Chapter 726: The Great Northern Wilderness
He recalled the countless late nights when Dou'er squatted beside the medicine mill to help him grind herbs. The boy's thin shoulders swayed in the moonlight like a stubbornly growing weed.
In order to gain a foothold in the black market, he had to mix some shady things into the legitimate prescriptions.
"The land in the Great Northern Wilderness is so fertile that you can squeeze out oil."
Dou'er suddenly raised his head, his eyes bright astonishingly.
"Brother Wang said there is a large open space where you can grow medicinal herbs, and there are more than 20 young people waiting to learn medicine. You don't have to smile in front of those fierce people, and you don't have to sell white hyacinth as white angelica..."
His voice trembled uncontrollably, and he reached out and gently touched the old man's swollen left eye.
“We can set up a real medicine cabinet, use a scale to weigh the ingredients, and have each ingredient clearly written on the prescription.”
Yang Huaixi felt a warm liquid sliding into the corner of his mouth, and he couldn't tell whether it was blood or tears.
He remembered the boy's lips that turned purple from the cold when he picked up beans in the snow seven years ago, and the joyful light in his eyes when he successfully identified the honeysuckle for the first time.
But now, those eyes were filled with worry and expectation, like two clear springs reflecting his cracked soul.
"You always say I'm keeping you behind me."
Dou'er suddenly smiled, but tears rolled down her cheeks, leaving dark marks on her clothes.
"But you don't know how scared I was every time I saw you adding cinnabar to the fake medicine. I was afraid that those people would come to my house, afraid that you would be arrested, and even more afraid that..."
Her voice suddenly choked.
"I'm afraid that one day, even you will forget what a true doctor looks like."
Yang Huaixi's Adam's apple rolled violently, as if he had swallowed a thousand-pound lead block.
He slowly lowered his head, his torn hair covering his swollen left eye, his right eye was full of bloodshot, reflecting the crushed medicine residue and dried blood on the ground.
The night wind blew through the broken window, carrying a yellowed prescription across his trembling shoulders. There were still words written by him on it, but now it sounded like a silent mockery.
"Beans,"
His voice seemed to be squeezed out from the depths of his throat, with a broken hoarseness.
"I'm sorry."
The fingers, like dead branches, curled up and dug deeply into the old scar on the palm, where there was still the mark of the knife cut last year when he tried to protect Dou'er.
"I picked you up from the snow and said I would protect you until you grow up, but these years..."
His voice stopped abruptly and his chest heaved violently, causing the wound on his ribs to bleed again, leaving dark patterns on his coarse cloth.
Dou'er looked at Yang Huaixi's hunched back and suddenly remembered the snowstorm night seven years ago.
He was abandoned by his parents at the gate of the black market when he was only nine years old, freezing to death on the edge of a mass grave.
It was Yang Huaixi who warmed him up with his body temperature and stuffed the last half of the biscuit into his mouth.
Over the years, they have been struggling to survive in the cracks of the black market. Every time a thug came to extort money, Yang Huaixi would hide him in the deepest part of the medicine cabinet, but he himself would be beaten all over.
And now, this man who had always been as strong as a mountain actually bowed his head in front of her.
"elder brother!"
Dou'er rushed forward and tightly grasped the hands covered with calluses and new wounds, her fingertips touching the raised bandages on the old man's wrist bones.
"I am the one who should say sorry. Over the years, I have watched you do things against your will in order to protect me and this pharmacy..."
Her voice was choked with sobs, and tears fell on their clasped hands.
"But have you forgotten what you said when you taught me to identify the first medicine? A doctor's heart should be kind and should not be obscured by dark clouds."
Wang Jianguo turned his face away, pretending to organize the drawings, but secretly wiped the corners of his eyes.
The moonlight filtered through the broken roof, illuminating the tenaciously growing green ivy in the corner of the drugstore. The vines were entwined around the broken medicine cabinet, swaying gently in the wind.
"I'll listen to you this time."
Yang Huaixi finally raised his head, and turbid tears flowed down his wrinkles and dripped onto the back of Dou'er's hand.
"Whatever you say is what it is."
He looked at the drawing that Wang Jianguo had unfolded. The red fingerprints looked like dancing flames in the moonlight.
"The Great Northern Wilderness..."
He murmured, as if chewing on this strange and hopeful place name.
"I heard that the land there can produce oil and grow crops taller than people..."
"right!"
Dou'er's eyes were surprisingly bright, and a long-lost red glow appeared on his pale face.
"We can open up a medicinal field and plant angelica, astragalus, and honeysuckle. You teach the young men how to feel pulses and diagnose, and I will help prepare the medicine and boil the soup."
He suddenly turned around and took out a rusty tin box from the blue cloth bag, which contained several silver needles and half a jade pendant broken into two pieces.
"This is your most precious thing. When we get to the Great Northern Wilderness, we can exchange it for some seeds."
Yang Huaixi took the jade pendant with trembling hands and rubbed the sharp edge of the broken part with his fingertips.
It was a thank-you gift that an old lady had forced upon him before her death many years ago. He had been adamant about not accepting it at the time, but could not overcome the old lady's insistence.
At this moment, the cool touch of the jade pendant reminded him of the old man's grateful eyes before he passed away.
"Let's not do that shady business anymore."
Dou'er's voice was as firm as iron.
"We should save lives and heal the wounded in an upright manner, so that every medicine can save lives instead of harming them."
She held Yang Huaixi's hand tightly, as if she was holding their future.
"When the clinic is built, we will hang a huge plaque at the door with four large gold-plated characters: 'Hanging the Pot to Help the World'!"
Yang Huaixi nodded heavily, his vision blurred by tears, but he laughed out loud.
The laughter startled the sparrows on the beam and flew away. The flapping sounds of their wings mixed with Dou'er's clear laughter echoed in the shabby drugstore.
The moonlight grew brighter, shining on the three people and illuminating the medicinal herbs scattered on the ground - the crushed wolfberries and broken cassia twigs.
It seems that they have been reborn at this moment, waiting to bloom with more brilliant light on the land of the Great Northern Wilderness.
Wang Jianguo looked at the two people hugging each other in front of him, and his heart, which had been hanging in the air all night, finally settled down slowly.
The oil lamp flickered in the night wind, but it clearly illuminated the tear marks in the corners of Yang Huaixi's eyes and Dou'er's red eyes.
This scene reminded him of the eager eyes of the young and old in the commune sitting around the threshing ground, waiting for the clinic to be built.
He reached out and wiped his face; his palms were itchy from the stubble, but the corners of his mouth lifted uncontrollably, revealing two rows of smoke-yellow teeth.
"Brother Yang, Brother Dou'er."
His voice had the roughness unique to the Great Northern Wilderness, but was also wrapped in warmth.
“Although Jianye Village is just a pinpoint on the map, the villagers there are all kind-hearted.”
He squatted down, picked up a piece of broken porcelain and scratched it on the ground.
"Next to the old well at the entrance of the village, there is an old elm tree that can be hugged by three people. There are always old men sitting under the tree to bask in the sun. If they see a stranger, they will chase him and ask for directions for ten miles."
"But as long as he knows you are a doctor who comes to see me, I will definitely stuff all my homemade pickled cabbage and dried sweet potatoes into your arms."