Reborn in 1977

Chapter 213 Spring Blossoms

From that day on, Chen Fan's life entered a new phase.

He would wake up at 6 a.m., ride the old mare, leading the foal, to the brigade headquarters, leave the horses in the care of the Fifth Team's animal shed, and then go to Grandpa Lu's house to study calligraphy, and take the opportunity to ask the old man about traditional Chinese medicine.

He had already memorized the Four Classics for Beginners and was now learning "Acupuncture" and "Shen Nong's Materia Medica." Acupuncture was a little easier, mainly relying on memory, which was his strength. Memorizing all the acupoints on the body was a piece of cake.

However, Grandpa Lu wasn't very proficient in the actual needle insertion, only barely knowing how. He said that after Chen Fan had memorized classics such as "Huangdi Neijing" (The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine) and "Nanjing" (Classic of Difficult Issues), he would introduce him to a teacher who was skilled in acupuncture and pulse diagnosis.

What Chen Fan found tricky was "Shen Nong's Materia Medica," mainly because the old version of the herbal medicine pictures were a bit abstract, and he couldn't accurately distinguish them.

Grandpa Lu didn't have any better solution for this, and could only wait until spring blossoms, when the herbs in the fields grew out, and then take him to the site for on-site picking and identification.

In addition to traditional Chinese medicine, Chen Fan's calligraphy also progressed rapidly. Holding that chicken feather brush, he could skillfully write a regular script article, and it was quite decent, no longer like drawing.

After studying like this for more than half an hour, close to 7 o'clock, he went to the broadcasting station to work.

Now that the veterinary class had ended and there were no more classes in the morning, he had nothing else to do, so he stayed in the broadcasting station, practicing his skills and calligraphy, and occasionally guiding Zhang Cuie in her studies.

The veterinary class in the front yard was no longer running, but the classroom was not taken back by the brigade headquarters.

Relying on the fact that the teams had unfairly eliminated girls first when the veterinary class was established, and taking advantage of the convenience of the veterinary class disbanding, Yang Xingxiu successfully occupied this classroom and started a "Cultural Tutoring Class."

She screened all the girls in the brigade and, based on their personal wishes, found eleven girls to participate in the Cultural Tutoring Class. These girls almost all wanted to go to school, but their families didn't support them. They only studied in the village school for two years, but had been persisting in self-study ever since.

Yang Xiuying had also asked Huang Ying and the other two, but guarding Chen Fan, this great treasure, they didn't care about the tutoring class two layers away, so they politely declined.

The teacher of the tutoring class was Zhang Cuie. She taught those "students" school knowledge, as well as the "Barefoot Doctor's Manual" and "Veterinary Textbook" borrowed from Chen Fan, and asked Chen Fan for advice when she didn't understand something.

Anyway, she didn't come every day, and sometimes when she came, she would bring an egg or a sweet potato, so Chen Fan was happy to teach her.

Speaking of which, the boys in the previous veterinary class were hardworking enough, but these girls were even more desperate than those boys. Take the Barefoot Doctor's Manual, for example, even if they didn't understand what it meant, they would memorize it word by word. There was also the English textbook. If they didn't know how to pronounce it, they would first memorize the words and letters, and then Zhang Cuie would learn from Chen Fan and teach them.

This kind of perseverance made Chen Fan a little touched, so sometimes he would personally go over and give a lecture.

In addition to the two reasons that Zhang Cuie was very sensible and these girls were very hardworking, the reason why Chen Fan was willing to spend some time teaching them was that he still had a bit of mischievousness in his heart.

He thought to himself, when the news of the resumption of the college entrance examination was announced, he would then instigate these girls to sign up for the exam. If many of them could pass the technical secondary school, or even the university, he wondered if Lujiawan would become a place where yin (female) flourished and yang (male) declined in the future?

Unless the boys in the veterinary class were willing to listen to him and persist in learning secondary school knowledge, otherwise it would be hard to say.

After spending two hours, after get off work in the morning, he rode his horse to the veterinary station with Yang Zhijun and Li Zhengqun to "work."

It was really work. In the words of Station Chief Zhou, they no longer needed to study theoretical knowledge, and directly gaining clinical experience was enough.

So from the first day, almost all the livestock in the veterinary station were treated by Yang Zhijun and Li Zhengqun. Doctor Wang and the others only gave guidance from the side, and later even watched with their hands behind their backs, without saying a word from beginning to end.

As for Chen Fan, these ordinary cases were of no significance to him, so he drank tea and read books in Station Chief Zhou's office every day. What he read was naturally the magazines, literature, and other materials of the veterinary station.

As long as he encountered an interesting case, he would tell it and share it with Station Chief Zhou and other doctors.

So in his case, the student became the teacher, and the teacher became the student. Sometimes Station Chief Zhou and other doctors would also recall special cases they had encountered in the past and ask him for advice.

And as long as it was available in the veterinary station's reference room, Chen Fan could find the corresponding case. If not, it didn't matter, he would record the symptoms in detail, and then write a letter to the "Jiangnan Agricultural Science" magazine on behalf of Station Chief Zhou to ask for help.

Don't mention it, they really received a reply from the magazine's experts. Those with definite certainty would provide solutions, and those without certainty would provide solutions, which greatly improved the medical skills of Chen Fan and Station Chief Zhou.

In view of this, all the lunches at the veterinary station during the study period were covered by the veterinary station.

Originally, the meal expenses during the study period were to be settled by the dispatching unit or the individual. Ye Shubao also approved 10 jin of food stamps for each of them, so that they could eat in the town without having to come back.

Now it was good, all the food stamps were saved, and not a single one was used.

Food stamps were good things. As long as you went out, you couldn't do without them.

This food stamp was different from the food ration book. The food ration book was tied to the household registration book. How many people were in the family would have the corresponding amount of food. Every month, you could take the food ration book to the grain store to buy rice. The clerk at the grain store would make a record in the food ration book, so you could buy food without food stamps.

Food stamps were only used when eating in restaurants outside or buying staple food in state-owned restaurants.

That is to say, you don't need food stamps if you don't go out, but as long as you go out, you must bring food stamps.

Chen Fan had never left Nanhua Commune all along. The first reason was, of course, that he had no vacation and had to go to work every day. He was only free between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., but with the traffic conditions of this era, he couldn't go far in these few hours.

If you take the bus, there were only two buses to the county, one at 7 a.m. and one at 2 p.m. The time wasn't right, so naturally he couldn't go.

Besides, another reason was that he had no food stamps. Unless he brought his own dry food, he would only go hungry if he went out.

Now it was good, one of the two difficulties was solved. Saving a little, 10 jin of food stamps was enough for him to use for a week. As long as he solved the problem of working hours, he could also take a stroll and see the "outside world."

After staying at the veterinary station until 3:30 p.m., the three of them rushed back to the brigade headquarters.

At this time, the other 10 students of the veterinary class would also come back, but they didn't have classes in the classroom, but in a newly built shed outside the courtyard of the brigade headquarters, where they treated livestock together.

Lujiawan had a total of more than 80 mules, horses, donkeys, and cattle as "standard livestock," and many people raised pigs, and every household raised dogs.

Later people raised pigs and they could be slaughtered in a few months, even improved native pigs could be slaughtered in a year at the latest, but now native pigs often took two or three years or even longer to be slaughtered, so the sale of government purchase pigs was not only at the end of the year, it was just that the end of the year was a peak season, relatively concentrated.

At other times, the production team had at least two hundred pigs in stock.

In addition to some chickens, ducks, geese, dogs, and a small number of sheep, the current production brigade was definitely not short of poultry and livestock.

Since there were so many poultry and livestock, it was natural to have more problems.

In addition, the Ganjia Village Brigade and Bailang Lake Brigade nearby were not too far away from here. If their livestock were sick, they would also be dragged over to ask the veterinarians of Lujiawan to treat them.

Because there was a "Doctor Chen" here who even Station Chief Zhou of the commune veterinary station admired, so of course they would choose a better place to send them.

So, in this way, Lujiawan became the new "veterinary station" of Nanhua Commune.

It just so happened that the classmates of the veterinary class needed sick poultry and livestock to practice, it was simply a perfect match.

So after returning from the commune veterinary station, Yang Zhijun and Li Zhengqun began to play the role of Doctor Wang and the others, guiding other students to treat animals. At this time, the girls in the tutoring class would also come over to study together.

Only when they encountered a disease they had never seen before would they ask Chen Fan to come down.

For simple cases, Chen Fan would instruct Yang Zhijun and Li Zhengqun to treat them. For complex cases, he would do it himself.

But so far, there had been no complex cases.

That's right, there were only so many common livestock diseases, where would there be so many difficult and complicated diseases?

He was busy like this until he got off work, and then Chen Fan would go home.

As for the poultry and livestock that were not cured, of course, they were left to the students to continue practicing. Otherwise, what was the point of him training so many people?!

When he got home, he would first go to the back slope to continue tidying up his homestead, or burn a kiln of green bricks, and he would keep busy until dark before stopping.

After eating dinner, washing up, and then giving Jiang Lili a few high school lessons, it was almost 10 o'clock in the evening, and the day was over.

Such days passed for half a month.

In the blink of an eye, the first month passed, the earth was re-clothed in green, and it was already the season of spring blossoms.

At this time, the production team also began to get busy, preparing for spring plowing.

And the girls' tutoring class, which Chen Fan had high hopes for, had unknowingly become smaller and smaller, until everyone went to work, and the brigade headquarters, which had been lively for a winter, became quiet.