Chapter 8: The Couple’s Secret Technique, Part 2

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A sudden commotion erupted, and four people came bustling over to the bed beside hers, Bed 516.

Tao Fei could no longer sleep. She reached out and tugged at the curtain beside her bed, but the moment she let go, someone swished it aside again.

“Sorry about that. It feels so stuffy with the curtain drawn. I like looking at the view outside.”

The round-faced woman beamed at Tao Fei. Holding a bag of sugar-roasted chestnuts, she sat cross-legged on the hospital bed. At the same time, she told the two men who had come in to hurry back to the shop, and urged her mother—who was busy cramming large and small bags into the cabinet—to stop unpacking for a while and sit down to rest.

The fragrance of the roasted chestnuts made Tao Fei swallow involuntarily. Strange as it was, ever since she had taken over this body, she had felt little pain from injections, medicine, or the minimally invasive wounds. That morning, when Tang Songyuan had brought her fresh wontons, she had praised the aroma, yet they had tasted like wax in her mouth. It was as though this body had been made of stone. And yet now, her stomach was suddenly craving food.

Tao Fei turned her back, trying to resist the chestnuts’ tempting fragrance.

“You’re Sister Tao Fei, right? My name is Wu Xiuli.”

“…”

This Wu Xiuli looked to be a little over thirty!

“Hello.”

“Hello, hello.”

Wu Xiuli shifted her gaze from the little card at the head of Tao Fei’s bed, and her smile grew even brighter.

“Sister Tao Fei, are you here all by yourself? Where’s your family?”

“…”

“The chubby man who just went out is my husband. He’s handsome, isn’t he?”

Just as Wu Xiuli finished speaking, Nurse Li Ya entered with a patient identification card. Seeing that the tray table at Bed 516 was covered with chestnut shells, she could not help frowning.

“Wu Xiuli, your surgery has been scheduled. Remember, you must not eat anything after five this afternoon, and you can’t drink water either.”

“What? I’m having surgery so soon?! How am I supposed to have the strength to go under the knife if I can’t eat? And if I can’t even drink water, won’t I die of thirst?”

“Mother, what are you saying? When can I eat, then?”

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As Wu Xiuli spoke, she continued peeling chestnuts, as though the surgery had nothing to do with her. Her mother, on the other hand, nervously bombarded Li Ya with questions. Li Ya answered some and ignored others. After hanging up the patient chart and the nameplate at the head of the bed, she glanced at Wu Xiuli, who had opened a packet of spiced sunflower seeds, and gently reminded her that shelled snacks were not allowed on the bed.

“We paid so much money to stay here, and they won’t even let us eat snacks! What kind of lousy hospital is this?”

Wu Xiuli’s mother immediately flared up, while Wu Xiuli puffed out her chubby cheeks in displeasure.

“I was only kindly reminding you to keep the bed clean. Postoperative care in particular requires the area to remain dry and hygienic. You may eat if you like. As for when you can have food, I’ll note it in the nursing instructions. If you’re still worried, you can ask the attending physician.”

Although this was an upscale private hospital—one ordinary people could hardly afford—the patients admitted here came from all walks of life, and their manners varied accordingly. Gentle words were often ineffective, while harsher ones might provoke complaints from the family. Li Ya had no intention of inviting trouble.

“That little nurse looks like a vixen. You can tell at a glance she’s no good!”

“Mother, you can’t talk about people like that.”

“I’m the best judge of character. I can tell what sort of person someone is the moment I see them—what their nature and temper are, whether they’re good people or not…”

“Mother is the best!”

The mother and daughter played off one another, making quite a spectacle. Tao Fei secretly laughed at their tempers and personalities. They had clearly been carved from the same mold, and they made the dull hours of waiting considerably more entertaining.

“Sister Tao Fei, what’s wrong with you? I have an ectopic pregnancy. I don’t even know how it happened—how did it end up outside the womb this time?”

Wu Xiuli held out the paper bag of chestnuts toward Tao Fei.

“Probably uterine fibroids. I’m almost recovered. No, thank you.”

The moment Tao Fei saw Wu Xiuli’s nails painted a garish red, her appetite vanished. Even the fragrance of the chestnuts seemed to disappear.

“I heard that when a woman is unhappy, she’s more likely to develop fibroids. Are you the introverted type who likes to bottle things up? What’s there in life that you can’t get over? You laugh for a day, you cry for a day—it’s all the same. And if something really happens, crying won’t solve it anyway.”

Wu Xiuli patted her plump white hands. When Tao Fei failed to answer, the expression on her round face hardened, as though confirming her judgment. She even turned to her mother for verification. After receiving an approving response, she burst into laughter.

Tao Fei did not consider herself introverted. She had been both an academic star and an enthusiastic participant in the arts. Dancing, singing, playing instruments, painting—she had won so many awards and trophies that she could hardly count them all.

Being rational did not mean being introverted.

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As for whether this Tao Fei had been introverted, she had no idea. Most likely she had not been the sort to brood, either. Love was a woman’s finest nourishment and beauty treatment. This Aunt Tao had a devoted husband, and her family was well-off. How could she possibly be unhappy?

If anything could affect her mood, it was probably the old woman who had arrived that morning. Having a mother like that was enough to make anyone’s jaw drop.

At lunchtime, Wu Xiuli’s husband arrived carrying two large bags of food. They found the meals at Harmony Hospital too bland, so they had bought six dishes of fried and stir-fried food from a restaurant outside. The three of them gathered around the little table attached to the hospital bed, filling the entire room with the mouthwatering aroma of their meal.

“Sister Tao Fei, aren’t you eating lunch? Would you like me to share some with you?”

Tao Fei smiled and shook her head. She was not used to such excessive warmth from strangers.

“You’re a patient. How can you not eat? I’m terrified of going hungry. I can eat four or five meals a day and still not think it’s too much. When I gave birth to my third child, I could eat an entire chicken in one meal and had six or seven meals a day. My mother was exhausted back then. Looking after me during confinement was so hard. Mother, have a chicken leg.”

Wu Xiuli lifted the chicken leg her husband had just placed in her bowl and transferred it to her mother’s.

“Nothing in the world compares to one’s own mother. No matter how good a mother-in-law is, she can’t compare with your own mother. I had three children, and my mother-in-law never helped with my confinement even once. I know she resented me because I gave birth to daughters. So what if they’re daughters? Daughters are their parents’ little padded jackets. Anyway, I’m going to treat my mother well for the rest of my life, and when my daughters grow up, they’ll treat their grandmother well too. Sister, how old are your children? What’s your mother-in-law like?”

“…”

Wu Xiuli ate as she listed her mother-in-law’s faults. Her husband kept his head down and ate in silence, not daring to contradict her even once.

It seemed that the relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law was a timeless problem. In every era, people could dig up stories of wretched mothers-in-law.

Tao Fei licked her dry lips. She was actually a little hungry. She had gone the entire morning without drinking any water, all because that money-grubbing old woman had made such a scene.

Tao Fei decided to go to the cafeteria herself and buy something to eat. She searched through the drawer at the head of the bed, but did not find a single coin. Even if she could pay by phone, there was no phone in the drawer either!

Where on earth was her doting older husband?

“Tao Fei, you must be hungry, right?”

Tao Fei’s resentment toward Tang Songyuan had only just begun to rise when he appeared in front of her.

“That’s your husband?”

Wu Xiuli stared at Tang Songyuan, clicking her tongue in astonishment.