Mrs. Li, bending her heavy body to cut grass, saw a nest of wild chicken eggs not far away and walked carefully up the slope with excitement in her eyes. Her clumsy movements were due to her nine months of pregnancy, and with the due time to deliver looming, the household couldn't be without firewood for cooking while she'd be confined for the postpartum month.
This had been ordered by her mother-in-law, who she still remembered had gone to help care for the children at the house of another woman in the village early that morning, because that woman had given birth to a son.
"You who only give birth to money-losing goods, what makes you so precious? Without firewood at home, you must go and cut it twice a day."
Mrs. Li could only obediently go to the mountain to cut grass, even as she was about to go into labor.
While cutting grass, she discovered wild chicken eggs in the thicket. Seeing the eggs, she thought of her four feeble and thin children at home. She reached out to pick up the wild eggs and passed by a place where there was a wasp's nest, "buzzing buzzing buzzing"
"Ah!"
Mrs. Li reflexively used the straw hat on her head to fan away the wasps. Her actions were slow, not as quick as those tiny insects, and she was stung on her face and hands.
Stung, yet she still carefully placed the wild chicken eggs into a cloth bag and removed the wasps' nest that was buzzing around her, slowly making her way down the hillside.
She felt a burning pain on her face and hands, and the wasps continued to pursue and sting her.
Only then did Mrs. Li lie down in the wild grass to rest as the wasps gradually flew away.
She felt intense pain and burning on her face and her hands were swollen and unresponsive. Looking up to the sky, through her swollen eyes she blurrily saw the sun rising halfway up, and she tied up two large bundles of grass, shouldering the seventy to eighty pounds of firewood with a carrying pole.
Walking unevenly down the mountain, one step high, one step low, she walked a mile back to the village, where she encountered an elderly woman coming out of the vegetable field.
This elderly woman, with her dim vision, saw Mrs. Li: "Hongji's wife, you have to be careful with such a big belly! It's really something with Hongji, him being a woodworker having wooden scraps. Why does he still have you, with such a big belly, going up the mountain to cut grass? What if you fall?"
Every day Mrs. Li heard the villagers express such sympathetic words and her heart agreed with them, but she was accustomed to being timorous, and also had given birth to several daughters. With her husband's family having only one male heir for two generations, if she failed to give birth to a male child in her generation...
"Third Granny, I'm okay..."
"My goodness, what happened to your face? And your hands too." Third Granny approached and saw Mrs. Li's face swollen like a pig's head and her exposed hands grotesquely swollen.
"Third Granny, I'm fine, I was just stung by a wasp a moment ago."
"Hongji's wife, you must be careful! They are all poisonous, I don't know if it will affect the baby."
"This..." Mrs. Li became frightened and alarmed upon hearing Third Granny's words.
"Did you remove the wasp's larvae? Taking those out can cure the poisoning."
"I did, I'll go home and cook them now."
Mrs. Li's wooden hairpin had shifted and some of her hair had fallen in disarray, drops of sweat dripped down her swollen face, yet she continued walking unsteadily, one foot high, one foot low.
"Pig's head..."
"Let's throw stones at the pig's head..."
Some naughty children playing by the roadside picked up stones to throw at Mrs. Li. The stones weren't very large, Mrs. Li shielded her belly and did not scold the children.
"Mom, don't throw stones at my mom..." Eight-year-old Daya, carrying a bamboo basket and a one-year-old girl on her back, pulling along a three-year-old girl by the hand, was followed by a five-year-old girl also carrying a small bamboo basket. They were going to cut pigweed.
"Daya, don't come here, the stones can really hurt." Mrs. Li's motherly instinct, all four daughters present and accounted for.
"You're all meanies...don't hit my mom..." Daya cried and shouted at those kids, trying to help her mom dodge the stones thrown by the naughty children.
"Wow! It's the mom who gives birth to the money-losing kids. Today she's turned into a pig's head, haha..."
A kid with a runny nose and many patches on his clothes, with sleeves and trousers obviously too short and ill-fitting, mocked.
The other naughty children also laughed uproariously.
"Gou Dan, you're being naughty again." A strong man carrying firewood from the mountain scolded the children.
The gang of naughty children ran away.
Daya cried and said to Mrs. Li, "Mom, does it hurt?"
"Wuu wuu wuu, Mom..."
The baby on Daya's back, and the other two sisters, started crying as well.
"Mom is fine, let's go home first."
After the ordeal she had just been through, Mrs. Li felt a heaviness in her abdomen.
"Cry cry cry, good for nothing, get home and cook already." Mother-in-law Mrs. Lai, while taking care of her eldest daughter's baby, scolded her as the daughter returned from laboring in the fields, urging her to go home to eat. She felt annoyed hearing the cries of her daughter and granddaughters from a distance.
"Mrs. Lai, your daughter-in-law's belly is so big, and you won't even fetch some firewood. Hongji's wife, what happened to your face? It's all swollen like that. Come on, let me help you."
Granny Li from the neighboring house, holding a basket of vegetables in her hand, felt sympathy for Mrs. Li, as they were one of the few neighbors around.
"Pah, you Mrs. Li, isn't it a daughter-in-law's duty to work? What business is it of yours? Who asked you to play the good Samaritan?"
With narrowed eyes, Mrs. Lai stomped on the ground and spat out a wad of saliva. She noticed the cloth pouch in Mrs. Li's hand, her eyes darted, and quickly snatched the pouch before hurrying home.
"Mother-in-law..."
Mrs. Li, on the verge of tears, felt the loss of the pouch containing the wild chicken eggs and wasp larvae, which she had picked at great risk.
"Hongji's house, don't panic... just go home first."
Granny Li took Mrs. Li's carrying pole, holding her basket of vegetables too, unaware of why Mrs. Li valued that cloth pouch so much.
Mrs. Li, paying no attention to her abdomen that seemed ready to drop, hurriedly walked a few steps to catch up with Mrs. Lai.
"Mom, walk slower."
Mrs. Lai had already entered a courtyard with a mud-brick house that had just three rooms and a kitchen. On the other side of the courtyard was a thatched shed where a father and son were making furniture.
As she pushed the door and entered, the father and son making furniture looked up briefly before continuing with their work.
Two girls, aged thirteen and fifteen, emerged from one of the rooms in the house. They were Mrs. Lai's daughters; the fifteen-year-old was already betrothed and preparing her dowry for marriage, while the other stayed at home.
"Mom, what goodies have you brought us? We're hungry."
Flanked by her two daughters, who each held one of her arms, Mrs. Lai reluctantly opened the pouch.
"Wow, wild chicken eggs."
"There are wasp larvae too, Mom, I want them stir-fried," one of the daughters said.
The sisters, their mouths watering at the thought, took the cloth pouch and followed Mrs. Lai back inside the room.
Mrs. Li walked in just in time to see the two young sisters-in-law as Mother-in-law Mrs. Lai hid the pouch away.
Mrs. Li's tears swirled in her barely open eyes as her legs froze in place.
"Mom..." Daya came in with her younger sister, placed the pig-vegetable basket on the ground, and supported their mother, clearing a path.
The father and son making furniture looked up briefly at them before resuming their work.
Granny Li brought the firewood inside and, seeing the indifferent father and son, gently placed the firewood in the courtyard and reproachfully addressed the two, saying:
"Uncle, Hongji..."
Hearing the voice of the neighbor lady, the father and son looked up again, the father halting his carpentry work.
"Sister-in-law, your son and daughter-in-law, how could they let you help with the firewood?"
Hongji noticed his wife's swollen cheek and quickly came over, asking, "Wife, what happened to you?"