Yan Yincheng was taken aback. He didn't expect to hear this news at this crucial moment.
His mother, Ms. Yin Shulan, had followed Xie Shi to Haicheng. What for? Of course, to gather information.
He hadn't hidden from Yan Haikun the fact that he and "Yuan Xi" had two children. As his mother, Ms. Yin naturally knew about it too. He just couldn't figure out why his mother, such a cold and aloof person, would do such a thing. It was really out of character for her.
Yan Yincheng said, "Why didn't you stop her? I said I'd handle things here in Haicheng myself. After the project is over, I'll definitely bring them back."
Yan Haikun snorted, "I did want to stop her, but she even managed to hide from me. She secretly followed Xie Shi while I was busy!"
"You're really useless. Your own wife has to sneak away from you. It seems you're not much of a husband," Yan Yincheng said coldly.
Yan Haikun got angry, "You're even more useless. You can't even win back your own wife, and you've let my two little grandchildren live away from home. If I didn't have to stay in Fengcheng to sort out your mess, I'd have gone to Haicheng to bring them back long ago!"
"Who says I can't win her back? I'm different from you," Yan Yincheng said. Just thinking about how Xu Zixi had fed him mushrooms on her own initiative just now made his eyes light up with joy.
Not wanting to reveal too much about himself, Yan Yincheng simply hung up the phone.
On the other end of the phone, Yan Haikun was left hanging, waiting for his next words. He was so angry that he started cursing:
"What the hell? Where's the rest? Just gone like that? Whose temper does this kid have? So annoying!"
Steward Pang silently looked up at the sky beside him: Isn't it just like yours?
The black business car drove into the hospital. Yan Yincheng took the elevator to the obstetrics department and continued to learn about pregnancy. The doctor had arranged for him to talk to a mother-to-be with twins and a patient with postpartum depression today.
In the ward, a woman with an extremely large belly was struggling to lean on the hospital bed. She told Yan Yincheng how she felt:
"At first, when I found out I was having twins, I felt like I'd won the lottery or been hit by a pie from the sky. I was so happy and excited. Twins! What a dream come true for so many people. But as the babies grew bigger in my belly, I felt more and more pain..."
"The two babies together made my belly twice as big as others. It was very inconvenient for me to move around, and I felt so tired. I couldn't catch my breath whether I was sitting or lying down. I had pain in my pubic bone, sciatic nerve, legs... everywhere..."
"I had no appetite and couldn't eat anything, but I had to eat for the babies. If I ate too little, I was afraid the babies would be hungry. If I ate too much, I'd feel uncomfortable myself. It was so hard."
"What's even more painful is that I couldn't sleep at night. The babies were too heavy. No matter how many positions I tried, I still felt tired. My feet were swollen and hard. I couldn't fit into any of my shoes, and it was very difficult for me to walk."
"All in all, I just want to give birth to the babies quickly. If this goes on, I'll even feel like dying."
The mother-to-be's words were full of complaints. She sighed after every sentence and groaned in pain from time to time.
After thanking the mother-to-be, Yan Yincheng immediately went to another ward to visit a patient with postpartum depression. This patient had been admitted to the hospital after a failed suicide attempt with her baby. When Yan Yincheng explained his purpose to her, she said in a lifeless voice:
"Life is so tiring. I shouldn't have given birth to the baby. Everyone thinks I can't take good care of it. Everyone is blaming me for doing this wrong and that wrong. But I'm a first-time mother. How can I satisfy everyone?"
"I feel like I didn't give birth to the baby for myself. I gave birth to it for his parents. Everyone doted on me when I first got married, but everything changed after I gave birth. I even had to watch people's faces when I ate. Hahaha..."
"I shouldn't have given birth to the baby. Life is just suffering."
...
After leaving the ward and standing in the corridor, Yan Yincheng propped his chest with his hands on his blind stick and let out a sigh of frustration.
The doctor beside him said, "Don't take it to heart. Patients affected by depression are like this. She doesn't really want to die. As long as she receives treatment and her hormone levels return to normal, she'll recover."
Before, when he didn't understand these things, he always thought Yuan Xi wasn't qualified to be the mother of the two children. It was her fault that she gave birth to them but couldn't raise them well. But now it seemed that it was already the limit of what she could do to give birth to the two children alone and raise them to such an age.
When people are in trouble, they usually face many choices and temptations. Whether to stay true to themselves or choose to degenerate, whether to ask for help or persevere. But no matter which choice they make and what the outcome is, they shouldn't be too harshly criticized.
Just like Fang Ruiyang's mother. Zixi said she had finally chosen to degenerate for the sake of livelihood, but Fang Ruiyang still loved her and was willing to take risks to save her. Who could say she wasn't a good mother?
Zixi had been right to scold him in the infirmary that day. Compared to the torture women have to go through during childbirth, his minor aches and pains and his unrequited love were really insignificant.
Suddenly, a shrill cry came from the right. Yan Yincheng was stunned and asked the doctor:
"What's going on over there?"
The doctor led Yan Yincheng and Wei Shu towards the direction of the sound. When they got there, they found out that it was a woman in the second trimester of pregnancy. Her baby had been developing smoothly in her belly at first, but for some unknown reason, during the 21st-week prenatal check-up, it was found that the baby's heartbeat had stopped. Naturally, she had to have an operation to remove the fetus. After the operation, feeling her empty belly, the woman couldn't hold back her emotions and broke down crying.
The doctor was used to this scene and didn't say anything. He led Yan Yincheng and Wei Shu away. When they reached a quiet place, Yan Yincheng stopped the doctor and asked:
"Why did this happen?"
Seeing his sincere attitude, the doctor patiently explained, "There are too many factors that can cause the fetus to stop developing. Maybe there's a problem with the baby's genes, maybe it's affected by external factors, or it could be due to the mother herself."
"I thought..."
The doctor said, "During the ten months of pregnancy, every mother is on tenterhooks because you never know when an accident will happen. I've even encountered a situation where..."
He looked at Yan Yincheng's blind eyes and said, "All the prenatal check-up indicators are normal, and the mother herself is very careful, but the baby is born with a physical defect. Life is so unpredictable and full of jokes."
When they left in the car, the atmosphere inside the car was extremely heavy. Even Wei Shu didn't say a word for once.
Yan Yincheng twirled an amulet with his fingers. The doctor's last words made him think of himself, his eyes, and his mother.
She was Yan Haikun's second wife. She was already quite old when she married him. She must have been looking forward to his arrival when she found out she was pregnant, right? How did she feel when she found out there was something wrong with his eyes? Would a person like her cry out loud like the women in the ward and regret not being more careful during pregnancy?
She never gave up and took him everywhere to seek medical treatment. While trying to find a way to cure his eyes, she also made him work hard to overcome the obstacle of blindness and become a strong and useful person. He really owed a lot to Ms. Yin for his achievements today.
Regardless of whether she did all this because she loved him or because she wanted to secure her position as the wife of the chairman of the Yan Corporation, he owed her a "thank you".
"Wei Shu," he suddenly called out.
"Yes, Third Master?" Wei Shu turned around. "Do you have any instructions?"
"Help me prepare some gifts and flowers. I'm going to visit Ms. Yin tomorrow morning," Yan Yincheng said.
Wei Shu nodded. "Okay, Third Master."