Chapter 4

That did not sit well with Yao Shangqing. One night was all it had taken. The baby was her own daughter now. Because of where she came from she had always given way, and whenever the other two wives snapped at her she had never once answered back.

Chen Yougong was angry himself. He squeezed his wife's hand under the table, then turned a hard face on Zhao Qinhua.

"Watch your mouth, sister-in-law. Talk like that comes back on you."

Zhao Qinhua's finger shot out at him. What was that supposed to mean, it would come back on her? Her two girls were as good as gold.

Chen Youliang saw his mother's face and nudged his wife's arm. "If you can't speak properly, keep your mouth shut."

Zhao Qinhua huffed and started on her food. The steamed egg was going cold and she had her son to feed.

Chen Dayu and Chen Xiaoyu looked at the steamed egg in the bowl. A share of it was theirs, the three of them, but their mother hadn't said so, and they didn't dare touch it.

The sight of it made old Mrs. Chen angry. She had meant to keep out of it, since they all had households of their own and there was no managing them any more, but looking at those two girls, she felt for them.

"Eldest's wife, I steamed that egg for my grandchildren. Not only my grandsons. We don't do that in this family."

Zhao Qinhua was in a temper already, and now it felt as if the whole table had turned on her.

"Eat it, then. What, do you want me to feed you?" She shoved the bowl of steamed egg roughly across towards Dayu and Xiaoyu.

The two girls looked at each other and only dared take the smallest pinch each with their chopsticks.

Old Mrs. Chen let it go and went back to what she had been saying. "Your third brother has done a great deal for this family. Every time he makes furniture for somebody and they give him eggs or anything else, it goes to all of us. Now he wants to raise a child. Are you really telling me you object?" She looked round at their faces and added, "And if you do object, it makes no difference. I've claimed the child."

Li Yue'e had a quick head on her and she wasn't about to behave like Zhao Qinhua. On top of that, they still owed the third family the money from last year. It was one girl. She wasn't going to take a share of land or a room.

"We've no objection. Whatever you say, Ma. Shangqing, come round to my room later. I've some things Juanjuan has grown out of. Take them and see if any of it will do for the baby."

Yao Shangqing thanked her.

Chen Youliang nodded hard too. He had let his second brother down last year. He wasn't doing the same to his third brother this year, and his mother was right. The third son had done a great deal for this house, and they all lived off what he brought in.

Old Mrs. Chen saw the matter settled and looked content. "Good. If you brothers pull together, this family will do better every year." Then she turned to Chen Yougong.

"When you've eaten, go to the brigade leader's. Look for her family first. If nobody comes forward, get her on the register."

Chen Yougong said he would.

Then the family started to eat.

After breakfast, Yao Shangqing went to wash up.

Chen Yougong went to find the brigade leader.

Chen Shaoyuan had only discovered that morning that he had a sister. The moment breakfast was over he took his brothers and ran for the room.

He had two of them in tow. The second was Chen Shao'er, three, and the third was Chen Shaozhi, a year and a bit, steady enough on his feet.

"Look. This is our sister. I've got a sister now." The three of them leaned over the edge of the bed, taking turns to look at the baby girl. "You two have to protect her from now on. Nobody's allowed to pick on her, understood?"

Chen Shao'er half understood. Chen Shaozhi didn't understand a word of it.

In the east room, Zhao Qinhua was having a row with Chen Youliang, though from outside all you could hear was her.

Yao Shangqing finished in the kitchen and went out to throw some spoiled cabbage leaves into the duck pen. She looked in and there were seven or eight duck eggs lying there. She couldn't make sense of it, but she gathered them up quickly all the same.

Just then there was a yelp from the east room. Zhao Qinhua seemed to have taken a fall.

Yao Shangqing left her to it. She came out of the pen with the eggs and went to find old Mrs. Chen.

Her mother-in-law was in the main room sorting out her chest. She had just been in to look at the little girl, and it was the oddest thing. It wasn't as though she had no granddaughters, and this child wasn't even her blood, yet one look and she wanted to give her something good. So back she had come to go through her store and see what might do for the baby. The child had had a wretched start, after all.

Yao Shangqing knocked.

Old Mrs. Chen made no attempt to hide anything and told her to come in.

"What is it?" This daughter-in-law knew she wasn't liked and rarely came near her. Today was a first.

Yao Shangqing held out the eggs. "Ma, look. I went to feed the ducks and there were all these duck eggs. Six or seven of them."

Old Mrs. Chen frowned. What was going on? Eight hen's eggs that morning, and now six or seven duck eggs. There was something odd in it.

"Put them down there. I'll put them away in a moment." She couldn't work it out, so she stopped trying. It was good news either way.

Yao Shangqing set the eggs on the table and turned to go.

Old Mrs. Chen called her back. "Take this with you. Make the child a few sets of clothes."

Yao Shangqing's throat tightened. She said yes, and meant it.

Chen Youliang came rushing in.

"Ma, Ma, give me that liniment. Qinhua's gone and turned her ankle."

Old Mrs. Chen snorted. She had heard the row in their room. So the woman had hurt herself with it in the end.

"In the cupboard under the table in the main room. Get it yourself."

Chen Youliang turned and went.

Yao Shangqing didn't stand about either. She took the cloth back to her own room.

"Mum, little sister's awake."

Chen Shaoyuan saw her come in and got the news out first.

Yao Shangqing put the cloth on the bed and leaned over the baby. Her eyes were blinking and she looked muzzy, as though she hadn't slept properly. The boys had probably woken her.

"Keep your voices down. Your sister's a light sleeper. You'll wake her."

Chen Shaoyuan nodded and held a finger up to his lips, shushing twice.

Yao Shangqing hushed Yuanyuan slowly back to sleep.

Then she took the sponge cake out of the cupboard. Her husband had bought it specially and nobody else knew about it. "None of you got enough this morning, did you? Here's one. Shaoyuan, share it out with your brothers."

Chen Shaoyuan nodded and took it. He broke it into three perfectly even pieces, handed them round, and the three of them sat on the edge of the bed eating quietly.

Chen Yougong had reached the brigade leader's house by now. The brigade leader was called Yue Chuan, a man of thirty-odd on decent terms with the Chens.

Hearing that Chen Yougong had found a baby, his heart sank. He had been over this only a few days ago, telling people to stop dumping children. How could somebody still do it?

"Come on. We'll go to the brigade office. I'll put it out over the loudspeaker and see if we can get her back to her people." Yue Chuan stubbed out his cigarette. He rolled them himself out of loose tobacco.

Chen Yougong hurried after him. "Brother Yue, that's not what I meant. I want to keep her. But my mother says you ought to ask around first, in case she was stolen rather than thrown away. Her family would be frantic."

Yue Chuan thought about it. He had taken it too simply.

"Your mother's right. We'll look first, and if nobody claims her I'll get her on the register for you."

The two of them set off for the brigade office.

Yue Chuan asked after the pig the Chens were raising.

Coming the other way was Zhao Fangsong.

"Fangsong. Where are you off to?" Yue Chuan asked. Chen Yougong beside him said nothing. The two families didn't get on.

Zhao Fangsong had his mind elsewhere and it made him jump. "Nowhere. Just had my breakfast, walking it off." In fact he was out sounding people, to see whether anybody was talking about a baby.

Yue Chuan made a noise. "Right you are. We've business to see to, so we'll get on."

He and Chen Yougong carried on towards the brigade office.

At the office Yue Chuan switched on the loudspeaker.

"Hello. Hello. There's a matter I need to put to everyone. Has anyone lost a newborn baby? Or did one of you throw one out? I've talked about this before. It's against the law, and somebody's gone and done it anyway. There's a baby girl here. Whoever left her, come to the brigade office and claim her. If nobody claims her, another family will take her in, and then she has nothing to do with you at all. You've got one day. Get yourselves down here." Then he switched it off.

Zhao Fangsong had just reached his own gate when he heard it, and the fright went through him. Against the law, in particular. He was terrified.

"Ma. Ma, what do we do?"

Granny Zhao was older and had seen more.

"Calm down. We deny it. That's all."

Zhao Fangsong couldn't sit still. "What about the midwife? What if she talks?"

Granny Zhao worried about that least of all. It wasn't as though every family here had kept every baby it bore, and the midwife had never dared talk about any of it, or nobody would use her again. She wouldn't earn so much as an egg. Thinking of that egg still hurt. A stinking girl, and it had cost her an egg.

"As long as we don't admit it, they can say what they like. Go and get on with your day." Granny Zhao was still mourning her egg, grumbling as she went, cursing her way from the daughter-in-law down to the newborn girl. Then she went to feel about in the chicken pen. Every hen had laid yesterday, so there might be more today. She got as far as the pen and found two of the hens stiff on the ground, not moving. Stone dead, both of them.

"Oh no. What's happened here? Dead, just like that, and laying only yesterday?" Granny Zhao wailed as she went to lift them.

Zhao Fangsong had only just gone inside. He heard his mother and came back out.

"Ma, what killed them?" He stood there staring. Only yesterday they had been laying away happily.

Granny Zhao held a bird in each hand and felt that she had never had such a run of luck in her life. Two good hens dead for no reason.

"Take them to the co-op shop and ask what they'll give you in meat coupons."

Zhao Fangsong said yes and went back in to put on another layer.

Yu Lili was still lying in bed. The baby was gone, but she had her lying-in month to get through. "What's this? The chickens really died?"

Zhao Fangsong was going to walk the birds all the way to the co-op in town, so he was hunting out his thickest clothes.

"Mm. Two of them at once. Ma wants me to get meat coupons for them."

Where he couldn't see her, Yu Lili pulled a face. "She wants to trade both of them? I don't think they'll take them, to be honest. They're dead, after all." And having said it, she had her own idea.

Zhao Fangsong found the clothes and started pulling them on. "You think so? The coupons might be fewer, but it beats getting nothing. You rest. If you need anything, call the eldest girl and let her see to you."

"Hang on, don't go yet. Two dead chickens in the house. Take one over to my family, won't you?" Yu Lili watched his face while she said it.

Zhao Fangsong's face fell. "I don't know, wife. What about my mother?"

Yu Lili gave a cold little snort. "You won't do it, then. Think about everything my family's given you. You're their son-in-law and you can't manage one small thing."

Zhao Fangsong sighed and agreed. He would take the scolding when he got back.

"Zhao Fangsong, what are you dawdling for? Much more of this and it'll be noon. You're wasting the day." Granny Zhao's shout came from the yard. She had her eye on that door. This daughter-in-law was never straight with anyone, and there was no knowing what she was cooking up in there.

Zhao Fangsong came out with a smile pinned on. "Ma, I was only slow finding my clothes."

She huffed. "Be quick about it. Don't be late back for your dinner."

He said yes and went out with the sack.

Granny Zhao started cleaning out the chicken pen.

"Zhao Wanwan. Zhao Wanwan. What are you doing in that room? Get out here and work. I can see you don't want any dinner today." She stood in the pen with her hands on her hips, shouting. She was fit to burst. A daughter-in-law who couldn't give her a grandson, girl after girl after girl, and lazy with it.

Yu Lili heard it from the room and didn't stir. She drifted back to sleep.

Zhao Wanwan had nothing left in her. She had been hungry last night, and whatever they called breakfast this morning, you could have counted the grains of rice in the bowl, and the bun was hard as a stone. She had barely got any of it down.

Granny Zhao shouted a few more times and got no answer. She threw the broom down, came out of the pen and headed for the girls' room.

Zhao Qingqing nudged her. "Big sister, aren't you going out? Granny's going to come and hit you."

Zhao Wanwan couldn't have cared less. She wasn't the poor fool who used to live in this body.

Granny Zhao pushed the door open and found her still slumped over the table.

Two strides and she had Zhao Wanwan by the ear. She had a strong grip, she had a day's worth of temper stored up, and she wasn't thinking about what came after.

Zhao Wanwan burst into tears at the pain of it.