Because the renowned Guangling physician Yang Quan had advised Mother Chen Lady Li to eat more hawthorn fruit, and some early-ripening wild hawthorns were already edible in early seventh month, Chen Caozhi took Ran Sheng and Lai De through the mountains surrounding West Lake and gathered several baskets. Shaped like little pears, these wild hawthorn fruits were vividly colored, some red and some yellow, translucent and lustrous as pieces of agate, almost too lovely to eat.
Mother Chen Lady Li ate more than ten hawthorn fruits each day, but they were rather sour, and her teeth could not bear it. Chen Caozhi therefore asked Lai Fu's wife, Zeng Yuhuan, to slice and dry the fruit, grind it into powder, and mix it with fine flour and honey to make hawthorn pills, giving his mother several each day. She also continued taking the medicine prescribed by the old monk Zhi Mindu every day, but it seemed to have little effect. His mother's health showed no improvement.
Chen Caozhi thought, Mother is getting old. This congenital heart disease cannot be cured. It will be a tremendous blessing if it simply does not worsen. All I can do now is make her a little happier. I hope Fourth Uncle and Third Brother Chen Shang bring good news of our admission to the Gentry Register soon. Mother once said that, while Father was alive, he often lamented the Qiantang Chen Clan's decline into the ranks of humble families. If good news of our admission comes, how happy Mother will be.
In the blink of an eye, the seventh day of the seventh month had come around again. It was the Qiqiao Festival, the Girls' Festival, but the weather was poor that day, with heavy, gloomy clouds. By evening, lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and heavy