Chapter 23: The Price of a Human Life

The man was truly stubborn. Village Chief Chen had exhausted every argument, using both kind and harsh words, yet he still failed to convince the man to summon a doctor for his child. He did, however, promise that the matter would end there and he would no longer use threats of beating the child to death to intimidate her. Even so, his young daughter developed a fever once night fell.

Xie Wanniang had been sleeping soundly until she and Jiang Yuan were woken by the commotion outside. It turned out the man still refused to call a doctor, and after being pestered by his wife and children with tearful pleas, he had lost his temper and begun beating and scolding them again. In the dead of night, the cries and shouting were loud enough to wake Jiang Yuan and Xie Wanniang without anyone needing to call them.

Xie Wanniang was furious. Although she hadn't gone up the mountain today, she had spent the day washing clothes, cleaning the house, and preparing dry rations for the next day. She was exhausted, too! Pouting, she got up and headed out with Jiang Yuan to see what was happening.

Many others had moved faster than them; one house alerted the next, until representatives from most of the village had gathered to investigate the midnight disturbance. The short-tempered Village Chief Chen arrived as well. Under the threat of his ultimatum—"Either you call a doctor for the child, or you go to the provincial capital for hard labor after the autumn harvest"—the man finally agreed to let his eldest son, Shuanzi, fetch Dr. Chen.

Dr. Chen’s two sons were already standing outside the courtyard with Jiang Yuan, Xie Wanniang, and the others. Hearing that Shuanzi was going to fetch their father, they promptly accompanied him back to their home. Their father was elderly, and his apprentice, the eldest Chen son, was still young; the old man certainly wouldn't have the heart to wake the boy to carry the medicine chest. Fearing their father might struggle on the road at night, the brothers grabbed torches and went with Shuanzi to guide him.

Dr. Chen arrived quickly. He had been stirred awake when his sons went out to investigate the situation, and as a precaution, he had already dressed and put on his shoes, anticipating that someone might soon call for his services. As he had once told Xie Wanniang, for a doctor, provided one’s heart hasn't strayed, hardship and exhaustion are inevitable. Despite his advanced age, he was frequently roused in the middle of the night.

After listening to Shuanzi briefly describe his little sister's symptoms, Dr. Chen, protected by his two sons, arrived at their house. He checked the pulse of the little girl, whose face was flushed dark red and who was lapsing in and out of consciousness with occasional tremors. Dr. Chen looked up at the head of the household, Shuanzi's father. "You can see for yourselves how frail this child is. She is suffering from terror-induced high fever, which makes her condition far more perilous than if a healthy person had caught the same illness."

Although Dr. Chen had spoken as plainly as possible, Shuanzi's father pretended not to hear the subtle reproach in the doctor's words. Rubbing his hands together, he asked, "Are you saying the girl is beyond saving?"

Dr. Chen and Village Chief Chen frowned simultaneously, and the neighbors in the room and courtyard exchanged glances, their expressions filled with shock.

Dr. Chen took a deep breath. "She can be saved, but it will be more troublesome than usual."

Upon hearing this, Shuanzi's father furrowed his brows. "Does that mean it will cost a lot of money?"

Dr. Chen took another deep breath, maintaining his composure. "I cannot say exactly how much." He explained patiently, "The child's condition is severe. We need high-quality medicinal herbs to calm her nerves and clear the heat. How long she will need them depends on when her condition improves. Furthermore, I will need to continue prescribing medication to restore her health. Additionally, your family must provide her with more nutritious food."

Shuanzi's father's brows tightened further. "Give me an estimate, then. What is the minimum cost?"

Dr. Chen glanced at him. "Five to six hundred wen."

Shuanzi's father hissed. "At least five or six hundred wen?"

Dr. Chen nodded. "That is just the cost to save her life. Given her current constitution, even if she survives this, she will be prone to illness and her lifespan will be affected. If you don't want her to remain this weak, the treatment and recovery will cost at least a thousand wen."

Shuanzi's father waved his hands vigorously. "Too much, far too much! My family doesn't even spend a thousand wen in a whole year!" There were seven or eight people in his family! What kind of medicine was this precious? Could this old doctor be making things up to extort them? While he thought this, he dared not show it, instead crying poverty: "You see the state of our house—it’s about to collapse. If we don’t build a new one, our whole family will have to sleep in the open..."

Dr. Chen had no patience for this at such an hour. "Just tell me, are you going to treat her or not?"

Shuanzi's father remained silent, but Shuanzi and his younger brother shouted "Treat her!" in unison.

His mother and two younger sisters looked at the father with pleading eyes; his wife, while weeping, called out "Child's father" in a voice thick with desperation. However, Shuanzi's father remained unmoved. He had not forgotten that Dr. Chen said it would cost "at least a thousand wen." The money he and his family had saved through extreme frugality to build a house totaled only a little over two taels. If he spent half of it on his daughter's treatment, how would he build the house after the harvest? He couldn't just pay a tael and borrow the rest from the villagers! Even if he borrowed from everyone in the village, he might not get enough to build the house. Without a house, how would his second son marry? Where would his unborn grandchildren live?

Quickly weighing the pros and cons, Shuanzi's father regretfully chose to abandon his youngest daughter. Departing from his usual behavior, he didn't beat his family but instead laid out the dilemma they faced in a calm, yet cold and heartless tone. Faced with his series of rhetorical questions, his wife wiped her tears and fell silent. This was her tacit agreement to abandon their daughter.

Shuanzi wanted to speak, but his mother tugged at his clothes. Only his younger brother, Zhuzi, said with reddened eyes, "I won't get married! I want to save Little Sister!"

The other two sisters chimed in timidly, "We will go into the mountains more often and earn the money for Little Sister's treatment as quickly as we can."

Shuanzi's father waved them off. "How much money can you earn? If we rely on you, the house won't be built for three or five years." Besides, even without today's incident, everyone in the family was already working to capacity. His two daughters simply didn't have the time to find more mountain goods to trade for money. Most importantly, his eldest daughter was about to be married, and the second one soon after; no matter how diligent they were, the benefits would go to their husbands' families.

"Zhuzi, don't talk nonsense. You don't have to marry, but can the whole family live in the open? We can't let the whole family freeze to death in the northern winds of deep winter just for your little sister."