Tradition
While waiting for the elevator, Shen Anyan met an acquaintance, who was Dr. Xu.
The other party obviously remembered her and greeted her with a smile: "You are Shengyan, right?"
Shen Anyan nodded and smiled: "Yes, hello, Doctor Xu."
The elevator door opened and the two walked into the car together.
Doctor Xu saw the lilies in her hand and asked with a smile, "They are so beautiful. Are they for Xiao Nuan?"
Shen Anyan responded with a “yes”.
Dr. Xu smiled and said, "She will definitely be happy to see it."
————
Someone knocked on the door, and after getting permission from the owner of the room, the visitor pushed the door open and walked in.
Jiang Nuan and Lin Lu looked up, and when they saw the person coming, they couldn't help but smile and greeted him, "Doctor Xu, Xiaoyan."
Maybe someone comes to visit frequently these days, so there are several chairs beside the bed.
Shen Anyan handed the bouquet to Jiang Nuan before sitting down on the chair.
Jiang Nuan thanked her and sniffed the pistil. "Mmm, it smells so good! You sent me these flowers just in time. The flowers in my room are getting stale, and I was planning to change them."
Lin Lu took the flowers and put them in a vase filled with clear water.
Doctor Xu also sat down and asked, "Teacher Jiang is not here today?"
Jiang Nuan smiled and said, "She made an appointment with her friends to go hiking."
Doctor Xu smiled and nodded: "Hiking is good. Sitting in the hospital for too long will make your bones fall apart. I'll go hiking when I have time."
Jiang Nuan said, "Well, you must ask my mom. She's very familiar with mountain climbing. She knows what equipment to bring and where the best scenery is."
Shen Anyan looked around and asked curiously, "Sister Xiao Nuan, where is the child?"
Jiang Nuan said, "Oh, in the nursery, she sleeps for over twenty hours a day, and it's inconvenient for her to be with the adults."
Lin Lu said: "If you want to see it, I'll take you to see it."
Chen Anyan was indeed a little curious, so he followed Lin Lu to the nursery. It was very quiet inside, with soft colors. The baby was lying on the bed, sleeping soundly.
Shen Anyan glanced at her quietly for a few times, and after satisfying his curiosity, he didn't bother her any more and followed Lin Lu back to the room.
Jiang Nuan and Dr. Xu were having a lively conversation. When they saw the two of them come back, they nodded and continued with the previous topic.
"I feel that pregnancy is still too hard. Hey, I read popular science before, and it said that the embryo is formed when the mother is five months old. Do you think there is any way to shorten the time spent on pregnancy, deliver the baby directly after the embryo is formed, and then put it in an incubator to develop slowly. Isn't that the same for premature babies? I heard that they are smarter." Jiang Nuan asked.
Dr. Xu shook his head. "That's a rumor. There's no such thing. And the survival rate for premature babies is low. However, your idea does have some feasibility, and the medical community is currently researching it."
Jiang Nuan nodded: "That's good. Once the cost of pregnancy is reduced, women will be more competitive in the workplace."
Dr. Xu shook his head again. "What nonsense is that? Reproduction is a natural law. We need society to adapt to reproduction. How can we expect reproduction to adapt to society?"
Jiang Nuan said, "That makes sense. But it's also true that childbirth is painful and tiring. It would be nice if technology could make it easier."
Doctor Xu nodded: "But it may take some time."
Jiang Nuan smiled and said, "We can wait. Besides, headquarters recently decided to implement parental leave for men, which is in line with your idea - to make society adapt to childbirth."
Lin Lu asked: "Male parental leave? What is that?"
Jiang Nuan explained, "It's a mandatory leave clause. If a female relative becomes pregnant and gives birth, regardless of whether the child is born or not, as long as the pregnancy is confirmed, the corresponding male relative must take at least three years of parental leave. Priority is given to brothers, uncles, husbands, and fathers."
Dr. Xu was a little confused: "Why is my uncle the first one to take leave? Shouldn't it be my husband?"
Jiang Nuan said, "From what I can see from headquarters, they want to gradually de-emphasize the institution of marriage and the one-mother-one-father family."
Dr. Xu sighed: "I don't quite understand. It seems that I am really an old-fashioned person. I am still more accustomed to the traditional family model."
When leaving, Shen Anyan and Dr. Xu took the elevator downstairs together. When they got out of the elevator, they heard a noise coming from outside.
Two rude men followed a pregnant woman on either side. Although I couldn't hear clearly from the distance, judging from the expressions of the two men, they probably didn't say anything nice.
The pregnant woman, Shen Anyan, also looked familiar. She was the one she met when she came here.
A nurse couldn't stand it anymore and scolded the two men. Then, she said to the pregnant woman, "Look at you, you are such a coward. The men in your family are getting too arrogant and you don't know how to control them."
The pregnant woman had a look of confusion on her face.
The older man was a little indignant, so the younger man held him back, apologized to the nurse with a smile, and pushed the two of them away quickly.
Shen Anyan turned his gaze and was about to say goodbye to Dr. Xu, but saw that the other party was also watching the backs of the group leaving.
Shen Anyan asked aloud: "Doctor Xu?"
Doctor Xu finally turned around, but her expression was a little complicated. She adjusted her mood and returned to her previous smiling face: "Well, what's wrong?"
Shen Anyan asked: "Do you know those people just now?"
Doctor Xu said, "I know her. If nothing unexpected happens to that lady, I should be the one delivering her baby."
Shen Anyan said: "Oh, I see. Their whole family looks quite strange."
Doctor Xu smiled with emotion: "Yes, it is very strange..."
She paused, then suddenly said, "I didn't understand it before, but now I think maybe A Nuan and the others are right. The traditional family model is still too outdated."
————
After returning to school this week, classmates have signed up for the Athena competition one after another. After the final headcount, except for a few students who gave up due to schedule conflicts, almost all students in both classes participated.
Even students like Chen Shan who are not good at math have signed up for the competition, under the pretext that if they get lucky and make it in, they can get a free trip to Evergreen Mountain.
When Lu Zhou visited the class, he overheard them discussing whether or not to sign up for the competition. After learning about it, he too clamored to participate, most importantly because Shen Anyan was also participating.
Fortunately, the deadline was 12 o'clock on Monday, so it was still in time to register. He successfully submitted his registration form on time.
Shen Anyan was a little worried about this: "Are you sure you can answer the questions for the competition?"
The other party's math skills were still at the junior high school level, and he couldn't even solve the high school basic test. Shen Anyan really didn't dare to imagine what kind of weird answer Lu Zhou would give him if he got the competition questions.
Lu Zhou smiled and said, "It's okay, I'll just run with you."
Fine, she wasn't the examiner anyway, so the bad papers weren't hers to check, so Shen Anyan wouldn't worry about it anymore.
A classmate came over mid-sentence and gossiped, "Hey, Lu Zhou, I heard that boy in your class who was punished for sending threatening letters to the teachers is back. How's he doing?"
Shen Anyan was slightly startled. She had almost forgotten about this person, but only remembered him after being reminded.
Lu Zhou frowned. "He... I didn't notice him. Tsk, this kind of thing is annoying. I guess everyone just wants to keep their eyes out of sight and their minds at peace."
The classmate sitting behind me curled his lips and said, "Is that the guy who tortured the cat? Tsk, how disgusting. If he wasn't a man, I would have beaten him up a long time ago."
Someone waved their hands: "Forget it, forget it, let's not talk about this anymore. It makes people upset. Let's continue talking about the competition."
Speaking of the competition, upon learning that all students from both classes were participating, Chen Yuan took time out to give everyone several competition tutorials. The competition was scheduled for this Saturday at Youth Square in the city center. After consulting with the homeroom teachers and subject teachers, weekend homework was canceled to allow everyone to focus on the competition.
This was such a pleasant surprise. My classmates were even happier because they didn’t have to do homework.
On Friday night, after Shen Anyan washed up, she opened her phone and unexpectedly saw a message from Gu Cijiang.
This was a bit unexpected. Apart from the time when she was in the hospital and he asked her if she needed anything, most of the time when they were in contact online, it was Shen Anyan who harassed him.
This is a rare occasion when the other party would take the initiative to contact me.
Shen Anyan sat on the bed and opened the chat box.
Gu Cijiang: We're going to Youth Square tomorrow. Do you want to join us? I'll have the driver pick you up.
Shen Anyan's face was filled with a conflicted expression. Under normal circumstances, she would have agreed without hesitation. However, before leaving school, she had already made an appointment with Lin Yue and the others to take the subway to the competition venue.
Feast: I really want to go with you, but I have already made an appointment with my classmates to take the subway.
Feast: [crying]
Gu Cijiang lowered his eyes and looked at the message sent by the other party.
"I can go with you guys", the message to be sent was lying steadily in the text input box. Gu Cijiang hesitated for a moment, clicked delete, and finally sent a message "It's okay".
————
"Oh hoo—winter camp, winter camp, my winter camp is coming soon!"
On the way into the subway station, Jiang Xiaosong and Lin Yue led the way. The two of them huddled together, waving their arms and singing the tuneless "Winter Camp Song".
Li Xinran silently took a few steps back and chose to stand in the same row with Chen Shan, pretending not to know the two people in front of him.
Shen Anyan walked at the end. As she listened to the cheerful tunes played by the two people in front of her, she suddenly thought of something and asked He Qingtian, "We are attending the winter camp. Is there a summer camp?"
He Qingtian said: "Yes, but the summer camp is basically only attended by science classes, and it has little to do with our liberal arts class."
Chen Anyan recalled and found that this winter camp seemed to have more students from the liberal arts class, and there were almost no students from the science class.
Lu Zhou asked in confusion, "Why is that? Could it be that the Athena competition discriminates between arts and sciences?"
He Qingkong explained, "The main difference is that the two competitions serve different purposes. Winning a prize at the summer camp qualifies you for admission to a university, but that basically only means you're admitted to a math major, which liberal arts students can't apply to, so it's not very useful for liberal arts students. The winter camp is more international, and the awards you win are more recognized. Winning a prize will make you more competitive for studying abroad. Since more students in liberal arts programs plan to study abroad, they tend to participate in the winter camp."
By this point, we had arrived at the security checkpoint. They paused their conversation, carried their bags to the instrument entrance, and lined up for security.
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