Chapter 404 – Stirring Public Outrage

Dazhu glanced toward the main gate, where a scream had just echoed, and sighed deeply. With a troubled look, he said, “I don’t know what’s going on in our village lately. Everyone—old folks, children—has been getting sick one after another. The village elders say we must have offended something unclean. Now, every night, the kids all cry about stomachaches. It’s driving us crazy.”

“You haven’t taken them to the hospital?” Gu Weiwei asked with a look of concern.

“A place like a hospital? We can’t afford that,” Dazhu replied with a self-deprecating chuckle.

Meanwhile, Li Yiyi was already walking toward the source of the crying.

“There she goes again, acting on her own. She never consults anyone,” Liu Caifeng said angrily, watching her back as she disappeared inside.

“How can you even say that? Every time Yiyi acts, it’s to help everyone. If it weren’t for her, who knows if any of us would’ve made it out of Mount Wu alive? You don’t want to thank her, fine—but blaming her? Aren’t you afraid of heaven’s wrath?” Gu Weiwei snapped, clearly displeased.

Immediately, Liu Caifeng was met with several accusatory glares.

Only then did she remember that Li Yiyi wasn’t as easy to push around as she had been at the beginning.

Ever since Li Yiyi had taken out all those useful items on the mountain to help them, many in the group remembered her kindness. Now, whenever anyone tried to speak badly of her, there were ten others ready to shut them down.

Seeing that she was about to become the target of everyone’s anger, Liu Caifeng quickly changed her tune.

“I was just saying, no need to take it so seriously, okay? Fine, I won’t say another word. She can look if she wants. I’ll just wait outside, alright?” She pouted and plopped down in a corner, sulking.

Wu Xianting watched this unfold and quietly sighed. Before they went up the mountain, she used to stick close to Liu Caifeng, even joining her in bullying Li Yiyi and Gu Weiwei. But after a few confrontations where they gained nothing from picking on those two, she’d learned her lesson and stopped going against them.

What she hadn’t expected was that Liu Caifeng could still be so clueless—after suffering so many setbacks, she still hadn’t learned to keep her mouth shut.

On the other side, Li Yiyi had walked into the house and soon heard a couple arguing inside.

“I told you to take him to a doctor! But you didn’t, and now he’s in this much pain—what are we supposed to do? He’s our only son. If anything happens to him, this family is finished!”

“You think I didn’t want to? But our village is so far from town—it takes a whole day just to get there, and we wouldn’t even see a doctor before nightfall. We don’t know anyone there—how could we go?” the woman replied, voice choked with emotion.

Hearing the quarrel from inside, Dazhu lowered his head and sighed heavily.

“That’s how it is in our village,” he said behind her. “Sure, we live self-sufficient lives, but we’re just too far from town. People from nearby villages have to take a full day’s ox-cart ride to get there. For us parents, there’s nothing scarier than our kids getting sick like this.”

His words drifted into the house, interrupting the couple’s argument.

Soon, a young couple came out holding a boy who was sobbing uncontrollably.

“Dazhu? Oh, it’s you. What brings you here? And who are these people?” the young man asked, confused as he spotted the group behind Dazhu.

Dazhu stepped forward and explained, “Ergou, sis-in-law, these folks are researchers who went into Mount Wu recently with Doctor Ye Fan. They’re educated people. Tonight they’re just staying in the village for a night.”

“Oh, I see. Hello,” Ergou greeted Li Yiyi and the others politely.

“Daddy, it hurts! My tummy really hurts, Daddy, help me!” the boy in the woman’s arms suddenly screamed again, his cries heart-wrenching.

“Xiaogou is having stomach pains again?” Dazhu asked, frowning as he looked at the boy.

At his words, the couple couldn’t hold back their emotions and teared up immediately.

The woman holding the boy even began crying softly.

“Every night he starts crying about his tummy hurting. We gave him some medicine, but it’s not helping. We’re so worried,” she sobbed.

Li Yiyi narrowed her eyes at the squirming boy in the woman’s arms and offered, “Why don’t you let me take a look? I’m a traditional Chinese medicine doctor—maybe I can figure out what’s wrong.”

At her words, both parents turned to look at her. Their eyes lit up at first, but then hesitation followed.

Seeing that they weren’t responding, Gu Weiwei stepped forward anxiously and said, “I’m telling you, Yiyi is amazing at what she does. She’s a well-known doctor where we’re from. If you don’t let her check your son, you’re the ones losing out.”

The couple exchanged glances and seemed to reach a decision together.

The next second, the woman carrying the boy dropped to her knees in front of Li Yiyi. “Doctor, please, save my son. He keeps crying about his tummy, and we don’t know what’s wrong. We’re really out of options.”

Li Yiyi rushed forward to help her up. “Don’t worry. Lay the child down on the bed. I’ll examine him carefully and find out what’s going on.”

“Yes, yes, thank you. The room’s this way—come in with us,” the woman said, wiping her tears and leading Li Yiyi inside excitedly.

She brought her into a room packed with items. In the middle stood a bed, and the boy was placed on it, still clutching his stomach and crying out in pain.

Li Yiyi sat down by the bed, took out a silver needle, and inserted it into one of the boy’s acupuncture points.

The next moment, the boy—who had been wailing just seconds before—suddenly quieted down and fell into a deep sleep.

“What… what just happened?” The boy’s parents turned pale with shock at the sudden silence. The woman even collapsed to the ground, legs giving out from under her.