Midsummer.

The western suburbs of Lianhai City are hilly, Xiajia Village.

Xiajia Village has more than 100 households, and the village is located on a hilly hillside, and the whole village is built on the mountain, surrounded by large orchards.

At the foot of the hillside, there is a small river in front of Xiajia Village, and the stream collects down from the mountain, converging into a river, and flows through the front of the village.

There are a few rice paddies on the flat sides of the river, and large orchards up the hillside.

The villagers of Xiajia Village make a living by growing rice and orchards.

Xia Youfa's family, who lives in the east of Xiajiacun Village, has two acres of rice fields and has contracted seven acres of apple orchards on the hillside.

Xia Youfa is 42 years old this year, he is dark and strong, and his wife Li Xiaoju is from a neighboring village.

Li Xiaoju is 40 years old this year, because she works in the field all year round, her skin is also dark, and her body is strong.

The son of two people, Xia Yu, is in his second year of high school in the town this year, and only comes back from school once a month, usually the two of them take care of the rice fields and apple orchards at home, in addition to the expenses for his son's schooling, Xia Youfa just built a two-story small building for his family last year, and the income from the orchard is good, and the life is considered well-off.

In the middle of summer, the rice in the fields can be harvested in more than a month, and the orchards are busy.

The orchard contracted by Xia Youfa is full of apple trees, and there are occasionally a few peach trees on the ground.

Apples are cash crops that support most of Xia You's income for a year, so he pays special attention to this orchard.

Early in the morning, before the sun had fully risen, Xia Youfa carried a hoe to weed the orchard.

He walked in the orchard in sandals, and the weeds between the trees were covered with dew.

Xia Youfa glanced at the apples on the fruit trees, some of the fruits were already the size of a fist, and in a few days, the early-ripening Gala fruits could be picked and sold for money.

He pulled the weeds on the ground with his hoe and sighed: "I have applied so much fertilizer to the orchard, so that you weeds can absorb it, if you grow less of my apples, you can grow a little bigger, and you weeds can't grow crazy." ”

Xia You** opened his arms and began to weed, and after working for more than half an hour, he suddenly found a yellow and reddish apple in the weeds under the tree.

The apples are quite large, and they are gala fruits that will ripen in the near future.

"Why did such a big apple fall? I'm afraid that it will ripen earlier than other fruits, and it will be targeted by the birds in the sky. ”

Xia Youfa leaned over and picked up the apple.

The fist-sized apple rests heavily in the palm of its hand, with several small holes on the reddened side and obvious gnawing marks on the teeth.

The flesh near several small holes has darkened in color, it should be a small hole pecked by a bird yesterday, and the traces of gnawing on the teeth next to it are still very fresh, and the obvious two tooth marks should have been just bitten by a small animal such as a rabbit.

Xia Youfa felt a pity, and muttered in a low voice, "The birds in the sky are also fine, they know which fruit is delicious, this Gala fruit is big, ripe early, those birds specially pick the ripe fruit to eat, didn't eat a few bites, got the fruit to the ground, and was gnawed by the rabbit twice." ”

He carefully looked at the apple in his palm, and felt that it was a pity to throw it away, so he rubbed the apple on his sleeve, wiped the dew and mud off the apple, ate the other half of the apple that had not been bitten, and threw the remaining core into the orchard.

It took a morning to pull out only half an acre of grass, and his wife Li Xiaoju felt that it was too slow, so the two discussed and decided to apply herbicide to the entire orchard in the afternoon.

Before applying herbicides, all the weeds should be knocked down, otherwise some weeds that are crazy to the branches of apple trees will affect some vegetables randomly planted between the fruit trees and the surrounding fruit trees.

Xia Youfa and his wife took advantage of the noon time to knock down the weeds with hoe handles, prepared herbicides in the afternoon, sprayed them for an afternoon, and finally sprayed the herbicides on the entire orchard.

When I went back in the evening, the husband and wife took a hot bath, and when they had dinner, the two of them were still talking about planting a few pumpkin trees on the slope and the leaves were sticking to the herbicide, and it was estimated that they would not survive.

Early in the morning of the second day, his wife Li Xiaoju got up and started to make breakfast, and after finishing breakfast, she found that her husband Xia Youfa hadn't gotten up yet.

"Kid dad, what's wrong with you?" His wife, Li Xiaoju, shouted outside the bedroom door.

"I'm in pain, and I'm cold." Xia Youfa was lying on the bed wrapped in a quilt, and responded weakly.

Wife Li Xiaoju entered the house and stretched out her hand to test her husband's forehead.

Boiling hot!

His wife Li Xiaoju was taken aback, "Child, dad, don't you have a cold, you are hot, you lie down and rest, I'll go find cold medicine." ”

His wife, Li Xiaoju, opened the drawer, looked for it, found out the leftover cold medicine from the last time, brought hot water from the kitchen, and helped her husband take the cold medicine.

"Son, dad, you will rest today, and there is no important work in the field."

"Wife, how do you feel? Is there anything uncomfortable? ”

"I'm fine."

"Then I'm relieved, at first I thought it might be because we played herbicides yesterday afternoon, herbicide poisoning, both of us have contact, since you have nothing to do, then I shouldn't be herbicide poisoning, it should be that there was no hot water in the shower last night, so I flushed some cold water, it should be frozen, just raise it, it's not a big deal."

Husband Xia Youfa was uncomfortable and could only lie at home to rest, and his wife Li Xiaoju finished feeding the two big white pigs raised at home, and led her big yellow dog to work in the field.

After a busy morning, I came back at noon to make lunch and went to the house to call my husband to get up and eat, but found that my husband's eyes were red.

"Kid Dad, what's wrong with your eyes? Why is it so popular? ”

"My eyes hurt, my whole body hurts, I feel very uncomfortable." Xia Youfa spoke weakly, "kid, I think my cold this time is worse than the previous symptoms, give me all the medicine at home." ”

His wife, Li Xiaoju, rummaged through the drawers and found out all the cold medicines left before, which were not many and were also some common Chinese patent medicines.

"There is not much medicine, you take all of these first, but I think the effect may not be good, I will go to the town again in the afternoon to buy some medicine for you and come back, you wait."

Xiajia Village is more than five miles away from the nearest Zhaili Town, and it takes more than an hour to ride a bicycle back and forth.

There is a relatively large pharmacy in the town, and Li Xiaoju bought some common cold medicines from the pharmacy and came back.

That night, Xia Youfa took cold medicine, because of his bad appetite, he only drank a little porridge, and then rested early and went to bed.

2 a.m.

Xia Youfa tossed and turned in bed and couldn't sleep.

His wife, Li Xiaoju, who was lying beside him, got up and turned on the light.

Under the bright light, Li Xiaoju found that her husband's body was curled up, wrapped in the quilt and shivering, as if he was cold.

Li Xiaoju felt that something was wrong and reached out to test her husband's forehead.

It's even hotter than during the day!