Reborn in the end of the world, I scavenged in the empty city and bought for free

Fang Daguo and his wife have only one son. Fang Daguo was one of the first batch of educated youth who went to the countryside in the 1970s. He later met his current wife here. Even after he returned and was admitted to university, he did not abandon his wife and children. Instead, he refused the job arranged by the city after graduating from university and applied to go to the countryside to become a teacher. Later, he served as the director of the village committee and was very respected in Xiaoxi Village.

Fang Daguo's son Fang Zeqiang just got married last year and found out he was pregnant in May this year. If nothing unexpected happened, the due date should have been mid-December. He should have been hospitalized this week to await delivery. The doctor said Fang Zeqiang's wife was weak and had a small pelvis, so a natural birth was basically impossible and she would have to have a caesarean section. The young couple was nervous for a while, so she insisted on taking a proper walk in the village every day since she was five months pregnant and also paid attention to her diet as ordered by the doctor. But who could have thought that one natural disaster after another would completely disrupt all their plans.

Fang Zeqiang's wife found out her water broke when she went to the toilet this morning. She fainted from the piercing pain in her stomach. Fortunately, Fang Daguo's wife heard the noise and came down from upstairs. She quickly called for people to carry her into the house.

Fang Daguo, who was busy digging sweet potatoes in the field, also hurried back. Wu Qiaofen from next door hurriedly went with Fang Daguo's wife Liang Cui'e to find the midwife in the village.

There is only one midwife in Xiaoxi Village. She is over 70 years old and she performed the midwifery work until the 1990s. Later, when a large hospital was built in the county town and the risks of delivering babies at home were high, the younger generation did not dare to try it easily, so the job of midwife gradually disappeared from everyone's sight.

When Wu Qiaofen and Liang Cui'e arrived at the midwife's house, they found out that the midwife had suffered from heatstroke for several days and was in poor spirits. She could only lie in bed gasping for breath all day. It was impossible to ask her to go with them to deliver the baby at this time.

Wu Qiaofen suddenly remembered that the village head Zhang Youfan's wife Liu Jinhua mentioned that her mother used to be a midwife, and she had helped her mother several times, so she might be able to deliver a baby.

Holding on to a glimmer of hope, Wu Qiaofen took the initiative to go to Zhang's house to call for help, while Liang Cui'e went back to look after her daughter-in-law.

So Liu Jinhua walked out hand in hand with Wu Qiaofen, and Gu Tongwan thought about it and followed closely.

The Fang family lived at the head of the village, about ten minutes' walk away. When I arrived at the Fang family, I found that there were already a lot of people gathered in the yard. In addition to Fang Daguo's family, there were also several neighbors next door. Everyone was waiting for Wu Qiaofen to bring people back.

After being dragged into the yard, Liu Jinhua said helplessly: "How can I deliver a baby? I just help my mother, but if I really have to do it myself, I may not be able to do it."

Fang Daguo gritted his teeth, his back seemed to be crushed by something, and said softly: "You can try it with Fan's wife. Zeqiang's wife really can't give birth, so we have no other choice."

"Golden Flower" Zhang Youfan gently patted his wife's shoulder, with both worry and encouragement in his eyes.

Liu Jinhua heard the woman's cries of pain coming from the bedroom from time to time, so she gritted her teeth and said with a desperate attitude: "Okay, then I'll try!"

Then he turned around and gave orders to the other big country and others.

"I need a large pot of hot water, a brand new pair of scissors, two new blankets, a towel, and finally a bowl of brown sugar water."

As a result, Fang Daguo, who usually never went into the kitchen, went into the kitchen obediently to boil firewood and water, while Wu Qiaofen ran home to get scissors and a blanket. Fang Zeqiang kept saying comforting words to his wife in the bedroom. As for the people in the yard who could not help, they could only leave honestly, at least not to get in the way at this important moment.

Gu Tongwan was left in the bedroom by Liu Jinhua to help her. He saw Fang Zeqiang's wife's belly bulging on the bed. Her face was frighteningly pale. Her legs were spread apart. Liu Jinhua took a look and immediately frowned. "No, it's only three fingers open. It's not enough. You have to open it a few more fingers."

So he leaned over to Fang Zeqiang's wife's ear and whispered softly, "Zeqiang's wife, try harder, take a deep breath, yes, open your mouth wide and breathe, and think about squeezing the baby out."

Although Liu Jinhua had no experience, she had at least seen pigs run even if she had not eaten pork. Based on what she had seen and heard when she was delivering babies with her mother, she also taught Fang Zeqiang's wife.

After about two hours of trying, Fang Zeqiang's wife's cervix was finally dilated to five fingers. Generally, a pregnant woman is ready to give birth when she is six fingers dilated, but unfortunately the baby in Fang Zeqiang's wife's belly is probably quite big, so she needs to continue to dilate to at least ten fingers.

At this moment, Fang Zeqiang's wife didn't even have the strength to cry out in pain. She could only tightly clutch the blankets on both sides of her body. Her whole body was soaked with sweat, and she looked like she had just been pulled out of the water.

Fang Zeqiang had been kicked out a long time ago because he was so nervous that he even knocked over the basin of water next to him and was pushed out by Liu Jinhua with a glare on his face.

The only people left in the room at this time were Liu Jinhua, who was in charge of the delivery, Fang Zeqiang's wife, and Gu Tongwan.

Fang Zeqiang's wife's cervix opened very slowly. It had been three hours since she started having contractions at 9:30 in the morning. She was completely exhausted. If it hadn't been for Liu Jinhua's encouragement, she would have fainted long ago.

At 3:30 in the afternoon, a baby's cry was finally heard. The Fang family members finally felt relieved. They saw Liu Jinhua handing the baby, whose umbilical cord had been cut and wrapped in a blanket and slightly wiped, to Fang Zeqiang's arms.

Fang Zeqiang nervously took the child, and heard Liu Jinhua sighing, "It's a girl, a very beautiful girl, who looks a lot like her mother."

The Fang family was immersed in the great joy of having a baby boy and did not notice the bitterness on Liu Jinhua's face.

When Fang Zeqiang belatedly realized his wife's situation, he found that Liu Jinhua had an expression as if she wanted to say something but hesitated.

Fang Zeqiang suddenly stuffed the child to Fang Daguo, and rushed into the bedroom like a madman with red eyes. At this time, there was only a soundless woman lying on the bed.

Liu Jinhua closed her eyes wearily and whispered, "It's heavy bleeding, and the bleeding won't stop..."

Fang Daguo naturally knew that postpartum hemorrhage was a life-threatening situation, so he hurried in and heard his son grabbing his daughter-in-law's hand and crying, "Xiaotian, have you forgotten what you told me? Our family of three will go to the amusement park in the future. We must buy a big tent for the child at his one-year-old party. And you always say that you have never been to Ocean World. How can you bear to leave like this? Can you open your eyes first? Have you seen our daughter? She looks like you, with a small nose and a small mouth..." The grown man was already crying uncontrollably.

The eyes of the Fang family members outside the door were red, and even Zhang Mingguo couldn't help but sigh and looked up at Liu Jinhua, "Mom, why is Zeqiang's wife bleeding so much?"

"The baby was too big, and his wife wasn't in good health either, which might have caused the heavy uterine bleeding. I tried to stop the bleeding, but it was impossible."

Liu Jinhua had heard her mother mention several cases of women dying during childbirth, and most of them could not be saved. Even now, she was powerless and could only watch Zeqiang's wife close her eyes.

"Damn God, you are so heartless, so heartless. Our Xiaotian is such a good daughter-in-law, but you pity my granddaughter. She has to lose her parents just after she is born..." Liang Cui'e burst into tears and kept cursing God. If it wasn't for the natural disaster that made it impossible to give birth in the hospital, and if the county road hadn't been blocked by mudslides, her daughter-in-law wouldn't have died.

Gu Tongwan walked up to Liu Jinhua and asked softly, "Aunt, isn't there a doctor in the village?"

Liu Jinhua shook her head and smiled bitterly, "Old Zhang, who used to live in the village, was the doctor. But when he went out during a rainstorm, a piece of roof tile flew over and pierced his eyes, and he became blind. Now he can only prescribe some fever and cold medicine for the villagers, but many people got sick from heat stroke some time ago, and he is out of medicine. There is medicine in the back mountain, and Old Zhang usually went up the mountain to collect herbs by himself. But now that he is blind, no one recognizes the plants he talked about. Now if there is a sick person at home, they can only see if there is extra medicine at home, or they can only tough it out."

Gu Tongwan bit the tip of her tongue, and her eyes involuntarily looked at the child in Fang Daguo's arms. The child was wrinkled when he was just born, but the outline was very delicate, and he really looked like Fang Zeqiang's wife.

Somewhere in her heart gradually softened. Although she had told herself to learn to accept life and death indifferently, but at the moment...

He closed his eyes tightly, and when he opened them again, as if he had made a decision, Gu Tongwan walked to the bedside, reached out his hand to check the woman's body temperature, which was still warm. He also discovered that she actually still had a slight heartbeat, but the frequency was extremely slow.

"I've learned some acupuncture from a Chinese doctor in the provincial capital before, and I roughly know how to stop the bleeding, if you're willing to believe me."

Fang Zeqiang seemed to have grasped a life-saving straw. Just as he was about to say something, he heard the person on the other side say, "But I only know a little bit and can't be called a doctor. In other words, I can't guarantee that it will work."

Liu Jinhua and Zhang Youfan looked at each other in bewilderment. Liu Jinhua even walked over to Gu Tongwan and asked in surprise, "Wanwan, you can also give acupuncture?"

Gu Tongwan could only smile calmly: "I have learned a little."

In fact, she had only learned some basic knowledge from an old Chinese medicine practitioner outside the base in her previous life. After coming back to this life, she read books and watched videos on her own. When she had a fever or a cold, she practiced on herself, and it was quite effective.

But to stop the bleeding, although she knew the specific acupuncture points, she was not sure whether it would be successful. She could only try it as a last resort. It was better to give it a try than to do nothing. Who knew if there would be a glimmer of hope?

Apparently, the Fang family thought the same thing. They regarded her as the last straw and put their daughter-in-law's life and death in her hands.

At this moment, Gu Tongwan felt a split second of regret, but when he saw the pale woman on the bed, he felt like taking a gamble again.