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The tens of thousands of livestock in the Seventh Production Brigade of the Husehe Commune were divided into several herds, each assigned to different herding households for care.
Larger families with more members were given bigger herds, sometimes numbering thousands of cattle, horses, sheep, camels, and donkeys.
Smaller households received smaller herds, though usually still consisting of several hundred animals.
The herder’s livestock pen before them covered a vast area, enclosed by movable fences and thick felt windbreaks. Inside, hundreds of sheep huddled together for warmth, along with ten cows, twelve mares, two camels, and five small donkeys.
One of the cows was tied to a sturdy wooden post in a separate section, surrounded by a dozen onlookers.
Outside, the biting wind carried in snow, but the gathered crowd exhaled so much warm breath that the air became thick with swirling mist.
Lin Xuejun squeezed through the crowd and saw the cow, emaciated after enduring the harsh winter, its skin stretched taut over its protruding bones like a small tent. Its thin legs trembled unsteadily, kicking occasionally, as if struggling to support its heavily swollen belly.
“Moo—moo—” The cow bellowed in restless pain, tossing its head and striking the wooden post with its horns, shaking loose snow from the roof above.
“What can we do? The roads are blocked by snow. Even if we tried to fetch a veterinarian from the station tonight, it’s impossible. Anyone who goes might freeze to death on the way,” one herder fretted, stomping his feet in sync with the cow, his gaze darting between the animal and the snow outside as if by staring hard enough, he’d be able to will the storm to stop.
The station was the commune’s headquarters, but in this vast grassland, it was nearly a hundred kilometers away.
“Even if the snow stopped now, the roads would still be buried. Even the fastest horse couldn’t make it in time!” a woman in a brown deel muttered repeatedly in Mongolian. “It’s too late, too late.”
“Ever since Old Man Bala passed away, whenever our livestock get sick, we have to go all the way to headquarters. By the time we get help, it’s always too late! So many good animals are wasted,” a local Han Chinese herder wearing a triangular sheepskin yuden1 hat grumbled in a mix of Northeastern Mandarin and accented Mongolian, wiping sweat from his brow.
Even though the livestock were distributed among households for care, they still belonged to the brigade as collective property. Any losses would still affect everyone.
This winter, between starvation, freezing temperatures, and wolf attacks, nearly a quarter of the animals had perished. This cow, bred as early as August, was due to calve in late March, when the cold snap was at its worst. The calves were already hard to keep alive, and if the cow died in labor… The herders had raised her for over a year, painstakingly waiting for her to calve and produce milk.
Not to mention, after raising her for so long, they’d already grown attached—losing her would be heartbreaking.
“It’s a shame Old Man Bala didn’t train anyone to take over his folk veterinary skills,” a herder in a Lei Feng hat sighed.
Though not a certified vet like the bespectacled ones at the commune headquarters, Bala had been an experienced herder with practical knowledge of common livestock ailments. He’d been the go-to folk veterinarian for the grassland’s herders, that was, until he succumbed to the winter cold.
“What’s the point of bringing that up now?”
The gaunt, dark-skinned herder standing by the cow’s head wore a pained expression, ignoring the anxious chatter of the surrounding crowd. He simply stroked the slightly curled white fur between the cow’s eyes each time she panted heavily.
The tall, lanky brigade leader was almost hopping with impatience. While rubbing the cow’s belly, he craned his neck to peer outside and urged, “Where’s the medic? Still not here? They should’ve carried her here by now if needed! Why isn’t she here yet?”
“She’s coming! Coming—” A herder at the outer edge shouted joyfully upon seeing the bobbing flashlight beam approaching, as if spotting a savior.
Lin Xuejun had grown up in Hulunbuir. Though she couldn’t write or read Mongolian script, she had no trouble understanding or speaking the language.
By listening from the sidelines, she grasped the situation better than the clueless educated youths who kept peering around in confusion.
Following everyone’s gaze toward the cattle shed entrance, Lin Xuejun recognized the bear-like robust figure of the Mongolian women’s director. This was the same strong woman who had carried her to see the medic when the educated youths first arrived.
Escorted by the women’s director was medic Wang Ying, the young human doctor who had treated Lin Xuejun with injections.
In his desperation, the brigade leader had actually summoned a human doctor to treat it.
Though both humans and cattle are mammals, their anatomy, diseases, and treatments differ vastly. The brigade leader must have been truly desperate.
Lin Xuejun watched as Wang Ying walked through the path cleared by herders to approach the cow. Frowning, the medic explained her limitations to the brigade leader, “Brigade leader, how can humans and cows be the same? Even if you ask me to treat her… I wouldn’t know how.”
Carrying her medical kit, she removed her gloves and pulled out a notebook, flipping to the page about human childbirth. She shook it helplessly at the brigade leader.
Lin Xuejun nodded unconsciously in silent agreement with Wang Ying.
Another glance at the cow’s condition showed that the amniotic fluid had broken, mixing with cow dung on the ground into a muddy mess. The cow’s tail was raised, muscles trembling with periodic straining, yet no calf’s head appeared.
Blood had already begun dripping unnoticed into the muck.
Lin Xuejun’s foot shifted forward slightly, then hesitated.
To the herders, she probably seemed like just another naive and inexperienced girl. Would they trust her enough to let her intervene?
“Brigade Leader, I can’t even feel the calf moving,” Wang Ying said helplessly, patting the cow’s belly before randomly pressing her stethoscope against it.
Before the brigade leader could respond, a herder in the crowd sighed loudly and exclaimed, “Haven’t we seen this before? The calf’s already dead inside. When it stiffens and gets stuck, no matter how hard the cow pushes, it won’t come out. Ends up killing them both.”
“Is that what’s happening?” The brigade leader turned pale as he asked the medical worker.
“I… I dunno either,” Wang Ying blurted out in her thick rural dialect, her carefully learned standard Mandarin forgotten in the emergency.
Lin Xuejun took another step forward.
Her tense expression suddenly caught sight of the other educated youths nearby.
In this environment where everything, including medicines and medical equipment, were scarce, her wisest course of action as a newcomer would be to keep a low profile, observing more and speaking less.
Even if the herders let her try, what if she failed?
The policy of sending educated youth to the countryside had just begun, and the eight of them were the first batch of educated youth welcomed by the Seventh Production Brigade. Each of them was eager to set a good example and leave a positive impression on the locals.
But these past few days, as she lay on the kang recovering from illness, Lin Xuejun heard a different story from the other educated youth—
The brigade leader and the herdsmen regarded the city kids as oddities, thinking they couldn’t carry water or shoulder loads and knew nothing about life on the grasslands. Their damp hands dared to touch the iron shovel, only to have their skin peel off, leaving them bloody and grimacing in pain, unable to do any heavy work afterward… Seeing how delicate they were, the herdsmen didn’t bother wasting words on them, barely teaching them how to work and handling them with indifference.
The educated youth often felt isolated, and it left a bitter taste in their hearts.
Though the brigade leader kept reassuring them not to rush and to be patient, the tasks he assigned—feeding the cows, shoveling hay, cleaning the barn—no matter how hard they toiled all day, often only earned them disappointed sighs from the herdsmen, who complained they didn’t do well enough.
Fitting in and gaining the herdsmen’s acceptance seemed like an impossible challenge.
The passionate young men and women, weighed down by the herdsmen’s looks of disappointment and disapproval, felt both resentment and frustration. Some even secretly wiped away tears in their distress.
In such a situation, if she stepped forward and failed, embarrassing the group of educated youth, wouldn’t it only make their circumstances worse?
Thinking this, Lin Xuejun silently withdrew the foot she had been about to step forward with.
pls do not share this anywhere or u will always stub ur toe when u walk past a door frame !! this translation has been stolen from mioscorner.com, pls only read there i’m begging u :kneels:
At that moment, the butcher, who had been standing on the outskirts of the crowd, saw his chance and pushed his way through, declaring loudly, “Brigade Leader, if the calf is stuck inside, and the cow keeps straining, her intestines will be punctured, blood will spill everywhere, and it’ll be a mess to deal with. Why not spare her the suffering? Let me take her to the slaughterhouse and give her a quick end.”
The old herdsman, who had been holding the cow’s rope while soothing and encouraging her, suddenly looked up. Gripping the rope tightly, he shouted anxiously at the brigade leader, “Let her try again, let her push harder, just give her another chance!”
With that, he walked to the cow’s side and slapped her rump.
The cow, as if sensing imminent danger, turned her head, her large eyes fixed on the old herdsman. She snorted and let out low, mournful moans.
Restlessly stomping her hooves, her legs wobbled as if she might collapse at any moment. But when her eyes met the old man’s, she seemed to understand his concern and urgency. With another forceful snort and a loud moo, she stiffened her legs.
The next moment, more bloody fluid gushed from the vulva beneath her tail.
The old herdsman’s heart ached with worry. Despite the sub-zero temperatures in the barn, sweat beaded on his forehead, wiped away again and again but never fully gone.
The murmurs among the herdsmen in the barn fell silent, replaced only by sighs. The atmosphere grew heavy.
Mu Junqing, who had been watching the scene, quietly pulled aside the women’s director, who spoke both Mongolian and Chinese, and asked for the full story.
“…At this rate, well… it’s only a matter of time.”
The other educated youth listening nearby also wore sorrowful expressions. The sensitive Yi Xiuyu, predictably, began wiping her tears, murmuring, “The cow is so pitiful, and the old man too. If only I knew how to treat her…”
Just like the other herders, she felt both concern and helplessness.
Lin Xuejun bit her lower lip until it turned pale. As Yi Xiuyu’s voice reached her ears, her gaze remained fixed on the frantic elderly livestock owner pacing in circles…
Finally, she let out a long sigh and stepped forward, pushing through the crowd.
Wrapped in a blanket, she strode between the medic Wang Ying and the mother cow, then declared clearly to the brigade leader, “Brigade Leader, judging by the mother cow’s bleeding and overall condition, there’s a good chance the calf is still alive.”
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- The triangular hat worn by the Buryat Mongols. Buryat: A Mongolian tribe living on the Hulunbuir grasslands. ↩︎
