Chapter 168: Seeking A Child
“When will they get off work?”
“Now it gets dark early, they’ll get off work before dark.”
He nodded silently, and Jiaming lowered his head, not knowing what he was thinking.
Only when the worried Shuangshuang was about to speak to comfort him did he seem to recover and lift his lowered head.
“Let’s go, Su Ning. Take me to see where they live first.”
“The place they live now is not far from my house, right at the foot of the mountain behind.”
……
After the three returned, Jiaming’s expression seemed even more preoccupied than before they left; previously it was torment, now it was listlessness.
Seeing the way he looked at his family as if he wanted to say something, Su Ning very considerately took Shuangshuang away, leaving the place to them.
Arriving at the health clinic, Shuangshuang perked up and looked over her future workplace inside and out.
To make it convenient for the villagers, and also because Su Ning liked quiet, the health clinic was not arranged in her courtyard like the barefoot doctors on other teams, but was located in the center of the village.
The room was not big, just three rooms, with a century-old elm tree on the right side, and the threshing ground behind it where the village held meetings and gatherings.
The large room was used as the pharmacy; besides the medicine cabinet full of traditional Chinese medicine small drawers, there was also a glass display cabinet filled with all kinds of pills and medicinal water allocated from the hospital.
The small compartment next to it had a 1.2-meter-wide small sickbed and several high-legged bamboo chairs with backrests.
The remaining small room held the wooden rack for drying herbs, specific winnowing baskets, tools for grinding medicine, and so on.
The room’s furnishings were simple and plain, without anything fancy or exquisite, which was not like Su Ning.
As if seeing through her confusion, Su Ning smiled and shook her head, “This is the health clinic, still a collective place of the village. How else do you want me to arrange it?”
“Hehe, that’s true.”
There was no one coming to the door at this moment, so she brought out two chairs, “Sit for a while and bask in the sun.”
“Okay.”
Lazily leaning against the back of the chair with her head tilted on it, in front of her were the bare branches of that big elm tree.
Looking back at the guy who had rested his head on her shoulder, seeming like he had no bones and wished he could just slump directly onto the ground, “Tired?”
“Mm, a bit. I sat on the train for many days coming back and transferred cars, and now that I’ve relaxed, I feel so tired.”
Catching the key point in her words, she surprisingly raised her eyebrows, “Xi You, you didn’t go back home?”
“Uh… oh no!”
She jumped up like a rocket., and Shuangshuang felt like she had forgotten something, but couldn’t recall it for the moment.
Hearing her mention it, she suddenly realized that she hadn’t seen her family for over half a month!
“You this…”
He helplessly tapped her forehead, no wonder that day when visiting Uncle Luo and the others, she was still sighing that her own little cotton-padded jacket had finally sprung a leak.
When a girl grows up, she must not be kept at home; if kept, she becomes a grudge.
“I’ll go back tomorrow, hehe, just go back!”
“Probably your parents, especially your older brother, are going to explode!”
The girl who rarely went on a long trip and almost forgot to come home, he hadn’t even kissed her enough yet, and she tells them she wants to marry—not exploding would be strange.
Of course, he wouldn’t tell her this. After all, ignorance breeds fearlessness.
The smile in his eyes took on a hint of mischief, treating it as giving this carefree girl a small lesson.
“Dong dong dong～”
With the sound of the knock on the door, the slightly ajar door was pushed open, and a woman around thirty years old with a face full of worry walked in from outside.
“That, Doctor Su?”
Seeing her first surprised at Luo Shuangshuang’s presence, then a bit awkward and embarrassed, Su Ning immediately understood. She gently patted her good friend’s little face. “Xi You, sit in the courtyard for a bit.”
“Alright, you go ahead and get busy first.”
He took her into the pharmacy and proactively closed the room door, then put on a friendly smile and gently asked, “Where do you feel uncomfortable?”
After she finished explaining the matter shyly and blushingly, the smile on Su Ning’s face froze for a moment.
Zhu Yuhua, with her face burning hot, didn’t dare to look at the girl in front of her for a moment.
Otherwise, her man anxiously dragged her aside and said to let him take advantage of no one around to ask for leave; he definitely had to come over to ask about it, and she really felt quite embarrassed.
After all, Doctor Su is still just an unmarried girl who is not very old and doesn’t even have a partner.
“Have you gone to the hospital for a check-up?”
“I’ve had a check-up. The doctor said that apart from malnutrition and a bit of anemia, there’s nothing seriously wrong with me.”
“Then where is your man?”
After marriage, if a child cannot be born, it may not necessarily be the woman’s problem; men also account for half. Medical books mention this, and there are many case records.
“This… there’s none of this.”
There are no hens that can’t lay eggs, but there are roosters that get blamed for crowing.
But thinking back to the hospital checkup, where that doctor had said something similar, Zhu Yuhua felt a bit surprised and hesitant, “He also needs to get checked?”
“Having a child isn’t just one person’s business, of course he needs to get checked too.”
Zhu Yuhua nodded hesitantly, saying she understood, but her eyes still held a hopeful gleam as she looked at her, “Then Doctor Xiao Su, if there’s really something wrong, do you have any medicine that can help have a baby?”
She didn’t have medicine for having babies, but she did have a magical jadeite that could grant children.
Even if Zhu Yuhua was willing to believe it, she didn’t dare actually give it out.
Unexpectedly, this hesitation instantly made Zhu Yuhua, who was staring intently at her expression, overjoyed: it seemed her man had guessed right, Doctor Xiao Su really did have secret medicine that could make people have babies!
“Doctor Xiao Su, later when I get off work, I’ll take him to the hospital for the checkup, and once the results are out, we’ll come find you!”
“Hey, wait…”
With a whoosh, in the blink of an eye the person had run off like a gust of wind, without even looking back.
It wasn’t like she had suddenly gotten so excited and promised or admitted anything?!
“Ning Bao Gai?”
“Huh?”
“What happened to Elder Sister? I saw her crying when she ran out!”
She was even laughing and crying at the same time, this… was it nothing serious or some terrible illness?
“What in the world is all this.”
Su Ning patted her forehead, feeling a bit helpless as she pondered: if she ground the green jadeite into powder…
Xiao Lian’s laced Jade Visage Paste was for external use, but she couldn’t have someone eat this directly, what if it caused some problem!
Or maybe make it into an ointment and rub it on the belly?
Rubbing it on the belly could make someone get pregnant and have a child, good grief, she didn’t dare make that claim.
Forget it, maybe the checkup results would be good and they could just let nature take its course.
“Ning Bao Gai?”
“It’s nothing, she just asked a question.”
“Oh, okay.”
She felt deep down that this question probably wasn’t simple, otherwise why would both of them react so strangely.
But since she wouldn’t say, Luo Shuangshuang didn’t press further, nodded and talked about other things.
Time flew by until it was nearly dark, and that whole afternoon besides Zhu Yuhua, there was only one old woman who brought her feverish child.
After locking the drawers in the pharmacy, and the locks inside the room and in the yard, Su Ning took her home together.
After walking more than ten minutes, at the final turn they unsurprisingly saw a certain big guy squatting by the roadside like a rainy-day toad.
“Jiaming!”
“Shuang Shuang, Su Ning, you’re back.”
Fu Jiaming stood up as if coming back to his senses, forced a smile toward the two and explained, “I’m waiting here for Yan Qi, Grandpa Yan, and them.”
“Okay, then we’ll head back first to prepare dinner?”
“Yeah, right, hurry back and check, don’t let my mom burn down your kitchen!”
Thinking of what his mother had said before he left, Fu Jiaming perked up and hurriedly added, “Su Ning, for everyone’s sake, you absolutely have to talk my mom out of it, don’t let her do anything!”
Would you dare say that to Aunt Ma?
But since he said it, Su Ning couldn’t ignore him, exchanged a glance with Luo Shuangshuang and quickened their pace home.
Pushing open the gate, they greeted Fu Rong and Fu Jiatan in the main hall, then turned into the kitchen.
Luckily, Ma Xiuzhen had only washed the rice and the vegetables, and since she didn’t know how to use this earthen stove, she was studying it.
“Aunt Ma, how could we let a guest like you cook, leave this to us.”
“Yeah, yeah, Aunt Ma, I can help Ning Bao Gai out here, you go take care of Uncle Fu and them first.”
“This…”
“Grandpa Yan and Grandma Yan should be back soon too, you can chat properly before dinner.”
Working in tacit understanding with Luo Shuangshuang, they half-pushed and half-coaxed her out of the kitchen, both let out a breath, smiled at each other, then got busy.
But just after the fire was lit and the rice was boiling not long, dull sobs came from the main hall.
