Chapter 115
When Bi Chunliu heard about Zhaodi's death in her previous life, she was begging for help at the police station. She felt Weiguo's death was unclear, and she begged the police to find out more. But they all believed Weiguo had drowned. One forensic doctor even carefully explained to Bi Chunliu why he concluded it wasn't homicide.
later……
Bi Chunliu's memory is hazy. She feels like she lived in a daze during those years, as if she had accomplished nothing, passively accepting the departures of her family members one by one. Many years later, she visited a psychologist, who told her that she was so heartbroken that she had built up a defense mechanism to obscure her memories of the pain.
Bi Guangyao gave Bi Chunliu his notebook and asked her to write the address. Bi Chunliu opened it and then looked at Bi Guangyao.
...Is this the strength of the twelfth-place student in your class? There can't be only fifteen people in the class, right? You look close to the top ten, but you're actually still hovering in the bottom five.
Bi Chunliu ignored the uglier-than-chicken-scratched handwriting and the black and white patches on the notebook and wrote down the factory's address and phone number. "Be sure to persuade your eldest sister to come to me. Don't say I'm taking her to see a doctor. Just say I have something to ask her."
"Yeah, okay." Bi Guangyao was worried that the note was lost, so he carefully folded it several times and put it in his trouser pocket, promising: "Sister, I will go to see my classmate tomorrow. His grandmother has been in poor health for the past two years, and his mother has been visiting her every few days."
"good."
.
Ever since returning from Tongxi on the third day of the Lunar New Year, Bi Chunliu had been waiting for Zhaodi to come visit her. She had even bought notebooks and pencils for Wangdi and Bi Guangyao, but it wasn't until after the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, nearing noon on the seventeenth, that she finally saw Bi Zhaodi arrive.
"Sister." Bi Zhaodi stood not far from the textile factory's doorplate, holding the handles of the backpack tightly with both hands. When she saw Bi Chunliu coming towards her, she greeted her dryly.
She looked completely different from what Bi Chunliu remembered. In her memory, although Zhaodi was skinny, she was not so old. Her face was yellow and her eyes had lost their luster. Zhaodi was one year younger than her. She didn't look like a 20-year-old now, but more like 40.
Bi Chunliu felt her eyes were dry. She blinked hard, hummed, and smiled, "Zhao Di, I've been waiting for you for a long time. Come on, I'll take you to dinner. Didn't you come here by car?"
Bi Zhaodi responded sullenly. She looked around warily, seeing no one around. She quickly pulled out the one dollar, still warm from her body, from somewhere and tried to return it to Bi Chunliu. "I walked here. Sister, this money is for you. I went back to Tongxi before coming here today."
Bi Chunliu didn't want to argue with anyone in the street, so he put it away quickly. Then he saw Zhaodi sighing softly, "Oh, then do you know why I asked you to come here?"
"I know. Guangyao told me."
"Okay, then let's go to the hospital after dinner. Don't think too much about it. Not having children might be the man's problem. Doesn't your husband's eldest brother only have one child? Don't blame yourself first if something happens. Maybe it's someone else's fault. Don't punish yourself for someone else's mistake."
"……good."
Bi Chunliu took Zhaodi to a state-owned restaurant for a meal of noodles without meat, but with a fried egg. Bi Zhaodi devoured the noodles, even drinking the little soup left in Bi Chunliu's bowl.
Bi Chunliu: That’s good, no waste.
After dinner, Bi Zhaodi followed her cousin to the hospital.
The doctor this time was also a Chinese medicine practitioner, but not the same one who had examined Bi Chunliu. This time, it was an elderly lady, smiling and kind, speaking softly, as if she were everyone's ideal grandmother. This made Bi Zhaodi, who had been nervous all the way, relax.
The doctor glanced at Bi Wangdi and asked, "Are you married and planning to have children?"
Bi Zhaodi nodded, her free hand clutching the hem of her clothes, her inner anxiety spilling out from her eyes, "Doctor, can I still have children?"
"Why not?!" The old lady frowned and raised her voice. Seeing that the little girl was frightened by her, she quickly lowered her voice. "You are fine now, you just caught a cold. Avoid using cold water. Even when washing clothes or dishes, you must add some hot water, otherwise it will be troublesome if it gets serious. I will prescribe two doses of medicine for you to dispel the cold. You can take them home. Have you taken any other medicine?"
Bi Zhaodi looked at the doctor expectantly, "My mother-in-law gave me some fertility medicine, saying it would help me get pregnant."
"That medicine is not suitable for you. If you want to have a baby, you can't take that medicine anymore. I will prescribe a medicine for you for half a month first. After half a month, you can bring your husband to see me. I will be able to adjust it for you better then. Having a child is not something a woman can do alone. Both husband and wife need to adjust well to give birth to a strong child. Do you understand?" The old lady breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, the medicine the girl took was not that kind of fierce and wolfish medicine, otherwise it would be hard to say what would happen to her in the future.
Bi Zhaodi held the prescription written by the doctor and nodded heavily as if she had received an imperial edict. Fortunately, it was fortunate that she could still have children.
The medicine cost five yuan, but Bi Chunliu didn't pay because Zhaodi had dug out all her savings. Seeing her cousin looking at her, Zhaodi smiled shyly, "Sister, this is what I've saved since I was a child, and also what my second aunt gave me when I got married."
Second Aunt? Bi Chunliu nodded and understood. This should be the dowry her mother gave to Zhaodi.
After leaving the hospital, Bi Chunliu took her home and asked Zhaodi to take the things she bought for Wangdi and Wangdi. Only then did Bi Zhaodi take out the things in her backpack one by one.
"Sister, these are what I grew. I don't have any other good things. Take these and eat them. I'll bring them back to you when I finish my medicine and come back."
Bi Chunliu thought to himself, no wonder he kept smelling the scent of cabbage and radish. It turned out that Zhaodi brought it. She also brought a large bunch of red dried chilies and dried mushrooms. Zhaodi said she dried them herself.
"This is malted milk. Take the jar back and ask your mother-in-law to get it. I'll wrap it in oil paper for you. Drink two spoonfuls a day with your medicine to prevent others from worrying about it. Don't give it to your husband either. Your most important thing right now is to take good care of yourself. And this pound of brown sugar, keep half a pound for yourself, and the remaining half a pound... give it to your mother-in-law and tell her that it's from me. Guangyao can't be your backer yet, so I, as your sister, will be your support first."
Bi Zhaodi's eyes were filled with tears. She didn't say anything to refuse, but could only silently remember her cousin's kindness in her heart.
Bi Chunliu heard Third Aunt talk about Zhaodi's mother-in-law and asked, "Your mother-in-law has so many problems, but your eldest sister-in-law didn't mention dividing the family or anything like that?"
That's impossible... Is there any daughter-in-law who doesn't want to split up the family business? Besides, Zhaodi's sister-in-law and mother-in-law have similar personalities, so they must be in constant conflict, right?
"My sister-in-law might want to split the family property, but my brother doesn't." Bi Zhaodi hesitated and said, "My husband probably doesn't want to split the family property either."
Tsk! Bi Chunliu didn't know what to say. The family Zhaodi married into could only be described as a story of an old man who finally found a wife and then had two little ones.
According to her grandmother, Old Lady Guo, Zhaodi's father-in-law, her eldest uncle, and her husband all had tough personalities. For several generations, the Li family had been a single-line family, with few children and the men often lacking strong personalities. They were never a powerful force in the village. Fortunately, each generation of mothers-in-law married their sons strong wives, which mitigated the family's suffering. If things didn't work out, they would resort to violence.
Old Lady Wang, Bi Zhaodi's mother-in-law, was very much loved by her mother-in-law because she gave birth to two sons. Since she gave birth to the second son, the Li family has let Old Lady Wang take over all the affairs. When the eldest son of the Li family got married, Old Lady Wang continued her mother-in-law's practice and married him a fierce and aggressive wife to stabilize the family. When it came to the second son of the Li family, she thought that since the eldest son's wife was fierce, the second son's wife couldn't be fierce either, otherwise the two daughters-in-law would easily make trouble. However, the second son of the Li family was even more dull than his brother. In addition, the girls looked down on the Li family. The second son of the Li family couldn't find a decent girl in their village who was willing to marry him. So in the end, he used a high bride price to marry Zhaodi from the neighboring commune.
Bi Chunliu wanted Zhaodi to separate from the family, but given Zhaodi and her husband's personalities, it would be difficult to guarantee that they wouldn't be bullied by others after the separation...
"Sister, do you know about Xiaomei?" Bi Zhaodi had never spent much time with her cousin and didn't know what to say to her. Fortunately, she remembered what her grandma and mother chatted about before she went out.
"When I went back on the third day of junior high school, I met Aunt Gui. I heard her say a few words. Did Xiaomei break off the engagement?" Bi Chunliu became excited.
Bi Zhaodi: "Xiaomei has broken off the engagement now. She's already fallen in love with that guy from the state-owned restaurant."
Bi Chunliu stopped drinking water and almost choked. My goodness, these sisters are so fast?!
"Xiaoju's parents didn't agree to change partners, so her aunt took her to meet that man, and then they were pushed into a pond on the way. Xiaomei's ex-boyfriend was on a business trip to the countryside that day and encountered Xiaoju who had fallen into the water. He rescued her, and in the middle of winter, a group of people saw them. Xiaomei said that it was impossible for a cousin to hug her cousin's husband. They must have had something going on before, and she even said she would ask the Revolutionary Committee to investigate them. There was no other way, so the man from the grain station broke off the engagement with Xiaomei and didn't even ask for the engagement gifts. Xiaomei turned around and fell in love with the guy from the state-owned restaurant, and they decided to get married after the first month of the year. Now the team leader has broken up with his second brother. Before I came here, I heard from my mother that Xiaoju and the man from the grain station were also engaged, and they would get married on the 26th of this month."
Despite Zhaodi's dry explanation, Bi Chunliu still managed to figure out the story between Xiaomei and her cousin Xiaoju. But why did it sound so strange to her? The question remained: how could Xiaomei be so sure that the guy at the state-owned restaurant was capable? Could she, too, have been reborn? Bi Chunliu pondered this, feeling horrified.
The two sisters chatted for a while. Bi Zhaodi finished her frangipani with brown sugar and ate some cookies she had never had before. Seeing that it was already three o'clock, she quickly stood up and said, "Sister, I have to go home first, otherwise it will be dark when I get home."
"good."
Bi Chunliu bought a ticket for Zhaodi and didn't let her walk home. After Zhaodi's car had gone far away, she thought about it and decided to go to the compound.
It was almost time to get off work, and she wanted to go see the pregnant women in the compound and pay attention to their recent situation to prevent the situation in her previous life from happening again.
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