Chapter 210 Treating the Child 2
The two carefully removed the child's clothes without hurting him as much as possible.
Saying it was taken off wasn't quite accurate, as the child's clothes were stuck to his wound. To help treat the wound, Xie Wanniang and the others had to use scissors and a warm, damp cloth to separate his clothes from the wound little by little.
Although they were moving very gently, the child would still shudder from time to time due to pain and high fever.
Xie Wanniang and Xiaomei felt a little uncomfortable seeing him like this.
Xiaomei recalled the painful past of being abused by relatives after her parents passed away, while Xie Wanniang recalled the terrible scenes of being beaten and verbally abused by her and her adoptive mother during a brief period in her previous life.
At that time, she couldn't understand why some people seemed no different from normal people when they were out in public, but as soon as they closed the door at home, they could expose their ugly faces of being capricious and wantonly bullying the weak to their family members without any scruples.
What disgusted her most was that her adoptive father had the audacity to tell her adoptive mother that it was precisely because they were his closest relatives that he showed his bad side to them, because he did so because he didn't consider them outsiders.
When he loses control of his emotions, he curses and beats his family members with a ferocious expression. After venting his anger, he will act as if nothing happened and talk to his family normally.
Others can't afford to offend him, so they can only try to avoid him and give him the cold shoulder. He doesn't think it's all his own fault. On the contrary, he feels that he has condescended to take the initiative to talk to the other party, so how can the other party still give him a cold shoulder?
He's the head of the household, shouldn't everyone be subservient to him and obey him unconditionally?
The most bizarre thing is that he actually has the audacity to say that he is the best person in the world to his wife, and that there is no one else in the world who is as tolerant of his wife as he is.
Although Xie Wanniang was still very young at the time and her values had not yet been systematically established, her adoptive father's fallacies still made her feel physically nauseous.
She really wanted to say, "You've got that backwards! You're moody and prone to hitting and scolding your family, yet your wife still works tirelessly every day, does housework, and covers for you in front of others. Isn't she the best person in the world to you? You'll never find another person who tolerates you like her."
After all, even though she was an adopted orphan, after witnessing how terrifying this person was, she tried every means to return to the orphanage.
She didn't know whether her adoptive mother, who was about to become a Ninja Turtle, truly believed the other party's nonsense or was pretending not to know. In any case, she couldn't possibly develop herself into a Ninja Turtle like the other party.
Living is not just about having clothes to wear and enough to eat. She values those "intangible" things more than being well-fed and clothed.
She would rather go hungry wearing ill-fitting old clothes donated by kind people, and work hard from morning till night to earn money, than live in a family that makes her anxious, depressed, and, most importantly, distorts her values and personality.
She wanted to be a normal person, not like her adoptive mother, who deceived herself every day, caring only about appearances and not about practical benefits, and who, because of her repeated concessions, ultimately failed to even maintain a false sense of happiness in public—a pathetic and hateful person.
Of course, she doesn't want to become like her adoptive father one day, someone who recklessly hurts others while glorifying that harm as "love," thereby brainwashing and controlling the victims.
She hopes to possess the precious ability to recognize, accept, and give love. She hopes that what she gives and receives is genuine love that brings comfort, joy, strength, and security, rather than long-term harm in the name of love that causes repression, pain, distortion, or even gradually leads to personality defects and flaws.
Shaking her head to shake off the unpleasant memories that kept surfacing uncontrollably, Xie Wanniang focused her mind and began to treat the child's wounds with the utmost professionalism.
Xiao Mei had been learning from her for so long that she was already able to work independently when treating external injuries. The two of them, one on each side, quickly cleaned, applied medicine, and bandaged the child.
Arms, back, chest, abdomen, thighs, calves—the crisscrossing whip marks were shocking, but what angered Xie Wanniang and Xiaomei the most were the child's soles and armpits covered in scars.
The injuries in these two places were not caused by whipping, but by being pricked with a needle.
I don't know who could have left so many horrifying scars on a child who looks only five or six years old.
After finally treating the child's injuries, Xiaomei picked up the medicine bowl and began feeding the child, whose fever had subsided somewhat.
Perhaps stimulated by the bitter taste, the child drowsily opened his eyes. But soon, he couldn't help but close his eyes again and fell into a deep sleep.
Xiaomei's surprised expression froze on her face. She sighed and continued to feed the child the medicine.
Xie Wanniang, who was helping Xiaomei feed the child medicine by holding the child's chin to keep the child's head in a fixed position, heard her sigh and also let out a long sigh.
Granny Wu, who was guarding outside, muttered under her breath, "What a tragedy, such a perfectly healthy child has been beaten like this."
Granny Lu frowned and guessed wildly, "Judging from his appearance, he might be a servant born into some wealthy family."
Even though the law explicitly prohibits masters from arbitrarily beating or killing servants, there are still quite a few servants who are arbitrarily beaten or killed.
To put it bluntly, by holding their indentures in their hands, they are essentially strangling their fate by the scruff of their necks.
"You stay here and keep watch. I'll relieve you tonight," Xie Wanniang said softly after Xiaomei finished feeding the child the medicine.
Xiaomei stood up and said, "You can keep watch during the day, and I'll keep watch at night."
Xie Wanniang shook her head, "It's easy for the fever to recur at night, so it's more appropriate for me to stay with the patient than for you to stay with the patient."
Xiaomei is indeed very skilled at treating external injuries, but she still has a lot to learn in terms of medical theory and pharmacology. Not to mention that even if she has memorized all the medical books, she still needs to spend a lot of time accumulating medical experience.
After the two divided the work, Xie Wanniang stretched and went back to rest.
Since she had to stay with the child at night, she needed to use her free time during the day to catch up on her sleep.
As for the eight newly purchased reserve guards, Xie Wanniang handed them over to Haitang to handle entirely.
Anyway, Haitang knew her purpose in buying people, and also knew the usual procedures for placing new people and training guards.
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