1988: Back to the human world for a few years

Chapter 355 Dust (1)

For a long time, when asked about the least economically developed areas in Qi and Lu, people in the province would definitely mention Dezhou, Lanling and Lotus City first.

Except for Lotus City, Dezhou and Lanling are both typical old industrial areas.

If you ask the same question to local people in Texas, they will definitely tell you that DZ City is actually also poor, and the three counties that are truly poor are Qingyun, Wucheng and Ningjin.

........................

Wucheng, Tengzhuang Town, Xiaoshui Village.

In this village located at the junction of three cities and six counties in Qi, Lu and Hebei provinces, there stands a temple for the godson that looks rather dilapidated.

The entrance to this dilapidated temple, where the statues of Fuxi and Nuwa had long disappeared, was somewhat abruptly surrounded by a dirty red cloth.

In the gray courtyard, 43-year-old Gao Qing sat on a small brick with his legs curled up, his left body lazily leaning against a half-stone pillar: "The sun is really kind today. It warms my body up immediately."

A man of about the same age was taking off his thin cotton jacket and basking his chest in the sun. He replied weakly, "Of course, it's much more comfortable to bask in the sun with a master than by the fire... The corn cobs in the temple are almost gone. It's your kid's turn to bring noodles today, right? By the way, let your kid bring another bag of corn cobs!"

As he spoke, the man swept the pile of white ashes in the middle of the temple hall behind him and shuddered with lingering fear.

In late April in Qilu, the nights were not as warm as the days. Although there were dozens of people crowded together, they all slept on the floor. It was really uncomfortable to sleep if the fire was not small.

Hearing this, Gao Qing glanced at the slightly bulging right side of the man's chest and ribs, and curled his lips: "My kid will take the high school entrance exam this year. I was hoping that he could get into Wucheng No. 2 Middle School, and then go to a good university, so that our Gao family can be proud... At such a critical moment, you let our kid waste his review time to move corn cobs for us, are you looking for a fight?"

Gao Qing showed off his veined and cracked fists as if to demonstrate his indifference. "Besides, we have dozens of useless people here, why waste so many corn cobs? Let them freeze to death! ... The sooner they die, the sooner they will be reborn, and it will also reduce the burden on the family!"

As he spoke, Gao Qing carefully avoided his left abdomen and leaned on the broken stone pier in an extremely lazy posture: "Tsk tsk, it would be great if the village party secretary could allow us to go out. Today is a good day to weed the fields. While we still have some strength, carrying a hoe to the fields to weed a few times is a good way to make use of the waste... If it starts to rain in a few days, won't the weeds in the fields grow taller than the wheat seedlings?"

The man who was sunbathing his belly glanced at the men and women lying around in the yard and curled his lips: "Don't think about your one acre and two mu of broken land. Even if you hoe it well, can the harvest be enough to pay for your kid's tuition and tutoring fees?"

At this point, the man rolled his eyes and suddenly lowered his voice: "Your kid is such a good student, there will be no problem for him to be admitted to No. 2 Middle School, but high school is not like junior high school. I heard that the tuition is expensive, and there are all kinds of cram schools... So, how about we sneak out and sell a few tickets while we can still move? Before we die, we should bite our teeth and save four or five hundred yuan. Your kid will have enough money for high school tuition, even college!"

Upon hearing this, Gao Qing sat up alertly, glanced at the other people in the yard warily, then subconsciously touched the needle hole on his left arm and began to struggle internally.

………………

The needle holes on the left elbow are from selling blood... In fact, they are not only on the left arm, but also on the right arm.

The thick and long needle holes and blood plasma that seemed to be prepared for animals, and the clumsy techniques of the nurses really left him with an indelible psychological trauma.

But this is not the point.

Although the feeling of the thick needle piercing his blood vessel made his soul tremble, the rewards were amazing.

A large blood draw, 800cc, costs 70 yuan;

One scraping of plasma, 400cc, costs 40 yuan.

Although I later heard that the price of plasma was different in each place, and in some places one could get 107 yuan for a large blood draw, Wucheng was a poor place, so being able to sell it for so much money was already very satisfying for him, who had never even been to the provincial capital in his life.

And there is another advantage of the small blood station in Wucheng. They don't strictly abide by the "blood donation interval system". Although they always emphasize "selling whole blood once every three months and donating plasma once every half a month", as long as you say a few nice words and give them two apples or local specialties, even if the stipulated time has not yet arrived, they will still be flexible and will not count the needle holes on your arm.

It was with those bags of red blood and yellow plasma drawn from his body that he was able to pay off the tuition for his son, who he had borrowed from door to door when he was in junior high school, after working hard for most of his life in Xiaoshui Village, a place so poor that he could barely survive starvation. He even had enough money to enroll the boy in a cram school in town that was considered to be extremely expensive. Every weekend, he could buy half a pound of pork to supplement the nutrition of the growing boy, and also take care of the woman in the house who had a lot of minor illnesses from giving birth.

To be honest, as the breadwinner of the family, even though the continuous overclocking and blood drawing made his body deteriorate quickly, and he was so weak that he had to hold the hoe for a long time to relax after hoeing the fields for ten minutes, he was still very satisfied.

As a man, from the age of sixteen, this life is no longer lived for himself.

But our ancestors said that if it is destined to be yours, you will get it eventually, and if it is not destined to be yours, you should not force it. A peasant like me is not qualified to receive such unexpected wealth.

Just three months ago, for some reason, the plasma station suddenly became stricter and everyone had to undergo tedious examinations before donating blood.

Then I found out the problem.

Ok……

It was a virus that was previously called "non-A, non-B hepatitis virus", and is said to have been officially named "hepatitis C".

As for the symptoms, they are the same as mine and other people's now: general fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea at the sight of oily food, abdominal distension, rib pain, easy fever, and even signs of enlargement of the liver and spleen... In serious cases, one can even see a slight bulge on the skinny belly.

Although the doctor said that this disease has an incubation period of several years, it is also closely related to the individual's physical constitution.

Yes, the reason why all the people in this yard showed symptoms in just over a year was simply because they were malnourished and sold too much blood.

Yes,

Xiaoshui Village, which ranks among the bottom ten even in a poor county like Wucheng, can be regarded as a "blood-selling village" in a sense. At least 40% of the people in the village have sold blood to varying degrees. People like him can even be called professional blood sellers... Although they still work in the fields all day long on weekdays, there is nothing they can do about it. In terms of the proportion of income, the little food they dig out of the soil is not worth mentioning compared to the money earned from selling blood.

Regarding the fact that he had contracted hepatitis C, Gao Qing did not blame the needles and syringes at the plasma station that had been reused countless times; nor did he blame the nurses who even did a perfunctory job of high-temperature disinfection.

This is fate!
A country man who worked hard on his one acre of land to make a living earned nearly four thousand yuan by selling blood in just two years. This was all the money he would earn for the next thirty or forty years. At his age, it was time for God to take his life away.

So he really didn't blame anyone.

The life of a peasant is worthless, this is a truth he understood a long time ago, so even though he knew that with the current medical level, hepatitis C is equivalent to a "terminal illness" without continuous treatment, he did not have any resentment.

Chinese men live very tiring lives, and men in rural China live even more tiring lives. Returning to dust early may not be a relief for an honest man like Gao Qing.

The only thing he was dissatisfied with was...

The doctor clearly said that hepatitis C is not as contagious as hepatitis B, and there may be no other way of transmission except through blood and body fluids.

But why does the village party secretary still look as if he is facing a great enemy, and insists on gathering all these people together, placing them in this temple, and not allowing them to contact other people?
Well, he could accept the fact that he had become a plague god that everyone avoided.

He could also understand everyone's fear about this infectious disease that had supposedly just been discovered and named.

But the doctor said that this disease is not highly contagious!

I don't share a bed with my wife, nor do I sleep and eat at home. It should be okay for me to carry a hoe and go out to help with farm work for my family while the sun is nice, right?
For those who are reluctant to die and cannot afford follow-up treatment, no one knows how long they can live. Therefore, their greatest desire is to do as much as possible to help their families before they die, so as to reduce the burden on their parents, wives and children. After all, they are the backbone of the family. Once they are gone, no one knows whether the orphans and widows can bear the heavy burden in the future.

Of course, this was Gao Qing’s idea, as well as the idea of ​​the man next to him who was showing off his belly, or the idea of ​​most of the men in the yard.

As for whether the other old ladies thought the same way, he didn't know.

………………

Seeing Gao Qing's hesitation, the man next to him lowered his voice and said, "I've had a low-grade fever recently, and my arm has become weaker and weaker. I just touched it and it feels a little bigger than the last two days. I don't think I have much time left... Old Gao, I saw you get up and vomit twice outside last night. Your condition shouldn't be much better, right?"

Hearing this, Gao Qing secretly touched his burning stomach, and finally nodded gently: "Yeah."

The man looked at Gao Qing, whose face was a little pale, and smiled: "I know a place not far from the town, where you can sell blood directly without any examination. I used to dislike the fact that it only paid 55 yuan for a large blood draw, which was 15 yuan lower than the blood station, and they couldn't draw plasma... But now it seems to be a good place."

As he spoke, he took a furtive look at the living dead in the yard, then looked at the red cloth at the door that had no practical significance, and lowered his voice even lower: "How about going to the toilet with me to sneak over there to sell a few tubes? As long as we are quick, we can be back before dinner if we are lucky... Now everyone looks listless all day long, either in a daze or sleeping, no one cares whether we have been out or not."

Gao Qing's face changed. "That won't do! The village secretary placed us in the temple because he was afraid that we would infect others with the disease. The doctor said that this disease was contracted from random blood draws. If we still sell blood in our current situation, wouldn't that harm others?"

The man curled his lips and said, "The small black station on the edge of town is not a regular plasma station, let alone a blood donation station in a big city. Do you think that after we sell our blood to them, they will use it to save lives on the operating table?"

"Tsk~ I've already found out that these little black guys collected our blood and sold it directly to pharmaceutical companies! It is said that many pharmaceutical companies use our blood as raw materials for their drugs. I heard that they use it to make rabies vaccines and human proteins... Anyway, there are many procedures in between, and we can't infect others."

"Besides, even if it infects others, so what? Do we have the mood to think about other things now? Your kid who is about to go to high school and needs a lot of money is there, and my lame girl is also at home... If you take care of others, who will take care of them?"

Looking at the man's somewhat miserable smile, Gao Qing remained silent.

The medical and health conditions in rural areas are poor, and due to various historical reasons, the proportion of deformities and disabilities is much higher than in cities... There is a girl in the other party's family who has polio, and everyone knows this. The reason why this man embarked on the path of professional blood selling is because of his daughter who had polio as a child.

Ah……

Yes, he cares about others, but who cares about them!
Besides, isn’t the purpose of a man’s life to live for his parents and children?

Everyone has his own destiny. For the future of that bad boy at home, just be a bad guy for once!
Thinking of the wall of award certificates in the living room of his home, Gao Qing ignored the uncomfortable burning sensation in his stomach and suppressed the vague uneasiness and guilt in his heart. His face sincerely exuded an expectation for the continuation of life.

Just as he lowered his head, wanting to discuss with the man how to cover each other later, he sneaked out unknowingly...

The red cloth at the temple gate was lifted, and a half-grown boy appeared in front of everyone carrying half a bag of cornmeal.

"Idiot (nickname for son), how did you get in? Can't you just put the cornmeal at the door? And...didn't the village party secretary tell us that we need to cover our mouths and noses when we come here? Why didn't you listen?!"

Seeing his son appear, Gao Qing stood up and rushed over to scold him, but he stretched out his arms from three meters away and turned his head back cautiously, as if he was afraid that other people would get close and infect his son.

At this moment, he completely understood the village party secretary's feelings at the time... Although the doctor said that this disease is not easily contagious, but facing this completely unfamiliar disease, who would be willing to let the patient get close to their relatives?
"Dad, it's okay."

The boy had an understanding smile on his face. He put the bag off his shoulder without much effort and carried it to the pillar at the temple entrance.

After glancing at the other people who were still lazily lying in the yard basking in the sun, the boy took a few steps towards Gao Qing under his angry gaze, then unzipped his cleanly washed school uniform.

"Dad, take this and drink three bottles a day. The doctor said that you need nutritional supplements the most for your condition. You can't just drink cornmeal porridge every day."

The boy took out two boxes from the belt around his waist and handed them over.

Royal jelly?
Looking at the packaging box that looked extremely high-end, Gao Qing was stunned.

In the rural areas of Qilu at that time, malted milk and royal jelly were considered the top nutritional supplements by the people. If someone was given a box of them, they would definitely brag about it for a month.

"Where does this royal jelly come from!?" After a brief moment of surprise, Gao Qing's face turned serious.

This stuff is not cheap. In the past, even if I sold my blood to buy nutritional supplements for my child's mother, I would at most buy some canned sugar water or something like that. I would never be willing to buy this kind of high-end nutritional supplement that is said to cost nearly ten yuan a box.

So the question is, since it is impossible to have this thing at home, where does such an expensive thing come from?

Hearing his father's question, a trace of panic flashed in the boy's eyes, and his lips, which were covered with a circle of green fuzz, were tightly closed. He just handed the two boxes of royal jelly in his hand to Gao Qing.

When Gao Qing saw that his son did not answer, he became furious.

Although people of their generation were poor, they always believed in being clean and honest and would never go astray.

Although selling blood was not glorious, he did not steal or rob, and the money was earned by using his own blood.

Now his thirteen-year-old son is studying, and he usually doesn't even let him do more farm work. Where does he get so much money except by taking shortcuts?
Thinking of this, a surge of depression surged from Gao Qing's heart. He raised his hand, which he had not used since his son was ten years old, and wanted to slap his son hard.

The money I earned at the cost of my life is for you to study hard and have a bright future, not to let you learn bad things in school!

Seeing his father's eyes filled with disappointment and anger, and the palm raised high, the boy subconsciously shrank his neck and put his arms to protect his face.

Um! ?

Seeing his son's unnatural posture and the hard-to-conceal feeling of powerlessness when he used his left arm to protect himself, Gao Qing felt a sense of déjà vu.

"what happened!?"

Gao Qing grabbed his son's left arm with his rough hands and pulled roughly.
Suddenly, the pupils shrank...

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PS: 1. The hepatitis C virus was successfully isolated in 1989 and named after it was confirmed as a new disease. It was not until the 90s that it was taken seriously by blood collection departments in various places, so it was vaguely called non-A, non-B hepatitis virus before that.

2. Plasma stations and blood donation stations are not the same concept. First-, second- and third-tier cities where blood donation stations are located generally do not allow plasma stations to exist, while plasma stations often appear in large numbers in fourth-, fifth- and sixth-tier county-level cities.

3. Many people in rural areas have started to make a living by selling blood since a long time ago, and the prices of plasma stations in different places are indeed different. It is said that the prices in the south are generally higher than those in other places, while the prices in the most densely populated Central Plains are lower.

4. The author himself does not know the price of blood products at that time. The prices in the book are based on the prices in Jintan City, Jiangsu Province in 1989. Since there are deposit certificates as evidence, I personally think that they have a strong reference value.

5. The issue of selling blood will only be mentioned briefly in this book. It will be enough for readers of my age to know that such an incident happened before the millennium and that there was such a suffering in rural areas that was not known to outsiders. It will not be expanded on in detail and it is not convenient to discuss it in depth.

(End of this chapter)