Chapter 45: Childbirth

"With only a few head of cattle in our production team, if anything goes wrong here, it'll be two lives lost in one go!" Wang Zhenshan chimed in.

The other team leaders nodded repeatedly, their eyes filled with utter entreaty.

In this era, the value of a single ox was far more precious than ten able-bodied farmhands.

Zhou Yichen understood how they felt.

He offered words of comfort, "Party Secretary, Team Leaders, please don't panic."

"I will do my absolute best."

With that, he said no more and immediately commanded, "Please go prepare a basin of warm water as quickly as possible! And bring a bar of soap!"

"Hurry! What are you standing around for? Go fetch the water!"

Gao Jianjun instantly spun around and shouted at a nearby team member.

That person snapped out of a trance and bolted away on a run.

While waiting for the warm water, Zhou Yichen did not remain idle.

He adjusted his mental state, forcing himself to calm down, and then stepped closer to the cow to observe its condition.

The cow's abdomen bulged irregularly at intervals.

The thick stench of blood mixed with the gamey smell of amniotic fluid, the pungent rot of fodder, and the unique musk of livestock was so concentrated in the cramped cowshed that it felt almost tangible, aggressively piercing straight into people's nasal cavities and causing dizziness.

Every suppressed, mournful groan from the cow felt like a dull knife slicing into the hearts of everyone present.

The warm water was brought over shortly.

Without a second word, right in front of everyone, Zhou Yichen briskly stripped off his outer shirt, revealing his sturdy upper body.

The biting chill of late October already carried a bone-piercing crispness.

The moment he took off his shirt, Zhou Yichen couldn't help but shudder slightly.

His action left the onlookers momentarily stunned.

"Yichen, what are you doing?" Wang Zhenshan asked him with a puzzled look.

"I need to reach inside. Wearing clothes gets in the way."

He explained concisely and directly.

Next, he submerged his entire right arm into the warm water, grabbed the soap, and began scrubbing repeatedly.

From his fingertips down to his elbow and up to his shoulder, not a single web of his fingers or an inch of skin was spared.

The freezing air instantly enveloped his bare skin, raising a fine layer of goosebumps, but he paid it no mind. All of his focus was locked onto the upcoming exploration.

After washing thoroughly, he took a deep breath, as if pressing down all distracting thoughts along with it.

His experiences from two lifetimes allowed him to perform all the better the higher the tension grew.

The surrounding commotion—the heavy breathing of the team members, the anxious whispers of the cadres, and even the painful groans of the cow—seemed to be blocked out by an invisible barrier, becoming muffled and distant.

In his eyes, only the cow's agonizingly struggling body remained.

Walking around to the cow's rear, he gently pressed his left hand against its violently heaving flank, conveying a trace of negligible reassurance.

Then, under the gaze of everyone holding their breath, he thrust his soap-coated right arm straight into the birth canal.

"Moo—ugh—!"

The cow let out an even more agonizing scream, thrashing its four hooves wildly and sending hay and filth splashing in all directions.

"Hold it down! Quickly hold it down!" Zhou Yichen barked sternly, fine beads of sweat instantly oozing across his forehead and sliding down mixed with splashed blood.

Wang Zhenshan and several strong farmhands immediately lunged forward, pressing down with all their might on the cow's shoulder blades, waist, hips, and hind legs, veins bulging fiercely on their thick arms.

Zhou Yichen's arm felt as if it had plunged into a scalding, viscous, and violently spasming giant rubber pouch.

A burning sensation wrapped around his arm, and the slippery tissues tightly clamped down on him. Every twitch of the cow exerted an overwhelming, irresistible pressure that felt like it would snap his arm in two.

The tactile feedback reaching his fingertips was complex and chaotic: warm, slippery mucous membranes, tough muscle bundles, and... some hard structure deep within.

He closed his eyes, shutting out the pain of his arm being compressed and that suffocating stench, pushing his concentration to the absolute limit.

His consciousness seemed to gather at his fingertips, exploring and distinguishing with arduous precision within the dark, slick, and spasming passage.

Gliding past... bypassing... probing further... Time seemed to freeze, and every second stretched out infinitely.

Finally!

His fingertips brushed against an abnormality: a hard, curved protrusion wedged stubbornly against the edge of the pelvic inlet.

Carefully, the pads of his fingers traced its shape—it was unmistakably a flexed joint!

He slowly withdrew his arm, pulling out a trail of viscous blood and murky fluid.

His arm was stained dark red and sticky white, and the mixed gamey odor in the air grew even more intense.

During this process, his medical proficiency proficiency surged rapidly as well, ticking up by several points in no time at all.

"How is it?"

"Yichen, is there a way?"

Gao Jianjun and Wang Zhenshan spoke almost simultaneously, their voices filled with urgent expectation.

Zhou Yichen wiped the mixture of sweat and grime from his face, nodding first to Doctor Sun, who wore an equally solemn expression nearby.

"Doctor Sun was right. It's a malpresentation."

"Specifically, it's a flexion of the carpal joint of the front legs. The calf's head has already descended, but its two front legs are bent at the carpal joints and aren't straightened out. The hooves are hooked like claws, jamming tightly against the cow's pelvic opening and completely blocking the birth canal."

Zhou Yichen's words were like a stone dropped into a calm lake, stirring up a thousand ripples in everyone's hearts.

Flexion of the carpal joint of the front legs?

What kind of terminology was that?

The crowd couldn't quite understand, but they understood the final sentence.

It was jammed!

Gao Jianjun anxiously asked, "Then... what should we do? Is there a way?"

Everyone's gazes converged uniformly on Zhou Yichen.

"The only way is for me to reach my hand back in, find that bent carpal joint, and forcefully push it straight so the hooves can slide smoothly into the birth canal."

"Only then can it come out with the pushing force."

His explanation was simple and clear, and everyone present understood it instantly.

Wasn't this essentially about forcefully straightening the calf's leg by sheer force?

Wang Zhenshan drew a sharp breath, the flesh on his face twitching involuntarily.

"Yichen... will... will this work? Could it hurt the calf, or... or end up hurting the mother cow...?"

He didn't dare utter the word "death."

Zhou Yichen nodded, not dodging the risks involved.

"This process will be extremely irritating to the cow, potentially triggering even more violent spasms or even shock. If the force isn't controlled well, at best it will strain the calf's tendons, and at worst, break its bones. It might even tear the birth canal and cause massive hemorrhaging!"

"Hiss—" An old farmer nearby drew a sharp breath and instinctively took half a step back.

"Good lord..." Another team leader turned pale, muttering to himself.

Someone nervously rubbed their hands together, their rough palms producing a rustling friction, slick with cold sweat.

"But this is the only way!"

"The longer this drags on, the more completely the cow's strength will be exhausted, and the longer the calf is trapped inside, the more dangerous it becomes."

"In the end, it will be two lives lost, and nobody will be able to save them!"

Two lives lost!

These four words struck like four heavy mallets, slamming hard against everyone's chests.

The entire cowshed fell into a dead silence, broken only by the cow's increasingly faint and mournful moans.

Gao Jianjun's gaze shifted from Zhou Yichen's young yet remarkably steady face to Doctor Sun, who stood nearby with a solemn expression.

"Old Sun, what do you think?"

Doctor Sun smiled bitterly and shook his head, his wrinkled face displaying absolute candor.

"Party Secretary Gao, I said it before—when it comes to the ways of livestock, I'm completely clueless."

He looked at Zhou Yichen, his eyes filled with undisguised approval and trust.

"But I trust young Zhou! What he says makes sense! Right now, we're racing the King of Hell for time, we can't hesitate any longer!"

Gao Jianjun and Wang Zhenshan exchanged glances, both seeing resolution in each other's eyes.

"Alright!"

Gao Jianjun slapped his thigh hard, producing a dull thud.

"Yichen, go ahead and do it!"

"Just say the word on how you need us to cooperate!"

"If anything goes wrong, I, Gao Jianjun, will take responsibility!"

Wang Zhenshan also clenched his teeth and nodded heavily. "Yichen, Uncle trusts you! Do it!"

"Right! Doctor Zhou, we all trust you!"

"Hurry up and do it! Any later and it'll be too late!"

The surrounding team leaders and team members chimed in one after another, their eyes filled with urgency and trust.

In an instant, the future hopes of the entire Xiangyang Production Brigade rested heavily upon Zhou Yichen's young shoulders.

Zhou Yichen felt the weight of this heavy pressure, but the temperament of someone who had lived two lives kept him as steady as a rock.

When it came to dealing with this sort of malpresentation, the medical knowledge in his mind gave him a high degree of certainty.

"Alright."

He uttered just a single word before crouching back down.

"Fetch another basin of warm water and hand me the soap."

Once again, he submerged his entire right arm into the warm water, grabbed the slick bar of soap, and applied a thick layer to serve as lubricant.

He took a deep breath of the air mixed with blood and fodder, his gaze turning intensely focused.