Da Mao did not return home until evening. He was covered in sweat, and a large section of the back of his red undershirt had been torn away.
Seeing him swagger into the house without a care in the world, heading straight for the food as if nothing had happened, Fang Xiaoqin’s anger flared. She immediately grabbed the broom by the door. At the sight of it, Da Mao turned and bolted. After reaching the doorway, he stood outside peeking in. He knew his mother cared about keeping up appearances and would never chase him outside to beat him.
Before long, however, he sneaked back inside.
Fang Yuan stopped her mother from grabbing another weapon to hit him and told Da Mao that there was rice porridge in the pot and that he could serve himself. She then took two pieces of pickled radish from the crock.
Watching Da Mao gulp down the porridge noisily, Fang Xiaoqin frowned deeply. Suppressing her anger, she asked, “So you finally know how to come home. What exactly have you been doing outside all day? What did you eat for lunch? Did you finish your homework?”
Da Mao licked his lips and looked up. “School holidays are for playing. Who’d be stupid enough to spend the whole day doing homework?”
The moment he saw his mother reach toward him, he quickly dodged aside. Otherwise, his ears would be in for another round of punishment.
“What did you eat for lunch?” Seeing Da Mao finish the bowl of porridge in just a few gulps, Fang Xiaoqin stood up and served him another bowl.
Da Mao took the bowl from his mother and poured the porridge into his mouth in big mouthfuls without answering. At noon, he and a few friends had gone to the countryside to secretly dig up sweet potatoes. They roasted them and each ate two to fill their stomachs. But he would never dare tell his mother that. She would break his legs if she found out.
Seeing her son wolfing down the food, Fang Xiaoqin assumed he had wandered around all day without even eating lunch. She felt both angry and heartbroken.
“You’ve only worn this shirt for two years, and you’ve already torn such a huge hole in it. Don’t expect me to buy you any more clothes in the future. You don’t know how to take care of anything. I was planning to save it for your younger brother to wear in another couple of years. Now, after patching it a few more times, it’ll only be good enough to use as a rag.” Fang Xiaoqin could not help scolding him again as she looked at the large tear in his red undershirt.
“Mom, I always have to wear Big Brother’s old clothes. His clothes are already worn out to begin with, patched over and over again. When are you going to make me a new set of clothes?” Xiao Mao pouted and complained.
“I still have to wear Big Sister’s old clothes,” Da Mao chimed in. “Last time you even made me wear that one with the little floral pattern. If I’d actually gone out wearing it, everyone would’ve laughed themselves to death.”
“Your sister’s clothes aren’t like yours, worn until they’re falling apart. If they weren’t too small for her, they wouldn’t have ended up with you. Stop talking and hurry up. Go outside, rinse yourself off, and change out of those smelly clothes. I’ll wash them together.”
After saying that, she noticed Fang Yuan inside the house wiping and cleaning everything, and could not help sighing again. “Ah Yuan, you already wiped everything down yesterday. Now you’re doing it again. You’re going to wipe all the paint off the furniture.”
Having a daughter who loved cleanliness so much was also a headache. Anyone who did not know better would think she usually kept the house filthy. In reality, among all the families living nearby, she was the most diligent about cleaning.
Fang Yuan answered with a smile, but her hands never stopped. She was somewhat of a neat freak. Whenever she had free time, she liked to wipe everything around her until it was spotless.
Seeing that Fang Yuan showed no sign of stopping and had even started mopping the floor, Fang Xiaoqin simply dragged both sons outside with towels and a washbasin, keeping an eye on them while they rinsed themselves off.
There was running water supplied in front of the row of houses. One faucet had been installed for every five households, with water available at scheduled times. Normally, everyone fetched their water there.
On summer evenings, the men from the nearby households all bathed beside the faucet. The women washed clothes while chatting nearby. Some families had already carried bamboo beds and bamboo chairs outside to enjoy the cool evening air.
Aunt Liu’s grandson was nibbling on a hard-boiled egg. When he saw Da Mao and Xiao Mao come out, he hurried over with quick little steps, shouting, “Brother Da Mao! Brother Da Mao! Let me tell you, I went to the zoo today and saw a huge tiger…”
Da Mao could not be bothered with the little kid. He splashed a ladle of water over himself, rubbed soap over his body a few times, and scrubbed away layer after layer of dirt.
Xiao Shengli chattered around Da Mao for quite a while. When Da Mao ignored him, he ran over to Xiao Mao instead.
“Brother Xiao Mao, the tiger I saw was this big! It roared so fiercely.” Xiao Shengli spread his hands wide to demonstrate. The hard-boiled egg in his hand dropped to the ground. He bent down, picked it up, and was about to stuff it into his mouth when Fang Xiaoqin stopped him.
“Shengli, Grandma will rinse it off with some water first. Otherwise, if you eat the dirt, your stomach will hurt.”
She rinsed the half-eaten egg clean with water and handed it back to Xiao Shengli. At the same time, she kept an eye on Da Mao and shouted, “Scrub behind your ears and under your arms too.”
After the lively commotion finally settled down, the whole family finished cleaning up. They also carried their bamboo bed outside and sat together to enjoy the evening breeze.
Fang Yuan sat in the courtyard wearing a short-sleeved floral top and knee-length shorts, waving a palm leaf fan to drive away the mosquitoes.
Once the surrounding neighbors had finished their chores, they all brought stools over and gathered in a circle. Everyone was very interested in the university graduate Fang Yuan. Every time she came home, they would surround her with questions about university life. This time, Fang Yuan had been assigned to work at the county hospital and was reporting there the next day, so everyone curiously asked about it.
“Ah Yuan is really capable. She’s about to become a doctor. In the future, whenever we get headaches or fevers, we can come to you for medicine.”
“Our factory already has a clinic. We can get medicine and treatment there for free. Why would you spend money going to the county hospital?” Fang Xiaoqin said with a smile.
“I’m just introducing myself to Ah Yuan first. The factory clinic can only treat minor illnesses. If relatives or friends get sick in the future, won’t it be much more convenient to have someone at the county hospital?”
“How much does a county hospital doctor earn every month?”
“Ah Yuan is already nineteen, isn’t she? Xiaoqin, you should start paying attention now. Hurry and find her a good husband.”
Everyone talked at once, and Fang Xiaoqin answered each question one by one. She had always been a low-key person, but her daughter truly was outstanding. Hearing all the praise from her coworkers and neighbors made her heart swell with satisfaction.
Aunt Liu’s youngest daughter, Fangfang, pulled Fang Yuan aside and quietly chatted with her about the recent situations and changes among several people their age whom they had gotten to know over the past two years.
They had not gotten along in the past. Fang Yuan had excelled in everything, and because of that, Aunt Liu often nagged Fangfang.
However, four years earlier, a textile factory accident had taken both of their fathers, making Fangfang feel that they shared the same sorrow. The jealousy she had once held toward Fang Yuan disappeared for a time.
Just then, the Chen family’s son, who lived two houses away, came back hauling two large blocks of ice, followed by a noisy crowd eager to see them. He worked as a porter at the textile factory and had just gotten married earlier that year. He was cheerful and easygoing. Seeing everyone staring at the ice longingly, he went inside, brought out a hammer, and chipped off a small piece for everyone to play with.
Da Mao received a cube of ice. Holding it excitedly in both hands, he kept shifting it from one hand to the other because it was so cold. Looking at the crystal clear block with its chilly mist, he stuck out his tongue, wanting to give it a lick.
“Da Mao, are you trying to upset your stomach?” Fang Xiaoqin shouted as soon as she saw him.
Seeing his mother’s expression, Da Mao immediately shrank his neck in fright.
Some people even stuffed the ice inside their clothes, hopping around excitedly from the freezing cold.
During that midsummer night, those two large blocks of ice brought a great deal of joy to the workers of the textile factory.
Late into the night, the brothers Da Mao and Xiao Mao fell fast asleep on the bamboo bed outside the house. The mosquito coil had already burned out, allowing the mosquitoes to quietly return. Even in their sleep, the brothers scratched themselves from time to time.
Fang Yuan lay on the bamboo sleeping mat in the inner room. Thinking that she would be reporting to the county hospital tomorrow, she felt both excited and slightly nervous.
The reason she had studied medicine was because of her grandfather.
Fang Yuan bore her mother’s surname. More precisely, she had inherited her maternal grandfather’s surname.
Her maternal grandfather, Fang Zhiyuan, had been born into a family of traditional Chinese physicians. His acupuncture skills were renowned far and wide. During the Japanese occupation, soldiers had come to force him to treat Japanese troops. Fang Zhiyuan refused to treat the Japanese, so he fled to the countryside with his family. Their ancestral home was burned to the ground by Japanese soldiers.
In the countryside, he stayed with Fang Yuan’s paternal grandfather, Xu Daniu. Xu Daniu had once suffered from a serious illness and had been saved by Fang Zhiyuan, for which he remained deeply grateful. Every holiday, he would bring gifts to visit him.
While living in the countryside, Fang Zhiyuan took a liking to Xu Daniu’s second son, Xu Dajiang, and arranged a marriage between him and his own younger daughter. Fang Zhiyuan had only two daughters, and it was agreed that the first child born to his younger daughter would carry the Fang surname. The entire Xu family readily agreed.
After the Japanese withdrew, Fang Zhiyuan returned to the city and arranged for Xu Dajiang to work at a factory in the county seat. After the founding of the People’s Republic, he closed his private clinic and began working at a hospital instead.
It was said that while he practiced at the provincial capital hospital, patients traveled from all over the country to see him, and the registration line stretched from the registration office all the way outside the main gate. No matter how difficult the illness, once it reached him, a single acupuncture treatment could cure it. At the time, the highest-ranking leader in the provincial capital personally invited him for treatment, and even chronic injuries that had lasted for years were cured by his hands.
Fang Yuan had grown up beside her grandfather. From childhood, she memorized medical classics and acupuncture point charts with him. She was exceptionally intelligent, able to memorize a book perfectly after reading it only twice. She entered elementary school at the age of five while she was still toddling along unsteadily, and at fifteen she was admitted to the provincial capital’s medical university.
Unexpectedly, Fang Zhiyuan did not allow Fang Yuan to choose the newly established traditional Chinese medicine program. Instead, he had her study clinical medicine. He believed that Western medicine’s study of anatomy would give his granddaughter a more intuitive and profound understanding of the human body and its acupuncture points.
She had not disappointed his expectations. After studying Western medicine, Fang Yuan became even bolder and calmer when performing acupuncture. Her acupuncture technique had now reached about seventy percent of Fang Zhiyuan’s mastery, with the remaining thirty percent requiring more years of practice and refinement.
Her grandfather had passed away the previous year. After her father, he was the second close family member she had lost.
Her father… At the thought of him, Fang Yuan’s heart twisted painfully once again. Although there were two physicians in the family, they had been powerless in the face of a life that departed so suddenly. Because of her father’s unexpected death, her mother, who had already been eight months pregnant, went into premature labor after being unable to withstand the shock. Fortunately, her grandfather had been there, and both mother and baby survived safely. However, her mother’s condition at the time made it impossible for her to care for her youngest daughter. As a result, her little sister still remained in the countryside under her grandmother’s care.
The reason she had not chosen to stay at the affiliated hospital in the provincial capital was because she wanted to return to the county town, help her mother shoulder the responsibility of caring for her younger siblings, and bring her little sister back from the family home in the countryside.
The more she thought, the harder it became to fall asleep. Not wanting to appear exhausted when reporting for duty the next day, Fang Yuan silently recited the Song of Acupuncture Techniques in her mind, slowly lulling herself into sleep.
Just as she was about to drift into a dream, a sudden scream tore through the stillness of the night. Fang Yuan jolted awake with a start.