Chapter 101: Departure for the Medical Mission The meal was plentiful, but not very tasty…
Dr. Maria's letter arrived two days after Yao Xiaoyu had made all the arrangements. On the day of their reunion, Yao Xiaoyu got up very early. The Yao family wanted to say something, but in the end, they only watched the two leave. Only Yao Xiaoli secretly slipped her an oil paper package:
"If you buy fried dough sticks from the pancake shop and don't like vegetables, you can eat them with porridge."
Yao Xiaoyu and Tao Xiaoxiao arrived at the hospital entrance not late, but the meeting place was already crowded with people, both men and women, with black hair and black eyes as well as foreign faces. Most of them were in their twenties or even thirties. Yao Xiaoyu and Tao Xiaoxiao were the youngest among them, and many people looked over curiously, but no one spoke to them.
Dr. Maria arrived quickly and quickly assigned the small medical team to the hired carriages. Yao Xiaoyu and her companion sat with Maria. There were several unfamiliar women in the same carriage. Yao Xiaoyu counted the number of people and realized that all the women she had seen at the meeting point were here. It must have been Maria's deliberate arrangement.
Eight people in one carriage was a bit crowded, but the weather wasn't too hot, so it was bearable. Maria introduced them to each other, and they lightly touched hands and exchanged greetings, which was considered getting to know each other. No one started a conversation. Maria tried to start a conversation several times without success, and finally had to admit that everyone in the carriage was a slowpoke. Frustrated, she turned to look at the scenery outside the window, just like the others.
The carriage wasn't moving too slowly. The bustling traffic of Shanghai gradually gave way to woods and fields. Occasionally, an old farmer tilling the land or a peddler carrying a load would come into view. People crowded to the window to look around curiously. Yao Xiaoyu didn't compete with them for a spot. She etched the image of the woman she had just glimpsed—carrying a basket taller than herself on her back and walking barefoot on the main road—into her heart.
What you learn from books is never as profound as what you see with your own eyes. Even a short walk outside the city can overturn many of the images in your mind. Even without participating in it, just seeing it is enough for her to digest for a long time.
We made the right choice this time!
The carriage ride was novel at first, but after a while it became just like any other. Yao Xiaoyu took the opportunity to go to the toilet to get out of the carriage and stretch her muscles. She grimaced as she clutched her numb buttocks, finally understanding why people in the past didn't like to go out unless necessary—who would want to suffer on such a terrible road!
Lunch was prepared by everyone themselves. Most of the food consisted of flatbread, steamed buns, dumplings, and glutinous rice balls, with some less common items like glutinous rice cakes and fried dumplings. Yao Xiaoyu didn't try anything different and ate a flatbread with beef filling with Tao Xiaoxiao.
After the people who were notified to leave yesterday left, Yao Xiaoyu took Tao Xiaoxiao to order some braised beef. The vendor prepared it in the middle of the night and delivered it early in the morning, even slicing it for her so she could just put it in and eat it directly.
After having a meal and resting for a while, everyone boarded the carriage and continued their journey. Perhaps they had seen enough of the scenery, or perhaps some people felt they had reached a certain level of familiarity with the place. In any case, in the carriage where Yao Xiaoyu was sitting in the afternoon, someone finally took the initiative to speak, and Yao Xiaoyu finally learned a little more about the other people.
Sitting next to Tao Xiaoxiao are Anna and Jenny, half-sisters who have attended medical school. They came to this land to spread their faith. In addition to alleviating people's suffering through medical treatment, they also hope to spread their doctrines during this trip to the countryside.
The two girls opposite Yao Xiaoyu were named Shen Peilan and Han Banxia, and they were born into a family of traditional Chinese medicine practitioners who were both feudal and enlightened.
These descriptions are not contradictory. Feudalism manifests in the family's belief that once a daughter is married, she is no longer considered part of the family and they are unwilling to pass on their medical skills to her. Enlightenment manifests in the family's coaxing of their daughters after seeing that they want to study medicine, telling them that their daughters will marry into the family and that their marriage will bring more children into the family. Then they let their daughters study medicine with the boys in the family.
The two knew that the opportunity was hard-won, and they had some talent. They had grown up reciting medical formulas since they were young. Although they could not yet work independently in the clinic, they could handle common illnesses with ease. They joined the free clinic not for money, but mainly to gain experience.
They have participated in more than just the free clinic at Maria Hospital. They actively participate in any activity that guarantees safety when going out for medical treatment, including the last joint free clinic organized by volunteers.
"There's no other way. He'll be the pillar of the family in the future. If I don't accumulate more experience, where will I get the dowry to marry a husband and raise children?"
Shen Peilan complained, but her eyes were smiling. The clinic was the best place to see the warmth and coldness of human relationships. Marrying out and becoming someone else's wife was nothing compared to the freedom of supporting yourself.
Han Banxia nodded in agreement, not daring to say that she had an even bolder idea in her mind—to find a man, have a child with him, and then kick him out, or simply find someone to conceive a child with. In any case, she would live at home, have servants to take care of her, and have the elders of the family look after the child. Even if it was a son, she wouldn't be afraid of lacking any masculinity.
As for wanting men... she knew she had been a male prostitute before. If they were available, that would be great. Even if they weren't, she could find a few strong slaves and give them a bowl of sterilization medicine and she wouldn't have to worry.
In this era, marriage and love issues are not a modern-day way to create awkward silences, but rather a way to start conversations. Especially since there were only women present, the discussions among the group became quite outrageous. But when it came to the most unrestrained topics, Lin Lang was the one who spoke the most. She rarely spoke, but every time she did, she said something surprising.
Lin Lang was the strongest woman in the carriage and the only itinerant doctor. Her origin story was just like her name: she was abandoned in the woods at birth, where she met a mother wolf who had lost her cub and was raised as her own.
She was supposed to grow up as a wolf child, but before she was even a year old, the wolf pack was scattered by an old hunter. Her wolf mother was injured and was rescued by an old woman. In order to find shelter from the wind and rain, she became a guard dog and a hunting dog. She also brought her along. The old woman had no children of her own, so she raised the wolf as her granddaughter. [1]
The old woman taught the wolf how to dress, speak, and conduct itself, but perhaps because she was abandoned by a human family and then adopted by a wolf pack in the forest, she preferred to stay in the house rather than connect with nature. After seeing off the wolf mother and the old woman, she did not plan to marry or have children. Instead, she found a wooden staff, hung a bell on it, and became a traveling doctor, wandering around the world.
This is a very suitable profession for a wolf—compared to a pure animal like a wolf mother, a wolf is more human, but compared to an old lady who can blend into the crowd, her animality is as obvious as the moon in the night. She is half a daughter of nature and half a child of humanity, and the traveling doctor is precisely the balance between humanity and nature.
This uniqueness is not only reflected in her tall and strong figure. Compared to the women in the carriage who still follow some social customs in matters of marriage and love, she seems to come from ancient times, carrying a wild and untamed spirit that is almost invisible today.
She doesn't shy away from her desires, nor does she mind close physical contact between men and women. As long as they find each other pleasing to the eye, they can be intimate under the open sky without any obstacles to their passionate encounter—provided that the man is willing, and even if they are not destined to be together, he is willing to drink a bowl of short-term contraceptive soup.
This is almost unimaginable to people today: there was indeed talk of matchmaking in the countryside in the past, and it was even a custom to have sex in the countryside in the third month of spring, but that was a thousand years ago, during the Qin and Han dynasties or even earlier.
Lin Lang's medical skills were self-taught. Perhaps because the mother wolf ate too many herbs and passed them on to her human daughter through her milk, she had an animal-like sense of herbs. She could roughly figure out what each herb did by smelling and chewing it. After wandering around for so many years, her medical skills were no worse than those of someone with a master.
Her reason for participating in this free clinic was simple—the subsidy plus bodyguards cost a considerable sum.
Being called Lin Lang doesn't mean she's good at hunting. Compared to squatting in the grass full of mosquitoes to catch pheasants and rabbits, and then eating them mixed with blood or charcoal, the soft pancakes and fragrant meat of human society are more to her liking. But these enjoyments all cost money. After thinking it over, Lin Lang finally decided to bow down for a meager living.
Anyway, she's already created more than one eunuch, so a few more wouldn't matter.
Lin Lang wasn't exactly a beautiful woman in the conventional sense, but she wasn't ugly either. She had thick eyebrows, big eyes, honey-skinned, white teeth, long arms, and a wasp waist—she had it all. In many people's eyes, she was like a wild cat, and no matter how much she struggled, she couldn't escape their grasp—until she was kicked against the wall and couldn't be pried off, and then she realized that she was a mountain tiger!
But by then it was too late. All they could hear amidst their frantic pleas for mercy was a crisp snapping sound, marking the irreversible change of their genders, should they have treated their wounds in time and survived.
Lin Lang sometimes wondered why those men, who were all shorter than her and who had seen her jump three meters away and kick a hole in the wall, would dare to force themselves on her.
Because she had performed so many castration surgeries, Lin Lang later specially found a meteorite and made scissors to ensure that it would only take one cut and leave no trace. She still carries those scissors on her waist, not knowing how many more people she will be slashed this time.
The carriage moved forward, and Yao Xiaoyu didn't know when she fell asleep. When she woke up, the sun was already far in the west. At the horizon, she could vaguely see a village. Maria said that was their destination.
The desolate wilderness was not a place to feel at ease. After taking care of their basic needs, everyone hurriedly boarded the carriage. When the last ray of light disappeared below the horizon, the carriage finally stopped at the entrance of the village.
Maria Hospital had already communicated with the village in advance. As soon as we got off the carriage, someone was there to treat us to dinner. The village had stewed chicken soup, roasted duck, fried eggs, stir-fried vegetables, and fish. The ingredients weren't particularly precious, but the portions were generous, though the food wasn't very tasty.
Yao Xiaoyu didn't think she was being picky. Everyone's expression was the same under the kerosene lamp. But when you're hungry, everything tastes good. In the end, they ate everything clean, leaving not a single grain of rice or steamed bun.
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The author says: [1] Studies have shown that children raised by wolves are almost impossible to integrate into human society and may not even be able to speak. However, there is also a saying that 1-5 years old is the critical period for language learning. The wolf in the story came to the old lady's house at the age of one, so it was still possible to correct the wolf.
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