Chapter 1160 - Li Mo

Li Mo was tidying up the room—an empty shopfront at Purple Sincerity Hall. Since Guo Yi had returned to Guangzhou, not only had all his original properties been renovated, but he had also demolished the vacant wasteland originally enclosed on Huifu Street and built a row of two-story shopfronts, expanding his business space.

This medical tour occupied one of those shopfronts. The general affairs manager at Guangzhou Station, Sun Chang, had sent craftsmen to perform a simple renovation. The front served as reception and waiting area, the second floor housed treatment rooms, and at the back lay a simple operating theater tiled with porcelain. Conditions couldn't compare to hospitals in Lingao, but within Guangzhou city, this was already among the finest facilities available.

Li Mo organized the medicines, instruments, and various supplies that had been shipped from Hong Kong, arranging everything on shelves for ready access. Medicine she couldn't learn, but general affairs she handled with ease. Especially since Deng Bojun mainly just "oversaw things"—the specific details were often left to her to implement. These skills came naturally to her, learned through osmosis from her parents who had worked as stewards in the Macau household during her childhood. She could extrapolate from one example to a hundred. Over time, she had become the "Elder Sister Li" whom everyone at Bairen General Hospital respected.

Li Mo was quite satisfied with her current situation: life was simple yet fulfilling. Her daughter had entered the Australians' school—which did offer boarding, but she still insisted on having the child walk to and from school each day. After all, it wasn't far from Fangcaodi to the Health Department's residential district, and the route was safe.

Li Mo had used her own salary plus a loan to buy a small apartment in the naturalized citizens' residential district—what they called a "flat" in Newspeak. Because of her seniority, her income was much better than newly assigned nurses.

Lingao was a place with more men than women. Li Mo was not yet thirty, her looks weren't bad, and she had a decent income. Even though she was a widow with a child, there was no shortage of marriage proposals—some suitors had quite good prospects. But Li Mo refused them all, continuing her single life. This led to gossip among the naturalized citizens at the Health Department, claiming she harbored hopes of marrying a "Chief" as a concubine. Others laughed at her daydreaming—a widow with a child thinking she could climb to a Chief's high branch.

Li Mo dismissed all this with a smile. After experiencing so much, she was no longer the love-struck maiden who could be sweet-talked into eloping. Nor would idle gossip change her mind.

Her world now centered entirely on her daughter. Li Quan had entered Fangcaodi National School, and her academic performance was decent—she was about to graduate from lower elementary. The school teachers suggested she continue to upper elementary. Li Mo had some hesitation. Upper elementary meant additional expenses. Li Quan wasn't an orphan taken in by the state, nor a martyr's dependent. According to regulations, children of naturalized citizen employees attending upper elementary were exempt from tuition but had to pay miscellaneous fees and meal costs. And her daughter wasn't one of those exceptionally outstanding students who could earn scholarships.

The monthly miscellaneous fees and meal costs weren't much, but for a single mother carrying a twenty-five-year housing loan while raising her daughter, the burden was still felt.

But before this trip to Guangzhou, Chuqing had come to chat with her. Upon hearing about this matter, she said Li Mo should relax—she would ask Master Wu to help sponsor the costs.

This girl really is kind-hearted, Li Mo thought of the young woman who called her "elder sister." Back when she was bullied at Gou Family Estate and nearly unable to survive, Chuqing had been a maid in the inner courtyard—not particularly favored, and no relation to her at all. Yet she had secretly taken leftover food from the inner courtyard to give her, which was the only reason she and her daughter had managed to hang on until Zhang Xingjiao brought her to serve Master Wu.

After their reunion at the farm, the two had lived together. In the beginning when the farm was just established, from Elders on down to newly recruited farm workers, everyone had to work. She was also looking after a child and couldn't manage everything—she'd depended entirely on Chuqing's help. Even after Chuqing formally married Master Wu, she still treated their mother and daughter just as warmly as before. This often made Li Mo, who had seen much of the world's fickleness, sigh with emotion.

When she had first been sent to Qiongzhou by her man and entrusted to Old Master Gou at Gou Family Estate, how glamorous it had been. A separate small courtyard specially built for her, with one of her man's sworn brothers assigned to look after her. The household had a complete set of new furnishings. Old Master Gou didn't show his face, but his wives and concubines all came to offer warm greetings, keeping her company with card games and conversation. The weather in Lingao was hot and Li Quan had a poor appetite, so she arranged for the small kitchen to prepare various light dishes in rotation. Every three or four months, someone would deliver silver, and they even bought farmland for her to cultivate locally as a cover identity. At the time, she truly believed her man was the finest seafaring man in the world.

Who would have thought that less than half a year later, her man would die at sea—whether from an accident or murder, she never found out. But the Gou family immediately cut off support, and the sworn brother who had been looking after her suddenly died of acute illness. She was then seized by the head of the Gou household's guards. After he tired of her, she was cast out—he even spread word that no other man was allowed to touch her, nearly starving her and her daughter to death. If Chuqing hadn't been generous-hearted back then, how could she possibly be living "like a person" now, and even be able to return to Guangzhou?

(End of Chapter)