“What are you looking at me for? Pay up,” Jiang Lizhu said, meeting Gu Mingyan’s gaze. She couldn’t quite interpret the meaning in his eyes at that moment and guessed, “Is it… too expensive?”
It couldn’t possibly be that she was expected to pay, right?
“No, I brought enough money. Buy whatever you like,” Gu Mingyan said with a light chuckle, shaking his head. He stopped overthinking, paid promptly, and easily lifted the nearly full large net bag with one hand, following closely behind Jiang Lizhu.
“You said it yourself. There really are quite a few things we need to get for the house.”
Seeing how effortlessly Gu Mingyan handled the load, Jiang Lizhu knew she didn’t have to worry about him carrying everything back. She smiled at him, her eyes curving, and her long-suppressed desire to shop was completely unleashed.
They went from counter to counter on the first and second floors. Jiang Lizhu bought herself a pair of leather shoes and a pair of leather boots. She also picked up various odds and ends the household needed to restock, like toothpaste, soap, brown sugar, and other bits and pieces.
After leaving the supply and marketing cooperative, they ate dinner at a nearby state-run restaurant before slowly walking home.
The little baby had been changed once and had drunk a small bowl of infant formula prepared for him at the restaurant. He might not have had his fill, but he certainly wasn’t hungry anymore.
“He’s being very good, already asleep,” Gu Mingyan quietly explained to Jiang Lizhu, who kept glancing over. The little one had just fallen asleep against his chest.
“Let me see,” Jiang Lizhu said, stepping closer to Gu Mingyan. She reached out to feel the baby’s forehead and the back of his neck. No sweat, and his temperature seemed normal.
Gu Mingyan stopped walking. After Jiang Lizhu finished checking, she pulled a small cloth hat from her ever-present cloth bag and put it on the baby’s head.
This way, even though he was asleep, the evening breeze wouldn’t give him a chill.
Jiang Lizhu’s cloth bag didn’t look big, but it held a surprising amount: spare clothes for the baby, diapers, a water flask, a towel – everything was meticulous and thoughtful.
On their way back, they avoided the winding alleyways and took a different route. It took nearly forty minutes to reach the north gate of the residential compound.
Uninterested in socializing, Jiang Lizhu decisively took Gu Mingyan’s arm and led him into a small alley. They would enter home through the small east gate of the compound instead.
“This gate is open until eight in the evening. After eight, you have to use the north gate,” Jiang Lizhu said. She hadn’t gone out much since transmigrating into the book, but the memory held this information.
She didn’t need to guess that after the morning’s commotion, the compound residents would be very interested in them as a couple. If they really went in through the north gate, it might take them half an hour just to reach their door, even under the best circumstances.
“Venerable Gu, Venerable Jiang, you’re back! The old Lin family people were waiting for you for ages; they just left moments ago,” Granny Li called out, sticking her head out from her low window to greet Gu Mingyan and Jiang Lizhu.
“You don’t know the situation yet, do you? Around noon, the police station called Dean Chen. Throughout the afternoon, they summoned quite a few people to the station for questioning, one after another.”
Among them, naturally, was Lin Mojia, who had made such wild accusations in their small eastern courtyard. As a typical rumormonger, he was being detained, and it wasn’t yet known how long he would be held.
Granny Li felt quite vindicated. That young Lin fellow had even talked about tearing down the eastern courtyard and rebuilding it… Did he think the hospital didn’t want to demolish it? They just didn’t have the money!
Their eastern courtyard was indeed rundown. But those assigned to live here – single people could get small single rooms, families could get small suites, and there was the natural well in the backyard plus a shared kitchen available to all.
Without some connections or background within the hospital, you couldn’t even get assigned to the eastern courtyard.
Back then, Jiang Lizhu simply hadn’t wanted to live in the new eight-person dorms, so she used her connections in the logistics department to move here.
“Oh? Did they say how long he’ll be detained?” Jiang Lizhu stopped, genuinely interested in Lin Mojia’s misfortune. She actively walked over to Granny Li’s window to hear the details.
Several heads popped out from the shared kitchen as well. The doctors, nurses, and their family members from the other two households, who had just returned from work, each added a few words about the afternoon’s excitement at the hospital.
You could say there was widespread anxiety and unrest. In the year or so since Jiang Lizhu’s family fell from grace and she quickly entered into a military marriage, there were few who hadn’t whispered something about it privately.
Even the young master of the Lin family, the son of the Vice Dean, had been taken to the police station. For those with fewer connections, the consequences if they were singled out didn’t bear thinking about.
The usual gossip lovers were not only frightened and worried at work but also got scolded by their families when they got home. For a while at least, they wouldn’t dare spread any more rumors.
“Those of us living in this courtyard wouldn’t say such things recklessly,” Dr. Chen and the others assured Jiang Lizhu, patting their chests to demonstrate their innocence. “We just answered whatever the police asked.”
They, too, hadn’t expected Gu Mingyan and Jiang Lizhu to be so tough – actually following through on their threat to report it to the police, and the police taking the matter so seriously.
Dr. Chen and several others got off work more than an hour later than usual because they were pulled into a meeting for education. It was said the hospital’s senior leadership was still in a meeting and hadn’t gone home yet.
“That’s good. You all continue your dinner. I’ll go back to the room and check on the baby,” Jiang Lizhu said with a faint smile, ignoring their attempts to get her to stay, and turned to head back to her small single room.
While they had been enthusiastically discussing the gossip, Gu Mingyan had already taken the baby and the purchases inside to tidy up.
“You’re still wearing the carrier. Don’t move, let me undo it.”
Jiang Lizhu pushed the door shut, quickly walked behind Gu Mingyan, and undid the two straps. Only then did Gu Mingyan carefully pull the carrier straps down from his shoulders.
The little one stirred restlessly, moving his arms and legs, but Gu Mingyan immediately scooped him back into his arms and gently patted him. Jiang Lizhu came around to the front and took the baby back.
“I’ll try to feed him. You… can you help me boil some hot water in the shared kitchen? I want to properly wash my hair and take a bath,” Jiang Lizhu said. Since her postpartum confinement ended, taking care of the baby alone meant even bathing or using the toilet was a race against time.
A couple of times, she’d been halfway through washing her hair when the baby, bitten by mosquitoes that had gotten inside the net, woke up crying. She’d had to come out to soothe him and kill the mosquitoes without even rinsing the shampoo from her hair.
“Okay,” Gu Mingyan replied, his gaze sweeping over Jiang Lizhu’s slightly disgruntled expression and their son. He reached out, gently touched Jiang Lizhu’s hair, then turned and left the room for the shared kitchen to boil water.
Quite a few people were in the shared kitchen. He asked around and quickly figured out which items belonged to Jiang Lizhu.
As for the afternoon’s events at the hospital, Gu Mingyan had anticipated them. Granny Li and the others’ enthusiasm for gossip hadn’t waned yet, and they soon filled him in.
Inside the room, the little one indeed hadn’t been full. As soon as Jiang Lizhu started nursing, he woke up again and began suckling eagerly.
Once his tummy was full and he’d been burped, he went right back to sleep.
Jiang Lizhu let down the mosquito net and carefully checked inside, ensuring no mosquitoes had gotten in, before cautiously lifting a corner and getting out of bed.
Gu Mingyan had been very efficient. He soon returned with a bucket of hot water and thoughtfully mixed it with cold water for her.
“Wash your hair first. I’ll go boil more water and leave it outside the bathroom door for you,” Gu Mingyan said, taking the empty bucket and also carrying out the room’s empty thermos.
“Okay,” Jiang Lizhu replied, quickly unbraiding her single plait. She gathered her pajamas, towel, and shower cap and headed to the small bathroom, pulling the door mostly shut before starting to wash her hair.
Using soap to wash hair was too drying. Jiang Lizhu used the new herbal shampoo they’d bought at the supply and marketing cooperative. It was a specialty item for the Su City region, one of the products resulting from collaboration between local production teams and the cooperative.
In the book, after the reforms and opening up, Xiao Jinzhu (the female lead) happened upon the formula for this shampoo, started a factory, sold it nationwide, and made a considerable fortune from it.
Jiang Lizhu had no current interest in doing business, but since she’d come across this shampoo, which had received much praise in the book, at the cooperative, she naturally wanted to try it.
“The hot water is ready… Should I bring it in for you?” Gu Mingyan asked softly through the bathroom door. He could faintly hear Jiang Lizhu humming – no words, just a tune, but inexplicably pleasant.
“Come in,” Jiang Lizhu said. She had just finished her second rinse. Opening the door, she stepped aside for Gu Mingyan while drying her hair.
Gu Mingyan carried the bucket in and, sure enough, thoughtfully mixed the hot water with cold for her before leaving again.
“Keep an eye on the baby. Make sure not to let any mosquitoes in. He’s terrified of mosquito bites,” Jiang Lizhu instructed before closing the bathroom door again.
“Okay, I’ll be careful.”
Gu Mingyan replied, then walked to the bedside to look at his son. The baby was sleeping on the far inside of the bed, his little body twisted away, showing Gu Mingyan only a fuzzy view of the back of his head.
Meanwhile, Jiang Lizhu thoroughly enjoyed her hot bath, emerging in her very loose pajamas. “Do you want to rest a bit more, or go wash up now?”
While Jiang Lizhu was bathing, Gu Mingyan hadn’t been idle.
He had already sorted through the items from the net bag. Gifts for his parents and younger sister were placed in a separate net bag, the return gift for his old leader was set aside, and there were various odds and ends he wasn’t sure how to organize.
“These are for making clothes and bags. I’ll organize these myself,” Jiang Lizhu said, opening the large wooden box next to the sewing machine. Inside were leftover fabric, scraps, buttons, and other small notions.
“I’m not in a hurry. Let me help you,” Gu Mingyan said. He’d had a nap and truly didn’t feel tired. He helped Jiang Lizhu put everything away properly before taking his own clothes to the bathroom.
Jiang Lizhu followed him and stopped at the bathroom door to give him some pointers. “That shampoo is quite good. You can use it too. I opened a new bar of soap for you to use for your bath – it’s the green one.”
Before, there hadn’t been a spare new bar of soap at home. Now that they had some, naturally Gu Mingyan could use it. They would be sleeping in the same bed tonight. Since she had cleaned herself up so thoroughly, Gu Mingyan would have to be clean too.
The three-month-old baby wasn’t overlooked either. When he woke up two hours later, Jiang Lizhu, with Gu Mingyan’s help, gave him a thorough wash from head to toe.
“Feels good to be clean, doesn’t it? My little bunny with the red eyes,” Jiang Lizhu teased the tearful baby without hesitation. And this time, with Gu Mingyan’s help, she wasn’t left in a disheveled state, needing another bath herself.
The baby hadn’t cried during his bath, but when they washed his hair, water inevitably splashed into his eyes. He had cried for a good while.
“I’m going to eat the little bunny with the red eyes!” Jiang Lizhu growled playfully, but she couldn’t resist showering the clean, sweet-smelling baby with kisses.