Chapter 1523
The Final Battle, That's Right
Chapter 1523 The Final Battle, That's Right
With a thud, the young woman knelt down, clutching her baby, crying and pleading, "Please, ladies, give us a way out! Please! The baby isn't even a month old yet! If he's not a month old... then what was the point of me giving birth to him? It would have been better not to have him at all!"
Upon hearing this, the pregnant women and new mothers were overcome with grief and knelt down, pleading, "Please, ladies, give our children a chance to live, let them see more of this world... what if reinforcements are coming soon!"
The pregnant women were timid and afraid of being arrested for causing trouble. While pleading, they explained, "Don't arrest us. We didn't mean to cause trouble. We remember Wuyuan's kindness in protecting us. We just want to give our children a few more days to live, in case something happens. Are we wrong?"
"Anyone who wants to live and seeks a way to survive is not wrong!" Old Madam Guan's strong voice rang out as she strode towards them, leaning on her crane-head cane.
But the woman who had started crying backed away while holding the baby, screaming shrilly, "Don't come any closer! Don't come any closer! You might be carrying the plague! You can't harm our child!!"
“Alright, we won’t go over there. We’ll just stand here and talk to you.” Old Madam Guan immediately stopped and then tried to divert her attention: “Little girl, don’t shout too loudly, it will frighten your child.”
Upon hearing this, the woman hurriedly looked at the baby in the swaddling clothes, and held him, comforting him.
Madam Yan, Madam Zeng, Madam Fei, Madam Qu Si, and others hurriedly bowed to Old Madam Guan: "We have disturbed you, Old Madam. It is our incompetence. Please punish us."
With three hundred pregnant women and an equal number of infants at stake, the ladies had no other choice but to send a message to Mushan, asking Old Madam Guan to return and oversee the situation.
As for Madam Sun?
They were also invited; they were in that large carriage in the distance.
However, since Madam Sun's status was not as high as Madam Guan's, the ladies still decided to go and invite her.
As for whether or not to come, that's up to Madam Guan.
Unexpectedly, they actually came... It seems that a decisive battle is indeed about to begin, which is why Madam Guan led the women of the Qin family out, no longer afraid of the spread of the plague.
"Yun Qinxi, haven't you made enough of a scene? What kind of situation is this? You're already married and a mother, and you've caused such a commotion that your in-laws have to ask your own family to intervene. Do you believe your own family will sever ties with you and stop causing them so much trouble..."
"Someone, hold him down and drag him aside!" It was Qin Xiaogu's voice.
As soon as she said that, Qin Xiaogu's female guards immediately sprang into action, rushing to Yun Qinxi's family and pinning down her parents, as well as her elder brother and sister-in-law who had been cursing her, silencing them.
"Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!" Yun Qinxi's family cried out, confused and aggrieved: We came here to help you persuade Yun Qinxi, how can you not distinguish right from wrong?!
"Eldest daughter-in-law, don't misunderstand. If we had known that our in-laws would blame you as soon as they arrived, we would never have invited them!" The Hu family was filled with regret, wishing they could slap themselves a few times. If they had let you invite the Yun family, things would have gotten even worse!
Yun Qinxi showed no expression, only holding the baby and crying, murmuring, "Was I wrong? Was I wrong? I just wanted the child to live."
Waaaaaah!
The baby in her arms was crying his heart out, but she didn't know how to comfort him. She was only immersed in self-blame: self-blame for giving birth to the child but failing to protect him; self-blame for being unreasonable during a time of national crisis; self-blame for causing trouble for everyone; self-blame for...
"You did nothing wrong." Aunt Qin had already come to her side and kept saying, "You did nothing wrong."
Then, I helped her soothe the baby in the swaddling clothes.
After a while, the baby's crying subsided, and Aunt Qin said, "My baby is a little over two months old, a bit older than yours. I'm at the age where I know how to soothe a baby. Could I hold your baby and comfort him/her? If a baby cries for too long, he/she will ingest cold air, which will make his/her stomach uncomfortable, and in severe cases, he/she may develop a fever."
Upon hearing this, Yun Qinxi instinctively handed the baby to Qin Xiaomi, looking at her pleadingly. "Don't panic, don't panic, I have a female doctor here, and Imperial Physician Qiu, we can have them take a look." Aunt Qin reassured her gently, taking the swaddled baby and gently rocking and soothing the infant.
The maids brought two thick fur cloaks; one was wrapped around the baby's head to protect him from the cold wind, and the other was wrapped around Yun Qinxi to warm her icy body.
Then they drew back the fur curtain and had Da Bao'er's wet nurse feed the baby and change its diaper, and only then did the baby stop crying completely.
"The baby is asleep, do you want to hold him while he sleeps?" Aunt Qin asked, handing her the swaddled baby.
Yun Qinxi dared not accept it, and only cried, "No, no, no, I am not worthy to be his mother. If he were reincarnated in another city, he wouldn't have to suffer with me, sob sob sob..."
She burst into tears, but fearing that her crying would wake the child, she sobbed softly.
Qin Xiaogu reached out and pulled her into her arms, embracing the mother and son: "If you hadn't become his mother, he wouldn't even have had the chance to be reincarnated."
“You’re not wrong, anyone who wants to live is not wrong. You dared to openly fight for survival, which is already excellent… You’re still so young, only eighteen years old, and you’ve grown up in seclusion. When faced with such a devastating event, you still know to fight for your child’s survival. You’ve done better than many women over fifty.”
Qin Xiaogu then looked at the women around her who were holding children and pregnant, and said, "You all did a very good job too."
In the Great Wei Dynasty, Qin Xiaogu was considered to have married late. The pregnant women around her all married when they reached marriageable age, and gave birth to their first child at sixteen or seventeen.
They were still a group of big kids, and they still needed their elders to teach them how to do things, when they experienced the great calamity of foreign invasion and the impending destruction of their homeland.
They didn't take their children to die; instead, they used their children to fight for a way to survive, which is quite brave and remarkable.
These praises and affirmations brought tears to the eyes of all the women.
Madam Zeng and her maids were very experienced. Without being reminded, they immediately led the maids into the room to appease the women.
After everyone calmed down a bit, Aunt Qin continued, "Wanting to live is understandable, everyone wants to live, but why issue such a new order? Because the enemy will no longer allow us to live in the city..."
"The enemy has launched a fierce attack on the city with 300,000 infected soldiers. They came with the intention of annihilating us and will never let us live."
"We are defending the city, but this time it is really difficult to defend it because the number of infected people in the city is increasing to the point of being out of control."
"Three hundred thousand infected enemy troops are attacking the city, and hundreds of thousands more are besieging it from afar, ready to join the attack at any time. Add to that the plague within our city, and we're likely doomed to die."
"As for reinforcements? They might come, but by then the capital city may have already fallen, so we can't pin our hopes on them."
"In this situation where the dead end is clear, how to die in a more meaningful way has become a matter that the government and the army must consider."
"Completely abandon the fight against the epidemic and the defense of the city. Before everyone is rendered immobile by the plague, let us devote the last bit of our strength to going out of the city to kill the enemy, deplete their forces, and help the Great Wei fight against foreign enemies. That would be the most worthwhile way to die!"
Qin Xiaogu spoke calmly and methodically, explaining in detail why they had decided to leave the city to fight to the death.
She added, "I'm also very young. My baby is only two months old. I really want him to live, but the situation doesn't allow it. Who told us to get into this mess?"