Chapter 241: Qin Huairu Gives Birth to a Daughter

The winter of 1960 was especially cold. The wind cut like a knife, blowing through Beijing's streets and alleys and seeping into every corner of the Siheyuan where people lacked clothes and food and their hearts were in panic.

The harvest grew ever harder, and even bark became an object of scramble; hunger, like a festering ulcer, tormented everyone.

Amid this severe cold and scarcity, the Jia family in the Central Courtyard once again faced the stir of childbirth. Qin Huairu's belly ached for a day and night, her moans intermittent, tightening everyone's hearts.

If it had been two years earlier, Jia Zhangshi would most likely have insisted that Qin Huairu give birth at home to save the modest hospital fees.

But recently, officials from the street office's publicity section, megaphone in hand, repeatedly warned that nearby Alley had cases where women giving birth at home under poor conditions suffered dystocia, ending in a tragedy of one mother and two deaths, painting a vivid picture that left people uneasy.

Even the usually stingy Jia Zhangshi, hearing his daughter‑in‑law's increasingly weak whimpers, felt his heart race. If something went wrong, he wouldn't pity Qin Huairu; he feared being blamed and, more so, feared that his son's line of succession would be cut off.

"Dongxu! Go! Quickly call your master!" Jia Zhangshi nudged the numb‑looking Jia Dongxu squatting at the doorway, "Make him find a way and get her to the hospital! Quickly!"

Jia Dongxu snapped out of his daze, stumbling to Yi Zhonghai's house, babbling the situation incoherently.

Yi Zhonghai's brows knit into a knot. Deep down he didn't want to deal with the Jia family's mess, especially one that cost money and effort.

But as the First Elder of the courtyard and Jia Dongxu's master, a mishap would reflect on him. With a grim face, he summoned two fairly sturdy young men from the Front Courtyard: "You two, go to the Old Zhang's House in the neighboring Alley, borrow his dung‑cart, spread some dry straw on it, and rush her to the hospital!"

He glanced again at the gathered neighbors, including Yan Bu Gui and Liu Haizhong who had come after hearing the commotion, and added, "We are all neighbors; distant kin are less reliable than close ones. When one side is in trouble, all eight directions should lend aid! Neighbors must help each other."

After a flurry of chaotic scrambling, Qin Huairu was lifted onto the foul‑smelling donkey cart, which creaked and rattled as it was hauled to the hospital in the cold wind.

Jia Dongxu and Yi Zhonghai followed, while Jia Zhangshi stayed behind, claiming he needed to watch Bang Geng at home. The young helpers, after delivering her to the hospital entrance and seeing her taken inside, immediately turned back to the Siheyuan, fearing contamination.

The nurse asked the family for payment; Jia Dongxu, fidgeting, said to Yi Zhonghai, "Master, we rushed out and forgot the money. Did you bring any? Lend me some to pay the fee, and I'll repay you when we get home."

Yi Zhonghai looked at his emaciated disciple, his hollow eyes, and sighed, "You stay here; I'll go pay." He then went to the payment desk to hand over the money.

In the early hours of the night, news came from the hospital: Qin Huairu had given birth to a daughter.

When the frail Qin Huairu and the tiny newborn, as small as a kitten, were pulled back to the courtyard by the donkey cart, dawn was already faintly breaking.

Jia Zhangshi had been waiting at the doorway; upon hearing it was a girl, his old face collapsed instantly, his slanted eyes filled with unabashed disappointment and disgust.

"Useless girl!" she spat, not even glancing at her daughter‑in‑law or granddaughter, turned and rushed back into her own house, slamming the door with a deafening bang, truly ignoring the newly delivered, nearly exhausted Qin Huairu and the crying infant.

The women in the courtyard who had risen early to tend the urinals and stoke the furnace, upon seeing the scene, exchanged glances. Someone stepped forward cautiously and asked, "Jia Zhangshi, what was born? A grandson or a granddaughter?"

Jia Zhangshi muttered a grumbling curse from inside the house, refusing to answer.

Everyone, seeing her reaction, saw clearly in their hearts. "Surely it's a girl!" someone whispered, "Look at her conduct; if it were a grandson, the whole courtyard would have been shouting by now!"

"Exactly, earlier they bragged that Huairu's appearance foretold a son, and the result? Bah!"

In the whispered gossip, there was a hint of schadenfreude. Jia Zhangshi's past boasts about a "great grandson" now turned into jokes that backfired on her.

Jia Dongxu stared at his wife, collapsed on the kang, her face waxen and lacking the strength to speak, then at the wrinkled, weak‑crying daughter, and heard the mother's curses inside and the courtyard's chatter outside, feeling an overwhelming sense of helplessness envelop him.

He still had to rush to work, and Yi Zhonghai, yawning, was also preparing to leave; the two exchanged a glance, seeing fatigue and resignation in each other's eyes.

"First Aunt," Yi Zhonghai instructed his own wife, "You... go over and lend a hand, look after things." He couldn't be completely ruthless, but his help stopped at merely "lending a hand."

First Aunt sighed, responded, and carried a bowl of warm water to the Jia household.

In the Xi Kua Yuan, Li Ping'an also heard the commotion outside. He stood by the window, watching the silent tragedy in the Central Courtyard, his brows slightly furrowed.

The misogynistic folly of preferring sons, magnified by survival pressure into stark cruelty, made him grateful that he had once insisted on sending Lin Xueqing to the hospital, and reinforced his resolve to protect his family's hard‑won stability.

Yet the harsh reality extended far beyond that. While ordinary families worried about births, food, and daily hardships, a shadow on another front was quietly spreading.

In the afternoon, Wang Dahu brought unsettling news again.

"Director, the City Bureau Technical Investigation Department has a new finding," Wang Dahu lowered his voice, a hint of excitement and gravity on his face, "They have conducted finer location analysis on the recently intercepted enemy signals. Though the signals remain erratic, the area with higher frequency is pinpointed near the East City Cotton Alley! Moreover, the coded content is more specific; they frequently report on several large state‑owned factories in our city, detailing raw material inventories and finished‑goods exports, especially... parts involving defense orders!"

"Cotton Alley!" Li Ping'an's eyes hardened. It was not far from the Steel Rolling Mill, with a complex resident population, indeed a good hiding spot. Moreover, the target was strikingly precise, directly pointing at the lifeline of defense production!

"Seems they're impatient," Li Ping'an said coldly, "How much do they know about the situation in our plant?"

"From the decrypted fragments, they appear to have some scattered information, but it's incomplete, as if corroborating from multiple sources."

Wang Dahu replied, "Additionally, surveillance on the Trust Store line revealed that the employee has been acting oddly lately, circling the area after work, seemingly observing something. We suspect he may have received new orders, or is preparing for a larger operation."

Li Ping'an stepped to the map, his finger landing on the Cotton Alley location. The enemy's tendrils seemed even closer. They were like moles hidden in the dark, constantly digging, trying to find the weakest link.

And the chaos from the Jia family's childbirth tonight, with people coming and going in the courtyard, might have offered prying eyes an opportunity to spy.

He felt the pressure on his shoulders surge suddenly. On one side, ordinary courtyard residents struggled with hunger and hardship, a newborn arriving amid indifference; on the other, hidden enemies watched hungrily, aiming to sabotage the industrial production that sustains the nation's lifeline.

These two seemingly unrelated threads were both tied to the word "survival."

"Increase covert investigations in the Cotton Alley area, focusing on unfamiliar faces and suspicious radio signal sources. Keep a close watch on that person at the Trust Store, but ensure absolute secrecy; I need to know what he's looking for, or what he's waiting for," Li Ping'an ordered, his voice steady yet decisive.

Night fell again, the Siheyuan returned to silence, only the tireless howling of the cold wind. From the Jia household came the faint wail of the newborn girl and Qin Huairu's suppressed sobs.

In the Xi Kua Yuan, Li Ping'an watched his sleeping wife and son, his gaze piercing the window and drifting into the heavy darkness outside.

Birth and death, hope and despair, protection and destruction, intertwined inside and outside this modest courtyard, forming a heavy, complex tableau of the early 1960s.

He knew he had to be like a nail, firmly driven here, to block the wind‑blades and frost‑swords from outside and to stay alert for internal termites.

This long struggle was far from over. And the "Shopkeeper" hidden near Cotton Alley was like a malignant tumor that must be removed quickly.