I sold grilled fish in the 70s!

Chapter 189 The Unwarmable Heart

I don't know if it was because Yiyao was depressed, or if Yiyao's life was about to end. One weekend in March, Jianying and her husband were invited to eat ginkgo buns in a village not far from the county town. Fearing that Yiyao would be alone at home without anyone to take care of her, they asked Rousha to go and look after her.

Later, Rosa told us that Yiyao was no longer as talkative as before. Most of the time, she would sit on the sofa with a cotton-padded coat draped over her knees, her eyes closed, seemingly lost in thought.

That time, it was the last time Yi Yao spoke to Rosa. "Why are you here? Did your aunt ask you to come and keep me company? She must have gone somewhere to play again, right?"

In the following hours, Yiyao spoke very little to Rosa. Rosa felt terrible seeing Yiyao, who had once been very strong, now so frail. In Rosa's memory, Yiyao had always been incredibly robust.

He had never suffered from any serious illness in his life, except that ten years ago, on a summer day, he accidentally fell down the stairs because he didn't see where he was going and broke his arm.

During my recovery period, I stayed at Jianying's house. Of course, sometimes I would also bring Yiyao to stay at my house for a few days. Some people say that a daughter-in-law is always an outsider and won't get too close to her husband's family.

When I first heard this statement, I felt it was too extreme. If a mother-in-law could treat her daughter-in-law like her own daughter, there would be less conflict and more mutual care between them. How could they not be closer to their husband's family?

Human hearts are made of flesh and blood! If you hold it in your palm and warm it in your heart, that cold heart will eventually be warmed by you. But there are some people with hearts of stone whose hearts can never be warmed!

My dearest mother-in-law will always be a wonderful mother-in-law! Whether it was when I was her daughter-in-law or when Jianlin married her second wife, she never acted like a mother-in-law in front of either of us!

She not only prepared three meals a day perfectly, but also managed all the household chores flawlessly. She even washed your dirty clothes. In our time, there were no washing machines—such a luxury! So, whenever she needed to wash our clothes, she did it all by hand. In the dead of winter, she would often soak her hands in icy mountain spring water to wash our clothes.

Over time, Yiyao's hands would always be covered in chilblains in the winter! So I think being Yiyao's daughter-in-law is the greatest happiness of my life. But there are always some people who don't cherish this hard-won happiness! They think it's only natural that Yiyao treats them so well.

Having someone to rely on in old age is perhaps one of life's greatest blessings! Yet, when Yiyao needed care the most, she chose to ignore her. Ever since that year's Guanyin Festival, Yiyao seemed to have lost a part of her soul. She became extremely weak and emaciated.

During the last few days of his stay at Jianying's house, Yiyao was still able to get up and wash by himself, and I knew that Yiyao's condition was starting to worsen. So every day after breakfast I would go to Jianying's house to take care of Yiyao, and Yiyao was still able to take care of many things on his own.

During those few days, my youngest daughter, who works out of town, and I would take Yiyao for a walk along the river on sunny afternoons. However, she's becoming increasingly sensitive to the wind, so she wore a thick down jacket and a scarf as we walked around the river. My daughter, who loves taking pictures, also took two photos of her and me.

But what we didn't know was that this was the last time she went for a walk by the river before she passed away. Perhaps aware of her health condition, she asked us to let her go back to her home.

We honored her wish! But we were incredibly saddened that she was going home. What was particularly poignant was a photo my brother-in-law took of Jianying sitting on a wooden sofa, tears streaming down her face, while looking down at her phone.

He posted this photo in our family group chat, and added a caption that was mostly filled with helplessness and reluctance. We had already decided to send Yiyao back to Xiawei first thing tomorrow morning.

After staying at Jianying's house for almost two months, Yiyao asked Jianying to take her back to Xiawei. We all knew that Yiyao was actually afraid that staying at Jianying's house would be a burden on Jianying and her brother-in-law. During the few days Yiyao was back in Xiawei, we were always on tenterhooks!

Finally, one day I couldn't help but ask Rousa on WeChat if we could go to Xiawei to see Grandma tomorrow. Also, is it okay if we only have ginkgo strips for lunch tomorrow?

The little girl immediately agreed to my request, and the next day we took the bus to Guangming to go to Xiawei. But to our surprise, when we arrived at Jianlin's house, we saw Yiyao wearing an apron and preparing to feed the pigs.

Haha! Fearing Yiyao would be bored and have nothing to do, Jianlin's current wife bought over a dozen ducks, over a dozen chickens, and two piglets on market day. She wanted Yiyao to help feed them, but she herself slipped away under the pretext of wanting to pick some red mushrooms.

As for Jianlin, he only came back briefly during our lunch break when we went to Xiawei that day. He ate a little over a bowl of rice noodles and then took the high-speed train. It turned out that school was about to start and he was going to Hangzhou to pick up his two granddaughters.

We saw Yiyao cooking pig feed, so we immediately put the things we had brought into the kitchen and rushed over to help her cook the pig feed.

Oh dear! Grandma got a cut on her hand. When I heard Rousa ask Yiyao this question, I immediately put down what I was doing, got up, went to Yiyao's side, and took her hand to examine it.

How did you manage to hurt your hand by shaking it? Didn't you even put on a band-aid?

It's nothing! I just got home that day and saw the house was very dirty and messy, so I started cleaning. I probably touched something sharp and cut my hand.

So what if the house is dirty! You can ask Jianlin and the others to clean it; you just need to rest and recover. This time, Rou Sha and I didn't stay in Xiaxu for long. We left Xiaxu around 2 or 3 pm after lunch and headed back to Jiang Le.

While we were waiting for the bus, we saw an old woman carrying a basket of vegetables walking towards us.

Zhuzhu, you came up here to see NiYao, right? Speaking of NiYao, I haven't seen her for a while now.