Chapter 102 You're sick? Send me your location where you live. ...

Wen Yue considers herself to be naturally emotionally detached and lacking in empathy. When her female classmates talked about the pain of menstrual cramps in the dormitory, she felt nothing. She doesn't suffer from menstrual cramps, she has never experienced it, and she doesn't know how to empathize with others.

Until her second year of high school, Wen Yue was assigned to sit next to a very lively girl who always had endless funny stories to tell. Every time the bell rang, she would start chattering away. Wen Yue couldn't understand how there could be such a noisy person in the world, until one day she suddenly fell silent.

Wen Yue felt relieved to finally have some peace and quiet, but at the same time, she felt that her behavior was really abnormal. After enduring it for two classes, Wen Yue finally couldn't help but ask her, "What's wrong with you?"

The girl, who was lying face down on the table, didn't dare to move. She slowly turned her head, which was buried in her arms, toward Wen Yue and said in a trembling voice, "My stomach hurts."

Her face was pale and she looked listless. Wen Yue was startled and, for the first time, showed concern for her deskmate, asking, "Why didn't you say you needed me to take you to the school clinic?"

My deskmate said weakly, "No need, I just have menstrual cramps."

Wen Yue remembered hearing her classmates mention painkillers in the dorm before, and asked, "Did you take painkillers?"

The classmate said, "I didn't eat it. I ate too much and developed a tolerance. It won't help now." Seeing Wen Yue's helpless look, the classmate added, "It's okay. I'm always like this. It was especially painful a couple of days ago, and I could only endure it."

Everyone went to lunch, but her deskmate remained slumped over the table, motionless. Wen Yue asked her if she wanted to bring lunch, but she shook her head listlessly.

Wen Yue quickly finished her lunch and went to the back gate of the school to buy a roasted sweet potato from a vendor outside through the iron gate. Then she ran back to the classroom. As soon as she entered the classroom, she saw her deskmate squatting under the desk, dry heaving and crying. In just half a day, Wen Yue had almost forgotten what her deskmate was like when she was usually cheerful. That was the first time she had experienced the suffering that menstrual cramps brought to girls.

Later, she started working, and her work hours were reversed day and night. Over time, this caused her menstrual cycle to become irregular, and she began to experience menstrual cramps. Only then did she truly understand how unbearable that pain was.

A few days ago, Wen Yue had a stomachache and thought her period was coming. She slept for two days without any problems. Yesterday afternoon, while learning to cook with An Fusheng, she felt a dull pain in her lower abdomen. She thought it was just a false alarm and persevered until she got off work. However, when she got back to her rented room, the pain got worse and worse, and she was woken up in the middle of the night by the pain. Only then did she realize that her period had indeed started.

This period was three months after the last one. Perhaps because of the long interval, this time it came on strong. The pain in my lower abdomen came in waves, like being stabbed with a needle. Wen Yue was in so much pain that she could hardly breathe.

Wen Yue tossed and turned in bed until dawn, and with her work time fast approaching, the pain only intensified. Finally, she had no choice but to call An Fusheng to ask for leave.

An Fusheng sensed something was wrong when he heard Wen Yue's voice and asked, "Are you sick?"

Wen Yue slowly exhaled, and after the sharp pain subsided, she said, "No, it's just a bit of a stomachache. I'll be fine after a rest."

An Fusheng said, "Send me your location where you live."

Wen Yue couldn't help but wonder: Does my brother want to locate me so he can come see me?

Then she thought: What's the point of watching it? Watching it won't ease the pain, and it will only trouble my brother. I'd better not.

The pain and torment weakened her will, and in her struggle, Wen Yue had already sent out her location.

One wave of pain passed, only to be followed by another. Wen Yue had no energy left to think. She tucked her phone under her pillow, covered herself with the blanket, and focused all her attention on fighting the pain.

She didn't know how much time had passed when, in a daze, Wen Yue heard a knock on the door, followed by the vibration of her phone under her pillow.

Wen Yue answered the phone and heard Lou's mother's anxious voice: "Yueyue, are you alright? Can you come and open the door?"

She had just dozed off for a while, and the pain had lessened a little, but she still couldn't straighten her back. Wen Yue climbed off the bed and walked unsteadily toward the door with her hunched back.

She was staying in a single room, and the distance from the bed to the door was only a few meters, but she was already covered in sweat when she got to the door.

The first thing Wen Yue saw when she opened the door was Lou's mother's worried face. She suddenly felt wronged and pouted, saying, "Lou's mother, my stomach hurts so much."

Seeing her weak appearance, Lou Lan asked with great concern, "What's wrong?"

Wen Yue said, "It's menstrual cramps."

Lou Lan quickly helped her back to bed, tucked her under the covers, and used several tissues to wipe the cold sweat from her forehead. "Why does it hurt so much? You were fine before. Have you seen a doctor?"

Wen Yue shook her head. "No."

Lou Lan: "Child, how long have you been in pain?"

Wen Yue obediently replied, "It's been almost a year."

Lou Lan: "Why haven't you gone to the hospital for so long? How are you now? Can you move? I'll take you to the hospital to get checked out."

Wen Yue shook her head: "I don't want to go. It's too cold outside. It's because of my bad work schedule. It won't hurt anymore once I adjust."

Lou Lan sighed helplessly, turned around and asked An Fusheng to boil some water. Only then did Wen Yue realize that her older brother and Niannian were there.

Wen Yue rented a small single room with only a 1.2-meter bed, a wardrobe, and a small table. The kitchen and bathroom were on the balcony.

Although the room was small, it was kept very clean and tidy, and everything was neatly arranged and well-categorized. You could find almost anything without much effort.

An Fusheng first boiled a kettle of water, poured a cup for Lou's mother to feed Xian Wenyue, and then took out brown sugar and ginger from the small refrigerator in the kitchen to boil a bowl of brown sugar ginger water and sent it over.

It wasn't appropriate for a man like him to stay in a girl's room, so after bringing her some brown sugar ginger water, he went back to the balcony. Standing there, listening to Mrs. Lou's rambling voice inside, he thought of Sister Chunyi again, and how she cried in his arms during her first period. She had to endure physical hardship and always lacked care in her life. Why was growing up so difficult for girls...

After some time, Xu Sannian asked An Fusheng to help pack his things because Lou Mama was worried about Wen Yue living alone here and wanted to take her back to the orphanage.

Xu San Nian originally planned to pack a few changes of clothes for Wen Yue, but when he opened the closet, he found that she didn't have many clothes at all. After looking around her house, he found that she didn't have much stuff either. Since Wen Yue was also planning to move back to the orphanage, he decided to move her instead. So he asked An Fusheng to help pack.

After drinking brown sugar ginger water and being tucked into bed by Aunt Lou, Wen Yue felt warm all over. By the time An Fusheng and Xu Sannian had finished packing, her stomach pain had subsided.

An Fusheng and Xu Sannian were both very strong, and they moved all of Wen Yue's things in one trip.

Wen Yue belatedly realized that she had been trying to hide her impoverished life from Lou's mother, but this time it was all exposed. However, seeing Lou's mother's heartfelt concern for her, she felt indifferent.

Lou Lan was afraid that Wen Yue's stomach would hurt again if she caught a cold, so she forcibly wrapped Wen Yue in layer after layer, almost making her go out wrapped in a blanket. Wen Yue also personally experienced what it means to be "cold when your mom thinks you're cold".

Two days ago, Wen Yue said she wanted to go back to the orphanage, so Lou Lan cleaned her old room in advance. When she returned to the orphanage, Lou Lan turned on the air conditioner in her room, laid out a soft quilt, and then pressed her down in the quilt. Soon, Wen Yue's head was sweating profusely again, but this time it was from heat.

The heat must have really worked, because by noon Wen Yue's stomach pain had completely subsided. However, Lou Lan still wouldn't let her leave the room, and even brought her lunch to the room.

"Did I delay your opening today?" Wen Yue asked.

She called An Fusheng around 7 a.m., and he probably hadn't even had time to buy groceries yet. He got back from her place around 11 a.m., and his older brother was busy making lunch. He probably didn't have time to buy groceries at all. Without groceries, he probably wouldn't be able to do any business all day.

Lou Lan said, "He's been working at the shop all day and then learning to drive until midnight every night. He's been spinning like a top. It would be good for him to rest for a day."

...

For two days, Lou's mother kept Wen Yue on the bed, even bringing her meals to her room. But she wasn't bored. Her younger siblings would peek out from under the door like little groundhogs, asking, "Sister, can I come in and play with you?"

Wen Xinglin, in particular, stayed in her room all day yesterday and refused to go to school this morning. When Lou's mother said that the final exams were next week, he reluctantly ran to Wen Yue's room and said, "Sister, I'm going to school. Don't run around outside while I'm at home."

Wen Yue had lived in the orphanage for twenty years, and this was the first time she had ever seen how close the brothers and sisters in the orphanage could be. When did things become like this? It wasn't like this when she left two years ago.

Wen Yue didn't go to the kitchen to help these past two days, but she studied the restaurant's video account and WeChat official account.

Wen Yue had spent so much time reviewing videos and had watched millions of videos, many of which were of good quality. However, not everyone is good at creating self-media content, and she had seen far too many low-quality videos. But when she saw the few videos posted on the Xingchen Canteen account, she remained silent for a long time.

The image quality, the shooting angle, the background music, the editing—none of it was watchable. Yet, her older brother had the QR code blatantly printed on the packaging. The restaurant's food was so delicious, yet they only had about a hundred orders a day. Wen Yue suspected that these videos were attracting negative attention.

Once she was allowed to get out of bed, Wen Yue immediately went to her older brother with her phone in hand, asking, "Brother, could you please delete all these videos?"

An Fusheng and Xu Sannian looked surprised: "Why?"

Wen Yue said, "The photos are so ugly. Our kitchen is so clean, but they made it look so dark. Who would dare to eat there? And the food too, the photos are so awful, it doesn't look appetizing at all."

An Fusheng: "..."

Xu Sannian: "..."

Wen Yue continued, "Someone asked a question in the comments section, but no one answered. The whole account seems to be dead. The key is that you even printed the QR code on the packaging bag. People excitedly scanned the code to follow you, and this is what you get? It's like they've printed 'I'm a black market workshop' on their foreheads. It's better if they didn't have it at all."

An Fusheng: "..."

Xu Sannian: "..."

"Also, I noticed when I ordered that the pictures on our menu weren't very good. They were too dark, and it was obvious that there was no lighting. They didn't capture even a tenth of the deliciousness of our dishes," Wen Yue said.

An Fusheng & Xu Sannian: "Do we need lighting to take pictures of food?"

Seeing that An Fusheng and Xu Sannian looked confused, Wen Yue waved her hand and said, "I will take over the management of these accounts from now on."