Zhang Yan said nonchalantly that they hadn't taken the matter to heart. She hadn't expected Xu Zijiang and Yu Jiu to specifically remember the date and come over to ask.
"Fine, it's okay if we don't do it."
Yu Jiu thought that given how much the Gouzi family valued Gou Dan, they would at least hold a first birthday celebration. She was even thinking of bringing An An over to join in the fun and to tell her about the funny things that happened during her first birthday celebration.
However, Yu Jiu and Xu Zijiang were indeed overthinking things. These days, everyone is focused on how to get enough to eat. Even if Gouzi and his friends have some spare money, they don't pay much attention to these rituals. They prefer practical things.
As they chatted, Zhang Yan suddenly frowned and brought up Yu Caihong.
"Have you seen Rainbow lately? She's been keeping herself busy with something, acting all mysterious. I feel like there's something strange about her."
“I saw her walking with Ma Zi last time, and she looked really bad. But when I asked her, she said it was nothing, just a stomachache. I didn’t think much of it at first, but she’s been acting so strange lately. I couldn’t help but think back to that day. Could she have been having an affair with Ma Zi?”
Zhang Yan asked worriedly, "Ma Zi, as the name suggests, has a face full of pockmarks. He was born with them. Although his features aren't ugly, those pockmarks are really unsightly. Given Yu Caihong's personality, she shouldn't be interested in Ma Zi."
Moreover, Ma Zi is already married and has a child. Yu Caihong hasn't gotten married in the past few years. She's 28, 29, almost 30, which is considered quite old for a girl in the countryside. Basically, all the men her age are married and have children. The rest are either poor or ugly.
Therefore, at Yu Caihong's age, it's very difficult for her to find a husband in the countryside. She either has to lower her standards and marry someone who is poor and unattractive, or marry someone who has been divorced. Her choices are very limited. However, since Yu Caihong didn't get married when she was young and had the means, it's even less likely that she will lower her standards and marry someone like that now.
However, her recent behavior has been suspicious, making Zhang Yan wonder if she suddenly wanted to get married but couldn't find a suitable match, and was feeling a bit down, and did something rash because of it.
"Impossible! How undemanding would Rainbow have to be to fall for Pockmarked Man? Besides, he's married. It's absolutely impossible!"
Yu Jiu thought Yu Caihong couldn't possibly be that stupid.
"So what do you think happened? Should we go and ask them?"
Zhang Yan was also concerned about Yu Caihong, but concern can lead to confusion. Yu Jiu thought for a moment and then simply said...
"Then let's go find her now, take An'an and Gou Dan with us, say we're going to visit her, and then slowly get information out of her."
"OK."
Yu Jiu and Zhang Yan said goodbye to Gouzi and Xu Zijiang, then took the two children and headed to the educated youth settlement. In recent years, most of the male and female educated youth in the settlement had gotten married. Now, only Yu Caihong, Zhao En, and another female educated youth remained unmarried.
Since Zhao En was the only male educated youth left, it was essentially two women and one man living together, which would be bad for their reputation if word got out. So Xu Zijiang ordered a wall to be built, dividing the educated youth settlement in two. One side was for Zhao En to live on, and the other side was for Yu Caihong and another female educated youth. Actually, it was still the same room, just separated by a wall in the courtyard. The three of them still shared a main gate.
Yu Jiu and Zhang Yan led the two children toward the educated youth settlement, but Yu Caihong was not there. The female educated youth said that Yu Caihong had left early in the morning, and when she got up at seven or eight o'clock, Yu Caihong was already gone.
Did she mention where she was going?
"No, she hasn't been talking to me much lately either; she seems to be in a bad mood."
The female educated youth didn't know much either; this was all the information they could provide. Zhang Yan and Yu Jiu had no choice but to leave the educated youth checkpoint and search for places where Yu Caihong might appear. After searching for a long time, they still couldn't find her and had to give up.
"Where did they go?"
The three had been good friends for several years, and Yu Jiu and Zhang Yan naturally cared about Yu Caihong. However, since they couldn't find her, they could only wait for her to return. Yu Caihong didn't return to the educated youth settlement until a little after 6 pm. If she had returned any later, it would have been dark. She looked haggard, sighing three times with every step she took, clearly burdened with worries. Yu Jiu and Zhang Yan were waiting for her at the settlement, and they caught her red-handed.
"Where have you been? Did you have lunch? You look terrible. Did something happen? Tell us what's wrong, maybe we can help."
"That's right, that's right. You don't tell us anything. Don't you consider us good friends?"
When Zhang Yan and Yu Jiu questioned her with concern, Yu Caihong saw her two good friends and couldn't help but feel a lump in her throat, tears welling up in her eyes.
"I don't know how to tell you this. Even if I did, you probably wouldn't be able to help. It would only add to my worries."
She forced back her discomfort and said, while Yu Jiu stared at her unhappily.
"What you're saying is true. Even if we can't help you much, you can still vent to us and at least we can comfort you. It's so hard for someone to keep things to themselves."
“I know, come in and talk.”
Now that they had discovered it, Yu Caihong had no intention of hiding it any longer. She sighed sadly and explained to Yu Jiu and Zhang Yan that she had been acting strangely lately.
"My mother is sick. They say she has a tumor in her body. We don't know if the outcome will be good or bad. I heard from others that there is a kind of medicine that might be helpful for my mother's body. They say that taking it can make the tumor go down, but it can't be bought in the city. My older brother wrote to ask me if I could find it in the countryside."
"Isn't Ma Zi supposed to know a lot about medicinal herbs? So I went to find him. But Ma Zi said he'd never heard of this herb before, so I've been going from morning till night, visiting various villages to see if anyone knows it. The problem is, I don't even know its name; it only has a common name, which is a local dialect term, so it's very difficult to find. I've searched many places without success."
Yu Caihong wasn't illiterate; she knew it was a pipe dream to think that a single medicinal herb could make a tumor disappear. But who would give up if there was even a sliver of hope? After all, the tumor was in her brain, and surgery would be like cutting her mother open alive, with no guarantee of success. If the herb could be of any use and even shrink the tumor a little, that would be great.
Yu Jiu and Zhang Yan didn't expect that something had happened to Yu Caihong's family, and that it was so serious. But if there was a name for the medicinal herb, it would be easier to find it. Without a name, it would be quite difficult to find it based solely on physical characteristics.
"Tell me how your family describes this medicinal herb, and I'll write it down. Later, I'll ask Xu Zijiang to help look for it and see if we can find it."
"It's no use. My family has searched many places in the city, and I've also searched many places in the countryside. I guess it's not in our area."
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