The milk in the clay pot has boiled. Xu Chunniang removes the skin from the milk with a spoon. Once it has cooled down, she carries the baby and feeds her spoonful by spoonful.
The little girl doesn't rush or fuss, swallowing mouthful after mouthful. Once she is almost full, she closes her mouth tightly and closes her eyelids, looking like she wants to sleep.
After using a handkerchief to clean the corners of the baby girl's mouth, Xu Chunniang lightly pats her back to burp her. She looks up at her husband and says, "Sanlang, let's name her."
Jiang Sanlang scratches his head, but can't think of a good character even after racking his brain.
"Why not ask Uncle Chen Sanyou? I...I can't think of a good name at the moment."
Uncle Chen Sanyou, also known as Chen Cunzheng, is the respected village head of Dongchen Village. He has a rudimentary knowledge of literature and calligraphy, and has named many children in the village.
Xu Chunniang shakes her head, "No need to trouble him."
She doesn't want the news of them adopting a child to spread throughout the village.
Although they cannot keep this a secret, it's better to keep a low profile. Once the baby grows up, people will become accustomed to it.
"How about we call her Yingbao?" Xu Chunniang gently rubs her daughter's little face and suggests, "She's the treasure you found when you went to pick cherries at North Mountain."
"Good, let's call her Yingbao."
Jiang Sanlang slaps his thigh, laughing and agreeing, "Chunniang, you're right. She's the treasure I found while picking cherries."
Hehe, this name is good. It's auspicious!
In the blink of an eye, it is spring again after fall and winter. In the full bloom of spring, Little Yingbao is now eleven months old. She can not only crawl, but also walk a few steps with the support of a wall.
"Dad!"
Yingbao holds onto the wall with one hand and opens the other to Jiang Sanlang who has just entered the house, "Pick up!"
She can speak now, but can only utter one or two words disjointedly.
"Oh, Yingbao, are you learning to walk? Tired? Come, see what Dad has brought for you."
Jiang Sanlang takes out a somewhat wrinkly green and red fruit from his bosom and dangles it in his hand. He bends down to his daughter and teases, "Do you want to eat it? It's sweet and fragrant."
Yingbao's eyes light up, and she reaches out her chubby little hand to hold it, making a sound that indicates her approval.
It's a large apple. Although its appearance is not very good, it's still a rare sight in rural areas during this season.
"Where did you get it?" Xu Chunniang glances at it while she's sitting next to him, busily stitching a shoe sole.
Jiang Sanlang gives a mischievous smile, bends down to pick up his daughter and sits next to his wife. "Mother gave it to me. She couldn't bear to eat it and secretly gave it to me. She said it's for Yingbao to sweeten her mouth."
Xu Chunniang gives her husband a disdainful glare, "Isn't this the annual gift that your eldest sister-in-law gave your parents? You actually brought it home? We have already separated from the family. It won't sound good if outsiders see it."
His eldest brother's family also has children. If the sister-in-law finds out that mother-in-law secretly gave an apple to her third son, who knows what she would think.
"What's the big deal? I didn't ask for it. How can I not accept it when mother gives it to me? Gifts from elders should not be declined. Don't you understand!"
Jiang Sanlang doesn't care at all. Seeing that his daughter can't bite open the apple skin with her little teeth, he takes it and nibbles off a circle of skin before returning it to her hands.
Yingbao: ...
She lowers her head to look at the bitten and irregular apple, and suddenly can't bring herself to eat it.
"Why aren't you eating?" Jiang Sanlang scratches her little nose and laughs, "Have you grown tired of your father?"
Yingbao blinks and shakes her head, "Not tired!" She takes a big bite and then removes it from her mouth to stuff it into her father's mouth, "Dad, eat!"
Jiang Sanlang bursts into laughter and takes a bite of the apple that Yingbao hands him as a token of filial piety.
Xu Chunniang also laughs, she gently strokes her daughter's fluffy little head, "Our Yingbao is really filial, she knows to give the first bite to her father."
Yingbao nods her little head affirmatively, "Filial! Daddy, mommy!" She takes another bite and then hands it to Chunniang.
"Hahaha, good girl!" Jiang Sanlang laughs heartily, "When your mother and I get old, we can count on Yingbao to look after us."
Yingbao shakes her head, holding her chubby little hand up towards her mother, "Brother! Yingbao! Take care!"
"What is Yingbao saying?" Jiang Sanlang doesn't understand what his daughter is saying, so he laughs and asks.
Yingbao gets down from her father's knee, wobbles over to Xu Chunniang, and jumps into her mother's arms. She touches her mother's belly and says, "Brother! Mom, brother!"
It seems Jiang Sanlang now understands what she means.
Is her daughter trying to say that she has a baby brother in her belly?
How is that possible?
Xu Chunniang was also dumbfounded. She rubbed her belly and asked with a smile, "Yingbao, are you saying that there's a little brother in Mommy's belly?"
"Yes!" Yingbao earnestly nodded, and placed her small hand on her mother's belly, insisting, "Baby brother!" Two of them!
Jiang Sanlang was stunned, suddenly recalling how his wife had an ongoing lack of appetite and was often dry-heaving these past few days.
Could it be... could it be...
His eyes suddenly lit up with surprise. He grabbed his wife's arm and suggested, "You've been complaining about digestive problems these past few days... What if we... what if we go see a midwife?"
Xu Chunniang was also taken aback and murmured, "That's impossible."
She'd been married for nearly eleven years, nearly thirty years old - how could she possibly be pregnant?
Jiang Sanlang urgently helped his wife stand, "Seeing a doctor won't hurt, even if... even if you're not pregnant, we should still have a check-up. You've been unable to eat properly for days, that's not good..."
Xu Chunniang contemplated then nodded, "Then let's go. We certainly can't make it today, let's go to the town tomorrow."
"Yes, yes!" Jiang Sanlang hoisted up his daughter and spun her around joyously. He was so happy his smile reached his eyes, "Good girl, tomorrow Daddy and Mommy will take you to the town to play."
Xu Chunniang chuckled lightly, folding up her shoe soles, "Let's have soup biscuits for dinner and make a steamed egg custard for Yingbao."
...
Midwife Old Zhang lived in town, about five or six li away from Dongchen Village - a half-hour's walk.
Jiang Sanlang did not want to tire his wife and planned on borrowing a donkey from Chen Cunzheng as a ride.
"No." Xu Chunniang was a little embarrassed, "Let's just walk, it's not like I can't manage."
Zhang Midwife was well-known in town, the widely recognized go-to midwife within a radius of several li. Those who went there for consultations were either pregnant or hoping to be.
In past years, she'd gone there several times for consultation, taken a lot of medicine, but there was still no movement in her womb.
If she goes again this time and truly is pregnant, well and good, but if she's not, who knows how others would laugh at her.
"Alright then." Jiang Sanlang held his daughter with one hand and helped his wife with the other, "Just be careful."
Xu Chunniang chuckled and pushed her husband's hand away, "I was carrying water just yesterday, and today I suddenly can't walk anymore?"
Jiang Sanlang awkwardly withdrew his hand, held his daughter tightly, and whispered, "You shouldn't do it anymore, wait for me to do everything."
He'd been busy in the fields during the spring planting season. He would leave before daybreak and only return after dark. He was even eating his meals in the fields, which were brought by his wife. Naturally, he didn't have time to fetch water for the house.
However, from then on, he could rise half an hour earlier, ensuring to fill the water vat before going to work.
Xu Chunniang smiled at her husband and rubbed her belly, her heart full of trepidation.
Yingbao blinked her eyes - first at her dad, then at her mom - and smiled sweetly.
How wonderful, Mother is pregnant with Baby Brother. Their family is finally reunited.
Yingbao hugged her father's neck tightly, her mind returning to the red birthmark on her wrist.
It was this birthmark that had forever parted her from her mom, dad, and younger brother.
She'll have to figure out how to get rid of it.
Before then, she must carefully hide it and not let others see it.
She definitely didn't want to be recognized and taken back by that family, to endure the torment, deceit, and murder again.
In her previous life, she struggled for over a decade to survive, yet only lived until she was twenty-one.
Just when she thought she'd finally escaped to taste the sweetness of life, her biological parents suddenly tracked her down and jointly strangled her to death.
She clearly remembered her biological mother, tight-lipped and gritting her teeth while cursing as she tightened the rope, "You disaster star! Evil wench! How dare you live? How can you still live?"
The intensity with which Han Family's matriarch was exerting herself twisted her face and frothed her mouth. She looked like a terrifying demon.
Even now, the memory of the choking pain as the rope tightened around her throat, the head-splitting pressure as her brain struggled for oxygen, and the profound despair and anger caused her to tremble uncontrollably.