"So when I was born and they found out I was a girl, they didn't even want to bother giving me a new name."
She could easily imagine the kind of expression the Hu Family must have worn back then.
Faced with such a crushing disappointment, how had Li Aihua ever survived the postpartum period?
"That I wouldn't know," Doctor Zhao said, stopping before saying too much. "The IV is done, I'm taking the needle out."
"Okay."
This was the fundamental reason why Li Aihua and Jianya were subjected to such treatment.
A son turned into a daughter, leaving the Hu Family's expectations dashed. Since Li Aihua could no longer bear children, it also shattered any lingering hope the Hu Family had of ever getting a son, which in turn made them resent Jianya simply for being a girl.
Sun Fangfen had schemed against Li Aihua precisely because she knew how much the Hu Family and Hu Xiaoyi longed for a boy.
The moment Li Aihua got divorced, her own family had immediately rushed to arrange a blind date for her—wasn't it just to sell her off one more time? And if Li Aihua were to get a divorce again this time, would she just be sold off yet again?
Now that her youth and looks had faded, and she couldn't give birth, what kind of household awaited her next?
Had she ever resisted?
Maybe she had, maybe she hadn't; none of that mattered anymore. To her, simply staying alive was perhaps the greatest blessing she could hope for.
Yet what was the point of living like that?
Hu Lin didn't understand. Walking home after the IV drip, watching Li Aihua bustling about the house, she looked at the woman closely and seriously for the very first time.
Li Aihua's face was haggard, her frame as withered as bare bones, and she wore a dusty, patched garment.
Bent over and lowering her head for so long, her back could no longer straighten. It was hard to imagine that the person before her had once been pretty in her youth.
"Why are you back?" Li Aihua turned around, caught sight of Hu Lin standing in the courtyard staring straight at her, and jumped in fright.
Seeing how startled Li Aihua was, Hu Lin felt an eerie sense of resonance with the woman's thoughts at that exact moment.
Perhaps the moments when she was home alone every day were the most relaxing times of her entire day.
There was no husband who didn't love her, no sister-in-law scheming against her, and no mother-in-law exploiting her.
Psychologically, she ought to feel at ease; having a living person around was actually a burden to her.
"The IV is finished. Doctor Zhao told me to come home and eat, and go back for the injection in the afternoon."
"Then go back to the room and rest. We can't eat until everyone comes back." With that, Li Aihua turned back to her chores, her retreating figure looking somewhat ill at ease.
Hu Lin felt somewhat drowsy, so she went back to her room to catch up on sleep. By the time the Hu Family returned, she was awake.
When Hu Xiaoyi saw her at home, he asked why she was there, and she repeated the same explanation she had given Li Aihua.
After eating at noon, the Hu Family rested for a little while before heading back out to the fields.
The production team was transplanting rice seedlings these days, so to save time, the midday break was canceled. Things would return to a normal schedule only after the busy season passed.
After lunch, once Li Aihua had finished cleaning up and found a spare moment, she sat under the eaves to mend the family's clothes.
"Aren't you going to sleep?" Hu Lin asked, puzzled.
Didn't Li Aihua take a nap yesterday? Today she hadn't gotten enough sleep either—why wasn't she resting?
"Your grandma said that if she doesn't take a nap, I can't either." Li Aihua said it as if she were stating the most mundane fact in the world.
"She won't know if you sleep."
Why was she so rigid?
Li Aihua glanced at Hu Lin and stopped talking.
A sudden flash of insight brought back some fragments of memory to Hu Lin. It seemed that when Jianya was two years old, Sun Fangfen had asked her whether Li Aihua had been sneaking off to take afternoon naps at home.
Sun Fangfen had bribed Jianya with a tiny bit of malt sugar, making the child lie. Because of Jianya's betrayal, Li Aihua had been punished quite severely that time.
The old hag had beaten her palms twenty times, and the next day she was still expected to work as usual, with no medicine allowed. Her injuries had taken over a month to heal.
It was also after that incident that the rift between Jianya and Li Aihua grew wider and wider, and Li Aihua frequently used Jianya as a punching bag.
Sun Fangfen truly was vicious, using her schemes even on a little child.
"I won't tell them," Hu Lin promised feebly.
Li Aihua still ignored Hu Lin; presumably, Jianya's betrayal back then had left an indelible scar in Li Aihua's heart.
"Aren't you tired?"
Of course Li Aihua was tired, but she simply didn't want to get beaten again.
"Why do you have so much to say? You couldn't squeeze out a fart for the life of you before, but now you just spout nonsense. Did getting struck by lightning scramble your brains?"
Hu Lin: "..."
Well, she'd gone and irritated her. If she didn't want to sleep, screw it.
Li Aihua's words completely wiped away the tiny shred of pity left in Hu Lin's heart.
Once Li Aihua finished mending the clothes, she carried Hu Lin to the clinic, and after Hu Lin received her injection, carried her back again.
Running back and forth tired her out quite a bit. When it was time to make dinner, Li Aihua asked Hu Lin to help tend the stove fire.
That was how it had always been before Jianya's accident.
In the evening, the children who went to school returned first.
They played in the courtyard while Hu Lin kept watch over the stove opening, tossing firewood inside from time to time, as Li Aihua bustled around the cooking range.
The Hu Family members came home from the fields, and dinner was served.
It was still just two dishes: braised Chinese cabbage and wild vegetable soup, with corn mush as the staple food.
Li Aihua was quite skilled at cooking; the braised cabbage was fragrant and the wild vegetable soup was fresh, except that there was hardly any oil or grease in them.
After cleaning up, Li Aihua fetched cold water for Hu Lin to wash up. Hu Lin refused, saying she wanted hot water, which met with Li Aihua's opposition.
She said the old hag had decreed that except during the cold weather, they must always wash up with cold water at other times so as not to waste firewood.
At this, Hu Lin could only scoff inwardly.
Waste firewood? What on earth were the men of the Hu Family for? If the firewood ran out, couldn't they go up the mountain and chop some?
Hu Lin had no choice but to make do with a perfunctory rinse of her feet, and instead of using the washcloth for her face, she just scooped water directly with her hands to wash.
Once she left this family, she was going to have absolute freedom with hot water.
*
This day was the day Doctor Zhao had mentioned for going to the county town to bring back nutritional supplements. Yesterday, Doctor Zhao had specifically told Li Aihua that the clinic would be closed this morning, and asked her to come in the afternoon.
Hu Lin was sunning herself in the courtyard.
She watched as Li Aihua finished tidying up the family's bowls and chopsticks, then went over to the area where the chickens and ducks were kept to feed them.
After feeding them, she shoveled up the chicken and duck droppings into a manure basket, and carrying a large half-bucket of water in one hand and the basket in the other, headed to the backyard.
Hu Lin followed along.
The rice seedlings in the vegetable plot were lush and green, looking tender in the extreme.
Li Aihua dumped the meager amount of manure into a wooden barrel placed under the eaves of the backyard, then poured in the water she had brought from the courtyard, mixed it evenly with a long-handled wooden ladle, and splashed it ladle by ladle over the small vegetable plot.
Hu Lin stepped back a few paces, afraid of getting it on herself.
The seedlings were growing very well, and there were no weeds in the patch. It was plain to see that Li Aihua was also an old hand at tending a vegetable garden.
She could cook, grow vegetables, raise poultry, and mend clothes; she was grounded and simple-minded. Looked at this way, Li Aihua had plenty of uses.
She was only five years old right now, and even if she wanted to leave, she would have to find someone like Li Aihua to stay by her side and take care of her; otherwise, the trivial chores of daily life would annoy her to death, leaving her no peace of mind to do anything else.
That settled it. She was claiming Li Aihua for herself.