Chapter 665: The '50s Motherhood System (22)

Wasn't it said he was four months old? A four-month-old boy, logically, if you hold him standing on an adult's legs, should be able to step and bounce on his own; he should have plenty of strength. But their eldest grandson, not only couldn't bounce, but was as limp as a puddle of mud?

They carried him to the health clinic to have the doctor see if it was a calcium deficiency or something else, but the doctor gave them a shockingly stunned answer: "This isn't as simple as a deficiency; this is infantile cerebral palsy."

"!!!"

What? Cerebral palsy? No wonder he was like a paralytic, unable to be held upright no matter what.

"Then how do we treat it? How much money will it cost to cure him?"

Qiu Caohua began to feel a heartache; was that hundred yuan going to be spent before it had even warmed up in her hands?

The doctor shook his head: "This kind of congenital infantile cerebral palsy currently has no cure."

"!!!"

What!!!

Doesn't that mean he's like a cripple, destined to lie in bed for a lifetime? You can see he can't even stand steadily; how can you expect him to walk?

The doctor: "It's not that he won't be able to walk for his whole life, it's just that he will have to spend more time than a normal person on training and rehabilitation. Fortunately, he is still young; if we intervene early, there is still a great chance to improve his ability to walk."

"..."

So much trouble, and in the end, it only improves his ability to walk? Instead of becoming like a normal person?

Qiu Caohua felt a wave of disappointment.

No wonder the daughter-in-law gave the money so readily; it turns out this child isn't a normal person.

All that "busy with work, no time to raise the child" was just an excuse! It was simply because she disliked that this child wasn't normal that she sent him to the old home!

Zhuang Laotou thought even further ahead than his old woman.

The way his son sent this child back to the old home and then couldn't wait to return to Beijing clearly meant he didn't want him anymore; wouldn't that make it the responsibility of the two of them in the future?

Never mind the money for now, where would the two of them find the energy?

Before this child arrived, he was already exhausted enough; what would they do from now on?

They say you raise children to provide for your old age, but in his case, after raising his son, he has to go on to raise his grandson?

Just thinking about it made everything go black before his eyes.

Zhuang Mingcheng had returned to his old home with his wife and child for the first time in many years, but only a few days later it was the autumn harvest; he didn't stay long, only spending one night before taking his wife back to Beijing, leaving the four-month-old child at the Old Zhuang Family—such big news spread throughout the village within two days, and it was hard for Xie Yang not to know.

She hadn't been going out much lately; firstly, the autumn harvest was approaching, and there was work to be done in the fields; secondly, the little hens at home had been laying eggs since early summer, and the five hens were all putting in effort, bringing her a stable yield of five or even six eggs every day.

Over three or four months, they had accumulated five or six hundred eggs.

And because the little hens were fed well, the eggs they laid were even larger than those laid by ordinary old hens, and the yolks were both large and yellow.

Even though she consumed one or two eggs a day, she still had over four hundred saved up. Ten to a basket, she had filled forty baskets and still had some left over.

So, she had the Main System perform a background check on the list of soldiers who sacrificed their lives in the Aid Korea War, ranked them according to their family circumstances, and delivered a basket of eggs—along with grain, vegetables, and fruit, of course—to the parents or wives and children of the forty soldiers living in the most difficult conditions.

The other families of martyrs only had grain, vegetables, and fruit for the time being, no eggs.

However, she believed that once the Breeding Farm Module was unlocked, then not to mention eggs, even chicken meat could be distributed to everyone.

Because she was busy with this, she hadn't been out much lately, and upon hearing about the behavior of Zhuang Mingcheng's family, Xie Yang clicked her tongue in her heart.

In her past life, with the original owner as the big sucker, she not only had to show filial piety for Zhuang Mingcheng and serve the old couple, but also had to raise this child for the Old Zhuang Family, falling ill while still young and passing away in her early forties.

In this life, without the original owner, let's see how they handle it.

In the fields during the autumn harvest, everyone was busy and fired up, yet they hadn't forgotten to gossip about this big news regarding the Zhuang family.

At this moment, everyone didn't yet know the child's condition, thinking it was just that Zhuang Mingcheng and his wife had to work and had no one to watch the child, so they sent him back to the old home.

"So what's the use of marrying a wife from the city? She can't come home more than a few times a year; she doesn't come back for the New Year or the busy farming season. It's rare for her to come back, and she only stays one night—not even as often as my married daughter comes back!"

"Isn't Mingcheng's father-in-law a Cadre at a big unit in Beijing? His mother-in-law's family is in Beijing, so why didn't he have his mother-in-law help take care of him? Instead, he sent him all the way to the countryside."

"Who knows! Maybe his mother-in-law didn't want to take care of him; she's a Cadre's wife, very respectable, so why would she want to spend all day cleaning up poop and pee for a nursing baby?"

"I see Old Zhuang and his wife beaming in the fields these past few days; maybe the in-laws are paying money and letting them provide the labor."

"If that's really the case, then that makes sense."

A few days after this was said, or more precisely after the autumn harvest, some villagers saw the old Zhuang couple returning from the township holding their grandson with gloomy faces, as if someone owed their family a huge debt and they had gone to collect it but failed.

A few days later, when the work in the fields was completely finished, the nearby older women and aunts took their sewing baskets and went together to the Old Zhuang Family to see the big, fat grandson born to Qiu Caohua's city daughter-in-law.

"Sister-in-law Caohua, we've come to see your big grandson! Oh my! He's worthy of being a city child! He's grown up so fair and clean!"

Qiu Caohua had been sunning the child in the courtyard; the doctor had said that congenital cerebral palsy couldn't be cured, but letting him get more sun and helping him stand and bounce more was better than lying in bed doing nothing. What could she do? She had no choice but to be at her age and still have to hold her four- or five-month-old grandson to bounce him under the sun.

The key was that no matter how she teased him to stand up, this kid was like a soft-boned creature; his two legs just wouldn't straighten out.

She hadn't expected this group of gossips in the village to come to her house.

Qiu Caohua panicked and almost didn't hold onto her grandson.

"Oh my! Sister-in-law Caohua, be careful, you almost dropped your precious grandson. Come, come, come! Let me hold him for a while!"

Before Qiu Caohua could pay attention, the grandson in her arms was taken away by this group of gossips to be teased.

If he were a normal child, Qiu Caohua would probably be feeling very proud right now.

Her Mingcheng was good-looking, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to marry a city wife.

A handsome father can't produce an ugly son; look at her grandson, with delicate features and fair, tender skin, he was many times prettier than those Hei Pi nursing babies in the village.

But the key was that he wasn't a normal child, he...

"Oh my! What's wrong with this baby's legs?"

"Oh! They're all limp, he has no strength, right?"

"Auntie Zhuang, this baby is over four months old, right? The day your Mingcheng came back, he said he was four months and a few days old. Now the autumn harvest is over, why can't he stand steadily yet? You have to go to the hospital and check!"

"Could it be a calcium deficiency? Last time my niece had a baby at the hospital, I heard the obstetrician say that babies with calcium deficiencies tend to have soft bones."

Qiu Caohua: "..."

If only it were just a calcium deficiency!

She said with a sheepish expression: "Maybe so, he'll be fine when he's a little older."

"Right, right, right! City children are delicate, unlike the children in our village who are tough."