Chapter 120

Chapter 120

When Ye Qing arrived at the agreed location, Li Yong was already waiting for her, just as she expected.

After noticing something strange about the old man at the scrap collection station, she followed him from a distance.

The old man rode the scrap station's tricycle through various streets and alleys, collecting accumulated waste from households. He didn’t move very fast and didn’t shout to attract attention. However, due to his dirty appearance and the frequency with which he appeared in the neighborhood, everyone knew what he did.

As soon as he showed up, someone would call out to him to wait. Each household would then bring out their saved-up scrap.

The old man would silently stop and wait, weigh each type of scrap, calculate its value, and carefully take out a roll of loose change wrapped in a black handkerchief. He would pay the residents for their scrap, record the type and weight of the waste and the amount settled in a notebook, and have the other party sign to confirm the payment was made before riding off to the next alley.

Fearing that the old man might notice her, Ye Qing didn’t follow too closely. After he left, she approached a woman who had just sold some scrap to inquire about the recent prices of various scrap materials. She also asked if the woman in charge of the scrap station was easy to deal with. Finally, she tactfully asked about the background of the old man who collected scrap around the neighborhood.

"Old Fool? That poor fellow is really unlucky. He has a bedridden seventy or eighty-year-old mother, a mute wife, and a son with a mental disability."

"That old man has no real ability and has to support three burdens, so he can only be treated like a beast."

"In the early years of the public-private partnership movement, he went to various factories to carry packages and do manual labor. Everyone thought he was like a donkey, only knowing how to work hard mindlessly, so they nicknamed him Old Fool."

"But later, when all the units became state-owned, the jobs in the factory were fixed, and he couldn’t get a position. The manual labor jobs naturally disappeared. Being older, he became a temporary worker at the scrap station, dealing with dirty waste every day, just to make a living."

"His son? He should be in his twenties or thirties now. When he was a child, you could often see him wandering the streets, causing trouble. When he grew up, it was said that he would hug any girl he saw on the street. Scared his son might get arrested for grabbing girls on the street, Old Fool locked him up at home and didn’t let him out."

The chatty woman, after Ye Qing offered her some peanuts, immediately became as friendly as a relative, chatting away and sharing everything she knew about Old Fool.

Ye Qing spent almost half an hour chatting idly with her before ending the conversation amidst the woman’s reluctance to stop talking. When she arrived at the agreed pickup location, she was about ten minutes late.

Fortunately, Li Yong was still there and didn’t ask why Ye Qing was late. As soon as she climbed onto the tractor, he immediately started it up and drove towards Kaoshan Village.

On the way back, Ye Qing asked Li Yong if he had any connections at the county revolutionary committee.

Li Yong's grip on the steering wheel trembled when she asked that.

He had been involved in black market dealings with Nie Wei, and now he was secretly farming and raising livestock deep in the mountains. Either of these activities, if discovered, would lead to serious consequences.

Feeling nervous and guilty, Li Yong was afraid of giving himself away and avoided the revolutionary committee. He certainly wouldn’t seek to interact with anyone there.

Li Yong was somewhat embarrassed: "Ye Qing, why do you ask? Did something happen? Should I ask Nie Wei?"

Ye Qing was just asking casually. She only had suspicions and lacked evidence or certainty. If she made a mistake and wrongfully accused someone, she could do more harm than good.

Moreover, the old man’s family was clearly composed of the elderly, weak, and women who couldn’t withstand any trouble. If something went wrong because of her, and a life was lost, she would live with guilt for the rest of her life.

Considering this, Ye Qing became conflicted. Looking at Li Yong, whose expression was somewhat unnatural, she shook her head and declined his suggestion:

"Never mind, it’s not an important matter. I’ll look into it some more."

In any case, this trip to the county was worth it. She had something to report to two patients and brought back a good haul of books in a burlap sack. Despite her lingering suspicions, Ye Qing was still pretty happy.

When she returned home, Ye Qing couldn’t wait to take all the books out of the burlap sack.

She found eleven books on basic TCM published after liberation, all printed in the 1950s and early 1960s. Some looked like textbooks used by universities in earlier years. After flipping through them, Ye Qing thought they would be very helpful for laying a foundation for her apprentices, so she selected them all.

The rest were thread-bound books wrapped in newspaper.

Tearing off the newspaper revealed the yellowed pages inside. Ye Qing involuntarily held her breath.

"Golden Cabinet and Jade Case Classic," "Annotated Treatise on Cold Damage," "Medical Research Joy," "Secret Book of Seed Elixir"—all were ancient hand-copied TCM books. Among them, the "Medical Research Joy" series consisted of six volumes, including "Book on Heatstroke," "Origins of Pulse Theory," "Complete Book on Offspring," "Essentials of Disease Mechanism," "Complete Book on Treating Cold Damage," and "Experimental Prescriptions for Miscellaneous Diseases." She managed to snag all six volumes in one trip.

Moreover, these books were remarkably well-preserved, with clear handwriting and no missing or smudged pages. There were only a very few cases of mold on the edges of the pages, but those were negligible.

After years of studying medicine and mastering the art of flying needles under an old master, Ye Qing understood the value of these rare ancient medical books all too well. Although she couldn't determine the exact period of these editions, after a brief review, she could basically judge them to be authentic copies from the Ming and Qing dynasties.

These rare medical books were not only of significant collectible value but also held immense reference value for modern research in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

As she flipped through the hand-copied books, Ye Qing noticed dense annotations, likely added by the previous owner. She couldn't help but wonder who the previous owner, a respected TCM doctor, might have been, and what circumstances led to these valuable books gathering dust in a junkyard, and even risking being destroyed.

As she read the annotations, which included detailed explanations and supplementary case studies, any chapter felt like a wealth of new experiences and viewpoints, providing enlightenment and great benefit.

The more she read, the more she was amazed and cherished them, to the point that she didn’t hear Meng Jia calling her several times from outside.

"Master, it's time to eat! Don't be busy anymore, or the food will get cold!"

Meng Jia finally came in to get her, unable to wait any longer. Only then did Ye Qing snap out of her trance and carefully put away those hand-copied medical books.

While eating, Ye Qing pondered over the matter of those ancient books.

She didn't know where the owner of these books was now, but she had the analytical ability of a normal person.

These rare books were invaluable, and Ye Qing knew that a TCM doctor who possessed such ancient medical books would be well aware of their worth. Moreover, the annotations on these books were meticulous and serious, reflecting the immense effort the old gentleman had poured into them. However, the fact that these books were sold by weight to a junkyard suggested that the old master might be in a dire situation.

Ye Qing made a decision in her heart that she would carefully preserve these rare books and try her best to find clues related to the original owner within them. If she could locate the master, once policies became more open and the political situation stabilized, she would return these books without any changes.

For now, to prevent these rare books from being damaged due to frequent reading, Ye Qing decided to have her apprentices copy them. Once the copies were transcribed and bound, they would use them as daily study materials, while the originals would be sealed in a box after transcription to prevent possible mold or rat damage.

Transcribing was not an easy task, especially for medical books with detailed annotations. Every word had to be copied without omission or error, as even a single word's mistake could change the meaning, especially in pathology, where such errors could be a matter of life and death. It was absolutely not something to be taken lightly.

Therefore, the four apprentices not only had to transcribe the books but also proofread them, working together in shifts. The daily morning lessons Ye Qing had previously arranged were now replaced with copying books. As they transcribed, Ye Qing would explain the content to them and occasionally supplement it with real-life cases to ensure the apprentices fully understood the meaning of the books and could quickly master the knowledge.

After a few days, people from the Liu family came to fetch Ye Qing and her four apprentices to the county hospital to perform the second surgery on Old Master Liu. Upon arrival, Old Master Liu had already been admitted to a special care ward, and all pre-surgery preparations were complete. Without any hesitation, Ye Qing prepared to enter the operating room.

This surgery was different from the last one.

During the first surgery, Ye Qing faced widespread skepticism, with many expecting her to fail spectacularly.

However, Ye Qing's skills proved them wrong, and the successful surgery caused quite a stir in Jiaotan County.

As a result, when news spread that Ye Qing would be performing the second surgery on Old Master Liu, within just a few days, the Jiaotan County Hospital saw the arrival of seven or eight groups of people. These were elite surgical professionals selected from various county hospitals and even surrounding provinces to observe and learn.

Most of these people were experienced attending physicians in their thirties and forties. However, after knowing their backgrounds, Ye Qing did not show any fear. Instead, she directly selected two of them to assist her and had her four apprentices also put on sterile clothing to enter the operating room, exposing them to the intense pressure of such a major surgery up close.

The result was, of course, that Ye Qing's technique was swift and precise. She successfully removed six shrapnel fragments from the elderly patient. In contrast, the four apprentices came out of the operating room with pale faces and shaky legs, drenched in cold sweat from nervous tension.

After the surgery, at the hospital's request, Ye Qing conducted a post-surgery seminar for the elite surgeons. She thoroughly analyzed and discussed the difficulties encountered during her two surgeries, sharing her technical experiences and lessons. Even when faced with various tricky questions from the surgeons, she remained composed and handled them with ease, continuing until all the surgeons were satisfied and had no more questions.

Thanks to those two surgeries, Ye Qing quickly gained fame in the medical circles of Jiaotan County and Wusong City. Many jokingly referred to her as "Ye the Scalpel," and she gained the admiration of numerous surgeons.