It was a miracle he had even survived this long.
"I’m the one you’re looking for, young lady. What did you want to ask?" Li Gao Yi coughed twice before looking at Bai Jiu. He couldn’t understand why this young woman had come. They had never had any contact in the past. For a moment, he couldn’t figure it out. Why was she bringing him medicine?
Bai Jiu knew exactly what they were thinking. "My husband used to be in the military," she said, offering no further explanation. "Tell me about your condition. My medicine here is for specific illnesses. If it’s useful, I’ll give it to you. If not, I won’t. Taking the wrong medicine can be fatal."
Hearing that her husband was a soldier, Li Gao Yi lowered his guard a little. "It’s an old problem. My lungs were injured in the past, and whenever I get cold, I cough." He had sustained this injury back when he was still working at his old unit. Seven or eight years had passed, and it had become a chronic issue. This kind of illness required careful nursing, but given his current situation, even finding medicine was nearly impossible, let alone resting. He had given up hope long ago. If it weren’t for the constant care of his old friends, he probably would have passed away to reunite with his late wife by now.
Upon hearing it was a lung disease, Bai Jiu didn’t dare hand over any medicine recklessly. Only after asking for specific details did she pull out a small paper packet and a tiny glass bottle from her coat.
"This is an anti-inflammatory medication. Take it three times a day, one pill at a time." Bai Jiu took out the cephalosporin. On her way here, she had grabbed a piece of paper from her pocket space and popped the pills out of their blister pack one by one. Capsules did exist in this era, though they weren’t very common.
"This is for the cough. Take one sip at a time, three times a day. If you’re still coughing after you finish it, I’ll get you more." She handed him the cough syrup, having already removed the label. She wasn’t the least bit worried about anyone discovering her secret.
Li Gao Yi didn’t reach out to take it immediately. He just stared at Bai Jiu, waiting to see if she had any ulterior motives.
They say the older you get, the shrewder you become, and it was entirely true. Oblivious to their suspicions, Bai Jiu simply set the medicine on the ground when he didn’t take it. "You’re coughing terribly right now, so take a sip. Not too much, but not too little either. If it’s hard to measure, just fill the cap. Just don’t drink any water for ten minutes after taking it."
With that said, Bai Jiu had no intention of sticking around. These people had their guards up way too high.
After she left, Zhou Lan closed the door before finally picking up the medicine from the ground. "What should we do? Should you take it?" she asked, clearly tempted.
Old Li coughed so severely that he couldn’t sleep at night. Not only did he suffer, but his coughing kept the rest of them awake as well, and they still had to go to work the next day. While the regular commune members could stay indoors and rest during the winter break, they didn’t have that luxury. Even in the dead of winter, they were forced out to do hard labor and clear wastelands. They didn’t get a single day of rest all year round.
Old Li sighed and took the medicine. He knew he had become a massive burden to his old friends. Now that they actually had medicine, of course he had to take it. The young woman had said to drink from the bottle first, so he would take a sip.
Medicine was a precious commodity, and Li Gao Yi was somewhat reluctant to consume it. But for the sake of his old friends and himself, he had to. He took a gulp. It was sweet. In all his years, he had never tasted anything so sweet. He had been told it was medicine, so he couldn’t fathom why it tasted like this.
"It’s sweet," he said, his eyes lighting up as he swallowed it down.
"Are you delirious from your illness? How could medicine be sweet?" Elder Wu rolled his eyes at him, then took the bottle from his hands and capped it.
"It’s true, I’m not lying! Try it if you don’t believe me," Li Gao Yi immediately protested when they doubted him.
"You old fool, you can’t just take medicine casually. ’Try it’—do you think this is sugar water?" Mr. Zhang chimed in with a tease.
For a moment, everyone’s gloomy thoughts were dispelled by Li Gao Yi’s words.
Ten minutes passed quickly.
"Old Li, you haven’t coughed once since you took the medicine," Zhou Lan spoke up. She had been staring at him the whole time, eager to see if the medicine would work. She hadn’t expected such immediate results.
"She’s right. Usually, this old geezer coughs a dozen times just trying to get a sentence out. But from just now until this very moment, he hasn’t coughed a single time." Elder Wu was equally astonished. "I didn’t expect this medicine to be so effective. It seems your luck has finally turned, you old rascal."
Li Gao Yi hadn’t realized he wasn’t coughing, either. "This... this is really..." He realized he owed her a massive favor this time.
"Alright." Seeing his expression, Elder Wu knew exactly what he was thinking. At a time like this, why worry about all those complicated details? "Didn’t she just move over here with her two kids? We just need to keep a closer eye out for them from now on." Elder Wu was considered the leader among them. Aside from his former status, he was also the oldest of the four. When the eldest brother spoke, they naturally listened.
"That’s all we can do." They had absolutely nothing. The few things they did possess couldn’t even compare to what the young woman had, so there was no way they could repay her materially.
Back at the house, Bai Jiu wiped herself down, changed into fresh clothes, and lay on the bed with her two children. The children slept on the inner side of the heated brick bed, with Xiuxiu right in the middle.
"Mom, are we really never going back to Grandma’s place?" Lying on the bed, Xiuxiu still couldn’t quite believe all the changes that had happened over the past day.
"We’re not going back. Never again." Bai Jiu scoffed inwardly at the thought of providing for them in their old age. She had absolutely no intention of doing that. First of all, she wasn’t the original owner of this body, and second, she wasn’t Gao Zhijun’s real wife. She saw no reason why she should provide for her enemies’ retirement. She wasn’t some bleeding-heart saint. Besides, she was supposedly a widow; the Gao family should count themselves lucky she wasn’t demanding financial support from them.
Early the next morning, Bai Jiu got up to make breakfast. She prepared a plate of stir-fried cabbage, warmed up the leftover braised pork from yesterday, and boiled a clear broth with three poached eggs.
She had no intention of shortchanging herself. It wasn’t just for her own sake; she also wanted to use this winter break to nurse the two children back to health. They had suffered far too much in recent years, and their bodies were severely malnourished. It wasn’t just the children—the original owner’s body was just as depleted. While she looked fine on the outside, her insides were practically in ruins. Whenever her time of the month came, the original owner would be in agonizing pain, half-dead from the cramps. Yet she still had endless chores to complete. No matter how strong a body might be, it couldn’t withstand that kind of torment.