“Xia Xia, wake up.”

In her hazy consciousness, Xia Xia felt someone randomly ruffling her fluffy hair.

She opened her eyes to see Ping Jiapeng standing by her bedside wearing a white school uniform shirt.

The pungent smell of disinfectant permeated the infirmary.

Ping Jiapeng drew back the sky-blue curtains, letting the soft light from outside stream in.

He sat on the edge of the bed, holding her hand: “Your period is always this painful, and it comes so punctually every month. What will you do during the college entrance exam?”

Xia Xia’s face was as pale as paper: “The teacher said there’s medicine that can delay it for a few days.”

“Remember to buy it then.” Ping Jiapeng nuzzled her palm coquettishly, “It hurts me to see you suffering.”

Xia Xia looked at him.

Ping Jiapeng: “Why are you looking at me like that? Is there something on my face?”

Xia Xia shifted her gaze: “You’re acting like a child.”

She initially thought this was a dream, yet it didn’t feel like one.

The scene in her dream was clear and real, the sunlight brilliant and unruly.

Through the light pouring in from the window, she could see Ping Jiapeng’s delicate skin and dark brown hair just by lowering her eyes.

He said he came to the infirmary to take care of her but ended up falling asleep on her arm.

The young man had dark circles under his eyes, surely from playing video games until midnight again. He couldn’t sleep well in class; teachers would always throw chalk at boys dozing off in the back row, then make them stand as punishment to stay awake.

The scene before her suddenly shattered. Through the haziness, Xia Xia heard someone calling her name.

She wanted to wake up, but her body felt like it was being pressed down by a heavy weight, and no matter how she struggled, she couldn’t break free from the restraint.

The person by her bed left, but footsteps returned shortly after.

A fragrant smell of fried chicken wafted into Xia Xia’s nose. Her eyelids twitched, and she woke up.

This was Nan University Hospital, not the infirmary of Chang City Eighth Middle School.

The person in front of her wasn’t Ping Jiapeng, but Xie Huai, who was holding a box of fried chicken under her nose.

Xie Huai hadn’t expected that Xia Xia, who wouldn’t wake up to calls or pushes, would be roused by the smell of fried chicken.

After a brief moment of surprise, he put the food box on the bedside table: “The doctor said you have hypoglycemia. Eat first, I’ll go buy water.”

Xia Xia had an IV drip in the back of her hand. She propped herself up against the bedboard and took the meal Xie Huai bought.

The takeout was arranged like a bento box, with rice on the bottom layer, topped with shredded potatoes, broccoli, and lotus root slices. A small compartment on the side held braised meat and chicken pieces.

Xia Xia glanced toward the door. Only a few dozen seconds had passed between her waking up and Xie Huai leaving.

He hadn’t gone to buy water; he was playing on his phone in the hallway. He thought he stood far enough away, but his silhouette was already reflected in Xia Xia’s eyes through the glass.

Xia Xia knew he was just making an excuse to leave.

When a girl faints from period-related hypoglycemia because she can’t afford food, she wouldn’t be able to eat if he stayed in the room watching.

Xia Xia couldn’t remember how many days it had been since she’d eaten properly. She ate only one vegetarian bun each day while enduring training under Nan City’s scorching sun on the sports field. Fainting was inevitable.

She poked at the meat in the lunch box with her chopsticks, thinking of her vivid dream and remembering Ping Jiapeng.

To her younger self, Ping Jiapeng was like a fresh green bud at the treetop in spring, like the first snowflake falling into one’s palm in winter. Even just observing from afar revealed an indescribable beauty, and tasting it was sweet to the core.

Privileged background, and outstanding looks, he was clean and handsome, bright like a little prince.

No one could resist Ping Jiapeng’s affection, even if that affection was childish, selfish, and impetuous.

Xia Xia was only sixteen then, at an age of innocence and dreams. On countless nights she kept to herself, she dreamed of nameless landscapes – endless flower fields, polar glaciers, hot air balloons in the sky, and castles standing on the ground.

She dreamed of pumpkin carriages and Cinderella’s glass slippers.

Those intricate yet magnificent scenes were clear, seemingly within reach.

She wanted to walk forward, but vines emerging from the mud below entangled her ankles, pulling her back to that narrow world.

Ping Jiapeng was a flower blooming in the center of her boundless abyss of poverty and pain.

He had been to places she hadn’t seen scenery she hadn’t seen.

When the boy stood before her, face flushed, professing his feelings, Xia Xia accepted without hesitation.

The girl then, intoxicated by love, believed that love alone could overcome the hardships and pitfalls ahead.

When she plucked that flower and carefully tucked it into her embrace, she hadn’t even prepared herself for the stings of surrounding bees and butterflies, or the thorns on the flower stem.

Xia Xia went to the hospital alone.

In the last semester of senior year, they only had half a day off each week. After classes on the weekend at noon, Ping Jiapeng had plans with friends to go to an internet café.

Xia Xia went to the hospital by herself. Wu Li had been chronically ill, and she had been here countless times, well-versed in the procedures for registration and consultation.

Learning of her purpose, the doctor prescribed her a bottle of progesterone, instructing her to take it a week in advance to delay her period.

Xia Xia left the consultation room but didn’t go downstairs to buy the medicine. The gray lead characters on the prescription were faint, but they seemed glaring to her eyes.

Eighty yuan for a bottle of medicine – to others, it was just a T-shirt, a fast food meal, or two hours of karaoke.

For Xia Xia, it was an entire month’s food money.

Wu Li was bedridden and couldn’t work, taking care of all household chores like laundry and cooking. She had to get money for groceries from Wei Jinhai, with only one hundred yuan per week for all three family members’ food. Their dining table regularly featured cabbage and potatoes stewed with cheap vermicelli that cost one yuan per large handful, with meat appearing only once every few days.

Wei Jinhai was meticulous with money. He kept a small notebook recording all the expenses he had spent on Xia Xia since Wu Li married him.

The notebook wasn’t thick, and after ten whole years, not even a tenth of it was filled.

Xia Xia’s food allowance at school was one hundred yuan per month, no more.

As for clothes and shoes, those weren’t Wei Jinhai’s concern. As far as she could remember, all her clothes were hand-me-downs that Wu Li got from families with daughters living upstairs.

With Wu Li unable to provide any money, Xia Xia could only save from her meager food allowance.

She used to bring lunch from home to school in a lunchbox and eat dinner in the cafeteria to ensure one hundred yuan was enough. In the last month before exams, to save money for medicine, she started skipping dinner.

She didn’t ask Wei Jinhai for money. He would already show his displeasure when giving her monthly food allowance, mocking that girls’ education was useless and she should drop out to work instead.

He hoped Xia Xia would fail the college entrance exam so she could marry early and supplement the family’s income.

He wouldn’t give her money.

Xia Xia said she was dieting and wouldn’t eat dinner anymore.

Ping Jiapeng hugged her dejectedly and whined: “You already don’t eat lunch with me, and now you won’t eat dinner with me either.”

Xia Xia’s face turned red with embarrassment.

Eighty yuan was just one night’s internet café fee for Ping Jiapeng, but she just couldn’t bring herself to ask.

Her ears were never free from the school girls’ gossip:

“Xia Xia getting together with Ping Jiapeng is just climbing up the social ladder. She’ll show her true colors sooner or later, just wait and see.”

Xia Xia pretended not to know, but she took all these words to heart.

She was sensitive and constrained, carefully protecting a girl’s dignity in front of her beloved boy.

She could stay up until midnight writing homework for others, could go a week without dinner, secretly saving dozens of yuan, just so that when she went out with Ping Jiapeng on weekends, she could eat KFC, watch a movie, or buy a cup of milk tea that school girls drank every day without batting an eye.

She tiptoed around, hiding her embarrassment, hiding her poverty.

Everyone said she was with Ping Jiapeng for money, but she knew that wasn’t true.

She genuinely liked Ping Jiapeng.

Ping Jiapeng had never experienced hardship or poverty. He was radiant and self-confident, elegant – qualities that only a privileged upbringing could cultivate, things that were beyond Xia Xia’s reach.

Ping Jiapeng never inquired about her affairs. He was always gentle, so gentle that Xia Xia often felt powerless.

In his life, there seemed to be no worries or need for toil. He couldn’t comprehend Xia Xia’s subtle emotions in those little details, nor did he know about the turbulent waves in her heart.

Ping Jiapeng continued skipping evening self-study sessions to go online. When Xia Xia wouldn’t join him for dinner, he’d order takeout at the internet café and continue gaming after eating.

A week before the college entrance exam, Xia Xia had saved enough money.

The night before going to the hospital to buy medicine, when Wu Li was passing through the living room while doing laundry, eighty yuan fell from Xia Xia’s school uniform pocket.

Wei Jinhai, feet propped on the coffee table watching TV, caught sight of the money with his sharp eyes.

Xia Xia met his bloodshot eyes, worn from years of smoking and staying up late, and explained quietly: “I’m worried about getting my period during the exam. I want to take medicine to delay it. This is money I saved. I didn’t take your money.”

Wei Jinhai picked up the money and stuffed it into his pants pocket: “How do you know you’ll get your period during the exam? You’re quite meticulous in your preparation, but the money I work hard to earn isn’t for you to waste.”

He sneered: “Such a sissy thing. What good are good grades? Don’t expect me to pay for your university. After graduation, you’ll work to pay back the money I spent raising you all these years.”

Xia Xia kept her eyes down and remained silent.

Her period came on the morning of the second day of the college entrance exam. By the time Xia Xia returned home to rest at noon, her lower abdomen was already in severe pain.

That day was Wei Jinhai’s day off. He had just returned from downstairs with two bottles of sorghum liquor. Xia Xia sat on the sofa, her face ashen.

Wei Jinhai was about to take his afternoon nap when Xia Xia called out to him: “Dad, could you lend me fifty yuan? I want to buy painkillers.”

There were cheap painkillers at home that Wu Li used, costing just a few yuan per pack. Xia Xia had taken them for many years and had become immune to their effects. Given the severity of her menstrual cramps, even the best painkillers could only provide slight relief.

Wei Jinhai put down the sorghum liquor and took out a pack of red dates and hawthorn from the refrigerator.

“What painkillers cost fifty yuan? Trying to scam money from me now.” He sneered, “You don’t need medicine. A few days ago, the old man downstairs taught me a home remedy for pain. If that old geezer can take it, you’re young and strong, this recipe will work.”

He brewed a pot of sour soup mixing red dates, hawthorn, and several unidentifiable Chinese herbs, pushing it in front of Xia Xia:

“Red supplements red, aren’t you on your period? This is perfect.”

Xia Xia weakly protested: “This remedy is bogus. It won’t help me…”

“Xia Xia’s grown up now.” Wei Jinhai said sarcastically, “Won’t drink what I give you, looking down on me, are you?”

Xia Xia didn’t want to argue with him. Many past experiences have taught her not to contradict Wei Jinhai at times like this.

He was extremely macho with a need for control, hating anything he couldn’t master. Yet throughout his mediocre life, he had achieved nothing, and the only things he could control were Wu Li and Xia Xia, two women dependent on him for survival.

When things didn’t meet his satisfaction, he would either smash dishes and bowls at best or slap faces and curse at worst.

Xia Xia was forced to drink a large bowl of teeth-achingly sour hawthorn water. Fearing further confrontation, she grabbed her schoolbag and left.

On her way to the exam site, she called Ping Jiapeng, asking him to buy her a box of painkillers later.

In their two years together, this was the first time she had asked him for anything.

The sound of a keyboard clicking came through the phone as Ping Jiapeng absent-mindedly agreed twice before hanging up.

The exam site didn’t allow entry during lunch break. Xia Xia sat by the flower bed downstairs reviewing English essays, but the unbearable cramping in her lower abdomen made it impossible to concentrate.

Ping Jiapeng returned just twenty minutes before the exam started. All the other students had already entered the exam room; only Xia Xia was still outside waiting for him.

He reeked of cigarette smoke from the internet café, making Xia Xia’s eyes uncomfortable.

She asked: “Did you buy the medicine?”

Ping Jiapeng said: “I forgot.”

Xia Xia remained silent for a while, then looked up at him: “What can you do besides playing games?”

Ping Jiapeng, already irritated from losing a game, became angry at her tone: “You’re blaming me? I reminded you to take medicine in advance but you didn’t. You passed so many pharmacies on your way here, why didn’t you buy it yourself instead of asking me?”

“Xia Xia, since when did you learn to ask me for things?”

Xia Xia stood under the fierce noon sun of June, the sultry wind brushing past the sweat-soaked hair at her temples.

She said nothing, just stood there in silence.

At that moment, she suddenly understood something.

The school rumors had reached her ears, and Ping Jiapeng couldn’t possibly know. Though he never mentioned it, he must have heard those words too.

—Xia Xia was with Ping Jiapeng for money.

If he hadn’t heard such talk, if he hadn’t harbored doubts, that last sentence wouldn’t have come so readily to his lips.

Xia Xia calmly asked: “Did you forget, or was it intentional?”

Ping Jiapeng said defiantly: “Yes, I did it on purpose, Happy now?”

After the proctor called three times from the doorway, Xia Xia turned and entered the exam room.

Ping Jiapeng was in the same exam room. Having just quarreled with her, he wore a cold expression on his handsome face, throwing a young master’s tantrum by hurling his schoolbag outside with a thunderous crash.

Xia Xia had no energy to deal with him. By the time the test papers were distributed, she was already breaking into a cold sweat.

The sour liquid in her stomach churned, and her vision kept spinning.

It was an indescribable pain, worse than usual, as if hands were reaching into her lower abdomen to split her open, or as if a thousand bulldozers were grinding over her skin inch by inch.

Xia Xia lay down for a while. When the proctor came to check on her condition, she shook her head and sat up to continue working.

Halfway through the exam, Xia Xia finally couldn’t hold on anymore.

The proctor called an ambulance. She was half-conscious, half-delirious, in pain beyond clarity.

Amid the chaos, she heard the sound of the stretcher being brought in, the proctor asking students to stay quiet, hurried footsteps, and the exam supervisor scolding someone to sit down.

She opened her eyes with effort and saw Ping Jiapeng’s face beside the stretcher.

On the afternoon of the last day of the college entrance exam, she fainted in the exam room.

Ping Jiapeng abandoned his half-finished English paper and ran out following the medical staff.