Lin Qingyue stared at the icicles hanging from the rafters of the thatched hut. The last aspirin tablet in her hand had already dissolved in the enamel mug.
Outside, the production team leader’s booming voice cut through the blizzard:
“The county evaluation team is here! Comrade Lin, have you memorized those ‘ten rules’?”
She looked down at her palm. The System’s screen flashed a red warning:
[Severe pneumonia detected in a child. Available medication: ceftriaxone for children]
[Exchange cost: 1 provincial-level outstanding worker quota]
[You currently have: 2 frozen potatoes, 1 unpaid wages slip]
The clinic’s rickety wooden door swung open.
The head of the evaluation team adjusted his glasses. “First, the steps for a penicillin skin test: ‘measure, observe, then…’”
“Wait.”
Lin Qingyue suddenly stood up and pulled something glinting silver from the inside pocket of her padded jacket: a piece of fruit candy.
“Team leader,” she said, walking over to the child coughing in his mother’s arms, her voice soft but clear. “I can recite the theory later, but I’m afraid this child can’t wait that long.”
Everyone in the room stared at her, wide-eyed.
She unwrapped the candy and placed it in the child’s mouth, her fingers seemingly brushing the side of the child’s neck.
[System notification: Vital sign monitoring activated. Duration: 30 minutes]
Outside the window, a jeep rolled through the snow.
The door opened, and the hem of a military coat swept by in a sharp arc.
The first thing Lu Huaizhou saw was the woman standing tall amid a roomful of doubt, and the item tucked behind her ear: a disposable sterile cotton swab that had no business existing in the Great Northern Wilderness of 1972.
