The girl of seven or eight years old had thin, brittle hair and a skeletal face with a distinct handprint, the corner of her mouth was also broken, revealing traces of blood. Because she was so thin, there was no flesh on her face, so the slap mark had not swollen.
Extreme hunger and fear, coupled with the cold chill of early spring, finally took their toll on her fragile body.
After taking Xiaoyan’s temperature, which was thirty-nine degrees, Feng Qingxue gave her a fever reducer, then took out a bottle of alcohol to clean her limbs, palms, armpits, and chest from her medicine box.
After half an hour had passed, the girl was noticeably more comfortable, her eyebrows slightly relaxed.
Her fever didn’t drop as quickly as expected, Feng Qingxue took her temperature again and had Wang Cuilan prepare a bowl of Xibao’s milk powder for her to drink. In her semi-conscious state, Xiaoyan drank big gulps, and after finishing, she looked at Feng Qingxue’s gentle and beautiful face under the light. She couldn’t help but smile, murmuring, "It’s so delicious! I must be seeing a fairy. I hope always to have such dreams and never wake up." Her head tilted, her eyes closed, and she fell asleep.
"Starved, terrified, frozen!" Feng Qingxue swaddled the girl in warm clothes, with a cold face. She didn’t want to see the hateful face of Wang Erniu and didn’t even look at her,"You should be glad that your slaps haven’t ruptured her eardrums and made her deaf! You are also a woman, and you are a mother, how could you be so cruel?"
Parents can easily lose control when they angrily hit a child’s face.
In history, there have been numerous cases of parents causing their child to go deaf from hitting them in the face.
Wang Cuilan was woken up in the middle of the night and saw Xiaoyan’s terrible state, which made her furious, "Wang Erniu! Our leaders say that women hold up half the sky, and the publicity department propagates gender equality every day. Are your ears filled with donkey hair, or don’t you understand? If you continue to abuse Xiaoyan, send Dahu’s family back to farming. You can all go back, out of my sight!"
Dahu, Wang Erniu’s husband, originally had a rural household registration. He was tall and strong, so when the coal mine recruited workers from rural areas, he was chosen and became a miner, earning his salary and living off commodities.
Although Wang Erniu lived with Dahu in the city along with her children, Dahu and Xiaoyan, they didn’t have urban household registration.
Without an urban household registration, there would be no food supply. If they returned home to farm, their family could participate in the end-of-year grain distribution. If they didn’t return, they wouldn’t accumulate work points, and rural production teams would not be foolish enough to feed them.
All four of them, including Dahu’s parents in the countryside, survived on Dahu’s wages. Upon hearing Wang Cuilan’s threat to send Dahu back to farming, Wang Erniu was instantly worried, "Director Wang, please don’t. If Dahu loses this job, how can we three survive?"
Wang Cuilan flung off the hand clenching her sleeve, "If you don’t want Dahu to go back to farming, then from now on, you treat Xiaoyan well and treat both siblings equally! Otherwise, I’ll immediately put Dahu on the list to be laid off. You’ve lived in the city for a few years and know that all institutions and factories are considering laying off some rural workers to alleviate urban pressures and increase rural labor. Those who don’t perform well and those whose family members cause trouble will appear on this list."