Major Heavy Industry: Starting with a Fake Marriage

Chapter 48 Tears Flowed

Zheng Yanxi didn't speak again. She lowered her head and continued reading, but her eyes didn't move, and she couldn't concentrate on a single word. Cicadas were chirping outside the window, one after another, their chirping annoying. She reached for the ink bottle, intending to screw the cap on, but her finger slipped, the bottle fell over, and ink spilled all over the table, soaking the half-written letter.

"Ouch—" She quickly went to help, getting ink all over her hand.

Jiang Cheng ran out of the kitchen and grabbed a rag to wipe the table. The two of them tidied up for a long time in a flurry, and the writing on the letter was already blurred into a mess, with only a few words still faintly visible—"Waiting for you to come back," "It's hot," "I miss you."

Zheng Yanxi's face flushed red. She crumpled the letter into a ball and stuffed it into her pocket: "Don't read it."

Jiang Cheng didn't say anything, just smiled, and turned back to the kitchen. The pot lid on the stove crackled from the steam, and the firelight reflected on his face, casting his long, narrow shadow on the wall.

In the days that followed, Jiang Cheng didn't go anywhere. Every morning, he would get up early to make breakfast for Zheng Yanxi and then accompany her to work at the factory's medical station. Station Chief Liu had specially prepared a small room behind the medical station, made up a bed, so that Zheng Yanxi could rest for a while at noon. Jiang Cheng would sit on the stool by the door reading a book. Occasionally, when someone came to see a doctor, he would stand up to let them have their turn, and then sit down again after they left.

The medical station reeked of Lysol, mixed with the sweet, fishy smell of cotton swabs and adhesive tape. A sign on the wall read, "Prevention First, Treatment Second," the red paper faded and curled at the edges. A row of medicine bottles, large and small, high and low, sat on the windowsill, sunlight refracting them into a kaleidoscope of colors.

The days passed slowly, like brewing Chinese medicine, dripping down drop by drop. But Jiang Cheng felt at peace. Sometimes he would sit there, watching Zheng Yanxi, her belly protruding, taking patients' blood pressure and giving them injections, her movements clumsy but earnest, and a feeling he couldn't quite describe would well up inside him—not heartache, nor pride, but something deeper, heavier, like a lead weight weighing on his chest, yet as light as cotton.

On the night of August 28th, Zheng Yanxi started to feel pain.

At first, the pain was mild, like menstrual cramps, and she didn't pay much attention. But by midnight, the pain had intensified. She bit her lip, remaining silent, her hands gripping the sheets until her knuckles turned white. Jiang Cheng was awakened by her movements, turned on the light, and saw that her forehead was covered in sweat and her lips were white from being bitten.

"Yanxi?"

"It's okay...it'll probably be soon." Her voice was steady, but her hands were trembling.

Jiang Cheng jumped out of bed, pulled on his pants, and ran downstairs. It was the dead of night, and the factory area was pitch black, with only a few streetlights casting a dim yellow glow, like weary eyes. He reached the factory gate and knocked on the door of Old Liu, the gatekeeper.

"Uncle Liu, could I borrow your phone?"

Old Liu opened the door in a daze. Jiang Cheng dialed the number for the Municipal Maternity Hospital, and it rang more than a dozen times before someone answered.

"My wife is about to give birth! Could you send a car to pick her up?"

"The cars have already left, so you can deliver them yourselves."

Jiang Cheng hung up the phone and stood at the door, catching his breath. A cool night breeze blew by, and his back was already soaked with sweat. He turned and ran back, his shoes crunching on the gravel, the sound particularly clear in the empty factory area.

Back inside, Zheng Yanxi was already sitting up and getting dressed. Her hands were trembling slightly; she buttoned her clothes incorrectly and then unbuttoned them, then buttoned them incorrectly again.

"Don't rush, take your time." Jiang Cheng squatted down and helped her button up the buttons one by one. His fingers were a little uncooperative, and it took him several tries to button them up.

He helped her down the stairs. With each step, she would stop and take a few deep breaths. When they reached the corner on the second floor, she suddenly stopped, leaning against the wall, her face as white as paper.

"No...it's happening again."

Jiang Cheng supported her, feeling her body trembling. His hand pressed against her back, and through her clothes, he could feel her spine, vertebra by vertebra, like beads on a rosary. The hallway was dark, with only a sliver of moonlight filtering through the cracks in the window, illuminating her face, making it appear deathly pale.

After the pain subsided, she straightened up and wiped the sweat from her forehead: "Let's go."

At the factory gate, Old Liu had already pushed his tricycle out. Jiang Cheng laid a cotton quilt in the back, helped Zheng Yanxi onto it, and then straddled the front, pedaling furiously.

It takes forty minutes to ride a tricycle from the factory to the municipal maternity hospital. Jiang Cheng pedaled for twenty minutes. There was no one on the road, and the streetlights swept overhead one after another, casting his shadow long and short. The chain rattled, and Zheng Yanxi in the back of the tricycle remained silent, only occasionally taking deep breaths, like a drowning person surfacing for air.

When he arrived at the hospital, his legs were so weak that he had to stand for a while, holding onto the handlebars, before he recovered. The emergency room lights were bright and blinding. A nurse pushed a gurney out, took Zheng Yanxi from the gurney, and wheeled her into the delivery room.

The door closed.

Jiang Cheng stood in the corridor, leaning against the wall, his legs still trembling. The corridor was long, stretching as far as the eye could see, the fluorescent lights humming and emitting a pale white light. Several patches of white paint had peeled off the walls, revealing the underlying mortar, like patches of scabies. In the distance came the cry of a baby, high-pitched and loud, someone's child, eager to enter the world.

He glanced at his watch—2:15 a.m.

What followed was a long wait.

He sat on a bench in the corridor; the chair was iron and chillingly cold. He would stand up and walk a few steps, then sit down again. His mind was a jumble of thoughts: what would the child look like? Was Zheng Yanxi in pain? And then—what if something happened?

He dared not think any further.

There was a window at the end of the corridor. It was pitch black outside, and he couldn't see anything. He walked over and pressed his forehead against the cool glass. There was fog on the glass, so he wiped it with his hand and saw his reflection—his hair was messy, and his eyes were red, like a trapped animal.

He walked back, sat down, and stood up again. He walked back and forth countless times, his shoes creaking against the corridor floor tiles.

At 4:12 a.m., the door to the delivery room opened.

A nurse poked her head out: "Zheng Yanxi's family member?"

Jiang Cheng rushed over, shouting, "I'm here! I'm here!"

"She's given birth. It's a boy. He weighs 6 pounds 8 ounces. Mother and child are both safe."

Jiang Cheng stood there, his legs buckling, almost collapsing to his knees. He leaned against the wall, panting heavily, as if he had just run a marathon. He didn't care that the white plaster on the wall smeared all over his hand.

"Can we go in and take a look?"

"Wait a moment, it's still being processed."

He pressed his face against the delivery room door, peering through the small glass window. He couldn't see anything, only the white coats swaying in the breeze. He heard a baby crying inside—not a weak, meowing cry, but a loud, powerful cry, as if announcing to the whole world: I'm here.

Jiang Cheng smiled. But as he smiled, tears began to fall.