Bang...
A loud noise erupted in a small department store located in the city's central commercial square.
Bai Xue, who should have headed home after work, had left her house key at the department store she opened less than six months ago. Just within the brief ten minutes she entered to retrieve her key, a gas explosion occurred in the supermarket's employee rest area.
The sensation of burning flames flickered away in an instant, leaving Bai Xue unconscious.
When she woke up again, the first thing she felt was cold, so cold that she trembled involuntarily. Darkness enveloped her vision, accompanied by the howling wind echoing from outside and...
"Ah... I can't go on, it hurts, it hurts so much. Aunt San, Daliang, I... I can't give birth... I have no strength left!" A woman's voice struggling in childbirth.
Bai Xue listened to this heart-wrenching scream in a daze.
"Cuihua, hang in there! It'll be out soon!" At this moment, a man spoke up, "You can't just stop giving birth, can you?"
"Cuihua, push a little harder! You're having twins, you can't delay any longer!" The woman called Aunt San also spoke anxiously.
Ha, what's going on? Someone's giving birth, and to twins?
"Aunt San, I haven't eaten much in days. I'm exhausted, can't muster any strength... boohoo..." The woman giving birth cried with a hoarse voice.
Why not eat? For dieting? Bai Xue silently retorted.
"Daliang, does the house have nothing left to eat?" Aunt San asked the man.
"There really isn't anything left; today, the kids didn't even get to eat. Xiao Xue secretly went up the mountain to find food for her younger siblings and slipped, hasn't woken up yet. We couldn't even find a doctor for her. It's my fault as a father, all my fault..." The man named Daliang self-reproached. Listening to his voice, one could tell he was in great pain.
Ha, so it's not about dieting but having nothing to eat? This man is truly useless, letting his wife and children go hungry.
"What a sin, Grandma Bai doesn't want your family to live!" Aunt San complained in frustration, "Daliang, go grab a handful of cornmeal from my house to cook porridge for your wife, how can she give birth without strength?"
"Okay, okay, I'll go right away, thank you Aunt San, thank you Aunt San..." The man said excitedly and ran out.
The woman's voice softly groaned, sounding particularly painful.
Bai Xue listened to all of this, thinking she was dreaming? But the cold wind told her she wasn't dreaming in the slightest; these cries were indeed real.
"Could it be that there's childbirth in hell too? Giving birth to ghost babies?" Bai Xue murmured.
Because she was sure she had died, a gas explosion, not dying would be strange.
The cold wind pulled Bai Xue's thoughts back; she confirmed she was lying on a kang bed, a clay bed, yet it was very cold, covered with a quilt that was thin and stiff, offering no warmth at all, her entire body shivering, making her want to get up and move around.
But when she exerted herself to try getting up, her whole body felt like it had fallen apart, aching too much to muster any strength.
Ghosts shouldn't feel pain though, so she's still alive, but lying in such a place left her baffled, not knowing what had happened.
Unable to get up, she could only attempt to tug at the thin blanket of little use on her, eyes wide open seeing nothing, listening to the cries across.
Seriously, giving birth without lighting a lamp, don't they know to close the window? So cold, do they not feel it? But then again, a family that can't even eat might not afford the electric bill.
"Cuihua, did your mother-in-law come again to loot your home?" Aunt San spoke again, possibly afraid the pregnant woman couldn't hold on and faint, initiating conversation.
"A few days ago, my mother-in-law came, said my younger brother-in-law's family couldn't make ends meet, and her old couple were starving, took away the last few kilograms of grain and dried vegetables from our house," the pregnant woman weakly said.
"This Grandma Bai, favoring is one thing, but not to this extent! There are so many children in your family, and with another on the way, how can she be so ruthless? Aren't these under this roof her grandchildren? Isn't Daliang her son?"
Turns out the malicious Grandma Bai is this pregnant woman's mother-in-law? Actually robbing the pregnant woman's food, truly audacious.
Aunt San bitterly complained, "Giving birth, unable even to have a meal, and can't light a kerosene lamp, truly..."
Kerosene lamp? Bai Xue was startled; who still uses kerosene lamps nowadays? Shouldn't it be electric lights?
She carefully combined everything she'd heard since waking and felt the real pain coming from her body.
Could it be that she didn't die, but reborn? She continued listening to the conversation between the two while enduring the trembling cold.
"I originally saved some kerosene for when I gave birth, but the day my mother-in-law found it, she took it all..."
As the two talked, the man ran back breathing heavily, starting to clang about cooking corn porridge in the outer room.
It seemed there were a few children chirping beside him.
Bai Xue rolled her eyes internally, how could this family live like this? Also, the mother-in-law is too malicious, isn't she? Wait, what did the man say? He said Xiao Xue went up the mountain to find food for her siblings and slipped? Yet to wake up?
Could it be she's reborn in the body of a girl named Xiao Xue? Just like the snow character in her own name!
Bai Xue thought and reached out to feel this new body of hers, skinny arms and legs.
She was never this skinny, originally having a slightly plump figure, but upon touching, it felt like skin and bones.
Just as Bai Xue was ridiculing herself for looking like a monkey in this new body, the man finished cooking the corn porridge and came in, perhaps this body was starving, just smelling the food's aroma filled her stomach with hunger, saliva almost drenching her.
"Come, Cuihua, hurry eat! So you can muster the strength to deliver the babies!"
"Daliang, have the children come in! It's dark anyway, they can't see anything! The outer room is too cold, I'm afraid they'll catch a cold, what then?" The pregnant woman still cared about the other kids.
Supposedly, they have a bunch of kids; how many are there exactly? Although Bai Xue lay uncomfortably on the clay kang bed, she still pondered this family's affairs.
The outside wind howled, with the inside leaking everywhere, in such dire circumstances, not being sent to a hospital for childbirth, and relying on a kerosene lamp... Considering all this, it seems she's reborn in a backward time and space.
"Sure, you eat, I'll have the kids come in to sleep!" The man named Daliang went out, shortly bringing several kids back.
Bai Xue couldn't see exactly how many; anyway, several climbed onto the kang, possibly having been told by the man, they quietly lay down without making any noise.
But Bai Xue still heard the sound of swallowing, perhaps they'd been hungry for a long time too, smelling the corn porridge from across, drooling.
"Daliang, give each child a bite, then I'll eat what's left!" The pregnant woman spoke up, wanting to share her food with the kids after they came in.
Bai Xue wanted to have a bite too but before she could react, a dull pain hit her head, then she lost all sensation, fainting again.
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