Chapter 18.1

Jiang Rou had too many things to bring, and she couldn’t move them all in one trip. She planned to stay in the hospital for four days, so besides the baby’s clothes and blankets, she also had to bring formula, bowls, her own clothes, a basin, and other items, packing everything into two large burlap sacks.

Recently, the family had been tight on money, but fortunately, Grandpa Li Xiao had left some money for his grandson before he passed away. Li Xiao had not touched this money, and only recently, seeing the high expenses at home, he suddenly remembered that he still had this money.

After withdrawing the money from the bank, he took half to renovate the bathroom and gave the remaining half directly to Jiang Rou.

Jiang Rou did not hesitate, counted the money, and found it to be five hundred and seventy yuan.

She still had two hundred yuan with her, which was originally set aside for hospital expenses. With this additional money, it was enough for her to use during her postpartum period.

After arriving at the hospital, Li Xiao placed the items in the lobby and went to handle the admission process with his ID.

The two then went to the fourth floor of the building in the back. At that time, the county hospital did not yet have elevators, so they walked up. Li Xiao carried one of the burlap sacks in one hand and supported Jiang Rou’s arm with the other.

Although he did not look very strong, he was quite powerful, his arm as solid as steel, providing her with significant support.

In late pregnancy, Jiang Rou began to consciously reduce her food intake, fearing that her belly would be too big to give birth.

However, her nutrition was adequate, with meat and vegetables at every meal and less staple food.

So, she looked plump but not fat.

Moreover, she walked around the courtyard after each meal to do some light exercise.

By the time they reached the fourth floor, she was just a little tired but not exhausted.

The building was quite large, with long corridors lined with wards. Li Xiao asked Jiang Rou to wait in place while he walked up and down with a form, noticing that the right side was for maternity wards and the left side was for orthopedics.

Then he came back and took Jiang Rou to the right and found a room near the right staircase.

There were already people in the room. The innermost bed was empty, but there were things on it. A pregnant woman was lying in the middle bed, crying out in pain, with a middle-aged man sitting beside her, drinking water as if he hadn’t heard her.

Li Xiao helped Jiang Rou sit on the bed near the door.

He set down the burlap sack and asked, “Do you want some water?”

Jiang Rou shook her head.

Before they could exchange more words, a nurse came in.

She first checked on the middle bed. The middle-aged man stood up, hopefully asking, “She seems to be in more pain than before. Is she about to give birth?”

The nurse looked somewhat impatient and said, “Didn’t the doctor say earlier that it would take a while?”

She then took a thermometer and checked on the pregnant woman.

The man, seemingly unable to read her expression, couldn’t help but ask, “I heard that hospitals can tell whether it’s a boy or a girl. Nurse, can we find out now?”

The nurse’s expression darkened further. “Why, if it’s a girl, would you not want to give birth?”

She gave him a glare, then turned to Jiang Rou and Li Xiao, her demeanor softening a bit. “What’s the situation with you?”

Jiang Rou glanced at the disappointed face of the man in the adjacent bed and answered, “I had some abdominal pain this morning and feel like I’m about to give birth.”

The nurse nodded. “Okay, I’ll ask the doctor to come and see.”

Jiang Rou smiled. “Thank you; sorry for the trouble.”

The nurse left, and after a while, she brought an older female doctor over.

Li Xiao stood up and made way, and the female doctor went forward to touch Jiang Rou’s belly and asked Jiang Rou about her pregnancy while touching it. Jiang Rou provided the details and asked Li Xiao to take out a small envelope from the burlap sack.

This was Jiang Rou’s previous examination report from the hospital.

When she first became pregnant, the original body had not considered these things. It was only after Jiang Rou had come over that she felt somewhat uneasy. Although she knew the baby in her belly was healthy, she worried about possible nutritional deficiencies and thus came for several checks.

The female doctor took a look and nodded. “Good.”

Jiang Rou observed the medical conditions here, noting that they were not as good as when her sister-in-law gave birth. Her sister-in-law had stayed in a single room, had several examinations, and went directly to the confinement center.

The female doctor just touched her belly again and then said, “The baby is about to come out. I’ll come back to check after the amniotic sac breaks.”

“Okay, thank you, doctor.” Jiang Rou was very polite at this time.

After all, the full authority of this birth will be handed over to them.

Li Xiao took a chair and sat beside the bed. Glancing at the woman in the adjacent bed writhing in pain and the man who kept sighing, he frowned, suddenly gripping Jiang Rou’s hand tightly, and said firmly, “No matter if it’s a boy or a girl, I will love our baby.”

wife was about to give birth, and this man still cared about whether it was a boy or a girl. He looked down.

The man seemed to look down on the idea of whether the baby was a boy or a girl, even while his wife was in labor.

Jiang Rou heard this and was not moved at all. She gave him a cold glance and responded sarcastically, “Well, thanks for that.”

“…”

Li Xiao touched his nose awkwardly and felt that he had said something nonsense.

If he didn’t love his daughter, would he love someone else’s son?

Whether Jiang Rou’s physical strength had increased due to months of exercise or if it was because she had been eating and drinking well recently, she was not in as much pain as the woman in the adjacent bed.

By noon, she even asked Li Xiao to go out and buy some food for her.

Li Xiao was very attentive to Jiang Rou. He went out of his way to visit Zhu Qiang’s uncle’s restaurant to buy three dishes and a soup, bringing back three white porcelain bowls—one for vegetables, one for rice, and one for soup.

When he returned to the ward, the food was still hot.

Jiang Rou ate first, and only after she couldn’t eat more did Li Xiao take his turn.

The fragrant dishes made the couple in the adjacent bed frequently glance over.

The middle-aged man finally said to his wife, “I’ll buy it for you when you give birth to a son.”

The woman, instead of being disappointed, looked at her belly with anticipation, as if she also wanted a son.

Jiang Rou was at a loss for words.

With nothing to do in the afternoon, Jiang Rou lay on the bed, reading a book. Li Xiao went home and moved the rest of the belongings over. While there, he greeted Aunt Wang and mentioned that she wouldn’t be making braised pork intestines for the next few days.

It was unclear whether Aunt Wang had mentioned this to Lin Meiru at the market, but around 4 p.m., Lin Meiru came to the hospital.

She inquired with the hospital nurse about where maternity patients were usually housed and then found her way to the fourth floor.

She came up the right-side stairs and immediately saw Li Xiao standing by the door of the opposite ward.

He was bending over to pick up the hot water bottle from the end of the bed, preparing to go out for hot water, when he turned around and saw Lin Meiru.

Seeing her, he furrowed his brows involuntarily and asked bluntly, “What are you doing here?”

His tone was far from polite, making Lin Meiru’s expression darken.

Feeling uncomfortable, she thought that it was no wonder she preferred her stepson; this child seemed like a debt collector.

She entered the ward with a basket on her shoulder and turned her head to see Jiang Rou lying comfortably on the bed, eating pomegranates.

Jiang Rou was quite skilled at eating; scooping the pomegranate seeds into a large bowl with a spoon, her cheeks puffed out.

This didn’t look like someone about to give birth; it looked more like someone enjoying themselves.

Lin Meiru thought that when she gave birth to Li Xiao, his father was outside and could not be seen, and her father-in-law had gone out to buy firewood. She had been in so much pain, shouting in the house, which eventually alerted Ma Aihua next door, who called the midwife. She had labored for a whole day and night.

This child was born to torture her, just like his father.

And now he had married a foolish wife to irritate her further.

Seeing Jiang Rou so relaxed and enjoying herself, Lin Meiru felt quite unbalanced, and her tone became sharp: “Didn’t you say she was giving birth?”

She found the situation quite exaggerated.

The couple in the adjacent bed turned to look at the commotion, and the woman’s cries softened somewhat.

Jiang Rou lifted her head to look at Lin Meiru, unafraid, and asked directly, “Did Mom bring any good food?”

“Eat, eat, eat; all you ever think about is eating.”

Lin Meiru was unhappy when she heard Jiang Rou’s words and said unhappily, “What else can you do besides eating?”

She got angry when she thought of what happened last time. Just now, Ma Aihua saw her buying meat and immediately shouted that she had no conscience, saying that her own son and wife had gone to the hospital to give birth, and she still had the nerve to buy meat for her stepson. 

She was so angry that she came here without buying meat.

Before Jiang Rou could reply, Li Xiao, who was standing at the end of the bed, had a gloomy face and directly dragged her out of the ward.

He was so strong that Lin Meiru couldn’t even resist and was pulled out with heavy steps.

Li Xiao threw her at the door of the ward, impatiently saying, “Don’t come here anymore. We don’t really want to see you.”

Lin Meiru staggered a few steps and steadied herself, looking up at Li Xiao with some disbelief. “What do you mean by that, huh? ”

She asked, “Is this how you treat me? Do you have any conscience? I was in pain for a whole day and night when I gave birth to you. Now that you have a wife, you have forgotten your mother. Your wife said that I am partial to you. What about you? Has your heart been eaten by a dog? You went out and made a lot of money but never bothered to come and see me, and now you say you don’t want to see me. If I had known I’d give birth to such a thing, I should have thrown you into the latrine pit and drowned you back then.”

Her shouting was quite loud, startling a nurse who was inspecting the ward to come out and check. “What’s all this shouting? The patient needs to rest. This isn’t your home.”

Lin Meiru shrank her neck in fear. She only dared to scold in front of Li Xiao, but not to other people.

She glared fiercely at Li Xiao, lowered her voice, and continued to curse, “You’re really out of your mind. I see that not only is your wife a bad person, but you’re no better. Just like your father, I truly regret giving birth to you.

When Lin Meiru scolded him, Li Xiao stood quietly by her side, listening without expression. He did not look at her. Instead, he reached into his pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes.

He had originally intended to offer them to the doctor, but noticing that only female nurses and doctors were present in the building, he refrained.

He placed a cigarette in his mouth and was about to take out a matchbox to light it when he suddenly remembered there were pregnant women on the floor. After thinking it over, he decided not to light it.

What Lin Meiru could not stand the most was his behavior. He had been a taciturn person since childhood, never responding to her scolding. When he was truly angry, he would turn and leave, disappearing for a few days.

By the time Lin Meiru ran out of things to say, Li Xiao glanced at her indifferently and asked, “Done cursing? ”

“……”

Lin Meiru gritted her teeth and, with a dark face, turned and left.

The brown sugar in the vegetable basket was not left, and she did not want to give it away now.

Li Xiao watched her retreating figure, his expression extremely indifferent.

After she left, he didn’t immediately return to the ward but instead went to the window at the end of the corridor. Unable to resist, he lit the cigarette.

He hadn’t smoked recently. Jiang Rou had said that smoking wasn’t good for the baby, so he didn’t dare smoke at home. Whenever he had a sudden urge to smoke, he would only take the cigarette out to smell it.

He was very familiar with Lin Meiru’s words. Whenever she scolded him, she always repeated the same few phrases. In the past, he felt nothing when he heard them. But now, knowing that his child was in Jiang Rou’s belly, just behind the wall, about to be born, he felt a bit uncomfortable.

As Li Xiao smoked, he suddenly remembered the scene from the past—the back of Lin Meiru leaving him and running away with a man when he was a child. He remembered how Lin Meiru used to praise He Wenhua while scolding him with extremely vicious words. At first, he was angry, but later he became numb. The only thing that left a little impression on him was the night of New Year’s Eve in 1992. He had a fever that night, and when he was approaching the door of the He family, he heard Lin Meiru inside say in a disgusted tone that he might as well die outside.

He remembered standing in the snow for a long time before quietly turning and leaving, never to return.

After finishing the last cigarette, Li Xiao stubbed it out on the window frame, the thick dust smothering the cigarette butt. He couldn’t help but think that, while living in such a muddled state might be acceptable for him, his child deserved better.

His child must be loved by both his father and mother.

He went to the window to get rid of the smell before returning to the room, and as soon as he entered the room, he met Jiang Rou’s worried eyes.

He couldn’t help it; his heart softened. He chuckled and said, “I’ll go get you some food.”

Jiang Rou didn’t say anything else; he just nodded and said, “Come back early.”

“Yeah”

—o—o—o—