Chapter 424: Chapter 421: An Accident Occurred
On this day, the front yard was still busy with cotton harvesting, while the backyard was bustling with cotton seed processing. Groups of ragged farmers, with their wives and children, pushed high-stacked carts to queue in front of the Lin Family Manorâs Lin workshop.
Unlike adults, children have no patience and canât wait in line. At the age where they can make a new friend in five minutes, they canât possibly behave and stand next to the adults. They gather in small groups to play and laugh, while the parents are busy guarding their cotton and donât have much energy to manage them, allowing them to play freely.
Rural children, unlike city children, have fewer rules and arenât as precious, allowing for more free-range.
Recently, little Qingyu has found a large group to hang out with. Every day after school, she leads her animal gang proudly to the workshopâs edge, enticing visiting children to play with her.
Because they were inside the Lin Family Manor, surrounded by clansmen, Yun Shang and others didnât need to constantly watch over little Qingyu, leaving it mostly to her maid, Rongrong, to be by her side.
The cotton piled up like mountains in the warehouse was white and soft. In the eyes of the adults, this cotton equates to grain, silk, and copper coins, but in the eyes of children, itâs clouds from the sky and snow on the ground.
The children happily took off their shoes and jumped inside to play. The busy adults measuring and calculating money didnât have the time to mind them, at most yelling for them to leave when they got too close, complaining they might dirty the pristine cotton.
Lin Wanwan usually wouldnât stay in the Great Tang during this time. She might borrow the name of a lunch break, lock the door, and hide in her room to return to modern times, sitting at her computer desk and learning dyeing and weaving through videos.
She must learn quickly and teach the eager women of Lin Family Manor.
No one could foresee the tragedy before it happened.
Zhang Sanwangâs family lived in a mountain valley as impoverished farmers. In the spring, they received cotton seedlings credited from the County Government due to their poverty.
After months of meticulous farming and learning, they finally harvested in this autumn.
Before the hurricane, villages that had grown cotton from credited seedlings received emergency harvest notices from the County Government.
Regarding a County Magistrate who sent people to teach farmers how to farm, everyone held him as a deity. Thus, when Magistrate Xiao warned of an impending hurricane and stressed the need for an emergency harvest, everyone immediately took action, allowing them to escape the disaster with cotton unscathed.
Today, Zhang Sanwangâs family, filled with excitement, pushed carts packed with large bags of cotton, rushing alongside neighbors across mountains and valleys for two hours to arrive at the Lin workshop to sell their cotton.
Before exchanging them for silk and copper coins, getting a good price for cotton remained the foremost concern weighing on the minds of the farmers.
Only when it was their turn in line and they successfully sold their dried cotton at full price in silk and copper coins (in the Great Tang, silk was as important a currency as copper coins, being even more valued in some places because copper coins were often devalued due to noble private casting), could they finally relax their minds.
Before arriving, Zhang Sanwang witnessed a neighborâs cotton being returned unsold because the buyer found the cotton not dry enough.
The journey from their village to Lin Family Manor, pushing carts over mountain paths, required nearly two hours and was not easy.
Dragging the cart over early in the morning only to have it returned untouched is a demoralizing experience.
However, everyone hesitated to dry the cotton too thoroughly, as each drop of lost moisture lightened the weight, and cotton pricing was based on weight!
Even though the farmers hadnât been educated or literate, this simple wisdom was universally understood.
Thus, everyone selling cotton was nervous, fearing they might also have their cotton returned, making the trip a complete waste.
How delighted Zhang Sanwangâs family was to manage selling their cotton successfully on the first trip today can easily be imagined.
As they cheerfully packed up their silk, calling for their children to gather and prepare to return home, they were shocked to find one child missing!
The Lin family clan members who received the news came over. Under Lin Mengboâs direction, they began searching separately. With many hands, they eventually uncovered the missing child amidst the cotton heap.
At this moment, the childâs lips had turned black, unconscious and unresponsive, seemingly beyond saving.
Lin Mengbo promptly sent people to Lin Wanwanâs house, asking for herâknown as the Divine Doctor in ten miles aroundâto come and save the child.
Saving lives is like fighting a fire; thereâs not a moment to lose.
Upon receiving the news, Hong Yan immediately turned and ascended the stairs, knocking on Lin Wanwanâs door for help. After some time, the door suddenly opened.
Lin Wanwan appeared at the door with disheveled hair, asking Hong Yan what happened to cause such urgent knocking.
"My lady, itâs dire; a child has fallen into a cotton heap at the workshop and seems to be dying! Please come to save him!" Hong Yan quickly conveyed the main point.
Lin Wanwan was startled upon hearing, and immediately went back inside to grab her medicine chest, saying, "Letâs go, to the workshop!"
Yet the accident happened so suddenly, and even with her golden finger, Lin Wan couldnât bring the child back.
She genuinely tried her best, but the child had been obstructed by cotton for too long, causing severe cerebral hypoxia. Even if sent to a modern ER, the rescue might not succeed, it wasnât that she acted too slowly.
Concerning this, Lin Wanwan had a clear judgment in her increasingly proficient medical practice.
When Hong Yan knocked, Lin Wanwan was watching educational videos in modern times and suddenly sensed someone in the Great Tang was calling her. She hurriedly opened the Space-Time Gate to check, and indeed heard urgent knocking from outside the door.
From sensing the call and returning to the Great Tang to running to the workshop to save the child, little time was wasted in between.
This was the first time Lin Wanwan had a sixth sense towards another space-time, highly accurate. Perhaps because she frequently transported rare animals, the Space-Time Gate underwent a subtle evolution.
Unfortunately, she couldnât save this poor child.
Actually, during modern cotton harvesting periods, children suffocating from neglected cotton blocking the airway happens annually.
After all, Lin Wanwan wasnât truly a rural person; she moved to suburban villas with her relocated grandparents at a young age, so she wasnât aware of these matters and hadnât done preventative work.
The deceased child was Zhang Sanwangâs only son, and their grief is imaginable. Adults blamed each other and finally collapsed outside the workshop, crying aloud.
The Great Tangâs commoners didnât have the consciousness to protect rights, never thinking of demanding compensation from the Lin workshop, but unable to accept losing a perfect son just like that, they wept bitterly, remorseful and self-blaming on the open ground before the workshop.