Before, Aunt Li had refused Master San’s proposal, and San Zhen secretly approached Aunt Li, begging her to marry her father. She knew that she would marry soone sooner or later and wouldn’t be able to accompany her father for long, so she hoped that before she got married, soone could take care of him.
With the support of family mbers from all sides, there was hardly any obstacle between the two, and if they could make this match, it would indeed be a beautiful thing.
Mo Yan didn’t want Lixiu to dwell on the past and miss the happiness that was right before her eyes, so even though she had detected sothing during the pulse diagnosis, she still chose to conceal it, so that Lixiu could let go of the burden in her heart and seize this belated happiness.
Lixiu was emotionally unstable and unable to cook, so the task of preparing dinner fell on Xin Er, Liyan, and Tang Xin. Mo Yan, anwhile, was in the clinic, taking the pulse of a nervous and uneasy Liu Qingqing.
This ti, the pulse taking was even longer than with Lixiu; Mo Yan took Liu Qingqing’s pulse three tis before finally confirming that there was indeed a very serious problem with Liu Qingqing’s health, serious enough that she would never be able to continue the Wu family’s bloodline.
Under the anxious waiting of both mother-in-law and daughter-in-law of the Wu’s, Mo Yan strove not to show any unusual expression on her face and spoke to Aunt Wu, "Aunt Wu, Xin Er and the others are busy cooking and can’t look after Da Huang and the others. Could you add so grass for them and feed them as well?"
Da Huang, Er Huang, and the one recently renad San Huang, the three big buffaloes, had all given birth to calves a few days earlier. Now was the ti they needed careful tending. The mother buffaloes couldn’t do heavy work and couldn’t go hungry or thirsty.
Aunt Wu was sowhat suspicious that there was sothing wrong with her daughter-in-law and that Mo Yan was trying to send her away, but the buffaloes really couldn’t be neglected, so she nodded her head and walked towards the livestock shed in the Mo Family’s backyard.
Liu Qingqing watched her mother-in-law’s receding back and a bad premonition welled up in her heart.
Sure enough, as soon as Mo Yan had securely closed the door of the clinic, she asked in a grave tone, "Back in Yanyu House, did you ever drink any strange soups or dicines?"
Liu Qingqing instinctively wanted to shake her head, but in a flash of mories, a scene from her youth erged—
"Mom, I beg you, please spare Manman, she’ll be careful, I promise not to conceive such a disgusting breed, I can’t drink this dicine!"
"Promise not to conceive? Is that sothing you can promise? Be a good girl, just drink it, and you won’t have to worry about such things ever happening to you again. Or do you want to end up like Qing Si before you, trying to get rid of the seed in your belly and losing your life in the process?"
"Sob... I don’t want to... I really don’t..."
What happened afterwards, what happened then? Liu Qingqing racked her brains. Afterward, that girl nad Manman had found a proper life, she had gotten married, but because she had no children, she was abandoned by her in-laws and ended up jumping into the river and dying...
She, she had grown up and beco the second Manman, yet she had forgotten the scene of Manman being forced to drink the infertile concoction. On the night before she first received guests, her mother also brought in a bowl of dicine, saying it was to nourish her body...
Tears stread down through Liu Qingqing’s fingers as she covered her face, emitting sobs of despair from her throat.
In that Land of Fireworks, it was harder for a woman to keep her chastity than to ascend to heaven, but to prevent the won from becoming pregnant, they usually drank contraceptive dicine afterwards. However, ordinary contraceptives couldn’t completely prevent pregnancy, so many brothels directly made them drink Tiger Wolf’s Drug, which completely ended their possibility of giving birth.
Many won, even if they fell into the Land of Fireworks, still refused to give up the hope of redemption. To avoid trouble, these drugs were usually claid to be nourishing potions, deceiving those unsuspecting won into drinking them. These won, even if they later managed to redeem themselves and marry the man of their choice, were ultimately despised by their husbands’ families because they couldn’t conceive, and their end was very tragic.
Liu Qingqing was one of them. At the ti she drank that bowl of dicine, she didn’t know that it would beco today’s despair.
Seeing this, what else did Mo Yan not understand? For a mont, her expression darkened. She wasn’t blaming Liu Qingqing for being infertile and still marrying Tie Tou, but the fact that such misfortune had befallen soone she was close to was sothing she found hard to accept.
Liu Qingqing was a good daughter-in-law, having married into the Wu family for half a year; she was dutiful to her mother-in-law and kind to her younger sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law. No one held her forr identity against her. However, if she could not have children and was unable to continue the Wu family line, no one knew if she would beco the next Manman.
Reviews
All reviews (0)