"Iron Egg's mother!"
Ruan A-da shoved open the battered wooden door and rushed into his little home.
"Iron Egg's father?"
The plainly dressed woman sitting by the bed froze. "Why are you back?"
A half-grown child lay on the bed to her right. His face was sallow, his limbs thin and wasted, but his belly was grotesquely swollen.
It was a terrifying sight.
"I bought the medicine!"
Ruan A-da eagerly pulled out a pill from his robes. "Quick, bring a bowl of water!"
The woman hurried to fetch water, asking at the same time, "How much did it cost?"
Ruan A-da wiped the sweat from his brow. "Ten Bone Coins!"
"What?"
The light that had just risen in the woman's eyes swiftly dimmed. "Can medicine that cheap really cure Iron Egg's illness?"
In the simple minds of ordinary folk, you got what you paid for. Serious illnesses needed good medicine.
Their child's illness was indeed severe, and the prescriptions written by the physicians they had consulted before had all followed that common sense.
Now that Ruan A-da said he had spent only ten Bone Coins, the woman simply could not believe such cheap medicine could cure her child.
"Let's treat a dead horse as if it were alive."
Ruan A-da forced a bitter smile. "I bought it from a newly opened clinic. Whether it works or not, we have to try."
How could he truly believe the medicine would work?
The woman quickly brought over the water. Ruan A-da pried open his son's clenched teeth, stuffed a dark brown pill into his mouth, then poured in water to help him swallow it.
After feeding him the medicine, husband and wife looked at each other and sighed together.
"Iron Egg's father!"
Tears streaming down her face, the woman threw herself into