Chapter 31: Sickness

After a while, Liu Qian stopped her tears.

She pointed to the stream and said to Zhang Xiaohua: "Xiaohua, look at the river water. From its origin, it is just a wisp of fine water, flowing along the riverbed. More water flows together, and it grows bigger and bigger. Slowly, it will become a big river, a big river, and finally flow into the sea. Like people, it is also its growth process. The sea is its end point. If the river does not flow, what will it become? Ponds, stinky ditches, and rivers do not flow, and they will lose the meaning of survival and they will die. People are the same. They must go through the process of birth, growth, and death, which is the complete life. We don't know that for ordinary people like us, birth, old age, sickness and death are necessary in life, and some notes in the song of life."

Zhang Xiaohua said strangely: "Why can't we live forever?"

Liu Qian said: "Because we don't know how to live forever."

Then she continued: "Like grandma, she is over 80 years old and has experienced so many ups and downs. She has gone from learning to growing up, to meeting your grandfather, forming a family, and then having your mother, and having worked hard to survive, raising your mother, and seeing your mother get married with your father, living together, and watching her husband die for the rest of her life. Now, seeing you grandchildren, born and grown up, her life has been very complete. She does not have many shortcomings. You should be happy for your grandma's complete life. How many people can have in her 80-year-old life?"

Zhang Xiaohua looked up and asked, "Then what should I do?"

Liu Qian stroked Xiaohua's head and said, "What you have to do now is to calm down your mood and accompany your grandmother well, so that in the last period of time, grandmother can always watch her beloved grandson without leaving any unhappiness and leaving with peace of mind."

The gloom in Zhang Xiaohua's heart just dissipated, and her happy little face also smiled, saying, "Sister Liu, you know so much, and I understand it. If I tell my mother these words, she will definitely hit me and say I don't think about it."

Liu Qian said: "Everyone has his own way of expressing his thoughts. Your mother will tell you in her own way. Don't think too much. I just tell you in a different way. If you can understand this method, you can just tell me what happens in the future."

Zhang Xiaohua said mischievously: "Of course, I must talk to my sister in the future."

Liu Qian said: "You naughty little guy, hurry up and fetch water, the sun is rising. Your mother will talk about you again later."

Zhang Xiaohua stuck out her tongue and said, "Then let's go quickly, but if you come out with your sister, your mother will definitely not blame me for going back late."

That being said, Zhang Xiaohua still hurried to fetch water because her grandmother seemed to like drinking this mountain spring water too.

In the next few days, grandma's condition became worse and worse. She coughed up blood. As Zhang Xiaohua said, grandma was not suffering from an ordinary disease. Now, Guo Sufei was really anxious. She didn't care about blaming the veterinarian Lao Chen, and taking care of a few injured family members. She quickly found a donkey cart and wanted to take her grandmother to the town for treatment. Zhang Xiaohua wanted to follow her, but she was still kept by her mother. Zhang Cai, the head of the Zhang family, was going to go. Although his leg injury had not been completely healed, she took this opportunity to let the doctor see that the space in the donkey cart was limited, so she could only let the grandmother's favorite grandson stay at home.

The donkey cart drove the group to leave in the morning. Zhang Xiaohua helped Liu Qian take care of the two injured brothers and did housework. Unfortunately, he was still thinking about his grandmother and looked out from time to time. Although Liu Qian really wanted to tell him that it was dark when his grandmother came back, she still held back when she saw the absent-minded and anxious expressions of the three brothers Zhang Xiaohua, Zhang Xiaolong and Zhang Xiaohu. She just did the trivial matters at home very considerately and said no words of comfort.

Time passed by little by little, and the sky gradually darkened. Finally, Zhang Xiaohua saw a late donkey cart in Zhang Xiaohua's eyes. Zhang Xiaohua immediately jumped out of the chair and rushed out of the house without even calling her two brothers. In a hurry, she tripped onto a small stool beside the door, and almost fell down. She ignored the small stool that was kicked by him and went out.

When he ran out of the small fence gate, the donkey cart was approaching, and he saw the driver jumping off the donkey cart, taking the reins of the little donkey and walking a few more steps forward, then he arrived in front of Zhang Xiaohua, then grabbed the reins and parked the cart in front of the Zhang family courtyard.

The three people wearing thick clothes were sitting behind the car, and they couldn't see their faces clearly in the dusk. Before the donkey cart could stop, Zhang Xiaohua heard one of them coughing heavily. He walked to the donkey cart with pain and called obediently: "Grandma~". Unfortunately, my grandmother was coughing hard and could not agree to her grandson's greeting.

Guo Sufei got out of the car first and greeted Zhang Xiaohu who had arrived at this time to help Zhang Caixian down. Then, with Liu Qian and Zhang Xiaohua, she carefully helped her grandmother who had just finished coughing.

Zhang Cai made money with the driver, and the donkey cart left straight, leaving the Zhang family and his group standing in the dusk.

Liu Qian and Zhang Xiaohua supported their grandmother and went to their grandmother's hut. Listening to the cough, Zhang Xiaohua's heart was a little broken. But after halfway through, grandmother said with difficulty: "Go to the main hall first, and stay with you for a while."

The two of them helped their grandmother into the main hall as they said.

Guo Sufei followed in unpretentiously, and then Zhang Xiaohu held Zhang Cai, who was still limping with a dim expression on his face. Finally, Zhang Xiaolong, who was still hanging his arm in front of his chest, entered the room.

The main hall was not big, and everyone came in and sat there without saying a word. The air in the room seemed to have solidified.

At this time, my grandmother started coughing again. Liu Qian hurried over and poured her a glass of warm water for her grandmother to drink, and then she gradually stopped her coughing.

Liu Qian wanted to speak and break the silence, but she didn't know how to speak.

Finally, grandma spoke: "The doctors in this town are really expensive. Su Fei, we won't go next time. We will need one ounce of silver for a treatment. How long does it take for our family to spend?"

Guo Sufei smiled and said, "Mom, look at what you said, you have to go see if you are sick. Even if your family is poor, it cannot delay the disease."

Grandma said again: "I have a clear idea of ​​my illness. It's not that the doctor can treat it. I'll say I won't go or not. You'll still spend this money in vain."

Guo Sufei's eyes turned red at this time and she said, "Mom, don't worry about us. Zhang Cai also needs to see a doctor. You are just going there."

Grandma sighed and stopped talking. She drank a little more water and the cough seemed to be lighter, so she let Xiaohua help her back to the house to rest.

Zhang Xiaohua sent her grandmother to the kang and covered her with a quilt. Her grandmother seemed tired and fell asleep soon. Then Zhang Xiaohua tiptoed out of the hut.

When he returned to the main hall, the mother in the room was sobbing in a low voice, constantly wiping her tears. Her father was shivering with a gloomy face and smoking a dry cigarette, and her eldest brother, second brother and Liu Qian also looked bad.

Zhang Xiaohua knew that her grandmother was in a bad condition and did not go beyond her expectations. She didn't have the heart to ask about the specific condition. She just silently found a small stool and sat in the shadow beside the wall.

After a while, Guo Sufei recovered a little calmer and stopped sobbing. It seemed that she saw Xiaohua coming back at this time. She asked softly: "Xiaohua, is your grandmother sleeping?"

Zhang Xiaohua nodded and said, "Yes, mom, grandma probably was tired and fell asleep shortly after trespassing on the kang."

Guo Sufei turned around and asked Zhang Cai: "Children's father, what should we do? Should we go to a bigger city to find a better doctor?"

Zhang Cai took a deep breath of cigarette, vomited it out, and squinted his eyes and said, "Oh, you didn't hear the doctor say that my mother's disease is not an ordinary cough. It's because she is old and her body can't hold on anymore, so she coughs. There is no way to cure it. Besides, my mother's health is like this. Can she go to a bigger town? Pingyang City, the closest to us, heard that it takes a day and a night to run around, so I'm afraid I can't stand it."

Guo Sufei was a little sad again, and her voice was a little crying: "Then just watch my mother's body collapse bit by bit? Listen to her mother's cough so much every day?"

Zhang Cai smiled bitterly and said, "This is nothing to do. Didn't the doctor say that it is rare for people as old as my mother. Moreover, for people in their 80s, their mother's health is good. I think I should listen to the doctor and let her take good care of her, rest well, and eat well, so that she can live this period of time with peace of mind."

Guo Sufei had no other way. She knew that her mother had reached the end of her life, but she was still lucky and went to the hospital for a long time to be sick, trying to seize something. However, in the face of this cruel reality, how much value can a person's little hope have?

Guo Sufei looked at the swaying flames on the oil lamp weakly, as if thinking. Suddenly, she asked Zhang Cai: "By the way, the child's father, the doctor said what the mother ate, why don't I know?"

After hearing this, Zhang Cai raised his head and looked at Guo Sufei in confusion.

Everyone asked at the same time: "What?"

Zhang Cai knocked on dry tobacco and said, "At that time, the doctor was diagnosed that your grandmother had already had oil and had no more energy to diagnose, and the cough was just a superficial condition, and the body was already in a mess. However, your mother begged and he carefully diagnosed it. Only then did he realize that although your grandmother's body was extremely bad, there was a kind of essence in her body. However, this energy was too little, not enough to maintain your grandmother's life. The doctor said that it must be because of what good things like ginseng your grandmother had eaten recently?"

Everyone was stunned, ginseng? How could the family have money to buy that thing?
Chapter completed!