Translated by: Oinkoink

Names mentioned in this chapter:

– 苏秦 (Sū Qín) – Female Lead

– 黎川 (Lí Chuān) / 黎教授 (Lí jiàoshòu) – Male Lead

– 包包 (Bāo bāo) – daughter of the Female Lead with the Male Lead

– 刘奶奶 (Liú nǎinai) – Grandma Liu / FL’s neighbor

– 刘伟雄 (Liú Wěixióng) – Li Chuan’s fellow schoolmate (Panda)

– 张亚竹 (Zhāng Yàzhú) – Li Chuan’s fellow schoolmate (Old Zhu)

– 春春哥 (Chūnchūn gē) – Li Chuan’s fellow schoolmate

Chapter 21 – Menarche

This novel is only hosted on Foxaholic, copies found elsewhere are either stolen or plagiarized.

The May afternoon in Yunyang City was steaming hot. Su Qin cycled through the wholesale market to buy some flower seeds, white canvas and some sewing tools.

The school bag she used was bought during junior high, which had been sewn and mended as she carried it through senior high and it was quite childish.

School bags sold in the market now were not only expensive but of poor quality too. The fashionable crossbody school bags were complicatedly styled and looked distasteful. Su Qin intended to make a simple and nice looking one that wasn’t childish and could hold a lot of stuff.

Once Su Qin reached home, she cut the required pieces of canvas with the scissors then brought the cloth with her and knocked on Grandma Liu’s door next door, intending to borrow Grandma Liu’s sewing machine.

Opening the door and seeing that it was her, Grandma Liu hurriedly welcomed her into the house.

Grandma Liu’s house was very big with three bedrooms and a living room. When she entered, Grandma’s family was watching TV on the lounge chairs.

Her granddaughter was leaning over the coffee table doing her homework as she watched and chuckled over [The Legends of Wulin].

Grandma Liu tapped her granddaughter’s head with the palm-leaf fan in her hand, “Stinky Yatou, watching this kind of mediocre program while doing homework, what’s so great about it?”

Su Qin looked up at the TV and lamented the generation gap between the elderly since this was their youth.

She explained her intention to Grandma Liu who brought her into the bedroom. Su Qin sat in front of the sewing machine with the canvas and started to fiddle with it.

Worried that she didn’t know how to handle it, the old grandma stood next to her with the palm-leaf fan and seeing that the girl was operating it skillfully, she said, “Yatou, not bad ah. Such a good craftsmanship, you will certainly be able to find a good husband in the future.”  

Su Qin smiled but said nothing and continued sewing.

Soon, a simple canvas satchel took shape. But as the canvas was too plain with no pattern, she eventually felt that something was amiss.

Pasted the Mickey fabric sticker that Su Qin bought, it became vivid as a whole and it didn’t look bad at all carrying it across her shoulder.

When Su Qin returned home, she tidied up the inside and outside of the room, and asked Grandma Liu for a few cans to cut them into flower pots. Filled up with soil and planted the flower seeds, she arranged them in a row on the balcony.

It was already 6 o’clock once all was done. Feeling too tired to cook, Su Qin lay in bed and fell asleep as soon as she shut her eyes.

Su Qin dreamt of her previous lifetime.

She had made a princess dress for Baobao. The four-year-old girl held up the skirt and twirled it around in front of her, asking her, “Mommy, is Baobao pretty?”

“Pretty, Baobao is the prettiest!”

Baobao hooked her finger at her and asked her to bend over.

Bending over, Baobao cupped her face with her pair of chubby little hands as she kissed her on her right cheek and spoke in a cloyingly sweet childish voice, “No, Baobao is not the prettiest. It’s Su-su who’s the prettiest!”

Su-su was what Li Chuan called her and this little fellow, actually called her Su-su too. Mischievous little imp.

Baobao’s words made her feel very happy that she couldn’t help curving her lips.  

But soon, Baobao’s pink tulle dress began to catch fire as she stood in the same place and cried loudly.

“Mommy, Baobao is painful, Baobao is painful. Can you give Baobao a puffing-blow?”

The little girl reached out to her. Just as Su Qin gripped her daughter’s little hand, the girl turned into a pile of white bones.

“Baobao!”

Su Qin woke up from her dream with her brows beaded with sweat. Her face was soaked with tears while her chest was stuffy and painful.

It was late at night. The room was eerily silent and stuffy like a furnace.

Taking the leaf-fan from the bedside, Su Qin slipped on the slippers and went to sit on the balcony for a while, looking up at the sky in a daze.

She misses her daughter, very, very much.

Thinking of Baobao grabbing her ears and speaking in a cloying soft voice, “Su-su, Daddy is not fierce, so I want to be very fierce to protect you in the future, okay ah?”

Rubbing her forehead against her daughter’s, “You are a girl, how can you be fierce?”

“Su-su, I’ll tell you a secret, okay?”

“En?”

The little girl tugged her ear as she leaned closer and spoke softly, “Baobao still wants to be your Baobao in the next lifetime.”

Thinking about this, Su Qin laughed out loud but the next moment, tears soaked her face.

Was she … too selfish? Fearing that the repressed conflict in her marriage with Li Chuan would break out and worried she couldn’t walk to the end with Li Chuan, she selfishly refused to allow Baobao to be born, was she too selfish?

Shaking her head with a bitter smile, Su Qin leaned back against the wall and raised her head to look up at the bright moon in the night sky.

Baobao, Mommy is sorry. Mommy is selfish and cowardly. Mommy dares not bring you into this world again.

Her voice was soon swallowed by the darkness.

Monday.

Su Qin cycled to Nanjing University (NJU). She followed the address in Li Chuan’s text message and found the lab in Guangming Building of NJU.

Arriving at the lab, she knocked on the door and three guys inside who were engrossed in coding immediately looked up at her.

A crew-cut hair guy with glasses looked up at her and asked, “Who are you looking for?”

Su Qin said softly, “Sorry to interrupt, I’m looking for Teacher Li.”

The guy straightened the frame of his glasses and puzzled over, “Teacher Li? We don’t have a teacher surnamed Li here, are you looking for Li Chuan?”

“En, I’m a student he tutors.”

“Student?”

The three guys looked at the young girl at the door in unison and after looking at each other blankly, the guy with glasses got up first to come meet her and invited her in.

“You are Li Chuan’s student and our student too, please come in.”

Su Qin followed the bespectacled guy.

Another guy with the hair-bang brought her a stool and invited her to sit as he incidentally instructed the fat guy behind him, “Panda, quick, pour some tea for the Boss’ student!”

The fat guy named ‘Panda’ immediately brought a can of iced tea over and put it in front of her with a ‘bang’, “Boss’ student, please have some tea! Don’t be courteous! Let me introduce myself, my name is Liu Weixiong and everyone calls me Panda.”

Dressed in a white shirt, the guy with the glasses spoke in a gentle manner, “Hello, my name is Zhang Yazhu, you can call me Old Zhu.”

The guy with the hair-bang pompously ruffled the bangs that covered his eyes, “Hello little sister, just call me Brother Chunchun.”

“ …… “ Su Qin gave them a nod, “Hello, I am Su Qin and I have the same name as the famous historical person.”

The guy with the glasses explained gently to her, “Don’t be afraid. We’re not bad people. We share the same dorm with Li Chuan and are all NJU doctoral students. He went out to discuss a project and might be late. You sit for a while and I’ll give him a call.”

Su Qin nodded at him.

If this wasn’t a lab on NJU campus, Su Qin might not really hang around. After all, there were 3 guys here who didn’t quite look … like good people.

Su Qin didn’t know these three people in her previous lifetime either. They couldn’t be Li Chuan’s close friends?

Taking out his handphone, Old Zhu walked out of the lab and stood in the corridor to call Li Chuan.

He returned to the lab 2 minutes later and said to Su Qin, “Little Sister Su Qin, the Boss will only come back to school in half an hour. He asked you to do the test paper first and you can ask the three of us if you have any questions.”

“Okay.” Su Qin nodded at him. Taking off the satchel and placing it on the table, she took out the pencil case and books, then started to do the math and physics mock-test paper.

Old Zhu and Chunchun switched on their laptops to continue their coding.

Panda had gone out and came back with four popsicles which he handed one for each of them.

Panda gave Su Qin the cutest ‘doll-head’, “Come, Little Sister Su Qin, this cutest one is for you.”

Su Qin took the popsicle and saw the three guys of totally different styles sizing her up while biting into their popsicles.

As she grew older, Su Qin hadn’t seen men eating ice-cream for many years and found this scene slightly delightful.

Sitting with his legs crossed, Panda took big mouthfuls of the popsicle and gossiped with Su Qin, “Little Sister Su Qin, how old are you ah? Why is our Boss tutoring you? He is usually so busy and the projects he does make quite a lot of money that he is unlikely to be so poor to tutor you?”

Chunchun glared at him and spoke vaguely with food in his mouth, “Panda, what are you saying? Is the Boss poor?”

“Ahem.” Su Qin took a bite of the doll-head’s ice-cream and felt piercingly cold.

She explained, “Teacher Li tutoring me is an act of public service.”

“The Boss is really kind-hearted.” Panda sat on a chair and poked Chunchun’s knee with his toe, “Chunchun, did you see, you originally wasn’t convinced by the Boss and thought the Boss was hypocritical, see? How kind-hearted he is.”

“Go, go, go, you don’t pick the pot that doesn’t boil. Didn’t you also look down on the Boss in the first place? Criticizing that he is young?”     

[T/N: 哪壶不开提哪壶 (Nǎ hú bù kāi tí nǎ hú) – figuratively means deliberately publicizing someone else’s sore spots or secrets / air someone else’s dirty laundry.]

As Chunchun spoke, he didn’t swallow the popsicle in his mouth and the saliva sprayed on Su Qin and Panda’s faces.

The two of them were arguing when Li Chuan came back.

Dressed in a white shirt and a black suit pants, the man stood at the door with a computer bag over one shoulder.

He put the computer bag on Old Zhu’s workbench and spoke while taking out his laptop, “We’ve won the project and everyone will have to work doubly hard. So be mentally prepared.”

Old Zhu stood up excitedly and looked at Li Chuan, “Really?”

“En.” Li Chuan patted Old Zhu’s shoulder and gestured for him to sit down, “Let’s have dinner tonight to celebrate, my treat. Everyone gets busy first. I’ll tutor the little girl.”

With the laptop in his hand, Li Chuan turned towards Su Qin and pulled out a stool to sit next to her in passing.

Su Qin finished up the last bite of popsicle and continued to immerse herself with the test paper.

Su Qin didn’t quite understand the outstanding students’ world nor could she fit in.

Switching on the laptop, Li Chuan habitually logged into QQ instant messenger.

Su Qin shot a glance and saw the QQ mascot on his laptop screen.

The chubby little figure was spinning in circles on the laptop screen, winking and greeting its owner.

Li Chuan found the little fellow quite annoying and childish at first, but later he found it cute. The mischievous look of this little thing on his laptop screen reminded him of his daughter, Baobao.

Noticing the girl’s glance, Li Chuan asked her, “Do you QQ messenger?”

“En.” She nodded her head.

Li Chuan pushed his laptop over to her, “Login your account and I’ll add you.”

At this moment, everyone was still very keen on using QQ and raised QQ pets.

Su Qin nodded and logged into her account on his laptop.

Panda also requested to add Su Qin when Old Zhu and Chunchun also added her in succession.

Su Qin found that except Li Chuan who was slightly normal, the other three’s profile names were simply inexpressible.

Chunchun: The Shadow of the Twilight.

Panda: An Unforgettable Pain for a Healed Scar.

Old Zhu: Lovelorn turned to Ashes.

Su Qin inexplicably felt that … these three profile names were quite in line with their styles.

Su Qin spent the whole afternoon doing a set of mock test papers in the lab.

The four men took turns to help correct her papers.

Hence, the scene in the lab became like this.

Panda, “This question can also be solved this way.”

Old Zhu, “Little Sister Su Qin, this question of yours. Although the answer you came up with is correct, it will be a waste of your time if you use this method in the exam. Come, come here, I’ll teach you a simpler method.”

Chunchun, “Aiyo, such a simple exam question is actually from Yunyang High School? Hohoho, I’ve already said Yunyang High is not good, it can’t match our First High School in Siyang City.”

Su Qin, “ ….. “

Of these four people, Old Zhu is the oldest, 26 years old. Panda and Chunchun are both 24 years old, and Li Chuan is a month short of 22 years old.

After spending the whole afternoon in the lab, Su Qin followed the four men out of Guangming Building and it was already dark.

Li Chuan took them to a roadside stall outside the school to eat grilled fish to celebrate the procuring of a project, and incidentally took Su Qin to eat something good.

The little girl has lost a lot of weight again.

Su Qin went to push her bicycle out of the bicycle shed and followed the four men to the school gate before saying, “That … Teacher Li, you guys celebrate. I am not going. I’ll go home early to revise.”

Hearing that the Little Sister wanted to leave, Panda hurriedly said, “Little Sister, don’t leave ah, you have to share our joy. You also need to take a break and relax from studying. Don’t push yourself too hard, else it will backfire if you exert yourself too strictly.”

Li Chuan also added, “En, go together. I’ll take you home later. I feel uneasy leaving you alone.”

Chunchun ruffled the bangs on his forehead and said, “Don’t save for Teacher Li, he has money. Come along, let’s Panda drive you home later.”

Kindness is difficult to refuse, thus Su Qin could only go with the several ‘big brothers’ to celebrate.

Roadside stalls were very popular during summer nights, and the stalls were full of people.

Many university students drink here and Su Qin, a ‘child’ seemed a little out of place.

Li Chuan ordered two grilled fish, four bottles of beer and a bottle of VV soy milk.

The stall-keeper first served two plates of boiled peanuts as snacks for their drinks.

Two plates of grilled fish with black bean sauce were soon served. Su Qin picked a piece of fish and ate it with the black bean. The tip of the tongue was overflowing with crispy flavor and the side dish boiled in soup beneath was saturated with the black bean sauce fragrance.

As the four men discussed the project, Su Qin buried her head in eating to try reducing her sense of presence as much as possible.

Fearing that the little girl might feel left out, Li Chuan lured the topic of conversation to the high school and university admission exams.

As soon as the topic of admission exams started, the other three men began to show their superiority and narrated to Su Qin about their academic dominance achievements.

Su Qin was devastated and filled her stomach with the iced soy milk.

Nearing the end of this meal, Su Qin felt a burst of cramp in her lower abdomen and a warm gush flowed through, followed by … a verse of lyrics in her head:

“The painting of blood-dyed rivers and mountains … “

The grilled fish were consumed.

Li Chuan came back after paying the bill. The others had already left the table and only the little girl was still sitting in the same spot, not moving.

“Still not full?” Li Chuan walked over and asked her.

Su Qin coughed lightly as she really didn’t damn know how to say it out. After all, Teacher Li is still a virgin now … it’s too embarrassing to mention this kind of menstruation thing.

Su Qin has a thin physique and is undernourished. Other girls have their menstruation at 12 or 13 years old, but she only had hers at 16.

Today was her menarche and she felt it was quite heavy. It was summer now and she was wearing light-colored pants, so she reckoned Panda, who was standing behind her, would see as soon as she stood up, which was very embarrassing.

Su Qin sat for a while more and only wriggled up to try and stand behind Li Chuan once Panda and Chunchun walked past her back. 

Li Chuan noticed that the little girl was trying to dodge at the back and even deliberately pulled her clothes down while the other hand covered her lower abdomen.

Su Qin coughed once, hooked her finger at him and called out to him in a low voice, “Teacher Li, come over for a moment.”