Chapter 135

Chapter 135

Ye Qing wasn’t exaggerating when she said she needed to apply for more supplies from the authorities.

Recently, the health station had been experiencing a significant shortage of Chinese herbal medicines. Unless absolutely necessary, Ye Qing had been giving patients prescriptions but advising them not to fill them at the Kaoshan Village health station. Instead, they were told to get their medicines at their local commune or town health stations.

The influx of patients was overwhelming, and the Kaoshan Village health station, having been completed only at the end of last year, was severely lacking in medicinal reserves, especially Chinese herbal medicines. Most of the herbs in the pharmacy were ones Ye Qing had personally gathered and processed from the Changbai Mountains.

Initially, she thought that for a small village like Kaoshan, or even the entire Red Flag Commune, how many patients could there be each day? At most, she expected her health station to handle ten to twenty patients daily.

Before applying to set up the health station, Ye Qing thought her preparations were adequate and never imagined she would be troubled by a shortage of medicines due to too many patients.

However, worrying about the medicine supply was futile. Given how much attention she received from the higher-ups, the county health bureau had already allocated a significant portion of resources to Kaoshan Village. If she pressured the county again for more supplies, not only might they refuse, but other health stations would likely protest.

After all, the resources of the county health bureau were fixed. If more was allocated to Kaoshan Village, less would be available elsewhere. How could the other health stations remain silent about that?

So, Ye Qing had to solve the medicine shortage problem on her own.

Relying solely on her own efforts to collect medicines was inefficient, especially given the current high demand at Kaoshan Village. Her efforts alone would be like a drop in the bucket.

Moreover, if she took her apprentices into the mountains to collect medicines, the health station would have to close, delaying patients seeking treatment. This approach was clearly not reasonable.

Ye Qing was greatly troubled by this. She even considered a questionable idea: gathering all the children in Kaoshan Village to train them to identify medicinal plants, hoping to turn them into little plant experts.

Then, when spring arrived and plants began to grow rapidly, she could send the children into the mountains in groups to collect medicines for the health station.

However, even if it worked, sending groups of children into the mountains was too risky. What if they encountered wild animals? Who would be responsible?

With no better options and spring just around the corner, the village would soon be busy with farming. Apart from the children, who would have the time to wander into the mountains?

Just as Ye Qing was worrying about this, a solution seemed to fall into her lap. The box of medicines brought by Li Yong and the message he relayed from Guan Changzheng gave Ye Qing an idea. She realized that the solution to the medicine supply issue didn’t have to be confined to Kaoshan Village; there was another way.

The people at the forestry farm worked with trees, shrubs, and herbs daily. Even if they didn’t know the medicinal properties of certain plants, if she provided them with detailed illustrations and clear identifying features of the medicines, they would be able to match the illustrations to the real plants.

Even if there were occasional identification mistakes, Ye Qing could act as the "quality inspector," conducting the final checks. This would eliminate the most laborious part of collecting medicines, leaving her with only the drying and processing of the medicines, reducing her workload by sixty to seventy percent.

That very evening, after Li Yong had left with the two bags of fine grains, Ye Qing eagerly wrote an application to the higher-ups, explaining the medicine shortage issue at Kaoshan Village and the difficulty the forestry farm had in obtaining fine grains. She detailed her proposal for a cooperative agreement where the forestry farm would supply medicines to the health station, hoping the county health bureau would respond quickly.

The next day, Ye Qing asked Wu Yongbing to deliver the application to the commune. After reading the application, Lai Guochang immediately realized the urgency of the medicine shortage at Kaoshan Village health station and went to the county that same day to discuss solutions with the higher-ups.

Ye Qing didn’t have to wait long. Within three to five days, Lai Guochang returned with two officials from the county health bureau and the forestry farm’s leader to discuss the cooperation for procuring medicines.

When the forestry farm’s leader heard that Ye Qing had proposed the idea and that the health bureau would provide extra grain, he was thrilled and pledged to have his workers and their families assist Ye Qing’s medicine collection efforts in their spare time.

Ye Qing took the opportunity to mention Guan Changzheng to the forestry farm’s leader. Though she didn’t explicitly suggest that Guan should be in charge of the medicine procurement, the leader wasn’t foolish; he understood what Ye Qing meant by bringing up a lumberjack from the forestry farm.

After finalizing the cooperation agreement, Ye Qing left the remaining details to the forestry farm and the health bureau to work out. A few days later, Li Yong brought Guan Changzheng to her home, clearly pleased.

This was Ye Qing’s first time meeting Song Hongying’s husband.

He stood about 1.8 to 1.9 meters tall, very sturdy and robust, with a face that looked honest and down-to-earth. His eyes naturally carried a smile, making him seem even more approachable. He seemed like someone who wouldn’t scheme against others, a straightforward and trustworthy man.

For other tasks, Ye Qing wouldn’t have considered someone like Guan Changzheng for the job. A person without much cunning and too honest could easily be taken advantage of, potentially being sold out while still helping others count their money.

However, for medicine procurement, an honest and thick-headed person who was meticulous and serious was exactly what Ye Qing needed. She required someone who would screen and strictly check the medicines at each step. She couldn’t afford to have inferior or fake medicines in her pharmacy.

And Guan Changzheng was the perfect fit for Ye Qing’s vision of a medicine collector.

Guan Changzheng came to Kao Shan Tun this time mainly to introduce himself and establish connections with the locals, bringing Ye Qing the good news that he had successfully become the medicinal materials procurer for the forestry farm.

This time, he didn’t come empty-handed. He brought two rainbow trout, each weighing seven to eight kilograms. The trout looked fresh, their silvery bodies still glistening, and they appeared to have been caught quite recently.

At this time of year, the ice at Downriver Bend was beginning to thaw, but it was still impossible to fish. Moreover, Ye Qing had never seen rainbow trout in the surrounding waters before. She couldn’t figure out where Guan Changzheng had found such fresh fish in this area.

Seeing Ye Qing staring curiously at the trout, Guan Changzheng hurriedly explained:

“These fish are from Heavenly Lake. A few days ago, some lumberjacks from our forestry farm broke through the ice and caught them. The meat of these fish is a vibrant red, and their flesh is especially tender, fresh, and sweet. It’s better than any other fish we’ve eaten before. Only a few were caught, and I had to trade for these two, using a few pounds of the high-quality grain you gave me last time.”

Guan Changzheng felt a little embarrassed when he mentioned the trade, as when Ye Qing had given him the grain, she had specifically said it was for his wife’s pregnancy. He wondered if she would be angry upon hearing that he had used it to trade for fish.

But Ye Qing wasn’t upset by this.

When she heard the trout came from Heavenly Lake, she was stunned.

Heavenly Lake is covered in ice for nearly eight months of the year, so being able to eat fish from there was already a stroke of luck. Moreover, the fish were rainbow trout.

Rainbow trout require strict living conditions and can only survive in clean, clear freshwater areas, but their meat quality and taste are unparalleled, and their nutritional value is very high. They are one of the few freshwater fish species that can be used for sashimi.

However, Ye Qing had only just learned that such large rainbow trout could be found in Heavenly Lake!

This sparked a strong urge in her to visit the lake herself, thinking that when the weather got hot in August or September and the ice on Heavenly Lake melted, she would seize the opportunity to go fishing for rainbow trout.

After all, such unrestricted opportunities to fish freely in Heavenly Lake were rare. In another ten or twenty years, when Heavenly Lake was incorporated into a protected development zone, the part of Changbai Mountain located in their country would be governed by the state. Ordinary people would not be allowed to enter freely. By then, experiencing the pristine, untouched scenery of Heavenly Lake, rowing a boat on the water, and casting a fishing rod at will would be impossible.

Thinking about the vast, undeveloped state of Heavenly Lake, Ye Qing couldn’t help but feel an urge to act. She even thought about taking a pair of single-legged donkey ice skates and gliding across the vast, frozen surface of the lake. In such an uninhabited place, she could let go of all her defenses and indulge herself without any worries.

However, looking at the steady stream of dozens of patients coming to see her every day and the pile of trivial tasks awaiting her attention, Ye Qing couldn’t help but sigh deeply.

Spring was about to begin, and she still needed to find time to draw sketches of the medicinal materials she needed to procure. With the blueprints, the forestry farm could mobilize everyone to help her find the medicines. After all, not everyone knew what the medicinal materials looked like, and only by knowing exactly what they were could they correctly identify them.

No one else could handle these tasks, so she couldn’t just drop everything and go on an adventure.

Thinking about this, Ye Qing felt a little downcast and had to quietly suppress the impulse to go on an adventure that had just surged up within her.

However, her craving got the better of her, and in the end, she couldn’t refuse the culinary temptation of such fine rainbow trout. With some embarrassment, she accepted Guan Changzheng’s gift.