Stopped, stopped menstruating?
Jiang Zhi went wooden for two seconds. Her best friend Xu Sui and she were both in their early twenties, and for a girl that young to inexplicably stop menstruating for half a year was absolutely not a good sign.
“Ah, then—”
“I know what you want to ask. I went to the hospital for a checkup and nothing came up, and I don’t feel anything wrong with me either.”
Even Xu Sui herself was quite depressed about this. Say she was sick, and yet she ate and drank as usual every day and was pretty happy. Say she wasn’t sick, and who stops menstruating when they’re perfectly fine?
At the hospital she had all kinds of blood tests and was examined from head to toe with not even a strand of hair spared, and what she got was the doctor’s conclusion that she was healthier than an ox.
Either her body was mutating or she had caught some new virus. Having learned the lessons of those two or three years, she naturally leaned toward the latter.
Xu Sui laid out her guesses bit by bit, and at the end she mysteriously lowered her voice. “A-Zhi, I’m not trying to scare you, but besides me there are several other girls I know who’ve stopped menstruating, and none of their hospital checkups found a problem. So I suspect this virus specifically targets women. When you go out these days you have to be sure to take protective measures.”
Jiang Zhi sensitively caught a trace of something strange.
A whole batch of women had abnormally stopped menstruating at the same time, and then none of them turned up a problem on examination. However she thought about it, it felt very suspicious.
Just then Jiang Zhi suddenly froze.
Come to think of it, this month, apart from the first day when her period tortured her half to death, the cramping symptoms afterward had disappeared and the flow had halved, a whole Pacific Ocean away from before.
The past couple of days she hadn’t paid attention, simply thinking the treatment had worked and completely rooted out her cramping problem.
Thinking about it now, her back went cold. Could it be that she had caught the mysterious virus too?
“I might already have a similar situation.” Jiang Zhi swallowed with difficulty. “I’ll go get checked tomorrow.”
Duan Xiao was a famous master hand in gynecology. Jiang Zhi had no psychological burden at all about seeing an acquaintance for medical care and nimbly grabbed one of his appointment slots for the next day.
Early the next morning, after Jiang Zhi and Duan Heyu finished breakfast, they waited in the lobby for her number to be called.
The moment she came in, Duan Xiao didn’t seem the least surprised at her arrival. He adjusted his glasses with a squinting smile and told her to sit down.
After a careful consultation and examination, the diagnosis Duan Xiao reached was cut from the same cloth as her best friend’s: healthy body, no abnormalities.
Jiang Zhi trusted Duan Xiao’s medical skill a hundred percent, and because of that she couldn’t help worrying and fretting more. Maybe she should register with the infectious disease department and the neurology department as well.
“Miss Jiang, no need to worry, you don’t need to register with any other department.”
“But—”
The sound of the keyboard stopped. Duan Xiao turned his head and showed her a gentle, refined smile. “Like Heyu, your body is undergoing a mutation.”
“…”
Jiang Zhi’s breath caught.
Mu. Tation?
Her heart instantly beat like a drum.
Duan Xiao: “According to the information we have so far, male and female bodies are undergoing mutations to different degrees. One mutation that appears only in women is the degeneration of uterine function, specifically presenting as reduced menstrual flow, cessation of menstruation, and a gradual shrinking of the uterus’s volume so that it no longer provides an environment suitable for gestating a fetus. Most importantly, this mutation poses no threat whatsoever to life.”
“Simply put, while you were eating and drinking the mutation was already complete. You just need to live normally.”
Jiang Zhi: 0.0
After what felt like about a century, she slowly put away her thoroughly dumb expression.
Holding her breath, her lashes trembling, she asked carefully, “So… my period dumped me? It unilaterally blocked, deleted, and broke up with me permanently?”
Duan Xiao dipped his chin lightly. “Mm, yes.”
Jiang Zhi slowly leaned back, her taut nerves loosening bit by bit, her crashed brain rebooting into operation. Her face half lowered, an eerie curve suddenly lifted at the corner of her mouth.
Her big eyes were frighteningly bright.
Good, good, good, good, this works, this works, this works so well! Thank heaven, thank earth, thank Xie Guangkun!!
It’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone!
Jiang Zhi covered her mouth and worked hard not to laugh out loud. Go, go, this was all she deserved!
When she got back, she’d have to ask her parents whether green smoke was rising from the family’s ancestral graves [1]whether green smoke was rising from the family’s ancestral graves (zufen mao qingyan, 祖坟冒青烟) Idiom, a stroke of extraordinary good fortune jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3234069_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3234069_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, hahahahaha!!
After coming out, Jiang Zhi immediately called her best friend Xu Sui to share it with her. Oh no, she couldn’t say it yet.
“Suisui hahaha, Suisui, I’m fine, I’m fine.”
Xu Sui: “…Are you sure you’re fine? Do you want to consider registering with the brain department too?”
She was worried about her little sister’s mental state.
Jiang Zhi laughed out loud twice. She was fine, she was very well, and while laughing she didn’t forget to console her little sister that the world was beautiful and she should trust science and trust doctors.
Xu Sui: Even more worried now.
After hanging up, Jiang Zhi walked back in a daze.
She felt everything was unbelievably dreamlike, and more than once she doubted whether she was dreaming. Otherwise how had she run into every good thing there was!
This excitement lasted a whole week. Every day she grinned stupidly from the moment she opened her eyes until she went to sleep, flying with happiness even in her dreams, and she got plenty of mockery from Duan Heyu.
“It’s just your period stopping, look how happy you are. Baring your big teeth all day, aren’t you tired?”
Jiang Zhi laughed twice, her gaze drifting to a certain part of him and fixing there.
“It’s just a pregnancy, look how nervous you are. Sneaking off to the bathroom all day to wrestle with your little brother. How big is he anyway?”
Duan Heyu, who had just taken a mouthful of water: “Pfft cough cough—”
He turned back with wide eyes, shocked and afraid. Holy crap, how had she found out?
He always got up while she was asleep.
Jiang Zhi radiated the wicked-woman air of “Heh, tremble, man, I saw through you long ago.”
Duan Heyu covered his crotch, both angry and ashamed.
He tossed out a line with no deterrent power at all. “None of your business, careful you get a sty.”
Then he greased his soles and ran.
The wedding date was set for the twenty-first of next month, and everything was being prepared at a tight drumbeat.
Because Duan Heyu’s elbow bent too far outward, with very much the trend of a married-off son being water poured out, he had angered his own father no little, and the Duan family temporarily swept him out the door.
Jiang Zhi and Duan Heyu were already in their fourth year of university, and most of their classmates were busy working diligently at internship posts, studying hard and striving.
The two of them, meanwhile, were exhausted to the point of ascending to heaven on the spot by the trivia of getting married.
In the depth of winter, Jiang Zhi jumped and hopped by the sea in a wedding dress, frozen until snot bubbled, and still had to put on all kinds of professional fake smiles. She came back completely numb with exhaustion.
She flopped boneless on the bed to rest and scroll videos, and after a little while a message popped up at the top of her phone.
—A footage alert from the surveillance app.
When she opened it, the surveillance footage showed a middle-aged man and an old lady sitting on the living room sofa, with Zheng Wan and Jiang Qingshan standing with their hands in their sleeves, heads lowered before the old lady, listening to her say something.
Even though the image quality wasn’t high definition, you could see the old lady’s face was not pleasant. Every so often she stamped her cane twice, her gaze fierce and sharp.
Jiang Zhi turned off the mute button, and a shrill voice burst out at once.
“Fine, the Jiang girl hasn’t come to see this old woman in all these years. But now with something as big as a marriage, she doesn’t even know to bring that young man to see me once, to let me, her own grandmother, know!”
“Her being so ignorant and ill-mannered, not putting me, her elder, in her sight, isn’t it all the result of you two spoiling and indulging her? Especially this fine wife you married, second son!”
“Scolded for all these years and still not the slightest bit enlightened, truly an elm-wood head [2]truly an elm-wood head (yumu naodai, 榆木脑袋) Idiom, hopelessly thick and stubborn jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3234069_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3234069_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });! If you had listened to me back then and had a second child, would the Jiang girl have been spoiled by you into this state?”
Duan Heyu, who had only come over out of curiosity for a couple of looks, didn’t expect to hear words that would send his blood pressure soaring.
He pointed his finger at the person on the screen and asked, filled with righteous indignation, “This is your grandmother?”
Jiang Zhi: “By blood, yes, but I don’t acknowledge her.”
“Well done, you shouldn’t acknowledge her!”
Duan Heyu was indignant on her behalf. “What elder talks that sharply and meanly? Our mom and dad are too good-tempered. If it were my mom she’d have thrown my grandma out to feed the mosquitoes long ago.”
Jiang Zhi shot him a sidelong look and teased, “You changed your words fast. That rolled off pretty smoothly.”
Duan Heyu felt not the slightest embarrassment at being teased. His face had always been thick, and on being caught he even grew smug.
“The date’s set and the wedding photos are taken, so why still separate yours and mine? This young master says goodbye to the past and steps straight into the new role.”
Although Duan Heyu had all sorts of faults, the love of life in him and the fresh, lively energy he gave off could really infect the people around him.
Jiang Zhi’s expression softened, and seven or eight parts of her negative feelings dispersed. She exited the surveillance footage, got off the bed, and put on her shoes.
“I’m going home for a bit, I’ll come over later.”
“I’m going too.”
Jiang Zhi turned her head. “You’d better stay at the hospital.”
Duan Heyu wouldn’t have it. He put his shoes on fast, picked up her bag, and waited at the door. “No nonsense. It’s only right and proper for this young master to go home and see his parents, who could stop him?”
Jiang Zhi: “…”
This dog really was…
The moment the door opened, Zheng Wan was stunned for two seconds, and then her expression turned tense.
She braced half her body in the doorway. “Why are you suddenly back? Go out and have some more fun, and eat dinner outside while you’re at it.”
“Mom, I saw everything.”
Zheng Wan understood what her daughter meant, and her voice immediately dropped much softer as she urged them to leave. “Your father and I will handle your grandmother. You don’t need to worry, go have some fun.”
Jiang Zhi walked straight in. “It’s fine, I want to see them too.”
Having failed to stop her daughter and prospective son-in-law, Zheng Wan felt deeply uneasy and followed close behind the two of them.
The old lady’s full-throated scolding could be heard perfectly clearly all the way at the entryway. The instant Jiang Zhi and Duan Heyu appeared, the voice stopped.
The old lady on the sofa, propped on her cane and dressed in an old-style padded jacket, was narrowing her cloudy eyes. Her exposed skin was like wind-dried orange peel, and combined with her shrewd features you knew she was no easy customer.
Old Woman Jiang stared silently at Jiang Zhi, her expression dark.
And Jiang Zhi acted as if she hadn’t seen her. She took Duan Heyu’s arm, found a seat, picked up the fruit plate on the table, and began eating as if nobody else were there.
“Jiang girl!”
Thump thump thump—
The sound of a cane striking the floor.
Jiang Zhi: “Mm?”
Old Woman Jiang’s voice and face turned harsh. “All that studying and you don’t even have basic manners? You see an elder and don’t know to greet her!”
That said, she glared at Zheng Wan and Jiang Qingshan again. “Look at the fine daughter you raised. All that money spent putting her through school and what you got was a heartless thing. Better to have married her off early and gotten some return!”
Jiang Qingshan’s face was sunk like water, his lips moving. Several times he wanted to argue but was held back by his wife.
Zheng Wan knew clearly that the old lady was the sort whose one sentence could stand against ten. If either of them dared open their mouth to argue a single line, she would stay here and curse all night.
“How strange. Some people don’t put out a single cent and yet can act as if they’d spent a few million on me.”
Jiang Zhi looked over with a smile. “Wouldn’t you say that kind of person is very shameless?”
Old Woman Jiang’s face instantly went as bad as it could get. She had lived a good many years, how could she not hear that she was pointing at the mulberry to curse the locust [3]pointing at the mulberry to curse the locust (zhi sang ma huai, 指桑骂槐) Idiom, abusing one person to get at another jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3234069_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3234069_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });?
Feeling her dignity as an elder offended, she was beyond containing her rage. She picked up her cane and was about to swing it at Jiang Zhi, but luckily the middle-aged man beside her stopped her.
At the same time, Jiang Zhi was firmly shielded behind Duan Heyu. A faint anger surfaced in his eyes, and the hand hanging at his leg silently curled into a fist, only for Jiang Zhi to hold it gently.
“Mom! Have you made enough of a scene?”
The sudden angry shout startled the old lady into a jolt.
After seeing clearly who had shouted, Old Woman Jiang’s pupils contracted slightly. She shoved away the eldest son who was supporting her and rushed at Jiang Qingshan swinging her cane.
“Make another scene and I’m calling the police.”
“I’m your grandmother, and you dare call the police on me? You’ve turned rebel!”
Jiang Zhi didn’t hesitate for a moment and pressed the emergency number 110 in front of everyone.
Old Woman Jiang was struck dumb. Was it reasonable for a granddaughter to call the police on her own grandmother? Who did such a thing… Oh, apparently it wasn’t the first time.
“Don’t, niece!”
Jiang the eldest, who had been happily invisible as a backdrop, finally spoke up. He had figured it out: this niece was a tough nut who paid no regard to feelings at all.
“Niece, don’t be angry first. Your grandmother actually came this time because she’s worried about you, afraid you’ll be cheated. After all, you’re still young, only twenty-one, smart and pretty and from a good family, and it’s easy for bad people to set their eyes on you.”
“Your grandmother has lived this many years and has never come across two families marrying where the man’s side didn’t give a bride price. What kind of reliable person doesn’t give a bride price? Your own situation isn’t bad either, so why compromise yourself?”
“There are plenty of good men. I, your eldest uncle, know several outstanding young talents and can help make the introductions.”
Duan Heyu: ?
Are you all right, digging out my wall corner [4]digging out my wall corner (wa qiangjiao, 挖墙脚) Slang, poaching someone’s partner jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3234069_1_4').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3234069_1_4', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); right in front of me?
Jiang Zhi laughed scornfully. She had said it: nobody climbs the Three Treasures Hall without a reason [5]nobody climbs the Three Treasures Hall without a reason (wu shi bu deng san bao dian, 无事不登三宝殿) Idiom, nobody calls on you unless they want something jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3234069_1_5').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3234069_1_5', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });. So it was for money again.
Zheng Wan grew anxious. “Mom, I’ve said it, not taking a bride price was my idea, it has nothing to do with the man’s family.”
What answered her was another round of Old Woman Jiang’s abuse raining down on her head.
Jiang Zhi dialed the police again, insisting on doing what she had said.
“The police will be here in ten minutes. If you don’t leave now, then let the police drive you away.”
Old Woman Jiang was instantly too angry to speak. That damned little bitch, that money-losing goods, truly a heartless thing!
“Fine, fine, fine, whether you take a bride price is up to you!”
Then she changed tack, and a voice hoarse and grating like a pulled bellows slowly flowed out. “But when Wenbo gets married, your family must put up two hundred thousand as a gift!”
References[+]