Chapter 3: Giving Mother an Injection

The sound of knocking, like a straw to clutch at, made the man in the white coat suddenly slow down his searching; it was obvious he had guessed that the people before him were absolutely not Japanese, and that those knocking were the ones who would save his life.

"Bang!" A rifle butt smashed mercilessly onto his shoulder.

"Ah—!"

The man in the white coat's miserable scream exploded inside the clinic.

He Yuzhu commanded coldly: "Stop stalling, hurry up and find the things! Otherwise, I'll beat you to death!"

The man in the white coat became completely obedient; trembling, he took everything—the syringe, alcohol cotton, adhesive tape, and other supplies—out of the drawer in one go.

He Yuzhu glanced at him, estimating that it was enough.

Raising his hand, he struck the man in the white coat, knocking him unconscious onto the floor.

Next, every useful thing in the room was collected by He Yuzhu into his space.

Pushing open the back window and discovering that there was no one in the small courtyard behind, he quickly jumped down from the window, climbed onto the wall, and jumped down again; very soon, his small body disappeared into the darkness.

Almost simultaneously, the sound of heavy leather boots and shouts like ghosts howling and wolves shrieking surged toward Qianmen Street like a tide; before long, the entire Qianmen Street was surrounded by the Japanese devils and the puppet soldiers like an iron bucket.

He Yuzhu took many turns, and after confirming there were no tails following him, he slipped into his space, nimbly stripped off that flashy "yellow skin" uniform, and changed back into his own tattered cotton-padded jacket and trousers.

After exiting the space, he got some snow from the corner of the wall by the road to wash the makeup off his face; after checking a mirror and discovering he had returned to his original appearance, he straightened his collar and blended into the crowd on the street.

Passing by Dian'anmen, He Yuzhu discovered that even in the freezing cold, there was an old woman by the side of the road, trembling as she sold half a bag of Xiaomi.

He Yuzhu tossed her two Big Ocean coins and took the Xiaomi beside her.

The old woman looked at the child running away and muttered: "Thank you, kind person; now I can get medicine for my little grandson!"

He Yuzhu ran into a deli and, seeing two glistening soy-sauce braised pork knuckles on the table, said: "Wrap up both soy-sauce braised pork knuckles for me, and give me a pound of dried tofu as well."

After buying the things, he sprinted toward home.

Arriving at the entrance of the No. 95 Siheyuan, he saw that even in the freezing cold, Yang Ruihua was still standing there like a door god.

She caught sight of He Yuzhu carrying a cloth bag, and her triangular eyes immediately narrowed: "Zhuzi! Skipping school again, aren't you? What's that bulging in the bag? Bring it here for me to see! Otherwise, I'll tell your father exactly about you skipping school later!"

He Yuzhu couldn't even be bothered to lift his eyelids and said: "Go ahead and tell him! My dad doesn't even want me to go to school anymore, and I don't want to go either, so it's perfect if you tell him!"

"You little brat, you don't know what's good for you!" Yang Ruihua cursed.

He Yuzhu pushed open the door to his home, and a thick, heavy smell of medicine mixed with the distinct stench of vomit rushed toward him.

Immediately following that was the heart-wrenching coughing sound of his mother in the inner room; she sounded as if she were trying to cough up her very internal organs.

He Yuzhu's heart sank violently, and he rushed to the side of the kang in the inner room in a few steps.

Under the dim oil lamp, his mother's complexion was terrifyingly sallow, her forehead was burning hot, and her breathing was weak.

He Yuzhu suppressed the stinging sensation in his nose and gently supported his mother's gaunt shoulders: "Mother, please endure it a little longer; I'll get you some hot water right now."

Shen Guizhi did not answer, because she was struggling to breathe; her body trembling, she lay on the edge of the kang, preparing to spit out phlegm.

He Yuzhu's gaze sharpened, and his fingers pressed precisely onto a certain spot on the back of her neck with lightning speed!

Shen Guizhi's body went limp, and she instantly fell into a deep sleep.

Time was tight! He Yuzhu immediately took out the life-saving Penicillin, carefully disinfected it with alcohol cotton, and nimbly performed a skin test.

After confirming there were no issues, he carefully injected the clear medicinal liquid, bit by bit, into the vein of his mother's withered arm.

He sat on the edge of the kang, tightly holding his mother's ice-cold hand, his eyes fixed on her without blinking.

Gradually, his mother's tightly furrowed brows seemed to relax a little, and that breathing sound, which had been like a bellows, also became much lighter.

In the kitchen, the rice jar had long since hit the bottom.

He Yuzhu poured in the golden Xiaomi he had just bought.

The cold stove was reignited with a faint flame, licking the bottom of the pot.

He scooped out half a small bowl of rice, washed it carefully, and added water to the pot.

Before long, a faint, hopeful fragrance of rice finally began to permeate the cold room.

The soy-sauce braised pork knuckles were sliced into thin pieces, oily and trembling as they were arranged on a chipped coarse porcelain plate, with the braised dried tofu piled to the side, making one drool just looking at it.

"Creak—" The door was pushed open, and his father, He Daqing, returned, bringing a chill with him.

He sniffed hard, and that long-lost aroma of meat hooked into him like a barb, instantly drawing out all the gluttonous worms in his stomach.

But the next second, his face sank instantly, and his gaze cut toward He Yuzhu, who was serving the porridge, like a knife: "Zhuzi! Where did this meat... come from?!"

He Yuzhu didn't stop his movements, squeezing a "silly" smile onto his face and trying to make his tone sound relaxed: "Dad, I hit the jackpot today! I was keeping watch outside when I ran into two little Japanese devils grabbing people. After those people had all run off, I saw a small cloth bag dropped on the ground; I picked it up and took a look, and hey! Inside were a few Big Ocean coins, and also... this." He casually pulled two Big Ocean coins and a few crumpled Japanese military notes from his bosom and "slapped" them onto the small kang table.

He Daqing rushed over in one stride, and his fan-sized palm, carrying the sound of the wind, landed with a crisp "slap!" squarely on He Yuzhu's face!

"Dad! Why are you hitting me?!" He Yuzhu covered his face, his anger "whooshing" up to the top of his head! If it weren't for the fact that this body was only nine years old, he would have really wanted to punch him back! He had long been sick to death of this father, who was full of feudal patriarch mannerisms and spoke in such a foul way.

"Hitting you? Hitting you is getting off light!" He Daqing grabbed those few military notes, his voice lowered to the extreme, and said: "Do you know what these are? These are death warrants; if someone sees them and reports it to the Military Police, not one of us in this family will survive!" He rushed to the small fire basin in the corner and threw those pieces of paper into it without hesitation!

The orange flame "whooshed" up, greedily devouring the paper scraps and instantly licking them into ashes.

He Daqing stared at the dancing flames, his face so gloomy it could wring out water: "Yang Ruihua said you skip school every day, and that after you go out in the morning, you don't return to school; is that true?"

"That old hag is truly not a good person; she asked me for things, and when I didn't give them to her, she went and reported me!"

"From now on, you get your butt back to school and study! If you dare to pick up random things outside again, I'll break your dog legs!" He Daqing cursed.

"Oh, I know." He Yuzhu lowered his head and replied in a muffled voice, but the gaze hidden in the shadows was as cold as ice.

He Daqing picked up the two Big Ocean coins from the table, blew on them, and listened carefully to the long, trembling resonance by his ear; his expression finally softened by a fraction, and he casually tucked them into his own pocket: "This money is confiscated! Tomorrow, I'll go buy some milk powder for your sister."

"Let me go buy it? I know a classmate whose parents work at a Japanese trading firm..." He Yuzhu quickly interjected.

"Go to hell!" He Daqing glared, "Tomorrow, get your butt back to school!"

At this moment, Shen Guizhi on the kang slowly woke up; her face still carried a sickly flush, but her spirit seemed to have improved by a fraction.

She spoke weakly: "Zhuzi's father... I... I feel like my body... doesn't feel as heavy today; do you think I am... having a final burst of energy before death?" Her voice was full of sorrow and fear.

"Mother! Don't you go thinking nonsense! You're getting better!" He Yuzhu hurriedly leaned over.

He Daqing also hurried forward, his rough hand repeatedly pressing against his wife's forehead and his own, and a crack of relief finally appeared on his tense face: "The fever broke! It really broke! It must be Li Langzhong's medicine; it finally did the trick this time!"

"The... the fever broke?" Shen Guizhi couldn't believe it as she raised her hand to touch her own forehead, then touched her husband's; a weak glimmer of light finally burst forth in her cloudy eyes, "Is... is it true?"

The taut string in the family's hearts had just begun to loosen when a loud, piercing cry full of grievance suddenly exploded! In her swaddling clothes, He Yushui kicked her short little legs, crying until her small face turned beet red, gasping for breath.

"Oh dear, my little ancestor is hungry..." Shen Guizhi wanted to hold the child, but felt a wave of weakness and shook her head in distress, "But in this state of mine... how could I still have milk to feed her..."

"Mother! You eat first! Once you've eaten your fill, the milk will naturally come." He Yuzhu immediately brought the warm rice porridge and that plate of glistening, tempting braised pork knuckle and spiced dried tofu to the edge of the kang.

Seeing the meat, Shen Guizhi's dim eyes brightened for a moment, and she looked at her husband in surprise: "Their father... did you... get your wages?"

He Daqing sighed heavily, shot He Yuzhu a fierce glare, and scolded him irritably: "It's your foolish son! He picked it up from the Japanese, tell me, isn't he courting death?"