Chapter 5 He Libai
Everyone turned around at the same time. Hey, isn't this the little hot chili from the Qin family who got married at noon?
"You can?"
"Laidi, don't join in the fun. This is not a joke."
"That's right, this girl is too naughty. If you ask me, Widow Qin is too accustomed to her. She will have a hard time when she goes to her husband's house in the future."
Captain Li Benfen was now extremely worried, and was annoyed by the constant chatter among the crowd: "Just do what you need to do, don't you all come here to watch the fun without eating?"
Qin Lai Di came up to him and said clearly, "Uncle, I learned this from Dr. He. Let me try."
In recent years, swine fever has been serious. Each brigade has set up a separate pig pen in a sparsely populated area behind the mountain, and the pigs are raised collectively, with a dedicated breeder assigned by the brigade. Wulitun does not have a full-time breeder. In the past, when the pigs were sick, it was Dr. He from the cowshed who came to help.
This year, the brigade raised three sows, two of which had already given birth. Unfortunately, Dr. He had to go back to the city for some business, and the breeder from the neighboring brigade went to the city for training, so it was difficult to find anyone to deliver the babies. Delivering babies to sows is different from delivering babies to humans, because sows are extremely vigilant and fierce during the birthing process. They can bite newborn piglets to death or injure people, or even kill them.
Raising sows is much more difficult than raising ordinary pigs. From breeding to pregnancy and childbirth, it takes a lot of energy. If the sow bites the piglets to death due to improper handling, the loss will be huge.
Li Benfen couldn't just agree to it. He rubbed his left hand that had just been bitten and asked, "Did Doctor He teach you this?"
Qin Lai Di was not afraid of being in the spotlight. After all, she had worked as a doctor for several years and had never been trusted to sit on the bench. "The year before last, it was Grandpa He and I who delivered the sow from the next team. I helped him."
"That's true, but Lai Di is still an unmarried girl...look at me, I just got married." They got the marriage certificate at noon, and the man left in the afternoon. Everyone looked at her with a mixture of sympathy and mockery.
Li Benfen was still hesitating, but Wang Lifen couldn't wait any longer: "Who said that a grown-up girl can't deliver a baby? That male doctor also treats gynecological diseases!"
The members burst into laughter and all agreed.
Qin Lai Di smiled gratefully at her. Wang Lifen had already made arrangements, asking everyone to stay away. What were so many people doing together? She also asked someone to boil water to cook brown sugar, someone to prepare dry straw, and someone to scoop some pig food, remembering to add more cornmeal... When Qin Lai Di washed her hands, the pigpen was empty, leaving only two black pigs with pointed snouts and big bellies.
She took a casual look, observing the marks left by the pigsty being rummaged, and the bloodstains on the straw beneath the sow. "It's been hurting for three days, right?"
"It was indeed the day before yesterday when she started whining and not eating. I didn't know she was about to give birth..."
The member in charge of raising pigs was just talking when she saw Qin Lai Di approaching quietly. The sow, which had been groaning in pain, suddenly opened its eyes, revealing its white teeth, and stared at her intently, as if it was about to attack in the next second.
"If the pain lasts this long, it must be a difficult birth. This is only for pigs. If our female comrade had been in pain for three days, she might have died." An elderly woman said with concern.
"That's right. Last year, my niece-in-law was in pain for two days and one night. She was sent to the clinic but she couldn't be saved. What a sin..."
The timid woman began to wipe away her tears. "We rely on the few pounds of meat we get all year long. If the sows die of dystocia, how are we going to get through this year?"
"My little son got sick a few days ago and said he wanted to eat pork. I even told him that we would have pork after the Chinese New Year. My poor child!"
The brave ones said anxiously, "Why are you afraid? If the baby really dies during childbirth, we can eat the sow meat and the piglets..."
"Bah! How heartless!" But he swallowed his saliva again and again.
"Hey, Third Auntie, I'll see if you want to eat it then. If you don't want to eat it, you can give me your share, okay?"
“…”
The members were arguing and did not notice that Qin Lai Di pressed the sow's waist and buttocks several times with lightning speed. The sow's teeth, which were originally bared, were retracted immediately, and even the humming sound became quieter.
Only Wang Lifen looked at this place with disdain. Seeing that she dared to touch the tiger's butt, she said, "Hey, you girl..."
Before she finished speaking, she patted the sow's lower back twice. The sow actually understood human nature and lay down on its own, allowing Qin Laidie to help it.
Suddenly, someone exclaimed "Eh!" and his eyes widened.
"Lailaidi, where did you get that from..." Everyone looked in the direction of her gaze and saw Qin Laiidi silently pulling out a blue-black thing.
"It's the little piggy!"
Because of the difficult birth, the piglets were deprived of oxygen, but fortunately the little ones were very tenacious and were still moving when they were pulled out.
Qin Lai Di pressed quickly on its sternum, trying not to break the bone but at the same time to stimulate the heart. This kind of neither light nor heavy force was actually the most difficult to control. She pressed until the piglet could make a sound, then she immediately turned around to pick up other piglets.
So, everyone just watched Qin Lai Di pull out things one after another easily and slowly... "They are all piglets!"
"Hey, it's really born!"
Soon, eight pink and tender piglets, whose afterbirths had been cleaned, were neatly laid side by side next to the sow.
Wang Lifen and Li Benfen didn't bother to ask her how she was so skilled at delivering babies. They were so happy that they didn't know what to do. Their eyes lit up and they said, "This... so much?!"
"One, two, three...seven, eight, there...actually there are eight...eight!" He even stuttered.
People are not well fed these days, so the nutrition of livestock is naturally not much better. A litter that can give birth to eight piglets is already considered a high yield among high yields, not to mention that it is only the first litter of pigs.
Qin Lai Di was not happy. She frowned and carefully touched the sow's waist and abdomen a few times. "There are still two that haven't come out yet."
Everyone was stunned, "Are you seeing things?"
Qin Lai Di didn't say anything either, just focused on helping.
Nowadays, many brigades go to the commune to apply for piglets in the early spring every year, raise them until the end of the year and hand them in as the designated pigs. If anyone wants to raise a few extra pigs to feed the members, they have to go to the brigade that has sows and find a way to exchange them for a high price. These eight... oh no, ten pigs are a huge fortune!
Even if they were not replaced and kept in their own team, they would be ten fat pigs with big arms and waists! If they were killed and the meat was distributed, each household would get a lot! They could even have three dumplings for the New Year!
The Wulitun Brigade is going to be proud of itself this year!
But facts proved that they were too conservative. The ten piglets Qin Lai Di mentioned were the output of a sow. There was another sow next door that had been grunting for two days.
Just in one afternoon, the two sows successfully gave birth to twenty piglets. Although each one was skinny and their fur was not bright, they all survived safely.
At this time, Qin Lai Di could no longer stand up straight because she had been hunched over for a long time. She could only sit down against the low wall of the pig pen, "Uncle, auntie, these two litters of pigs need to be raised separately. Someone has to turn the sows over and feed the piglets at night. You see..."
Anyway, she is exhausted.
Li Benfen and Wang Lifen had no reason to disbelieve it at this point. They both felt that Doctor He was indeed from a big hospital in a big city. He could teach her such a good apprentice with just a few simple lessons. If they could get him to teach them everything he knew, wouldn't they become miracle doctors?
"Okay, okay, you can go home and rest first. Let's discuss with the brigade and decide who will take care of it."
*
At home, Qin Guihua listened to the members who had returned earlier talk about her granddaughter's "glorious deeds" and was obviously proud of it: "My little girl, I told you to learn more from Dr. He. I didn't lie to you, did I?"
Qin Guihua never concealed her purpose. In those days, her family was not well fed. Was she really so kind as to give the food in her teeth to the "bad elements" in the cowshed? In fact, she heard that the old man knew medicine, so she thought her children should learn some skills, so she asked her granddaughters to bring food and soup to the old man.
At first, Ailan was asked to go, but she was already a grown-up girl by then and couldn't bring herself to go. She felt embarrassed to go only once.
So the cleverest girl, Youdi, was sent instead. However, this girl did not learn a skill but avoided labor instead. She hid in the cowshed and either fought crickets or twirled red ropes. Qin Guihua tried her several times and found that she learned nothing, so she sent the most mischievous third girl instead.
"At that time, you were just a little kid who was less than ten years old. You refused to go no matter what. You were so stubborn that I had to chase you with a stick..." Thinking of that scene, the grandfather and grandson both laughed.
"By the way, it's been almost two months since Dr. He was taken away by that car. I don't know when he will be back."
Qin Lai Di shook her head. According to her memory from her previous life, Mr. He was taken back by the working group from the capital to see the great leader. In the future, he would become the great leader's full-time health doctor, equivalent to what people call a "fortune doctor". How could he come to this remote mountain valley?
Doctor He's original name was He Libai. He was born into a family of traditional Chinese medicine practitioners and his family had practiced medicine in the capital for generations. During the Republic of China period, he served as the president of the Peking and Shanghai Medical Colleges successively. After liberation, he served as the president of the Beijing Hospital, specializing in the medical care of veteran cadres.
Because the He family had been practicing medicine for generations and had some savings and considerable land before liberation, he was one of the first batch of old intellectuals to be sent down to the countryside in 1966.
Qin Lai Di followed him to study medicine just because she was scared by her grandmother's beatings and wanted to make a living - the old man could always produce a piece of fruit candy, an eraser, or a short piece of pencil like a magic trick. As long as she learned to read and recited the prescriptions and medicinal properties he taught her, she would get some extra "rewards".
No one would have thought that many years later, she would actually get a respected job with the skills she learned at that time... Unfortunately, she did not cherish it.
So even when He Libai later found out her address as a troop follower and came to her house in person, she did not have the courage to face him.
The old man with gray hair and beard hunched over, put down two hundred yuan, and staggered out of Lenghe Town.
Guilt can only be buried deep in the heart for now. Qin Lai Di believes that there will always be a day when it will be reborn.
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