Chapter 18
Chapter 18
I returned to the county hospital carrying fruit and gifts.
Taking advantage of the lunch break, I went to visit the veteran doctors who were said to have known my mother.
When I entered the breakroom, two people were sitting inside-a man and a woman.
The woman had a head of silver hair and wore glasses. Her complexion was ruddy, and she seemed to be in excellent spirits.
The man appeared to be slightly older than the woman, with kind and gentle features.
Before coming here, I had been told that both of them were retired doctors who had been rehired by the hospital.
The two were chatting happily and laughing, only gradually reining in their smiles when they saw me enter.
“Hello, Doctor Chen. Hello, Doctor Du.”
The female doctor’s surname was Chen. She looked a bit surprised to see me.
“And you are?”
“I’m the person who made an appointment to meet with you both. I’m the son of Shen Yufen and Lin Youfang. My name is Lin Geng.”
“Lin Geng?”
“Yes.”
“No, no, no. Who are you, really?”
This caught me completely off guard. Had there been some kind of misunderstanding when my uncle passed on the message?
“I really am Shen Yufen’s son. I didn’t have any other intentions in coming here today; I just have a few questions I wanted to ask you.”
“The Lin Youfang you mentioned-the one who worked at Mingshan Mining and was killed in the coal mine explosion?”
“Yes.”
“And your mother had short hair, somewhat dark skin, and was a woman of very few words?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s even more impossible.” Doctor Chen and Doctor Du exchanged a look. “The baby Shen Yufen was carrying back then was a girl.”
What???
My voice trembled as I asked, “Doctor Chen, is it possible you’re misremembering?”
“Impossible. I was the doctor in charge of the ultrasounds back then. I was the first to know whether it was a boy or a girl.”
“Uh, why do you have such a deep impression of my mother?”
She thought back carefully.
“Mainly because of Lin Youfang. Management wasn’t as strict in those days, so ultrasound doctors would usually tell the pregnant women the gender of the child after the exam.”
“When other families found out they were having a girl, they’d practically start cursing or wailing in grief.”
“Lin Youfang was different. He was thrilled-so happy he was jumping for joy. You could tell he genuinely loved the idea of having a daughter.”
“In those days, the preference for sons over daughters was very strong. Men like Lin Youfang were too rare, which is why I remember him so clearly.”
I muttered to myself under my breath.
“So I had an older sister? Why did I never hear my family mention this?”
Doctor Du’s mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, but he seemed hesitant about whether he should speak.
In the end, he only asked one question.
“Young man, what year were you born?”
“1988.”
Doctor Chen perked up. “That’s impossible. Shen Yufen came in for her checkup in the latter half of 1987. Even if she’d had a natural birth, she wouldn’t have had her daughter until 1988. How could she have given birth to you in the same year?”
What?
This…
Was I… not their biological son?
Seeing that Doctor Chen had exposed the discrepancy, Doctor Du followed up.
“I heard that Shen Yufen had a premature birth. The child didn’t survive, and she lost her ability to conceive.”
Doctor Chen chimed in, “What happened?”
“A hysterectomy.”
Those few words struck me like a bolt of lightning, leaving my head ringing.
I couldn’t process it for a long time.
But I knew what they said was true because, in my memory, I had never seen my mother use things like sanitary pads.
There were none in the house.
“Who performed the surgery back then?”
“Liu Jianguo.”
At the mention of Liu Jianguo, the expressions of both doctors changed instantly. They both shut their mouths and quickly changed the subject.
“Back then, our hospital seemed to have quite a few children with physical deformities, didn’t it?”
“Indeed. It was all because of the water pollution. Truly heartless.”
I forced myself to calm my emotions. “Doctor Chen, what happened to all those deformed infants in the hospital back then?”
“I’m not sure about that. They were probably sent to welfare institutions. Many of them were abandoned babies left directly at the hospital. Where else could they have gone?”
Why were the other infants sent to welfare institutions, while I became Lin Youfang’s son?
Could it be that my parents adopted me from an orphanage?