RPAGF Chapter 317 Era: XCMG's Simple-minded Wife 21
Chapter 317 Era: XCMG's Simple-minded Wife 21
Rain pattered against the window, like countless tiny fingers anxiously tapping on the glass.
Ji Xiaosong held onto the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), and a sudden, intense contraction forced her to bend over.
The three little ones in my womb seemed eager to come into this world, and every fetal movement felt as hot as molten steel splashing.
"Aunt Zhang! Aunt Zhang!" she called out towards the door, but her voice was mostly swallowed up by the thunder.
Hurried footsteps came from outside. Aunt Zhang, the neighbor, rushed in wearing a raincoat, rainwater streaming down her temples.
"Oh my God, she's going into labor!" She hurriedly helped Ji Xiaosong up. "Where's Lao Xu? Hasn't he come back yet?"
Ji Xiaosong shook her head, biting her lip to endure another wave of pain.
"Wei Dong said tonight...we need to keep an eye on the last batch of test steel..."
Before he finished speaking, a muffled thud suddenly came from afar, and even the ground beneath his feet trembled slightly.
Aunt Zhang's expression changed, and she looked towards the steel mill. "Could it be..."
"No way!" Ji Xiaosong grabbed Aunt Zhang's hand suddenly, her nails almost digging into the old woman's flesh. "He said this furnace of steel would be foolproof..."
Another wave of excruciating pain struck, and Ji Xiaosong's vision went black.
Aunt Zhang quickly helped her lie down and shouted towards the door, "Second son! Go and call the midwife! And have your father go to the steel mill to check on things!"
The dirt road was muddy and impassable due to the heavy rain.
When midwife Wang Ma arrived, stumbling along the way, Ji Xiaosong's water had already broken, and her floral shirt was soaked with sweat.
"Triple births in the first pregnancy, what a tragedy."
Aunt Wang rubbed her rough hands together. "Xiao Song, you have to put in the effort, just like you steelworkers swinging a sledgehammer!"
Ji Xiaosong gripped the edge of the kang tightly, and new marks were added to the years-old fingernail marks on the wood.
Each contraction felt like scalding hot steel slag was churning inside her abdomen, but she bit down on a towel to keep herself from crying out.
Wei Dong once said that the hardest steel is forged in silence.
"I can see the head!" Wang Ma exclaimed in surprise, "It's a boy!"
When the first boy was born, an eerie red light suddenly appeared in the sky in the direction of the steel mill.
During a lull in the pain, Ji Xiaosong turned her head to look, and her heart clenched suddenly.
That wasn't a normal furnace fire; it was the light of an explosion.
"Aunt Zhang...is it the steel mill...?" she asked weakly.
"Don't overthink it! Focus on having the baby!"
Aunt Zhang wiped the sweat from her forehead with a hot towel, but the old woman's trembling hands betrayed her worry.
The second boy was born smoothly, but Ji Xiaosong was exhausted when it came to her daughter.
Wang Ma stamped her feet anxiously: "My little darling, you can't sleep! There's still one left!"
In a daze, Ji Xiaosong seemed to see Xu Weidong standing in front of the steel furnace, the blue-purple molten steel reflecting on his resolute profile.
With his usual serious expression, he said to her, "Xiao Song, hang in there a little longer."
"what--!"
With a heart-wrenching scream, the baby girl was finally born.
Three kitten-like cries echoed in the simple mud house, while the distant alarm of the steel mill could be faintly heard.
As dawn broke, the rain stopped.
Ji Xiaosong leaned weakly against the headboard, with three swaddled babies neatly arranged around her.
The midwife had already left, and Aunt Zhang was cooking millet porridge in front of the stove.
"Aunt Zhang, what about the steel mill..." Ji Xiaosong asked again.
"Don't worry, your man is a key technical worker, he's probably busy with something."
Aunt Zhang had her back to her, stirring the porridge with extra force, "Why don't you give the children names first?"
Ji Xiaosong gently stroked her eldest son's face: "The eldest is called Xu Zhigang, the second is called Xu Zhitie, and our daughter..."
She paused for a moment, then said, "Her name is Xu Nian'an."
"Nian'an?" Aunt Zhang turned her head.
"I hope their father is safe." Ji Xiaosong's voice was as soft as falling steel dust.
At noon, someone finally knocked on the door.
Ji Xiaosong struggled to get up, but Aunt Zhang pressed her back down onto the kang (a heated brick bed).
The person who came was Director Li from the supply and marketing cooperative's union, carrying two bags of brown sugar and a can of malted milk powder.
"Congratulations, little Xu family!"
Director Li's smile was somewhat forced. "Three children, what a blessing! The factory sent me to see if they need anything..."
Ji Xiaosong's gaze went past Director Li's shoulder and toward the empty doorway.
Where is Wei Dong?
Director Li's lips twitched slightly: "Xu Gong... he can't leave the factory..."
"Director Li,"
Ji Xiaosong suddenly sat up straight, an unnatural flush appearing on her pale, postpartum face. "Look me in the eyes and tell me, has something happened at the steel mill?"
The air in the room seemed to freeze.
The three babies seemed to sense their mother's anxiety and started crying at the same time.
"Oh dear, what could possibly happen!"
Aunt Zhang quickly tried to smooth things over, "Xiao Song, don't think such things. You're still weak after giving birth..."
Just then, our neighbor, Aunt Liu, burst in, carrying a bowl of steamed egg custard: "Xiao Song! I have something to tell you..."
She abruptly stopped talking, her face turning deathly pale upon seeing the scene inside the room.
"What are you saying?" Ji Xiaosong's voice suddenly became unusually calm.
Aunt Liu looked to Director Li for help, who sighed, "The No. 2 blast furnace exploded last night, injuring more than a dozen workers..."
Ji Xiaosong felt a wave of dizziness, but she gripped the corner of the blanket tightly: "Where's Weidong?"
"XCMG, he..."
Director Li swallowed hard. "He's directing the rescue efforts on site, but... we can't get in touch with him right now..."
The crying inside the house suddenly seemed to fade into the distance.
Ji Xiaosong looked down at the three children. Zhigang's little hands were tightly gripping the hem of her clothes, Zhitie was squirming uncomfortably, and Nian'an was quietly opening his bright black eyes, as if waiting for his mother's decision.
"I'm going to the steel mill." Ji Xiaosong threw back the covers.
"Are you crazy!" Aunt Zhang exclaimed. "She just gave birth; she'll be sick from the aftermath!"
Ji Xiaosong had already stood up, her legs trembling like reeds in the wind, but her eyes were as firm as steel: "Aunt Zhang, please help me look after the children. Aunt Liu, may I borrow your bicycle?"
Director Li was so anxious she kept wringing her hands: "This is not in accordance with the rules! You're still in your postpartum period..."
"My husband works at a steel mill."
Ji Xiaosong was already wearing Xu Weidong's old work jacket, the oversized clothes making her look even smaller. "Back then, he didn't leave the battlefield even when his intestines were spilling out, so what's a little blood I'm shedding now?"
On the way to the steel factory, every bump sent a tearing pain through Ji Xiaosong's lower body.
Ji Xiaosong quickly used her spiritual power to heal herself and summoned Ji Dan at the same time.
“Ji Dan, go to the outskirts and come take care of the three children as someone from my hometown. Anyway, my hometown is far away, and the people here don’t know me, so it won’t be a big problem.”
Ji Dan accepted the order, and Rongrong sent her to the outskirts, gave her an identity, and rode swiftly to Ji Xiaosong's home.
Sweat soaked through Ji Xiaosong's back, but her gaze remained fixed on the still-smoking chimney in the distance.
Chaos erupted in front of the steel mill gate.
The sounds of ambulance sirens, the cries of family members, and mobilization orders broadcast over the loudspeaker were all mixed together.
Ji Xiaosong pushed her bicycle, searching for familiar figures in the crowd.
"Sister-in-law!" Xiao Wang, his face covered in coal dust, spotted her and nearly dropped the wrench in his hand. "What are you doing here? Where's the child?"
"Where is Wei Dong?" Ji Xiaosong asked directly.
Xiao Wang's eyes suddenly reddened: "Xu Gong... he's still inside..."
Following the direction Xiao Wang pointed, Ji Xiaosong saw that the No. 2 blast furnace was surrounded by firefighters and medical personnel.
Her legs suddenly lost their strength, and she had to hold onto the bicycle to avoid falling to her knees.
"What exactly happened?" She heard her own voice, eerily calm.
"Last night, during the test of the last batch of steel, the furnace wall suddenly cracked."
Xiao Wang's voice trembled, "XCMG rushed to the front lines to salvage the data... The rescue team is still searching..."
Ji Xiaosong shoved the bicycle into Xiao Wang's hands and walked straight toward the police line.
The security personnel recognized her, hesitated for a moment, but still let her through.
The closer you get to the blast furnace, the stronger the pungent smell of burning becomes.
Ji Xiaosong saw the old factory director sitting on a piece of scrap steel, his head bandage soaked with blood, his hand tightly clutching the pipe he never parted with.
“Xiao Song…” The old man raised his head, and in an instant, he seemed to have aged ten years.
Ji Xiaosong's vision blurred.
She saw Liu Dazhu leading workers to dig through the rubble, Lin Xiaomei and the girls in the laboratory team sorting out the salvaged data with red eyes, and the equipment department staff inspecting the damaged miniature crucibles, which were the culmination of Xu Weidong's hard work.
"What did he say at the end?" Ji Xiaosong asked softly.
The old factory director wiped his face with his rough hands: "He said... the data must be preserved... and he also said he was sorry for not being able to be by your side..."