——————
To solidify the maliciousness of the Wang Family’s siblings, Zhang Shanni directly scooped up her little aunt in her arms and briskly made her way to the Village Committee.
There was no other option; although there was a healthcare station in the team’s location, Qingfeng Village, being remotely nestled in the mountains in the south, didn’t have any remarkable selling points.
Remoteness signified poverty. People with a bit of connection were reluctant to come to this primitive land of the Southern Barbarians.
As a result, Qingfeng Village’s healthcare station was nothing but a formality—a place without nurses, doctors, or medicine. How could this even be called a healthcare station?
Therefore, Qingfeng Village’s healthcare station was just a small room next to the office of the Village Committee.
It was after some thought that the Qingshan Team asked Wang Guicai to voluntarily take on the role [compensated, but meagerly, as treatment was paid for with goods] – usually, Wang Guicai was either gathering herbs in the mountains or preparing medicine. Apart from making house calls for medical treatment, he usually stayed in the Village Committee office to manage the healthcare station, or chatted with the old cadres.
Wang Guicai originally agreed to ’stoop to’ this because it allowed him to frequently stay in the same environment as the village cadres, give face to the Qingshan Team and casually improve his public image.
Although the old mothers and children in the village disliked Wang Guicai’s ’greed’ immensely, they were also thankful that he was willing to settle in Qingfeng Village, providing medical care and diagnosis to its people.
Dislike mixed with gratitude, which was actually a product of poverty. Even though some villagers privately called him ’Wang Lao Cai’ out of anger, Wang Guicai was aware of it, but what could he do?
With a wife incapable of farming, and overly coddled son and daughter, if he didn’t thicken his face, how could he properly feed and care for his family of four? Wang Guicai knew what was most important when weighing gain and loss.
Later, as he grew accustomed to it, Wang Guicai scoffed at being referred to as ’greedy’ by others: As long as his ’black heart’ ensured the well-being and stability of his family, what did it matter if he was ’greedy’?
Perhaps he hadn’t realized it, but it was exactly because of this ’selfish’ mentality that his children followed suit, recklessly speeding down the wrong path...
Zhang Shanni, holding her little aunt with such a light weight, felt no burden at all while running quite fast. The person following her was gasping for breath to keep up with Zhang Shanni’s pace.
"Excuse me, please!" With a great leap, Zhang Shanni suddenly strode into the Village Committee. A sweep of her spiritual power, and she instantly spotted her father-in-law sitting beneath a banyan tree on one side, leisurely smoking a bamboo pipe, occasionally chatting with an elder beside him—
Her eyes lit up, and she immediately shouted: "Dad, come quickly and get someone to see what’s wrong with San’er’s daughter!"
"Thump!"
Startled by the voice of his third son’s wife, Xie Tiesheng looked up to see her holding his little girl and shouting at him, causing him to jump to his feet so startled that he dropped his pipe and didn’t even mind it, staggered for a moment, but rushed forward anxiously, touching his daughter’s little face and asked in panic: "San’er’s daughter, San’er’s daughter, Third Son’s Wife, what’s happened?"
"Dad, don’t panic, let’s find someone to check on San’er’s daughter first!" Zhang Shanni, seeing her father-in-law shaking, passed by him and walked inside. Hearing this, Xie Tiesheng hurriedly led her to a small room: "This way, the healthcare station is over here..."
"Dr. Wang, don’t be busy, please come quickly and have a look at my San’er’s daughter!" Xie Tiesheng burst into the health room, saw Wang Guicai arranging medicinal herbs, and led Zhang Shanni to place the girl on the only bed in the room. While helping his third son’s wife arrange for the little daughter to lie down on the single bed, he shouted loudly.
"Ei, ei~ Brother Tiesheng, don’t worry, I am checking on my little niece right now." Wang Guicai cooperatively took hold of Xie Jingzi’s wrist to feel her pulse as soon as Zhang Shanni set her down firmly.
But as soon as he touched her pulse, Wang Guicai frowned, his face somber and eyebrows knitted together.
Having been in the background, Zhang Shan Ni’s eyes lit up at the sound, turning towards the entrance.
Xie Tiesheng saw this, and his expression grew even heavier.
His rough, old hands gently caressed his younger daughter’s hand, feeling her mild body temperature and the pulse that was slow yet strong. Although he was not adept at reading pulses, he knew that this strong pulse indicated her body’s steadiness, and even such a simple truth was known to him.
Thus, seeing Wang Guicai letting go of his daughter’s hand, and then considering that the voice outside the courtyard belonged to Wang Guicai’s daughter, he could somewhat understand his nervousness for his own daughter—the difference lies in how close they are, after all.
Yet, unavoidably, Xie Tiesheng’s brow furrowed even tighter, indicating the anxiety in his heart.
The villagers who had gathered to watch had seen Xie Jingzi grow up, and seeing the poor girl lying unconscious on the bed without any awareness, they felt immense heartache.
Unlike Wang Xiuzhen, who migrated to Qingfeng Village with her family of four from somewhere else midway, Xie Jingzi was brought up under the watchful eyes of the villagers since her birth, well, from when Zhou Xiuhua was pregnant with her, to be exact. Their affection for her was more earnest and concerned.
There was no helping it, who could resist when she had a pair of well-respected and influential parents, and brothers who were each successful in their own right? Indeed, there were plenty of mothers who wished for her to be their daughter-in-law~~
Seeing Wang Guicai carelessly dropping Xie Jingzi’s small hand, the villagers did not have Xie Tiesheng’s tolerant understanding; they just felt that Wang Guicai had a poor sense of moral character, lacking awareness of ’first come, first served’, setting a bad example! [This was the thought of some village officials]
What if this was a real emergency? If something ’happened’ to his child, would he just wash his hands off it?
Just thinking about it was enough to send chills down one’s spine.
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