Everyone turned their heads at once—hey, wasn’t this the Qin family’s fiery little girl who had just gotten her marriage certificate at noon?
“You can do it?”
“Lai Di, don’t mess around. This isn’t a joke.”
“Exactly. This girl is too mischievous. If you ask me, Widow Qin spoils her too much. When she goes to her husband’s family, she’ll have a hard time.”
Team leader Li Benfen was already overwhelmed, his head aching from the chatter. “Go do what you’re supposed to do. Don’t you need to eat instead of watching the excitement?”
Qin Laidi squeezed forward and said clearly, “Uncle, I learned from Doctor He. Let me try.”
In recent years, swine fever had been severe. Each production team kept their pigsties in secluded areas at the back hills, raising pigs collectively with one designated caretaker from the team. Wulitun didn’t have a full-time caretaker, so whenever pigs fell ill, Doctor He from the cowshed would come to help.
This year, the team had three sows. Two had already gone into labor. Unfortunately, Doctor He had returned to the city for something, and the caretaker from the neighboring team had gone for training. For the moment, no one could be found to assist with the delivery.
Helping a sow give birth was different from assisting a human. During labor, sows became extremely alert and ferocious. At best, they might bite or kill their piglets; at worst, they could injure or even kill people.
Raising a sow was far more difficult than raising regular pigs. From mating to pregnancy and delivery, it required a great deal of effort. If mishandled and the sow killed her piglets, the loss would be enormous.
Li Benfen couldn’t agree rashly. Rubbing his recently bitten left hand, he asked, “Doctor He taught you this too?”
Facing everyone’s gaze, Qin Laidi remained calm. After all, she had once been a doctor and had endured years of being doubted and sidelined. “The sow from the neighboring team two years ago—I assisted Grandpa He with that delivery.”
“That did happen… but Lai Di is still an unmarried girl—ah, wait, she just got married.” She had received her certificate at noon, and her husband had already left in the afternoon. People looked at her with a mix of sympathy and teasing.
Li Benfen was still hesitating when Wang Lifen grew impatient. “Who says an unmarried girl can’t assist in delivery? Male doctors treat gynecology patients too!”
The crowd burst into laughter and all agreed.
Qin Laidi smiled gratefully at her. Wang Lifen immediately took charge, telling everyone to step back. She assigned tasks—some to boil water and prepare brown sugar, others to gather clean straw, and others to fetch pig feed with extra cornmeal.
By the time Qin Laidi finished washing her hands, the pigsty had been cleared, leaving only two sharp-snouted, big-bellied black pigs.
She glanced calmly around, observing the signs of disturbance in the sty and the bloodstains on the straw beneath the sow. “She’s been in pain for three days, hasn’t she?”
“That’s right. She stopped eating and started groaning the day before yesterday. I didn’t realize she was about to give birth…”
As the caretaker spoke, Qin Laidi approached quietly. The sow, which had been groaning in pain, suddenly opened its eyes, baring its sharp white teeth and staring at her as if ready to attack at any moment.
“After being in pain this long, it’s definitely dystocia. If this were a woman, she might already be dead after three days,” an elderly woman said with concern.
“Exactly. My niece-in-law from my hometown labored for two days and one night last year. She didn’t make it to the clinic…”
Some timid women began wiping their tears. “We count on getting a few pounds of meat every year. If the sow dies, how will we survive this year?”
“My youngest said he wanted pork a few days ago. I told him to wait until the New Year… my poor child!”
A bolder man said anxiously, “What’s there to fear? If it dies from difficult labor, we can still eat the sow—and the piglets too…”
“Shameless!” someone spat, though they couldn’t help swallowing.
“I bet you’ll eat it when the time comes. If you don’t, give your share to me, alright?”
“…”
While the villagers argued, they didn’t notice Qin Laidi swiftly pressing a few points on the sow’s waist and hips. The sow’s bared teeth immediately retracted, and even its groaning softened.
Only Wang Lifen watched closely. Seeing her daring to touch the sow, she exclaimed, “Hey, you girl—”
Before she could finish, Qin Laidi lightly patted the sow’s lower back twice. The sow actually lay down obediently, as if understanding, allowing Qin Laidi to assist.
Suddenly, someone gasped, eyes wide.
“Lai… Lai Di, where did you—”
Following her gaze, everyone saw that Qin Laidi had quietly pulled out a bluish-black object.
“It’s a piglet!”
Due to the difficult labor, the piglet had suffered from lack of oxygen, but its vitality was strong—it still moved after being pulled out.
Qin Laidi quickly pressed its chest—not too hard to break the bones, but enough to stimulate the heart. Controlling that exact pressure was difficult. She continued until the piglet made a sound, then immediately turned to deliver the next one.
And so, the crowd watched as Qin Laidi calmly and steadily delivered one after another—
“They’re all piglets!”
“They’re really being born!”
Soon, eight pink piglets, cleaned of their membranes, lay neatly beside the sow.
Wang Lifen and Li Benfen were too overjoyed to question her skill. Their eyes shone. “So… so many?!”
“One, two, three… seven, eight… there are actually eight!” They were stammering in disbelief.
In those days, even people struggled to eat, so livestock nutrition was poor. A litter of eight piglets was already considered highly productive, especially for a first-time sow.
But Qin Laidi wasn’t pleased. Frowning, she carefully felt along the sow’s abdomen. “There are two more.”
Everyone was stunned. “Are you sure?”
Qin Laidi said nothing, focusing on her work.
Many production teams would collect piglets from the commune each spring and raise them until the end of the year. If they wanted more pigs, they had to exchange at high prices with teams that had sows. Eight—no, ten piglets were a huge fortune.
Even if they kept them, that meant ten fat pigs by the end of the year. If slaughtered and distributed, each household would get a good share—enough to eat dumplings for three meals during the New Year!
Wulitun would finally hold its head high this year!
But reality proved they were still too conservative. The ten piglets Qin Laidi mentioned were only from one sow. There was another one next door, also groaning for two days.
By the end of the afternoon, both sows had successfully delivered twenty piglets. Though each one was thin and not particularly glossy, all of them survived.
By then, Qin Laidi’s back was so strained from bending that she couldn’t straighten up. She leaned against the low wall of the pigsty and sat down. “Uncle, Auntie, these two litters need to be raised separately. Someone needs to help the sows turn over at night and feed the piglets…”
As for her—she was completely exhausted.
Li Benfen and Wang Lifen no longer had any doubts. They thought Doctor He truly lived up to his reputation as a doctor from a big city hospital. Just teaching her a little had produced such a capable apprentice. If he had taught her everything, wouldn’t she become a miracle doctor?
“Alright, alright. Go home and rest first. We’ll discuss who will take care of them.”
At home, Qin Guihua had already heard about her granddaughter’s “glorious deed” from returning villagers and was beaming with pride. “You stubborn girl! I told you to learn more from Doctor He. See? Grandma wasn’t wrong!”
Qin Guihua never hid her motives. In those days, even families couldn’t feed themselves properly—was she really so kind as to give food to the “bad element” in the cowshed? She had simply heard that the old man knew medicine and wanted her grandchildren to learn a skill. So she had them deliver food to him.
At first, she sent Ailan, but Ailan was already a grown girl and too shy to continue after one visit.
Then she sent the clever Youdi, but that girl avoided work instead of learning—playing with crickets or fiddling with red strings in the cowshed. After testing her several times and finding she learned nothing, Qin Guihua finally sent the most mischievous third child.
“At that time, you were less than ten years old, so stubborn you refused to go. I had to chase you with a stick…” Thinking of it made both grandmother and granddaughter laugh.
“By the way, since Doctor He was taken away by that car, it’s been almost two months. I wonder when he’ll come back?”
Qin Laidi shook her head. According to her memories from her previous life, Doctor He had been taken back to the capital by a work team to treat an important leader. He would later become that leader’s personal physician—a so-called “imperial doctor.” How could he possibly return to this remote place?
Doctor He’s full name was He Libai. He came from a family of traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, practicing for generations in the capital. During the Republican era, he had served as dean of medical schools in Beiping and Shanghai. After liberation, he became the director of a Beijing hospital, responsible for the healthcare of senior officials.
Because his family had accumulated wealth through generations of medical practice and owned considerable land before liberation, he was among the earliest intellectuals to be sent down in 1966.
When Qin Laidi studied under him, it was mostly because she was afraid of her grandmother and wanted food. The old man always seemed to magically produce small rewards—a piece of fruit candy, an eraser, or a short pencil—whenever she learned characters or memorized his medical formulas.
No one could have imagined that years later, she would rely on those bits of knowledge to gain a respected job… yet she had not cherished it.
Later, when He Libai found out her address and personally came to see her, she didn’t have the courage to face him.
The white-haired old man, hunched over, left two hundred yuan before slowly walking away from Lenghe Town.
Her guilt could only be buried deep in her heart—for now. One day, it would break through and be reborn. Qin Laidi believed that.