Linxia

Chapter 23, Sickness

The next day, after breakfast, we hurriedly continued on our journey.

Next to the Fang family is the Geng family. Not long after they started walking, Geng's young wife, Su Xiaoqing, dry heaved two or three times.

"Xiaoqing, you might have a stomachache. Go to the bathroom now while this is not a pine forest."

Fang Sun said this with a smile, and after a while, she rushed to the toilet in a hurry.

"Your mother's mouth, now you think she is being used against you, right?" Su Xiaoqing joked.

It was just a joke, but it turned out to be true. In less than an incense stick of time, Fang's mother went to the toilet three or four times. Her face turned slightly pale, and her steps became unsteady even when she was holding things.

"Mom, you're not really going to have an upset stomach, are you?"

Fang Lin saw something was wrong, took the food from Fang's mother's hand, and asked suspiciously, but as soon as he asked, he rejected it: "No, we eat the same food at home, there is no reason why only mother has a stomachache."

After hearing this, Fang's mother avoided her gaze and stammered. After further questioning, she confessed that she had eaten damp and moldy rice balls.

"Mom, didn't you throw away the damp and moldy coarse rice?"

"I thought... everything was fine before, who knew this time..." Facing her son, Fang Sun subconsciously shrank her head like a child who had done something wrong.

It was also because she had never had any authority in front of Fang Lin, and had no face burden - as far as she could remember, Fang's mother had almost never scolded her, and had always loved Fang Lin the best and most sincerely since he was a child. In addition, this time it was Fang Lin who emphasized what he said, and she herself did not listen, so she couldn't help feeling guilty.

When Fang Lin saw Fang's mother like this, he felt angry and amused.

"Your mother is just stubborn!" Even Fang's father, who is usually taciturn, said this, and he was obviously a little angry about this avoidable thing.

"It's also my fault. When my mother was eating rice balls in the morning, she saw me looking at her and turned her head away. I thought it was strange but didn't investigate further." Tian Xuan lowered her head and blamed herself.

With her cleverness, she had her suspicions when she saw this scene this morning. After all, Fang's mother didn't seem like a cheater, and if there was anything good, it should be left to Fang Lin. Thinking about what happened in the past period of time, she guessed something. However, she didn't dare to persuade Fang's mother about this matter, because Fang's mother's attitude towards her was that her nose was not a nose, and her eyes were not eyes. She planned to talk to Fang Lin in private, but who would have thought that she would explode first.

"Okay, Dad, Sister Xuan, it has already happened. There is no point in complaining or blaming yourself. What we need to do is to solve it."

Fang Lin first asked, "Mom, do you still have damp and moldy rice balls? If you have any, throw them away immediately."

"There's still one left. I thought it would be gone by noon." Fang's mother was still reluctant, but seeing the family's firm attitude, she had to agree.

This time, after seeing the moldy rice balls being thrown away, Fang Lin said, "Well, mother, leave the things you brought to me, take a good rest, and get well soon."

"No, it's okay. I've had stomach upsets before. It will be fine in half a day." Although Fang's mother was weak, looked pale and felt very uncomfortable at this time, she still didn't take it seriously from the bottom of her heart.

However, her light-footed steps seemed unconvincing no matter how you looked at them.

'Oh my god, stop raising the flag!'

Fang Lin said secretly, suppressing some bad premonitions in his heart, and said to Tian Xuan: "Sister Xuan, give me your things too, and help my mother."

He naturally couldn't carry all the things that himself, Fang's mother, and Tian Xuan needed to take, so he could only carry most of them. In the end, he managed to put some more on the small tricycle; Tian Xuan held Fang's mother with one hand and carried some with the other; Geng's young wife also helped to carry some.

Continue on the road. Because there are more things on the small wheelbarrow, Fang's father has to be more careful and push it more steadily to prevent the things from slipping off; Fang Lin has added a lot of burdens, and his steps have become heavier; Tian Xuan supports Fang's mother and carries things in one hand, so the speed is inevitably slowed down; and Fang's mother has stomach cramps and needs to go to the toilet from time to time.

Compared to before, the speed of the entire Fang family has slowed down a lot.

The Geng family, who lived nearby, also slowed down their pace to take care of the Fang family. They were all from the same village, so the family in front of the Geng family didn't want to walk too fast and leave the two families too far behind. The family in front of them...so, each family dragged another family behind, and the ones in the back affected the ones in front, so the villagers' speed of travel was affected and the team became very long.

……

In the mid-morning, take a quarter-hour break.

At the Qiao family, Song Kai came over with his face still swollen, and said directly: "Xiao Qiao Muramasa, we traveled a lot slower than usual this morning. This is not a big deal. Why don't we go to the Fang family to discuss it and let them go alone."

Yesterday, in front of the villagers, Fang Lin slapped him in the face and threw him over his shoulder. He got angrier and angrier when he got home. Today, someone in the Fang family fell ill and became a burden. How could he let go of such a good opportunity for revenge?

Qiao Xu was a bit soft-hearted, but he didn't agree this time: "Let's wait and see, who doesn't have a headache or a fever sometimes?"

Seeing that this agitation failed, Song Kai was not in a hurry, because during the previous journey, many people in the village had already begun to have opinions about the Fang family. If this continued, the opinions would become more and more serious until they could no longer be suppressed.

After all, apart from the Fang family who received special care from the minor official named Wei, the other families did not receive much food, which was barely enough to get them to the provincial capital. If they slowed down now and waited for the last leg of the journey, they would go hungry.

……

"We have slowed down the pace of the village. I'm afraid some people in the village are dissatisfied with us."

Fang Lin would certainly think of what Song Kai could think of: "Also, we could still get our things before, but now that mom is sick, it's no longer possible."

It was indeed like that. When Fang's mother fell ill, there was one less labor force, and Tian Xuan had to be asked to support her. The things shared between the two of them caused him and Fang's father to consume a lot of physical strength, and they even had to ask Geng's wife for help. It was really not a good thing to continue like this.

Father Fang knew that his son had an idea: "Linzi, what do you want to do?"

"I thought about selling some things to the villagers cheaply to reduce their burden, and also to do them a favor to offset some of their dissatisfaction with our family," said Fang Lin.

In his opinion, only things that can be taken away normally are assets, but if you can't take them away, they become a burden and it would not be a pity to throw them away, let alone sell them at a low price.

Fang Shuyou was not a fool. He knew that if he kept these things, the Fang family would be ruined sooner or later. After thinking about it, he agreed, "Okay, let's do it."

So, he called the villagers and sold some large benches and chairs to them at a very cheap price.

The villagers who bought things and got a good deal naturally wouldn't hesitate to say a few good words.

In this way, the criticism that the Chinese family was dragging down the journey in the previous half of the morning was temporarily suppressed.

"We have passed this stage temporarily, but if we continue like this, sooner or later we will be unable to control it. I hope my mother can get better soon!" Fang Lin thought to himself.

……

(End of this chapter)