Mother of School Grass

When the other kids went to play, their fathers and mothers would accompany them. But he had only Chai Meicen. 

Chai Meicen became pregnant at just the tender age of nineteen, and the father was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t know which bastard was his father.

For this reason, the mother and son had always suffered a lot of criticism.  

At the time, fearing that he might be wronged, Chai Meicen had given him a lot of pocket money. His pocket money was a lot more than the monthly income of his classmates’ parents. 

Such was the relation between the two—simple and unadorned. 

In fact, the reason why Zhou Rui was surnamed Zhou was that Chai Meicen had a fake marriage with a man surnamed Zhou in order to produce a household registration for him and have him join the school. 

Once his household registration was approved, the two of them separated —a blitzkrieg strategy indeed.  She used the most convenient marriage she could and then the most efficient divorce to solve the issue. 

The man with the surname Zhou also had nothing to lose. She had given that man 50,000 yuan, not a small amount of money. 

Afterward Chai Meichen wanted to change his name. However, Chia Meicen was a Libra, and couldn’t come up with a good name even after mulling over it for a long time. Eventually, with the passing of many years, this matter was dropped, and he continued to be called Zhou Rui. 

Sitting on the toilet seat, Zhou Rui fell into contemplation on how to apologize and tell his mother that yesterday, he too had cried.

No, that wouldn’t do. A man’s pride could never be lost. He could never say that he had cried! Entangled in his predicament, he lost track of time.  After a while, Chai Meicen’s voice came through the door, “Don’t stress yourself out if you can’t take a dump. Do you know nine men out of ten are suffering from hemorrhoids?”

Zhou Rui curled his lips. Thinking that this might be the chance to break the ice, he replied, “Don’t worry, this laozi1老子 (lǎozi): in this context, it means ‘I, your father’. It is usually used in anger, out of contempt/ arrogantly, jocularly. doesn’t lack in strength.”

After replying, he felt embarrassed.

He blurted out ‘laozi’ without thinking.

Zhou Rui let out a sigh. He felt his brain could not cope with the ways of the world, for he could screw up any matter.

He just wanted to apologize but ended up blowing it. If this wasn’t digging one’s own grave then what was it? 

Flushing the toilet, he walked towards the sink to wash his hands and face. While brushing his teeth, he pushed open the door before propping himself against the door frame and glanced over to see what his mother was doing.  

It would have been fine if he hadn’t taken a glance, but now that he had seen it, what he saw scared the daylights out of him.

‘Pa’ The electric toothbrush in his hand crashed to the ground.

Dumbstruck, he gaped at the young female, who seemed to be…. Chai Meicen?

“F*ck?” Inadvertently, an obscene word spilled out of his mouth. 

When Zhou Rui stepped out, Chai Meichen was chatting with her friend over the phone. The person on the other side was consoling Chai Meicen, telling her to have a proper chat with her son, as mother and son shouldn’t hold grudges against each other. 

Although Zhou Rui possessed a rude and impetuous personality, he wasn’t a bad kid by nature and wasn’t a kid beyond redemption. 

Just as Chai Meicen’a mood was lightening up, she heard Zhou Rui swear. 

“Alright, I will speak with you later.” Chai Meicen replied, as she indifferently glanced at Zhou Rui.

“Your voice doesn’t seem as strong as it used to be, are you not feeling well?” The voice infused with concern transmitted through the phone. 

“Is it because that little brat made you angry?”

“You should take note of your health. Don’t be too fierce with Zhou Rui, and have a nice chat with him.”

Chai Meicen hung up the call and flung the cell phone on the sofa. With her hands on her waist, she hurled at Zhou Rui, “What’s wrong with you, huh? The first thing in the morning, you began cursing, is this what I taught you?”

Zhou Rui still gaped at her, stupefied, as he silently pondered in his heart, ‘This manner of speaking is Chai Meicen’s.’

“Why are you stupidly standing there? Your toothbrush had fallen down, isn’t it becoming dirty? Every single day, I have to run behind you to wipe your ass, not even a single day goes by when you don’t give me trouble. 

Zhou Rui’s inner monologue continued—Yep, this is something Chai Meicen would say. 

“You are… my mother?” Zhou Rui asked.

Chai Meicen’s current appearance—her messy hair, tacky pajamas, and the tone of speaking—truly resembled the Chai Meichen in his memory. 

“What, now you can’t recognize your own mother?” Chai Meicen’s anger at once shot up, as she asked with one of her brows raised. 

“Have you taken a look at your appearance in the mirror this morning?” Zhou Rui asked her.

Chai Meicen furiously rolled her eyes, “Now I even have to look in the mirror to prove that I am your mother, huh? You truly are becoming more and more outrageous. Just because I slapped you, you want to sever our mother and child relationship?”

Zhou Rui waded toward Chai Meichen while shaking his head, and pushed her to the bathroom. Pointing at the mirror, he uttered, “You can look for yourself.”

Chai Meichen glared at Zhou Rui, before training her eyes on the mirror in the bathroom. Immediately after, she was also utterly dumbstruck.

The young female in the mirror…seemed to be more or less sixteen. She had an almond-shaped, oval face, and fair and glassy skin. At a glance, she seemed to be the epitome of elegance and charm. 

A standard face of first love!

Raising her hand, she caressed her cheek. Again and again like a fool, she made a few movements to confirm that the reflection in the mirror belonged to her. 

It has been quite a long time since she had seen this face. 

At the age of sixteen, she weighed only 40 kgs. At that time, neither did she have large pores, nor did she have laugh lines at the corner of her eyes.

In her 30s, she began to lose her hair. In order to make her hair look voluminous, she got herself a spiral perm. However, it ended up looking as if she had a mass of steel wool on her head. 

But now the volume of her hair has increased, appearing lush.  The most annoying thing is that a portion of her hair strands was straight, while the others were curly, making her hairstyle appear extremely unique. 

What’s so great about being a beauty?

It was that even if one had this sort of hairstyle, and was dressed in tacky clothes, they would nevertheless appear beautiful, making viewers unable to take their eyes off them. 　

Chai Meichen, who had been scolding Zhou Rui a moment ago, also inadvertently spat out, “F*ck!”