Uncle Liu didn’t mind Chen Jue’s probing gaze. Thinking of his own son, who had lost a leg, he couldn’t help but feel a surge of sorrow. “He lies in bed all day, barely eating a few bites… and he flies into rages, driving his wife away…”
Chen Jue listened, his fingers twitching slightly. This situation didn’t seem right.
He didn’t interrupt Uncle Liu, who was speaking of these family matters for the first time. Chen Jue hadn’t realized how dire things were—that even in such difficult circumstances, Uncle Liu had still taken care of him for three days, even if it was just preparing two meals a day. It was truly remarkable.
Chen Jue listened quietly.
Uncle Liu wiped his face, his eyes reddening as he continued, “Xiu’er was such a good daughter-in-law. She never complained about his missing leg, serving him tea, helping him with his needs, washing clothes, and changing bedding—never a word of resentment. But I don’t know what happened to him. His temperament changed completely. He either sits on the kang all day in a daze or flies into a rage, smashing bowls and plates. Afterward, he regrets it, saying he’s useless… and then he started hitting people…
He drove Xiu’er away, and my poor granddaughter Nannan lost her mother at just three years old. What’s wrong with Qingshan?”
Chen Jue had a rough idea of what might be wrong, but without seeing the patient, he couldn’t make assumptions, so he remained silent.
Uncle Liu didn’t expect an answer from Chen Jue anyway—Chen Jue wasn’t a doctor.
He was just talking to himself. “Why is life so hard?”
He had originally come to encourage Chen Jue to look ahead, but in the end, he was the one who couldn’t see a way forward.
He gazed into the distance, his wrinkled eyes filled with the weariness of age, and said slowly, “At first, people said a tall man like me couldn’t have children, but I had three, and each one was good. My eldest Ger married into Liujia Village beyond the mountains for just a few taels of betrothal money to pay for his father’s medical treatment. He barely comes home once a year. My younger Ger, Qingzhu, is fifteen now and should be looking for a match, but he refuses to meet anyone because he knows this family can’t do without him. I’ve failed him…”
Uncle Liu sighed deeply. To comfort Chen Jue, he had laid bare his family’s hardships. Looking at his deeply weathered face, Chen Jue finally spoke, “Uncle Liu, things will get better.”
He wasn’t good at comforting people—this was all he could say.
Every family has its struggles, and in this impoverished ancient era, life was especially hard. Uncle Liu’s family was among those with the thinnest rope to cling to.
As he spoke, Uncle Liu finished picking the leeks, wiped his hands on his apron, and placed the vegetables from the basket onto the stone slab. He said to Chen Jue, “It’s good that you’ve come to terms with things. I’ll be going now—Dashan can’t be left alone.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Chen Jue decided to visit Zhou Qingshan. From Uncle Zhou’s description, something didn’t seem right.
He needed to see the person himself.
Not to treat the missing leg, but something else.
Since Zhou Qingshan had survived the journey back, even if someone had accompanied him, he had endured over half a month of jostling. Any wounds should have healed long ago, and a severed limb couldn’t be reattached. Even if it were possible under the current medical conditions, it was too late now.
What he wanted to see was something else—something psychological.
One month after the injury, emerging from the pain would lead to falling into another kind of suffering.
This could only be confirmed by seeing the person in question.
Although he couldn’t steer Zhou Qingshan toward a better direction, he had to prevent the possibility of things worsening.
Chen Jue wasn’t entirely clear why Uncle Liu was so caring toward him. The original host had only been married into this village for a year, and the memories left behind weren’t particularly abundant.
Chen Jue himself hadn’t paid much attention either. During these days, he had been thinking about the causes and consequences of his own death.
People are independent individuals with a strong sense of self. Even if he had taken over someone else’s body, he would immediately reshape his own way of thinking.
The memories of others would be overwritten—the turnover of the cerebral cortex is remarkably fast.
He was no exception.
Although he didn’t understand why Uncle Liu was so caring toward him,
he didn’t want to owe favors and would do what he could to help.
Uncle Liu’s heart was set on Zhou Qingshan. Hearing Chen Jue’s question, he assumed he was looking for Qingzhu and sighed, “It’s good that you can help me persuade Qingzhu too.”
Persuade him to do what? Marry sooner?
Could he really persuade him?
He himself had never married in his past life. How did Uncle Liu think he could persuade others? What if he ended up convincing him not to marry at all…
Thinking this, Chen Jue remained silent and packed the vegetables back into Uncle Liu’s basket exactly as they were.
Uncle Liu tried to stop him: “Keep these melons to eat. They go really well with cornmeal.”
Mentioning cornmeal reminded Chen Jue of the corn grits porridge he had cooked himself, and he felt a bit nauseous again. He pressed a hand against his stomach—it wasn’t that he disliked it, but the child in his belly did.
Uncle Liu insisted on giving him the melons, tucking them through the fence and insisting he keep them. Chen Jue was never good at arguing over trivial matters, so he gave in. He took the melons and placed them inside the fenced yard, closed the gate, and carried Uncle Liu’s basket as they walked toward his house.
Passing by the vegetable garden, he pointed to a plot and said, “Uncle, my vegetable garden has plenty of vegetables. You don’t need to bring me any—there’s enough in the garden.”
He had pointed randomly, unsure which plot was his. These vegetable gardens in front of the mountain were all reclaimed from wasteland, varying in size and shape, making them hard to distinguish. He had no memory of this.
Uncle Liu corrected him, pointing to a well-tended plot nearby and saying, “You silly child, your vegetables are indeed growing well, but you didn’t plant any Tiao-melons here. A while ago, you even asked me to save some seeds for you to plant next year.”
So, loofah was called Tiao-melon here.
Thanks to Shennong’s tasting of a hundred herbs, Chen Jue wasn’t entirely ignorant about these crops.
Uncle Liu pointed out his vegetable plots as they walked past the garden.
Once past the garden, they arrived at Uncle Liu’s house.
Uncle Liu’s house was about a thousand meters below Chen Jue’s, consisting of three mud-walled rooms with a fenced yard. Through the low fence, the state of the home was visible at a glance—it seemed even worse than the yard he currently lived in, at least his own house was made of stone.
Uncle Liu’s little granddaughter, Nannan, was playing in the yard with a handful of rabbit tail fur. Sitting under an old pomegranate tree beside her was Uncle Liu’s youngest son, the Ger Liu Qingzhu.
Another Ger.
Chen Jue fixed his gaze and studied him.
He was on the lean side, his complexion slightly sallow due to the food scarcity of the era. Yet his hands were skilled at their work. The straw sandals he wove were well-made, reinforced with tough leather strips—sturdy and resilient, carrying the crisp vitality befitting a teenager in the midst of a growth spurt.
Little Nannan, spotting Uncle Liu from afar, called out happily, "Grandpa!"
That Ger, Zhou Qingzhu, also looked up and smiled at Chen Jue. "Brother Chen, you're here."
His smile was quite warm, suggesting he had been close to the original owner. Chen Jue nodded back at him.
Qingzhu fetched a stool for him to sit on, and Chen Jue observed him discreetly.
Although Uncle Liu was also a Ger, his advanced age made it difficult to discern any distinctive traits. Chen Jue focused instead on the younger generation.
Uncle Liu had mentioned his youngest son was a Ger, so this Zhou Qingzhu, who looked just like any ordinary boy, must be the one.
"Ger" was likely their local term for men capable of bearing children.
Zhou Qingzhu’s appearance was that of an ordinary man—perhaps a bit more delicate in features, with softer contours, but he still had an Adam’s apple.
This couldn’t really be considered a defining trait, as many boys of fifteen or sixteen hadn’t fully developed yet and often retained a youthful, delicate look.
He would need to observe more individuals to draw any conclusions. He couldn’t count himself among them either—the original body was only nineteen.
Chen Jue was afflicted with a cat-like curiosity, too intense for his own good, compounded by his professional habits as a doctor. Whenever he encountered something unusual, he couldn’t help but want to study it.
Even if it meant studying himself.
From Uncle Liu’s tone, conceiving a child seemed to be no easy feat for them. He had even used himself as an example, saying that others once thought he couldn’t have children, yet he had given birth to three, all of them healthy.
In other words, while Gers might find it difficult to conceive, once they did, the children born were typically healthy and accepted as normal.
The ability of Gers to bear children might be due to the local environment or perhaps a genetic trait of the people here.
There were too many species in this world that science couldn’t fully explain. Though Chen Jue was a staunch materialist, he also knew that the limits of science often bordered on the mystical.
Oh, that was something the head nurse used to say.
Thinking of the head nurse made him want to call her and ask if she had ever encountered someone like him giving birth.
He was a cardiac surgeon, and even though he had become well-versed in obstetrics and gynecology over the past year because of Jiang Xinhe, he had never come across a case like his own.
With a fully developed uterine system, would the process be the same?
And afterward—how would breastfeeding work?
He stared down at his flat chest, his thoughts drifting.