On the other end of the phone, Zhang Jizhou's hand holding the receiver was white at the knuckles, and his face was as gloomy as the sky before a snowfall in the north, which was quite frightening.
As Fang Yan spoke, some long-forgotten and hazy memories gradually became clearer...
Zhang Jizhou was thirteen years old when his mother first fell ill.
That illness wasn't anything serious, but it dragged on for almost a year.
From the age of thirteen until he was fourteen, his condition did not improve.
At thirteen or fourteen, he was just a child, and Zhang Jizhou was precocious. Seeing that Xue Wanxue was taking the medicine from the old barefoot doctor in the village but was not getting better, he begged his mother to take her to the hospital in the county town.
At that time, the county's People's Hospital was just a small clinic.
It was very rudimentary; the only instrument available for examining the body was a blood pressure monitor.
There were only two doctors, a man and a woman, inside.
They checked Xue Wanxue's blood pressure, and the value was within the normal range.
They listened to her with a stethoscope for a while and said it was just a minor cold. "I'll prescribe some medicine for you. Go back and rest well. It's nothing serious."
"But my mother has been sick for almost three months. She feels weak all over every day, and sometimes she even has trouble speaking. What's wrong with her?"
Zhang Jizhou told the doctor about Xue Wanxue's condition.
The doctor comforted him, "It's probably because your body is too weak. Once your mother recovers from her cold, if you have chicken, eggs, or lean meat at home, you can make some soup for her to help her recover."
Zhang Jizhou still felt something was wrong and pleaded, "Doctor, could you examine my mother again more thoroughly?"
"As you can see, the conditions here are what they are. Even if we investigate further, we won't find any results."
The doctor spoke to him in a tone that suggested "even a skilled cook can't cook without rice," saying, "If you're still worried, you can go to a hospital in Shang City or a large hospital in the provincial capital for a checkup. Hospitals in big cities have much better facilities than here, and they can do a more thorough and accurate examination."
Upon hearing that they were going to the provincial capital, Xue Wanxue absolutely refused, shouting, "No, I won't go! I'd rather die than go!"
Let alone going to the provincial capital, even today, if Zhang Jizhou hadn't begged her while crying, she wouldn't have wanted to come to the county town at all.
Ever since that person suddenly disappeared without a trace, as if he had vanished from the face of the earth, Xue Wanxue has never wanted to go to crowded places again, and wishes she could lock herself in her room every day.
She always felt that as soon as she stepped out of her house, people would look at her with disdain and point fingers at her.
If it weren't for Zhang Jizhou, she wouldn't want to live anymore when that person disappeared.
Having clung to life for over a decade, being able to watch my son grow up is enough.
The dowry her mother brought when she married was enough for them to go to the provincial capital for medical treatment.
However, because his mother insisted on opposing it, Zhang Jizhou had no choice but to give up.
On the day Zhang Jizhou pushed Xue Wanxue to the county town for medical treatment in a handcart, Zhang Laowu, who was lazy and good-for-nothing all day, got up early that day and pretended to go to the fields with a hoe.
When they got home, he asked them a few questions with concern. When he heard that they should make some chicken soup or meat broth to nourish Xue Wanxue, he generously said, "I know where to buy chicken. I'll get up early tomorrow and buy two chickens."
No one knows what time he left home in the middle of the night, and even less does anyone know where he bought the chicken during that period of very strict control over supplies.
Anyway, the next morning, as soon as Zhang Jizhou got up, he saw that Zhang Laowu had already bought the chicken.
He volunteered to clean the chicken and busied himself starting a fire to make chicken soup.
"Dad, what did you put in the pot?"
Zhang Jizhou remembered clearly that he saw Zhang Laowu put something into the pot and asked loudly.
At that moment, it seemed like Zhang Laowu's hand trembled slightly.
The kitchen was poorly lit, and Zhang Jizhou, who was only thirteen or fourteen years old at the time, was simple-minded and didn't think too much about it.
All that could be heard was Zhang Laowu saying, "These are ginseng slices. I've heard that ginseng stewed with chicken soup is the best for nourishing the body."
Especially after hearing that ginseng stewed chicken soup is the most nourishing for the body;
Furthermore, because he wasn't properly cared for in the womb, he was weak from birth.
When he was little, his mother would cook ginseng chicken soup for him several times, saying it was to nourish his body.
He knew there was nothing wrong with the soup, so he didn't say anything more.
However, he never imagined that his mother would lose her life at the hands of Zhang Laowu because of his negligence!
"Because, about half an hour before drinking the chicken soup, Zhang Laowu also fed my mother a bowl of sandalwood and white medicine juice."
Zhang Jizhou remembered this very clearly.
Xue Wanxue had attended university in the provincial capital and was a highly educated person. She didn't really trust the old barefoot doctor, who had never received systematic training and education, and the medicine prescribed by so-called doctors.
If one dose could eliminate the ailment immediately, that would be fine.
I'm afraid his medical skills are not good enough, and after one dose, the patient will be half-dead and dragging on.
At that time, the person who is going to die will suffer, and the person who is alive will suffer as well, having to take care of her.
So she didn't drink the medicine prescribed by the barefoot doctor.
Later, when the medicine prescribed by the hospital didn't work, Zhang Laowu went to Lion Roar Ridge to dig up some sandalwood, boiled it into a juice, and persuaded Xue Wanxue to drink it. "This isn't the medicine prescribed by the old barefoot doctor. You should have heard of sandalwood, right? In our village, regardless of age or gender, anyone who has a fever or something, drinks this and it works. You should try it too."
Xue Wanxue had indeed heard that sandalwood could cure colds.
However, she didn't know that sandalwood should not be eaten with ginseng in the short term.
So she drank it.
And they drank it for two days in a row, as did the ginseng chicken soup.
Fang Yan: ...
After recounting the events, she was still thinking when she suddenly said that the events were too far in the past.
Moreover, Zhang Laowu is too cautious; she probably doesn't have the ability to find evidence that he murdered Xue Wanxue.
Unexpectedly, Zhang Jizhou himself was a witness.
Murder his mother in front of him.
Zhang Laowu is not only ruthless, but also shameless.
Is he thinking that if things come to light one day, and he recalls what happened, he wants to see Zhang Jizhou filled with regret?
After all, if Zhang Jizhou had known the dangers of Zitan Baihe Shentang at that time, he could have saved Xue Wanxue.
But he watched helplessly as Zhang Laowu murdered his mother right in front of him.
Fang Yan racked her brains but couldn't think of anything to say to comfort Zhang Jizhou.
After much thought, she still felt that there was nothing else she could say to comfort her except to make Zhang Laowu pay for his crimes in blood.
then……
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