People in this era tended to be quite deferential during meals. For instance, the best dishes would be reserved first for the elderly or the household’s main breadwinners.
To put it bluntly, that meant the old folks and the men.
Even if you were the pillar of the family, as a woman, your status was still considered inferior.
In many places, women weren’t even allowed to eat at the table—a telling example.
Leng Hui didn’t subscribe to such notions. In the post-apocalyptic world she came from, the rule she firmly believed in was distribution according to labor. Since two people from the main branch brought home wages, she had every right to eat meat.
At most, she could be generous and share a plate of meat equally with the second branch.
Such behavior, however, stood out as incongruous in the Leng Family.
Throughout the meal, Sun Xiaojuan shot countless dirty looks her way, but Leng Hui simply ignored them.
Old Lady Leng was even more aggrieved than the amount of food she had eaten; she suspected this meal would give her indigestion.
“Since Xiaomei’s leg is injured and she needs to rest, from now on, Hui Hui, you’ll be in charge of washing the dishes after meals,” Sun Xiaojuan declared, unable to stand seeing Leng Hui lounging in her chair, full and content, without lifting a finger.
Leng Hui pushed herself up lazily, stood, and lifted her eyelids with a smile as she refused, “Sorry, but I need to hurry back to take care of my mom. If I’m late, the cafeteria might run out of nutritional porridge.”
She walked to the doorway but suddenly stopped and turned back to look at Sun Xiaojuan. “Oh, that’s right, Auntie. You’re well aware my mom is in the hospital, and the doctor recommended she eat easily digestible food. Yet, every time I come back, you never make porridge. That’s really not right—people might think you’re deliberately keeping my mom from having a single bowl of porridge from home.”
“Don’t you dare slander me! You never tell us in advance when you’re coming back for meals. You always show up unexpectedly—how am I supposed to prepare porridge for your mom?” Sun Xiaojuan fumed, her chest heaving. She had never met someone so shameless.
Leng Hui didn’t respond and turned to leave.
With no outlet for her anger, Sun Xiaojuan turned to blame Leng Yongkang. “Elder Brother, when did your girl become so brazen? She’s utterly lacking in upbringing! Look at how she’s ruined a perfectly good meal. Unwilling to do housework, too lazy to even shift her backside—the moment you ask her to work, she bolts faster than anyone. It’s like we owed you from a past life!”
Leng Yongkang’s face darkened as his sister-in-law pointed her finger and lectured him. “You can’t blame her for this. Xiaolin is waiting for her care at the hospital. If you’re capable, just handle a bit more work—it’s not a big deal. Is it really better to stir up trouble and make the whole household restless?”
With that, he kicked the stool Leng Yongxing was sitting on, turned, lifted the door curtain, and entered the partitioned room.
But as soon as the curtain fell back into place, Leng Mei’s frantic shriek came from inside.
“Ah! Uncle, you kicked my foot!”
Leng Yongkang felt guilty but tried to sound tough: “What are you doing sitting by the doorway instead of lying in bed? Don’t you have anything better to do?”
Sun Xiaojuan and Leng Yongxing rushed in.
“What are you doing sitting here, child? It’s dark in here—if someone’s blind enough not to watch where they’re going, who else would they kick but you?” Sun Xiaojuan snapped, aiming her words indirectly at Leng Yongkang.
Fuming but unable to retort, Leng Yongkang flicked his sleeve and retreated into his own partitioned room.
A real man doesn’t fight with a woman!
“Mom, my leg hurts,” Leng Mei whimpered, her voice trembling with tears.
Sun Xiaojuan was as frantic as an ant on a hot pan. “Does it hurt badly now? Has it eased up a bit?”
Leng Mei was in so much pain that cold sweat broke out on her forehead, but the pain was gradually subsiding. She knew that if she suggested going to the hospital for a check-up now, Old Lady Leng would absolutely refuse.
“It’s not as bad as before.”
Sun Xiaojuan breathed a sigh of relief. “Then it shouldn’t be too serious. Rest a while longer. If you feel better, lie down on the bed and don’t get up unless necessary.”
“When I get back from work this afternoon, if it still hurts badly, I’ll carry you to the hospital for a check-up.”
But as soon as Leng Yongxing finished speaking, Old Lady Leng’s scolding voice came from outside. “Check-up, check-up! Do you think this family is rolling in money? Can’t even handle a little pain? What use are you then? I might as well cut off a piece of my own flesh to make soup for you!”
Once Old Lady Leng started yelling, Leng Yongxing and his wife immediately fell silent.
Leng Mei secretly seethed with resentment. With parents who couldn’t stand up for themselves, in this male-dominated family, she had to fight for every advantage herself. Over time, it wore down both her body and spirit.
This kind of life was truly exhausting.
The warm spring sun shone over the land. By the time Leng Hui reached the hospital, a thin layer of sweat had formed on her skin. As soon as she entered the inpatient building, a chill seeped through her clothes and into her bones.
Leng Hui instinctively pulled her coat tighter and hurried up the stairs. Panting slightly, she began to feel less cold.
Walking along the corridor of the surgical inpatient ward, occasional voices drifted from the rooms on either side. Tang Lin’s room also had voices talking, but Leng Hui didn’t pay attention to what they were saying.
However, when she pushed open the door to the ward, the conversation inside abruptly stopped, and several pairs of eyes turned to her.
Leng Hui scanned the room. Besides the two patients and their family members who had been there in the morning, there was now a new patient and family member in the middle bed.
But the way they were looking at her was somewhat strange.
Not knowing these people, Leng Hui merely glanced at them casually before walking over to sit by Tang Lin’s bed.
Noticing the stares fixed on her back, Leng Hui asked Tang Lin, “What’s going on? Why do they keep staring at me?”
Leng Hui didn’t lower her voice, and those who had been secretly watching her awkwardly averted their gazes. Some even scratched their heads in embarrassment.
Tang Lin glanced at the others and smiled. “It’s nothing. How are things at home?”
Leng Hui raised an eyebrow. Clearly, something was up, but since Tang Lin didn’t want to talk about it, she didn’t press further. Instead, she started recounting the situation at home.
“I thought there would be an uproar from the second branch after we brought Leng Mei back. It seems we overestimated them.”
However, upon hearing that they had preserved meat for lunch, Tang Lin felt a craving. She couldn’t even remember how many years it had been since she last ate preserved meat.
Leng Hui comforted her, “I told them that when Leng Mei was discharged, they prepared a table of dishes to celebrate. When you’re discharged, they should do the same, and you can eat your fill then.”
“If the doctor hadn’t suggested I stay a few more days to recover better, I would have wanted to be discharged tomorrow.”
After chatting for a while, Leng Hui helped Tang Lin to the restroom. Then, mother and daughter squeezed onto the same hospital bed for a short nap.
The patients and family members in the other two beds were considerate. Seeing that someone was resting, they kept their voices down.
In the afternoon, after waking up and washing her face, a Da Niang from the adjacent bed warmly brought out some jicama to share with everyone. Leng Hui received the largest one.
Leng Hui stared blankly at the jicama in her hand, weighing it to find it was about half a kilogram. This Da Niang was quite generous.
“They’re all homegrown, nothing valuable. Try it, girl—it’s crispy, sweet, and very refreshing.”
The auntie in the next bed, having received a medium-sized jicama for free, felt a bit embarrassed and struck up a conversation with her.
Learning that Da Niang was actually a year younger than her, the two quickly started calling each other sisters and even spilled all their family details.
Leng Hui peeled the jicama while listening to their chat.
From their conversation, she learned that the auntie in the next bed was fifty-one years old, and the patient lying in the bed was her niece from her maiden family. Since her maiden family lived in the countryside and found it inconvenient to come to the hospital to care for the patient, they had asked her, as the aunt, to help look after the girl for a few days.
The Da Niang in the adjacent bed was also from the countryside. The patient in her bed was her eldest daughter-in-law. She had three sons—the first two were already married, while the youngest had been in the military all along and remained unmarried.
Da Niang had been worrying endlessly about her youngest son’s marriage, and before long, the topic shifted to Leng Hui.
“My son is truly outstanding—tall, handsome, and he’s been in the military for seven or eight years without ever getting into a relationship. Young lady, you look quite nice and would be a good match for my son. How about I introduce you two?”
Leng Hui had been waiting to enjoy some gossip, only to find herself becoming the subject of it. The jicama she had just brought to her lips—should she eat it or not?