Jiang Moli's lips were white, and her small face was pale and bloodless, except for her red eyes, which were obviously from crying.
Fang Qiao ignored her, glanced at her briefly, then looked away and continued walking forward.
Jiang Moli suddenly called out to her.
"Fang Qiao!"
Fang Qiao ignored her and kept walking, quickly disappearing at the end of the alley.
Jiang Moli clutched her lower abdomen, gradually squatting down on the ground, tears streaming down her face.
It was sadness, and it was also fear.
After returning from her aunt's house yesterday, she felt a slight stomach ache, but since the pain wasn't severe and it subsided after a trip to the toilet, she assumed it was just food poisoning and didn't take it seriously.
She slept for a while, and when she woke up in the morning, she found blood on her underwear.
Jiang Moli immediately sensed something was wrong and rushed to the village clinic in a panic.
The clinic had only two barefoot doctors, one male and one female.
Jiang Moli was looking for the woman.
After asking about the situation, the female doctor waved her hand dismissively: "It's nothing, the baby just didn't settle properly."
"Doctor, what...what do you mean?" Jiang Moli was completely dumbfounded: "My baby is...is gone?"
"It's not that it's gone, but you've only been pregnant for half a month. It's more accurate to say that the baby in your belly didn't conceive in the first place."
Seeing that Jiang Moli didn't quite believe him, the doctor took out a book from the drawer, turned to the relevant page, and let Jiang Moli look at it herself.
"Look, your situation is a case of embryonic biochemical pregnancy. It means that the sperm and egg combine to form a fertilized egg, but the embryo fails before it can grow."
Jiang Moli stared blankly, still unable to accept this reality.
The female doctor asked again, "Does your stomach hurt?"
Jiang Moli shook her head: "It doesn't hurt."
"If it doesn't hurt, it's okay. After a biochemical pregnancy starts bleeding, it's the same as a normal period and won't harm your body, so don't be afraid."
Jiang Moli wasn't afraid of causing harm to herself.
What she was afraid of was Cheng Yajun.
Because of the repeated annulments of the engagement, Cheng Yajun hated her to the core. If it weren't for her delayed period and pregnancy, he doesn't know how much he would have tormented himself!
This is not just a child, but also her talisman!
If he finds out the child is gone...
Jiang Moli trembled uncontrollably, a look of terror flashing in her eyes.
After breakfast, Fang Qiao fed An'an milk and went with the old lady to visit Xiao Jing at her third aunt's house.
Although Xiaojing's condition was still bad, it was much better than yesterday when she looked completely despondent.
To encourage her to eat more, her aunt even fried some sugar cakes for her to sweeten her mouth.
Around noon, five or six matchmakers suddenly arrived at Third Aunt's house, all of them there to arrange marriages for Xiaoqiang.
Auntie's family didn't have enough stools, so the old lady asked Fang Qiao to go to her house and bring over a few.
Fang Qiao agreed.
When she returned home with a stool, she found several teenagers, all boys, perched on the wall of Xiaojing's house.
They were peeking over the wall, talking and laughing, their winking and making faces at each other, which made Fang Qiao feel very uncomfortable.
"Hey! Stop lying on the wall! Get down here, all of you!"
Fang Qiao's outstanding performance at the educated youth center that morning had already spread throughout the village. The children also knew that Cheng Baidong's gentle and beautiful educated youth wife had turned into a fierce and violent tigress.
Upon seeing Fang Qiao carrying a stool over, they jumped down from the wall, shouting and scattering like birds and beasts.
Fang Qiao stood there and let out a heavy sigh.
She carried the stools back into her third aunt's house, distributed them to the matchmakers who were standing, and poured them water after they sat down.
The matchmakers exchanged polite greetings with Fang Qiao.
"Is this Bai Dong's wife? She's really pretty and works very efficiently. Bai Dong is so lucky."
"Bai Dong is not bad either. The two are a perfect match, a handsome man and a beautiful woman."
"I remember you just had a daughter before the new year, right? Daughters are the best, they're thoughtful and sensible. If you have a son in a few years, she can help take care of her younger brother."
Fang Qiao had a dream of having both a son and a daughter, and was thinking of having another child in the next few years to raise all three children together. However, listening to what the matchmaker was saying, she felt something was off, as if she would be bossed around if she had a daughter.
Fang Qiao felt uncomfortable, so she politely curved her lips into a smile but didn't say anything.
After exchanging pleasantries, we got down to business and started arranging a marriage for Xiaoqiang.
Each of these matchmakers had one or two candidates in mind, but after listening to their stories, Auntie San couldn't find a single suitable one.
The main problem is that they're in a rush to arrange marriages; if the match is right, they want to get engaged and married immediately. So, the people the matchmakers bring aren't always what they want.
Normally, families who dote on their daughters would not want their daughters involved in their family's troubles once they inquired about the situation.
Families who don't love their daughters don't care about right or wrong, but they still hope to get rich by relying on their daughters.
Either the bride price is much higher than the local average, or they have many demands and requests.
There was even a family that wanted to exchange marriages with them, saying they didn't mind Xiaojing and wanted to marry her to be the stepmother of their two sons!
As soon as Auntie heard that person's name, she got so angry that she started cursing!
My aunt knew this man; he was from her hometown village. Not only was he dirt poor, but he was also a divorcee. He was a heavy drinker and a violent man; his first wife had been driven away by him.
How dare you say you don't mind Xiao Jing? How can you be so shameless?!
Auntie was furious, but she still had to politely see the guests off, otherwise she would offend the matchmaker and the matchmaker would refuse to arrange a marriage for Xiaoqiang.
After all, it's a major life event. Although the matchmaking was rushed, Auntie San still wanted to find Xiaoqiang a wife who suited his taste as much as possible.
*
In the afternoon, Cheng Baidong went to the county to buy train tickets to Beijing for the end of the month. He also took his third aunt with him, as she needed to buy a thank-you gift for Zhou Xueyi, Xiaojing's savior, and also needed to go to the city.
Zhou Xueyi's grandfather used to be a big landlord, and his family had a bad class background, so the village assigned his family dirty and hard jobs, but the work points were not high, and the family lived a very difficult life.
So the thank-you gifts that my third aunt bought from his family were all practical things: two ounces of brown sugar, two ounces of oil, half a pound of pork, a pound of wheat flour, three feet of cloth, and a pound of calcium milk biscuits.
Fang Qiao, meanwhile, was holding An An and staying at Xiao Jing's house.
Xiao Jing sat quietly by the window in the room, sewing Zhou Xueyi's cotton-padded jacket. Both cuffs were worn, so she patched them from the inside with gray-blue fabric of the same color, and embroidered small flowers on the outside with the same color thread.
She did her work meticulously, patching everything seamlessly; you couldn't tell it was a patch that had been added later unless you looked very closely.
Sweetie was always busy, and Fang Qiao was holding An An and couldn't spare the time, so Xiao Qiang temporarily put down his rope-making work and played hide-and-seek with Sweetie in the yard.
"Knock knock knock!"
Just then, someone knocked on the door from the outside.
Fang Qiao tightened her grip on An An's arm and pricked up her ears warily: "Who is it?"
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