Chapter 416 The Black-Hearted Gu Lao San
The villagers who had been standing still just now seemed to have had their last bit of strength drained away, and their shoulders slumped down.
Someone raised his hand to wipe his face. It was unclear whether it was rain or tears that flowed down his wrinkled cheeks.
"Oh, is God going to let us live?"
Old man Liu, who was standing next to Gu Laosan, squatted down, stuck his hands into the wet and cold mud, and his voice was filled with unremitting despair.
The people around also started to complain quietly, their words full of resentment towards God.
Their steps felt as if they were filled with lead as they walked slowly towards their homes.
The dirt road was muddy after the rain, making a "swish" sound when you stepped on it, and mud and water climbed up your trouser legs, but no one cared to care.
Gu Laosan was very anxious. As soon as he stepped into his yard, he heard his mother coughing from the inner room.
The cough was rapid and violent, coming in waves, as if he was going to cough out his lungs, and he couldn't even catch his breath in between.
His heart clenched when he heard this, and he stumbled into the room.
"Mom, are you okay?" His voice trembled and his eyes swept over his mother who was huddled at the head of the bed.
Her face was pale, her lips were chapped, her brows were wrinkled from coughing, and her thin bedding was pulled askew.
Gu Laosan rushed to the table, picked up a coarse porcelain bowl and poured half a bowl of warm water into it. He carefully handed it to my mother's mouth, and with his other hand, he gently hugged her back and helped her breathe.
"It's okay..." Aunt Gu, coughing so hard she couldn't speak a complete sentence, finally caught her breath. "I just have a bad cough, and it feels like there's sand in my throat."
She gasped and looked up at her son, her cloudy eyes filled with confusion. "There's a commotion outside. Have you found out? What's going on in the village?"
Gu Laosan put the bowl on the stool at the head of the bed and moved his lips, but he didn't know how to start.
He lowered his head, his neck almost tucked into his collar.
Seeing him like this, Aunt Gu smiled.
Just laughing made his throat itch, and he couldn't help coughing twice. "You've been like this since you were little. Just say what you want to say. You're so shy now, like a young girl who's never been out of the house."
She knew her son so well that she could guess what he was thinking with her eyes closed.
Gu Laosan's throat rolled, his voice as low as a mosquito's hum. "They said...they said your illness...is the plague! They want...to gather you all into the school..."
After saying this, he could no longer hold on and squatted on the ground with a "bang", covering his head tightly with both hands. His knuckles turned white from the force and his back twitched.
Aunt Gu lay there, the blood color on her face drained away in an instant.
She opened her mouth and wanted to say something, but her throat felt like it was clogged with cotton.
It took him a while to find his voice, which was trembling. "Plague?"
She was one of the few people who survived the plague thirty years ago, and the piles of dead bodies had been her nightmare for many years.
She pushed Gu Lao San hard, using all her strength. "Then... why did you come into my room? Get out now! What if you get infected?"
Gu Laosan raised his head, his eyes were as red as a rabbit, tears rolled down his cheeks, he stared at his mother, unable to utter a word.
"Get out!" Aunt Gu urged again, with a hint of harshness in her voice.
Gu Laosan still didn't move, and his shoulders shook even more violently.
"Why are you crying?" Aunt Gu glared at him, her tone hardening. "The person isn't even dead yet, and you're already busy mourning! Didn't you say you were going to school? Hurry up and help me pack my things!"
She has always been a free and easy-going person, and after the initial shock, she slowly accepted this fact.
In fact, she felt that there was something wrong with this disease from the very beginning.
I've lived for most of my life and have caught colds many times, but never like this time, coughing as if it's killing me.
But she didn't dare think it was a plague. She just thought she was old and couldn't bear the disease.
Now that it's been revealed, I feel relieved.
Only then did Gu Laosan get up from the ground, but he still stood there motionless.
"Are you deaf? You can't even hear what I'm saying?" Aunt Gu reached out and patted the edge of the bed, making a "dong dong" sound.
"Mom, I don't want to send you there." Gu Laosan's voice was very hoarse.
He was afraid that after this send-off, he would never see his mother again in this life.
Aunt Gu's eyes nearly rolled back when she heard this. "You're such a bitch! No wonder your wife keeps beating you up. You're such a loser!"
She paused, her tone softening. "Since the village chief has made all the arrangements, we should just follow them. If we don't understand these intricacies, let's not make things worse. Man disposes, God disposes, so let's just leave it to fate!"
As she spoke, she propped herself up with her arms and sat up, slowly starting to roll up her bedding. "Stop crying, go get me a new backpack from the kitchen and fill it with my things!"
Gu Laosan wiped his face, sniffed, and walked towards the kitchen, looking back every few steps.
In the kitchen, Mrs. Deng was squatting at the stove, adding firewood to the hearth. The chicken soup in the pot was bubbling, and the aroma mixed with steam filled the small kitchen, making it warm and cozy.
Gu Laosan exchanged this chicken for two dou of rice from the neighboring village yesterday.
Our chickens got sick a while ago and were killed a long time ago.
She was wearing a washed-out blue apron, with sweat dripping down her forehead. From time to time, she would lift the lid of the pot and stir it, muttering, "This chicken soup is delicious. Mom will definitely get better soon after eating it."
Hearing footsteps, Deng, still stirring the chicken soup in the pot with a long-handled wooden spoon, asked casually, "Are you back? Did you invite Doctor Lin over? Mother looks like she has a serious cold. We need him to take a good look at her."
Gu Laosan didn't respond, picked up the new backpack in the corner and was about to go out.
Deng felt a pang of anxiety when she saw her husband looking so distracted.
She suddenly remembered the stories her grandparents told her when she was a child, and a layer of cold sweat instantly broke out on her back.
"Gu Laosan, you have no conscience!"
She threw the wooden spoon into the pot with a sharp "smack" sound, like a cat whose tail has been stepped on. "You're actually going to carry your mother away and throw her away!"
When she was a child, she heard her grandparents say that life was hard in the past. When the elderly in the family fell seriously ill, they had no money to treat them, but they couldn't bear to see them suffer, so they filled new backpacks with clean clothes and sent them to the back mountain to fend for themselves.
The way the man held the new backpack just now was exactly the same as described in the story!
Deng didn't think twice and ran after him.
As soon as I arrived at the main room, I saw Gu Laosan putting my mother's bedding roll into the backpack.
This further confirmed her thoughts.
Without asking any questions, she rushed forward and punched Gu Laosan in the back. "Gu Laosan, you are so heartless! I have really misjudged you in my life!"
Fists rained down on Gu Laosan's back, leaving him with a look of bewilderment.
"Mom just caught a cold, it's not an incurable disease. Why did you carry her away and abandon her?"
"You don't want it, but I do! If you don't treat me, I will!" She became angrier and angrier, tears welling up in her eyes. "Let me go! This is my mother, it's not your turn to decide! Get out of here!"
Gu Laosan was caught off guard by the attack and staggered forward two steps.
However, being beaten by his wife over the years had become a habit for him. He never thought of fighting back. He just lowered his head, hunched his shoulders, and kept dodging to the side. "Wife, listen to me!"
"Listen to what you say!"
Deng's beating became more and more ferocious, her words gushing out like a string of bullets. "You black-hearted, heartless bastard! Your mother has gone to great lengths to raise you. If she had known you were such a black-hearted person, she should have drowned you in a bucket of excrement when she gave birth to you!"
Aunt Gu was already exhausted. When she heard the noise outside, she struggled to pull her daughter-in-law out of bed, but she couldn't get out of bed after trying several times. She could only watch her son being beaten and curled up like a drowned dog.
She sighed, but she wasn't angry at all.
Forget it. After so many years, my son has gotten used to being beaten.
Besides, the daughter-in-law is also thinking about her.
When I married this wife, the villagers talked about her, saying that she was too fierce and would definitely be a troublemaker if I married her.
But over the years, Deng had treated her well, always caring about her and giving her the best food first, even more attentive than her own daughter. She was also very obedient, always doing whatever she was told to do and never contradicting her.
In addition, she is as strong as a man and is a good worker.
There is no other daughter-in-law as good as her in this area.
Deng was finally tired of scolding and beating. She stood there with her hands on her hips, her chest heaving violently, staring at Gu Lao San with eyes that seemed to be spitting fire.
Only then did Gu Laosan dare to breathe a sigh of relief. "You silly woman! Can't you just listen to what I have to say?"
"The village chief said Mom's illness is contagious!" He shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice filled with grievance. "It's not that we're abandoning Mom, we just have to send her to school for centralized treatment!"
Deng blinked but didn't react.
How could a minor cold be contagious?
She frowned, her face full of disbelief.
"Even if it's contagious, you can't send Mom away." Her tone softened a bit, but her neck was still stiff. "She's already in poor health. How can she get better without someone to take care of her?"
She didn't feel scared at all, her first reaction was that her mother had to be alone.
She has been very strong since she was a child and can eat two large bowls of rice at a meal. The neighbors all laughed at her and said that when she got married in the future, she would definitely be disliked by her in-laws.
But over the years since she married into the Gu family, her mother-in-law has never said a word against her. Every time she serves rice, she gives her the thickest bowl and always puts vegetables into her bowl so that she can eat more so that she has the strength to work.
When someone said behind her back that she was not like a woman, her mother-in-law would always stand up to defend her and say, "My Yan'er is very capable. You can't marry her even if you want to."
How could she let her go to school alone with such a good mother-in-law?
"Mother," Mrs. Deng turned to look at Aunt Gu in the room and said firmly, "The third child is afraid of being infected, but I'm not! I'll go take care of you!"
Aunt Gu, who was sitting by the bed, adjusting the quilt, smiled upon hearing this, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes coming together in a look of relief. "Yan'er, don't get excited. These are all arranged by the village chief. All sick people in the village must go to the school, so that it will be easier for Doctor Lin to treat them all."
She paused, then continued, "You know, there's only one doctor in our village, Dr. Lin. With so many people sick, wouldn't he be exhausted to death if he had to go to every household?"
Deng thought about it and felt that what her mother said made sense.
Doctor Lin's body is so small that it sways when the wind blows. He has to take three breaths after walking two steps. How can he run around the village to see patients?
She stiffened her neck and said, "Then I can just carry him on my back! He can't walk, so I carry him on my back to see doctors every day!"
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