Peng Zhaodi got up in a rage and threw herself at Shen Jiaqi.
Before she could even find her footing, Qiao Huilan reached out and pushed her back down.
“What’s this, you still want to touch my precious daughter?”
Qiao Huilan gave her a hard kick, and the pain made her tears run.
Seeing that she was no match for the old woman, Peng Zhaodi simply grabbed hold of Shen Jiaqi’s legs.
“Little sister, I was wrong, I really was wrong. I beg you, show some mercy, spare Xiaobao…”
“From now on all the work points of our household are yours, your sister-in-law will wash your clothes, your sister-in-law will slave for you like an ox and a horse. Just take it as me begging you…”
Shen Jiaqi was so tired her head was covered in sweat, she could hardly lift her arms, and her fingers were about to give out.
She had been too focused, pushing without pause for a dozen or so minutes, and only when she felt a fine layer of sweat rise on Xiaobao’s skin did she finally come back to herself.
“Sister-in-law, get up quickly. We’re one family, and Xiaobao is my own nephew. How could I possibly harm him? If you don’t believe me, look…”
She pointed at Xiaobao’s forehead, where fine, dense beads of sweat had seeped out.
The child’s hands and feet, which had been convulsing, were now gradually relaxing.
“This…”
Peng Zhaodi was stunned. She touched Xiaobao’s head with a trembling hand, it really wasn’t so scalding anymore.
Xiaobao was a bit more comfortable and opened his eyes slightly. The first thing he saw was Shen Jiaqi.
His muddled little eyes snapped wide awake, as if he had seen something terrifying, and he burst into loud wailing.
“Auntie, I was wrong, I’ll never dare eat an egg again…”
“Don’t hit me, don’t hit me…”
Shen Jiaqi wanted to cry but had no tears. What a sin this was.
Look at the state the original owner had frightened Xiaobao into…
Awkward and speechless as it was, Xiaobao had woken up and there was obvious life in his eyes, so she quietly let out a breath of relief.
“Don’t be afraid, Auntie won’t hit you…”
She reached out, and before her palm even touched him Xiaobao instinctively shrank back and looked at Peng Zhaodi for rescue. “Mom…”
“Xiaobao!”
Peng Zhaodi took him into her arms, crying and shouting. “My son, you’ve suffered… it’s Mom’s fault, Mom didn’t protect you…”
The moment she said it, before Shen Jiaqi could say anything, Qiao Huilan put her hands on her hips in anger. “Eldest son’s wife, what kind of talk is that?”
“That Xiaobao could wake up this time is all thanks to my daughter.”
“She’s still hurt herself, hasn’t even changed out of her wet clothes, and she came to help you save Xiaobao. Truly a dog biting Lü Dongbin, unable to recognize a good heart.”
Peng Zhaodi was momentarily at a loss for words.
It was true, her little sister-in-law’s clothes and hair were still wet.
Could it be… that her little sister-in-law really wasn’t harming anyone, that she was saving Xiaobao?
Thinking back over her little sister-in-law’s every move, she really was like a different person from usual. Could it be that one jump into the river had suddenly changed her nature?
Peng Zhaodi dared not jump to conclusions. This little sister-in-law was odd and strange, and she still felt uneasy about it.
“Um… Mom, I still want to take Xiaobao to the hospital to have a look…”
Qiao Huilan was still hot with anger. “Go if you’re going, I’m not stopping you.”
Peng Zhaodi’s face fell, and she looked at her pitifully. “Mom, I don’t have any money. Could you give me a little money…”
“Money? Didn’t I give you medicine money this morning? And you want more, do you really think I’m a hen that lays golden eggs?”
Peng Zhaodi looked at Shen Jiaqi in tears, wretchedly. “That money, the eldest took it and gave it to little sister…”
In her memory… it did seem there was such a thing!
This morning the original owner had taken Xiaobao’s medicine money and handed it straight over to Jiang Shiyan, without keeping a single cent.
Shen Jiaqi cursed the original owner inwardly, simp, simp, simping to the end and left with nothing!
Jiang Shiyan was no decent thing either. The engagement was already broken off, and he still dared take her money!
Just wait and see, she would definitely make that dead scumbag cough it all up obediently!
Shen Jiaqi sighed lightly, both angry and helpless. “There was such a thing, but that money… is gone!”
Hatred surged into Peng Zhaodi’s eyes as she looked at her. “Little sister, that was my son’s life-saving money. You just squandered it away like that, you… you…”
Never mind that the eldest sister-in-law was blind with rage, Shen Jiaqi’s own chest ached with anger.
Original owner, oh original owner, look at the stupid things you did!
Shen Jiaqi bit down until her cheeks hurt.
There was no use saying more. Right now, Xiaobao’s illness was what mattered.
Thick-skinned, Shen Jiaqi silently wiped the original owner’s backside for her. “Mom, give some money to sister-in-law so she can see a doctor. Just count it as borrowed by me.”
“How can it be put on your head? Once the eldest gave you that money it was yours, and you can spend it however you like, nobody’s business. Even if it’s borrowed money, it goes on the eldest household’s account.” Qiao Huilan’s favoritism ran right down to her heels.
The eldest sister-in-law’s face was very ugly, but she dared not argue back, and only glared at her resentfully.
Shen Jiaqi finally understood how the original owner’s selfish, mean, stupid temperament had been spoiled into being.
It was all her parents’ indulgence and pampering!
Fortunately, she was here now, and she would definitely change this bad atmosphere in the family.
Qiao Huilan went on, “Besides, hasn’t Xiaobao woken up? He isn’t twitching anymore either. By the look of it he should be fine.”
“Times are tight at home. Why go to the hospital and waste that money for nothing…”
“If you ask me, just have him lie down more at home and drink more hot water. Children recover fast.”
You couldn’t blame Qiao Huilan for being stingy, the family really was scraping by.
In the end it was Shen Jiaqi who spoke up, saying that although Xiaobao’s temperature was down for the moment, the fever would very likely come back, so he still had to take some anti-inflammatory medicine.
With her precious daughter insisting again and again, Qiao Huilan couldn’t very well say much more. “For Qiqi’s sake… I can lend the eldest household one yuan. There’s no need to go to the county hospital, just go to the clinic in town and have a look!”
The clinic might be a small sparrow, but it had all five organs, treating a fever or a cold should be no problem.
Peng Zhaodi was moved to grateful tears. “Thank you, Mom… and thank you… little sister… I’ll take Xiaobao to the clinic right away.”
Shen Jiaqi didn’t feel easy about Xiaobao, and clamored to go along too.
She went back to her room and changed into clean clothes, and before her hair was even dry she hurried out the door after her eldest sister-in-law.
The whole way, the eldest sister-in-law guarded Xiaobao the way she’d guard her own eyes.
Xiaobao huddled in his mother’s arms, his little hands clutching her clothes tightly, those big dark eyes watching Shen Jiaqi warily, terrified that his auntie was going to eat him.
Ah, it was all the original owner’s fault for having such a terrible character and such a foul reputation!
It seemed the road to washing her name clean was still a long and heavy one…
By the time they reached town Xiaobao’s fever had come down to 38.2, and after a fever-reducing pill his condition improved quite a bit more.
“The child was already convulsing, it was extremely dangerous. Fortunately you dealt with it in time, otherwise he never would have held out until now.” The doctor praised Shen Jiaqi’s handling of it highly.
“Comrade, could you write your method down? I’m going to the provincial capital for a meeting, and I’d like the experts to study it.
If this method of yours works, we’ll promote it hard at the grassroots level and be able to help more people.”
“Sure…”
Shen Jiaqi was just about to take up the pen when she suddenly remembered that although the original owner had scraped through with a middle-school education, it was all by muddling along on her brothers’ help, and the real “she” barely knew a character.
So she handed the pen to the doctor. “Sorry, there are a lot of characters I can’t write properly. You write it!”
Peng Zhaodi stood to one side, staring at her sister-in-law with a strange expression.
Perhaps she really had been wrong?
Was Shen Jiaqi sincerely saving people?
No, absolutely impossible!
As the old saying goes, rivers and mountains may change but a person’s nature never does. How could her little sister-in-law change her nature? She was probably brewing up something rotten…
Leaving the hospital, facing Xiaobao’s big shining dark eyes, the great stone in Shen Jiaqi’s heart finally came down.
Wonderful, Xiaobao’s fever hadn’t left him an idiot, his little head had been saved after all, and she had successfully rewritten the tragedy of her eldest brother’s family.
Surely after this the eldest sister-in-law wouldn’t hate her to the bone or torment her anymore.
As for their attitude toward her.
Take it slowly…
On the way back she was truly exhausted, so sleepy her eyelids were fighting each other.
At some point she actually fell asleep leaning against the tractor, and she even had a dream.
In the dream, she and the Shen family were in a cowshed that stank to high heaven, filthy all over.
Ye Zhaozhao covered her nose in disgust and pointed at her. “Whoever can denounce her and state her crimes, I’ll let that person out.”
The words had barely left her mouth when the eldest sister-in-law stood up holding the idiot Xiaobao.
“It’s her, this vicious woman, she ruined my son. My son is the proof!”
Her eldest brother Shen Guotao was furious. “Peng Zhaodi, what are you doing?”
“What am I doing? I’m righting the wrong done to my son!”
“You and your whole family have eyes only for Shen Jiaqi, and none at all for the two of us. Since you love her so much, then go and die with her!”
With that, she carried the child up to Ye Zhaozhao. “Comrade Ye, I want to denounce her…”