Throbbing
The dormitory was so quiet that only Xu Nian's whimpering could be heard. However, her voice had also become softer now. She looked at the person lying motionless next to her, and then at her long, greasy black braid. What else could she not understand?
The most important thing is that she actually saw little lice crawling on Li Qiunan's head...
"vomit"
At this moment I wish I were blind!
Liang Ting got off the kang and stood in the aisle. "Li Qiunan is still sleeping. Get up and explain clearly."
The person on the bed remained silent...
Xu Nian was already infected, and his heart was filled with grief and anger. "Get up! Is this you? Explain clearly... We are all classmates, why are you like this? If you have head lice, you should get treatment. Why don't you at least warn me? Will you be happy once I get infected?"
The girl sleeping on Li Qiunan's other side had been pulling at her hair. She didn't know if it was a psychological effect, but her scalp was itchy, and she felt uncomfortable, aggrieved, and scared. "... Stop pretending! Get up and tell me when this happened."
The person who had been silent all this time was now lying on the bed shivering, looking very pitiful. Xu Nian saw that a small area of her straw pillow was soaked, and she felt extremely powerless in an instant. What was going on?
The people on the long kang opposite the dormitory were basically chatting with each other, while they were checking everyone on the kang, fearing that they would also be infected. In the end, the roommates who felt safe automatically isolated themselves from them.
Xu Nian's eyes were sore from crying, but she had calmed down. She glanced at Liu Xi and said decisively, "Xixi, you should sleep on that side too. You have short hair and wash it often, so you don't have the symptoms I have, so you should be fine.
Liu Xi paused for a moment as if she was about to refuse, but how could Xu Nian let her take any risks, so she shook her head firmly.
Liang Ting put her hands on her hips and stared at Li Qiunan, but how could she wake up someone who was pretending to be asleep? She wanted to pull her up, but she felt uncomfortable.
Xu Nian waved his hand weakly at her, "Go to sleep, Tingting, you have classes tomorrow." This three-dimensional image didn't look like her at all. If she hadn't been sobbing uncontrollably, she would have looked even more like a troublemaker.
Xu Nian didn't sleep much that night. Not only was he scared, but he also felt uncomfortable. He kept feeling like lice were running around his body. He didn't know how long he had been trying before he fell asleep when he couldn't stand it anymore.
She woke up very early the next morning. She was afraid of infecting Liu Xi and Liang Ting, so she didn't stay with them and walked behind them silently.
Liu Xi said that many people get lice in the summer, and it will be cured by combing it more often with a comb and applying some medicine. However, after she said that, Xu Nian looked like... he didn't seem to believe it.
Xu Nian sat at the same table with Liu Xi, but she kept her distance from them all morning. She didn't eat lunch at noon, just said something and ran away in a hurry.
She went back and got two pots of hot water, then took a basin of water to the sink to wash her hair, even though she was shivering from the cold.
She didn't know how to describe the sadness in her heart to others. She wanted to cry whenever she was alone, and she couldn't control it at all. She might not feel so uncomfortable if she was hit, but she always claimed to be a young and beautiful girl, and she really couldn't bear to see lice happening to her.
The day was extremely long, and today happened to be Saturday. Something like this happened in the dormitory, and everyone had a day to calm down and have their own thoughts. Some of them were from the county town, and they went home before the two-day holiday at the end of the month.
Xu Nian felt extremely embarrassed. Li Qiunan was the only one with her now, but she had disappeared after school. Liang Ting was picked up by her family after school, and Liu Xi was persuaded by her to go have dinner. She couldn't eat and just wanted to stay quiet.
But she kept having random thoughts when she was alone, so she decided to find something to do. She took all the washable items on the bed to the sink and washed them.
One can imagine how biting the water is in winter. Even though Xu Nian loves cleanliness normally, she can't do it like this. When her hands were almost numb, the things were finally washed. She struggled to carry the things to the dormitory.
The door was not closed and Yan Xunian kicked it. When the door opened, she saw a person sitting next to her bed. The hair was super short, even shorter than Liu Xi's.
The girl turned around when she heard the voice. Xu Nian looked for a long time before realizing it was Li Qiunan. She moved her mouth and then closed it again, walking towards the balcony carrying a basin of washed clothes.
Passing by Li Qiunan and her son, I heard a quiet "I'm sorry."
Xu Nian paused and said nothing. This was her weakness. If you meet someone who is unreasonable and you ask for help, but this person didn't do it on purpose or didn't want to do it, and even apologized to you, what can you do?
Anyone can see that she usually loves her long braids, and now that she has cut them so short, what else can she say?
The dormitory of the two seemed extremely empty. Xu Nian was lying on the table writing something. Of course, he was not really writing. He didn't want to communicate with the only person in the dormitory, for fear of angering himself to death.
She was silent and the only sound in the dormitory was the scratching of her handwriting. Just when she couldn't hold it in any longer and was about to leave, Li Qiunan spoke.
"Xu Nian,...I'm really sorry. I know you wouldn't believe me even if I told you that I only discovered I had lice these past two days, but I swear I really didn't know at first."
Xu Nian didn't stop working. He heard her sniff and drew a pig's head on the paper in annoyance.
"My family is from the countryside. My younger brother is nine years old and needs to go to school this year. My sister and I are twins, and she attends No. 3 Middle School. A while ago, my father said that our family didn't have enough money for my younger brother's tuition, so he wanted one of us to sell our hair to earn some money. My sister and I were reluctant to do that, and the last time we went home, we had a fight. Then, last week, my scalp started to itch."
Li Qiunan seemed unable to continue speaking. Xu Nian heard her choking sobs. She wanted to turn around, but her body seemed to be frozen and she couldn't move at all.
Li Qiunan took a few deep breaths and continued, "I didn't think it was lice at first. At first, I thought it was time to wash my hair, because it would feel better every time I washed it, but it started to itch again within two days. It wasn't until the other day that I looked at myself in the mirror you put on the table and saw what looked like little bugs moving around. I was so scared at the time that I used the money I saved for food to go to the hospital and get some medicine to apply. I thought it would be gone in two days and I really didn't want to infect you.
After school today, I went to ask my sister about it, and we had a fight. She then said that she deliberately put the belongings of her classmate who had lice on my pillow, which caused me to get infected.
The reason... was simply that she didn't want to cut her hair, and she said I would have to cut it if I got infected."
"sorry!"
"sorry!"
"Nian Nian"
When Li Qiunan was about to say sorry for the third time, Liu Xi pushed the door open and called her.
Xu Nian rubbed his eyes, forced a smile and asked, "What's wrong?"
Liu Xi didn't expect that there were only two of them in the dormitory. She was stunned for a moment before saying, "Your brother is downstairs. Let you go down."
Xu Nian thought it was Xu Fengkai. If he hadn't been downstairs, Xu Nian didn't want to go downstairs to face the acquaintance at all.
After greeting Liu Xi, Xu Nian glanced at Li Qiunan out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn't say anything generous and walked downstairs slowly.
In winter, it gets dark around five o'clock. It's almost seven o'clock now, and it's so dark that I can hardly see the road.
Xu Nian saw a person standing in front of the female dormitory and walked towards that direction. When he was about ten steps away, he recognized who it was and could not move his feet anymore.
Xu Hongqi saw Xu Nian stop and walk towards her, but the first thing she said was, "Are you hungry?"
Xu Nian felt so uncomfortable. He had always thought that he was not hungry, but his true feelings were revealed when he opened his mouth. "I'm hungry." As soon as he said the word, tears came down and he even put food in his mouth.
She felt that she was hypocritical and terrible.
Xu Hongqi saw her sad face and tear marks, and felt a little uncomfortable. He couldn't help but put his hand on Xu Nian's face to wipe her tears. "Hungry, I'll take you out to eat."
"I'm not staying on campus tonight. Go to the dormitory and get some clean clothes. After dinner, I'll take you to the bathhouse to take a shower. We'll stay out all night."
Xu Nian felt Xu Hongqi's hand scratching her face and took a step back. But when she realized what he was talking about, she was stunned. "Do you know?"
"Well, your classmate came to me and told me that you haven't eaten for a day." He sold Liu Xi out without saying a word.
Seeing Xu Nian seemed unhappy, he added, "Xu Nian, actually this is very common. Many people in the village have it. It will be fine after cleaning it up."
Xu Nian was still holding it back, but after he finished speaking, he couldn't hold it back anymore, tears streaming down his face. "But I don't want it to grow. What the hell is this thing? Will it get into my ears, nose, or mouth? I'm so scared, sob, so scared..."
Xu Hongqi kept her mouth shut when she cried. He never knew she had such a vivid imagination. He could tell she was really scared, so he could only keep comforting her, "No, no, you're not hungry, let's go eat first."
Xu Nian felt better after venting her anger. She still trusted Xu Hongqi very much. She went upstairs sobbing, said something to Liu Xi with a choked voice, packed up her clothes, and went downstairs carrying her red schoolbag.
Xu Hongqi also had a schoolbag on his back. Just as he was about to take Xu Nian's, he saw her hide behind him. "Don't take it. What if there's something on your schoolbag too?"
Xu Hongqi didn't know what expression to express, and snatched it away forcefully, "I'm not afraid."
Xu Nian pursed her lips and followed Xu Hongqi. There was nowhere to go for dinner at this time, so they just went to the state-owned restaurant. Xu Hongqi ordered a bowl of shredded pork noodles for her. He felt relieved when he saw that she ate it with relish. However, maybe she had been crying for too long and would occasionally sob uncontrollably.
After dinner, he took her to the bathhouse. The way was a bit far. This was an area Xu Nian had never set foot in since she came here. She saw Xu Hongqi hand a dime and a ticket to an old lady, and then he took a card and came over.
"Take this and go inside. The lady will take you in. I'll be waiting for you outside. It's okay if you take your time."
Xu Nian felt her heart suddenly palpitate, and she unconsciously wanted to hide when looking at Xu Hongqi, but only she knew her true thoughts. She looked at Xu Hongqi deeply and then turned her eyes away.
When I entered the bathhouse, it was gray inside. There was an electric light, but it was not very bright. I could barely see the environment. There were four or five women soaking in the big pool, and it looked foggy because of the temperature difference.
There were only three showers in the huge bathhouse, and no one was using them. Xu Nian felt much more relaxed. She turned on the shower and washed her hair with the shampoo that Xu Hongqi had just given her. When she finally felt clean, she tied her shoulder-length hair into a bun.
After finishing all this, Xu Nian tilted her head and let the water spray on her body, feeling the gentle warmth. After completely relaxing, she felt like she was floating in ecstasy.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
