Chapter 6: Pregnant**

Once Zhou Donghong’s pregnancy was confirmed, Mother Lin didn’t say anything discouraging. She smiled and said cheerfully, “It’s a good thing.”

Father Lin had Yingwei fetch a bottle of Fenjiu from the cupboard. He said the father and son should have a drink to celebrate Yingwei becoming a dad.

Their reaction eased Zhou Donghong’s nerves. Her smile grew a bit brighter—she’d known deep down that no matter what, they still wanted grandchildren.

Lin Yingwan, ever the blunt one, blurted, “Where’s the baby going to sleep? Move the vanity out of the little room and put a crib in there?”

“We can have Dad get someone to build a bunk bed,” Zhou Donghong chimed in, emboldened by the elders’ joy. “You and Second Sister can sleep on the top bunk, the bottom can be for Mom, Dad, and the baby.”

Lin Yingwan sneered, “So we all cram into the back room and let you just focus on raising the baby? You’ve really thought this through. Just hand off the kid and sleep like a queen, huh?”

Zhou Donghong was caught off guard, fumbling, “Third Sister, I—I didn’t mean it like that…”

“If that’s not what you meant, then let the baby sleep in the partitioned room. If the vanity matters more than the kid, maybe you shouldn’t have one at all. Just guard your vanity for the rest of your life.”

The vanity in that room was red rosewood, a family heirloom from Zhou Donghong’s grandmother. She loved it dearly. “If the vanity doesn’t stay in the partitioned room, where should it go? It’s my dowry—I can’t just toss it.”

Yingwei stepped in to smooth things over. “There’s still time before the baby comes. No need to argue now—it’ll just upset the family mood. Donghong, we’ll move the vanity into the living room, throw a nice floral cloth over it. Keep the dust off and it’ll look nice.”

Both girls were about to speak again, but one sharp look from Father Lin shut them up. The argument about the baby and the vanity ended there.

Lin Yingxian simply said “congratulations” to the couple and went back to eating in silence.

She was already thinking about how to get a place of her own through the factory’s housing program. The current place was just too cramped. Too many people, zero privacy. Yingxian valued her privacy deeply. Even with the closest partner, she needed her own space.

Technically, housing could be bought and sold on the private market—but not until the late ’80s. In the late ’70s, unless you pulled strings or took risky paths, buying a place just wasn’t realistic. It was all too uncertain. And Yingxian had no intention of being some experimental stone under someone else’s foot.

She was careful to hide the fact she’d transmigrated here. The last thing she wanted was to be treated like a spy or some research subject and lose her freedom—or her life.

If she didn’t want to spend the next ten-plus years in this crowded, suffocating space, then this housing allocation was her best bet.

There was another path, of course—marry someone with a well-off family and move in with them. But that meant adapting to a whole new household where the home wasn’t hers. If she had to get married, she’d rather compete for factory housing and live separately, in a place that belonged to both of them—or, ideally, just to her.

Even in this hard, grim 1970s life, Yingxian wasn’t interested in playing along with the eat-bitterness, suffer-gladly spirit of the times. She wanted space, comfort, privacy. She didn’t want to live in a place where every word and action could end up spreading through the whole building.

…

With spring came outbreaks of illness, and a spike in demand for medication. The factory ramped up production, and the tablet workshop where Yingxian worked became extremely busy. Even the chatty women in the packaging group put their gossip on hold and focused on work. With the annual model worker awards approaching—and with housing on the line—competition was fiercer than ever.

Yingxian had her hands full. In addition to packaging, she was assigned to screening duty—separating mixed materials by particle size. It was a simple job in theory, but it demanded sharp eyes, patience, and physical strength.

She quickly became the busiest woman in the packaging group. The workshop director assigned her whatever task needed doing, and she never complained. By now, she’d done nearly every easy-to-learn process in the tablet section.

Sister Peng and Zhong Hong wanted to follow her lead, but they didn’t have her stamina. Even when Yingxian was sick, she pushed through as if nothing was wrong.

After work, she’d sit at the long desk in the inner room, reading newspapers and books, taking notes and copying down lines she liked. Aside from Father Lin, no one else in the family really understood why she was suddenly so studious.

…

One day at lunch, Yingxian and Jiang Lixia headed to the cafeteria together, as usual. They ordered one meat dish and then scanned for sides.

“I haven’t seen that three-vegetable stir-fry for days,” Yingxian murmured.

Jiang Lixia leaned in and whispered, “The new factory director and the long-time Party secretary are locked in a power struggle. The production side’s been left alone for fear of disrupting things. So the logistics side’s getting the brunt of it. The cafeteria got hit, too. The chef from the northeast got fired. They said he was stealing food—said he was in cahoots with the director, but they weren’t even close. Just fellow townsmen.”

They found a quiet corner to eat. Yingxian asked more about the factory infighting, and Jiang Lixia, who’d been holding it in for a while, poured everything out. She was keeping her head down at work, pretending to be mute in the logistics department to avoid getting dragged in.

A month later, the workload eased up. Yingxian returned to her usual post, following the routine…

Zhong Hong pushed her bicycle out of the factory gate, chatting with a friend. “One of my coworkers tried to suck up to the supervisor—grabbed every job in sight, hoping to get recommended for a model worker award. But guess what? The final list didn’t even have her name.”

Her tone was full of mockery, and she even laughed. Seeing someone else mess up cheered her up a bit—she hadn’t made the list either.

“Some people suffer a bit and it’s worth it—they get overtime pay and don’t spend a dime. But others? They work themselves sick, spend a few months’ wages to buy a radio as a gift, and still end up empty-handed.”

Lin Yingxian suddenly appeared beside her and spoke, giving Zhong Hong a fright. Embarrassed and flustered, yet feeling guilty at the same time, she blocked Lin Yingxian’s path and stammered, “What nonsense are you talking about? I didn’t say it was you—how can you accuse me like that?”