Nowadays, newspapers were well-acclaimed among the masses, so when the boy standing at the door of the newspaper office saw someone approaching the publishing centre, he received them quickly and smartly. When he knew that another divorce was to be reported, he familiarly led the people to the back room.
No one knew who started it. Although the educated were reporting divorces, and there were increasing reasons to reject the feudal marriages in the past, most of the people outside weren’t literate. Even if they were, they didn’t pay much attention to these little things like divorce. Only the big families in the past would be concerned about it, but it wasn’t good to reveal it to the public. Therefore, in this boy’s opinion, it was really useless to report divorces.
Divorce was divorce, but they still wanted to announce it in the newspaper. Since ancient times, he had never heard of people wanting to take out their family’s dirty laundry and airing it outside. But this was only his own thinking, and the head of the newspaper was very enthusiastic about those who came to the newspaper office since there was money to be made.
The boy brought Lin Shiheng to register, and later took him to the booth and asked diligently for the people sitting inside, “Which two people are going to report a divorce? Can you write down your name?”
He wasn’t afraid that Lin Shiheng couldn’t read and write. After all, the divorces in the newspaper were mostly well educated. In fact, the young man dressed in a tunic even brought his own feather pen and wrote his name on paper.
After listening to the boy asking him if he could read and write, he said, “It’s our Missy Fang Licheng who wants to divorce Shen Yunqing.”
What?! Not only the kid standing on the side waiting, but the person who was writing inside the booth was also shocked. They were familiar with the name Shen Yunqing! The famous gifted scholar, who came back from studying abroad, had a good reputation in Jin City. They weren’t surprised to hear that he wanted to divorce his wife at home. But, according to this young man, it was Madam Shen who wanted to divorce Shen Yunqing?!
The Shen family had a lofty reputation in Jin City, and the person inside the booth stopped writing. His hand just hung in midair as he asked carefully, “Dare I ask who you are?”
“I am a member of the Fang family.” Lin Shiheng took out money from his sleeves and handed it over, “Sir, just write it down. It was already discussed with the Shen family.”
The man eventually hesitantly wrote it down. He was just a little more careful with his words, so as not to inadvertently provoke the wrath of the Shen family against the newspaper. Lin Shiheng wasn’t surprised by his attitude. After all, the world was chaotic right now, and life was like dirt, so the right to speak was governed by those in power.
Lin Shiheng didn’t leave the newspaper office until the worker promised to publish it tomorrow morning, but after that, he didn’t return home immediately. Instead, he went to a medical school and invited the wife of the teacher of the medical school to go back with him.
While Lin Shiheng was taking the female doctor back, Fang Licheng here had been carefully carried all the way back to the Fang residence. Even though the Fang family had declined, their house remained magnificent, and the door was spacious enough that the small sedan could be carried into the house. Previously, Lin Shiheng had sent a boy to go home on horseback to tell Mother Fang that they had picked up the young lady, so when the party arrived at the Fang residence, Mother Fang had already lit a charcoal fire in her room to heat up the place and was nervously guarding the front door in anticipation. When she saw a small sedan being carried slowly from afar, she couldn’t stop her tears from flowing. Her heart was sore and she couldn’t care less, her eyes were red and swollen and for the first time, she didn’t observe the outside etiquette and ran over in big strides.
“Sister Cheng …”
As soon as the crying voice sounded in her ears, Fang Licheng, who had been holding the child in pain and lying down weakly in the sedan chair, shuddered as she got up and lifted the curtain of the window with tears in her eyes.
“Mother…”
“Put it down quickly.” Mother Fang quickly pressed the curtain down again, sobbing, “It’s a cold winter month, and you’ve just had a baby. You can’t get exposed to the wind.”
Hearing these words, tears fell all over Fang Licheng’s face. “Mother!”
The pain of giving birth, the pain of getting a divorce just as the husband came back, all seem to fall down with her tears. Earlier, she felt it would have been okay even if she had to hold it all in, but when she heard her mother’s voice, her grievances seemed to well up, and she couldn’t hold them back.
“Be a good girl, Sister Cheng. Mother knows that your heart is uncomfortable, but don’t cry. You can’t cry in confinement. It would hurt your body.”
Mother Fang couldn’t see her daughter, but she heard her crying voice through the curtain. She was clearly on the verge of tears herself, but she was still trying to calm her voice, following the sedan chair forward while comforting.
“It’s good that you’re home. Mother will properly supplement your body.” As she spoke, she suddenly remembered what the boy in the house had said before, and quickly asked, “Is my little grandson okay?”
As a mother, Fang Licheng hastily swallowed the bitterness in her heart and carefully looked down at her son who had been sleeping sweetly in her arms, “He wasn’t startled, he’s just been sleeping.”
“That’s good, that’s good.” Mother Fang added, “Later, I’ll ask people to take out the mugwort leaves from the storehouse and burn them to get rid of bad luck so that our family can live well in the future.”
She didn’t mention Shen Yunqing, and didn’t ask why Shen Yunqing wanted to divorce her daughter, which made Fang Licheng feel better. She hugged her baby in her arms and her voice choked as she replied, “I’ll listen to you, Mother.”
The little sedan chair entered the gate smoothly, and was carried into the room door under Mother Fang’s instruction.
“Come on, slow down, put it down slowly.” Mother Fang stood at the side and watched the small sedan land, then breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, you guys go out first and call the maids outside to come in.”
“Yes.”
The people who carried the sedan chair went out. Soon, the little girls came in, and together with Mother Fang, they carefully helped Fang Licheng to the bed. As anxious as she was, Mother Fang was more attentive than usual, and she noticed bloodstains on the back of her daughter’s dress. Her heart almost stopped in shock.
“What’s going on here? Why is there so much blood?”
She just gave birth. Mother Fang knew that women would somewhat bleed when they give birth, but how could there be so much blood? Looking at it, it actually stained the clothes red like this.
Fang Licheng looked pale, and barely leaned against the bed, “It was like this already since in the Shen residence before, but the situation was chaotic, and there was no doctor around, so no one did anything about it.”
“That black-hearted Shen family!” Mother Fang spat with hatred and cursed at them severely, but her hands kept shaking, “Why aren’t they all dead? They abuse you like this!”
When she finished speaking, she saw that her daughter was pale and didn’t speak, and she couldn’t bear to go on poking her wounded heart. She called the little maid beside her and told her, “Go to the Huang Family Medical Center in the south of the city and get a doctor.”
The young maid, who had been urged with the money, took the money and went out of the door. Before she went out for too long, she ran back again.
“Madam, there is no need. Brother Heng is back with a female doctor.”
Mother Fang quickly folded her hands and said, “It’s still Brother Heng’s thoughtfulness. I was negligent, Sister Cheng should have been brought to a female doctor immediately.”
“Please come in quickly. Be careful, don’t let the cold wind into the room.”
The doctor wanted to look at the place where Fang Licheng was bleeding. Lin Shiheng, a man, was naturally unable to come in, so the only one who was welcomed in by the little maids was the female doctor.
Mother Fang nervously held her grandson aside, watching the female doctor take her daughter’s pulse and check the wound. When the doctor frowned and put down the curtain, Mother Fang carefully approached and asked, “Doctor, did you see? How is my daughter now?”
“Not so good.”
When these three words came out, Mother Fang’s face went pale.
“How, how can it not be good? Doctor, my daughter has always been in good health, do you want to take another look?”
“She was shocked when he had just given birth, and she was bleeding all the while. Even if I stopped the bleeding now, the symptoms will remain. Even after that, on every rainy day, she will suffer from pain. And from her pulse, in the future, in terms of children and grandchildren, there may be some difficulties.”
Mother Fang’s face turned miserably white. Her body swayed, and she was almost unable to stand. She could only lament, “My Sister Cheng… ah…”
“Madam!”
The maid on the side quickly held her, “Sister Cheng will be fine. Let’s ask the doctor, maybe she’ll be fine after she recovers!”
Fang Licheng’s face didn’t show any discomfort. Instead, she smiled at her mother and comforted her, “Mother, please don’t feel bad. I’m fine now.”
Perhaps, seeing the sad atmosphere in this house was too heavy, the female doctor looked at Mother Fang and Fang Licheng, and squeezed out a dry sentence, “She’s like this because of the cold wind. The cold air has entered her body, and now she happens to be in her confinement period. So, you should take good care of it, and I will come back for diagnosis when the confinement is done. Maybe the situation would be better then.”
“The wind…?”
(TNote: There is no scientific evidence of this, but it’s true that you shouldn’t drink or bathe with cold water during a period. Please take it with a grain of salt ….)
Mother Fang, with red and swollen eyes, murmured, “How could…”
“Brother Heng sent someone to tell me. Sister Cheng was on the sedan chair from the house, right? Maybe along the way… And we also lifted that curtain, just for a moment…” Saying that, she blamed this crime on herself, “It’s all my fault. If I didn’t call out to Sister Cheng earlier, she wouldn’t have opened the curtain…”
“It’s the Young Master!”
The little maid crying beside the bed immediately opened her mouth, resentment apparent in her red eyes, “Before, the Young Lady had just given birth to a child in the room, and the Young Lady instructed a thousand times to not let the wind come in. We were careful when we went in and out one by one, and thick curtains were put down at the door, just because we were afraid that the Young Lady would get sick because of the wind. Yet, the Young Master actually opened the window and jumped in in order to announce his decision to divorce his wife. The cold wind directly blew towards the bed of the Young Lady.”
This little maid signed an employment agreement with the Shen family, only to serve by Fang Licheng’s side the whole time, naturally treating herself as her person. The young lady was usually such a good person, but she suffered such a big disaster for no reason, so the little maid’s tone took on some hatred.
“Later, the Master and Madam chased him and broke into the room as well. It was a mess at the beginning. I could only cover the Young Lady with a quilt. The doors and windows were wide open, and the room turned cold. I thought about closing the windows, but I was kicked out by the Master. I could only stand at the door and listen. The Young Master also said something to the Young Lady about divorce and him never liking the Young Lady. The Young Lady fainted out of anger, and only then did the Madam call us in to take care of the Young Lady.”
Fang Licheng’s face was frozen, listening to the little maid beside her recounting the scene, and only then did her brain, which had been blank, recall how miserable she was at that time. How can it not be disastrous? Just after delivery, her head was sweating profusely, and her body was in so much pain it left her in a trance, and the room was full of blood. Under such circumstances, her husband, and in-laws, all stood before her in all their glory, discussing whether they wanted her husband to divorce her. The winter wind was cold. When it blew on her head, it directly blew the sweat into a cold sweat. When she fainted, she herself was unsure whether she was knocked out by the wind or stimulated by Shen Yunqing’s words. At that time, her heart felt like it was going to hurt to death. Looking back now, she was wrapped in a veil of unawareness and senselessness, unfeeling.
She didn’t feel it, but Mother Fang was clutching her heart in distress, tears shedding all over her face again.
“Beast!! This nest of heartless monsters! I originally thought that only Shen Yunqing wronged you, but I didn’t think that even your parents-in-law didn’t even consider your health! You just gave birth to a child!!! How can you not get sick after such a cold breeze and the humiliation and shock? How can you not be in pain?”
In her anxiousness, she forgot that the female doctor was still there. At first, when she heard this, the female doctor was curious about who did such a careless thing, but she wasn’t good at asking questions. She could only stand silently and pretend that she didn’t exist.