Chapter 144: Each to Their Own Duties

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After that, Li Sheng continued lying beside his wife, keeping his broad palm pressed against Tang Xin’s lower abdomen to warm her.

Tang Xin gradually drifted off to sleep. She slept for a little over an hour, and by the time she woke, only a faint discomfort remained.

The next morning, Li Sheng rose carefully, taking care not to disturb his sleeping wife.

As usual, he went outside to run and help his parents with their chores. He also reminded everyone else in the household not to make too much noise, so that his wife could sleep peacefully.

From the previous afternoon into the evening, Li Sheng had learned from his birth mother and the old professor just how difficult that time of the month could be for a woman.

Naturally, he became even more attentive in caring for his wife.

Not only did he prepare breakfast for her, but after Tang Xin woke, he brought hot water to her bedside so she could wash up.

It made Tang Xin laugh helplessly. “Why do I feel as though I’ve just given birth and am confined at home to recover?”

Just then, Madam Fang happened to pass by their door and naturally added, “If you really had a baby, the whole family would take care of you around the clock.”

Tang Xin was rendered speechless for a moment. Having children was something for the future; at least for now, she felt it was still a very long way off.

Even so, over the past few days she had already begun to feel that everyone in the household was treating her like a helpless little child, tending to her with painstaking care.

The most painful part was that her mother-in-law brewed medicinal soup for her three times a day, with every meal.

If Li Sheng had been the one brewing it, Tang Xin might have deliberately acted spoiled and refused a few times.

After all, she came from a later age. Although she had not personally experienced many of women’s health problems, she had read plenty about them online and understood them to some extent.

It was not an illness at all. She merely needed to take proper care of her body.

Besides, the original owner of this body had never suffered from such severe menstrual cramps before. Hadn’t her family prepared plenty of medicine for her when she went to the countryside, without including anything specifically for menstrual pain or regulating her cycle?

But every time, it was her mother-in-law who brewed the medicine, and Madam Fang herself brought it to Tang Xin. That made it difficult for Tang Xin to refuse.

That was simply the kind of person she was. If she had encountered a cruel mother-in-law, she might have ended up fighting with her every day, snapping back at her hundreds of times before breakfast.

Instead, Tang Xin had been fortunate enough to meet a good mother-in-law like Madam Fang, whose words and feelings matched, and who sincerely cherished her as though she were her own daughter.

Precisely because of this, Tang Xin both loved and respected her mother-in-law deeply. Faced with such kindness, she simply did not know how to refuse it.

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She began to suspect that Brother Li Sheng might be doing it deliberately.

Since he knew she could not refuse, perhaps that was why he always had his mother bring her the medicine.

Although she was allowed to keep a piece of candy in her mouth after taking it, Tang Xin still felt terribly disgruntled.

Why did she have to drink medicine for so many days when she was not even ill?

Fortunately, after three days, her period was nearly over. Her abdominal pain had disappeared long before that, and Li Sheng had also promised that she would no longer need to take the medicine starting the next day.

However, in the middle of that night, she was jolted awake by an urgent pounding at the door. The courtyard gate was being struck so violently that it clanged loudly.

It turned out that the brigade leader had suddenly come to the Li family home in the middle of the night.

Li Sheng’s parents found it bewildering, but they respected the brigade leader, so they opened the gate and invited him inside.

Li Sheng went out to speak with him, but the brigade leader refused to talk to him directly and said that he had come to see Tang Xin.

The brigade leader was not a thoughtless man, and he looked extremely anxious. Something serious must have happened.

Tang Xin quickly put on her clothes and came out of the room.

As soon as she appeared, the brigade leader had no time for pleasantries and asked her directly whether she still had any medicine.

The commotion had been so great that everyone in the Li household was awake and had come outside. They were all startled by the brigade leader’s words.

Medicine? What medicine?

It turned out that the brigade leader’s grandson had suddenly developed a fever in the middle of the night. Although they had found the brigade’s barefoot doctor to examine him, the man’s medicines were all herbal remedies.

Not to mention that obtaining and boiling herbs in the middle of the night was inconvenient, a child so young could not withstand such a high fever for long.

The barefoot doctor had therefore suggested that the brigade leader come to the Li family and ask the educated youth, Tang, to think of a solution.

At that, Tang Xin understood. They had their eyes on the cold medicine she possessed.

Western medicine worked quickly, after all. The barefoot doctor simply had not yet had a chance to restock after the New Year.

As it happened, Tang Xin had caught a slight cold during the holiday, and Li Sheng had insisted on calling the barefoot doctor to examine her because he was worried.

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By the time the barefoot doctor arrived at their home, Tang Xin had already taken the medicine and appeared to be in good health. Thus, he had realized that Educated Youth Tang had brought some ordinary household medicines with her when she came to the countryside.

Such medicines could save a life in an emergency, and he did not know whether she would be willing to part with something so valuable.

But the little boy lay there burning with fever and unconscious, looking pitiful beyond words. The barefoot doctor had therefore risked offending her and told the brigade leader what he suspected.

Tang Xin did have some basic Western medicines, but cold medicine could not be taken carelessly—especially since the brigade leader’s grandson seemed to be several years younger than the twins.

After consulting her parents-in-law and her husband, Tang Xin went with Li Sheng and the brigade leader to his home, carrying her little bag.

The brigade leader’s family was considered fairly well-off throughout the entire Harvest Brigade, and even across Red Star Commune. They had built a spacious house of gray brick and tiled roofing long ago.

Yet in the darkness of night, scattered points of lamplight shone from within the house. As soon as they entered, they saw several people sitting in the main room.

The barefoot doctor Tang Xin had met before was there as well. The moment they entered, the brigade leader hurriedly asked how things were going.

His eldest son said that the fever was still climbing, and that the boy had even coughed up blood while unconscious.

His wife was weeping as though she had become a person made entirely of tears. If anything happened to the child, he suspected she might not survive it either.

He himself was desperately anxious, but he was a grown man and the eldest son of the family. Even if tears came, he could only swallow them back.

The barefoot doctor had done everything he could. He had even prepared the medicine through the night, while the brigade leader’s wife was boiling it on the stove.

But herbal medicine worked slowly. The brigade leader’s grandson was not merely coughing; he was burning with fever, and if it could not be brought down immediately, the situation would become dangerous.

In fact, the eldest grandson had already complained of feeling unwell that afternoon, but no one in the family had paid much attention. The old woman had merely boiled him some ginger water, as she usually did.

Now that matters had become so serious in the middle of the night, the brigade leader could have gone to the brigade office to get a bicycle and taken the boy to the hospital in town. But carrying such a small child on a bicycle would be difficult.

The rural paths were hard enough to travel in complete darkness, yet the child’s illness had come on too suddenly to wait until dawn. The brigade leader was nearly frantic.

The barefoot doctor’s words could be called the hope of the entire family. Even so, the brigade leader understood that whether Tang Xin was willing—or even able—to help was a matter of kindness on her part.

If Li Sheng’s wife had no medicine, or if the medicine proved ineffective, she could not be blamed.