Chapter 51: Seeking Medical Aid and Clues

At the first glimmer of dawn, Su Yao carefully dug up two abnormal seedlings and wrapped them in a damp cloth before placing them in a bamboo basket. The army-green canvas bag that Lu Zhanye had borrowed from the military unit was left open, revealing the observation notes Xingchen had compiled throughout the night, the edges of the pages crumpled from being clutched tightly.

"Be careful on the road. I'll stay here and watch over the seedling plots, so don't worry," Xingchen stood at the courtyard gate, dark circles under his eyes. Anyone could tell he had spent the entire night keeping vigil by the small shed next to the greenhouse, refusing to close his eyes even once while the canvas flapped loudly in the wind.

Xingchen shook his head and pushed the small notebook into her hands. "Mom, this is the record for the slow-growing seedlings. Professor Zhang might find it useful."

Lu Zhanye started the motorcycle, and Su Yao sat in the back holding the bamboo basket, the military canteen in the sidecar clinking with every bump. The early morning road was almost deserted, with only an occasional tractor passing by and kicking up dust. Su Yao looked down at the seedlings in the basket; the leaves of the slow-growing ones were curled up like a tuft of dead grass, looking like a completely different world of life compared to the healthy seedlings beside them.

"Do you think these seedlings can still be saved?" she asked softly, her voice torn to shreds by the wind. Lu Zhanye tightened his grip on the handlebars. "Professor Zhang is an expert; he's bound to have a way. Besides, even if these few don't make it, don't we still have the other seedlings?" Although he said this, he had no confidence in his heart—those were space seeds, and there were only two hundred of them in the entire village.

When they arrived at the provincial agricultural science institute, the old man at the gatehouse was watering flowers with an iron kettle. "Looking for Professor Zhang? He went to the laboratory first thing this morning. Just head straight there." The old man pointed to the single-story brick house on the west side, where several pots of thriving, brightly green tomatoes sat on the windowsill. Su Yao walked up to the door, heard the "beep-beep" sound of instruments coming from inside, and hesitated for a moment before knocking.

"Come in." Professor Zhang's voice drifted out gently, mixed with the sound of a keyboard being tapped. He was wearing a white lab coat and staring intently at the fluctuating curves bouncing across a computer screen. When he saw the bamboo basket in Su Yao's hands, his eyes lit up. "Did you bring the seedlings? Let me have a look."

Su Yao placed the two seedlings on the experimental table. The healthy one had expansive leaves, while the abnormal one was drooping and listless, creating a stark contrast.

Professor Zhang put on his reading glasses, first used a pair of tweezers to pluck a leaf for observation under a microscope, and then poked the soil with a probe. "The soil in your area is probably problematic." He turned around, retrieved a palm-sized instrument from the cabinet, and inserted its metal probe into the soil inside the bamboo basket. A string of numbers instantly jumped onto the screen.

"The pH is 8.2, far too alkaline," Professor Zhang pointed to the red curve on the screen. "Normal seeds have strong tolerance, but space seeds have undergone radiation mutation and are exceptionally sensitive to acidity and alkalinity. This soil is simply unsuitable for their growth."

Su Yao's heart sank to the bottom, her hands gripping Xingchen's record book tightly. "Are they still salvageable? We can't just stand by and watch them wither away."

"Don't worry." Professor Zhang pulled open a drawer and took out a brown paper bag filled with pale yellow powder. "This is sulfur powder. Spreading it in the field can lower the alkalinity. Take five pounds for a trial first, spreading twenty pounds per mu, and mix it evenly into the soil." He paused, writing a line of words on a piece of paper with a pen. "When you go to the agricultural supply station, mention my name, and you can get the internal price. But you must bring an agricultural production certificate issued by the commune—this stuff is in high demand and can't be bought without a certificate."

Su Yao took the paper bag, her fingertips brushing against the rough paper skin, and suddenly recalled what Old Zhou had said: "Old Uncle Zhou said long ago that the soil there was heavily alkaline. It's all my fault for not taking it seriously."

Professor Zhang smiled and took a jar of canned fruit out of the cabinet. "Last year, I tried growing crops in alkaline soil, and the situation was even worse than yours. Agriculture is just like this; you have to feel your way across the river." Inside the jar were bright red tomatoes that looked sweet just by looking at them.

"These are canned space tomatoes. Take them for the children to try," Professor Zhang shoved the jar into Su Yao's hands. "Remember, do not water the fields for three days after spreading the sulfur powder, allowing the powder and soil to fully react. Call me anytime if you have questions; the number is on the paper bag."

Watching him sign his name earnestly in the record book, the heavy stone pressing on Su Yao's heart finally landed.

The motorcycle ride back was somewhat slower. Lu Zhanye parked the bike at the commune entrance. "Wait here, I'll go get the certificate."

Su Yao sat in the shade of a tree, flipping through Xingchen's record book. The pages were covered in dense little symbols, with some places circled in red ink: "Slow-growing seedlings concentrated in the third row of the field corner"; "Su Wan lingered at this spot during sowing."

Her heart skipped a beat as she remembered the day of sowing. Su Wan had indeed stayed in the corner of the field for quite a while, later claiming she felt dizzy and leaving early. At the time, she had been busy greeting the villagers and hadn't taken it to heart. Now, thinking back, the location of those slow-growing seedlings happened to be right where Su Wan had been standing. Could she have accidentally damaged the seeds? Or perhaps...

Su Yao shook her head hard, suppressing the thought—little Wan was already changing for the better; she shouldn't indulge in blind suspicions.

Lu Zhanye emerged with the certificate, bearing a bright red official seal on the paper. "Director Wang of the supply and marketing cooperative is an old acquaintance of mine. We'll pick him up along the way; maybe we can buy a few extra pounds." He folded the certificate and tucked it into his canvas bag. Just as the motorcycle started up, they saw one of Xingchen's classmates riding a bicycle toward them, the schoolbag in his basket bouncing violently.

"Brother Xingchen asked me to give you a message!" The boy braked hard, sweat from his forehead dripping onto the handlebar. "He said the location of the slow-growing seedlings is strange, as if someone has tampered with them!"

Su Yao's heart skipped a beat, and she pursued, "What else did he say?"

The boy scratched his head. "He just said for you to rush back and check the greenhouse immediately, and don't let anyone else near the corner of the field."

As the motorcycle hit the road again, the bamboo basket in Su Yao's arms felt as heavy as a piece of burning iron. She recalled the way Su Wan had clenched her cloth handkerchief that day, her unusually forceful movements when covering the seeds with soil, and that sentence in Xingchen's record book: "Su Wan picked up the grains that fell from the seed bag." At the time, she had simply thought the child remembered incorrectly, but now, every detail exuded something bizarre.

When they arrived at the commune's supply and marketing cooperative, Director Wang was clacking away on an abacus. "Sulfur powder? We have some, but there's only ten pounds left." He pointed to the hemp sack in the corner of the room. "This item is in high demand; just yesterday another commune came to snatch it. If not for Lu Zhanye's sake..."

Lu Zhanye quickly handed over a cigarette. "Scrape together a bit more. Those are space seeds of ours, we can't afford any delays. Do us a favor."

Director Wang widened his eyes. "You should have said so earlier! I'll call the county agricultural supply station and have them reserve twenty pounds for you; you can go pick it up this afternoon." He picked up the crank telephone, spinning the dial rapidly. "Old Zhang, save thirty pounds of sulfur powder for me. Yes, exactly the agricultural production use we talked about last time..."

Su Yao sat on the bench beside the counter, looking at the slogan "In Agriculture, Learn from Dazhai" on the wall, her mind tangled in a mess. If Su Wan really had switched the seeds, what should she do? Drive her away? But little Wan had been working very earnestly at the stationery factory recently, and last time she even helped sift seeds until dark. Yet if she didn't figure it out, what would happen if the seedlings ran into trouble again later?

"Let's go." Lu Zhanye handed the certificate to Director Wang and pulled Su Yao outside.

The motorcycle drove past the market, where a vegetable-selling auntie was weighing tomatoes with a pole scale, the brightly glowing red fruits piled up like small mountains. Su Yao suddenly spoke up, "Let's go check the greenhouse first before heading home."

The canvas of the greenhouse had a corner flipped up by the wind, and Xingchen was squatting in the corner of the field, drawing something on the ground with a branch. Seeing them return, he quickly stood up, snapping the branch in his hand into two pieces with a sharp crack.

"Mom, you're back! What did Professor Zhang say?"

Su Yao handed him the sulfur powder. "Spreading this can save the seedlings. Uncle Zhou was right; the soil's alkalinity is just too high."

Xingchen's gaze dimmed as he lowered his head and kicked at the soil beneath his feet. "But I still feel something is wrong. Look at these slow-growing seedlings, they're all concentrated in this one area, as if someone planted them here on purpose." He picked up a stone and drew a square in the dirt. "On the day of sowing, Sister Su Wan was right here covering the soil, and she covered it much deeper than anywhere else."

Su Yao's heart sank, yet she deliberately put on a stern face. "Don't guess blindly; Wan isn't that kind of person. It's probably just a coincidence that this patch of soil happens to be the most alkaline."

Xingchen wanted to argue further, but Lu Zhanye gave a light cough. "Let's do as Professor Zhang says first and see how things look after spreading the sulfur powder. If it still doesn't work, we'll investigate the cause again."

Xingchen said nothing more, squatting down to gently stroke the leaves of the slow-growing seedlings as if apologizing to them. Su Yao looked at her son's stubborn profile and suddenly remembered the cloth handkerchief Su Wan had clutched tightly when she hurried away that day—at the time, she had simply thought the girl was afraid of the cold, but now she wondered if something might have been hidden inside that cloth.

"I'll go pick up the sulfur powder this afternoon. You get the sifting screens ready at home; we need to make sure the powder is sifted fine," Lu Zhanye patted Xingchen's shoulder, trying to ease the atmosphere.

Su Yao pushed the canned fruit into Xingchen's hands. "Professor Zhang gave this to us. Take it back and share it with your younger siblings."

As she turned around, she caught sight of a blurred footprint in the soil at the corner of the field—it was slightly larger than Xingchen's foot, appearing to have been left by a woman's cloth shoes.

The wind flipped the canvas up once more, exposing the uneven seedling fields within. The healthy seedlings were dazzlingly green, while the slow-growing ones shivered in the wind like malnourished children. Su Yao gazed out toward the distant village, where cooking smoke was rising from every rooftop, a heavy stone pressing down on her chest. She wished so badly that all of this truly were a coincidence, and that once those twenty pounds of sulfur powder were scattered, every single seedling would straighten its back once again.

Yet the square Xingchen had drawn in the dirt remained like an invisible circle, locking her gaze firmly onto the corner of the field. She knew that some matters could no longer be avoided.