Chapter 27

Shizu Dabu Pills

"Laonie, Lao Nie, wake up, wake up."

In the middle of the night, Nie Bozhao suddenly sat up.

"It's not even daybreak yet, why are you here?"

"Sandan has a fever and there is no medicine at home. You should go to the base clinic quickly to see if the local doctor is there," said Chen Lina.

Nie Bozhao touched him and found that his feet were cold, but his forehead was very hot.

Moreover, the child was convulsing violently, one after another, commonly known as convulsions, which is a precursor to a high fever.

Nie Bozhao put on a tweed coat over his white shirt and turned around and went out.

After a while, a gust of cold wind hit the door and he came back.

"What's the matter? Why did you come back empty-handed?" Chen Lina was holding the child on the big kang, Erdan was sleeping soundly, and Nie Weimin was the eldest after all. He poured water from the thermos and helped Chen Lina to hold a towel to wipe Sandan's face.

The child's hands were both red after being boiled.

"It's the weekend and the people in the clinic have gone back to Umayyad, so I went to borrow some medicine from someone else's house," said Nie Bozhao.

"No, we have to drive to Umayyad," said Chen Lina.

Nie Bozhao was stunned. "It's just a fever. Just give him some medicine and the fever will go away. Why do we have to go to Umayyad?"

"Yes, but Sandan is vomiting and having diarrhea, which is not a typical symptom of influenza. Moreover, I have to tell you that your son is severely paralyzed due to polio. He is going to have a fever. You have to pay attention to this problem."

"Impossible. Our country has had polio vaccine since 1960, and these three children have all taken sugar pills. He may have a fever, but he will definitely not get polio." Nie Bozhao still didn't believe it.

Chen Lina stopped asking him and grabbed Nie Weimin and asked, "Big Egg, have you ever taken sugar pills?"

Dadan thought about it and shook his head, "I don't remember."

"Sweet, round little candy pill, you really don't remember it?" Chen Lina continued to coax the child.

Nie Weimin blinked his big eyes and said, "Yes, grandma took us to the health station and took the candy pills."

"Sugar pills?"

"Grandma said my uncle loves candy, so she gave all the candy to him."

Chen Lina raised her head and glared at Nie Bozhao angrily, "Sun Dabao is really a treasure. The polio vaccine can only be given three times at most. If he eats too many sugar pills, isn't he afraid of killing himself?"

"That's impossible. My brother-in-law is already in his twenties. Would he snatch candy from a child?" Nie Bozhao still didn't believe it.

Chen Lina glared at him and said, "That guy must have never read much. With your mother-in-law's personality, I guess she gave him the sugar pill as a tonic pill."

Poliomyelitis, also known as infantile paralysis, reached its peak in the 1930s and 1940s. After the vaccine was developed in the 1960s, although cases still occurred in remote rural areas, the disease gradually disappeared in cities.

But it is true that there are some ignorant old ladies who think that they can eat more and get more candy pills because the government gives them out for free.

Moreover, because the sugar pills were in a fixed quantity, one pill per child, I guess they were really treated as some kind of tonic pills, so they were all given to Sun Dabao.

This is really true, ignorance kills people.

It turned out that Chen Lina had seen someone stealing candy pills to eat, and he got a fever and became stupid.

After a while, Nie Bozhao came back and said, "Let's go. I found a car. Let's go to Umay now."

"You don't know how to drive?"

"If there's a cookie hung on the steering wheel, even a dog can drive, so why can't I?" said Nie Bozhao.

It was Xiao Chen's rubbed-down Jeep. In the middle of winter, Xiao Chen even built a carport to cover it.

"Mr. Xiao is alone, can't we let him send us off?" Chen Lina asked.

"Today is the weekend, so he must be hanging out at Mulan Farm again."

Although there were no bars or nightclubs in the 1970s, the workers at the oil base knew how to have fun.

Inside Mulan Farm, there are casinos, chess and card rooms, smoking, drinking, and playing cards. Everything goes on behind closed doors.

The oil workers at the base had a lot of money, so when the weekend came, they would quietly drive by in a big truck, and sometimes half a month's salary would be spent in just one night.

Although he said he would give it a try, Nie Bozhao really didn't know how to drive this kind of small car. He didn't even know how to shift gears. When the car started, it whirred and spun on the snow for a few times, and then suddenly stalled. When he started it again, Nie Bozhao imitated Xiao Chen's method and wanted to shift gears, but he didn't know that he couldn't shift gears without pressing the clutch. He just stepped on it randomly, and the car sputtered a few steps, then stalled again.

"Okay, you hold the child and I'll drive the car."

He decisively threw Sanda to Nie Bozhao, and put the two children wrapped in quilts on the back seat. He pressed the clutch, shifted gears, and stepped on the accelerator. With a whoosh, the car started moving before Nie Bozhao even sat down steadily.

"My mom is really good at driving, Dad. She drives better than Uncle Xiao." Erdan came to his senses when he heard the sound of the engine.

The two children crowded behind Chen Lina, looking forward like rabbits with their ears erect.

"Do you know the road?" Nie Bozhao was sitting in the back with his child in his arms, and he was actually very nervous. He didn't believe that such a little girl could drive to Umay in the middle of the night when it was snowing heavily and it was dark.

Chen Lina pointed ahead and said, "That's not the wheel of a Jiefang truck. There's only one road from the base to Umay. The oil must be transported from the base to the refinery, and it must only go this way. Don't worry, even though there's no cookie on the steering wheel, I guarantee I'll find the way."

"Mom is much more powerful than a dog." Erdan laughed happily.

She is a really good driver.

The marks left by the big trucks are very deep, so the middle of the road is much higher. Even a car with a high chassis like the Jeep Junior will get stuck and damage the chassis when driving in the middle.

If you give it to a novice driver, he will definitely destroy the car.

But Chen Lina was not like that. She drove with the tires on both sides riding right on the raised area between the curb and the middle of the road, without any deviation. Her speed was at least 80 miles per hour, as if she was walking on a tightrope. She drove steadily and quickly.

"Xiao Chen, Xiao Chen from the Umayyi Mining Area, you can't run away. Get off the car now, get off immediately." Not far from the base, a burst of loud horns were heard, and then at least two Jiefang trucks surrounded them from both sides, as if they wanted to force Chen Lina's car to stop.

"In this day and age, why are there still car chases?"

Chen Lina was stunned, thinking that the management of the border was very strict. Moreover, the current vehicles either belonged to the border defense or to the oil base. Mulan Farm also had its own vehicles, but who dared to mobilize them easily?

"I guess Xiao Chen is causing trouble again. He has been going to Mulan Farm recently. I guess he is pursuing an educated youth. People from Mulan Farm came here to arrest him. They don't dare to enter the base, so they have been guarding outside."

So that's what happened.

"Weimin, Erdan, fasten your seat belts and watch how mom helps us get rid of these bad guys."

The two children didn't know how to fasten their seat belts, but they sat properly in the back seat.

Nie Bozhao got stuck while fastening his seat belt, and then he felt himself leaning back. The jeep rushed out of the base and almost flew into the air.

"Mom, Mom, a truck is chasing us, how can we outrun it?" Nie Weimin was so excited that he forgot that he originally just wanted to call her Comrade Xiao Chen.

Chen Lina glanced in the rearview mirror and sneered, "Don't be fooled by its size. If it runs, its displacement is really not as good as ours. Sit tight and see how Mom will shake them off."

In the snow, with the headlights turned on, snowflakes were flying all over the sky. In the snow, there were only two black, oily tire tracks, which were made by the trucks transporting oil to the refinery.

The Jiefang truck behind was chasing closely, honking its horn, and the small jeep in front was leaving two large snow tracks, almost flying into the air.

"Dabao, this guy's driving skills are really amazing."

"Tiger is useless. If he dares to touch Anna, I will beat him to death." The driver of the large truck that was chasing was none other than Sun Zhuan's son Sun Gong's big baby, Sun Dabao, a 20-year-old truck driver, and also the captain of the Mulan Farm Security Team. He had not been harmed by the excessive amount of sugar pills, and he could not do anything else except driving well.

The small jeep in front was going fast, but he was going even faster.

Besides, the road where gasoline trucks have passed is full of bumps and potholes, which is not very friendly to small cars. He has already thought about it and will brake when the small car makes a sharp turn.

He would just run over it, and by then, hmm, there would be no such person as Xiao Chen in the oil base.

As for his father being the director of some automobile factory, a fool like Sun Dabao would not understand what a factory director is. With the steering wheel in his hands, he is the factory director of the entire Umayee. No, he is the district chief of the Umayee mining area, and even the district chief is not as majestic as him.

"Captain Sun, there is a coal mountain ahead, brake quickly, hey, I told you to brake."

There was a sharp turn ahead, and the expected brakes did not come. It was an extremely beautiful drift. The front of the small car did not move, and the rear of the car swung out a puff of snow. However, the big truck could not make a sharp turn in this place. The steering wheel was turned sharply and the front car braked, and the car behind it hit it directly. With a bang, the car pushed the front of the car onto the hillside.

With a whoosh, the front of the car fell over, and this place happened to be a coal mountain.

"Mom, you are so, so awesome." Nie Weimin felt shy after calling her mom, so he gritted his teeth and lowered his head.

"Is mom awesome?" Chen Lina asked Erdan.

"I want more, one more time." The feeling while drifting was so good that Erdan wanted to do a somersault.

Nie Bozhao shouted directly, "Good fellow, Comrade Xiao Chen, you are a technical player."

It was a right-angle turn, and the jeep could not turn with its body.

However, while she was driving at high speed, she pulled up the handbrake, causing the front wheels to turn quickly and the rear wheels to take up air, thus changing the direction of the car.

Nie Bozhao had only seen this kind of technology in movies, alright, those were edited shots. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he really wouldn't believe that anyone could do it in real life.

She and the car are one, she is not a driver, she is a natural racer.

We drove all the way to Umay. Fortunately, there was a doctor on duty at the mining area health hospital in Umay.

"We don't have the conditions to do a blood test here, but from my observation, it should not be myelitis. How about this, after taking the antipyretic, you can wait a little longer. If the fever doesn't go away, you can be transferred directly to Uru. How about that?" The doctor on duty at the mining area health hospital woke me up in the middle of the night, yawning from sleepiness.

Then, all we can do is wait.

The two adults wrapped themselves in a large quilt. Since there were few patients hospitalized at night, they simply hugged their own large new quilt and lay down on the bed in the infusion room.

Erdan fell asleep, but Nie Weimin was still awake and kept looking at his father.

Dad was holding little Sandan in his arms. Sandan was wheezing and his little face was flushed red.

"Dad, did you ever hold me like this when I was a child?" he suddenly asked.

Nie Bozhao thought about it, shook his head and said "No."

"I had a fever too. I remember my grandmother pried open my teeth and fed me medicine. Where were you at that time?"

"Dad is working."

"Then why aren't you working now?" Seeing his father holding Sandan, Nie Weimin actually wanted him to hug him. That feeling was just nice to watch.

Nie Bozhao suddenly recalled something and felt extremely ashamed. How should I put it? Most workaholics like him actually have a very bad family environment.

Sun Zhuannan is actually three years older than him. As the saying goes, a woman three years older than a man is as good as a golden brick. So, it should be said that their marriage life will be very happy.

Moreover, in college, Sun Zhuanan was a good student and a down-to-earth person. Of course, this was a common virtue possessed by college students like her who came from rural areas.

Later, the mining area came to the industrial university to recruit people, and Sun Zhuanan was the only girl willing to go to Xinjiang, so naturally, they got together.

But, before marriage, they were just two people struggling together, but after marriage, everything became a mess.

What he was thinking about was the current slogan of the oil base: I contribute oil to the motherland and strive to refine 10,000 barrels of oil.

He wanted the Republic to be at the forefront of the world. He wanted the oil economy in his laboratory to surpass that of Britain and the United States and outperform those of Western developed countries.

But Sun Zhuan'an thought differently.

Her hometown is in Zhang County, which is said to be a very poor place. Therefore, she has an ambition to make everyone in her family live better than everyone in the village, her relatives, and everyone else.

She had to fight hard to get the first batch of volunteers to relocate to the frontier from other colleagues.

She and Sunmu didn't look like mother and daughter, but more like sisters. Sun Dabao didn't look like her brother, but more like her son. Even after giving birth to Nie Weimin, she didn't share her fanatical love for Sun Dabao.

She placed an inexplicable hope on Sun Dabao. It was obvious that Sun Dabao was a fool, but she always felt that even if Sun Dabao became the district chief of a mining area in the future, he would still feel wronged.

As for his three children, Nie Bozhao would rather stay in the lab than come back because of the chaos at home, so of course he never held them. Sun Zhuan Nan was even busier than him, so he was even less likely to hold him. As for his grandson's mother, she would beat them lightly when it was obvious, and severely when it was hidden.

If it weren't for Chen Lina, Nie Bozhao couldn't imagine how his sons would have been raised like this in the base. As a senior intellectual who graduated from an industrial university and a scientist at the forefront of science and technology, how would he face it if his two sons were really put on trial and executed?

"Dad is really ashamed. If you want to, come over and I will hug you too."

Nie Weimin came out from under the quilt like a little pig, and rushed in front of him. His furry little head lay on Nie Bozhao like a little deer.

It’s so cold today, I don’t know how long it will take for the child’s fever to go down.

The two adults must be hungry by now. When Chen Lina came out, she was still holding money, two hundred yuan, Nie Bozhao's monthly salary, but she had no bill.

After walking around the mining area hospital, I found that there were no open shops on the street, and I even ran into several patrol officers.

Chen Lina's health condition was not good, and in a place like a mining area, health is very important, so she tried her best to avoid the patrol team and did not dare to walk too far, so she went back to the hospital.

It was already daybreak, but looking at the clock, it was only a little after five o'clock.

But that's how it is in the border area, there's a two-hour time difference from the mainland.

In this border area, it gets light at 5 a.m. and dark at 8 p.m., with long days and short nights. This is winter, and in summer, the sky will be completely dark for no more than eight hours. It will be light in the blink of an eye.

I turned around and around, wondering what I had given the children to eat in the morning.

After all, if we had to rush to Uru, the three children couldn't go on an empty stomach.

She opened Xiao Chen's trunk and saw what capitalist corruption was. Chen Lina finally saw it.

Egg instant noodles, a big can of malted milk, and coconut candy that you don't see in this place. The most unusual thing is a bag of moon cakes wrapped in red paper. Of course, you need a ticket for this thing, but even in a place like the mining area, it is only distributed once a year during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and at most every family can get four or five.

In Xiao Chen's trunk, there were ten things tied up with red paper.

"Comrade Chen, I don't want an injection." Seeing Chen Lina coming in with a tin box.

This small tin box is usually used to boil needles and syringes for injections. Little Nie Weimin was so scared that he crawled under the bed.

"Injection, Aunt Yao wants to give me an injection, ahaha, I don't want an injection." Erdan was also crying and was frightened awake.

"What's the matter with whether or not to get an injection? Smell what this is?" Chen Lina said as she opened the lid of the tin box, and a pungent aroma of egg instant noodles wafted out.

Erdan turned over with a somersault and shoved his nose over. "Mom is so nice. She gave us instant noodles again."

"This is called junk food. It only pleases your taste buds and doesn't care about your growth. Here are some mooncakes, one for each person."

Seeing the mooncakes, the two children became even happier and reached out to grab them.

"This belongs to your Uncle Xiao Chen. Mom has asked him for money, but he may not agree. So, you can eat it now, and when you see Uncle Xiao, you have to say sorry to him. Do you understand?" Children cannot get used to eating for free. They must be told clearly where the food comes from.

"Now, go wash your hands."

Finally, the two older ones paid attention to hygiene. They rushed out of the ward and went to find a place to wash their hands.

Nie Bozhao held the child, his arms were so sore, and finally Chen Lina came to take over. He handed Sandaner to Chen Lina and sighed sincerely, "I'm tired, really tired, my arms are stiff."

"Comrade Lao Nie, your child weighs only 16 pounds and is severely malnourished. Are you tired even after holding him?"

"I walked thirty kilometers for the military exercise the day before yesterday, and yesterday I was busy all day building and burning fire walls. I was thinking..."

I thought that after getting the marriage certificate, I could at least end my life as a widower, but I didn't expect that she still wanted love.

Nie Bozhao really doesn’t understand what love is.

"Okay, have a cup of coffee. Xiao Chen found it in his trunk. You can give him the money based on the food coupons when the time comes." Chen Lina pursed her lips and said, "The one on the metal lunch box is for you."

There was a small enamel pot with white smoke coming out of it.

In fact, Nie Bozhao had already smelled it, it was fragrant and strong, and she actually made him a cup of coffee.

Comrade Xiao Chen, who can drive and drift, has lived in Qisi Township since she was a child. Except for the year she was in college, she has never been anywhere else. During that year in college, the only soldier she came into contact with was Nie Guozhu. It is not true to say that she is a Soviet revisionist.

So, what he needs now is to investigate Nie Guozhu's background and identity.

After all, Hongyan is adjacent to the border, and the military region in the border is controlled by the large military region in the provincial capital of Hongyan. If there really is Su Xiu, he is hiding in the large military region.

As for Chen Lina, she took care of the children and worked. The moment Nie Bozhao agreed to marry her, he regarded her as his own family.

Given his contribution to the oil industry and someone like her, he could still keep her as long as he was willing to do so.