Storms and Tranquility
On the evening of June 6, 2021, Wenqing's fortieth birthday, Xiaofeng sat cross-legged on the sofa, her fingertips unconsciously stroking her swollen belly—this was her twelfth day in the hospital. In the afternoon, her parents, her second and fourth uncles, and the children had arrived to deliver a cake. Even then, the room was still filled with the faint aroma of cream, mixed with the smell of disinfectant, bringing a strange sense of peace.
Wenqing had just returned from dropping them off when he saw Xiaofeng staring blankly at nothing. He waved his hand in front of her eyes, his tone doting and teasing, "Are you missing me so much that your soul is leaving your body?"
Xiaofeng's eyelashes trembled, and she suddenly turned to look at him. Her face, swollen from late pregnancy, was gilded by the sunset glow, but her eyes were filled with the cunning of a young girl. "I dare not think..." She leaned close to Wenqing's ear, her warm breath brushing his red earlobe. "When I think of you, my mind is full of mosaics."
"You really are..." Wenqing's ears were burning, and he reached out to scratch her waist. Xiaofeng smiled and tried to back away, but her body suddenly froze. "Wenqing!" She suddenly grabbed her husband's wrist, her voice filled with fear. A glaring scarlet spread across the creamy white linen sofa cushions, like a red plum blossom blooming in the snow.
Wenqing's world went silent at that moment. He saw Xiaofeng's pale lips moving, but heard no sound. By the time he realized what was happening, he was already stumbling towards the emergency bell in the corridor.
Amidst the shrill alarms of the monitor, Wenqing rushed into the ward with the medical team. Xiaofeng remained frozen in a semi-reclining position on the sofa, blood staining the floor. Her blue fingertips dug into the seam of the sofa, her chest heaving violently as she struggled to take deep breaths.
"Move to the delivery bed!"
"Dean Zhou and Professor Li will be here in 5 minutes!"
"AB blood inventory report!"
The attending physician's instructions came like a barrage of bullets. Wenqing mechanically helped push the delivery bed until he was blocked outside the operating room's red light. The red light reflected in his eyes like an endless flame.
"Dad..." Wen Qing finally found his voice when he saw Zhou Yong running towards him in a scrub suit.
Zhou Yong covered his mouth with his hands, his eyes determined. "I guarantee this as both a father and a doctor." Before he finished speaking, the operating room door opened again. Professor Li raised his bloodied hands and said, "The placenta has penetrated the lower uterine segment! Prepare for a combined cesarean section and hysterectomy!"
Wen Qing fell to his knees with a thud, his knees hitting the floor hard. Xiao Feng's body temperature still lingered in his palms, and her blood was coagulating at his fingertips. In the operating room—
"Suction pump 800ml... 1000ml..."
"Blood pressure dropped to 50/30!"
"Add another 2000ml of blood!" Zhou Yong lost his composure in front of the medical staff for the first time. Under the operating light, he saw his daughter's pale lips moving. The effort he put into reading her lips made him burst into tears: "Child..."
When two premature babies, weighing less than three pounds, were carefully lifted out, Xiaofeng's uterus was inside the medical bag. Zhou Yong trembled as he took photos of the newborns: beneath their transparent skin, the blood vessels in their four tiny feet were clearly visible, like leaf veins, so fragile that they seemed to break at the slightest touch.
Amid the beeping of the ECG monitor, the operating room door finally opened. Xiaofeng, lying on the stretcher, was nearly translucent white. Her oxygen mask, with its valve, emitted a white mist that quickly dissipated. Dark red whole blood and golden plasma flowed through a double-channel IV tube beneath her collarbone, pouring into her purplish veins, attempting to reignite the flame of life.
Wen Qing's trembling hands touched Xiaofeng's cold cheek, the skin beneath his fingertips feeling as cold as ice. He noticed a smear of iodine on her jawline, unwiped, and a patch of tape behind her ear, where an electrode pad had fallen off. Most striking was the edge of gauze peeking out from the collar of her hospital gown. The circular bandage had left a shallow indentation where her uterus had been, and pale yellow exudate was slowly eating away at the pristine white gauze.
"Change the nursing pad." The moment the nurse lifted the sheets, Wenqing saw two centipede-like drainage tubes tucked into his wife's abdomen. The bright red arterial blood and milky lymph fluid separated distinctly in the collection bags, silently revealing the gruesome nature of the operation.
Xiaofeng briefly regained consciousness four hours after surgery. Her eyes fluttered beneath cracked eyelids, and the endotracheal tube muffled her voice, but Wenqing understood her anxiety from the sudden spike in the ECG readings. He held his phone close to her face. On the neonatal incubator's surveillance camera, two miniature ankles were tied with identification bands reading "Son of Rao Xiaofeng" and "Daughter of Rao Xiaofeng," respectively. The tiny labels flickered slightly on the screen.
As a cotton swab dipped in saline solution slid across Xiaofeng's cracked lip lines, Wenqing unconsciously stroked the wedding ring on his ring finger. As the metal warmed to the warmth of his body, Xiaofeng's fingertip suddenly twitched in his palm. The ECG monitor's waveform suddenly intensified, as if responding to this silent conversation, expressing their mutual concern.
During the early morning dressing change, Wenqing saw for the first time the scar that ran down his abdomen. It was so hideous that it made his heart tighten. He suddenly grabbed Xiaofeng's hand, which was trying to touch the wound. Their intertwined palms were still stained with blood scabs from the previous day's rescue. He leaned his forehead against the bed rail, his voice choking with sobs: "Thank you, my wife..."
When Xiaofeng's eyelashes fluttered for the seventh time in the midday sun, Wenqing finally confirmed that this wasn't a reflex twitch. He watched his wife's pupils slowly focus through her visceral eyelids, a look of confusion, akin to a newly awakened person.
"Child..." The breathy word tore through Wenqing's long-built defenses. He grasped Xiaofeng's wrist as she tried to lift the covers. The bedside monitor sounded an alarm at the movement, but Wenqing stubbornly pointed Xiaofeng's finger at his carotid artery, "First, make sure this isn't a dream."
As the incubator photo popped up on the tablet, Xiaofeng's tears silently slipped into her ears. Wenqing dipped gauze into the salty liquid and suddenly noticed his wife unconsciously simulating breastfeeding. When Xiaofeng's trembling fingertips finally touched the suture line running through her abdomen, Wenqing gently held her hand and said, "At 8 o'clock today, brother drank 3ml of breast milk; sister drank 5ml. She's more capable than brother."
"Okay," Xiaofeng's voice was as hoarse as sandpaper rubbing against glass, "Like you..." She pressed her cold palm against his cheekbone, with a sense of cherishment after surviving a disaster.
The pain from breast engorgement kept Xiaofeng tossing and turning late at night. When Wenqing came in with a basin of warm water, she suddenly used the nursing pillow as a shield and timidly stood between the two of them.
When Xiaofeng was alone in front of the bathroom mirror, carefully wiping the sunken area of the scar with a cotton swab - Wenqing discovered that the instructions for the scar patch thrown into the trash can had been folded repeatedly and had marks on it.
Xiaofeng put the suppository back into the medicine box and picked up the breast pump. This action caused Wenqing to suddenly hug her from behind, his palm just covering the hideous scar. With careful cherishment, he said, "Honey, no matter what, I love you. Do you know? Before the children were born, I secretly did three things..." The number he reported made Xiaofeng's pupils dilate slightly. "Now all the property deeds, insurance policies, and fund accounts are written with 'joint ownership'. It may sound too materialistic..." His nose brushed against her soft hair, and his tone was solemn, "But I want you to know that Jiang Wenqing has upgraded from version 1.0 of 'fear of loss' to version 2.0 of 'unending struggle.'"
Wen Qing gently turned Xiao Feng around and let her lean against his chest. There was a hint of nervousness in his voice: "Xiao Feng, do you dare to be entangled with me for the rest of your life?"
Xiaofeng looked up at him, her eyes shimmering with joy, emotion, and an unwavering resolve. She reached out and gently caressed his cheek, her voice soft but clear: "I still want to reserve a future life." Then, she gave him a deep, tender kiss, a cherished, lingering message of survival.
The fourth child is Jiang Shuning, nicknamed George; the fifth child is Jiang Shuxia, nicknamed Dudu.
My second uncle said, Ning picked mugwort to wear a brocade bag, and Xia picked wormwood to sew a silk dress. These two names contain the hope for a peaceful life.
On August 1, 2021, Xiaofeng arrived for her 56-day postpartum checkup. The smell of disinfectant mingled with the stifling summer heat in the hospital corridors, and the various examination items cycled through like a revolving lantern. Most unbearable for her was the burning sting of her abdominal binder rubbing against her C-section scar. This physical discomfort quietly fostered inner anxiety.
"Relax, didn't Dad tell you?" Wen Qing gently held Xiaofeng's slightly trembling hand, "It's not easy for children to grow up... It would be ideal if they can be discharged from the hospital within three months." He knew his wife too well - at this moment, her frown hid thousands of concerns about the twins in the incubator.
"You still remember our baby..." Wenqing suddenly spoke with blinking eyes.
"Quality passed!" The two people said this code in unison.
The moment Xiaofeng chuckled, Wenqing's strong arms encircled her, pulling her into a cedar-scented embrace. The white light from the disinfectant lamp slanted across the embraced silhouettes, temporarily isolating the cold medical data on the examination form from another world.
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