Hedgehog's Belly - Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Luo Mu lay on her bed, staring blankly at her phone screen. For her, a solitary space exuded a comfortable and lazy atmosphere. After a long pause, she opened her photo album. Her thumb slid upward across the screen repeatedly until it stopped on one particular photo.

A group photo from last year’s Foreign Language Festival.

All the contestants from the foreign language groups and the student organizers were gathered together; behind them stood a specially customized signature wall for the festival.

She was in the front row, wearing a white dress. Those small high heels had pinched her feet so much that day that her steps felt unsteady. Her expression was hazy, tinged with drowsiness. Luo Mu remembered that she had been sleeping at the time and was only woken up by Qin Jiahui. She zoomed in on the image, caught sight of Qin Jiahui’s fake eyelashes, and couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Thinking of this memory once meant laughing once.

“Luo Mu, look, are my fake eyelashes crooked?” She recalled Qin Jiahui sitting at her desk back then, constantly fiddling with the lashes, her entire face nearly pressed against the mirror. Luo Mu had watched her from the side, wondering if this idiot would accidentally glue her eyelids shut.

The girl held a specialized eyelash glue stick in one hand while the other constantly adjusted the position of the lashes. Her expression was contorted—not something one should look at too closely.

“You aren’t even going on stage, why are you going to all this trouble?” Luo Mu leaned in, watching her struggle. “Did you really glue your eyelids together?”

Qin Jiahui pushed her away: “You don’t understand. An event like the Foreign Language Festival is for showing yourself off. Otherwise, normally, you’d be invited to the grade director’s office for a ‘chat’ just for wearing lipstick.”

Once she finished applying the right eyelash, she turned and blinked confidently at Luo Mu to flaunt the fruits of her labor. Luo Mu took one look and burst out laughing again.

Luo Mu said unreservedly: “Who on earth sticks fake eyelashes onto their double eyelid crease?”

Qin Jiahui went frantic: “Ahhh! You’re laughing at me again!”

“Don’t worry, it’s not embarrassing. No one will see you backstage,” Luo Mu comforted her.

Qin Jiahui’s fake eyelashes were stuck well above her lash line; the obvious gap made the girl look somewhat lacking in intelligence.

Later, because there wasn’t enough time by the time they reached the stage site, Qin Jiahui—being part of the Student Union’s organizing department—stayed backstage to manage the competition flow, which naturally saved half of her face. However, this group photo still became the moment Qin Jiahui found most humiliating.

Luo Mu swiped through the photo, zooming in with her fingertips, scanning everyone’s expressions.

Her gaze stopped.

Her eyes fell upon that person. She had her hair tied in the usual half-ponytail, though it was messier than before. She wore black studs, with one pinned through the cartilage of her right ear. Her distinctive deep-red smoky eye makeup gave her the look of someone naturally rebellious and unconstrained by worldly conventions.

The lipstick color wasn’t bright red, but it carried a sharp edge that made people hesitate to approach. The person was looking sideways; her gaze wasn’t directed at the camera lens. Luo Mu shifted her focus from the person’s peripheral vision, following her line of sight.

That person’s gaze was, in fact, fixed on someone else.

Luo Mu’s fingertips moved across the screen, slowly.

In that instant, a buzzing sound rang in Luo Mu’s ears, and time seemed to flow backward—

In the chaotic scene after the gala ended, all contestants and staff gathered in front of the signature wall for a photo.

Luo Mu suppressed her sleepiness, standing in the first row, yet she vaguely felt a different kind of gaze.

“Luo Mu, why do you keep turning your head? Look at the camera!” Qin Jiahui noticed Luo Mu’s abnormality and patted her shoulder.

“I keep feeling like someone is watching me,” Luo Mu whispered softly into Qin Jiahui’s ear.

But the clamor of voices and the atmosphere full of excitement after the assembly ended drowned out her voice; Qin Jiahui didn’t hear what she was saying. At that time, Luo Mu followed that strange sixth sense and cast her gaze further out. Everyone was looking at the camera in that brief final moment of carnival. Everyone wore a different expression.

She noticed the girl with the half-ponytail looking somewhat flustered. Smoky makeup, ear cartilage studs—she was hesitantly brushing away stray hairs in front of her face with fingers adorned with one or two ring bands. A slim-fit blazer and high heels; this entire outfit made Luo Mu tremble slightly.

Rather than comparing her to a rose, it would be better to call her a bunch of aggressive, resilient wild briar roses with dense thorns.

Luo Mu turned timidly toward the camera. Perhaps she was too introverted—it was best not to have eye contact with anyone to avoid unnecessary incidents, or so she thought. Especially with a girl dressed like that, it was hard to predict her temperament.

Perhaps the stereotypes from her childhood education surfaced; she found it hard to imagine what it would be like to get along with such a person.

And in the moment the photographer pressed the shutter, she truly received a different sensation.

She didn’t know that person, yet that person’s gaze had never been pulled away.

So that was their true first meeting.

Luo Mu rolled over on the bed, the corners of her mouth curling upward slightly. Like a detective who had solved her first case, she gleefully forwarded the photo to Yan Qingzhu.

Lomo: So this was actually the first time we met.

After a few minutes, the phone chimed with a notification.

Q: Strictly speaking, it wasn’t.

Lomo: Is there really an encounter even earlier than this?

Luo Mu stared at the screen, recalling the number of times that person had appeared in her memory, only to realize they were countable on one hand. With a bit of a grumble, she wondered if she was being played.

Q: Yes.

Lomo: Wasn’t this our first encounter?

Luo Mu sat cross-legged directly on the bed, her brow furrowed, her fingertips tapping the phone screen with a rhythmic sound. She muttered to herself, unsure of how to organize her words.

Q: If I say no, will you think I’m messing with you?

When are you NOT messing with me!

Luo Mu cursed softly under her breath upon seeing the message, but her earlobes turned a slight shade of crimson. She ignored the faint pounding of her heart, unable to tell if it was the embarrassment of being teased or the stubbornness of a sudden surge of courage.

How could it not be? How could she not be messing with me?

Truly a scheming dog of a woman.

In a fit of pique, Luo Mu exited the chat and opened her album again, zooming in on Yan Qingzhu’s features until her face filled the entire screen. “Big-faced Yan Qingzhu,” Luo Mu cursed softly, and then laughed out loud again.

The camera quality was truly good; even though it was a group photo, she could see the thick eyelashes and the layered eyeshadow upon zooming in. Her proud, cold, and elegant posture practically screamed “Strangers Keep Out,” yet in the photo, there was a trace of clarity in her peripheral vision.

The sharpness and stubbornness of the stereotype were slowly being polished away; under the soft lights, she was breathtakingly beautiful.

Luo Mu laughed inwardly. Fortunately, she wasn’t wearing punk gear, or it really would have conflicted with this aesthetic beauty. The crisp small blazer contrasted with her gentleness; one more look and one might mistake her for a passionate profligate.

That person’s gaze was shallow, yet she had picked out her beloved from the crowd.

Luo Mu murmured quietly: “So good-looking.”

What kind of person was she in Luo Mu’s eyes? Enthusiastic and humorous, yet sometimes unfathomable—traits that didn’t match those cold, delicate features. Like a pool of clear water on the surface, while deep down were undercurrents where the bottom couldn’t be seen.

She admitted she still didn’t understand Yan Qingzhu.

Luo Mu pondered: What am I like in her eyes?

Luo Mu dazed for a moment, then slumped back onto the bed, burying her head in her pillow, her legs swinging back and forth in the air.

As a child, she always talked about the villagers to her Grandma; reading people’s expressions was what Luo Mu was best at.

Which old lady liked to hear sweet talk, which old man liked to lecture others—Luo Mu knew it all like the back of her hand. Although they were poor, Luo Mu’s glib tongue since elementary school always allowed her to beg a few bites of food from kind-hearted elders. During the year of the great drought, when the family didn’t even have money for rice, Luo Mu always managed to beg a few sweet potato cakes.

Luo Mu felt for her Grandma. That night, she snuck up to her Grandma, who was sewing clothes by an oil lamp, and tried to stuff a large piece of oil cake into her mouth, just as Grandma used to feed her when she was little. But Grandma stopped her.

Grandma would always get angry over these things: “It’s from someone else’s house again, isn’t it?”

“They wanted to give it to me.” But Luo Mu didn’t understand—she didn’t steal or rob, so what was the shame?

“How did you say it, kid?”

Luo Mu could only tell the truth: “Old Lady Li was frying sweet potato cakes alone. I said they smelled good and that she couldn’t eat that many cakes by herself, so I’d help her promote and sell them.”

Luo Mu answered shyly in her local dialect. She knew Old Lady Li lived alone year-round, so she suggested making some sweet potato cakes to sell at the county vegetable market. But the county was far away, so Luo Mu simply sold the cakes to the village children.

As far as Luo Mu knew, those kids always got some pocket money from their parents every month. Back then, being able to take ten yuan and lead friends to the canteen was something Luo Mu didn’t even dare dream of. Her only joy was squatting at the entrance of the canteen, watching the children coming and going with new snacks and toys in their hands.

She wrapped the oil cakes and sat under the banyan tree by the canteen to sell them. And that day, Luo Mu possessed her first ten yuan.

But she gave part of the money to Old Lady Li, bought a bar of soap for Grandma with another part, and used the remaining fifty cents to buy a small bag of biscuits for herself. That day was the first time she could walk into the canteen to buy snacks openly and honestly.

To the point that for the next decade or so, she could never find or taste that same joy again.

There was one oil cake left, which she secretly kept for Grandma, only to be met with her saying: “Don’t speculate about others anymore; just be yourself.”

Be yourself?

Luo Mu understood all too well. If she were “herself,” she wouldn’t have been able to eat by relying on people’s pity.

If she were “herself,” she would have starved to death during the great drought.

To Luo Mu, being able to eat back then was far more important than noble dignity.

And now, even with the earth-shattering changes in her life and the abundant material wealth she possessed, it was hard to change this habit. When her father occasionally took her to business functions, she could tell which big boss liked to talk big, and she would whisper in her father’s ear about how he should play along.

She understood perfectly. She could only choose survival, not living.

And as for the person on the other side of the screen, Luo Mu couldn’t guess what she would say next, even feeling confused by her behavior.

Her enthusiasm couldn’t be ruled out yet, but many seemingly magical coincidences were always hard to explain. To Luo Mu, the other’s bluntness didn’t necessarily make her feel comfortable.

Perhaps, Luo Mu wanted a reason too badly.

She tossed her phone aside and stared blankly at the ceiling. Ji Rongshu always said she had “eight hundred ulterior motives,” and he wasn’t wrong. Luo Mu recalled the people and things she had encountered, constantly re-evaluating and organizing them through countless nights. The collapse and reconstruction of her values had caused her to wake up suddenly amidst breakdown and despair.

People immersed in memories and the past easily forget where they are.

Constantly being torn apart, constantly surrounded by misfortune, constantly recovering, yet still possessing irreconcilable contradictions on the road of life. Born into this broken, wretched, and brutal world, everyone wants to do their best to find a way to stay alive.

“Cold-natured by birth” was also how she evaluated herself.

Let it be, then. It’s fine.

Luo Mu closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Her mind went blank for a moment, and she muttered to herself: “I want to eat Old Lady Li’s sweet potato cakes.”

She couldn’t anymore.

She fell into a dazed sleep on the bed, though her subconscious could feel she was still awake. Everything just went black, and her body slumped powerlessly.

A message notification sounded.

Q: Is the list for this year’s Foreign Language Festival already finalized?

Luo Mu was stunned for a short moment. Normally, she had little interest in such things. But the other’s tone was indeed somewhat unusual.

Lomo: It should be. Why?

Q: I didn’t expect a junior from middle school to also test into this school. Jiang Yan—you should know her.

Luo Mu did indeed know her.

Although Luo Mu hadn’t gone to the same middle school as them, the two schools were adjacent and frequently compared. During a middle school foreign language speech competition, a dark horse had emerged: Jiang Yan, from a lower grade, had crushed the senior group to snatch the crown.

Rumors outside said her father at the Education Bureau had pulled some strings behind the scenes; some even loudly proclaimed she had a “princess complex.”

But having seen her competition recording in the ninth grade, Luo Mu realized that some people possess a natural confidence radiating from their bones—the kind Luo Mu could never learn in her lifetime.

Accurate pronunciation, proper carriage. Delicate features, tall stature. Like a noble black swan, never lowering her dignified head. Though young, she shed her childishness under the spotlights, talking fluently, every word a gem.

Her looks and family background gave her the foundation for her dignity; Luo Mu didn’t really think it was a princess complex, because she truly had the life of a princess.

Lomo: I actually really want to meet her.

She was truly curious.

What was a girl who had possessed abundant resources since childhood like?

Q: She happened to say she wanted me to see her progress before the foreign language performance. Let’s go together then.

Lomo: Planning on bribery before the competition even starts?

Q: Hahaha, just personal feelings.

Luo Mu smiled, assuming it was just a friendly connection between alumni.

Lomo: Let’s meet up then.

Q: You will like her.

Luo Mu paused, then shook her head with a smile. Truly an idiot—how could she be so certain?

Lomo: What if I don’t like her?

Q: Then I will bestow the title of “Universe’s Super Invincible Thunderbolt War God” upon you. You will be the future heir.

Lomo: No need, I wouldn’t dare. You are the only choice for the Universe’s Super Invincible Thunderbolt War God.

High school holidays were always fleeting moments of joy, yet these shards of pleasure were enough to heal the future lows of a painful and struggling life.

Whenever she hit a bottleneck at work at four in the morning, Luo Mu would always pull out old WeChat chat logs and photos from her student days. She would grin at the screen; at least for that second, it kept her from feeling the exhaustion of life’s low points.

Luo Mu got up, connected her phone via Bluetooth to the printer, and printed out that photo from the Foreign Language Festival. She took a photo frame she had bought long ago from the cupboard, placed the photo inside, and set it on her desk.

Suddenly, she heard a raspy voice behind her: “I recall you never put photos on your desk.”

Luo Mu turned around, her startled expression returning to calm.

“Little Mom,” Luo Mu answered. “You said that meaningful photos should be placed in a prominent spot.”

Luo Mu still remembered that when the woman married in, she had placed a photo of Ji Rongshu’s biological father with the mother and son in the most prominent spot in the living room. Every time Little Mom felt aggrieved, she would stare dazed at the photo without speaking. This not only made Luo Mu uncomfortable but also repulsed Ji Rongshu.

Ji Rongshu: “Don’t you know? This is another man’s house. What do you think my dad feels?”

Luo Mu would perhaps never see Ji Rongshu more heart-wrenchingly hysterical than at that moment. He grit his teeth, his gaze fierce. The veins on his neck stood out prominently.

Little Mom was weak by nature; faced with the only negative emotion her son had ever shown, she was stunned. Luo Mu didn’t remember what happened after that; she only knew that the woman hid the photo frame in her nightstand and never took it out again.

Luo Mu had said those words to spite her, but the other woman merely lifted the corner of her mouth slightly.

Little Mom walked to her desk and picked up the photo frame. She murmured softly: “How nice.”

Luo Mu: “What?”

“The look of youth—how nice.” Little Mom pointed to the girl in the photo and said pensively: “I see someone was peeking at you.”

The words were spoken cautiously, as if walking on thin ice for fear of making Luo Mu angry.

Luo Mu: “Yeah, I know. My friend.”

“It seems your friend cares about you a lot.” Little Mom tested carefully. Luo Mu naturally knew her words made her feel uneasy too, so she slowly set her free: “Yes, she cares about me a lot.”

She said it so that even she herself didn’t believe it.

How could she care a lot? Cares my foot.

Little Mom looked at the conflicted Luo Mu and gently rubbed her head.

“Luo Mu is a big girl now.”

In her eyes, when they first met, this child would always hide behind her father, unwilling to speak to anyone. Her personality was so eccentric that she never had a kind look for anyone she met.

Although she often heard Father Luo talk about his daughter, saying she was very well-spoken, she found it hard to believe. She understood the child’s struggle to accept a new family, but having walked this path for so many years, she had truly seen the child’s growth.

“But Little Mom is still Little Mom, she won’t grow up,” Luo Mu teased her.

“You are still young, but Little Mom won’t be anymore.”

“Roses will wither, but a withered rose is still a rose. It’s enough to have bloomed beautifully; no regrets.” Luo Mu looked at the group photo, at that beautiful girl with her proud head raised like a blooming briar rose. She would have her own way of blooming.

Every flower has its own way of blooming.

Seeing that person so beautiful and vivid, Luo Mu actually felt a hint of pity. Perhaps she pitied her stunning beauty at this moment; she was so wonderful right now that Luo Mu even feared life would betray her purity and frankness, or that this world wouldn’t allow her to become the adult she wanted to be.

The fair face leaves the mirror, the flowers leave the tree; most of all in this world, nothing can be kept.