Everyone around was busy with their own tasks, and no one paid attention to the small interlude over at Song Xia’s side. Soon, Shen Daniu picked up the plow and began helping Song Xia plow the field.
With Shen Daniu’s help, the plowing speed picked up significantly.
Although Shen Daniu had never used a curved-beam plow before, its principle was the same as a straight plow. Furthermore, for a seasoned farmer, figuring out how to use a farm tool was something he could easily guess just by looking at it.
Therefore, after Song Xia gave him a brief demonstration, Shen Daniu was able to use it with ease.
After plowing back and forth for a while, Song Xia started to feel overwhelmed. She felt the sun becoming increasingly scorching, her head grew dizzy, and black spots danced before her eyes.
Oh no, could it be hypoglycemia?! Song Xia thought to herself with a sinking feeling.
Her current body was still too frail; without meat to eat, her nutrition simply couldn’t keep up.
“Brother Shen, are you tired? Shall we take a little break?” Sweat trickled down Song Xia’s cheek to the corner of her mouth, leaving a salty taste with every word she spoke.
Shen Daniu, pulling the plow ahead, replied, “Little Song, I’m not tired! Let’s get this whole field plowed in one go!”
Hearing this from the front, Song Xia felt even worse, her breath catching in her throat.
“Brother Shen, I really can’t go on. I’m too tired; I need to slow down and catch my breath.” Song Xia came to a halt, placed her hands on her hips, and began to pant heavily, waving repeatedly at Shen Daniu.
Shen Daniu was pulling the plow hard up ahead when he suddenly felt a heavy drag from behind, almost stumbling into the dirt. Just as he was about to turn around and tell Song Xia that she mustn’t do that while working—since it was very easy to injure the person in front—he turned his head and saw that Song Xia’s face was terrifyingly pale.
Song Xia was covered in sweat, stray strands of hair plastered messily across her face. Her complexion was stark white, her lips dry and cracked. She was bent slightly at the waist, pressing her stomach as she panted, looking thoroughly wretched.
Normally, people working in the fields would have flushed red faces. While that might look alarming, such people were actually fine and would recover after a short rest. What was truly frightening was when someone looked even paler than normal—that was a bad sign and could be life-threatening!
Seeing Song Xia’s expression, Shen Daniu dropped the ropes without a second thought and hurried over to check on her. He hurriedly called out to Shen Chunming, who was squatting under a tree shade counting ants: “Ah-Ming! Come here quickly! Bring the water!” Then he turned to Song Xia and said, “Quickly sit down and rest here.”
Hearing someone call him, Shen Chunming looked up and saw his sister-in-law standing pale-faced in the field, panting heavily.
He hurriedly tossed aside the weeds he had been plucking, grabbed the water flask, and rushed over.
“What’s wrong, Sister-in-law?! Uncle Shen, what did you do to my sister-in-law?!” Startled by Song Xia’s pale face at first, Shen Chunming saw her waving her hand and unable to speak, so he immediately directed his anger at Shen Daniu.
“My sister-in-law was perfectly fine when I left her just now!” Shen Chunming’s overbearing attitude flared up again.
Shen Daniu didn’t have time to bicker with a child. He just said anxiously to Shen Chunming, “Hey, what could I possibly have done?! Where’s the water? Did you bring it or not?!”
“Right here!” Shen Chunming hurriedly handed over the flask.
Shen Daniu snatched the flask, opened it, and brought it right up to Song Xia’s lips. “Quick, drink some water!”
Song Xia stubbornly turned her head away to keep Shen Daniu from pouring water directly down her throat. Drinking water like this right now would make her lungs feel like they were going to explode!
“Hey! You’re feeling this awful, you have to drink water!” Seeing Song Xia refuse to drink, Shen Daniu stomped his foot in anxiety and tried even more forcefully to make her drink.
Instead, Shen Chunming sensed Song Xia’s resistance, snatched the flask right out of Shen Daniu’s hands, and yelled at him, “My sister-in-law doesn’t want to drink! Why are you trying to force her?!”
“Working in the fields like this means she’s lacking water!”
“My sister-in-law said no, so no! I listen to my sister-in-law!” Shen Chunming shouted.
Hearing the commotion, Grandpa Wang and Granny Wang hurried over as well.
Shen Daniu wasn’t good with words and didn’t know how to explain. Seeing Shen Chunming snatch the flask and yell like that made him even more anxious; he felt these two were being unreasonable and something bad might happen. It was only when Grandpa Wang and Granny Wang arrived that he felt a bit more reassured.
“Ah-Ming, hurry and let your sister-in-law drink a few sips of water! Daniu is right,” Granny Wang also advised Song Xia and Shen Chunming.
Yet Shen Chunming acted like a stubborn donkey, hugging the flask tightly and refusing to let go, repeating, “I listen to my sister-in-law!”
By this time, Song Xia’s breathing had eased somewhat. Stooping slightly with both hands on her hips, she said to them, “Stop arguing, I’m feeling a bit better. Brother Shen, Granny Wang, please don’t worry, I just can’t drink right now.”
Hearing Song Xia’s words, Shen Chunming tilted his chin up at the others, his little expression practically screaming: See, what did I tell you! My sister-in-law isn’t drinking!
Looking at the pale-faced Song Xia on one side and the proud little rooster Shen Chunming on the other, Shen Daniu was left speechless, feeling that the two of them were stubbornly impossible.
“Then sit down and rest for a bit.” Seeing that Song Xia steadfastly refused to drink water right now, Shen Daniu could only suggest something else.
“I won’t sit down just yet, let me catch my breath first. Ah-Ming, help me over to that tree where we were keeping cool.” Song Xia shook her head and instructed Shen Chunming.
“Alright, Sister-in-law.” Seeing her condition, Shen Chunming quickly supported her and walked toward the tree.
Shen Daniu had no objections to this; when someone was thoroughly exhausted and suffering from heatstroke, they indeed needed to head to a shady spot to recover. So the three of them followed Song Xia and Shen Chunming under the tree.
Although the autumn sun was blazing fiercely, the shade was truly cool. After sitting under the tree for just a short while, Song Xia felt much better.
Only then did Song Xia sit down on the ground, picked up the flask, and began to drink slowly in small sips.
Seeing that Song Xia’s complexion had finally returned to normal, Shen Daniu let out a sigh of relief.
“It’s all my fault. Once I get to working, I forget everything else. You couldn’t possibly keep up with me like that! If your sister-in-law found out, she’d scold me for sure,” Shen Daniu said, looking at Song Xia with an apologetic expression.
“Brother Shen, how can you say that? You’re helping us work, and we don’t even know how to begin thanking you. Saying things like that makes me feel utterly ashamed,” Song Xia hurriedly told Shen Daniu. Then she pulled on Shen Chunming’s sleeve, her tone gentle yet carrying a hint of sternness: “Ah-Ming, you shouldn’t have spoken to Uncle Shen like that just now. Whose work is Uncle Shen helping with? This is your work! Ah-Ming, what should you do?”
Shen Chunming stood up and obediently bowed to Shen Daniu. “Uncle Shen, I was wrong. Please don’t hold it against me. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, it’s nothing, really nothing,” Shen Daniu waved his hands repeatedly and helped Shen Chunming back up.
“Good boy, Ah-Ming.” Satisfied, Song Xia gently patted Shen Chunming’s head.
Shen Chunming turned his head away with a trace of awkwardness, but ultimately didn’t pull away from Song Xia’s hand.
Song Xia then turned to thank Grandpa Wang and Granny Wang: “I haven’t thanked the two of you yet. Thank you so much for today.”
“Oh, listen to those polite words, plus the two of us didn’t really help with anything. Come to think of it, what did you mean earlier when you said you couldn’t drink water?” Grandpa Wang and Granny Wang had simply heard the commotion in the fields and rushed over to see what was happening; they hadn’t actually done anything, and felt a bit embarrassed hearing Song Xia thank them so earnestly.
“Oh, that,” Song Xia paused to catch her breath, then explained slowly, “That was because right after intense physical exertion, a person shouldn’t sit or lie down immediately, and especially shouldn’t drink large amounts of water.”
Song Xia spoke to them with a serious expression, explaining things in detail. After all, such situations happened frequently, and people should understand more about them.
“After intense exercise, or heatstroke—oh, I mean heat illness—one should immediately go to a shaded place to rest. Once a person recovers slightly, they can drink light salted water bit by bit. Specifically, after intense exercise, you must not sit or lie down straight away. You need to let the person stroll around slowly for a small while before sitting or lying down is fine.” Song Xia looked solemn. Back when she was in middle school, after every physical fitness test, the PE teachers would drive running students around like sheep to make them walk slowly, and they would snatch away any ice water the students tried to drink.
Later, when she entered agricultural college and started farming, students suffering from heatstroke were countless. With so many cases, all these taboos became crystal clear to her.
However, regarding her explanation, Shen Daniu remained mostly skeptical. “But all of us have always lived this way.”
“That’s right, we’ve done this for so many years,” Grandpa Wang chimed in from the side.
“Hasn’t anyone here ever had an accident from drinking water after suffering from heatstroke?” Song Xia was also puzzled. Even back in her era, there were people who ended up in the hospital due to electrolyte imbalances caused by excessive hydration after heatstroke.
Shen Daniu thought back for a moment and fell silent.
“So you’re saying… people died from drinking water?” Shen Daniu’s voice turned somewhat bitter. Which family in this village hadn’t suffered from heatstroke? He remembered that the year before last, Granny Wang’s youngest son had died from heatstroke. But that child had followed everyone’s customary remedies—drinking some water and resting—and nobody expected that the child would suddenly start having convulsions, lose consciousness, and ultimately pass away.
At the time, everyone simply said the child lacked fortune and couldn’t be kept; no one ever suspected the water.
Granny Wang and Grandpa Wang seemed to have thought of that child as well, as their families were somewhat distantly related.
Seeing the expressions on the faces of Shen Daniu and the elderly Wang couple, Song Xia understood what had happened and said with a touch of reluctance, “No, drinking water is just one possible contributing factor. Heatstroke itself is already very perilous.”
After Song Xia offered a couple of words of comfort, Shen Daniu wiped his face and said with some embarrassment, “Sigh, I just felt that child was too pitiful.”
The elderly Wang couple remained silent.
Song Xia nodded and didn’t ask who the child was. Such sorrow didn’t need to be probed.
“Sister-in-law, how do you know so much?!” Shen Chunming, who had been listening quietly to the conversation all this time, suddenly spoke up, his eyes filled with absolute admiration for Song Xia.
His sister-in-law was simply too amazing! She could turn unpalatable white porridge delicious, she could make sour cake—a sugary pastry he had never seen before—and she even knew things that these adult men didn’t know!
And his sister-in-law had even said she would make him even more good things he had never eaten or seen before in the future! His sister-in-law was simply the most amazing person in the whole world!
“That’s right, Little Song, how did you know all this?” Shen Daniu asked with considerable curiosity as well.
“Um, I happened to read it in an old book once, but unfortunately I don’t know where I lost the book.” Upon hearing their questions, Song Xia felt a headache coming on and could only pin everything on that nonexistent ancient book.
“Oh, is that so?” Shen Chunming and Shen Daniu said in unison.
For Shen Daniu, who barely knew a few characters, reading books was something he had never even considered; the only person in their village who could read characters and announcements was the village chief. Since it was written in a book, it must be correct.
As for Shen Chunming—who was generally too lazy to learn characters, but was recently being forced by Shen Huaijing to learn them—he thought it was truly remarkable that his sister-in-law could read and study books. That meant she must always be right!
“What are you all doing here?!” From far away, Shen Hu’s voice rang out.
For some reason, Shen Hu had arrived very late today. The sun was already high in the sky by the time he came over alone carrying a mattock on his back.
“Hey, how come we didn’t see Ah-Li today?” Noticing the absence of the half-grown lad who usually followed closely behind Shen Hu, Song Xia asked with some confusion.
“He’s sick.” Shen Hu’s expression looked rather unpleasant. Who didn’t have days when they felt unwell? When his son Ah-Li said he felt poorly yesterday, Shen Hu hadn’t taken it seriously, assuming the boy was just tired from working in the fields during the day and telling Ah-Li to go to sleep early, thinking he’d be fine by the next day.
To his surprise, that very night the boy started vomiting and having diarrhea. By the next day, Ah-Li was so sick he couldn’t even get out of bed.
His shrewish wife had launched into another round of scolding and crying, and Shen Hu had been busy until just now, finally managing to free up some time to deal with his field work.
“Sick? What kind of illness? Is it serious?” Hearing that Ah-Li was sick, Song Xia quickly pressed for details.
Song Xia actually quite liked that boy Ah-Li; he had a sweet mouth, was hardworking, and was especially quick-witted. On the two occasions when Song Xia was too busy in the fields to fetch water, Ah-Li would help bring Song Xia’s water flask over from the tree so she could have a drink. Hearing that Ah-Li had fallen ill, Song Xia felt genuinely concerned.
In contrast to Song Xia’s worry over Ah-Li’s condition, Shen Chunming wore a sour expression. That Ah-Li always tried to curry favor right in front of him! And that brat had even said things like, “Your sister-in-law is so nice, yet you don’t even go down to help her. You really have no conscience!” As if he himself hadn’t been resting just a little while ago!
The elderly Wang couple and Shen Daniu also asked questions just like Song Xia.
Seeing everyone asking, Shen Hu merely shook his head, muttered that it was nothing major, and instead frowned as he asked the group:
“What are you all doing here?”
“Oh, my sister-in-law suffered from heatstroke, so she’s resting for a bit,” Shen Chunming blurted out first. He cared about his sister-in-law too!
“Such a delicate thing!” Shen Hu muttered under his breath, stopped looking at them, and went down into the field to do his own work.