Call Me Daddy

When the doctor arrived, Su Erniang and Su Yuanniang were still in the back yard, cooking pig feed and chopping firewood. After pouring the cooked pig feed into the trough in the pigpen and watching the two fat pigs eat happily, they finally dragged their tired bodies back to the front yard and saw Doctor Li, who was carrying a medicine box and preparing to leave.

Er Niang was stunned. Why had Grandpa Li come? Could it be that Father had had another episode?

“Er Niang, go to the room and check on your father.” Seeing his niece, Su Youtian’s eyes flashed with a trace of pity.

In the past, when his second brother was in good health and bearing the many burdens of the family, he still couldn’t protect this daughter. Now that his health had deteriorated, it was likely that Er Niang’s future would be even more laborious.

Seeing the hatred in his stepmother’s eyes, as if she wanted to carve flesh from them, it was clear that spending 20 taels of silver to treat his second brother was enough to cover most of the family’s expenses for half a year. Li Shi always regarded everything in this household as belonging to her and her two sons, so naturally, she resented them.

Not only Li Shi but also Su Youtian and his wife were feeling a bit pained at this moment.

But thinking it over, this silver, even if not spent on the second son, was unlikely to end up in their hands. Besides, the value the second son had brought to their family over the years was far more than just 200 taels of silver.

“My father?” Er Niang looked at the adults’ eyes. Some looked at her with sympathy, others with disdain.

The little girl’s heart sank further. What had happened? She bit her lip and turned to run back to the room.

Doctor Li had already given him a simple treatment for the wound. Although the traditional Chinese medicine of this era wasn’t as advanced as modern medicine, it was far from being mere witchcraft.

In dealing with the rotten flesh, the old man first wiped the sharp dagger with strong liquor, then heated the blade over a flame, which was a primitive form of disinfection compared to modern methods.

Before making the incision, the old doctor had given him a pill to swallow and then took out a packet of medicinal powder, which he sprinkled over the wound.

After a short while, the remaining pain had nearly vanished. These two medications seemed to have a numbing effect, somewhat similar to a modern anesthetic.

The doctor first removed the severely necrotic and unresponsive flesh from the leg, then, working on the wound, he forcefully squeezed out the black, dirty blood and the accumulated pus. After a few cuts, the wooden basin beside him was already filled with a small bowl of turbid blood and several strips of removed flesh.

After treating the wound, Doctor Li stitched it up with needle and thread and then wrapped it in clean, fine cotton cloth.

Only Doctor Li knew that what he had done was barely enough. Second Su’s leg was likely ruined. Unless a miracle occurred, he would never walk normally again.

***

When Er Niang entered the room, the wooden basin filled with dirty blood hadn’t yet been emptied. As soon as she stepped inside, she was greeted by the strong smell of blood and saw her father’s leg, which had been tightly bandaged.

“Er Niang…”

Seeing his daughter rush in, Su Aobai managed a strained smile, his lips pale from the pain and his forehead and back dotted with beads of sweat from the anesthesia wearing off. His forced smile made him look like a wrinkled, bitter melon.

“Father, what happened to your leg?” Er Niang rushed to the bedside, her eyes full of panic.

Her biological father had never been a loving parent, so their relationship was very distant. Although the 8-year-old Er Niang resented her father’s foolish filial piety and wished he could protect her like her uncle protected her elder cousins, she still harbored a lingering affection for her biological father at this moment.

She looked at the heavily bandaged right leg and then at the wooden basin filled with dirty blood and decaying flesh. Her eyes quickly filled with tears, which began to fall freely.

In the morning, it had only been a fever, hadn’t it? How had his leg become like this? Why was there so much blood, and why had so much flesh been removed?

“Er Niang… in the future, Father… Father might become a cripple…”

Some things couldn’t be shared with his daughter right now. Children couldn’t hide their worries, and it could cause trouble. Moreover, the impression the original owner had left on others was too strong. Even if he wanted to change, he needed the right opportunity.

Otherwise, in the superstitious ancient times, any behavior that didn’t match the original owner’s personality could be seen as the actions of a restless ghost possessing the original owner’s body, and he might be burned.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, don’t cry.”

Seeing Er Niang’s tears flowing more fiercely, Su Aobai quickly tried to comfort her.

“This family still has your grandparents. They won’t let us starve. This time, treating me cost 20 taels of silver. Your grandparents were willing to spend so much money, which shows they care about me as their son. And your younger uncle, he’s passed the provincial examination and finally made a name for himself. In the future, our family will benefit from his success. So what if I’ve lost a leg? We’ll live the same way we did before.”

Su Aobai’s face showed his disappointment at the thought of becoming crippled, but he hadn’t lost hope for the future. He believed that his family wouldn’t abandon him.

This was the original owner’s mindset. He always thought that as long as he worked hard and obeyed his stepmother, they would treat him as part of the family. Therefore, he accepted their unreasonable demands willingly.

Seeing her father so optimistic, Er Niang felt a buzzing in her ears and could barely hear what he said next.

Father is crippled!

Father actually still believed that his stepmother and her younger uncle considered him part of the family!

Er Niang’s tears flowed faster and faster, and she bit her lower lip so hard that it was nearly bleeding.

She desperately wanted to shake her foolish father awake. What people wanted was a strong and hardworking Second Su, not a crippled burden who couldn’t do any work.

Why couldn’t Father understand something that even a little child like me could see?

Er Niang thought angrily. She didn’t know why step-grandmother was willing to spend 20 taels on her father’s treatment, but she knew that if her father’s leg couldn’t be healed, her step-grandmother would surely find a way to drive them out. She wouldn’t let her father become a burden on her third uncle or youngest uncle.

When that time came, her father would probably see people’s true colors.

Thinking about the potential pain and disbelief on her father’s face when that time came, Er Niang felt a cruel satisfaction. At least by then, her father wouldn’t be foolish anymore.

But then what? How would she and her crippled father survive after being expelled from the Su family?

Er Niang felt utterly lost and confused.

***

Doctor Li was truly an unwitting source of gossip.

As soon as he returned home, he couldn’t help but chat with his old wife about what he had seen at the Su family’s house today.

“What!?”

Doctor Li’s wife, Wang Jinhua, was so shocked that the melon seeds she was holding fell to the ground. She didn’t even bother to pick them up and instead bombarded him with a flurry of questions.

“Didn’t Li Shi really poison Second Su? But why? Second Su is such an honest child. Not only in our village, but even if you added up all the nearby villages, you wouldn’t find someone as hardworking as Second Su.”

Even animals need rest, but Second Su worked year-round without a break, always willing and obedient.

“We can’t be too hasty,” Doctor Li said slowly.

“After all, I haven’t seen the residue from the medicinal soup Second Su drank. According to Second Su, he ate dinner with everyone the night before. In the middle of the night, he went out to repair the roof in the rain, accidentally fell, and drowsily returned to his room to sleep. By the time others went to check on him the next morning because he hadn’t gotten up, he was already delirious from the fever. Apart from what others had given him, he couldn’t find food for himself, and during that time, he only drank the medicinal soup Li Shi had brought him.”

Wang Jinhua, upon hearing this, stomped her foot in anger, crushing the melon seeds that had spilled on the ground.

She held her chest, half-heartedly grieving over the seeds and half-fuming over Li Shi’s cruelty.

The rain last night had been so heavy that it flooded the ditches. If it hadn’t been for that, the village wouldn’t have had to rush to harvest some of the crops today, fearing that more heavy rain might ruin the crop roots growing underground.

In such weather, she heartlessly made Second Su climb onto the roof to repair the tiles, without even assigning someone to keep watch. They didn’t even realize he had fallen until the next morning, leaving him to suffer through the night.

Was it any wonder people say it’s better to live with beggar mother than with an official’s father? Su Kuishan wasn’t any better, allowing his wife to mistreat the son of his first wife.

(T/N: It’s better to live with a beggar mother than an official father = means that the father who is an official is far less considerate than the mother who is a beggar, in taking care of the child.)

Wang Jinhua’s eyes darted around. She was certain the poison had been administered by Li Shi. Perhaps she discovered Su Youniu had injured his leg and, fearing this stepson might become a burden to herself and her two children, decided to eliminate him. After all, high fever deaths weren’t uncommon.

Unfortunately, there was a flaw in the poison. Most of the toxicity went into his leg, so Su Er wasn’t killed but only suffered a leg injury.

The reason she was sure it was Li Shi who administered the poison was another point. Her husband had mentioned that Li Shi hadn’t produced any medicine residue. In their rural area, there was a custom of dumping the used medicinal residue onto the main road where carts passed. It was believed that the more people and carts that passed over it, the further the illness would be driven away.

If Li Shi wasn’t feeling guilty, why hadn’t she left any medicinal residue behind?

Wang Jinhua used her vivid imagination and believed she had understood the whole story.

At that moment, she couldn’t wait to go out and share this fabricated tale with her friends.

“I’ve only told you this, so make sure you don’t go spreading it around. It’s their private matter and should be none of our concern. I’ll add a few nourishing herbs to Second Su’s medicine when I prepare it later, as my way of contributing,” her husband said, shaking his head.

He wondered what Second Su’s future would be like.

“I know, I’m not one to gossip,” Wang Jinhua nodded repeatedly.

She planned to discuss it with a few people; Liu family’s wife, Zhu family’s sister-in-law, the widow from the Li family, and the two daughters-in-law from the Village Chief’s family… about eighteen or nineteen people in total.

She would tell them that this was only for their ears and to keep it confidential. After all, who didn’t know that Wang Jinhua was known for her discretion?

Before leaving, Wang Jinhua filled her pockets with two full bags of melon seeds, ready to pass the afternoon with something to occupy her time.

***

Under Wang Jinhua’s “discretion,” within half a day, the whole village knew about Li Shi’s mistreatment of her stepson and the suspicion of poisoning him to death.

Since Li Shi’s youngest son had passed the provincial examination, people only talked behind her back about the possibility of her poisoning her stepson, without concrete evidence.

However, there was solid evidence about her sending Second Su alone to repair the roof in the heavy rain.

Several young women living near the Su family also revealed that they had overheard Li Shi’s curses in their own yards that morning.

It was said that Second Su was already delirious from the fever in the morning, and Li Shi refused to let Eldest Su call Doctor Li for his younger brother. She seemed to wish for Second Su to lose his sanity from the fever. Now that her son had become a scholar, her dependence on the family’s land wasn’t as strong as before. She might have already considered abandoning the eldest and second families, fearing that they would benefit from her two younger sons’ success.

Of course, some people also criticized Su Kuishan, noting that while the stepmother might be harsh, the father should at least be able to manage his wife. It was a shame for a man not to control his own wife.

In the following days, every time Li Shi went out, she could feel the unusual looks directed at her. The attitude of the villagers towards her was markedly different from when her family’s scholarly success had been celebrated.

Li Shi knew that someone must have leaked news about Su Youniu. The eldest daughter-in-law was the prime suspect since there had been longstanding issues between the two families.

This suspicion made Li Shi furious. Those ungrateful ingrates! I have to find a way to separate the two families, especially Su Youniu’s.

The medicinal herbs worth 20 taels had been mostly consumed, but Su Youniu’s condition hadn’t improved much. He still looked sickly, and the injured leg was of no use. Not only had she been spending money on his treatment, but he also couldn’t help with any of the household chores. His meals were brought to him daily by his daughter, he seemed to be enjoying life more than her old husband.

Li Shi was even more worried that when the herbs were finished, old Doctor Li might ask them to provide more money for more.

So, she often made a fuss in front of the second family’s room, ostensibly scolding the younger generation for being lazy and unproductive, while in reality, she was indirectly criticizing Second Su, trying to make him feel like a burden to the whole family.

If it were the original owner, he would have been so ashamed and angry that he would have gotten out of bed, even with a cane, to find some work. But Su Aobai wasn’t like that!

He only pretended to show the emotions the original owner should have felt. His face flushed with shame and anger as he picked up the pair of crutches his elder brother, Su Youtian, had made for him, and he struggled to walk toward the yard.

However, he wasn’t going to the fields to find work as Li Shi had hoped. After a few days of escalating gossip, it was time to add fuel to the fire.

Now, Su Aobai wanted to split the family even more than Li Shi did. But he wouldn’t leave in disgrace; even if he did separate, he would do so from a moral high ground, maintaining the upper hand in public opinion.

As for whether he felt guilty for wronging Li Shi with accusations of poisoning?

It was laughable. As long as he had no guilt, who could hold him accountable?