FMT 8

Chapter 08  The Young Doctor

That night, Aunt Wu went home, and the Chen relatives who had come to visit also left. There were no outsiders in the house anymore.

Old Madam Chen boiled medicine for Liandan, brought it into the room, and watched him finish drinking it. She even gave him a preserved fruit afterward.

Before bed, Old Madam Chen cooked lean-meat porridge for him to build his strength.

Liandan ate it nervously. He wanted to get up and wash the bowl, but his mother-in-law stopped him and carried it off to wash herself.

Later, the baby woke and cried loudly. Liandan, a new father, panicked, not knowing what to do. He was sweating all over, and his belly still hurt.

At that moment, Old Madam Chen came in wearing a robe, carrying goat’s milk. She helped him feed the child.

Once the baby was full, had his diaper changed, and fell asleep again, she went back to her room.

Liandan lay down uneasily, remembering her numb, vacant expression as she had done those things, and the twitching of her eyelids and mouth corners. It left him restless and unsettled. He turned over and over for a long time before falling asleep.

Three or four days after the baby was born, Liandan could finally get out of bed.

His belly had been cut open, leaving a stitched scar. It looked frightening at first glance, but the stitches were fine, neater than Old Madam Chen’s own needlework. After a few days of healing, it did not hurt much anymore.

He had thought he would die that day. He already was satisfied that he had survived.

The child had not yet been named. Old Madam Chen said she would wait to consult a fortune-teller.

In private, Liandan secretly gave the baby a nickname, Xiaodan.

Tang Hua came with gifts to see the baby. He bent over the bedside, looking for a long time, and said, “This child really looks like you.”

Old Madam Chen was tidying baby clothes and diapers nearby. Hearing this, Liandan felt happy, but he dared not show it in front of her. He only pressed his lips and smiled to himself.

Through the ten months of pregnancy, most of the time he had lived in fear. Rarely had he felt faint expectation or curiosity.

Now, with the baby before him, Liandan finally realized this was someone tied to him by blood, his own child.

Tang Hua, with one of his own on the way, found the newborn especially endearing. He carefully touched the baby’s little face with a fingertip, afraid of hurting him. Xiaodan had just woken, full and freshly changed, neither crying nor fussing. His phoenix eyes were clear black and white, narrow and slightly upturned at the corners.

Tang Hua clicked his tongue. “Only the eyes aren’t alike. These eyes… really…”

He broke off, not knowing how to describe them. They were strikingly beautiful. But though the baby was so small, when his gaze shifted toward him, Tang Hua pulled his hand back from the tiny face, suddenly feeling an odd restraint, as if he should not be too forward.

…

Xiaodan grew quickly. At three months, he was already much bigger, heavy in the arms.

Liandan was thin and frail, while the child was chubby and round. The contrast was stark.

As the weather warmed, he often went out walking. Xiaodan was cute, and villagers liked to tease him.

For those three months, Liandan lived more comfortably. Though his body stayed thin, his cheeks grew rosier.

Old Madam Chen spent her days working, hardly speaking. She had said she would find a fortune-teller for the naming, but she never went.

Privately, Liandan called the child Xiaodan. When she heard, she did not object, and the name stuck.

The only trouble was that on the night of the child’s first full month, his belly hurt again. His body shivered with cold, yet inside he felt faint waves of heat.

Fortunately, the pain was not as severe as before childbirth. It was still bearable.

But the peaceful days had lasted only a little more than two months when, one morning, Old Madam Chen’s temper suddenly changed again.

At dawn, she kicked open Liandan’s door, ordering him to get out and fill the water jar, then cook the meal.

She cursed him too, saying that just because he had borne a child, he now acted like the Chen family’s living ancestor. She scolded from Liandan’s ancestors three generations back all the way to his whole family.

Liandan scrambled out of bed in a panic and rushed to work.

After breakfast, Old Madam Chen said the naming of her eldest grandson had to be settled that day.

She sat at home cursing her brother and sister-in-law for being stingy, looking down on others, and for not even giving the child a golden lock¹.

She said she would make up for the missed full-month banquet, to collect a round of gifts.

As she spoke, she stormed out. But whether from being too happy or too hasty, she tripped on the threshold, fell to the ground, and for a long while could not get up.

Liandan quickly set Xiaodan down, ran to help her, and struggled hard to turn her over. When he saw her face, he let out a startled cry.

The old woman’s nose and mouth were bleeding, her eyes rolled white.

Liandan rushed out to call for help. The Wu family next door was home. Uncle Wu and his son Deng Gao carried her onto the bed, Tingzi held Xiaodan, and Aunt Wu busied herself wiping the blood, pressing her philtrum, and urging Liandan to fetch a doctor.

Liandan ran out in a panic. Just out of the gate, he bumped into someone. The body he hit was so hard it made his head spin, nearly knocking him to the ground.

A pair of strong hands held his shoulders and held him in place.

Liandan looked up and saw a young man he had never met before. The man’s face was utterly ordinary, even blurred, hard to remember, yet his eyes carried an inexplicable depth, and a faint trace of familiarity.

At his nose drifted a fleeting, familiar scent. It vanished at once, leaving nothing to catch.

Liandan stared blankly at him. The young man lowered his gaze to him. After a while, he suddenly spoke. “Where are you going?” His voice was strange.

They were strangers, and Liandan need not have answered such a question. But whether it was because the man’s eyes were frightening or because he was too flustered, he stammered out, “My… my mother fell.”

The man glanced toward the courtyard. “Take me to see.” Without waiting for Liandan to lead, he strode into the gate.

Liandan hesitated, then noticed the man carried a staff in hand and a medicine box on his back, clearly looking like a traveling doctor.

As soon as the man stepped through the gate, the family wolfdog, Laicai, lunged out from its kennel, barking threateningly.

Liandan wanted to rush forward and scold it, though he knew the dog never listened to anyone but Old Madam Chen. Spoiled, it never regarded him as its master, even though it saw him daily.

But just then, Liandan saw the man turn his head toward the wolfdog. He neither lifted a hand nor made a sound, yet the dog abruptly fell silent, its eyes showing fear. It tucked its tail, slunk back into the kennel, and did not come out again.

Liandan stared in shock at the man before him. The tall young doctor did not even slow his steps as he went into the house.

Liandan hurried after him.

Inside, the Wu family crowded around, watching anxiously.

By the kang, the young doctor took Old Madam Chen’s pulse and lifted her eyelids. Then he turned, sat at the table, and quickly wrote a prescription, which he handed to Liandan.

In the other room, Xiaodan, who relied on his father most, had woken and was crying. Tingzi was trying softly to comfort him.

Hearing this, Liandan grew anxious. He took the prescription and ran out, receiving the child from Tingzi, who was dripping with sweat. The moment Xiaodan was in his arms, he stopped crying.

Liandan bounced him a little, thinking he might as well take him along to the pharmacy. As he stepped out the door, he came face to face with the young doctor just coming out of the inner room.

The man stopped. His gaze lingered on Liandan’s face, then shifted to the baby in his arms.

That look—Liandan could not describe it. Fixed, intense, overly focused.

By instinct, like a small animal, he felt a flicker of fear, yet still had to ask, “Do… doctor, after taking this medicine, when will my mother get better?”

The young man’s gaze returned to Liandan’s face. His thin lips moved. In a hoarse, strange voice, he said, “She will not get better.”

1. It’s a small lock-shaped pendant, that elders or relatives give to a newborn baby. The lock symbolizes locking in good fortune, health, and long life, and also acts as a charm to ward off evil ↩︎