Chapter 107 After the Free Clinic Ends, You Can Sell Rice Dumplings
Yao Xiaoyu was very busy during the rest of the free clinic.
While the doctors were seeing patients, she kept a record of common diseases in the village; when everyone was resting, she would selectively ask a few questions that did not involve the inheritance of medical skills. The number of pages written in her notebook increased rapidly, and Yao Xiaoyu's original vague outline was gradually sorted out.
A two-week medical mission only allows the team to visit three or four villages, but it can reach more than ten villages with access to medical resources. Even compared to villages around Shanghai, this is insignificant, not even on a national scale. However…
"They survived."
Looking at the child who had been on the verge of death just two days ago, now walking out of the room to greet her, Shen Peilan, who looked much more haggard, spoke gently.
Although there are many diseases they cannot treat, and although many people have not received much help due to limited resources, many people who might have died have survived.
"That man also pulled through."
Han Banxia thought of the pale-faced man they had just visited, whose back had two large holes dug out, and who was drinking rice oil to nourish himself. A smile crept onto her lips. During her visit, she had secretly slipped a silver coin to the man's wife so that they could have more time to recover.
The man with sores was a good key to starting a conversation, and everyone took the opportunity to join in. As Yao Xiaoyu listened to these words, the previously vague protagonist gradually emerged with a clear outline.
Her gender is female, which goes without saying. Her appearance is not particularly outstanding, but she has a pair of bright eyes. As for her medical skills... she has no systematic inheritance and no money, so she is not particularly proficient and does not have any unique secret recipes.
Her life was uneventful; she never held a high position or became extremely wealthy. She was just an ordinary doctor who treated common ailments like headaches and fevers. Even her death was uneventful; she simply fell asleep one day and never woke up again.
Yao Xiaoyu plans to weave medical knowledge into the protagonist's story, but how to make it seem reasonable and easy to remember requires a lot of polishing. However, there's no rush, since she currently has limited information from various sources and still has an unfinished book. Yao Xiaoyu plans to travel all over Shanghai's medical clinics in the coming period to collect as much content as possible.
But we've already traveled all over Shanghai, so how about we go to Beiping as well?
Yao Xiaoyu pondered the possibility of boarding the train, while also making notes of some people she hadn't seen mentioned in the conversation. A bad pen is worse than a good memory, and her resource library needed to be expanded in various ways.
The carriage returned to Shanghai. Everyone got off at the entrance of Maria Hospital, exchanged a few words about future correspondence, and then dispersed. Yao Xiaoyu and the other person followed Maria to her office.
"As soon as Shulan arrived, I arranged for her to be hospitalized, and then I found someone to send you a letter."
Maria settled the payment for Tao Xiaoxiao while speaking to Yao Xiaoyu.
It was already a bit of a stretch to fit eight people into a carriage, so it wouldn't be appropriate to put Shulan in a carriage full of men. After Yao Xiaoyu told Maria about this, Lin Lang took the initiative to say that she wasn't in a hurry to go back and could stay and hire another carriage to take Shulan to Shanghai.
Having witnessed Lin Lang's swift and decisive actions, and considering that Tao Lin and his companion had earned their reputation through the lives and exploits of local thugs and criminals along the way, Maria was willing to release him. The group reached an agreement, and Lin Lang temporarily disappeared from the group. A donkey cart was added to the official road leading to Shanghai.
"Okay, can you find a suitable caregiver here?"
Patients with complete uterine prolapse can move around briefly during the later stages of bed rest and recovery. Although the time is short, it is enough for them to take a bath and go to the toilet on their own. However, in the early stages... Seeing Maria's troubled expression, Yao Xiaoyu nodded knowingly.
"Okay, leave this to me."
She remembered that when Wenrou was hospitalized last time, that aunt was very efficient. It shouldn't be difficult to invite her over this time. As for issues like going to the toilet... Yao Xiaoyu remembered that there are beds with holes in the middle in modern times. She could just pay for one herself. These kinds of big things hold their value well, and they wouldn't lose too much money when reselling them.
After confirming that Maria had paid her the full amount, Yao Xiaoyu didn't linger. She and Tao Xiaoxiao hired a rickshaw and headed home. Halfway there, she suddenly remembered something and told the driver to make a sharp turn.
Two hours later.
After taking a shower, Yao Xiaoyu and Tao Xiaoxiao got into a new rickshaw and returned to the Yao family home. The group of people who were originally going to go forward and feel sorry for their daughter/granddaughter who had lost weight saw Tao Xiaoxiao's rosy complexion and new clothes, and their sobs got stuck in their throats.
The original plan was disrupted. The group greeted Yao Xiaoyu awkwardly and then asked their granddaughter to come over for dinner. The braised pork, which was 80% lean and 20% fat, was a bit tough, but overall it tasted pretty good. Tao Xiaoxiao had already eaten outside, so she waved and went back to rest. Yao Xiaoyu ate her fill without any politeness, put the snacks she had bought on the table for the Yao family to share, and then went upstairs to close the door and go to sleep.
The bed was large, the blankets were soft. Before Yao Xiaoyu closed her eyes, it was still daylight; when she woke up, the stars and moon were high in the sky. Her limbs felt weak as she went downstairs and called to a vendor selling late-night snacks. She ordered a zongzi (sticky rice dumpling) to dip in white sugar. The vendor also recommended a jujube zongzi, but Yao Xiaoyu shook her head.
Do you have any meat-filled rice dumplings? If so, I'd be happy to buy a few.
The vendor with very thick eyebrows widened his eyes as if he had heard something unbelievable:
"How can you wrap meat in a zongzi? I've lived for over thirty years and I've never heard of such a thing."
Yao Xiaoyu was also surprised. Although she hadn't bought many zongzi before, meat zongzi were indeed sold. The two chatted about this topic for a while, and Yao Xiaoyu learned that the vendor used to sell zongzi in Beijing and had only come to Shanghai three days ago. In Beijing, there were only sweet zongzi with jujubes and white zongzi to be eaten with sugar. As for savory zongzi with ham and pork filling, she had never even heard of them, let alone made them.
“People from all over the country come to Shanghai, and they eat both sweet and savory food.”
Yao Xiaoyu didn't suggest that the vendors sell meat-filled rice dumplings. If the vendors were interested, they would naturally try to figure it out. Even if they didn't sell savory rice dumplings, these sweet rice dumplings were enough to support their lives. These rice dumplings were much tastier than those sold in baskets. If they were lucky, they could open a shop. Setting up a stall could also support their families. It's just that I don't know what happened to this person that led them to Shanghai.
The population movement is more frequent in this era than in the past, but overall, only a minority of people leave their hometowns to seek their fortunes elsewhere. People still value staying in their hometowns and are reluctant to leave. Vendors of this age, who have families to support, will not leave unless they really cannot make a living in the local area.
Yao Xiaoyu's curiosity was fleeting, and her mention of savory rice dumplings was just casual. After eating the dumplings and rinsing her mouth, she went back to rest, completely unaware of the turmoil in the vendor's heart—
After the Yao family closed their shop, the vendor continued selling zongzi. His calls were not loud, but business was good. After walking several streets, he exchanged the last zongzi for copper coins and went home to rest. He took off his melon-shaped hat, wiped his face with a damp cloth, and cleaned the thick eyebrows he had drawn with charcoal powder. His features became much softer.
The vendor was a woman dressed as a man.
"Savory rice dumplings... I'll go check them out tomorrow."
He Jiabao counted the copper coins in the box, and her expression relaxed a bit. She was very good at making sweet rice dumplings, but she was always apprehensive. If there were really savory rice dumplings, that would be a new path.
He Jiabao wasn't originally called that; her name was Gong Dani. She was the eldest daughter of the Gong family and married into the Du family, who made a living selling zongzi (sticky rice dumplings). She thought she would just live an ordinary life, but after getting married, she found out that her husband, Du Zhang, had a habit of hitting people. As long as her parents-in-law didn't let their fists hit them, they didn't care. The reason for marrying Gong Dani was to endure being slapped in order to carry on the family line.
As the saying goes, a married woman is like a horse bought by anyone; she can be ridden and beaten at will.
At that time, the saying was "marry a chicken, follow the chicken; marry a dog, follow the dog," and Gong Dani's family didn't love her much. She could only grit her teeth and endure it, telling herself that it would be alright if she got pregnant—and then she was beaten and miscarried.
That was the first time her child had come and gone, but not the last. Several years passed in the blink of an eye, and she became pregnant again. This time, the doctor repeatedly told her to take good care of herself, because if she miscarried again, she would never be able to have another child. She carefully hid, but Du Zhang still raised his fist...
Gong Dani doesn't quite remember what happened. She only knows that when she regained consciousness, Du Zhang's head, along with his parents' heads, had been separated from his body. There was a kitchen knife on the ground that had been broken in the middle, and she was holding a chipped machete that was dripping red liquid.
She stayed there for a while, then went to find the Du family's silver dollars. Including the money for selling the ingredients for zongzi, it was only a dozen or so dollars. Du Zhang had become addicted to gambling and couldn't repay the money he borrowed. His family couldn't bear to see him have his fingers cut off, so they used their savings to pay off the loan.
Gong Dani didn't mind the small amount of money; she put it all into a bag, changed into men's clothes, and took a whetstone to hitch a ride on a train. She didn't know where she was going. She fell asleep and woke up again, and in a daze, she followed the flow of people off the train. She pricked up her ears to listen to the people next to her and realized that she had arrived in Shanghai.
She used the charcoal scraps on the ground to thicken her eyebrows, using the stereotype of thick eyebrows and big eyes to enhance her masculine image. She also gave herself the name Jiabao, taking He as her surname, and thus became He Jiabao, who came from Beijing to Shanghai to make a living. She originally wanted to call herself Yougen, but after thinking about it, she decided against it. Her family had both boys and girls, but Gen could only be that two ounces of flesh, which she was not happy about.
Using the skills she had honed through wandering the streets, she found a cheap house to live in. The deposit and rent quickly consumed most of her silver dollars. After searching the streets for a while, she had spent all her silver dollars except for copper coins. She still couldn't find anything to do. Finally, she gritted her teeth and, relying on the skills she had learned from the Du family, started selling zongzi (sticky rice dumplings) again.
The Du family's zongzi are delicious, but making them is hard work. Du Zhang only wants to do business easily, so his parents had no choice but to teach the craft to their daughter-in-law. Gong Dani sleeps until the early hours of the morning and gets up before dawn, but she gets glared at and told rules even if she eats an extra bite. She has no conscience at all when she makes money from these zongzi—she's just worried that someone who has eaten the Du family's zongzi might come looking for her.
She felt no remorse for the deaths of her family members: she was pregnant with three children, and one life for another was just right. Even if this one didn't count, based on the children she miscarried from being beaten, three lives for one life would still be enough. But she couldn't convince anyone with this argument, so she could only hide away.
If they could sell meat-filled rice dumplings here, she could change the filling and the way they were wrapped, and then she wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.
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Author's Note: The street vendor stole the show!
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