Daily life of farming and supporting a family on the ancient Loess Plateau

Ji Manqing loosened the walnut tree he had pulled out, leaned against the courtyard wall, bent down to pick up a few green walnuts that had fallen, tossed them in his hand, and said, "No wonder people often say that even ghosts are afraid of unreasonable people. I think unreasonable people are just like this tree; they don't need to live so long anyway, since they're rotten to the core, they might as well die sooner." As he spoke, he turned to look at Liu Hong's younger brother.

Liu Hong's brother-in-law thought Ji Manqing was going to hit him on the head with the walnut in his hand, so he cried out and jumped behind his mother.

Grandma Liu Hong pointed at Ji Manqing and screamed, "You're not human! You're not human! You people from Niujiazhuang aren't human! You're just a bunch of bandits! I don't believe there's no law in this world! Liu Lu, I'd rather die in front of you than let you take Liu Hong back."

Ji Manchuan stepped forward, grabbed the hoe that Old Master Ji had dug out of the ground earlier, gripped the handle, and slammed the iron head of the hoe onto the ground, saying, "Then die here. You can choose how you die!"

When Liu Hong's father-in-law saw that Liu Lü had brought a group of reckless people today, he thought for a moment with a sinister look in his eyes and said, "Alright! Liu Lü, you can take your sister with you, but you can leave the money, grain, and your brother behind!"

"No, I want to take Zhuan Di with me too!" Liu Hong said, holding her trembling daughter.

Liu Lu was in a dilemma. After all, her younger brother had taken her father's surname and was the boy's child. Moreover, her father had passed away, and if her grandparents didn't allow her to take him away, they would have a real problem, since they couldn't go against the rules of propriety.

Seeing that her husband had relented, Liu Hong's mother-in-law wanted to object, but then she felt that her family was outnumbered and powerless today. Besides, she had long since stopped wanting this widowed daughter-in-law, so she spoke up and said, "That's right, Liu Hong can take her away, but the child can stay!"

"No, I'm definitely taking Zhuan Di with me today! If I leave him in this room, who knows what kind of suffering he'll endure? He might even be tortured to death by you tomorrow!" Liu Hong said firmly.

Yang looked at Liu Hong, sighed, and thought of being a mediator. She stepped forward and said to Liu Hong's mother-in-law, "Auntie, we are all mothers and mothers-in-law. How you treat other people's daughters is how other people will treat our daughters!"

Liu Hong is a very virtuous wife. Your child is already dead. Let Liu Hong take the child with her; you can still keep in touch as relatives. If you leave your granddaughter behind, we're both half-buried in the ground; how many days do we have left to live? How will we raise the child?"

Grandma Liu Hong rolled her eyes a few times and said, "It's fine if Zhuan Di takes him away, but we'll add a load of wheat and an ounce of silver!"

Ji Manqing sneered as if he had heard the biggest joke in the world: "You old woman are trying to sound like a fly blowing a trumpet, what a big mouth you have! If you love money so much, why don't you just rob someone!"

Just as Grandma Liu was about to scold someone, she heard Zhuan Di say weakly, "Mother...Mother...my back hurts so much..."

Ji Yongling and Yang Shi disregarded everything else and rushed forward to check on Zhuan Di in Liu Hong's arms. They saw that Zhuan Di's little face and lips were pale and bloodless from the pain, and his forehead was covered in cold sweat.

Liu Hong nervously touched her daughter's face and asked in a tearful voice, "Zhuan Di, don't be afraid, Mother will take you to see a doctor."

Ji Yongling squatted down and said to Liu Hong, "Aunt Hong, lay Zhuan Di flat on the ground and let me take a look. I know a little medicine. Let me check on the child first, and if it doesn't work, we can go to a clinic."

Upon hearing this, Liu Hong quickly and gently laid Zhuan Di, whom she was holding, on the ground. She looked at her daughter with a mixture of nervousness and fear, then at Ji Yongling. She swallowed hard, her lips trembling as she was unable to speak.

Ji Yongling gently stroked Zhuan Di's head, turned her body gently to one side, and said, "Zhuan Di, be good, don't be afraid! Tell your sister where it hurts, and point it out to her."

The little boy's face was contorted in pain, and he could barely lift his eyelids. He weakly touched the side of his spine with his little hand.

Ji Yongling lifted Zhuan Di's shirt and carefully examined her waist, especially around her spine. Seeing no signs of external injury on Zhuan Di's back or waist, she asked thoughtfully, "Is it only this place that hurts? Is it bone pain or muscle pain? Does it hurt anywhere else? Does your stomach hurt?"

The younger brother was in so much pain that he could barely speak, and he said intermittently, "It doesn't hurt... anywhere else... it just... hurts there."

As Ji Yongling pondered, she prepared to press on the spine. Suddenly, a red dot next to the spine caught her eye. She looked down and saw that the small red dot resembled a mole but was not quite.

Just as she was about to touch it, the light suddenly revealed tiny silver specks in the center of the small red mole.

For Ji Yongling, who has been playing with needles every day lately, this silver light is all too familiar to her; it's a needle!

Ji Yongling's face quickly turned cold.

Who stuck a needle into the spine of this child who is only a few years old? This is practically an attempt to kill Zhuan Di, to take Zhuan Di's life!

The first time she called the police was when she worked at the hospital. The reason was that a 5-centimeter-long embroidery needle was found in the head of a 12-year-old girl. It was because of this needle that the child's mental age was only that of a 3-year-old.

Later, the police found out that when the child was two years old and his fontanelle had not yet closed, his grandmother had personally stuck a needle into his head!

It was precisely because the needle punctured a blood vessel in the child's head when it was inserted that intracranial hemorrhage occurred, affecting the child's intellectual development.

The truth might never have come to light in a lifetime, and the child's parents thought that their child's fever was just like any other common cold.

However, after inquiring about the child's medical history, Ji Yongling, the attending physician, thought that the child's repeated fevers since childhood were somewhat unusual. So, he "unnecessarily" performed a head CT scan on the child, which revealed that the cause of the child's repeated fevers was actually the embroidery needle in his head!

Although the child later underwent neurosurgery, the needle had been in the child's head for 10 years and had grown together with some brain tissue, making it not an easy task to remove.

At the time, her classmate You Baisui happened to be in the neurosurgery department. He later told her that it took them more than ten hours to completely remove the needle, and the embroidery needle they removed was already rusty. It was precisely because the embroidery needle was rusty that the child had a high fever every few days.

Of course, what the child's mother found most unacceptable was that the culprit behind all of this was actually the grandmother who had raised the child single-handedly.

The reason for all this is something many people can guess: it's due to the preference for sons over daughters.

In an attempt to help the mother have a second child, hoping for a boy, the grandmother waited until the family and the child were asleep, then touched the softest spot on the child's head—the fontanelle—and inserted a needle. Coincidentally, the child was exceptionally well-behaved as a child; even with the needle in her head, she didn't cry or fuss, and slept peacefully through the night.