Chapter 158: Proposal
Time in waiting feels exceptionally long.
Especially for Fu Jiaming and Ma Xiuzhen, they stared fixedly at the person on the sickbed, unwilling even to blink, afraid of missing anything.
“He moved! He moved, Jiaming, did you see? Dad’s eyes moved!”
“I saw it!”
Fu Jiaming bent down and leaned over, calling softly with a hint of a sob, “Dad, Dad, wake up. Can you hear me speaking? It’s Jiaming, I’m back, Dad…”
“Old Fu, Old Fu, wake up quickly!”
Ma Xiuzhen, whose tears had unknowingly flowed like rivers, held his thick large hand and choked out her words.
It was as if he had slept for half a century with eyelids weighing a thousand pounds, yet also as if he hadn’t slept at all, because he heard everything his wife said by his ear clearly.
He struggled to open his eyes, and the sudden bright light made Fu Rong unable to see anything for a moment.
Only after adapting for a while did he clearly see the two faces streaked with tears.
“Xiu… Xiu.” Don’t cry, I’m awake, see who dares to bully you!
“Old Fu, ARong, you’ve finally come to. Thank heavens, thank Su Ning!”
Su Ning? Who is that?
Just having woken up, his mind couldn’t turn over yet, and Fu Rong looked bewildered. As his vision focused and regained some brightness, his reason gradually began to return.
Thinking of what happened that night, his tiger-like eyes suddenly widened. He anxiously looked toward his wife and son, wanting to move but discovering he could only twitch his fingers while his body wouldn’t budge at all.
“What’s wrong, Old Fu?”
“Dad, are you uncomfortable anywhere?”
As if using all his strength, he squeezed two names from his mouth, “Qianqian, Jia… Dan…”
Ma Xiuzhen and Fu Jiaming heard his words clearly and froze at the same time. The grief in their eyes couldn’t be stopped, yet they didn’t know how to speak.
“Qian… qian, Jia Dan…”
“Dad, Sis… Sis couldn’t be saved. Big Brother, Big Brother is still recovering from his injuries.”
His fingers trembled uncontrollably. Fu Rong’s face became increasingly ferocious and terrifying, with veins bulging on his neck and beast-like low roars constantly coming from his throat.
Only after a long time did he powerlessly close his eyes. When he opened them again, the chilling light flashing within was soul-stirring.
The clearer his mind became, the sharper the scenes in his memory.
How his eldest son was brutally tortured in front of him, and how much humiliation and torment his daughter had suffered.
Tong, Xue, Sen—blood debts must be repaid with blood!
“Old Fu!” “Dad!”
“I’m… fine.”
Especially at such a moment, he couldn’t afford to collapse.
Fu Rong swallowed the bloody taste in his mouth, and the whole person quickly calmed down. But the better one knew him, the more dangerous they knew this was.
When he spoke again, it was no longer hoarse and much more coherent.
“Jiaming, you’re back. What about Yan Xiao Qi, the Yan Family?”
Fu Jiaming’s hand holding his large palm paused. No matter what, with the Yan Family in such a state now, besides the ringleaders and those rats and bugs hiding in the dark gutters, there was also their Fu Family.
This was an indisputable fact, no matter the reason.
When he returned, Yan Qi no longer seemed to blame him, but precisely because of that, he felt even worse.
Letting out a long breath and trying hard to calm his mood, Fu Jiaming finally answered truthfully, “The Yan Family were all sent down. Yan Qi probably couldn’t escape either.”
“Where?”
He had rushed over right after getting off the train and hadn’t gotten the follow-up news yet, so Fu Jiaming couldn’t continue answering.
At this time, Ma Xiuzhen, who was at the other side of the bed, chimed in, “Big Brother and his family went to the reclaimed land farm in the Northeast, Second Brother and them to Guer Farm in the Northwest, Uncle and Aunt are with Xiao Qi and them.”
These were quietly told to her by Zhang Qi who came to help.
Since coming to the hospital, she had only gone home once, to get changes of clothes and daily necessities for father and son. She hadn’t had time to inquire about news.
The hospital room fell silent again, with only the sounds from the instruments.
“I can’t move.”
“What?”
“Doctor! Doctor, come quickly!”
……
“Doctor, you’re saying there’s blunt force trauma with blood stasis remaining in the skull pressing on the nerves causing paralysis? Then if the blood stasis dissipates, it can be cured?”
“Well, Comrade Fu, theoretically speaking, yes.”
“Then do the surgery!”
“With our current medical environment and outdated equipment, the success rate of this craniotomy is very low.”
“How low?”
“Less than twenty percent.”
His legs went soft; if not leaning against the wall, he would have collapsed to the ground. Fu Jiaming lowered his head, his hair covering half his face.
“Jiaming!”
“Shuang Shuang, our old man…”
Such a proud person, from now on bedridden for everything—that would probably make him feel worse than being killed.
Fu Jiaming gave a miserable smile. How was he supposed to tell them this result?
“Jiaming, there must be a way. There must be a way. If not, we’ll go to Beijing City, to the capital. There are bigger and better hospitals there.”
“No.”
He suddenly lifted his head. Fu Jiaming seemed to think of something, and the light in his eyes reignited, “Let’s go!”
“Where?”
“Post office, make a phone call!”
……
Gu City, Hongqi Commune First Brigade.
Unaware that Fu Jiaming was nearly driven mad searching for her, Su Ning was accompanying Zhao Panpan, while that grandfather and grandson pair had borrowed the study room to discuss something.
By the afternoon, Yan Changrong and Zhao Panpan went to the cattle shed to go to work, accompanied by Yan Bei.
At this time, Mao Jinqian, riding his bike and drenched in sweat, hurriedly knocked on the door.
“Brother Mao? How did you find this place?”
“That Fu Jiaming couldn’t find you anywhere, remembered us, and had the neighborhood committee come knocking. Sister-in-law Tian quickly called me.”
Panting, Mao Jinqian casually wiped the sweat from his face, “Listen, it sounds like a ten-thousand-fire-urgency matter. Come on, Ning Ning, I’ll take you to my place to make a phone call.”
Luckily he worked at the Hongqi Commune. When Ning Ning left, she had left words and address with Sister-in-law Tian, or he would have been at a loss too.
The two hurried back to the commune nonstop, which took one or two hours round trip.
Fu Jiaming waiting there was probably about to cry.
Bringing her back to the office, Mao Jinqian dialed the number he had noted down. Hearing the eager voice on the other end, he quickly handed the receiver to her.
“Hello?”
“Su Ning?!”
“It’s me. What happened?”
Subconsciously frowning, Su Ning helplessly raised her volume, “Jiaming, calm down. You jumping from one thing to another—do you want me to piece it together?”
Hearing him finally stop his incoherent barrage, she continued in a soothing tone, “Don’t rush, speak slowly. What did you just say happened to Uncle Fu?”
Intracranial hemorrhage, pressing on nerves?
Prescription for dissipating blood stasis?
Narrowing her eyes, Su Ning quickly recalled the records in the pharmacopoeia. To avoid biting off more than she could chew, after a rough skim when she first got it, she had learned and mastered each one thoroughly from the beginning before moving to the next.
Healing bones and tendons—she knew that, and it was what she was currently working hard to research and make.
As for dissipating blood stasis… she really had to carefully read through to know.
“Wait for me a few minutes. I’ll call you back soon. I need to think carefully.”
Hanging up, Su Ning stood and looked at the person sitting nearby, “Brother Mao, is there a toilet here?”
“Yes, go out from here, turn right, and it’s at the end.”
“Then I’ll go and be right back.”
Watching her rapidly disappearing figure, Mao Jinqian touched the back of his head and silently swallowed the words on his tongue: That toilet requires some mental preparation.
Below was a dug-out large manure pit, a simple latrine made with tree bark and thick branches. Two boards were placed with a gap on top for flexible movement—shift them with your feet before squatting.
One misstep, squat too long and stand up…
Su Ning, now outside the latrine, took a deep breath, braced against the overpowering stench that could knock someone out, and plunged in. She locked the door bolt and without pause flashed into the space.
With her little face flushed red from holding her breath, mouth slightly open as she gulped fresh air, she then trotted to the herbal hut in the yard to open the pharmacopoeia.
She read it carefully from beginning to end, but found no formula for dissipating blood stasis until the very end.
Her expression inevitably darkened a bit. Su Ning put down the booklet in her hand and left the space with a heavy heart.
On the way back to Mao Jinqian’s office, after thinking it over, she had an idea.
“Hello, Jiaming?”
“It’s me. How is it, Su Ning? Does the Su Family’s secret recipe have it?”
“Sorry, Jiaming, no. But how about trying traditional Chinese medicine for Uncle Fu?”
Fu Jiaming on the other end was still disheartened by her “no,” when he heard her next proposal, “Traditional Chinese medicine?”
“Yes, since the craniotomy success rate is so low, why not try the traditional Chinese medicine treatment passed down by our ancestors? I remember Teacher Ge once said that acupuncture can be used for many conditions.”
