Sent to the countryside, I turned the health center into a top-tier hospital.

After hearing this, Li Fang slammed her chopsticks on the table, her eyes reddening, her voice filled with barely suppressed anger, "That Liu Erzhu! His mother fed the child raw eggs, making him sick, and he refused to listen to the doctor and insisted on taking him away!"

"Now look what's happened! The child's gone! The wife's gone too! How can he and his mother still have the nerve to live? They deserve to die..."

Zhou Jie lowered her head beside her, and Sun Xiaoyan took a sip of soup and put it down. No one spoke at the table for a moment.

Liu Wei sighed and shook his head. Zhao Guosheng picked up the teacup, intending to take a sip of tea, but then put it down again.

Wang Jianguo took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, which were already red.

Anyone would find it hard to bear hearing such a thing.

Is this even human?

The son didn't act like a son, and the mother didn't act like a mother.

They dragged the child to his death and drove his wife to her death. To compare this mother and son to animals is to defile the word "animal."

Chen Ping seemed oblivious to Li Fang's curses. He shoveled the last bite of rice into his mouth, put down his bowl, stood up, and without saying goodbye to anyone, turned and walked out of the cafeteria.

He walked across the courtyard to the stone table under the poplar tree, sat down, took out a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, took a deep drag, and the smoke slowly dissipated in the afternoon sunlight.

Seeing this, Cui Ying put down her bowl and chopsticks, got up and followed her out.

Seeing Chen Ping sitting at the stone table, filled with resentment, she slowly walked over and gently sat down next to him. She didn't say anything, just sat there.

The wind blew from the other side of the mountain valley, rustling the poplar leaves and casting swaying shadows on the ground.

Chen Ping took another drag of his cigarette, and the smoke slowly drifted out of his nostrils, forming a pale blue cloud in the afternoon light.

He glanced at Cui Ying, his voice filled with regret, "If I had been more assertive and not let him take the child away, perhaps..."

Cui Ying interrupted him, "You can't stop him. That's someone else's child. They have guardianship rights. The police have said he has the right to take him away. Can you, a doctor, just tie someone up at the health center?"

Chen Ping brought the cigarette to his lips and took another puff. The ash fell onto the stone tabletop, spreading out in a small patch of grayish-white.

He gazed at the distant mountain ridgeline and sighed softly. "That child was so young... He was lying on my clinic bed just two days ago. I gave him an injection and an IV, and his temperature had started to drop. He could have survived..."

As he spoke, his voice lowered, and the rest of his words seemed to be blocked by something and swallowed back.

Cui Ying reached out and gently pressed her hand against the one holding the cigarette, her fingertips brushing against the back of his hand, warm and soft. "You did your best, everyone knows you did your best."

"Everyone present that day can testify that you explained the precautions to his mother several times, wrote down the prescription, and wrote down the precautions for the referral."

"You're a doctor at the health center, you've done everything you could. You can't take all the blame for other people's mistakes on yourself."

Chen Ping didn't speak, but the fingers gripping the cigarette loosened slightly.

He stubbed out his cigarette and placed it on the stone table, crossed his hands on his knees, and looked down at the broken leaves rolling around in the wind on the ground. He stared for a long time, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down, but he didn't say anything.

Cui Ying did not withdraw her hand; she simply placed it on the back of his hand.

The two sat under the poplar tree, neither of them speaking. Silence spoke volumes, and Cui Ying believed that Chen Ping would come out of this.

"Oh my, the young couple are holding hands. Stop being so lovey-dovey, it's time to go to work."

Li Fang suddenly appeared at the corner of the backyard at some unknown time, smiling with a playful expression.

Cui Ying blushed, quickly withdrew her hand, and got up to walk towards the front yard.

Li Fang leaned closer to Cui Ying and whispered something. Chen Ping couldn't hear it, but he could see that Cui Ying's face was getting redder and redder.

Chen Ping didn't return to the consultation room immediately. Instead, he took out another cigarette and took a deep drag.

Chen Ping stubbed out his cigarette after finishing it and then walked toward the examination room.

Before Chen Ping even reached the consultation room, Zhao Guosheng poked his head out of his office and called out to Chen Ping, "Dr. Chen, could you come here for a moment..."

Chen Ping was taken aback, then turned and walked towards his office.

Upon entering the office, Chen Ping asked with some surprise, "Dean, what's wrong?"

"Secretary Zhang just called and asked me to go to the township government. It seems to be for some kind of free clinic, but I didn't quite catch it. Why don't you go? You know Secretary Zhang well."

Zhao Guosheng held up his teacup, blew on it gently, and said.

"Okay, I'll be right there!" Chen Ping nodded.

After leaving his office, Chen Ping walked out of the health center and headed towards the township government along the street.

The afternoon sun had already begun to set in the west, casting a warm yellow glow on the poplar leaves lining both sides of the street.

There weren't many people on the street. The tofu stall had closed, and the old man selling vegetables was squatting by the roadside, loading leftover vegetables onto his tricycle. Zhang Jie, the barber, was dozing off at the door, her head nodding.

When we arrived at the township government compound, the iron gate was half open. Most of the leaves of the old locust tree in the yard had fallen, with only a few yellow leaves hanging on the branches, rustling in the wind.

Chen Ping went up to the second floor. Zhang Jianmin's office door was open, and he was sitting behind his desk flipping through a document.

A woman in her fifties was sitting next to me, wearing a dark gray coat and with her hair neatly tied up. On the table in front of her was a thermos and a folder with the words "Provincial Hospital" printed on it.

When Zhang Jianmin saw Chen Ping enter, he put down the documents in his hand, stood up, and introduced him to the woman: "Dean Sun, this is Dr. Chen Ping from Siping Township Health Center, the one I mentioned to you before. His medical skills are renowned throughout our county."

He then turned to Chen Ping and said, "Dr. Chen, this is Director Sun from the Third People's Hospital of the province. He came to our Siping Township specifically to coordinate the free clinic."

Chen Ping stepped forward and extended his hand, and the other person stood up and shook hands with him.

His palms were dry and strong, his nails were cut very short, and his handshake was neither too light nor too heavy, exuding a sense of propriety that only someone who has been in management for many years could possess.

"Dr. Chen, it's an honor to meet you. Secretary Zhang has mentioned you to me several times, saying that you are a top student who completed both your undergraduate and master's degrees in medical school, and that you have achieved results in a township health center that even large hospitals cannot."

Chen Ping smiled and said, "Dean Sun, you flatter me. I'm just an ordinary doctor; treating patients and saving lives is my duty."

He sat down on the chair next to him, and Zhang Jianmin poured a cup of tea for each of them before sitting back down behind his desk.

Zhang Jianmin recounted the whole story.

There is a policy in the province to help people with basic medical care. The Third People's Hospital of the province sent several experts to conduct mobile clinics, mainly for people over sixty years old, providing free medical treatment and free basic examinations.

The Siping Township stop requires a local health center to provide the venue. The township will cover the experts' meals and accommodation. The health center only needs to vacate a few consultation rooms. It does not need to contribute money or personnel. The experts can bring their own equipment.