Chapter 285: Chapter 285: The Chubby Girl and the Search for Qinglongyi

Chen Jianghe was feeling complicated.

On the way to take Xu Meiling to the hospital, he’d been caught in a tangle of emotions.

On one hand, he secretly wondered: if this child couldn’t be born, if Xu Meiling didn’t make it, would he finally be free again?

On the other hand, his basic human conscience told him: This is your own flesh and blood, you have to save them!

But now that everything was settled, he actually felt a sense of relief.

The first time he saw the child—his own flesh and blood, the continuation of his life—he felt a natural, deep bond.

Xu Meiling had been acting up during her late pregnancy, but he’d put up with it all for this little one. Seeing her finally born, he couldn’t hide the bittersweet feeling in his heart.

Unlike Liu Guifang, he didn’t have a strong gender preference—he liked girls just as much.

Liu Guifang only relaxed when she saw him eagerly take the baby and look at her with such fatherly affection. She’d been worried her son-in-law would be disappointed it was a girl.

“Jianghe, flowers first, then fruit. Once Meiling recovers, you two can have a few big, healthy boys.”

Chen Jianghe ignored her, just playing with his daughter in his arms.

Xu Mingshan shot Liu Guifang a glare—this old woman always said the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Was this really the moment to bring that up?

When Xu Meiling first gave birth, she passed out from exhaustion. When she woke up and learned she’d had a girl, her heart sank to rock bottom. She’d always thought she was carrying a boy.

She’d craved sour food—“sour for boys, spicy for girls”—so how could it not be a boy?

“Are you sure there’s no mistake? I heard it’s easy to mix up babies in the hospital. What if someone swapped our boy?”

The doctor happened to walk in and overheard this, rolling her eyes in exasperation. Was this woman for real?

The child’s father had been asking about the baby’s blue complexion and possible aftereffects—he seemed to really like his daughter.

But the mother was still fixated on the baby’s gender. Was she serious?

She couldn’t figure out what kind of odd couple these two were—a decent-looking young man married to a woman with a face full of flesh, even more domineering than a butcher.

“You were the only one giving birth here last night. There’s nowhere for us to swap babies.

Besides, your daughter weighs ten jin (about 5 kg)—no one else could have produced a baby that big.

You should worry about yourself. Last night, we barely managed to save both lives. Your uterus is damaged; it may be hard for you to get pregnant again.”

The doctor hadn’t planned to say this in front of her, but seeing her attitude toward her own child, she decided to be blunt and didn’t sugarcoat it.

The whole family erupted in chaos, except for Chen Jianghe, who remained calm as ever. He covered his daughter’s ears and carried her out, afraid the noise would wake her.

In this unhappy marriage, the only one he wanted to protect was this child.

Whether Xu Meiling could have more children was none of his concern. In fact, it’d be better if she couldn’t—he didn’t want to be threatened by her anymore.

Liu Guifang was the loudest. She’d been hoping for more children, but now the doctor said Meiling might not be able to have any more—did that mean her daughter’s future was hopeless?

Xu Meiling nearly broke down on the spot, crying out, “What kind of hospital is this? I’m perfectly healthy—why can’t I have more children?”

“You sure have the energy to shout now. Don’t forget what you looked like when you were brought in last night. We barely managed to save both of you.

You’d better rest up. With your body, even if you weren’t injured, it’d be hard to get pregnant again!” So overweight—how did that young man even manage?

The Xu family was thrown into chaos, wailing and crying.

Chen Jianghe waited outside with the baby until they’d calmed down before going back in.

“The baby’s hungry. Try feeding her—the doctor said it’s best to start breastfeeding early.”

Xu Meiling lay on the bed, eyes swollen from crying, glancing with disdain at the daughter in Chen Jianghe’s arms, but finally took the baby.

Xu Meiling stayed in the hospital for just one day before being carried back to the village.

When people heard she’d given birth to a ten-jin chubby baby, they all came to see—some out of curiosity, some to gloat.

Most people brought small gifts; no one came empty-handed.

Some brought carp they’d caught themselves, to help the new mother produce more milk.

Some brought old baby clothes or cloth diapers from their own kids—no one in the village minded, it was common to share.

Some brought a few eggs from home.

Some brought a pound of millet, others a few ounces of brown sugar.

There was all sorts of stuff—this was just how it was in the village. Whenever someone had a baby, the neighbors would bring gifts.

Of course, the host family would also give return gifts.

Chen Jianghe didn’t know how to handle the return gifts, and Xu Meiling couldn’t get up.

So Liu Guifang, the mother-in-law, had to step in, boiling a big pot of red eggs to hand out.

Gu Qinghuan also received two red eggs and split them between her two kids.

Lin Xiaomeng got two eggs as well. She’d just come back from the city, having made a tidy profit of a few dozen yuan, so she was in a good mood and more tolerant of Xu Meiling as a new mom.

She happened to have brought back two jin of meat, so she cut off half a jin and had Dacheng deliver it—she didn’t show up herself.

Gu Qinghuan was also thinking about what to send.

She rummaged through her storage space, reluctant to part with this or that—not that she really minded, but giving Xu Meiling a gift felt a bit much.

But as a sister-in-law, when your husband’s younger sister has a baby and sends you red eggs, it’d be rude not to reciprocate.

In the end, she dug out a bunch of wild boar trotters she’d packed in a cardboard box. Xu Huaian had killed several wild boars before, and she’d barely eaten any of the trotters—they were all still there.

Wild boar trotters aren’t like domestic ones—they come out tough and chewy, needing hours to cook until soft, and they have a strong flavor. Gu Qinghuan didn’t care for them, so she’d never bothered with them.

Might as well put them to use and send her two! They say pig trotters help with milk production—who knows if it’s true.

Gu Qinghuan didn’t show up either. She tied the trotters with straw rope and had Dabao deliver them.

Liu Guifang was frazzled, but when she saw Dabao bring the pig trotters, her eyes lit up, and she treated him much better than usual—even gave him a few fruit candies, which scared him a little.

With both daughters-in-law so thoughtful—one sending meat, the other pig trotters—Liu Guifang was quite pleased.

Of course, Gu Qinghuan and Lin Xiaomeng didn’t care about these things at all now.

Despite Xu Meiling’s size, she actually had no milk. The baby cried and cried, and they’d already fed her rice soup a few times.

Chen Jianghe, a new father, was completely focused on the baby. Seeing his daughter hungry and her face pale, he was visibly upset.

Liu Guifang was racking her brain for ways to help her daughter produce milk when Gu Qinghuan’s pig trotters arrived, so she quickly started cooking them.

When she went back into the room, she saw Xu Meiling wiping away tears.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop crying! You’re not supposed to cry during your confinement, or you’ll be left with health problems.”

“Mom, look at him—what’s with his attitude? Is it my fault I don’t have milk? All he cares about is his daughter—he doesn’t care about me at all,” Xu Meiling complained.

“Well, he’s not wrong. Look at you—all that meat, such a big chest, you should be able to feed ten babies, but you can’t even handle one. No wonder he’s upset.

Besides, you were so difficult before, and now you’ve had a girl—who knows what’ll happen in the future. We need to treat our son-in-law well so he doesn’t find fault with you.”

As a mother, Liu Guifang just wanted her daughter to be okay, so she said all this.

But Xu Meiling couldn’t listen—maybe it was the hormones, but she even resented her daughter a bit. Not only had the baby caused her so much pain, but she’d also taken all of Chen Jianghe’s attention.

After drinking the pig trotter soup Liu Guifang made, Xu Meiling’s milk did come in quickly—not much, but enough for the baby.

Aside from selling crayfish, Gu Qinghuan had sold over a thousand jin of vegetables and fruit that summer.

The vegetables and fruit Xu Huaian had planted before he left were all ripe now.

Gu Qinghuan finally achieved “strawberry freedom”—a whole patch of strawberries, and she could eat as much as she wanted. She even made strawberry jam for the kids to try.

She didn’t dare give them fresh strawberries—after all, strawberries were rare in this era, and it wasn’t even strawberry season.

Besides strawberry jam, there was tomato sauce.

Homemade just tasted better. The kids liked to spread it on steamed bread slices.

Tomato sauce was also great on noodles.

It was a pity that, with the summer heat, you couldn’t keep these things outside—otherwise, Gu Qinghuan would’ve sent some to Beijing.

The vegetables she’d casually planted in the Xu family’s private plot were doing well, and the school’s plot had vegetables too.

There was so much, they couldn’t eat it all.

She gave a lot to Zhong Zijun and Ji Linhai. Because of their backgrounds, they couldn’t plant much themselves, and their vegetables were often stolen, so they never had enough.

Gu Qinghuan’s vegetables and fruit sold for a bit more than market price, but people still snapped them up as soon as they were listed.

Everyone had good things to say.

Especially the older folks—they said it tasted like their childhood, fresh and natural.

Some people, after eating her vegetables a few times, couldn’t go back to regular ones—they just tasted bland.

Many people messaged her, begging her to supply them long-term, even offering to pay more.

Had the world gone so crazy she didn’t even recognize it anymore?

So after the harvest, Gu Qinghuan simply planted another batch. She wasn’t as meticulous as Xu Huaian—she just scattered the seeds roughly and watered everything with diluted spiritual spring water, then left it at that.

Whatever—let it grow however it wants!

The little sable had been restless in the space lately, bouncing around all day. Gu Qinghuan took it back to the forest to let it run free.

It promptly disappeared, leaving Gu Qinghuan feeling a bit lost—until she found out it had gone to find a mate.

After the hottest days of summer began, Gu Qinghuan got lazier about going out. She’d caught almost all the crayfish in the fields and needed a new way to make money.

Mainly, she wanted to make more money with Zhong Zijun while she was home. She’d become a real money-grubber—just mention making money and she was full of energy.

One day, bored, she was scrolling through the vending machine’s private messages.

Suddenly, one message caught her eye.

“Looking to buy wild Qinglongyi at a high price.

The shop owner must live in the mountains, right? If you have wild Qinglongyi, the price is negotiable.”"

"Chapter 286: The Sable Finds a Mate, Wild Gastrodia