Back To The 80s

Gu Xiaobei felt like she just experienced a century before being wheeled out of the operating room. Li Fengmei stood at the door holding the two children, tear stains still visibile on her face. She murmured, "Finally, you are out. I was scared to death." 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Gu Xiaobei’s face was as white as a sheet of paper. Her lower lip was bitten until blood seeped out, visibly swollen.

Upon entering the ward, Doctor Liu comforted her, "It’s okay now. The process was not smooth, but the result is good. Firstly you need to lay flat for six hours. After six hours, you must get up and move by yourself. Even if it hurts, you’ll have to bear it. Do you understand?"

Gu Xiaobei nodded mechanically, her stomach throbbed with pain, to the point where she hardly took in anything Doctor Liu had just said.

After Doctor Liu and the nurse left, Li Fengmei picked up one of the babies from the nearby bed, lifting him to Gu Xiaobei’s view, saying, "Look, this is your son. He’s so handsome, even has a birthmark near his ear, a sign he is bound for greatness."

Gu Xiaobei looked at the baby who had his eyes closed, his little face red and crumpled, not sure what was so good-looking about him. But because this was her child, she couldn’t help finding him endearing, and reaching out to touch him: "Why is he so tiny?"

Li Fengmei laughed and said, "He’s not that small, he weighs four tael and six qian [Chinese units of weight]." After putting down the boy, she lifted the little girl and handed her to Gu Xiaobei, "This is your daughter. She’s five tael, it seems she’s chubbier than her brother."

Gu Xiaobei looked at her daughter who indeed appeared to be chubbier than her son, and couldn’t help but feel moved. However, she suddenly found herself tearing up, thinking of Lu Zhanguo, feeling incredibly aggrieved.

Seeing Gu Xiaobei sobbing again, Li Fengmei anxiously asked, "What’s wrong? Are you in pain?"

Gu Xiaobei shook her head slightly in a melodramatic manner, wiping her tears childishly with the back of her hand.

Li Fengmei comforted her, "You are in confinement now, you can’t cry. Otherwise, it will damage your eyes."

Gu Xiaobei quickly nodded, hastily wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. But the more she wiped, the more tears welled up, to the point where she couldn’t help sobbing.

Li Fengmei sighed and said, "This is the fate of us women. No matter how hard or difficult, we have to bear it ourselves."

The girl in Li Fengmei’s arms suddenly started to cry. Gu Xiaobei immediately stopped crying and asked, "What’s wrong? Why is she crying?"

Li Fengmei put the baby on the small bed, opening up the diaper. "If such a tiny baby cries, it’s either because she’s hungry or has peed."

Indeed, the little girl had pooped a black stool. Li Fengmei laughed and said, "Your daughter seems to have a full stomach, look, she pooped as soon as she arrived." As she spoke, she skillfully changed the baby’s diaper, washed her bottom with warm water, dried it, padded on a new diaper, and wrapped her up nicely.

Gu Xiaobei watched Li Fengmei deftly clean up the child, her heart pounding. She herself probably wouldn’t be able to handle even one baby, and now there were two. She suddenly felt that life was about to get tough.

After Li Fengmei was done with the baby, she looked at the boy who had been sound asleep all this time and laughed, "Your son is quite calm. He hasn’t cried at all. When you were not brought into the ward, he kept his eyes open. Once you were wheeled in, he closed his eyes and fell asleep. It’s like he knew his mother was okay."

Enduring her stomach pain, Gu Xiaobei managed to grin. That’s when she remembered to ask, "Who was born first?"

"The boy came out first, so he’s the elder brother, and the girl hid behind, but she’s bigger." Li Fengmei bent down to look at the babies, smiling as she spoke. The more she looked at them, the more she liked them. These were rare boy and girl twins.

After looking at the babies for a while, Li Fengmei said to Gu Xiaobei, "You lie next to the children. I’ll go wash the diapers."

It was already late night. The hospital corridor was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.

Listening to Li Fengmei’s footsteps fade away, Gu Xiaobei felt drowsy, her eyelids heavy as if they weighed a thousand pounds. She closed her eyes, prepared to doze off for a while.

In the dim corridor, a figure wearing a white hat and a gauze mask silently made its way towards Gu Xiaobei’s ward.

They stood for a moment at the door of the ward, seeing no movement inside before gently pushing the door open.

They walked straight toward the bed where the child was lying and paused noticeably when they saw the two children on the bed.

Gu Xiaobei wasn’t fast asleep, feeling someone approach in his grogginess. He barely managed to open his eyes and saw a figure, back turned to him, leaning over to pick up the child.

Gu Xiaobei blinked twice and realized he didn’t recognize this figure at all. Frightened, he feared they were here to steal his child.

When he tried to get up, his abdomen felt torn apart, and he couldn’t move. Seeing the person’s arm already touching the child, Gu Xiaobei moaned softly and leaped up despite the pain.

He lunged at the child-thief, grabbing them by the neck. Panicked, Gu Xiaobei forgot to call for help, solely focusing on not letting the child be taken away.

The child-thief clearly hadn’t expected Gu Xiaobei to suddenly rise and strangle them. The thief tried to pull back with force.

After grabbing the thief’s neck, Gu Xiaobei, fearing harm to the child, pulled back with all his strength, causing both to fall on Gu Xiaobei’s hospital bed.

Only then did the thief react. The thief didn’t dare to make a sound, desperately struggled to get up. In the struggle, the thief’s weight pressed on Gu Xiaobei’s abdomen.

For a moment, Gu Xiaobei felt like his abdomen was tearing apart, causing brief dizziness from the pain, but he dared not let go, afraid that if he relaxed his grip the child would be taken away.

People say mothers are strong. In that moment, Gu Xiaobei resembled a mother leopard protecting her calf, his eyes bloodshot as he firmly strangled the thief’s neck.

The child-thief rolled their eyes back, trying to pry Gu Xiaobei’s arm away. However, even as Gu Xiaobei’s consciousness started to fade, his grip remained ironclad.

When Lu Zhanguo arrived at the ward, he saw Gu Xiaobei strangling the thief. His blood surged, his eyes spilling over with rage.

In two strides, he went to grab the thief stealing his child, only to find Gu Xiaobei’s eyes closed, arm still tightly choking the thief’s neck.

Lu Zhanguo’s heart felt as if it was being crushed. He hoarsely said, "Xiaobei, I’m back, let go."

Upon hearing these words in his daze, Gu Xiaobei let go. Lu Zhanguo picked up the thief, gasping heavily, threw a powerful punch at the thief’s face, then grabbed his clothes and threw him violently against the opposite wall.

The thief didn’t even have time to make a sound before fainting from the impact.

Lu Zhanguo’s eyes were bloodshot, rage was boiling within him. Seeing Gu Xiaobei, lifeless on the bed, he came back to his senses, rushed over, and tremblingly cradled Gu Xiaobei’s head.

Li Dongmei stood at the doorway, holding a basin. Seeing the scene, she dropped the basin with a clang, startled.

Lu Zhanguo carefully placed Gu Xiaobei down, saw Li Fengmei in shock at the doorway, and roared, "Quick, call the doctor!" It was only then that Li Fengmei came back to her senses and rushed to find a doctor.

Dr. Liu rushed over when he got the news. After doing a check-up and emergency treatment on Gu Xiaobei, said with lingering fear, "Thank God, the wound didn’t rupture."

The current caesarean section was still a vertical incision, cutting open about ten centimeters from the navel downward. To prevent the wound from gaping open due to lying flat and make it difficult to heal, it would be bound tightly around the waist with a thick gauze band.

When the doctor opened the gauze band and checked Gu Xiaobei’s wound, Lu Zhanguo stood silently to the side, tears welling up in his eyes. No one noticed his fingers trembling incessantly.