Chapter 73: Menarche, the most ordinary and boring day in November in Beijing...
"A bright future" is a good word, but a few days after Zou Hao said it, Zhu Yingning fell ill.
At first, she just felt stomach discomfort and a heavy pain in her abdomen. This pain was different from stomachache or intestinal pain. It was a wider-coverage and more sour pain.
Then my waist started to feel uncomfortable.
I thought it was caused by sitting and studying for too long, so I did a lot of exercise. When I woke up the next day, I felt even more sore. My entire lower body felt like someone had beaten me, and my legs were sore and weak.
The next day, she looked listless in class. After class, Wu Bo came to find her and saw her slumped over her desk, listless. He asked, "What's wrong? Why do you look like this? Did your relatives come over?"
relative?
Zhu Yingning was stunned and said, "No." Her relatives were all in the mountains and would not come to Beijing unless it was something important.
"That's good. You can come to me if you need anything."
As soon as Wu Bo finished speaking, the bell rang. She waved and returned to her seat.
It was English class, and a few minutes before class ended, the English teacher had arranged a dictation session and asked the class representative to collect the dictation books after class. The English class representative sat in front of Zhu Yingning. She was busy catching up on the homework she had missed the previous night and was exhausted. She asked Zhu Yingning to help her hand in the collected dictation books to the English teacher's office.
Despite feeling unwell, Zhu Yingning habitually responded with a "yes." She counted the dictation books, verified they were correct, gathered the stack in her arms, and headed upstairs to the English department's office.
Shao Yanjun slept through the entire English class and was woken up by the sound of the chair rubbing against the ground when she stood up. She straightened up, stretched her arms, yawned, and stretched herself lazily. After she was finished stretching, she collapsed on the back of the chair.
Dai Yize was reading a tomb-raiding novel with great fascination and concentration. When she leaned over, her long curly hair fell onto his novel, blocking the key plot. He smacked his lips in disgust, picked up her hair and shook it away.
"Looking for death?" Shao Yanjun immediately turned around and gave him a glare.
Just as she turned her head, she noticed Zhu Yingning's chair, was stunned for a few seconds, and said "Oh".
Dai Yize looked over and also said "Oh".
"What should I do?" he blurted out subconsciously.
Shao Yanjun said nonchalantly, "Just chase her out and tell her."
"I'm so bored, aren't I?" Dai Yize said speechlessly, putting down his novel. "Whoever wants to go can go. It's none of my business anyway."
**
When climbing upstairs with the dictation book in his arms, Zhu Yingning always felt that his pants were sticky and he wanted to reach out and pull it out a little.
But there were so many people coming and going in the corridor, she couldn't possibly be so careless about her image, so she could only endure it silently, planning to send the dictation book to the English teacher's office and then go to the bathroom to deal with it.
To get to the office, she had to pass by Xu Sirui's class. Since she was not feeling well, she did not bother to ask whether he was there or whether he came to study. She just kept walking forward, wanting to finish the job quickly.
Feng Da and Xu Sirui were leaning on the corridor railing and chatting. In early November in Beijing, there was a cool breeze and the autumn air was refreshing. The wind blew from all directions, blowing their hair and clothes.
Feng Da saw Zhu Yingning passing by them, her eyes fixed straight ahead and her steps hurried, completely unaware of them. He turned his gaze calmly to Xu Sirui, his lips curled up as he deliberately greeted her: "Yingning?"
She didn't hear it.
Instead, Xu Sirui raised his head when he heard the voice and glanced at him unhappily. Although he didn't say anything, his expression clearly said "You are so boring."
Feng Da laughed out loud and was about to call out to Zhu Yingning a few more times until she heard him when he noticed something was wrong. He raised his handsome eyebrows, nudged Xu Sirui's arm with his elbow, and pointed his chin in Zhu Yingning's direction: "Look."
Xu Sirui didn't look at it. He was too lazy to pay attention to Feng Da's occasional malicious teasing.
But Feng Da insisted: "Let's take a look."
He turned his head impatiently, his eyes randomly glancing at her departing figure.
Stop halfway through the sweep.
Hold……
How can you be so stupid?
Xu Sirui cursed softly and walked towards her.
**
Zhu Yingning walked into the English group office and put the notebook on the English teacher's desk.
The teacher wasn't in, so she was about to leave after class. Before she turned around, she heard another class's English teacher say loudly behind her, "Si Rui, you're just in time! I was just about to look for you. Why didn't you hand in the English test I assigned last week?"
She was slightly stunned and turned around, and sure enough, she saw Xu Sirui standing behind her, only two steps away from her. However, his eyes were not on her or the English teacher. Instead, he looked left and right, up and down, as if he had ADHD.
It was not a convenient place to greet him, and their English teacher looked like he wanted to find him to answer for an explanation, so she tactfully shrugged her shoulders, stepped aside, turned around and walked out of the office, intending to go back to the floor where her class was.
As a result, as soon as she moved, Xu Sirui also moved with her and walked out behind her.
The English teacher was completely confused by him: "Hey, Xu Sirui, I'm talking to you! Do you still have your teacher in your eyes?"
Obviously not.
Xu Sirui still didn't turn around.
The English teacher was so angry that she almost collapsed. The English teacher from another class nearby rushed to comfort her: "Teacher Huang, don't be angry, don't be angry!"
Zhu Yingning also heard the teacher's voice inside. She turned around in confusion and found that he was following her closely and did not stay in the office at all. It was as if he had deliberately walked in just to annoy the English teacher, as if the office was a vegetable market and anyone who was bored could walk in and take a look around.
"You..." She couldn't help but remind him, "The teacher is calling you."
He ignored it.
“…”
She was too lazy to care about him, so she pursed her lips, turned around and continued walking forward.
However, she didn't know if it was her illusion, but when she turned left, Xu Sirui turned left, and when she turned right, he turned right. No matter how fast she walked or which direction she went, he always kept a distance of two steps behind her and followed her closely.
When they reached the stairwell, Zhu Yingning finally couldn't help herself and asked, "Why do you keep following me?"
"Who's following you?" he asked calmly, "I'm going this way too, is that okay?"
“…”
What a boring conversation! Her stomach was ache and she decided not to waste her brain cells and physical energy on such a boring verbal dispute.
There were relatively few people in the stairwell. After their boring conversation ended, the stairwell was empty. Zhu Yingning wanted to continue going down, but just as he lifted his foot, he heard a rustling sound behind him.
then--
Before she could react, his hand suddenly reached out from behind her and lightly circled her lower abdomen, bringing a cool breeze.
Before she could think, the force of his arm pushed her against his chest. Through several layers of cloth, the thin and hard touch of the boy's chest was clearly transmitted to her, like a cold stone washed by a mountain spring.
Then her waist and abdomen tightened and she dropped her eyes in surprise and saw that he had taken off his autumn long-sleeved school uniform and tied it around her waist.
...What are you doing?
But before she could ask, Xu Sirui had already casually loosened his arm, turned around, and walked towards his class upstairs without looking back. When she turned her head, she only saw his tall back, with only a short T-shirt on, the hem of which fluttered in the wind.
The bell for class rang at the right time. She pinched the clothes around her waist in a daze and went to her classroom in a daze.
Returning to his seat, Shao Yanjun raised his eyelids and looked back and forth at the school uniform around her waist. After a few seconds, an ambiguous smile appeared on his face: "Which man gave this to you?"
The size of this school uniform doesn't look like a women's size at all.
Zhu Yingning scratched his face: "Actually, I'm also wondering what's going on."
After she finished speaking, she was about to sit down, but before her butt touched the seat, she found a piece of paper on her seat, barely covering the entire seat.
The square printed tissues, with their rich floral scent, are clearly Shao Yanjun's style.
She peeled off the paper and wanted to ask Shao Yanjun why he threw the paper on her chair. The next second, she saw the bloodstains on the chair hidden under the paper.
At that moment, in a flash, she suddenly understood everything.
**
This is her first period.
Girls in the mountains do not get enough nutrition, so their menstruation usually comes late, and she is one of the ones who comes especially late. Although she has seen other female classmates go through the same thing, they don’t call it “relative” but “that”.
"Have you had your period yet?"
"I had that yesterday."
"Do you have that? Can you lend me one?"
All nouns related to menstruation are implicitly replaced with "that." In this respect, "relatives" in the city and "that" in the mountains serve the same purpose: they are both deliberately used by girls to mitigate the embarrassment surrounding this matter. It is a secret that adolescent girls spontaneously participate in and share, a symbol of half-stepping into the adult world, signifying the opening and closing of a door.
Her first period came with such force that it tore a hole in the secret and forced it to be exposed.
At this time, the covering of words lost its power, and they chose to use a more gentle way to support her ups and downs.
"If you need anything, you can come to me." Two steps away, a school uniform tied at the waist, a square of tissue spread on the seat. Waving at the ringing of the school bell, turning back and going upstairs, the hem of the clothes fluttering in the wind, and now—
Shao Yanjun was lying on the desk with his back to her and sleeping.
She clenched the tissue in her hand, and the sound flowed out from between her teeth: "Thank you..."
Shao Yanjun didn't turn around, and said with a click of his tongue: "Don't bother me."
She laughed softly.
Obviously nothing has changed. The teacher is still teaching knowledge that most students are not interested in. The sunlight outside the window has not become brighter or dimmer. Everything is as usual. This is the most ordinary and boring day in November in Beijing.
But she suddenly felt that she could loudly deny the entanglement in her heart about her own kind.
How can there be any difference between the same and different kinds?
How can there be such a thing as “people from different worlds”?
How can people be simply categorized? They are all just people living in the same world.
We breathe the same air of the same world, have the same quarrels, share the same tenderness, feel sad for the same sadness, and feel happy for the same joy.
They are so different, yet so similar.
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