Dimensional Bookstore

Among some small groups of supernatural people in Baifang City, there is a rumor circulating secretly: it is said that there is a magical bookstore in Qingshui City, and the books sold by the owner can fulfill people's wishes.

——Inscription

The sky is as gloomy as an unwrung rag, and the exhaust of cars, the stench of rotten garbage and the greasy smell of cooking on the roadside are mixed together, making people sick.

Yan Xiaoshi carried a cloth bag for shopping and walked tiredly on the muddy dirt road. On both sides of the road are dilapidated and unsoundproof old houses, and the movements of the residents inside can be clearly heard. She carefully avoided a pile of dog shit in the center of the road, her mind drifted, and she began to worry about her son at home. He is now experiencing convulsions, often twitching all over and foaming at the mouth. She really doesn't feel at ease leaving him alone at home.

But she can't take her son to work. In order to treat her son's illness, she sold her house and moved here. Now the living expenses of the two and the subsequent medical expenses of her son depend on her salary. So even if she was worried, she could only leave her son alone at home.

When she got home, she didn't have time to turn on the light or put the things down. She walked towards the bedroom and shouted, "Baby, mom is back. How are you today?"

As soon as she reached the door of the bedroom, she saw her son had climbed out of bed, his eyes were empty, and he limped towards her, muttering, "Mom, my calf hurts..."

Her heart sank, and she rushed over a few steps, carefully carried her son to the bed, and gently pressed her son's right calf. Her son immediately cried out, crying in a slurred voice, "Mom, it hurts, it hurts."

Yan Xiaoshi forced a smile, "Baby, don't cry, don't cry, mom will take you to the hospital."

...

She was relieved when her son's thin little body was actually lying on the hospital bed. She felt incredible when she recalled that she had run several miles with her son in her arms before getting a taxi. You know, she couldn't even carry a bag of rice a few years ago. It really fits the old saying: Women are weak, but they are strong as mothers.

After taking the film, the attending doctor denied Yan Xiaoshi's guess - her son's calf was not broken like before, but just painful.

She pulled the corners of her mouth and finally showed a relaxed smile: "God bless, God bless." She seemed to have thought of something, and the smile on her face became more happy: "Doctor, I have collected enough money, let's give the child an injection later, so that the child can relax for a few days."

Hao Junlai bit his back teeth and almost cried, and could only nod and say "OK". The woman opposite had greasy and messy hair, but she had a lot of white hair in her thirties, and her face had deep wrinkles because of the sorrow and running around all day; her clothes were shabby, the belt of her casual pants was not tied, and some of the corners of her clothes were tucked into her trousers, looking like a mentally ill scavenger.

But even so, there was light in her numb and dim eyes when she mentioned her son.

Hao Junlai knew how the woman looked like when she was pampered before. She once had a decent job and a happy family. But all of this was ruined by the disease her son was diagnosed with when he was three years old.

The disease her son suffered from is called Caucher disease, which is called Gaucher disease in Chinese. It is a rare disease. Gaucher disease is a "common" lysosomal storage disease and an autosomal recessive genetic disease. The disease is caused by a mutation in the glucocerebrosidase gene, which leads to a lack of glucocerebrosidase activity in the body, causing its substrate glucocerebroside to accumulate in the lysosomes of macrophages in the liver, spleen, bones, lungs, and even the brain, forming typical storage cells, namely "Gaucher cells", which lead to lesions in the affected tissues and organs. Clinically, multiple organs are involved and progressively worsen. Common symptoms include unexplained splenomegaly, hepatomegaly, anemia, thrombocytopenia, bone pain, and neurological symptoms. ①

Yan Xiaoshi's son Yan Bosong's decreased vision, frequent convulsions, and bone pain and fractures are all symptoms of Gaucher disease.

At present, there are only two ways to treat Gaucher disease in China, bone marrow transplantation or long-term use of a certain imported drug called Sierzan. The former has a high risk factor and is not universal, while the latter costs 23,000 yuan per injection. Yan Bosong has to take four injections a month, which is 92,000 yuan, which is more than one million yuan a year. How many families can afford such consumption? In order to treat her son, Yan Xiaoshi sold her house and car, went bankrupt, and divorced her husband. Now she and her son live in a small one-bedroom house in a suburban village. She worked three jobs to treat her son and gritted her teeth for three years.

Hao Junlai sighed in his heart and wanted to persuade the woman to give up treatment. This disease is a bottomless pit that cannot be cured. She has to make plans for her future. But he couldn't open his mouth. After all, he is a doctor, after all... the child is only eight years old.

He looked at the old figure of the woman staggering away, and finally couldn't help asking: "Are you still treating it?"

The woman paused, her back slightly arched forward unnaturally due to the hard work of the past few days, her ill-fitting orange top was a little white due to repeated washing, and her black sweatpants were stained with oil.

"Treat it!" The voice was weak but with the courage and determination to fight against fate.

Because, she is a mother.

If the god of death wants to take her son away, she will use her life to block her son and let the god of death come later. If that terrible and tragic fate is destined to oppress her son, she will try her best to support the fate so that her son can breathe a little longer.

Because she is Yan Bosong's mother, her son must be as evergreen as pine and cypress, so she can't retreat, let alone surrender.

…

The son is very well-behaved and sensible. He didn't cry or make a fuss when he was injected. In the end, he said thank you sweetly to the nurse who injected him. After coaxing him to sleep, Yan Xiaoshi cried silently in the corridor, wishing that all the pain could be discharged from her body.

When she was about to faint from crying, the phone rang suddenly. She answered the phone in a panic, and the workshop supervisor's angry voice came from inside: "What time is it now? Do you still want to work? If you don't want to work, get out of here!"

She then remembered that she had a night shift tonight!

She groveled and said a lot of good things to her supervisor in exchange for the opportunity to continue working.

She hung up the phone in embarrassment, wiped away her tears in a hurry, and thought about telling Dr. Hao to help take care of the baby at night.

"Aunt Yan." A clear little girl's voice suddenly came from behind her. The voice was a little familiar. She turned her head in surprise and saw Yi Anran standing behind her and smiled sweetly at her: "Long time no see."

Like her son, Yi Anran also suffers from a rare disease. She suffers from a rare disease called adrenoleukodystrophy. The patient's brain will gradually degenerate, lose the ability to act, and even die from central respiratory failure, brain hernia, infection, etc. The last time Yan Xiaoshi saw this child, she was blind and paralyzed in bed because of brain degeneration and lost the ability to speak. But now she has clear eyes, not only can she speak normally, but she can also stand up! She looks like an ordinary child!

"Anran!?" She rushed to her in surprise and joy and held her hand: "Are you okay? Did the doctor cure you?"

Her heart, which was almost desperate, was once again lit by the flame of hope. If Anran can be cured, then the baby may also be cured!

"Which doctor cured you? Is it a new treatment?" she asked eagerly.

An Ran shook her head, a trace of struggle flashed in her eyes, and finally became firm, "Aunt Yan. I'll tell you a secret..."

※

Yan Xiaoshi was still a little dazed when she walked out of the station and stepped onto the land of Qingshui City. Her heart was pounding in her chest.

She skipped work. She knew she was likely to be fired, but she didn't care anymore.

That night she took the train to Qingshui City, and came all the way from Baifang City in the north to this small southern city.

The reason for making such a crazy decision was because of An Ran's words yesterday.

"In addition to science, there are some mysterious forces in this world that cannot be explained by science. My father got some information through some channels..."

"My illness was not cured by doctors, but by magic or some other mysterious power." The girl's eyes were surprisingly bright in the dim corridor: "Go to Qingshui City, there is a bookstore that can fulfill people's wishes. As long as your wish is strong enough, you can meet that store, and your brother's illness will definitely get better!"

This sentence is really ridiculous. Yan Xiaoshi is a thorough atheist and materialist. It is reasonable that she should not believe in such charlatan-like remarks. But Yi Anran's recovery is a real thing that has already happened. Yan Xiaoshi happened to be desperate enough. For a desperate person, even a straw is enough to save his life.

So she rushed to Qingshui City overnight to seek a miracle.

She didn't know the location of the bookstore, but only knew the method Anran told her. Only if the wish in her heart was strong enough could she meet that magical bookstore.

So she followed the crowd and wandered aimlessly on the street, repeating her wish over and over again in her heart: "I don't know who you are, but please let my son recover... I can give him my health! I just hope he can grow up healthy..."

She recited it over and over again. She was thin and weak in the vast sea of ​​people, like a lone boat, floating in the tide of fate, hoping that someone could take her to the other side.

Fate finally took a turn at this moment.

When she turned a strange corner, white mist suddenly appeared in front of her eyes, and the buildings on both sides became blurred like a blurred ink painting. Only a store not far from her was particularly clear.

Such a surreal scene shocked her and made her... ecstatic!

She staggered towards the store.

This is a very impressive bookstore.

Red roofs and green tiles, eaves slightly tilted, red pillars and carved rafters, the mahogany door is carved with complex carvings and animal pictures, and the white mist is filled around, it looks like a fairy, not like an ordinary residence.

Above the gate, on the solid wood plaque, there are four freehand and elegant characters written in iron and silver hooks: Kaiming Bookstore.

It's a bookstore!

This is a bookstore!

This must be the bookstore that An Ran said can make people's wishes come true!

The next moment, the mahogany carved door opened with a "creak", and along with the crisp sound of wind chimes, a clear male voice rang out from inside the door: "Welcome, please come in."

The author has something to say:

① From Baidu Encyclopedia

The plot of the real world has almost been told, and the last chapter is an open ending. There will be two real world extras later. This is the first extra. Due to time reasons, it was not finished, but I really don't want to break the appointment again, so I will release it today, and the rest of the plot will be posted tomorrow.

ps Today my Overlord Anti-hair loss shampoo finally arrived, from the bald girl's last self-redemption 1551

The reason why we use rare diseases as the entry point is because in the past few days, there has been a hot search on Weibo about a boy with leukemia whose father gave up treatment. Unlike many rare diseases that are incurable, the cure rate for boys is 80%. It just costs a lot of money, but these hospitals, the government and medical insurance can reimburse a large part of it. But even so, the father still chose to give up treatment. Only the child's mother insisted on treatment, and the boy's father never showed up from beginning to end.

The irony is that many parents of patients with rare diseases have not given up treatment for their children. They have gone bankrupt just to let their children live a few more days. Today I saw an article on the WeChat public account of the Communist Youth League Central Committee entitled "I am the father of two children with rare diseases"

》’s recommendation brought tears to my eyes after reading it. So I told myself, write it down. At least in my works, I give these parents who have never surrendered to fate a warm ending.

There were many comments on Weibo about the boy's father washing the land, saying that it was right for the father to do this, that it was the sorrow and helplessness of the poor, and that there was no need to owe huge debts for the sake of the child, etc. It seems that at this moment, they have all become reasonable guests of reason, and they have become great beings who can weigh money and life. At this moment, the light of humanity shines on them. They are representatives of the Chinese people who are rational and refuse to be kidnapped by morality. .

I feel sad that there are so many people like the boy's father in China.

At the same time, I am also glad that my parents are not the boy's father and they did not give up on me.

When my mother was pregnant with me, her waist was bent and she was bleeding profusely. The doctor said that the baby might be deformed or sick, and asked if he should keep me. My father was reluctant to let go because my mother worked hard to get pregnant and have me, so they decided to keep me. That's how I was born. I was very lucky. I was healthy and didn't have any diseases. I grew up peacefully and became an adult in my twenties.

When I say this, I may be a holy mother who can stand and talk without having back pain. It is true that some diseases can bring down a family, but I think you should at least give it a try and work hard to be worthy of your own humanity and conscience. Even if you don't get a good ending in the end, you can still say to your child with a clear conscience: "I'm sorry, mom and dad have worked hard, but God likes you more than us."

When a person begins to use money to measure life, humanity disappears from him, and he can no longer be called a human being. Even wild beasts will lose their lives to protect their children. Such people can only be called worse than beasts.

Copyright belongs to the author.