Free Web NovelChapter 18: Chapter 18: Going to School
"Su Li?" Mrs. Tang’s voice broke Su Li out of her reverie. Su Li averted her gaze. "I’m stepping out for a bit."
She concealed the coldness in her eyes and walked out the door, leaving Mrs. Tang to sigh.
Su Li stepped outside, stood at the entrance, took a deep breath, and muttered to herself, ’I have to get out of here as soon as possible...’
If she stayed any longer, she was afraid she would truly go insane.
Besides not wanting to face Mrs. Tang and the others, there was another reason for her madness that Su Li found a bit embarrassing to admit.
Su Li had been reborn, not transported to another world. Many of the things she was encountering were things she had already experienced, so she shouldn’t have been on the verge of a breakdown. In reality, however, she had broken down several times in just two short days.
Although she had lived through these things before, they were all from a distant past. Returning to this era from modern times, she found it truly difficult to accept.
The first breakdown was about using the toilet.
In this era, flush toilets were a distant dream. The entire village shared a single public latrine—a thatched hut with four squat pits. Never mind how filthy and smelly it was; what truly tormented Su Li was the lack of toilet paper.
Toilet paper was as far-fetched as a flush toilet. Everyone’s "toilet paper" was... stones or leaves.
Su Li’s bathroom trips were an ordeal she could hardly describe. Each time, she would hold it in until she absolutely couldn’t anymore before making the trip, all the while desperately missing toilets and toilet paper.
The second breakdown was about getting lice.
Lice—those horrifying, skin-crawling creatures—had been discovered on Su Li’s head!
As dusk fell, Su Li was feeding the pigs when she felt her scalp itch, as if something was crawling there. She didn’t pay it much mind at first, assuming it was just because her hair was dirty and unwashed. frёewebnoѵēl.com
The third time she scratched her head, Little Tang Mo, who had been following her, perceptively asked, "Mama, you keep scratching your head. Do you have lice too?"
He scratched his own head as he spoke. "Mine is often itchy too."
For a moment, Su Li didn’t register what he had said. "Lice?"
’Those ancient, terrifying things?’
"That’s right, Su Li," chimed in Mrs. Tang, who was feeding the chickens in the yard. "Did you accidentally bring them back from your parents’ home the other day? I remember you saying your cousin has a lot of lice, and you always come back with them whenever you sleep over."
"Mama, I’ll help you look for lice tomorrow! I’m sure I can find them," Little Tang Mo said immediately, his eyes lighting up.
Su Li stared at him, speechless, the hair on her arms standing on end.
Lice were not exactly unfamiliar to Su Li. In Xinghua Village, eight out of ten people had lice at some point during their childhood, including her.
Except for a few special cases who were particularly prone to them, most people grew out of it.
Everyone was as accustomed to lice as they were to the hair on their heads. Most grandmothers, mothers, and older sisters in the village had the experience of combing through a granddaughter’s, daughter’s, or younger sister’s hair to pick out lice.
The lice could never be completely removed. You’d pick some out today, and new ones would appear tomorrow. They laid nits in the hair, which clung tightly to the strands and were not easily taken off.
And if you squeezed a nit that hadn’t hatched yet, it would make a little SQUISH...
Su Li shuddered violently. "It’s probably not lice, right?"
She asked without much conviction. She had indeed visited her parents’ home two days ago, so it was highly likely her cousin’s lice had already immigrated to her head and were perhaps even in the process of colonizing their new territory...
As if to confirm her fears, Su Li felt something move on her scalp.
"AHHH!" A piercing shriek of utter collapse echoed through the Tang Family home.
That night, in an effort to soothe the nearly hysterical Su Li, and after a close call where her hair was almost set on fire by the kerosene lamp, Little Tang Mo finally lived up to her hopes and found the culprit.
The next day, because of Su Li, the Tang Family was plunged into a fiery battle against lice.
Little Tang Mo, being a child—and even though he was a boy and Mrs. Tang’s precious treasure—still had lice.
The next day, after scrubbing her own scalp so hard she nearly took off a layer of skin, Su Li started washing Little Tang Mo’s head. Knowing that washing alone wouldn’t completely eradicate the lice, Su Li’s gaze grew deep and distant.
An hour later, Little Tang Mo emerged from the home of the village’s head-shaver transformed into a little monk with a shiny, bald scalp. Since it was the middle of winter, and fearing he would get cold, he wore a tiger-head hat that looked a little too small for him.
It was the same tiger-head hat he had worn when he was one year old, making its reappearance after three years.
Su Li looked at Little Tang Mo’s bald head with immense relief, while Little Tang Mo himself was completely bewildered through the whole ordeal.
Little Tang Mo was bewildered, and so was Mrs. Tang. So when Su Li turned to look at her hair with a suspicious glint in her eyes, Mrs. Tang couldn’t help but shiver and hastily declared that her head had been lice-free for a long time.
Perhaps Su Li’s gaze was just too terrifying. That day, whenever Su Li’s eyes so much as glanced in her direction, Mrs. Tang couldn’t stop herself from repeatedly stating the fact that she no longer had lice.
She had lived for so many years, and the hair on her head had been with her since she was a young girl. She would rather die than shave it off! freewёbnoνel.com
Mrs. Tang finally made it through the day on pins and needles. The next day, she quickly built a coop, herded all the chickens into it, and didn’t dare let them show their faces in front of Su Li again. Oh, and the dog. Mrs. Tang didn’t dare let the Tang Family’s old dog wander in front of Su Li either.
Why did she do this? Because the family’s chickens and dog were mostly covered in fleas, and fleas were even more terrifying than lice.
She was afraid Su Li would scream and demand they all be exterminated!
Mrs. Tang’s worries were not unfounded. For several days after that, she grew more and more intimidated by Su Li, constantly on high alert to protect the family’s chickens and dog. It was a nerve-wracking experience.
Su Li would only learn about Mrs. Tang’s arduous inner turmoil many years later. For now, she just felt that her mother-in-law was acting a little strange.
Of course, the villagers, especially the children, had also been looking at her strangely for the past two days.
After Su Li’s battle with the human traffickers, the villagers, particularly the mothers, were full of praise and had said many good things about her to their own children. Out of curiosity, these children came to gawk at Su Li.
Whenever Su Li saw them, she couldn’t help but stare at their hair. The thought that they had lice made her desperately want to shave their heads too, and completely eradicate the vile things from Xinghua Village once and for all!
It was just a thought, and her reason ultimately prevailed. However, she couldn’t stop herself from verbally explaining the benefits of a shaved head, even using Little Tang Mo as a model.
In the end, a strange rumor began to circulate privately in the village: Su Li loved to shave people’s heads, and the moment she saw a child, she wanted to shave them bald.
Slow on the uptake, Su Li was unaware of this rumor. All she knew was that the injuries on her face had finally healed without a trace, but now the village children would run away the moment they saw her, shouting as they fled, "The Bald Demon is here! Run, run!"
Su Li: ...’What the hell is a "Bald Demon"?’
Su Li couldn’t figure it out, so she didn’t dwell on it. She ignored the group of children and continued walking out of the village. This time, she was heading out on important business.
She was going to town to find her former homeroom teacher, Teacher Fan, about continuing her studies.
