Elsewhere.
When Li Hong woke up, she saw her friend sitting not far away, legs crossed casually.
She sat up. “Cuilan, where’s the baby? Bring her over for me to see.”
Wu Cuilan quickly brought the baby over.
Li Hong glanced at the child but didn’t take her. “You really swapped the babies?”
“I did it myself. Of course it’s real.”
A flash of malice crossed Li Hong’s eyes as she reached out and pinched the baby’s arm hard.
The baby immediately woke up from the pain and began crying with her eyes still closed.
Just as Xu Zhijun entered the room, he saw her pinching the child and hurried over to snatch the baby away.
“What are you doing? Why are you hurting the child for no reason?” He then turned to Wu Cuilan and said, “Comrade Wu, could you please go get some food for us? I’ll stay here and watch them.”
“Alright.”
After she left, Xu Zhijun lowered his voice. “Li Hong, what are you doing! This is our child! Why are you pinching her? If you don’t like my child, you shouldn’t have given birth to her.”
Xu Zhijun frowned at her, never expecting Li Hong to respond with a smile: “This isn’t our child. This is yours and Lu Jingyi’s.”
“What did you say!” The statement shocked Xu Zhijun so much he nearly dropped the baby.
The frightened baby wailed loudly.
Xu Zhijun instinctively covered the baby’s mouth. “You’re crazy! How dare you swap the babies!”
“They’re both your children. Why should Lu Jingyi’s child get to call you Daddy openly while mine has to suffer with me? Why does Lu Jingyi have such a good fate! If not for your brother, you should have been the one to marry me!”
“Keep your voice down!” Xu Zhijun was nearly frantic with worry. “If Lu Jingyi finds out…”
“Cuilan helped me swap them. No one saw. Don’t you want our child to live a good life?”
“I do, but…”
Li Hong leaned back against the pillow. “Then go tell Lu Jingyi. Let her investigate. If she discovers our relationship, let’s see how you’ll explain it to her family.”
Xu Zhijun paced anxiously around the room.
Since the babies had already been swapped, he couldn’t return the child now.
It would be disastrous if Lu Jingyi found out.
Suddenly, Xu Zhijun realized the baby in his arms had gone quiet. He quickly removed his hand.
Terrified, he reached to check if the baby was still breathing under her nose.
Fortunately, she was still breathing.
He immediately sighed in relief.
Just then, the baby began crying softly again.
Xu Zhijun placed the baby on the bed as if she were a hot potato. “Hurry up and feed her. No matter what, she’s still my child. We can’t let her starve to death.”
Li Hong glanced at the child with disgust.
The more she looked at the baby, the more she resembled Lu Jingyi, making Li Hong increasingly resentful.
“I won’t feed her. Let her starve to death. At least she won’t be an eyesore.”
Just then, the room door suddenly knocked.
Three middle-aged women entered.
“Li Hong, we’ve come to see you.”
“Oh, Comrade Xu is here too?”
Seeing who had arrived, Li Hong immediately beamed. “Oh, Sister Wu, Sister Lin, Sister Cheng, you’ve all come.”
Xu Zhijun quickly glanced toward the door, instinctively taking half a step back to increase the distance between himself and Li Hong.
The visitors were all military wives, though Xu Zhijun wasn’t very familiar with them. He nodded in greeting.
The three military wives walked over to Li Hong.
They didn’t question Xu Zhijun’s presence in the room. After all, Li Hong was a Martyr’s Widow, and with her mother-in-law absent, it made sense for her brother-in-law to check on her.
“We came to see the baby…”
As they approached, they noticed the baby had been crying incessantly, yet Li Hong, the mother, acted as if she didn’t hear, chatting and laughing with them.
The three mothers couldn’t stand it. Sister Wu picked up the baby and rocked her gently, asking concernedly, “Li Hong, the baby’s been crying so much. Is she hungry?”
“That can’t be. I just fed her,” Li Hong defended herself guiltily.
“The baby’s cries are so weak. Is she unwell? What did the doctor say?”
Li Hong sighed and said sarcastically, “I suppose I’m just unlucky. My husband’s dead, my mother-in-law isn’t here, and when my sister-in-law was about to give birth, she made such a scene that it startled me. I accidentally bumped into a table and went into premature labor. If Cui Lan hadn’t found me, I might have ended up dead along with the baby.”
“What?” Sister Lin frowned. “How could Comrade Lu do that? She’s a doctor herself. What if something had happened to you?”
“Exactly. Li Hong, you’re too easy to push around. That’s why she treats you so poorly.”
“If I were you, I’d never let her get away with it.”
Li Hong raised her hand and wiped away nonexistent tears. “What can I do? She’s from a capitalist family, and I’m just a farmer.”
Sister Cheng added, “If it were a few years ago, Capitalist roaders like her would have been Paraded with signs and big-character posters.”
Li Hong lowered her head, hiding her smug smile.
So what if Lu Jingyi came from a powerful family?
So what if Lu Jingyi was highly educated?
She was still being manipulated effortlessly. Her husband’s heart belonged to Li Hong, and even the child was in her hands.
Just then, the door to the room was suddenly pushed open.
Wang Pei had overheard their conversation from the doorway and was livid.
Seeing her and the doctor behind her, Xu Zhijun thought she had already discovered that Li Hong had switched the babies.
He asked cautiously, “Mom, what are you doing here?”
“If I hadn’t come, your wife would have been slandered to death. You’re a grown man standing here listening to people badmouth your wife, and you didn’t say a word. You’re utterly useless!” Wang Pei pointed directly at Xu Zhijun’s nose and scolded him.
Xu Zhijun: “…”
Li Hong felt sorry for him, but seeing Wang Pei’s fury, she also grew uneasy.
“Auntie, what brings you here?”
She held the baby tighter.
Had Lu Jingyi found out about the baby switch and come to take the child back?
No way!
Why shouldn’t her child have a better life?
Wang Pei strode to the bedside and pointed at Li Hong’s nose. “Stop with the sarcasm! When my daughter was about to give birth, her husband was in training, and she was all alone. She managed to get to the hospital by herself. How come you’re so delicate that the slightest commotion scares you to death?”
Li Hong immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
So she still didn’t know about the baby.
Li Hong said, “Auntie, this is my first time having a baby. I’m only human, of course I was scared.”
Sister Lin came over to pull Wang Pei aside. “Auntie, we’re all family. There’s no need to be so harsh.”
The other two chimed in to mediate, “Auntie, Li Hong just gave birth. Don’t frighten her.”
“Hah, isn’t my daughter also someone who just gave birth? If I hadn’t come over, I wouldn’t have known you were talking about my daughter behind her back like this. Which of your husbands hasn’t been treated by my daughter when they were injured or ill?”
The three military wives exchanged glances, all wearing somewhat awkward expressions.
Wang Pei snorted coldly and said, “I won’t get angry with you either. It’s no wonder you were deceived since you know nothing about the situation. I specifically brought the doctor here. Doctor, please explain why Li Hong went into labor prematurely. Was it because she took a labor-inducing drug?”