Chapter 52: Chapter 53 She is still a baby

Translator: 549690339

Carried away with worry for half a month, finding sleep hard to come by. He eventually managed to let his anxieties rest.

At last, Tang Yuxin found herself with her very own private space.

The book she held in her hands was borrowed from Chen Zhong. Additionally, she held a notebook where she noted down the key points from the book. She was studying medicine and knew how critical this knowledge was. Sometimes she thought that the books Chen Zhong had was the only one of its kind, procured from a place she didn’t know, perhaps passed down through his family.

However, these books wouldn’t last long.

The following year, when she was only five, a great flood engulfed Li Tang Village. Almost the entire village washed away – the roofs were barely left, never mind books. The books became nothing but dust in the flood. As for what happened to Chen Zhong, she never intentionally inquired. Word said that the Li Tang Village suffered massive damage and was largely destroyed. It was only with government funding that the village was resurrected. The village underwent several years of reconstruction and gradually improved day by day.

In those years, it felt as though the village was going through its toughest times.

Tang Yuxin was too young to preserve those books. She was fragile and fearful of any suspicion. She feared that the life she had struggled for wasn’t joyous, but monstrous.

So, every step she took was like treading on thin ice. She dared not make any missteps. The rural people were superstitious, so she dared not express herself too explicitly.

Thus, she utilized Chen Zhong’s book collection slowly and deliberately, copying as many as she could. With a shake of her little arm, she wondered how many books she could cover in a year. She would copy rare books.. The others, she would try to find. If she could find them, she wouldn’t need to copy them.

“How is this character written?” With a snap, Tang Yuxin’s hand was hit. She quickly withdrew her little claw, eyes watering as she flattened her lips. Then, she looked at the character she had whimsically drawn on the paper.

A farmer borrowed two marbles from me. I said give it back in three days, he said four. I headed for his house and circled around. Three leeks cost three dimes, a piece of tofu six dimes, a string of candied hawthorns seven dimes, I am that farmer.

This was a game rural children loved to play. Just for fun, she drew it without much thought. Then she was hit on her hand.

She was still a baby. How could anyone be so cruel to a baby?

Chen Zhong was strict in certain aspects, especially in medical skills. He couldn’t afford to be lax. In the past, Tang Yuxin would get her palms slapped if she mispronounced a name of a medicine. Chen Zhong used to say, “Never underestimate a medicine name. Even a tiny mistake can cost a life. If you mispronounce, you can correct it. But once a life is taken, how can you return it?”

Tang Yuxin understood this well. She strived to remember it clearly. The errors were just because she was a child. A child makes mistakes. All she wanted was some normalcy.

“Write correctly,” Chen Zhong again slapped the desk. His face longer than a horse’s, while Tang Yuxin was on the verge of tears, holding her calligraphy brush.

Indeed, the calligraphy brush. Chen Zhong said, “How could one be a good doctor without good handwriting?”