Chapter 243: Seeking Medical Help
“Ouch, Third Sister-in-Law, what’s wrong with you? How could you faint out of the blue like that?”
Xiao Zhou Shi gloated on the side, tiptoeing to look while pretending to cover her eyes with her sleeve and wailing loudly, sounding just like a funeral cry!
“Poor thing, her face is deathly pale—could she be dead?”
“Daqiang’s wife, shut your mouth! Third Child’s family isn’t dead yet!”
Bad Luck! Old Li Tou was furious. He realized that actually Third Wife was this family’s lucky star. None of his sons were any good, but because of her, this family seemed to have held on this long.
Otherwise, they might still be squatting in prison.
Zhou Baoni saw Luo Zhi’er like this and was somewhat surprised.
She thought she was throwing a tantrum after arguing with Li Sanmao, but how did it turn into a matter of life and death!
Could she have been unable to think straight and committed suicide?
She kept saying, “Most likely she did something bad in town today, Sanmao found out, she couldn’t face anyone, so she tried to kill herself and ended up like this, right?”
“Shut up, hmph, if you can’t speak without a filter on your mouth, then don’t speak. Both of you, settle down and go back to your room!”
Old Li Tou deeply despised these women from Old Zhou Family.
It was these two who had just insisted on stopping him from calling for help. If the delay from earlier caused problems, what then?
“Tch, fake kindness. Don’t I know what kind of thing you old thing were before???” Zhou Shi muttered as she entered the main hall, not daring to let Old Li Tou hear.
As soon as she entered the door, she saw Li Gui standing mysteriously behind the door, coldly staring at the situation in the yard. “Gui’er, you’re up?”
“Mm.”
Li Gui let out a haughty hum from his nose, ignored Zhou Shi completely, and limped back into his own room.
He looked as if Zhou Shi owed him millions in silver. Zhou Shi was so angry she was half dead. What evil had she done in her previous life to owe him anything?
From childhood to now, she had held him in the palm of her hand, and even now she served him food and drink every day, yet he still had this attitude toward her.
Earlier when she collected the bowl from his room, could it be she had raised a thankless wolf? If he weren’t her own flesh and blood, she really would want to strangle him to death.
But she only thought about it in her heart, unwilling to say it out loud and let the family laugh at her.
Besides, she felt Gui’er was still young after all, someone she had pampered and raised from childhood. She couldn’t really let him starve to death.
She just swallowed her anger. He was someone she had spoiled from childhood, different from Li Sanmao and the others.
Last time in prison, Gui’er had injured his leg, and who knew how it was doing?
Why was he still limping when he walked? She had secretly gotten herbs from Doctor Li to give him.
The old man wouldn’t even let her take care of him, saying he only knew how to eat besides sleeping, didn’t get up to work, was a good-for-nothing who couldn’t earn food, and should just be left to starve to death.
Chen Shi waited until they had all gone back to their rooms before tearfully taking Jiabao and Jiayong back to hers.
“Mother, will Third Aunt be okay?”
“Yeah, Mom.”
“It’s none of your business. Go back to your room.”
As soon as Li Sanmao left, someone sneaked into their room.
Miaomiao had never spent close time with Old Li Tou. In the pitch-black yard, Old Li Tou told her to go with him to their room to sleep with her grandma, but Miaomiao refused.
“Grandpa, Miaomiao can’t sleep until Mother and Father come back.”
Old Li Tou saw her teary-eyed, patted her head, and sighed.
Old Li Tou then took her to his own room to wait.
In Old Li Tou’s room, after staring wide-eyed at each other for a bit, Old Li Tou instructed Zhou Shi to mix some honey water for Miaomiao to drink!
Zhou Shi immediately had a face like nose wasn’t nose and eyes weren’t eyes. “What? Living some beautiful dream! A little girl, a money-losing thing! And it’s my turn as grandma to serve her?”
“You damned woman, shut up!”
Miaomiao stood up uncomfortably and said, “Grandpa, Miaomiao doesn’t want to drink water.”
“Miaomiao is going to get the calligraphy copybook to practice writing.”
“A woman without talent is virtuous—what characters! Silver burning a hole in your pocket!” Zhou Shi got furious at once.
“Shut up, Miaomiao, go get it!” Old Li Tou stopped her.
Miaomiao breathed a sigh of relief and ran to her own room to get the book to write.
Unexpectedly, as soon as she entered the room, she found someone rummaging for things. “Fifth Uncle?”
Li Sanmao had left in a hurry without locking the door, and now someone had their eye on it…
Li Gui glared viciously at her: “Little thing, remember to keep your mouth shut! Or else…”
He looked ferocious, making a throat-slitting gesture.
In the mule cart, Li Sanmao held Luo Zhi’er and silently shed tears, pressing his face to hers. “Sorry, wife, I know I was wrong. Wake up and look at your husband.”
“When you’re not feeling well, don’t you always want to hold your husband’s hand and have him touch your forehead to feel better? Your husband has been touching it. Do you feel a bit better?”
Li Daqiang was driving the ox cart in front, feeling bad in his heart too, sour and upset. He cracked the whip, and the mule ran pretty fast.
By the time they reached town, it was nearly midnight, and all the clinics they usually went to had closed.
They ran to three in a row, all the same. Li Sanmao was frantic, spinning in circles. She was still bleeding; the quilt was all bright red, her face lifeless. If they dragged on like this, would his wife lose her life!
“Wife, hold on a bit longer. I’ll find a doctor to treat you right away.”
Li Sanmao wasn’t willing to give up. He ran back to the previous one to beg again. Only this apothecary still had a waiter guarding the shop. Li Sanmao said tremblingly, “Waiter, please, just help me find that doctor. It’s an emergency— if we delay any longer, my wife will die!”
The waiter poked his head out to look. “Coming for a consultation in the middle of the night naturally means it’s urgent. Brother, it’s not that I won’t help you. Our Doctor Xu saw too many patients today; he’s already asleep now. Lack of sleep affects the next day’s consultations. Can you take responsibility if something goes wrong?”
“Plus, to tell you the truth, he doesn’t live in town. He went back to his home in the countryside today. Even if you took a mule cart, it’d take an hour or so. Isn’t that not worth it?”
Doctor Xu was the only one in their clinic who did gynecology, and her condition clearly was a gynecological problem.
“Since you’ve already come to town, hurry and think of another way yourself. Like this, do you have any acquaintance in town who’s powerful and influential? Have them write a calling card. No clinic dares refuse if there’s a connection!”
He didn’t…
“What to do? What to do?” Li Sanmao’s legs gave out, nearly collapsing to the ground. What way could there be?
If he had money and power, how could he not even find a doctor?
Li Daqiang supported him. “Sanmao, you can’t collapse. If you really collapse, Third Sister-in-Law really won’t be saved!”
The waiter saw how pitiful he was, glanced around and saw no one else, then said softly: “Brother, by the rules, our clinic and Jiujiu Apothecary are rivals, but to save a life, I’ll tell you— you know Doctor Du at Jiujiu Apothecary, right!”
“He lives in town, at Zhu Ming Residence on Xi Shui Street. His medical skills are excellent and he’s kind-hearted. Go beg him!”
“Doctor Du?”
Li Sanmao remembered: last time his wife went to Jiujiu Apothecary, it was to see Doctor Du. He had boiled the medicine that doctor prescribed, and she had gotten better after drinking it.
The first place he had gone to earlier was Jiujiu Apothecary, but they had closed early!
“Good, thanks waiter. Oldest Brother, let’s go right now!”
Li Sanmao and Li Daqiang hurried nonstop to Zhu Ming Residence.
