Chapter 23: Every Family Has Its Own Troubles (1)

Just as the few of them were talking, the ward door creaked open. A thin, sallow-faced woman walked in.

Wearing a faded blue tunic, her eyes immediately darted to Fang Xiaoying’s bed. Seeing that the girl was asleep, her gaze shifted toward the pair of traditional Beijing-style cloth shoes sitting on the floor. Su Qiao noticed the woman walking in as if she owned the place, but she didn’t stop her—she wanted to see exactly what the woman was up to.

The woman walked straight to the bedside, took a look, and seeing that Fang Xiaoying was still asleep, she crouched down, reaching for the cloth shoes. Just as her hand was about to touch them, Su Qiao finally spoke up: "What do you think you’re doing?"

The woman hadn’t expected to be challenged. She was about to retort, but the moment she saw Su Qiao’s face, she turned pale and scurried out with a forced, awkward grin.

"Oh my, she’s already gone? That’s rare!"
"Indeed! That sister-in-law wasn't here earlier, and that woman pestered your child for quite a while."

Su Qiao didn’t quite understand why the woman had fled at the mere sight of her. She didn’t dwell on it, though; people were responsible for their own actions, and she had no reason to interfere. She didn’t know that the woman was also a dependent from the machinery factory and recognized Su Qiao, even if Su Qiao didn't know her. The woman’s original plan had been to soil the shoes so the girl would discard them in disgust, allowing her to pick them up for free. But seeing Su Qiao, she immediately abandoned the idea, terrified that Su Qiao would force her to pay for a new pair.

As the others speculated why the woman had quieted down so suddenly, Su Qiao steered the conversation elsewhere.

"The weather is nice today."
"Yes. If I were at home, I’d be scrubbing laundry in a big basin right now."
"Same here. I saw several people washing clothes in the utility room earlier."
"Oh, the doctors and nurses will surely scold them if they catch them."
"Exactly. It clearly states that washing clothes in the utility room is prohibited, but some people choose to play blind."
"That’s quite possible; some people are illiterate."
"That can't be! Even in the countryside, they’ve held literacy classes, let alone here in the city."
"What good does that do? Some people just like to pay lip service while ignoring the rules."

"True."

Su Qiao listened to their chatter until she felt drowsy, but the memory of the look her daughter gave her before falling asleep kept her spirits up, forcing her to stay awake.

"I’ve been out for five or six days; I wonder if anyone is watering the two ridges of vegetables I planted at home," the older woman mused, her mind drifting to her small garden.
"Youngest daughter-in-law, you’ve mentioned that eight times today. Are you getting tired of taking care of me?" Old Mrs. Qian grumbled, feeling as though calluses were forming on her ears.
"Mom, just think about it—our family relies entirely on that vegetable patch to save money on groceries all summer." The daughter-in-law hoped her mother-in-law would be discharged soon and stop wasting money.
"Our family is the same; we depend on that patch for the whole summer."

Mentioning their small gardens gave the women common ground, and the conversation grew warmer.

"I haven't been home for a week. My cucumbers must be blooming by now."
"They are." Su Qiao had the most to say on this. "I took a good look before I left this morning. Those little yellow flowers are so delicate and pretty."
"Sister, how many rows of cucumbers did you plant?"
"Hehe." Su Qiao felt a bit embarrassed. "I only planted six."
"Why so few?"
"My space is small—just that tiny patch outside the wall. I wanted to grow a variety of things, so I had to plant a little of each."
"That’s nice, too," the other woman said, though not entirely convincingly.
"My family is small, so a few of each is enough."
"I’m so envious of small families. We have over a dozen people. My youngest son is only five years older than my eldest granddaughter, and my eldest grandson is only seven years younger than my youngest son." Mrs. Zhou thought about how, every day, her eldest daughter-in-law would practically pry open her youngest son’s mouth over a bite of food, just to see if she had given him an extra morsel.
"Every family has its own troubles. Our family isn't small either." The daughter-in-law glanced at her mother-in-law, who was pretending to be asleep, and her resentment deepened. "We have five children and two elderly parents to support..."
"That means there are plenty of people working, right?" Su Qiao, seeing the aggrieved look in the daughter-in-law’s eyes, offered a sympathetic opening.
"Hardly. Just my husband and my eldest son. My second son was sent to the countryside, and the remaining three are still too young."
"That’s a heavy burden to feed so many mouths."
"You can say that again. Life is already hard, but my husband’s siblings have so many kids who come over to eat whenever they please. My brother-in-law’s two boys practically live at our place."
"How old are they?"
"Fifteen and thirteen." The daughter-in-law felt a pang of heartache thinking of her second son in the countryside. "My second son was sent away at sixteen. Every time I think of him suffering in the countryside while my brother-in-law’s two boys eat and drink for free at our house, my husband and I feel like we’ve failed him."
"Goodness! Boys that age, and they still live at your place? How much grain does your brother-in-law give you in a year?"
"Not a single pound. He’s always crying poverty to us; every time he comes over, he acts like he’s here to scrape us clean." Old Mrs. Qian, unhappy that her daughter-in-law was airing the family’s dirty laundry, glared at her when no one was looking.
"That’s truly shameless," Mrs. Zhou said, loud enough for Old Mrs. Qian to hear.
"That brother-in-law of yours is no good," Su Qiao said, feeling a deep aversion to the title. "My child’s aunt, to keep her own son from being sent to the countryside, incited my child’s grandmother to secretly sign Xiaoying up behind my back."
"My god, that’s too much."
"Those two plagues spent almost all of the resettlement fee before they had the nerve to show their faces and tell me."
"And Xiaoying?"
"She was injured like this all because of them."
"Didn’t you fight them for it?"
"I haven't had the chance yet." Su Qiao mused, already preparing for the showdown with the Fang family’s eldest son and daughter-in-law.
"You can't give people like that any face."
"But you can’t stop people who have no shame."
"We could never do something so shameless, but those kinds of people don't care at all."
"Exactly. Like my family—they don't even know what shame is."
"True. During the war, why didn't anyone think to peel off their thick skin to build the city walls? Not even cannons could break through that."
"Pah! Absolutely shameless."

Hearing her daughter-in-law say "absolutely shameless," Old Mrs. Qian’s eyelids twitched, and she had a sinking feeling that something terrible was about to happen.