As an obstetrician, she had witnessed the true faces of men waiting outside the maternity ward far too many times. Zhao Zongbao’s seemingly concerned words and expression did not fool her for a second.
Inside the resuscitation room, a nurse in her thirties disinfected Xu Huiqing’s sutures. She tried to console her. “Don’t waste energy on anger right now. No matter how big the problem is, you have to heal your body first. Without a healthy body, nothing else matters, no matter how monumental the issue!”
Seeing a tear slide from the corner of Xu Huiqing’s eye, the nurse scolded her with a tone of exasperated concern. “No crying! Can you cry during your lying-in month? Hold in every grievance for now. Cry after the month ends. Raise hell after the month ends. A few more weeks won’t make a difference!”
Xu Huiqing had been virtuous and gentle for half her life. Many habits couldn’t be changed overnight, but the sudden catastrophe had ripped apart the false peace she had maintained for so long.
She nodded, and her body relaxed.
“That’s more like it!” the nurse said softly. “Go out and eat something. Eat well, drink well, build your body back. Without a healthy body, every word you say is wasted breath!”
Working as nurses in obstetrics, they had seen too much human joy and sorrow. They deeply understood that no matter how stubborn a person was, they needed a strong body to back it up. Without good health, you’d only drag yourself and your children down. If you dragged yourself to death, the man would remarry in the blink of an eye—some couldn’t even wait a month. In the end, the most pitiful ones were still the children the mother had risked her life to bring into the world.
After tidying up the resuscitation room, the nurse walked out. Zhao Zongbao was still waiting outside. Her expression was stern, her gaze severe, and her tone sharp as she addressed him. “The new mother hasn’t eaten in two days since delivery. She’s extremely weak.” She looked deliberately at his brightly patterned shirt and bell-bottom trousers. “Even if your family is dirt poor—no chicken, no fish—surely you have eggs? Feeding a postpartum woman plain rice congee? Is that what decent people do?”
In this era, medical staff inherently held high status. This nurse had started working in her teens back in the 70s and had now been nursing for twenty years. She was nothing like the demure, endlessly patient nurses of future decades. She gave Zhao Zongbao a disdainful glare and walked away, expression cold.
This made the image-conscious Zhao Zongbao’s face flush a deep, burning red!
Though he hailed from a rural area near the commune, his home’s proximity to the commune meant he always considered himself a non-agricultural, urban household registration holder—distinct from real country folk. He valued his reputation above all else and detested being looked down upon.
Coming from town to the city, he already felt inherently inferior to city natives. The nurse’s contemptuous look was like a slap across his face. It made him even angrier at Mother Zhao for embarrassing him. He handed Mother Zhao two yuan and said, “From now on, every meal for Huiqing is to this standard. No more plain congee nonsense. Haven’t you had enough of the plain congee at home?”
Despite the Zhao family now owning three large shopfronts in town, running a prosperous home appliance business, and Zhao Zongbao strutting around town like a big shot, his family had been dirt-poor farmers when he was born. They had survived on plain congee and flatbread three meals a day. Only in the past few years had times gotten slightly better.
Mother Zhao dared not disobey Zhao Zongbao now. Though it pained her to give chicken noodle soup to her daughter-in-law, she nodded meekly. As soon as the nurses wheeled Xu Huiqing out, Mother Zhao hurried over with the bowl of now-soggy, clumped noodle soup, ready to spoon-feed her.
The young nurse pushing the bed blocked her, saying bluntly, “Even if you want to feed her, at least wait until she’s in the ward. How can she eat like this?”
Mother Zhao responded pitifully, “Yes, yes, of course.” She tucked away the large bowl she had been clutching and followed behind the nurses wheeling the bed.
Once inside the ward, noticing the other family members were eyeing her as if she were the ‘wicked mother-in-law,’ she quickly asked Xu Huiqing with feigned concern, “Huiqing dear, it was all Mother’s fault before. Mother truly didn’t expect you to get so upset. How did you get so angry you developed epilepsy? No one in our family has ever had any epilepsy!”
The implication was clear: the epilepsy was a hereditary disease from Xu Huiqing’s maiden family.
A patient’s family member sitting nearby couldn’t listen any longer. She raised her voice. “Old woman, just say less!”
Mother Zhao responded with exaggerated good-naturedness. “Yes, yes, of course. Huiqing, I bought you chicken noodle soup. Eat a few mouthfuls quickly.”
She was small and frail, unable to lift Xu Huiqing. Zhao Zongbao had already come in by now. He placed two pillows behind Xu Huiqing’s back, then personally took the bowl from Mother Zhao’s hands. He used chopsticks to bring the chicken pieces to the surface of the noodles and spooned some chicken broth to Xu Huiqing’s lips. His voice was gentle. “I’ve already spoken to my mother. From now on, every meal will be chicken noodle soup for you. She’s just an old rural woman, she doesn’t understand anything. You’re a college student, a cultured person. Don’t stoop to her level.”
The onlooking families saw how humbly he fed Xu Huiqing and nodded approvingly. “Now that’s more like a decent person!”
Xu Huiqing only lowered her gaze and remained silent.
In her younger years, she had fallen for this exact trick too.
People always said the most important thing in marriage was how the man treated you. Never mind if the mother-in-law was awful—as long as the husband treated you well, wasn’t that enough?
Whenever the Zhao family tormented her, Zhao Zongbao would eventually stand up for her, scolding his parents and older sisters. Things would quiet down for a couple of days.
Everyone around her praised what a good husband he was, how he took her side. At the time, she didn’t understand. She truly believed it. Her anger was always quickly doused by him. Tormented again, doused again just as she was about to explode. She never even needed to confront them herself. It was a repeating cycle.
It was like taming a falcon—wearing it down round after round until it became utterly docile.
Only after living like this for several more years, finally emerging from the shyness of a new bride with enough clarity to think, did she detect the selfishness ingrained deep in Zhao Zongbao’s bones.
But by then, there were still no thoughts of divorce. Life was tolerable enough to continue.
It wasn’t until later, reading online about something called an obedience test, that the principle finally clicked.
So it was all an obedience test. The moment you yielded the first time, endless concessions awaited you.
They tested your bottom line time and again, until you had no bottom line left.
She drank the chicken broth Zhao Zongbao spoon-fed her, mouthful by mouthful. She ate the chicken and noodles he offered. When she finished and felt a faint strength, she looked at Zhao Zongbao and said in a soft tone, “Zongbao, I miss Xiaoxi. Will you bring Xiaoxi to me?”
Nothing in the Zhao family was ever hidden from Zhao Zongbao. His married sisters dared even less to make decisions on their own without his say-so. So, Zhao Xi being sent away was something Zhao Zongbao knew about. The fact was, he was always out gallivanting. Zhao Xi had been raised solely by Xu Huiqing. Coming from a family pathologically entrenched in son preference, he held zero affection for Zhao Xi. He was definitely aware she had been sent away.
Back then, she hadn’t thought of this layer. She had only seen him as the child’s father, putting on a show of searching just as frantically as she was, leaving early and returning late every day to ask around. Later, when she learned his second elder sister and parents-in-law had conspired to send the baby away, her husband had acted furiously. His scolding of Father Zhao and Mother Zhao, his cursing of Zhao Daidi’s name, had been earth-shattering. He had cut off all contact with Zhao Daidi’s family and put on a vivid display of heartache over Xiaoxi. So she had believed he truly didn’t know.
But thinking carefully, his married sisters had zero standing in their maiden family. Without Zhao Zongbao’s tacit approval, how would they have dared to act on his behalf? At most, they could only give suggestions and offer ideas.
Her newborn son, just two days old, was asleep in the hospital bassinet in the room. Mother Zhao was watching him. Hearing this, she couldn’t help but interject. “Xiaoxi is only three years old. Even if you brought her here, who would take care of her? You or me? Don’t expect me to look after Xiaoxi on top of you and Dabao. How can I possibly manage so many people by myself?”
She clutched her head and moaned. “Oh, my poor mother, I worried about you all last night, still had to care for the little one, and didn’t get a wink of sleep. My head is still spinning now.”
Whether it was genuine accumulated hardship from her youth or not, Mother Zhao was genuinely prone to ailments. She complained of dizziness every three days. Hospital checks showed absolutely nothing wrong—no diagnosis could be made—but the woman was as fragile as paper. In her past life, the younger Xu Huiqing had been terrified of upsetting her. The moment you argued with her, she would swoon dramatically right before your eyes!
Yet over all those years, Father Zhao, who looked healthy and robust, had actually collapsed and been hospitalized. Mother Zhao had fainted for all those years but remained perfectly fine in the end.
But the way she acted, everyone believed her health was poor.
Zhao Zongbao looked at Mother Zhao, hesitant. He said to Xu Huiqing, “Huiqing, you’re still in your lying-in month, and Mother’s health is fragile. It’s already tough enough for her to care for you two by herself. Adding Xiaoxi to the mix—she genuinely can’t manage.”
Xu Huiqing gazed at him with eyes that seemed to shimmer with utter dependence and trust. Her voice was soft and gentle. “Why can’t she manage? Aren’t you here too?”