Chapter 117: Complaining Without Reason
Chapter 117: Complaining Without Reason
The two women chat about Liu Yuan's strength as they return to Anran's house. Before the children wake up, they sit on the sofa, share a box of biscuits, and eat together. Then, they squeeze into the nursery to sleep next to the children.
During the night, Doll wakes up again. In order not to disturb Hengheng, Anran carefully takes Doll back to the master bedroom. After feeding her and changing her diaper, she stays in the master bedroom, watching Doll fall back to sleep.
In a few days, Doll will be a full month old. She won’t wake up every hour anymore. Doll now sleeps longer at night, waking more frequently during the day. Anran has gotten used to this new routine. It could be because something has changed in her body, or perhaps she has simply become a lighter sleeper since becoming a mother.
As soon as Doll makes the slightest sound, Anran immediately wakes up. Now, with Doll asleep, Anran feels wide awake, unable to fall back to sleep.
The bright moonlight outside the window catches her attention. Anran sits up, gazing at Doll sleeping beside her. She turns, reaches for Doll's growth journal from the bedside table, and opens the first page.
The first thing she sees is a black-and-white B-ultrasound photo. Beneath the photo, Anran has written, "Baby is three months old," followed by the date—three days after she received the divorce agreement from her ex-husband.
The pages that follow are filled with small details Anran has recorded during her pregnancy. She notes whether she vomited that day, how many times, what she ate, her prenatal check-up experiences, which hospitals she chose, and which ones were more comfortable or uncomfortable. She also recorded things like Doll kicking, how many times, her frequent urination, gestational hypertension, gestational diabetes, the diet prescribed by the doctor, and all sorts of complaints about Zhan Lian.
From when Anran first discovered she was pregnant until the day before giving birth, when she began to feel more regular contractions, the journal is filled with all sorts of little details. She can’t help but laugh at herself, looking through it in the moonlight, mocking her own petty complaints and trivial matters during her pregnancy.
These so-called discomforts during pregnancy, along with the endless trivialities after Doll is born, seem insignificant in comparison to the true hardships.
She then takes out a pen and writes about Doll’s birth details in the journal: Doll’s birth date and time, weight, and then, at the end of the page, Anran writes a sentence, almost like a summary:
Husband, I wonder if you are still alive? I will take care of our daughter and live well. If you are alive, I hope you can find happiness. Thank you for the car and the knife. They have been very useful.
As the sky gradually brightens, Anran looks out the window. White clouds float above the dark green lake, and the sun rises in the east, casting a beautiful orange glow.
At the edge of Xiangcheng, Zhan Lian stands in front of a car, wearing military boots and jungle combat pants, with only a short-sleeved T-shirt on his upper body. He has a dark green camouflage headscarf tied around his head, a cigarette in one hand, and he is bent over, studying a map spread on the front of the car.
The map is an outdated one of Xiangcheng from two years ago, which he just retrieved from a telephone booth. Behind him, in the bright sunlight, Lao Mao approaches, holding two guns in his hands and a cigarette in his mouth. He climbs onto the roof of the car and hands one of the guns to Zhan Lian.