CTF 0011

While they were chatting, a commotion erupted outside the house. Someone called out to Li Axiang. “Axiang, Axiang! Your son fell into the creek!”

Li Axiang rushed out in a hurry. 

Suddenly, Xu Yin remembered a plotline from the book.

The original host initially had an uncle who loved her very much, and an aunt who treated her very well.

However, one day, her cousin—the son of her uncle, fell into a creek and suffered from pulmonary edema¹It’s when too much fluid collects in the lungs. because he wasn’t sent to the hospital in time. Her cousin’s subsequent treatment required a lot of money. Her uncle came to their house, with a sack of mountain goods on his back, to borrow money from them.

Unexpectedly, the original host refused to help her desperate uncle and would not lend a hand. 

She expressed, if she allowed him to borrow it, who knew when he’d pay it back? Since she was about to graduate from high school, she needed to keep the money she had so she could use it to make connections and secure a job for herself. 

She continued and told him that pulmonary edema was not cancer. At most, it’d cause chest tightness and shortness of breath. It wasn’t like it was a terminal disease, so why should they waste a lot of money to treat it?

Her uncle’s family stopped communicating with the original host’s family after that.

So much so, that when the original host herself was sent to a labour reform farm, all her uncle’s family did was have someone to send a bed quilt for her there.

“Auntie, I’ll come, too.”

Xu Yin decided to follow her. 

A lot of people were already surrounding the creek that Geng Junbao had fallen into by the time they arrived. 

Li Axiang panickedly ran to him. “Junbao! Junbao!”

“Don’t worry, Axiang. Junbao choked on some water, but he’s okay now.”

“Oh, thank God!” As she held her son, Li Axiang felt very lucky and grateful.  

Xu Yin squatted down and touched her cousin’s head.

She then said to Li Axiang, “Auntie, let’s get Junbao changed and take him to the hospital. I heard that if a child chokes on water after they drown, dirty water can enter their airway. They might easily get pneumonia.”

“What? Is it that serious?” Li Axiang looked at her son, then at her niece. She looked a little uncertain.

Others rushed to answer before Xu Yin could say anything. “It’s not that serious. Other children have fallen into the water before; which of them needed to be sent to the hospital?”

“That’s right. If he didn’t wake up, you should indeed take him to the hospital. But since he’s awake and kicking already, what’s the point of taking him to the hospital? It’ll just be a waste of money, you’ll see!”

“City people are just so fussy about these things.”

“Isn’t this Old Geng’s niece? Did their family move to the city?”

“I heard she’s still studying, but is planning to stay in the city after she graduates.”

“…”

The topic only drifted further and further away. 

Xu Yin had no time to deal with them. She just persuaded her aunt to go home and change her cousin out of his wet clothes. Then, she got on her bicycle and took them to the village health centre.

She was afraid that if they made any delay, her cousin might develop pulmonary edema, as he did in the novel. Xu Yin rode very quickly and nearly flew off the bicycle. 

When she arrived at the village health centre, she actually got an additional 100 energy points as a reward for breaking her previous record of riding speed. 

What an unexpected fortune!

Due to lack of funds, the village health centre didn’t have a fixed doctor. After reporting to their higher-ups, the doctors from the county hospital would take turns to see patients here. 

Today, the chief of the internal medicine department happened to be there. After he listened to the child’s breathing with his stethoscope, he prescribed medication and explained, “There is some wet rale, but fortunately for him, the child got there in time; have him take some syrup and antibiotics, then come back for a follow-up after he’s finished all of the medicine.”

“What would’ve happened if we didn’t come here?” Li Axiang couldn’t help asking.

“It’s hard to say. In mild cases, he might get bronchitis; in severe cases, pulmonary edema. If you’d waited until that had happened, not only would your child have suffered, but his medical expenses would also be much higher,” the doctor replied.

Li Axiang felt extremely grateful that she had listened to her niece and brought her son for treatment in time.

When she got home, she pulled up her sleeves and told her niece that she wanted to make something delicious for her. 

After playing with Junbao for a while and giving him candy, though, Xu Yin stood up and said goodbye. “Don’t worry about it, Auntie. I have to go already. My mom told me to go back before noon; she’ll be worried if I don’t go back now. Besides, I need to go back to school tomorrow, and I still have a lot of homework I haven’t finished, so I really can’t stay. I’ll come to see you again after the summer vacation, and I’ll definitely stay for a few more days when that time comes. Don’t worry, Grandma.”

“How can that be?” Grandma Geng said, as if she was angry. “You came all the way here and want to leave without even having a meal. That’s not right!”

‘It’s not like I’m an outsider, Grandma. We’re family! Don’t worry about it,” Xu Yin said with a smile on her face. 

Seeing how insistent Xu Yin was on going back before noon, Li Axiang stopped trying to persuade her. 

Instead, she packed some things into a cloth bag for Xu Yin to take home: dried mushrooms, dried fish from the creek, and other items that her family had collected in their home.

Upon seeing that the bag of dried mushrooms not only contained wood ear mushrooms and shiitake mushrooms, but also some red mushrooms, Xu Yin said to Liaxiang, “Auntie, this red mushroom can be used for medicine, and it can be sold for a lot. In the future, you should pack it separately from the other mushrooms. If the person who usually buys your mountain goods doesn’t give you a higher price for them, I’ll take it and sell it for you.”

“Really? This mushroom is so red that it’ll turn the entire soup red if it’s stewed. We don’t really like it around here, so we didn’t go out of our way to look for it when we forage. However, now that you mention it, I’ll ask your uncle to keep an eye out for it so we can give it to you.”

Li Axiang thought that it was probably just slightly more expensive than wood ear and shiitake mushrooms, so she didn’t really think much of it. 

Xu Yin didn’t say much in reply to this. She simply decided to go to the pharmacy in the market tomorrow to ask about it.

If the pharmacy wanted it, she’d return and tell her uncle’s family about the good news. If they didn’t, she’d just buy it herself.

She planned to stock it up in her system inventory and consume it over time. 

Including this one, she’d already transmigrated through three story worlds; who knew how many other story worlds she’d transmigrate into after this one? 

The truth was, she’d read too many novels and roasted them too much. If she needed to transmigrate into every novel that she’d ever criticised, she might not be able to return to her original world until heaven knew when. 

Just thinking about it made her very worried…

It’d be fine if she were to enter a story world that was peaceful and prosperous, where the people were great and kind. Unfortunately for her, though, she’d only ended up in troubled times or famine-stricken eras in her last two story worlds. Each time, she always started off with a bad hand. 

In order to survive and avoid the fate of becoming a cannon fodder, she needed to work hard from the start to turn things around. At the same time, she also had to be careful, so the plot wouldn’t backfire on her. 

It wasn’t easy to be her! 

On the way home, Xu Yin continued to ride her bike as fast as she could.

She wanted to see if she could break another record and earn more energy points as a reward, or something.

What a pity, though, that she didn’t manage to break any record. 

Considering the speed at which she took her cousin to the hospital, she had probably already achieved the highest speed that was rewarded. 

Fortunately, the round trip had given her a count of 50 kilometres. In addition to the distance that she’d already cycled before, she’d rode a total of 1000 kilometres in this story world. 

[Intermediate Cycling Skill unlocked. Reward: one set of intermediate cycling equipment.]

The reward turned out to be a lightweight electric bicycle, its 3D design blueprints, and all the necessary tools and materials for its assembly. 

“…”

Following this trend, if she unlocked Advanced Cycling Skill, would she get a motorcycle as a reward? 

Xu Yin rubbed her chin and pondered it for a long time, but she still couldn’t figure out the rules that the life support system used when it assigned tasks and rewards to her. 

When she was living as a peasant farmer girl, the tasks that she was given were usually related to agricultural affairs. It fit her identity at the time. 

Now that she was a student, it stood to reason that her tasks should be related to her studies. Why were they related to cycling?  

She couldn’t figure it out, so she decided not to dwell on it. She stored the rewards she’d just received in the system warehouse for later use. 

When she got home, she was greeted with the delicious aroma of the braised pork Mother Xu was cooking.

A group of children were squatting in front of their house.

Xu Yin only recognized a few of them. They were sniffing the aroma of braised pork with their runny noses, pointing their fingers and raising their small noses to smell it.

Even though they couldn’t eat it, smelling it was good enough for them.