CTF 0012

Little Douding was sitting on the threshold of their house with an unhappy expression on his face.

“Doudou!” 

“Auntie, you’re back!”

Little Douding happily jumped up when he saw her. 

“What happened? Did those kids outside bully you?”

“No, they didn’t, but they’ve been squatting outside our door and won’t leave. All the fragrance has been smelled away by them!”

Xu Yin couldn’t help laughing. She poked the bridge of her nephew’s nose and said, “Don’t be so stingy. It’s just the fragrance, isn’t it? Come in. I brought you something delicious.”

Grandma Geng had given Xu Yin a pack of maltose candies, which had been given to Grandma Geng as a thank-you gift by the villagers who’d asked her to be a matchmaker.

Xu Yin was not like the original host. She knew how to share when she received delicious food. She ate one of the maltose candies by herself, but left two for her parents and gave the rest to her nephew.

Little Douding grinned happily. The sweetness of the maltose candies reached even his heart. 

“Mom, I’m back!” Xu Yin went towards the kitchen and put a piece of maltose candy into Mother Xu’s mouth. “Grandma gave it to me. Apparently someone gave it to her for being their matchmaker.” 

“Just eat it yourself, then. Why give it to me?”

Mother Xu glanced at her, as if she was angry, but then smiled again.

The maltose candy was really sweet, and her daughter was really becoming more sensible and filial.

“How was your uncle’s family? Your grandmother’s rheumatism didn’t get worse, did it?”

“Uncle is up the mountain and hadn’t returned yet when I left. Grandmother and Aunt seem very well, though. Oh, but Junbao fell into the creek while he was playing…”

Xu Yin talked about what happened when she was at her grandmother’s house.

Mother Xu nodded. “You did the right thing. Your uncle is tight on money right now, and your aunt has always needed to be a spendthrift. Although she wouldn’t feel bad about spending money on Junbao, she’d definitely save what she thinks she could. If you hadn’t been there, she definitely wouldn’t have gone to the hospital. The child can’t communicate exactly what he feels yet, and leaving an illness untreated could have gone very wrong.”

That was exactly how it went in the novel, Xu Yin thought.

Should everything be alright now?

Xu Yin didn’t have a lot of wishes. She just wanted to stay away from the female protagonist and keep herself and her family away from the fate of being cannon fodders. She had no other wishes, nor ambitions, besides those. 

The two of them were still talking when the sound of footsteps came from outside the house.

“Jinhua, are you there?”

“I am!” Mother Xu raised her voice in response.

The footsteps turned out to be Aunt Liu, their next-door neighbour.

She had come to their house, with a grass carp that was as wide as her palm, because she’d been unable to resist her grandson’s pleading. With an embarrassed expression on her face, she told them that she wished to exchange it with a couple of pieces of their family’s braised pork.

Aunt Liu was a kind person, and their families had often helped each other, so Mother Xu exchanged her grass carp with some of their braised pork.

They didn’t keep the grass carp for their evening meal. Instead, they cut it up on the spot and stewed it with the mushrooms that Xu Yin brought, making a pot of milky white fish soup. 

At mealtime, the family sat down and ate together. 

“Huh. What’s the occasion? We have both fish and pork meat today!”

Father Xu happily smiled, and the crow’s feet on the corners of his eyes deepened. 

“Sometimes even this much food isn’t enough for you!” Mother Xu scolded him, as usual.  

Mother Xu then scooped a ladle of fish soup into everyone’s bowl. Xu Yin’s bowl had the most fish belly meat.

Still, Xu Yin’s sister-in-law was very happy, because her mother-in-law also scooped the fish soup and gave her some fish meat. Then, she also gave her a small piece of braised pork that she took with her chopsticks.

For some reason, though, she felt a little uncomfortable while eating the fish soup.

After holding back for a while, she began to retch. By the time she raised her head, her face had turned very pale.

Xu Yin was taken aback and nearly tripped over her stool as she stood up. Worriedly, she asked, “Sister-in-law, are you okay?”

She wondered if she’d taken too many orders and made her sister-in-law sick from exhaustion.

Mother Xu, however, had gone through this before, and could see what was going on just by looking at Xu Yin’s sister-in-law. She thought to herself, ‘could she be pregnant?’

So, after hastily eating a few mouthfuls of rice, she took her daughter-in-law to the barefoot doctor¹ Barefoot doctors were common people in China who received basic medical and paramedical training. Unlike Western-trained doctors, they also used traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) methods alongside Western methods they were taught of—which is why in the next paragraph, you’ll see the barefoot doctor taking Sis-in-law’s pulse, a method commonly associated with TCM. They usually practise medicine in rural areas, where Western or urban-trained doctors don’t. If you’re interested in reading more about them, you can search ‘barefoot doctor’ on Google—I personally find them a very interesting topic to study 🙂 who lived on the outskirts of the village. 

The barefoot doctor took her pulse and told them that she was around two months pregnant.

Their eldest son had returned during Qingming, so it must’ve been around that time that she conceived. 

Mother Xu’s face didn’t make it obvious, but she was elated by this news.

Their family was going to have another offspring, and who would complain about having more grandchildren?

When Xu Yin heard the news, the big burden in her heart also seemed to disappear. 

In the novel, her sister-in-law was pregnant, but never realised it until she almost had a miscarriage. After that, she suffered a lot because of the original host, and ended up not only with a preterm labour, but also an extremely difficult one. 

This time, though, they’d found out about her pregnancy sooner, and Xu Yin’s sister-in-law looked pretty well. Xu Yin began paying more attention to her sister-in-law in the hopes that the novel’s original plot wouldn’t repeat this time, too.

“Sister-in-law, I heard that the first trimester of the pregnancy is the most risky period. Why don’t you take it easy with your clothes and wait for the first trimester to pass before doing anything? I will explain it to my classmates. They will understand,” Xu Yin softly said after she came to her sister-in-law’s room to bring a bowl of brown sugar water for her. She was afraid of her sister-in-law being over-exhausted. 

Xu Yin’s sister-in-law dismissed the suggestion by waving her hand. 

“It really isn’t that big of a deal. I just have to sit and use the sewing machine, so it doesn’t exhaust me at all, really! What you’re talking about only applies to people from the cities, but there are no such rules for us countryside women. We can even work in the fields when we’re pregnant, but all I’ll be doing is sitting and making clothes. It’s really easy, you know. Don’t talk to your classmates about it. They might think badly about you and stop ordering from you.”

Xu Yin’s sister-in-law felt very happy with her job. She wasn’t afraid of being busy; indeed, the opposite was true. She was afraid of not being able to get more work instead.

When Xu Yin heard her say this, she saw the sense in it. 

Indeed, if she didn’t pick up more orders for her sister-in-law, her mother might begin to arrange heavy and rough work for her sister-in-law again. If that happened, wouldn’t they just eventually end up repeating the novel’s plot?

“Alright, then, Sis. Just take it easy. Tailors in the city always work slowly, anyway. Half-a-month process time is already considered fast with them. We already deliver much faster than them, and we also charge two yuan less than them. My classmates will still be satisfied; trust me, they won’t complain.”

Her sister-in-law nodded and didn’t say anything else. 

However, no matter how hard Xu Yin persuaded her, she still worked at her original speed. 

 

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Recently, some tailors in the city had started to make work pants and fitted shirts. Tong Guihua pointed to a girl from Third Middle School, that was next to their school, to show it to Xu Yin. 

She told Xu Yin, “Look! It’s her grandfather’s tailor shop. They copied the style of the clothes that we’re wearing. Shameless!” 

Xu Yin looked at the girl’s clothes and realised that, indeed, her work pants and floral fitted shirt were very similar to the ones that her sister-in-law made.

They seemed to be high-quality imitations, which couldn’t be told apart from the real products unless one took a closer look at them.

Indeed, Xu Yin took a closer look…

“Her pants’ pockets aren’t big enough, and there aren’t any buttons nor straps on her pants. There aren’t even any belt loops on the waist.”

“Haha! You noticed all of that? Your eyes are so sharp. Indeed, there aren’t any of those, probably because they wanted to save money. Those pants are two yuan cheaper than ours, so they probably saved on fabric and other materials. They aren’t like your family, who return any leftover fabric after the job is done. They treat any excess fabric as scraps and never return it.”

Xu Yin smacked her tongue. “Then why would anyone go to their place to make clothes?” 

“Well, we don’t have many choices, do we? There aren’t many tailors in our county, and their family is the owner of the only tailoring shop around this area. Fortunately, we know the measurement, so we can cut the fabric as accurately as possible to avoid wasting it. Now that your sister-in-law can make clothes, though, I’ll definitely only go to your family from now on. 

“By the way, my sister is getting engaged next month and asked me to make her a red dress. I’ve also brought the material—chiffon and soft silk. Since we can’t buy it here, my sister asked her friend to bring it for her from Haicheng. Can I ask your sister-in-law to make the dress?”

“Does your sister trust us that much?” Xu Yin said with a smile on her face. 

Tong Guihua cleared her throat. “Actually… She went to the tailor shop to ask, but they said that they wouldn’t be able to deliver it in time, unless she pays more money to jump the queue. I boasted and said that I’d take care of it and the dress will end up even prettier than if the tailor shop did it for her. Xu Yin, you must help me with the dress, alright? I’ve already boasted about it so much.”