Wang Guixiang's belly is already the size of a basin, from pregnancy to now, pinching her fingers and calculating, there will be ten and a half months before she will give birth. Wang Guixiang is no stranger to giving birth. Eight years ago, when she was twenty-two years old, she gave birth to her eldest Liu Shu, and is now in the first grade of primary school. Four years ago, she gave birth to a daughter named Liu Cao, who should be playing in her yard at this time.

Rural women are honest and don't take giving birth seriously, until their stomachs hurt, they lie down on the kang and rush to take the midwives to their homes; Boil a pot of hot water here, shout and wait for the delivery. Most rural women give birth at home, and they have no conditions to go to the hospital, and they can't afford to spend money. Therefore, midwives in rural areas are everywhere, and those who have several experiences in childbirth and breeding, who are more courageous and careful, can do this business. They don't care about the pay, and when the child is full moon, the child's father wraps a dozen eggs in a towel and sends it, which is considered a reward. Rural women are not grand at all when they are born, they are conceived, and they are born.

Although Wang Guixiang said that there were only ten and a half days left before the due date, she didn't take giving birth seriously, and came to work early in the morning to hoe. This is the land of the production team, collective labor, earning a share of labor. Male laborers, including Wang Guixiang's husband Liu Erga, were gathered by the brigade to make steel. Steel has been smelted for more than a year, and several steel-making furnaces have been built, neither black nor white, and now only the cooking pot in every household has not been smelted, and the rest that can be smelted has been taken to make steel. The lumps of iron that were refined were ceremoniously sent to the commune and then to the county to support national construction.

Chairman Mao's old man called for self-reliance, and then there was a movement of steelmaking. Refining and refining, there is not much steel to see, the stomach is not full, the grain produced has been sent to the state to pay off foreign debts, and every household can have a jar of grain, which is already considered a rich household.

Wang Guixiang's family has long been unable to open the pot, since she was pregnant, she can eat very much, she used to drink a bowl of porridge for half a day, but now a bowl of porridge has been drunk for less than an hour, and her stomach is rumbling. She muttered to the child in her belly, "You debt collector are fighting with your mother for food."

Eight-year-old Liu Shu was growing his body, and his stomach was like a bottomless pit, and he couldn't fill it. The family has long had a clear soup and little water, but fortunately, it is summer, and there are some wild vegetables growing in the fields and mountains, digging some, picking up some, and boiling them into half a pot of green vegetable soup, which is what the family relies on. Sometimes, Liu Erga secretly ran back in the evening, carrying half a tortilla in his arms, breaking it into three pieces and distributing it to his wife and children. Wang Guixiang looked at Liu Shu and Liu Cao gobbling up, her eyes turned red, and she quietly stuffed her small piece of cake into Liu Shu's mouth. Husband Liu Erga said: Guixiang, you can eat a bite! Don't forget, you have a mouth in your stomach too! Wang Guixiang sighed and shook her head, it is such a reason, but let her eat that piece of cake, she can't do it, and she can't bear it. Liu Erga came back to deliver this half of the tortilla, and then left in a hurry. There are no people in front of the steelmaking furnace, and if there is no one, the furnace will collapse, and it will be a political accident, and no one can afford to take responsibility.

Wang Guixiang looked at the back of her husband leaving in a hurry, her heart ached, and it hurt again. The half of the cake was the ration of her husband Liu Erga, and when the ration was given to the child, he could only drink wild vegetable soup. She feels sorry for her husband and her children. She is often worried, now there are four mouths in the house, if there is another one, there will be one more mouth, how can she live in the future! Wang Guixiang, who was about to give birth, was so worried that she wanted to live and die, she knew that it was so difficult to add a child, so it was better not to have this child at the beginning. Wang Guixiang was already swollen, and there was a pit on her leg, and when she pressed it down, the pit couldn't be stretched out for half a day. She knew it was hungry. She had to earn more work before she gave birth, and at the end of the year, the production team distributed rations according to the amount of work. Another reason for her participation in collective labor is that she can find some wild vegetables in the field, and when she returns home from work, she can drink a whole pot of vegetable soup. She can't be idle if she doesn't work in the field, she wants to dig wild vegetables all over the world, without wild vegetables, what is an old snack for a family?

That afternoon, Wang Guixiang's body was exhausted from hunger and heavy body, and she was so dizzy that she almost fell into the field several times. Some well-wishers persuaded her to go back and rest for a while, saying that it was not bad for half a day's work. It's not that Wang Guixiang doesn't want to go back, she's worried that the wild vegetables aren't dug up enough. All of them hoeed on the ground, and when they saw wild vegetables, they dug up some of them. She wanted to hold on a little longer. At this moment, her stomach changed, first it hurt for a while, and then she felt it in her crotch. She has given birth to two children, and from experience, she knows that this is about to be born, but there are still ten days and a half months before the day she calculates, why is she going to give birth? She threw away the hoe in her hand, grabbed the wild vegetables on the ground, put them in the basket, she was going home, and then sent Liu Cao to the front of the steelmaking furnace of the brigade to call her husband and prepare for production.

She endured the labor pain, walked from the field to the road, followed the road, and walked back to the village for two miles, and her stomach flared up at this moment. The pain made Wang Guixiang unable to walk, at first she squatted on the ground, then she sitted, she couldn't hold on, and she lay there. When she left the field, a kind sister wanted to take her home, but she refused. According to her experience, from a stomachache to giving birth, the time is still early, and it will take two hours at the earliest. I didn't expect this time to be different from the previous two times, not to give people a breather, just to say. The weakness and pain made Wang Guixiang sweat profusely, and she murmured to the sky: God, will you let me give birth to the child on this highway? Her voice was weak, and she wanted to shout for help, but she didn't have the strength to do so.

Wang Guixiang's fate began to change at this time. A green jeep with a military license plate was speeding towards with smoke and dust. In the car sat Tian Liaoshen, the commander of the 128th Regiment of the Field Army, and his wife, Yang Peipei, a nurse at the division hospital. Tian Liaoshen's hometown is still more than 100 kilometers away from here, he took his wife home to mourn, his mother died, he went back to his hometown to deal with his mother's funeral, and he was passing by here when he came back from his errands. As a result, they found Wang Guixiang lying on the road and about to give birth. The driver found Wang Guixiang half-lying on the road from afar, he slowed down the car, and reported to Tian Liaoshen in the back seat: Commander, there is a person lying on the road.

Tian Liaoshen and Yang Peipei both leaned out from the back seat and looked forward. The car was close, and Yang Peipei saw at a glance that Wang Guixiang, who was lying on the ground, was a woman who was about to give birth, and the sensitivity of her profession made her shout: Stop-

The car stopped, first Yang Peipei got out of the car, then Tian Tuanchang and the driver also got out of the car, and they walked towards Wang Guixiang together.

Wang Guixiang's consciousness at this time has begun to blur, she half opened her misty eyes, saw a few people walking towards her, for a while, she saw clearly that it was a few faces of the People's Liberation Army, there were men and women, she stretched out her hand, and said weakly: People's Liberation Army, help me...... The next thing she did, she fainted.

Yang Peipei only briefly examined Wang Guixiang, and knew that this pregnant woman was very dangerous, not only because she was lying on the road, but also because her body was very weak, and the lives of adults and children were in danger. She raised her head, glanced at her husband and said: It's too dangerous, if you don't rescue it, this woman is afraid that she will die, and the child will not be saved.

Head Tian didn't even think about it, and waved his hand and said: What are you doing in a daze? Lift her into the car and take her to the hospital.

The three of them worked together to lift Wang Guixiang to the car, Yang Peipei sat in the back seat, Wang Guixiang was half lying in the back seat, and her head rested on Yang Peipei's arms. Head Tian shouted around: Is there anyone?

No one answered, and there was silence all around.

Yang Peipei said: Don't shout, if you wait any longer, you won't be saved.

Captain Tian got into the car, slammed the door, and said to the driver: Hurry, be fast.

The jeep rushed forward with a cloud of smoke and dust, and there were still seventy kilometers from here to the division hospital. The sun was about to set, and the clouds in the west were dyed red with the sun.