Chapter 12 Chapter 12 People are so hungry, how can they care about anything else...
I simmered the meat for almost an hour before turning the heat up to high and letting the sauce thicken. I didn't have any sugar, but I found a small bag of white sugar in the cupboard. It was just a little, but I added it in to add some sugar coloring. When it came out of the pot, while it didn't look as square and golden as the ones in the restaurant, and the meat wasn't well-chosen—too much fat, not authentic three-layer pork—it still had a bright red color and a rich, juicy flavor.
Su Yan picked up a piece with chopsticks and tasted it. It was fragrant and glutinous, not greasy, smooth and tender: "This culinary talent is full!"
After the braised pork was ready, they took out the enamel basins, filled a small one and carried it out, leaving the rest in the living room. They also steamed a pot of rice in a large pot and brought it out. The aunt and niece each ate two full bowls of rice.
Xiaogang ate with great satisfaction: "Aunt, let's save some for my sister to eat when we come back!"
Su Yan smiled: "Don't worry, Auntie has already kept it."
After dinner, Su Yan packed up the house as usual, but it seemed like many things had already been moved out. After asking Xiao Gang, she learned that his mother had taken out her bed, the cabinets and furniture in the house, and even his father's clothes.
Xiaogang brought in some water. "My mom said that was all her dowry, so of course she had to move back. My dad's clothes were all made from cloth purchased with her wages and cloth coupons, so of course she had to take them too. Oh, before she left, she took all the cornmeal, food coupons, cloth coupons, and other things from home. She said she'd worked like a slave for the Lu family for years, so what was a small amount to take?"
Su Yan was speechless. Not only did they take the things away, but they also didn't care about the two children. Just because the two children had the surname Lu, they were no longer her children? Su Yan thought that the two children were already five or six years old and it would be difficult for them to sleep in the same bed, so she built another small bed in the room.
The Lu family had three employees, and their family was quite well-off with many people in it, so the house they were allocated was large and the wooden bed was large enough.
Su Yan made this braised pork. When she picked up Yan Zi from kindergarten in the afternoon, she ate more than a dozen of them. As expected, she started to have diarrhea in the evening.
Su Yan was inexperienced and didn't realize that someone who hadn't eaten anything for so long couldn't handle a greasy meal all at once. Xiaogang was fine, but Yingzi started having diarrhea. At first, Su Yan didn't know about it and took Yanzi to kindergarten as usual that morning. But when she went to pick her up, she realized she had pooped her pants. The next night, she had a fever again.
Su Yan recalled visiting Lu Yingzi's mother and hearing that everyone in her family had died in the 1960s. Su Yan suspected that the two children were gone for unknown reasons, so she immediately put on her clothes and rushed her to the hospital. However, Xiaogang didn't know how to get to the hospital, so he had to knock on Uncle Xu's door in the middle of the night.
It was his wife who opened the door. She was only wearing one sleeve of her clothes and had just gotten out of bed. "Yingzi, what happened so late at night?"
Su Yan hugged Yan Zi and said, "Aunt, Yan Zi has a high fever for some reason. I want to take her to the hospital. I don't dare go alone at night. Can you accompany me?" Lu Yingzi was born and raised in this area, so how could she not know where the hospital is? Therefore, Su Yan could only say that she was afraid to go alone at night.
Aunt Xu nodded: "Okay, I'll get a flashlight. Don't worry, it's normal for the child to have a fever from time to time." She turned around and went into the house to get a flashlight, then took Su Yan to the hospital.
In fact, the factory also had a clinic. At that time, large factories were like small societies, with attached primary schools, kindergartens, nurseries, and clinics. However, the factory clinic closed when the workers got off work, and there was no night shift.
Aunt Xu looked older than Uncle Xu. She was wearing Uncle Xu's old-fashioned shirt, which was very baggy and didn't fit her. On the way, she saw Su Yan struggling to hold Yan Zi, so she took the child over. However, she herself didn't have much strength, and after walking a few steps, she broke into a sweat. Su Yan knew that this was because she hadn't eaten enough, so she held Yan Zi over and said, "Aunt, it's okay, let me hold the child!"
When we arrived at the hospital, there were only two or three doctors on duty. A family happened to have arrived in front of us, making a lot of noise. After asking around, we found out that they were from the village below. They had stolen cotton seeds from the production team and had been unable to defecate for half a month.
Su Yan whispered, "Why steal anything else? Why steal cotton seeds? They're inedible and won't fill you up."
The two of them sat in the hospital corridor waiting. Aunt Xu said, "You can't say that. You don't understand. When people are extremely hungry, how can they care about what they can eat and what they can't eat?" Su Yan looked back at her and saw that her face was extremely pale, her hands were swollen, and she looked very haggard.
Su Yan sighed and waited for half an hour before she was finally seen. She explained her condition but didn't dare to say that she had eaten too much braised pork and had diarrhea.
The doctor didn't even raise his head as he scribbled a few words on the prescription with a pen: "Go and pay the money and get the medicine. If possible, make some porridge for her. If not, make her drink more salt water. Boil some water and add some salt to feed her." After he finished speaking, he picked up the teacup on the table and took a big gulp.
Looking up, another doctor came in and asked, "Why aren't you sleeping? I'm on duty today."
The doctor said, "I want to sleep, but I'm too hungry to sleep. I heard there are many people here, so I came to help."
The other one shook his head: "A family stole cotton seeds from the production team and ate them. I prescribed some medicine, but it's been more than ten days. I hope it will be relieved."
Su Yan asked, "Doctor, is the fever okay? Doesn't such a young child need some fever-reducing medicine?"
The doctor rolled his eyes at her and said, "Didn't I just take his temperature? 37.9 degrees, a low-grade fever. It's normal to have diarrhea and a fever. If he doesn't have diarrhea but still has a fever tomorrow, bring him back."
Su Yan wanted to say something, but was choked by the doctor: "Are you a doctor, or am I a doctor?"
Su Yan had no choice but to thank him, carry Yan Zi out, and pay the bill. It wasn't expensive, only thirty cents. The medicine was a large bottle of white and yellow pills. The pharmacist looked at the prescription, took a few pills from the bottle, and wrapped them up in a small piece of newspaper. He told Su Yan to take the small white pills three times a day, the large one once a day, and the yellow one once a day.
When they got home, it was almost three o'clock. Su Yan carried Yan Zi to the bed and said to Aunt Xu, "Aunt, wait a minute, I have something for you." Su Yan went to the kitchen, locked the door, entered the space and took out a small bag of rice. She took it out and handed it to Aunt Xu, "Aunt, our family just bought some food, you can use it to make some porridge."
Aunt Xu waved her hand: "Yingzi, this won't work. You're the head of the household now, and you have nephews and nieces who want things, and everything costs money. You already gave us a pound of noodles a few days ago. We are the elders. When something happened in your family, we are embarrassed that we can't give anything. How can we take your things again?" Then she stood up to leave: "Okay, I'm leaving. Yanzi, just cook some porridge for her."
Xiao Gang got up dazedly: "Aunt, is my sister's fever gone?"
Su Yan watched Aunt Xu close the door. When she sent Su Yan back just now, she almost fell down when she was going up the stairs. She was swollen all over and was gasping for breath after walking a few steps. It was obvious that she didn't have enough food and was hungry.
Su Yan instructed Gangzi: "Tomorrow morning, take this bag of rice to Uncle Xu's house. I heard that Aunt Xu fainted from hunger once and was sent to the hospital."
She boiled the water again and fed Yan Zi the medicine. She swallowed the small pills directly, but had to dissolve the large pills in a spoon and crush them with chopsticks before feeding them. When she went to the hospital just now, fortunately Aunt Xu reminded her to bring her parents' work IDs, otherwise she would not be able to see a doctor in this era.
Having been here for over a week, Su Yan had already figured out the general situation. Gangzi and Yanzi, both of whom had urban household registration, received 13 kilograms of grain per month, with this amount increasing every year, up to 20 kilograms upon reaching adulthood. Su Yan currently had no food; her organizational affiliation had been transferred to a university in Shanghai, leaving her family without any food rations.
Su Yan couldn't leave to go to Shanghai to transfer her connections, but she also didn't dare go at all, fearing exposure. Lu Yingzi had been in Shanghai for four years, just missing her diploma. Her teachers and classmates should be familiar with her. Su Yan could still get by without food for a while, but she wouldn't be able to survive for a long time.
The only way is to replace Lu Dayong's position. In that case, the household registration, organizational relationship, and food relationship will all be with the factory, and all problems will be solved.
When it was almost dawn, it started to rain heavily. The sky suddenly darkened. Yan Zi mumbled in a daze: "Auntie, what time is it? I'm hungry."
Su Yan didn't have a watch, and she didn't take out her phone's space. She couldn't hear the radio, so she didn't know what time it was. "Don't go to kindergarten today. Auntie will make you some porridge later. Are you still feeling uncomfortable?"
Yan Zi was unhappy, her two little cheeks were red: "Okay, drink white porridge!"
Su Yan washed the rice and cooked a pot of porridge. She didn't dare ask the two of them to eat braised pork, so she just took out a small can of white sugar, mixed it into the porridge, and asked the two little ones to eat it as breakfast.
After eating, Su Yan fed her medicine again. Seeing that Yan Zi was obviously much better, talking more, and no longer having diarrhea, Su Yan was relieved. She hadn't slept all night, so she asked the two children to play in the room and lay down on the bed to catch up on sleep.
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