1988: Back to the human world for a few years

Chapter 358 Opportunity?

Wucheng County, Zhuguantun, Yanqianpo Village.

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"A good marriage is a bond that will last for three lifetimes; the beginning of a family is a marriage of mandarin ducks."

"The engagement is auspicious, the marriage is a good match; the promise is made, a lifelong alliance."

"We will form a happy marriage and be engaged for life!"

"Congratulations on the wedding!"

As Lu Yingying, who served as the witness, spoke with vigor and joy, the newlyweds on the stage bowed to each other and carefully took the marriage certificate from her hands.

Thus, there was one more legitimate pair of mandarin ducks in the world.

Looking at the young couple hugging and crying, Tugou laughed and then clapped loudly.

The Tugou student on the stage began to applaud, and a man in the audience immediately joined in and clapped loudly.

As soon as the man clapped, the people accompanying him immediately started clapping as well.

Seeing such a small group of leaders from central enterprises and county and township officials start to applaud, the cadres and villagers of Yanqianpo Village who were invited to watch the ceremony, as well as the thirty or so people who were assigned to another corner, had to applaud even though they felt mixed emotions.

For a moment, this long-abandoned stage seemed to have become a real wedding scene; and the newlyweds on the stage, who looked a little haggard and had bruises on their faces, seemed to have received everyone's instructions.

Seeing that the ceremony was over, Tugou walked down from the dilapidated stage and returned to the crowd of spectators with a smug look on his face. He watched the village chief, who was still trembling, go on stage to continue presiding over the rest of the wedding process.

"Girl, a gentleman does not stand under a dangerous wall. You are too impulsive... This will not happen again!"

He seemed to be looking at Yang Mo on the stage seriously. Although he had a smile on his face, his tone was quite stern. It was obvious that he was very upset that Tugou had rushed onto the stage to be the witness without informing him and disregarding the danger.

Miss Mu, who accompanied Yang Mo to the grassroots to study, also trembled in her voice: "Yes, I was scared to death just now. You are so close to the newcomer, and there is no one to protect you. What if you are suddenly scratched?"

When Tugou heard this, he smiled indifferently: "I'm not a gentleman, I don't understand what the wall is dangerous or not... I just know that if you don't take the lead and show an attitude in some things, the people below will not obey you, and the common people will not believe you."

After giving a little nagging to a certain sheep dung egg, Tu Gou lowered his voice towards Miss Mu and said, "You have never been a doctor, so you don't understand some things... Special patients like these are the most sensitive at this time, and they are the most eager for recognition. As long as you show kindness and treat them as normal people, they will never hurt you."

"In fact, what I fear most is that these special patients will become self-destructive and even hate society in the long-term discrimination and exclusion. This would be too harmful, so there is this wedding, and I will go up to be a witness... We must let them know that not everyone is afraid of and despises them; we must also tell these villagers that as long as they pay attention to some details, these people can get along normally with ordinary people."

Ok……

That’s right, Yanqianpo Village, like Xiaoshui Village, is also a blood-selling village.

The only difference from Xiaoshui Village is that since the road to the county town is a bit difficult to travel, there are quite a few people who choose to go to the black blood station to sell blood.

Therefore, in addition to a group of hepatitis C patients in Yanqianpo Village, there are also a group of special patients imprisoned at the stage... HIV patients.

Think about it, even in later generations, the three words HIV are frightening, let alone today when people know very little about this disease.

Fortunately, the current social atmosphere is not so extreme and still retains the most basic bottom line in many universal moral aspects. Otherwise, with the current level of medical knowledge, if these HIV patients use their own bodies and blood as weapons and indulge themselves, who knows how much social panic will be created.

Obviously, although Tugou, who had studied Chinese medicine with her father for several years, did not know much about HIV, she knew that the most important thing for patients like these who were terminally ill but also had explosive properties was to calm their emotions... At the very least, they should not be allowed to despair and discover that they had completely become social outcasts and monsters in the eyes of others.

That's why she arranged this wedding with so many people watching, and she overcame her fear and went on stage to be the witness.

In fact, in addition to eliminating the public's fear and calming the emotions of this group of special patients, she is actually willing to be the witness.

She had seen the newlyweds during her more than one month-long grassroots inspection.

At that time, both of them were beaten with wooden sticks.

The reason is very simple. The man and woman are actually married and each has his or her own family.

However, after the man was diagnosed with HIV, his wife divorced him as a matter of course; but the woman's husband was still hesitant.

This is not difficult to understand. After all, in rural areas, it is not easy to marry a wife. Although there is no need to empty the family's savings to raise such a large amount of money for the bride price like in later generations, the problem is... there are not many women willing to marry into a poor village like Yanqianpo!
So, the woman's husband, with the mentality of not wanting to throw away the rotten meat in the pot, although he spoke coldly to her all day long and even ran to the theater door from time to time to beat her in public, he never divorced her in the end;
But on the other hand, after encountering all kinds of discrimination and contempt from the villagers, the woman who was locked up in the drama club and felt sorry for herself, gradually developed feelings for another man after three months of mutual support and care.

Therefore, as soon as the news came out, the woman's husband came up with a towel covering his mouth and nose, and beat the "adulterous couple" with a stick without saying a word.

You may say that he loves his wife very much, but that is not necessarily the case. If he really loves his wife, he should have agreed when she begged him for a divorce... This is completely a mentality of "since I can't sleep with my own wife, I can't let outsiders get her."

As if they felt they were in the wrong, the newlyweds on the stage today, although they had not done anything inappropriate, did not put up any radical resistance to the beating from the woman's husband, but just held the woman tightly under them.

So, the woman's husband would come to the theater every now and then with a stick in his hand... Perhaps in his opinion, this was a good way to vent his repression.

The scene that classmate Tugou saw the last time he came here was just a scene that was often played out in the drama club.

Although it is said that one should not advise others to do good without having experienced their suffering, there are a lot of bad things happening in the countryside, but after asking about the situation, classmate Tugou was still a little nervous.

As a traditional Qilu woman, she didn't think it was a big deal for a man to beat his wife, but the current situation was obviously abnormal. Since you don't like your wife that much, and both parties can't continue to be together due to objective reasons, then you should divorce... Since it's not suitable, you should let go. What's the point of beating your wife every now and then?
So at the strong request of Tugou, the village party secretary had to do ideological work on the man. Finally, after more than a month of hard work, when Tugou was contacting Yanqianpo Village about the purple candy project, the groom exchanged the man's divorce agreement for the old house.

Of course, the experience of every HIV patient in Yanqianpo Village is not very beautiful. Verbal and physical violence from the family are already commonplace. What the newlyweds encountered today is nothing. There are many people who are several times more miserable.

But unfortunately, even a fair judge cannot judge family affairs, and as for other matters, Tugou classmate really cannot intervene.

The only thing she could do was to use the influence of the drilling company and Xialiu Sales Agency to hold a lively wedding for the newlyweds, and then set an example herself and tell other HIV patients through this incident that not everyone discriminates against you.

How effective this approach would be, she didn't know;
She also didn't know whether these villagers would continue to discriminate against, fear and exclude these special patients after the purple candy project was implemented, under the ideological mobilization of the village party secretary and the village head.

She only knew that some things had to be done by someone, and someone had to start it, and for the rest, she could only do her best and leave the rest to fate.

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

After the wedding, it is customary to entertain the guests for a meal.

Although today's wedding banquet was not sumptuous, apart from a bowl of half-meat and half-vegetarian dish on the table, the rest were all vegetarian dishes such as cabbage and potatoes, but at least there was enough wine and drinks... With so many people sitting together to eat, the atmosphere was created.

In fact, most of the guests are still afraid and are really worried that they will be infected with HIV after eating such a table of dishes.

But there was no way. So many big leaders were already seated at the banquet. How dare they sneak away without giving them face?

The village director has quietly spread the word that everyone must eat today’s meal, and they must eat it happily!
If anyone dares not to give face and displeases the senior leaders from Dahua Company and the county, then the life of the township cadres and village party secretaries will definitely not be easy;
If the village party secretary has a hard time, then everyone else won’t have an easy time either...just wait and see!
As a result, the nearly 200 villagers who participated in the ceremony had no choice but to sit down, overcome their fear and stretch out their chopsticks.

This was actually a task that Tugou assigned to the village party secretary by taking advantage of the power of others.

Having been working in her job for a year and a half, she knows very well that fear comes from the unknown, and the most effective way to eliminate fear is to let people get close to it.

She has repeatedly confirmed with experts that, like hepatitis C, although HIV is scary, there is almost no proven effective route of infection except direct contact with body fluids and blood...and after the HIV virus leaves the human body, its activity is pitifully low. Even if you spit directly into the food, the chance of being infected is extremely small.

Therefore, there is this strange scene of nearly two hundred people gathering together for a banquet in fear.

Tsk tsk, I have to say, the taste of power is really fascinating. No wonder so many people are trying their best to become officials.

Thinking of this, Tugou looked at his deskmate, the deputy director of the Wucheng County Agriculture Bureau and a leader of the Commerce Bureau, with some emotion, and finally shifted his gaze to Yang Mo.

She knew very well that Yang Mo was going to the grassroots level for inspection this time and did not invite county cadres to come along. The other party took the initiative to come and accompany him after learning the news... The intention behind this was obvious.

Although cadres of central enterprises generally only have real power within the enterprises, cadres like Yang Mo, who can mobilize huge amounts of funds and start in-depth cooperation with the competent authorities of Dezhou and Lanling, have obviously gained another kind of invisible power in the two places in the form of "government-enterprise cross-border cooperation".

Oh, as a section-level cadre in a central enterprise, he possesses influence and indirect authority in the local area that is not inferior to that of a department-level leader. I guess there are not many people like him in the entire Dezhou area, right?

Thinking of this, Tugou glanced at the table of Hui Muslim dishes that were prepared separately: "By the way, Chief Yang, Lao Yan called me yesterday and said that he has promised Xiaoshui Village to bear the initial conditioning costs and follow-up treatment costs of the hepatitis C patients in the village, and absorb these hepatitis C patients into the project, responsible for some work that does not directly contact food and is not very labor-intensive... I think this idea is very good, what do you think?"

Yang Mo glanced at the girl with amusement: "Just tell me what you think!"

Being responsible for the follow-up treatment of dozens of hepatitis C patients may be a considerable burden for an ordinary company. Even for a well-known local company like Xialiu Distribution Agency that is "strong on the outside but strong on the inside", it is a considerable pressure.

But don't forget that there is a drilling company behind Xialiu Sales Agency.

Even if we ignore the different actual situations of the drilling company, it is a state-owned enterprise after all.

State-owned enterprises are typical small closed-loop ecosystems. In addition to having their own employee hospitals, all the medicines and equipment they need are also supplied through internal channels.

In other words, if they purchase imported drugs that are extremely expensive in the market internally, the actual cost will be only 30% to 40% of the market price at most.

This step alone can save a lot of money.

Otherwise, why do you think that in this economically sluggish era, there are still a large number of central enterprises and large state-owned enterprises that can provide low-cost or even free treatment to all employees?
Even if there is a budget for medical and health spending, if it weren't for the low cost of centralized/internal procurement of drugs and equipment, do you think they really have too much money and nowhere to spend it?
But it was obvious that such an expenditure with an actual cost of only 30,000 to 50,000 yuan was not necessary for Tugou to inform Yang Mo specifically, let alone say it in front of a table of Wucheng County leaders and township cadres.

Seeing Yang Mo not shying away from the topic, Tugou grinned, "Chief Yang, there are so many people selling blood in Wucheng. This year, there are quite a few Hepatitis C and HIV patients. In addition, the people have all kinds of chronic diseases... After the country abolished barefoot doctors in 85, the medical pressure in the villages suddenly increased."

At this point, Tugou rolled his eyes, glanced at the smiling leaders at the table, and lowered his voice: "Chief Yang, we have invested in a Chinese medicinal material planting base, and Wucheng County has many pharmaceutical companies of all sizes in addition to fiberglass companies;"

"So, I have an idea... Why don't we take the prevention and treatment of hepatitis C and hepatitis B and common chronic diseases in rural areas as an opportunity to integrate our medical and pharmaceutical resources, agricultural and human resources with those of the city and county, and establish a grassroots medical chain project in each village, so as to benefit the sick and needy people and revitalize a series of related units in the city and county?"

Primary medical chain project?

Integrate the medical and pharmaceutical resources, agriculture and human resources of cities and counties?
Hearing this, the eyes of the people at the table suddenly lit up. If Yang Mo hadn't been there, they would have almost been unable to resist asking the girl questions...

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PS: I felt weak all over and my nose was running non-stop. I was wondering if it was clear nasal discharge or cerebrospinal fluid.

I won’t say any more and will go back to the hospital.

(End of this chapter)