Chapter 28: Rural Absurd Past Events Chapter 28: Mountain Gully Village 28

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

Li Xiulan brought her three sons home, and Wang Xiaohua, frightened by Dashaoben's fool of a son, came down with a high fever.

Li Xiulan was frantic with worry, applying salt water compresses, feeding him rice soup, bathing him with peach branches to drive away evil spirits — she tried every folk remedy she could think of, but the fever would not break.

In the end she had no choice but to carry Wang Xiaohua on her back and go to the health station at the village entrance to find Zhong Jianguo for an injection.

Zhong Jianguo took Wang Xiaohua's temperature, his old face darkening:

"It's nearly forty degrees, why did you bring the child so late? If it keeps burning like this, it'll fry his brain."

Li Xiulan's face was full of guilt and self-reproach:

"Doctor Zhong, please treat my son quickly!"

Zhong Jianguo reassured her:

"Don't worry, I'll give him a shot and the fever will break very soon."

Zhong Jianguo went to the medicine cabinet and took out a syringe and medicine vial, put the pencil-thick syringe into boiling water to scald it, then disinfected it with alcohol, then inserted it into the thumb-sized glass medicine bottle, drew the medicine into the syringe, and gave Wang Xiaohua an injection in the buttocks.

In that era, the backward mountain area's health station had limited conditions — they even reused syringes.

As this needle went into Wang Xiaohua's buttocks, the originally listless Wang Xiaohua immediately perked up considerably and burst into loud wailing.

The buttock shot was truly too painful, pain that reached deep into the soul, so that for the rest of his life, whenever Wang Xiaohua saw a syringe, he would involuntarily feel his eyes go dizzy.

After the injection, Zhong Jianguo prescribed some medicine for Wang Xiaohua: chuanxinlian, ganmaoling, headache tablets, antibiotics and the like, enough for several days, wrapped together in small paper packets, one packet per dose, three times a day.

"Take the medicine on time after meals every day, don't eat spicy, fried, or easily heat-inducing foods."

Zhong Jianguo finished prescribing the medicine and gave a few instructions.

Li Xiulan hurriedly thanked him, then asked:

"Doctor Zhong, how much money?"

Zhong Jianguo calculated a bit, then said:

"Three yuan six."

Li Xiulan paid the money, took the medicine, carried Wang Xiaohua on her back, and returned home.

That very night after taking the medicine, Wang Xiaohua's fever had already broken.

"Mama, I don't want to go get a haircut anymore, I'm scared..."

Wang Xiaohua said this to Li Xiulan with a pale face.

Li Xiulan knew Wang Xiaohua had been frightened by Dashaoben's fool wife and fool son.

She didn't want her young son's tender heart to endure such fright again, so she gently stroked him and nodded in agreement:

"Alright, if you don't want a haircut then don't get one, when you want one later I'll take you again."

And so, Wang Xiaohua's hair was left to grow.

As time passed, Wang Xiaohua's hair grew longer and longer, unkempt and hard to manage, so Li Xiulan even braided a little braid for him.

To the point that this little boy Wang Xiaohua looked just like a little girl.

Originally Li Xiulan had wanted a girl, so now she wasn't very resistant to Wang Xiaohua dressing like this.

But this caused a lot of jokes among the villagers.

"Xiaohua, are you a boy or a girl?"

Quite a few villagers passing by who saw Wang Xiaohua would laugh and tease him.

Wang Xiaohua was only a tiny tot, how would he know anything about distinctions between male and female?

"Mama says I'm a boy."

Wang Xiaohua looked completely bewildered.

"Then why do you wear a little braid? And Xiaohua is originally a woman's name, come on, take off your pants and let Uncle see, do you have a teapot spout or not!"

Faced with the adults' joking questions, Wang Xiaohua could only timidly run away.

Days passed one by one, Wang Xiaohua grew day by day.

Because he feared those two fools at Dashaoben's house, he never wanted to get a haircut.

In a blink he was already over three years old, his hair nearly dragging on the ground.

Li Xiulan helped him tie his hair into two ponytails, making him look even more like a little girl than a little girl.

This day his two older brothers went outside to play with other children, Wang Xiaohua insisted on following, but was refused by Wang Dashan and Wang Erhai.

"They all say you're a girl, you stay home, we're going to the fields to catch mice, girls aren't suited for catching mice, you go find Xiao Fang and them to play jump rope."

Wang Dashan and Wang Erhai left him behind and ran off, Wang Xiaohua felt deeply defeated in his heart, he cried and went to find Li Xiulan:

"Mama, am I a boy or a girl?"

Li Xiulan answered with a smile:

"Of course you're a boy."

"Then why do they all say I'm a girl?" Wang Xiaohua asked aggrievedly.

Li Xiulan couldn't help laughing:

"Isn't it because you won't cut your hair? If you cut your hair they won't laugh at you anymore."

"But, I'm scared... Uncle Daben's house has two monsters..." Just thinking of the two "monsters" at Dashaoben's house, Wang Xiaohua was terrified.

"I'll have Uncle Daben bring his tools to our house to cut your hair, then you won't have to meet the monsters, how about that?"

Wang Xiaohua was still afraid, because he felt getting a haircut would hurt just like an injection, very very painful, but in order not to be seen as a girl by the other village children, he still summoned his courage and agreed.

This afternoon, Wang Xiaohua's little face bore a determination as if facing death, and she cried as she sat down on Dashaoben's barber chair.

That crying look of hers, both comical and adorable, made all the surrounding neighbors laugh.

Even Dashaoben and Li Xiulan were laughing uncontrollably.

Wang Xiaohua closed her eyes, seemingly enduring the immense pain about to come, waiting for Uncle Dashaoben to cut her hair.

As a result, when the hair clippers were pushed against her head, she discovered it didn't hurt at all.

Only then did she open her eyes, her face full of surprise: "How come it doesn't hurt at all?"

Dashaoben chuckled: "Ju-ju-just now ju-ju-just now... just sharpened the sc-sc-sc-scissors, they won't pu-pu-pu, pull, pull hair, so of course it doesn't hurt!"

Wang Xiaohua got a little crew cut; her little head looked very cute.

She thought that as long as she cut her hair, she could play with the other little friends.

But this day when she wanted to play "jump airplane" with the other boys in the village, those little boys still refused to play with her.

"Xiaohua, go away, we don't play with girls!"

Wang Xiaohua's face was full of grievance:

"I am a boy!"

Children speak without reserve:

"What boy's name would be Xiaohua? You're clearly a girl!"

A group of kids laughed heartily; everyone was mocking Wang Xiaohua.

Wang Xiaohua cried and ran home.

Seeing his younger sibling bullied to tears, Wang Dashan rolled up his sleeves and was about to go beat up that gossipy brat.

His own younger sibling, he could bully, but he wouldn't allow outsiders to bully.

That brat, after being beaten, still refused to accept it:

"Your younger sibling is a girl! If not a girl, why would your dad and mom give her a name like Xiaohua!"

Wang Dashan was left speechless.

Because he didn't understand either — why would dad and mom give younger sibling such a little girl's name.

Wang Xiaohua cried and returned home, only to discover her mother Li Xiulan wasn't home.

And at this time, as a mother, Li Xiulan was worrying immensely over a matter.

Her eldest son Wang Dashan was already seven years old this year, reaching school age.

However, because of over-quota birth, her three sons still haven't been able to get household registration; without household registration they can't go to primary school, and even if they could, they'd have to pay three to four hundred yuan extra in tuition.

Her family was poor as a church mouse; Wang Zhanggen had been out working these years but hadn't earned much money.

If all three children's schooling cost this much, how could the family's economic situation bear it?

So now, Li Xiulan had come to the Supply and Marketing Cooperative at the village entrance.

She was currently calling Wang Zhanggen, asking for a solution to the problem.

"Husband, Dashan starts school this September, still no household registration yet — what do we do?"