Shu Lanzhou's body tensed ever so slightly.
"If you don't want to talk about it, that's okay too," Mu Side tilted his head and kissed her gently on the forehead.
"I just want to understand you more. But if remembering makes you uncomfortable or causes you pain, you don't have to say a word."
"Shushu, I want you to know—no matter what you've been through, I don't want those things to become chains that bind you. And if they are, I want to be the one to set you free."
Shu Lanzhou clutched his hand tightly. "You already did… just now."
She tilted her head and kissed the underside of his chin. "Actually, it's not something I can't talk about."
"When I was seven, a beautiful volunteer teacher came to our town. She went door-to-door in the village, trying to convince families to send their children to school in town."
"I wanted to go to school too. I wanted to be like her—clean, bright, and loved by everyone—not someone everyone avoided, beat, or yelled at."
"But going to school cost money. I didn't have any, so I went to ask the village chief for help. He wasn't home when I went, only his father—who was nearly sixty at the time."
"He looked fierce, and I was scared of him. But that day, he was very kind to me. He offered me candy. I told him I didn't want candy—I wanted to go to school. He said if I went inside with him, he'd give me the money."
"I was just a naïve seven-year-old. Even though I was scared, I still followed him inside… because I really wanted to study."
As she spoke, Shu Lanzhou closed her eyes. The memory surged back, vivid and cruel—a nightmare that never faded. Every time she saw that scar on her body, it all came flooding back.
"Don't say anymore, I don't want to hear it!" Mu Side's eyes reddened. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I shouldn't have asked."
He pulled her tightly into his arms, kissing her over and over again.
"Shushu, I love you. Let me protect you from now on. I won't let anyone ever hurt you again!"
Shu Lanzhou shook her head with a smile:
"I'm really okay. I mean it. Yes, he did try to hurt me. But that beautiful teacher had told me: never let anyone see or touch private parts of your body."
"So when he told me to undress, I turned and ran. But I wasn't lucky—I tripped and fell right onto a sickle in his house."
"There was so much blood, I thought I was going to die. But I didn't. And I'm glad—otherwise I never would've met you. That would've made me really sad."
She wiped the tears from her face. "Brother, I'm not someone who understands feelings well. Sometimes, I don't even know how to interact with people."
"Someone once told me I was cold by nature, unable to tell good from bad, because no one taught me those things when I was little."
"From as early as I can remember, I knew that if I wanted something, I had to earn it with my own two hands. The villagers hated me. If it weren't for the village chief's orders, they wouldn't have given me a bite to eat."
"But in a way, I was grateful. They may have cursed and hit me, but at least they fed me. As I got older and more capable, I worked harder and better. Sometimes they'd even pity me enough to give me old clothes."
"What they didn't know was that the village chief agreed to take me in just so he could stay in power. He told the town officials he'd look after me in exchange for my mother's old house."
"But after he got what he wanted, he resented me—said I was just a mouth to feed. That's when he told everyone to raise me together."
"But no one in the village knew that. So they took out their anger and resentment on me. I got beaten up a lot as a kid. After what happened that day, though, no one hit me again."
"Because I nearly died. The village chief was afraid the town would investigate and send me to an orphanage, and he'd lose the house. So he promised to send me to school."
"You could say… I bought my education with my life. That's when I realized the only way out was through studying, through exams—to escape that place forever."
"After that incident, I never dared to go near the village chief's house again. Later, a town official came down for a visit, heard what had happened, and scolded the village chief publicly. Not long after, the village got a new party secretary."
"The funny thing is… it was the same person as the old village chief."
"But my life didn't improve much. The party secretary used what happened to me to steal power from the village chief—and even took half of my family's house."
"They were afraid I'd tell the real story to outsiders, so they made up this heartwarming tale about a village raising an orphan with love and generosity."
"To make themselves look good, they'd go around saying everyone in the village was chipping in to send me to school. But back then, many families didn't even let their daughters attend school."
"That's when I knew—I couldn't owe them anything. Not a single penny."
"So I made the party secretary keep a record. For every bit of money they gave me, I wrote an IOU."
Mu Side's heart twisted. "Was that the IOU the party secretary brought to the university?"
He remembered the man tearfully presenting a stack of debt notes, claiming the village had nurtured her out of kindness. Said no one ever mistreated her.
It was all lies. Every word of it.
How could a little girl, alone in such a place, possibly have had a clean, safe childhood?
She had made it this far through pain, through scars, through sheer will to survive.
"Yes," Shu Lanzhou nodded.
"At first, I could still work to pay it back. But as I got older, schoolwork took up more of my time. I couldn't keep up with the payments."
"Luckily, since I was a good student, they didn't make things too hard for me. They just inflated the amounts on the IOUs."
Mu Side's eyes welled with unshed tears. "Then… why did you choose to study medicine?"
"A child from your background… most would be desperate to earn money, maybe go into finance or business."
"It was because of that teacher," Shu Lanzhou's eyes softened at the memory.
"By the time I recovered from my injury and returned to school, she had gone back to the city. But she was the reason I knew how to protect myself. She was the reason I got to go to school at all."
"I was so grateful to her. I kept looking for her, asking every new volunteer teacher if they knew her. Finally, in my second year of high school, I found a clue."
"But… I never got to see her again. She had leukemia. That's why she left the village. She passed away a few years later."
"I didn't even know how to feel. I don't think I ever really understood sadness back then. I just knew, in that moment, what I wanted to do with my life."
"I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to save people like her—and help teachers who risk so much to protect kids like me."
She wiped at her eyes again. Suddenly, her heart ached for the kind, gentle teacher who had left the world too soon.
It turns out, sadness really could feel like pain in your chest.
"You've faced so much cruelty, but just one act of kindness was enough for you to hold onto goodness," Mu Side held her tightly.
"You were born to heal others, Shushu."
"There are a lot of bad people in this world, and plenty of people who only look out for themselves. But there are good people too—a lot of them."
"And from now on, you'll only meet good people. The best kind."
"Pfft…" Shu Lanzhou laughed through her tears. "Are you talking about yourself?"
Mu Side smiled with a twinkle in his eye. "Of course… not."
"Haha!" Shu Lanzhou threw herself into his arms, laughing. "Do you want to know what my dream is?"