Chapter 136

In the room, Li Wen, Li Wu, Wang Guifen, and others who had been helping stood up and walked out.

Fan Dazhu, seeing everyone suddenly ignoring him, became anxious. “I still don’t have the strength, please don’t leave! I apologize for what I said earlier!”

Aunt Ding, her slightly plump figure lingering at the back, turned her head to glance inside the room. With a smile on her lips and a good-natured tone, she reminded them, “I brought enough herbs for three days. Remember to brew and drink them every day. If you don’t drink them properly, it might affect your recovery and you’ll be the ones suffering.”

Fan Dazhu behaved this time, urgently promising, “Aunt Ding, don’t worry. I will make sure Zhaodi brews them well every day and drinks them properly!”

Aunt Ding breathed a sigh of relief, nodded to Shuiqing at the door, and then left.

Shuiqing looked at the herbs thoughtfully.

But she didn’t say much.

Inside the room, there was only little Fan Zhaodi and Fan Jin.

Fan Jin helped everyone except Sun Jinhua into the house to lie down. Fan Zhaodi fetched water, washed the floor, and scrubbed it, a sight that Shuiqing found hard to bear.

She gestured for Fan Zhaodi to come over.

Fan Zhaodi ran over quickly, stopping a bit away to avoid the smell from bothering Aunt.

Shuiqing felt a particular pity for this little niece among the family of uncles.

She whispered softly, “Don’t be too good. Learn to slack off. No matter how well you do for this bunch, it won’t do you any good. And your health isn’t great; if you overwork yourself, it’ll be troublesome.”

Fan Zhaodi’s eyes brightened with surprise, and she softly murmured in agreement.

Others would only tell her to take good care of her parents, grandmother, and brothers, to be filial and not lazy, and to ignore herself. They would praise her kindness, which her family noticed and would appreciate once she recovered.

Only Aunt told her to take care of herself, analyzing that her family’s nature wouldn’t reciprocate kindness.

Shuiqing continued, “Boil a big pot of porridge in the morning. Whoever wants to eat can scoop out a bowl. Heat it up for lunch and dinner; it’ll save you a lot of energy. Later, your sister Xinghui will bring you dinner. Eat it quietly in the yard. Xinghui will bring you food three times a day these days. Remember not to slip up.”

Fan Zhaodi instinctively shook her head, refusing, “No need to trouble Aunt and Second Sister. Drinking the porridge will be just fine for me.”

She could drink the thickened porridge from the bottom of the pot.

“With so many people sick at home, they’ll probably make you work hard. Without eating enough, where will you find the energy? Be obedient; just eat the food that’s brought to you. Forget about it after you finish, okay?” Shuiqing knew this family’s behavior well. Among them, only Fan Zhaodi could be managed.

But if the entire family came to take care of her, they could keep each of them from doing anything.

“Okay, thank you, Aunt.” Fan Zhaodi didn’t dare to thank her loudly.

In the room, Fan’s mother kept crying out; with Fan Jin in her room, Fan Zhaodi didn’t have to go in to take care of her.

But Sun Jinhua, Fanqian, Fan Dazhu, and the others were all calling for Fan Zhaodi.

Fan Zhaodi turned and ran into the room.

Shuiqing listened to the scolding directed at Fan Zhaodi from inside the room, then turned and headed home.

Thinking about delivering food to Zhaodi for dinner, Shuiqing packed extra steamed buns with pork and sauce.

Now that the weather was cold, they wouldn’t spoil; if those people ordered Zhaodi to boil water or make medicine, she could heat up the large buns to eat or roast them at the stove’s mouth.

It would also fill her stomach at night.

She prepared dinner. She took out an open coarse pottery basin and placed a layer of white rice at the bottom, tightly packed. On top, she arranged thinly sliced Chinese sausage, stir-fried leeks and eggs, pork fat stewed with napa cabbage, and a large chicken leg in sequence.

She tightly wrapped the basin with cotton cloth and placed it into a bamboo basket lined with a thin quilt.

Next to the bamboo basket, eight meat-filled buns were individually wrapped in oil paper.

She remembered the last time Zhaodi ate six buns in her yard in one go. This time, the buns were bigger than last time, enough for her dinner and breakfast tomorrow morning.

After preparing everything, she tightly wrapped the top of the bamboo basket with another thin quilt.

This acted like a thermal container, ensuring the food would not get cold during transport.

When Fan Zhaodi saw the layers of unwrapped cotton cloth and received the warm food in her hands, her eyes gradually moistened.

After seeing the food inside clearly, she was even more astonished and didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t make a fuss, eat quickly. I’ll wait for you to finish and take it away,” Xing Hui whispered in a low voice.

Fan Zhaodi also knew she needed to eat quickly. While other dishes were acceptable, she couldn’t eat the chicken leg. “Second Sister, I can’t eat the chicken leg.”

How could she eat a chicken leg?

Xing Hui softly said, “Eat it, it’s specially chopped for you.”

Mother said not to treat anyone specially. A chicken has only two legs. With so many people, if they chop them up randomly, everyone can have a piece. If they chop only two, who would eat them?

Eating some is good enough; there’s nothing to be picky about.

Today, Zhaodi was treated specially under special circumstances.

Fan Zhaodi felt her nose tingling.

She didn’t dare delay, eating the rice in big mouthfuls and returning the bowl and chopsticks.

She accepted the oil-paper-wrapped package, expressed her thanks, and quickly ran to the kitchen.

The room was filled with a cacophony of urging and scolding, but she wasn’t afraid at all.

First, she hid the oil-paper package, regulated her breath, and walked towards the room.

·

Recently, Shuiqing’s days were no different from before.

With several households in the village exchanging work for planting potatoes, all the fields were planted with potatoes.

In the days that followed, those who switched to planting potatoes began working day and night without rest.

Two days before the incident at Fan’s house, people occasionally went to check the situation. Later, either they didn’t plant potatoes or they plowed the fields early. When things got busy, they gradually forgot about it.

Only Xing Hui brought back real-time news to Zhaodi.

“We originally thought Uncle and Eldest Brother would be able to get out of bed in two or three days. Unexpectedly, after three days, while the previous symptoms eased, they developed a new symptom of weakness in their legs.”

“Ama and Auntie’s throats haven’t improved at all. It’s even gotten worse! Before, they could still curse Zhaodi, but now they can hardly speak clearly.”

“They keep blaming Zhaodi for not properly brewing the medicine or making mistakes during the brewing process. People in the village say they’re lazy and don’t want to get out of bed, causing this.”

“They’re forcing Zhaodi to go to the Ding family again for medicine, not giving her any money. They didn’t even mention the medicine money from last time. Now they won’t let her bring anything back even if she’s awake. Zhaodi said her face was red, but Ding Er-zi had pity and didn’t give money and offered her seven different medicines to boil and drink.”

……

Shuiqing listened, and they almost could confirm that the medicines Ding Er-zi and the family had sent were different from those in the house where the mushroom poison had occurred!

However, the family where the mushroom poisoning occurred immediately sent chickens and ducks to thank the Dings.

After a long time, the smoked fish and smoked meat were also thanks.

It cost money to buy medicinal herbs, and the free herbs were also normal, right?