At this moment, screams from the delivery room suddenly turned into sobs. A nurse rushed out in a panic, her white coat stained with blood: “Family of Wang Meixia, the mother has already had an episiotomy, but the baby’s position is still not right—it’s stuck in the birth canal and her heart rate is dropping. We have to switch to a cesarean immediately. If we wait any longer, we might lose both mother and child. A family member needs to sign this, pay the surgical fee, and then go to the pharmacy to pick up the hemostatic medicine.”
The nurse who had been holding a baby handed the infant directly to the auntie and turned back into the delivery room.
Zheng Chao took the pen from the nurse and signed his name.
Old Lady Wang’s legs gave out the moment she heard this. She sank to the floor and grabbed Wang Fugui’s pant leg: “Hurry… go pay and get the medicine.”
Wang Fugui was terrified. Why did they need a cesarean? If they cut a slit in her belly, would her body ever recover properly? Even as these thoughts ran through his mind, he still ran toward the payment window. After two steps, he ran back:
“Mom, I don’t have enough money on me.”
Old Lady Wang didn’t bother with propriety—she unbuckled her pants, fished five ten-yuan notes out of the pocket sewn into her underpants, and shoved them at Wang Fugui.
“Go, now!”
Wang Fugui sprinted off, and Wang Meixia was wheeled into the operating room.
The two women who had just given birth were both placed in the same ward. The little girl who had gone to pay with the nurse came back trailed by four or five people—they must have been Lin Wenhui’s family. The men wore crisp Dacron shirts and shiny leather shoes; the women’s clothes were of fine fabric, not a single patch anywhere. One young woman wore a floral print dress and had a gleaming barrette clipped into her hair. One look was enough to tell you this family was not from ordinary stock.
Xiao Mandong glanced at them once and looked away. She was physically and mentally exhausted today.
About an hour later, a nurse walked out, cradling a baby wrapped in sterile gauze like a little kitten:
“Family of Wang Meixia—it’s a boy, premature, three pounds six ounces. The baby needs to stay in the neonatal observation unit for three to seven days. The mother is being stitched up now and will be out shortly.”
Zheng Chao quickly asked, “Doctor, how much does the observation unit cost per day?”
“Two yuan. The baby is premature and too weak—he has to stay in the incubator in the observation unit. We’ll take his temperature, monitor his heart rate, and disinfect to prevent infection.”
Zheng Chao didn’t say anything more, just nodded.
Hearing that Wang Meixia was out of danger, Xiao Mandong let out a long breath. Even if she hated her, she didn’t want anything bad to happen to her under her own watch.
Half an hour later, Wang Meixia was brought back to the ward—the same one as the two other new mothers. Both of those women had had natural births and could normally be discharged within a day. But the auntie from the family of the woman who’d just had a girl was packing up, insisting on leaving. The nurse was still trying to talk her out of it: “You just gave birth—not even three hours ago. You can’t be getting out of bed now. By the rules, you need to rest at least four to six hours before you can move. Today’s fee is already paid. If you leave tomorrow, the cost is exactly the same.”
“Nurse, there are chickens and a pig at home with no one to take care of them. We have to go. It’s fine—we already found a flatbed cart outside. Her brother will carry her out.”
Seeing she couldn’t convince them, the nurse gave up: “You can’t process the discharge paperwork right now. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“And I’m warning you—moving her now makes her prone to heavy bleeding. Be careful.”
Just then, the family of the other new mother, Lin Wenhui, came in with a stretcher. They lifted Lin Wenhui onto it, gathered her things, and carried her out of the ward with the baby. Xiao Mandong overheard two nurses chatting: “Who is this woman? The director called in the middle of the night to switch her room.”
“She’s the daughter of Chief Lin from the Public Security Bureau. She called the director herself and got moved into the cadre ward.”
When the auntie overheard this conversation, her face changed. She packed even faster, and before long, a tall man walked in: “Discharging in the middle of the night? What’s the rush? Can’t you just wait until tomorrow to go home?”
“Do what I tell you, and stop yapping. Hurry up—get her on your back. Walk slow. Your sister just gave birth; she can’t take any jostling.”
After they left, the ward, which had been noisy a moment ago, fell quiet. Old Lady Wang was pleased. With everyone else gone, they’d have beds to sleep on. Wang Meixia would be hospitalized for seven days. She lay on the hospital bed with a sandbag pressing down on her belly, her face utterly drained of color. The doctor said the family should wet a cloth with water and occasionally wipe her lips, and the sandbag had to stay on for at least six hours—she couldn’t get up to move around until twenty-four hours had passed. In the end, Xiao Mandong’s heart softened. She switched the water out for spiritual spring water. After all, they were mother and daughter—she couldn’t bring herself to be as cold-hearted as Wang Meixia had been. Today settled the debt of this mother-daughter bond.
She planned to go to the internal medicine ward to find a bed so her sister could rest, then head back to the village first thing in the morning. But just as she reached the door of the ward, Old Lady Wang grabbed hold of her: “You two unfilial daughters! Where do you think you’re going? Your mother is in the hospital and you won’t tend to her—who’s supposed to do it?”
Old Lady Wang had no intention of letting Xiao Mandong and her sister leave. She had been awake for most of the night, her body already giving out, and her son couldn’t care for his wife properly. Even if it was her own son, it was still awkward between siblings—and she didn’t trust that man either. So she absolutely had to keep these two sisters here to look after her daughter. Besides, they were daughters—it was perfectly reasonable for them to take care of their own mother.
Xiao Mandong shook off Old Lady Wang’s hand:
“Shouldn’t the one who knocked her up be the one to take care of her? When she gave birth to me and my sister, it was Grandma who did her confinement. When she had Zhenyu, you said you’d come take care of her, and Grandma paid you for it—two yuan a day. Back then, a worker’s monthly wage was only about ten or twenty yuan. You can have someone from the Zheng family come if you want. After all, this child is theirs, isn’t it? If they can’t come, I certainly won’t steal your chance to earn a wage—but of course, we can’t pay you what they did more than ten years ago. At the very least, it has to be five yuan a day now, right?”
“Her mother-in-law is too far away—how could she come? You’re her daughters—isn’t it natural for you to take care of your own mother while she’s in the hospital? Either way, you’re not leaving.” Old Lady Wang held on to both sisters, refusing to let them go.
That Zheng Chao—he could never pay for anything anyway. He made only thirty-something yuan a month and still had two grown children without jobs. It would be a miracle if he didn’t ask her daughter to support him.
That dead girl—damn her—what had she ever seen in that man? She’d been bewitched for over twenty years. Truly plagued by obsession.
Xiao Mandong was so sleepy her eyelids were fighting each other. She didn’t want to keep arguing, and she had no patience left in her voice: “I’m telling you one last time—we’ve severed ties. She has her own husband. Even if her husband were dead, I wouldn’t lift a finger for her. Understood?”
Old Lady Wang refused to listen to reason. If it weren’t for appearances, Xiao Mandong wouldn’t have come at all. What gave the old woman the illusion that she was easy to push around?
With that, she shoved past Old Lady Wang and walked away, leaving the old woman’s curses echoing behind her.
