head.
"You spend more time in the car than at home. The baby's already a month old by the time you came back twice." Su Yu pushed his face away. "Why are you giving me that cold look? Did I say something wrong?"
"No." Ning Jin smiled and said, "How could I be cold? Here, the little girl is asleep, take her inside so she doesn't get cold, I'll talk to my brother again."
Su Yu hurriedly took the child without asking any further questions.
When they went back in the afternoon, Ning Jin was a little confused because he had been drinking. Su Yu was worried about him riding a bike with the child, so she let him sit on the back seat while Ping An and Xiao Yuan rode the other bike.
"Ping An, Xiao Yuan, is your third aunt's little cousin a good girl? Do you want your mom to give you a little sister too?" He put his arm around Su Yu's waist and asked the child with his face turned back.
No one paid any attention to him, so he asked again, specifically asking Xiao Yuan if he wanted a younger sister.
Xiao Yuan thought for a moment. They had argued before, and his mother didn't want to have a baby because she was afraid it would upset him and Ping An. But now he had no objection to his mother having a baby, so he said, "I do want one, but I only want a little sister. Can we have one?"
"I can have one if I want to." He boasted shamelessly, ignoring the slap Su Yu gave him, and then asked Ping An, "Eldest son, what about you? You want a little sister too, right?"
Ping An hesitated. He felt that four people in the family were enough, but his father was still urging him. So he nodded haphazardly and said, "Then I'll just be like Xiao Yuan and only want a little sister." Xiao Yuan was enough. He didn't want to have a younger brother. Like him, Xiao Yuan didn't have a biological mother, and Xiao Yuan didn't have a biological father.
"Look, they all want a little sister, and so do I. We're just waiting for you to agree." He held Su Yu's waist and asked, "When are we going to have one?"
"What if it's a boy? You can't just have whichever child you want," Su Yu said, somewhat annoyed. Everyone was pressuring her, but she didn't want to have a baby at all. She wanted to tell Ning Jin directly that she didn't plan to have a child, but Ning Jin's desire for a child was too strong. She suspected that if she told him, their relationship would enter a period of stagnation, and neither of them could convince the other.
“It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s that I’m a son. With three boys in the family, it will be a great honor for them to grow up and go out into the world.”
"Prestige my foot! If a fight breaks out, they'll dismember you and boil you into soup." Su Yu decided to take it slow, to lay the groundwork first, or at least to have a buffer, so that she and he could at least share the same stance on some point.
The man fell silent, and Su Yu also kept her head down and rode her bike without saying a word. She was a little dazed. If she used divorce as leverage to talk to Ning Jin about not having children, there was a 70% chance that he would agree to her not having children. However, this would create a rift between them, and the issue of children would become a taboo topic between them.
She didn't want to do that; it was like robbing him at knifepoint. He hadn't hurt her in the past two years, and while he wasn't as close to Xiao Yuan as he was to Ping An, their relationship wasn't bad either.
Su Yu sighed silently. Ultimately, she was satisfied with her current life and did not want to get a divorce for that reason, nor did she want to threaten anyone with divorce.
“Ningjin, you said if we don’t have any more children, and it’s just Ping’an and Xiaoyuan, life will be pretty good. We have about a hundred yuan a month. If we want to eat chicken, we can buy chicken; if we want to stew ribs, we can stew ribs; if we don’t want to eat black flour, we can eat white flour; if we see leather shoes that cost twenty or thirty yuan, we can buy two pairs without feeling the pinch. When you go out driving, I can even make dumplings and buns for you to take with you, and I can make meat sauce and render lard for you.” Su Yu tried to express her thoughts, hoping to gain approval by presenting a positive picture.
“If I get pregnant and have a baby, I won’t be able to work for at least three years. It’s dangerous for me to ride a bike while I’m heavily pregnant. I can’t take the baby to work right away after she’s born. I’ll have to wait until she’s two or three years old before I can take her out. That means our family will only have your salary for the next four years. And I might not even be able to keep my job after four years.”
"So, if you have another baby, we can't eat fish, chicken, or ribs anymore. We have to eat cornbread and black noodles instead?" Ping An quickly pedaled twice, and the two bicycles rode side by side. He turned his head and asked.
"Pretty much. If the little one gets sick, I'll have to take her to the hospital for injections and treatment. When your dad isn't home, it'll be you and Xiaoyuan doing the laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, and collecting firewood every day after school," Su Yu told him about the worst-case scenario.
"Forget it, don't have any more. We're fine as we are now." Ping An said to the man who was glaring at him, "Dad, I've changed my mind. I don't want a sister. Don't have any more. I don't want a brother either."
"You don't know anything, all you care about is eating." Ning Jin was furious. She hadn't managed to deal with the big boss, and now the little one had defected to the enemy.
Su Yu smiled. Just as she had guessed, Ping An did not want her to get pregnant again. So when her sister asked him if he wanted a younger brother or sister, he said he didn't know because he didn't want either of them. But he knew he couldn't say that, so he gave a vague answer.
As for Xiaodan's stepmother's pregnancy, he probably has some thoughts in his mind, or he's worried that his stepmother might suddenly get pregnant, so he keeps mentioning it to observe their reactions.
"Anyway, I don't want it. Don't have another one. I don't like it. I just like it when it's just the four of us and a dog at home." Ping An pedaled harder, rushing ahead of his parents, shouting that he didn't like his sister.
Xiao Yuan hurriedly turned around and saw his mother's happy and smug smile, and his stepfather looking like he was about to hit someone. He was stunned, turned his head back and looked again. His mother wasn't sad, and she wasn't unhappy about Ping An's words.
Ning Jin put his feet down and told Su Yu to get off the bike so he could ride it.
“You’re drunk. I’m afraid you’ll ride into the ditch. Don’t ride. I’ll take you.” Su Yu gripped the handlebars tightly.
"I'm not drunk, I only had a little half a glass." Seeing her wide-eyed surprise, he calmly explained, "It's not strong, it'll wear off in a bit. I'm sober now thanks to Ping An's aura. Get on, I'll ride, I definitely won't drop you."
Hearing this, Su Yu felt relieved and sat in the back seat of the car, complaining, "I thought you were pretending to be drunk. You weigh over 140 pounds, heavier than a pig, you really exhausted me."
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