"No... no need to bother... I'm not pregnant, no need to take my pulse..."
"Pulse, my foot. My daughter-in-law is a widow, and the barefoot doctor is a man—men and women should keep their distance. Besides, my daughter-in-law already said she's not pregnant. Now all of you, get back to work and stop making a fuss here."
Accountant Sun's words made the members who had sided with him start to have doubts. Isn't it normal for a male doctor to take a pulse? Even the imperial concubines in ancient palaces had no rule against male physicians taking their pulse.
And looking at Zhang Yanhong's reaction—surely she couldn't actually be pregnant, could she?
Mother Sun grabbed her daughter-in-law by the arm:
"Yanhong, let's just take the pulse. We're not pregnant, so there's nothing to be afraid of. That educated youth just said that if you're not pregnant, she'll accept whatever punishment the brigade decides. Let's get the proof and throw her out of Red Flag Brigade and send her to the farm."
Zhang Yanhong pulled her arm back from her mother-in-law's grip and hid behind her father-in-law. If she could take a pulse, would she have quarreled with Xiao Mandong for this long? If she weren't pregnant, she would have dragged Xiao Mandong to the city hospital herself. But she was pregnant—what proof could she show? Any proof would only incriminate her.
At that moment, Mother Sun sensed something was wrong. Why hide from a simple pulse check? Her daughter-in-law's behavior made her suspicious. She also noticed that her daughter-in-law's own family were shrinking back in the distance, not saying a single word from start to finish. If their daughter were being slandered like this, which family wouldn't go berserk?
Watching her husband shield Zhang Yanhong behind him felt oddly jarring.
Mother Sun yanked Zhang Yanhong forward. Accountant Sun tried to stop her, but the crowd held him back.
Mother Sun and the villagers forced Zhang Yanhong down, ignoring her struggles, and the barefoot doctor placed his fingers directly on her wrist.
The barefoot doctor squinted, waited about half a minute, then switched to the other hand. Finally, he set it down and spoke with certainty.
"Slippery pulse. Pregnant, about two months along."
At that, Zhang Yanhong burst into hysterical sobbing: "Xiao Mandong, why are you so cruel? Do you have to humiliate me in front of the whole commune to be satisfied? Why are you destroying me? Why... wuuu..."
"What? Reporting me to the Revolutionary Committee and slandering me isn't cruel? I'm the cruel one just for telling the truth? You did your own filthy deeds—I never intended to expose them. But you came after me for no reason, let your mother-in-law slap me across the face. Did you think I, an outsider sent down to the countryside, would just take that slap lying down? And then you threatened me—are your family bandits? Not even letting me leave the village? Everything is your own doing. You brought this on yourselves. Serves you right."
Mother Sun lunged forward and grabbed Zhang Yanhong by the hair. Zhang Yanhong, caught off guard, fell to the ground. Mother Sun straddled her and rained down slap after slap.
"Tell me, whose bastard is this?"
Actually, she already had a pretty good idea. The details she'd never noticed before now all clicked into place in her mind.
Her husband had started asking to sleep in a separate room last year, saying she snored and he couldn't sleep. He said their daughter-in-law had it hard alone, so he'd have her look after the grandson at night and let the daughter-in-law get a good rest. He'd buy fabric for the daughter-in-law every time he went to town, saying that since the son was gone, he had to take care of her in his place. Oh, he'd certainly been taking care of her—very thoroughly indeed.
Accountant Sun broke free from the crowd in a panic and shoved Mother Sun aside. He couldn't let anything happen to the child in his daughter-in-law's belly. He had only one son in his whole life, and that son had died young—if he grew old without even someone to smash the funeral basin for him, it was all Mother Sun's fault. If she hadn't nagged him every day and carried the sleeping grandson to Zhang Yanhong's bed in the middle of the night, how could he have walked in on that scene...
Seeing it once or twice didn't bother him much, but seeing it every few days made his heart stir. Mother Sun had lost her looks with age, while Zhang Yanhong was young and pretty.
Once he'd tasted that sweetness, there was no turning back. And it was in his own home—with the gate bolted shut, no one would ever know. The two of them grew bolder and bolder.
The child was an accident too. He wanted another child of his own—what had he done wrong? If Mother Sun had given him more than one son, he wouldn't have wanted this one so badly.
Mother Sun fell to the ground, her palms scraped bloody. Her nephew from the village saw this and rushed over, landing a punch square on Accountant Sun's face. Accountant Sun's nephew from his own clan couldn't stand by and watch his uncle get beaten, but since his uncle was clearly in the wrong, he could only step in to break it up. While Accountant Sun was flustered and overwhelmed, Mother Sun charged straight at Zhang Yanhong, grabbing her by the hair and kicking at her belly, determined to kick that bastard seed right out of her.
Zhang Yanhong's mother couldn't watch her daughter take a beating like that, so she charged in as well, and soon she and Mother Sun were tangled up in a brawl. The women who were friendly with Mother Sun jumped in to "mediate," but they kept pinching Zhang Yanhong on the side and hurling all sorts of vile insults at her.
Then someone shouted: "Blood! She's bleeding! Stop fighting—get her to the commune clinic fast!"
Blood was pouring down Zhang Yanhong's legs. Accountant Sun, forgetting all shame, scooped her up and ran toward the village entrance.
Mother Sun smoothed her tangled hair and spat: "Pah! The tramp you raised." She spit a mouthful of saliva right in the face of Zhang Yanhong's mother, then turned and headed home.
Zhang Yanhong's mother sat on the ground, hair a mess, too drained even to curse. She had told her daughter to just find another man and remarry, but the girl wouldn't listen—she insisted that remarrying would cost her her job, and if she married into a bad family, she'd suffer even worse. Staying with Accountant Sun meant she'd have everything she wanted: a job, and Mother Sun was dimwitted anyway—she'd die before her, so any money saved was her own. And if she gave Accountant Sun another son, that was a far better deal than remarrying. Look what happened now—the job was gone, the child might not survive, and her reputation was ruined. What a disaster.
The party secretary couldn't just stand by and do nothing. He had them take a bullock cart to send Zhang Yanhong to the clinic. The barefoot doctor from Lijia Village, having enjoyed the show, smiled to himself and left.
As the crowd dispersed, Zhou Qichuan pulled out twenty yuan from his pocket: "This is the money for my grandmother's medical treatment. Comrade Xiao, your medical skills are truly impressive—you could even tell she was pregnant."
They had brought his grandmother to the hospital yesterday, and the doctors couldn't stop praising Xiao Mandong's bone-setting technique. They found the bone was already perfectly realigned—the doctors only needed to put on a cast, and today she was discharged to recover at home. The grandmother herself said that ever since that educated youth realigned her bone, it had improved remarkably.
Xiao Mandong didn't explain how she could tell someone was pregnant—how could anyone just see that? The real reason she suspected Zhang Yanhong and Accountant Sun of having an affair was that she'd seen this child in her previous life, and the kid bore a passing resemblance to Accountant Sun. It was just a wild guess.
"No need for money. But if it's convenient, could you help me exchange for some clothing coupons or something? Winter's coming soon, and my sister and I need to make ourselves two padded jackets."
She truly wasn't short on cash right now, but she was short on coupons. She also needed to prepare winter clothes and food for her family, so she could take everything over when they were holed up for the cold season.
Zhou Qichuan put the money away. "Alright, I'll bring them over in a couple of days."
What they didn't know was that, from a distance, a pair of vicious, venomous eyes were watching them.
