The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 226: Licking the Calf (V) (Additional chapter for the reward to the leader of the Fortune Gu!)

Carrying a lot of bags, Hunter Qu got on the ox cart back home, feeling dizzy.

The coachman didn't dare to ask about Qu Jing, the hunter's condition.

My god, how could this person be so sick? He even bought white flour. Isn't this the standard for eating something good before dying? I dare not ask, I dare not ask.

Out of sympathy, the coachman gave Qu Jing the black flour bun that he was reluctant to eat, but Qu Jing refused to eat it and returned it.

The driver was even more sympathetic. He could not eat the black flour buns and could only eat white flour. He was afraid that he would not have many days left to live. No wonder Qu the Hunter was absent-minded and seemed to be out of his mind. He was afraid that if the journey was too slow, Qu Jing would not be able to make it back to the village. The driver gritted his teeth, worked hard with the oxen, and traveled day and night, shortening the journey by one day.

In fact, Qu Liehu was absent-minded because his mind was full of the prescription the young man told him.

Qu Liehu is not stupid, he is just uneducated and therefore seems to be ignorant. But he was also a conscripted soldier, and he has been out there and seen the world, so he knows that prescriptions are valuable, and some prescriptions can even be passed down from generation to generation as heirlooms.

The young man wrote him a prescription, but Qu Liehu could not read and did not plan to show the prescription to others. He planned to remember it himself, and then send Qu Jing to school, and leave the prescription to Qu Jing when Qu Jing could read, so that when he died, Qu Jing would have the capital to settle down.

So, one night when they were on the road, Qu the Hunter took out the leather to cover Qu Jing as usual and asked quietly: "Jingjing, I heard that there will be a school built in the village in the future. When the school is built, grandpa will send you to school, okay?"

"Okay." Qu Jing opened her eyes and said softly.
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After Qu Liehu and Qu Jing returned to the village, they heard good news from the village chief. It was decided that a school would be built, an elementary school, and several villages would jointly run one.

While Qu Jing and Qu Liehu were on their way, the village chief, with his eloquence and the advantage of having several abandoned adobe houses in the village that could be renovated and used as classrooms, fought against all the nearby villages and successfully took over the school.

The purpose of the village chief informing this good news was to encourage people to study and to set an example. All the children in the village chief's family, from Daya to Goudan, had to go to school. But now every household had little money and had to pay tuition. The village chief's family could afford it, but other families could not and were unwilling to pay. The village chief went to Qu Liehu to gather people and persuade him to send Qu Jing to school.

The two parties hit it off immediately, and Qu Jing was happily admitted to the new semester.

In the days that followed, everything was fast-forwarded.

Qin Huai was like watching a movie full of trivialities. Qu Liehu did not tell anyone about the pastry shop, but only said that the hospital gave away two taels of soybeans for free. Many people in the village were very tempted when they heard about such a good thing, but in the end, because the journey was long and the fare was too expensive, they gave up going to the provincial capital hospital to pick soybeans.

The school matter was settled, and a new teacher came to the village. It was said that he was a private school teacher in the county who was so poor that he was almost starving to death.

Qu Jing was happy to have a new student enrolled, and all the children started from the first grade. Qu the hunter went hunting regularly in the mountains as before, bartering with the villagers, and secretly practiced making rice cakes after returning from hunting.

Qu the Hunter was reluctant to use the 10 kilograms of sugar given by the young man on the unpalatable rice cakes he made, so he asked the village chief's wife to make steamed buns and pancakes with white flour, and let Qu Jing eat the white flour steamed buns dipped in sugar.

This way of eating was seen by the village chief once. He felt sorry for the situation and said that even rich people don’t eat like this. The landlord who had just been defeated just simply ate a few bites of white flour buns.

Then she cried and shouted and took away half a steamed bun.

In the first year that Qu Jing and Qu Liehu spent together, Qu Liehu used the last bit of glutinous rice to make a pot of rice cake soup, and the grandfather and grandson spent the New Year drinking the rice cake soup.

The following time was like a heartwarming movie.

Qu Jing went to school, while Qu the Hunter went hunting. The village chief would inform the villagers of changes outside from time to time, such as the supply and marketing cooperative in the town, which made it easier to buy oil, salt, and cloth, the clinic in the town, and the cheapest way to see a doctor, and Qu the Hunter no longer had to barter his prey with the villagers, as there was a special place in the town to collect it.

One year, two years, three years, four years.

Qu Jing studied until the fourth grade of primary school and could understand the prescriptions that the young people wrote to Qu Liehu at that time.

Qu the Hunter had become older, with most of his hair white, even his temples were a little gray. He went hunting less and less often, and basically couldn't catch any large prey, so he could only make traps to catch small animals. Occasionally, if he was lucky, a large animal like a deer would fall into his trap, and he could sell it for a lot of money.

Hunter Qu saved a lot of money to use for Qu Jing's medical treatment.

The most famous news in the village in recent years was not that the village chief's daughter, Daya, gave birth to triplets after getting married and shocked the whole area, nor that a fool from the village next door to the village where the village chief's wife came from fell into the river but did not drown, but instead a big fish weighing more than 30 kilograms was caught, but Qu Jing.

With her excellent academic performance, Qu Jing broke the rumor that she was a fool. At the same time, her appearance remained unchanged for 4 years, which finally made the village chief understand why a good girl was thrown into the mountains by her family. This child will never grow up!

Qin Huai knew why Qu Jing had not changed in the past four years, because Qu Jing had not failed in his tribulation.

A spirit will not lose its power before it fails to survive the catastrophe, nor will it age. This is why very few spirits choose to transform into children. It is normal for an adult, especially one in their 20s, to have no changes in appearance over a decade, and they can be said to look young and well-maintained.

But for a kid, let alone more than ten years, even if there is no change in two or three years, people will be able to see the clues. It's like the words "I am a monster" are engraved on my body.

Qu Jing was lucky. The villagers didn't think she was a monster. They just thought she had a strange disease.

Qu Liehu also thought so.

Since the second year when he found that Qu Jing didn't seem to grow up, Qu the hunter took Qu Jing to the town's clinic, which prescribed one or two ounces of soybeans.

In the third year, Qu Liehu took Qu Jing to the provincial capital hospital again. The doctor was helpless in the face of this extremely difficult and complicated disease, so he could only make an exception and prescribe 3 liang of soybeans for Qu Liehu.

The doctor in the provincial capital recommended Qu Liehu to take Qu Jing to the hospital in Beijing, saying that there were the best doctors in the country there, and if the hospital in Beijing couldn't cure her, there would be no cure. However, the journey to Beijing was long, and it would take a train, and the cost was also very high, so the doctor asked Qu Liehu to save more money.

After hearing this, Qu the Hunter wanted to go up the mountain to hunt brown bears, but when he encountered a wild boar, he almost broke his leg while running away. Qu the Hunter lamented that he was no longer the old hunter who could bravely fight tigers, and changed his job to digging traps and catching small animals to save money.

Seeing that Qu Jing showed no signs of growing up, Qu the hunter became so anxious that his mouth was covered with blisters. He had already begun to consider whether to sell all the tiger skins, fox skins, and tiger bones that he had treasured at home. He decided to take Qu Jing to Beijing for medical treatment before winter came at the end of the year.

Qu Liehu clearly felt that he was getting old.

He found that he had lost his memory since the beginning of the year. He would forget the location of the traps he set and the amount of money he paid for the prey he sold. Sometimes, he would just reach the foot of the mountain and he would not remember why he went up the mountain that day.

Qu Liehu felt that he was getting a little senile.

But he didn't tell Qu Jing, he just silently digested this forgetfulness.

Qin Huai saw all of his forgetfulness.

Qin Huai sighed. He felt as if he had seen the ending of this heartwarming movie.

One morning, Hunter Qu got up early as usual to make breakfast, and cooked two eggs for Qu Jing to take away.

"Grandpa, why did you cook two eggs today?" Qu Jing stuffed one of the eggs to Qu Liehu, "The doctor said that my illness can't be cured by nutritional supplements alone, so you should eat eggs too."

Qu Liehu smiled and said, "It's Teacher Wang's birthday today. Jingjing, take this egg to Teacher Wang."

Qu Jing was stunned: "Teacher Wang broke his leg last year and went back to town and hasn't been back since. Grandpa, did you remember it wrong? Teacher Li's birthday is not today."

Qu Liehu's smile froze, and he was stunned for a long time, as if he was trying hard to recall but was powerless. He could only smile to cover it up: "Oh, yes, Grandpa remembered it wrongly, and wrote Teacher Wang's birthday as Teacher Li's."

"I'm old and confused."

Qu Jing looked at Qu Liehu quietly: "Grandpa, are you okay?"

"I've noticed that you've been forgetting things very easily since the beginning of the year. Why don't we go to the hospital in the provincial capital?"

Qu Liehu waved his hand and said, "No, no, no, the memory is not good when you get older. Many people start to forget things when they are 47 or 48, but I started to forget things when I was over 50, it's normal."

Qu Jing was a little hesitant and looked at Qu Liehu uncertainly a few times. Seeing that he looked normal, she chose to believe him and went to school with her schoolbag on her back.

(End of this chapter)