Chapter 79 The Moon of Yesteryear

"Mr. Xie! Mr. Xie! Help!"

Xie Ning was practicing acupuncture by looking at the acupuncture point diagram she had drawn when someone shouted, almost causing her to miss the mark.

"What's wrong?"

"Sister Hua is having a difficult childbirth, you must go and see her!" Ge Dani immediately pulled Xie Ning away, "Hurry, hurry, let's go save Sister Hua."

Xie Ning looked at the flustered Ge Dani and couldn't help but rub her forehead. She quickly stopped and said, "Wait a minute, I didn't bring the first-aid kit."

She had a carpenter specially make this to solidify her identity as a doctor. It contained many tools and common medicinal herbs, all of which were traditional Chinese medicine. Western surgical tools and medicines were stored in the space and were not easy to take out, nor were they applicable here.

When Xie Ning arrived, there were still people arguing in the courtyard. In this small courtyard, the east and west wing rooms each housed a family. Because the courtyard was small, the two families lived very crampedly, so they often had conflicts. They would have a small argument every three days and a big argument every five days. On the way, Ge Dani gave a rough account, saying that the child in the west wing room pushed Sister Hua, and then Sister Hua bled. Now the two families were arguing fiercely.

"Stop arguing!"

Ge Dani's shout stunned everyone. Old Mrs. Ge lifted the curtain and came out, her face dark. She glared at the fighting women and said, "Still arguing, Cheng Cai's mother? Don't you care about your daughter-in-law's life and the grandson in her belly?"

His voice was strong and clear, showing no signs of the illness he had shown recently.

Seeing Xie Ning carrying a medicine box, Grandma Ge's expression softened. "Mr. Xie is here? Come in and have a look." Because Xie Ning had previously worked as a female doctor, the people in the compound no longer called Xie Ning "Doctor Xie," but instead followed Ge Dani's lead and called him "Mr. Xie."

Xie Ning placed his hand on the pregnant woman's pulse, then turned to Cheng Cai's mother, who had followed him in, and said, "Hot water and clean linen are ready? Also... prepare some brown sugar and egg water. I also have some red dates and astragalus here, which I've boiled together to replenish the pregnant woman's qi." He no longer hoped for ginseng.

Cheng Cai's mother didn't move, but sat on the ground, slapping her thigh and crying, "My family is so poor, where can we get clean linen and eggs? Brown sugar is so expensive, we don't have any either!"

Xie Ning pursed her lips; she had already mentioned the cheapest option...

Seeing this, Grandma Ge sighed and told Ge Dani to go back to her own home to get it. Cheng Cai's mother rolled her eyes and cried even harder, complaining about being poor and how hard she had it.

Sister Hua's face was deathly pale, and her eyes were slightly moist as she looked at Xie Ning. She wanted to live; she didn't want to die. Her child was still so young.

Xie Ning glanced at the blood-soaked mattress, paused for a moment, and then lifted Sister Hua's clothes to insert three needles into her. When she learned acupuncture, she always picked out the more important parts to learn, and this hemostatic needle was one of them.

She had many traditional Chinese medicine books, one of which was a copy given to her by Zhao Le, while the others were found for her by her maternal uncle's family in her previous life.

If you were to ask what she has the most of in her space, it would be books.

“She won’t do. She shows no signs of labor. She needs medication to induce labor. I’ll write down a prescription and go to the pharmacy to get it. If they have the medicine ready-made, that would be even better, as it would save time.”

"No!" Cheng Cai's mother grabbed Xie Ning's hand holding the calligraphy brush and wailed, "My family doesn't have money to buy medicine! What kind of doctor are you? You're so young, you must be a quack! She's already bleeding, how come she can't give birth? Impossible!"

If anyone truly believed in Xie Ning's medical skills, it was mostly the younger women in the ward. Few of the older women believed him; they all thought Xie Ning had eloped with Xiao Yang and said very hurtful things about him behind his back.

Xie Ning wasn't unaware of this, but he was too lazy to bother with it. Xiao Yang, being honest and kind-hearted, moved to the Ge family compound to live with Ge Dani and her fellow apprentices for Xie Ning's sake.

"Chengcai's mother!" Old Mrs. Ge roared, "Your daughter-in-law is going to die!"

The women in the room all looked over and saw that Sister Hua's face was completely bloodless. In just a few words, a large patch of red had appeared on the thin quilt on the bed. No one dared to speak. Cheng Cai's mother also looked terrified, and she couldn't help but tighten her grip on Xie Ning's hand, her body trembling.

Xie Ning pried open the fingers gripping her wrist one by one, then quickly wrote a prescription, ignored Cheng Cai Niang, and walked past her, lifting the curtain to go outside.

With just a glance, Xie Ning spotted a gaunt man squatting in the courtyard. From afar, she could smell the strong odor of opium. It was Seventh Uncle, Cheng Cai's father. He was wearing a long robe and mandarin jacket, which looked like silk, but it was patched with countless cotton cloth patches, and his toes were sticking out of his cotton shoes.

He just squatted by the winnowing basket in the yard, sighing all the time, occasionally making a few sarcastic remarks about the family in the west wing, but he didn't care at all about what was going on inside. He didn't even think about trying to find another doctor or a skilled midwife to come and take a look, acting as if he was completely detached from the matter.

Is Cheng Cai's mother hateful? Yes, she is, but we shouldn't only see her shrewishness and shamelessness. The men behind many of these farces are perfectly hidden. People only see the woman and then say that she is just a woman with a narrow mind, that women are short-sighted and unreasonable.

That's ridiculous.