The village barefoot doctor came to check on them daily, and each day he reported they had high fevers. Wang Dadan didn't quite believe it. 'What kind of fever lasts this long? If it kept up, they'd have been left brain-damaged or dead by now.'
When he went to feel their foreheads for himself, they were scalding hot. It gave him a start—the barefoot doctor hadn't been lying.
Li Guihua and Miao Dahai were worried as well, but after observing for a few days, they found that even with the fevers, the newcomers were perfectly lucid. They privately asked them how they felt and if they were in great discomfort.
The group was evasive and didn't say much, only that their bodies could handle it and that it wasn't as unbearable as one might think.
And so, the fevers burned on for nearly twenty days. Wang Dadan, his mind brimming with malicious schemes but with no outlet for them, could only take out his frustrations in the bedroom. Thus, Widow Qian gained a frequent visitor.
