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Chapter 240: Chapter 230 Falling Down
"Then don’t come back now." Shen Yunfang calculated the time in her mind and directly ordered on the phone, "In another month, it will be New Year’s, and I still have a month and a half before giving birth. What can you possibly do if you come back now for a month? It’s better to wait until right before New Year’s to come back, just in time to celebrate at home. After the New Year, once the fifteenth day has passed, you can accompany me to stay in the city hospital. Our daughter’s being born, and you need to be there. You can also take care of me during my confinement period, so you can experience for yourself how hard it is for me."
"Mm." Li Hongjun also did some quick calculations in his mind, realizing that if he went back now, he’d have to go home again before New Year’s, and he wouldn’t be able to accompany his wife for New Year’s or for the birth. Indeed, it didn’t make sense.
"When I get discharged from the hospital, it will be just about time for you to return to your military unit. You can just leave directly from the city, which will save you the trouble of traveling back and forth," Shen Yunfang had thought of everything. Gaijiatun was really remote; traveling from there to the city would waste a whole day. With the cold weather here, Li Hongjun walking to the county to catch a bus, he’d freeze into what kind of shape? Shen Yunfang also felt sorry for him.
"All right, I’ll listen to you," Li Hongjun agreed, "But take care of yourself at home. Maybe have Dashuan’s wife come over to keep you company during the day."
"You don’t need to worry about that. I have everything arranged."
Afterward, although the two couldn’t say much in terms of endearments over the phone, they still expressed their mutual concern and Li Hongjun also asked about the details of the incident.
Shen Yunfang told him everything she could and mentioned that she had given a clearer account in the letter she sent him. She wrote about everyone who had reported her.
Because the phone was communal and state-owned, individuals couldn’t waste national resources. From the initial call to when the connection was made, it took three days, and the two spoke for less than ten minutes before hanging up reluctantly.
After hanging up the phone, Shen Yunfang inexplicably felt relieved—perhaps because she knew Li Hongjun was coming back, or perhaps because she had transferred all her fears and pressures onto him. In any case, her mood became more cheerful.
She had been cooped up at home for many days and, as it happened, had come to the brigade today, which coincided with a market day. Shen Yunfang decided to take Uncle Yougen to the market for a stroll. She walked ahead joyfully, stopping whenever she saw something the family needed or items necessary for the New Year. She squeezed into the crowd to fight for goods—yes, to fight. With less than a month until the New Year, many people were afraid that prices for New Year’s goods would be higher at the last minute. Plus, with the cold weather, even if they bought things early, they wouldn’t spoil, so starting from the last market day, the crowd had become much larger and getting items from many stalls required a bit of a struggle.
Shen Yougen was on tenterhooks watching Shen Yunfang, with her large belly, fighting with others in the crowd.
"Yunfang, let’s not go where there’s a lot of people. Watch your belly, and don’t let anyone bump into it," he worried that if something happened, it would be on his watch.
"It’s fine, Uncle Yougen. Aren’t you buying anything? Then help me hold these," Shen Yunfang found a moment to speak to Shen Yougen, who was following behind her, and seeing that he wasn’t planning to buy anything, she promptly handed over the items she had fought for to him to hold, and she squeezed back into the crowd to continue her fight for more goods.
Li Hongjun, however, did not share Shen Yunfang’s good mood. After hanging up, his gentle expression faded, and he reverted to the cold hardness of a soldier, which even contained a hint of sharpness.
The incident was over, but the people who wanted to hurt his wife definitely couldn’t be let off so lightly. Did they really think his family was easy to bully? He was going to show those people that he and his wife were not to be trifled with—if they messed with them, nobody would get off easy.
However, when Li Hongjun returned to his barracks and looked over the recent letter from his wife, his face turned completely dark. He had not expected to find that among those who had written denunciatory letters to slander his wife, one of them was Li Hongqi, his own brother, his own younger brother. Clutching the letter, he ground his molars so hard they made a crunching sound. He wished he could drag Li Hongqi in front of him right away and ask him why. What had his wife done to offend him to such an extent that he wished for his sister-in-law’s death?
Unaware of Li Hongjun’s fury, Shen Yunfang barged through the market, buying anything she liked or could grab, and then wrapped up in a big quilt, she and Uncle Yougen rode back to Gaijiatun in a horse cart.
It was really unexpected to find good things at the market today, the supply and sales cooperative for some reason was selling a batch of cloth, 30% pricier than usual, but no ration coupons needed.
Many people were scrambling for the flowery fabrics, but Shen Yunfang wasn’t too keen on those brightly colored, big-patterned cloths. Given the choice, she definitely wouldn’t buy this type of fabric. She had her eye on a piece of gauze, seemingly used for stretching over cotton quilts, with such large gaps it couldn’t really be used for anything else. What Shen Yunfang liked about it was its softness, folded and stitched together, it would make a good monk’s robe for a child to wear close to the skin, or a little handkerchief for the child to keep and wipe their mouth with in future.
Clutching a piece of gauze one meter wide and three and a half meters long, she pondered what to do with it once back home.
But plans change faster than they can be made, and on the morning of the sixteenth day of the twelfth lunar month, she delivered the New Year’s goods she had prepared for Elder Shen’s family. Everything was fine at first, the old lady Shen was grinning from ear to ear at the sight of the white liquor and pork Yunfang had brought. However, as old lady Shen was seeing Yunfang out, a little rubber ball from Shen Yunxiu’s child somehow rolled under Yunfang’s feet, with predictable results.
Shen Yunfang lay on the ground clutching her belly and moaning in pain, startling the few people inside the house awake.
"Oh my goodness, what are we going to do, what to do now?" old lady Shen, staring at Yunfang on the ground, wanted to help her up, but was too rattled by Yunfang’s cries of pain to dare to offer a hand.
"It really wasn’t me who did this, don’t try to blame it on me." Shen Yunxiu was defensively protesting to the side, scared, she quickly picked up the troublemaking ball and hid it behind her.
Right now, Shen Yunfang couldn’t care about all that, her entire focus was on her belly.
Looking at the two people running around in chaos inside the house, she mustered the strength to bear the pain in her belly and shouted, "Old lady, first help me onto the kang, then go find someone for me, I think I’m about to give birth."
"Yeah yeah, I’m on it, you hang in there." With a task at hand, old lady Shen promptly set out to do it.
First, she helped Shen Yunfang up from the ground onto the kang, then without pause, she ran next door and dragged old madam Shen over.
So flustered she could hardly speak, it was only after old madam Shen came and saw Yunfang lying on the kang that she understood the situation.
Seeing Shen Yunfang sweating from pain, she quickly asked old lady Shen to fetch some blankets, saying she needed to take Yunfang’s clothes off for a check.
On the side, Shen Yunxiu suddenly interjected, "She’s not going to give birth in my house, is she? That’s out of the question." Nowadays people believe that childbirth is a dirty affair, and even Shen Yunxiu, though a woman herself, held this belief deep down.
Old madam Shen looked towards old lady Shen, as after all, it was in Elder Shen’s house and she couldn’t make the decision; it depended on the homeowner’s wishes.
Old lady Shen had been too anxious to consider this issue, but now, hearing her daughter mention it, she began to have her doubts.
