The kang (heated brick bed) for left-behind women

Lin Dachun looked around; it was quiet and deserted.

He hesitated for a moment.

Wu Yihua was about the same age as him, and she was indeed in pain at that moment.

"Sit still. I'll treat your illness," Lin Dachun said, sitting down behind Wu Yihua.

"I learned a little massage in my younger days. I can press some acupoints for you, which might relieve some of the pain. If it hurts too much, I'll go a little lighter," Lin Dachun said calmly, with the composure of a doctor.

Lin Dachun immediately took action, starting with light pressure.

Wu Yihua was in excruciating pain and couldn't care less about anything else. Besides, she trusted Lin Dachun to some extent, so she nodded and said, "Thank you, Brother Dachun... If the pain becomes unbearable, I will scream."

Lin Dachun's technique was steady and his strength even, with a rough texture formed by years of hard work, yet strangely it possessed a reassuring power.

The warmth from your fingertips penetrates your skin.

"Does it hurt here?" Lin Dachun asked as he pressed on a spot.

"Hmm... right here, it's cramping and hurts," Wu Yihua said, inhaling deeply.

Lin Dachun massaged that area for a while longer, using a combination of pressing and slight vibration.

Gradually, Wu Yihua's furrowed brows relaxed a bit, and her previously stiff back muscles also relaxed.

The intense cramping pain seemed to gradually dissipate with the steady and powerful massage, replaced by a warm, relaxing comfort.

"I feel much better..." After a while, Wu Yihua let out a long sigh of relief, and her complexion regained some color. "Brother Dachun, your method really works... It feels like that knot of energy has been pushed out."

Seeing that she was getting better, Lin Dachun stopped and stepped back.

"This is a slow job, it requires perseverance and you can't slack off. You still need to pay attention to keeping warm and make some ginger soup when you get back."

Wu Yihua thanked them repeatedly, and felt much more energetic after the lump subsided.

Wu Yihua blushed, feeling extremely embarrassed.

"Okay, thank you, Brother Da Chun."

"Why are you so hot?" Lin Dachun teased.

"Of course it's scalding hot! How annoying." Wu Yihua stood up, then turned around, as if to say something, but hesitated, and finally said, "I see you're happy to help me, I'm leaving."

Wu Yihua wanted to leave, but her steps were very slow.

She hoped that Lin Dachun would run up and chase after her.

At this moment, she saw other village women passing by and greeting them, so she had no choice but to pick up her hoe and leave.

Lin Dachun looked at his hands. It wasn't that he was particularly gentlemanly; after all, he was a man, and no man could withstand such a massage.

At that moment, a slight commotion among the sheep caught his attention.

A ram with an abnormally large body was seen excitedly chasing a well-proportioned ewe.

After a few rounds, it put its front hooves on the ewe's back.

Just then, hurried footsteps and a village woman's angry shouts came from the hillside path: "Brother Dachun, quick, quick, help me pull them apart!"

Lin Dachun looked in the direction of the sound and saw a village woman in her forties with a dark red face. She was Aunt Liu, a major sheep farmer in the village.

She came running over, panting, picking up a whip, pointing at the two sheep with a worried expression.

Lin Dachun stood up, somewhat puzzled: "Sister Liu, what's wrong?"

"Quick! Quickly pull that ram away from your house!" Aunt Liu rushed over, not even bothering to wipe her sweat, stamping her feet anxiously, "We can't let it mate! This ram isn't the right breed!"

"Wrong breed?" Lin Dachun frowned slightly as he looked at the abnormally sized ram.

Seeing Lin Dachun hesitate, Aunt Liu became even more anxious. She lowered her voice but spoke rapidly: "Brother Dachun, you don't know! My ram has a congenital disease and a bad temper. Of its offspring, five or six out of ten are either lame or weak and prone to illness! Old Yang's sheep have been getting worse and worse these past two years, and it's all because of this bad breed! You didn't check carefully when you bought the sheep, did you?"

"Oh, I see. I've really learned something. Well, I'll have to remember this: I can't breed with this kind of animal," Lin Dachun explained.

Without further hesitation, Lin Dachun strode into the flock of sheep.

The ram was in high spirits when it was startled by Lin Dachun's sudden approach and reluctantly bleated.

Lin Dachun reacted quickly, grabbing the ram by its horns and pulling it off the ewe's back. He then led it away from the flock and tied it to a small tree.

The ram stamped its hooves in dissatisfaction.

The little ewe was startled and ran a few steps away, looking around in shock.

Aunt Liu finally breathed a sigh of relief, patting her chest, "Thank you, Da Chun! Otherwise, all my efforts in raising these lambs would have been for nothing!"

She approached and examined the tethered ram closely, shaking her head and sighing, "This lamb looks spirited now, but that 'one-horned monster' breed—its evil nature will show later. Brother Dachun, this ram is only good for meat when it grows up; we can't keep it as a breeding ram!"

"Luckily, my lambs aren't like that, are they?" Lin Dachun asked.

"Your sheep are of good breed. They've grown up to be fat and produce a lot of wool. They're good sheep. You must have spent a lot of money on them, right?" Aunt Liu joked.

"Yes, the boss said it's the best breed of sheep. I thought, if I'm going to raise sheep, I should raise the best ones. I have a lot of ewes, and I want to keep them to produce lambs," Lin Dachun said.

"That's a good idea! These sheep were bought haphazardly by my clueless old man. He was greedy for cheap things, so he got nothing good," Aunt Liu said with a smile.

Aunt Liu also let the sheep graze here, and then sat down next to Lin Dachun.