Chapter 6: Slimmer

“Letter, letter! That’s right, there’s always work for you to do in our village,” the team leader teased her. “You know Xining Village, right? It’s about five kilometers from here. Be there on time tomorrow.”

Li Luo thought to herself, Five kilometers? I might as well run it.

Starting tomorrow, I’ll run ten kilometers in the morning and another ten in the afternoon. The rest of the time I’ll walk briskly or jump rope—it’ll work just as well for losing weight.

She silently made her plan.

After parting ways with the team leader, she returned to the courtyard and cooked a pot of vegetable leaves for dinner.

As usual, after eating, she went to the bathhouse.

While washing up and changing clothes, the back-scrubbing attendant looked at her in surprise. “You look like you’ve lost weight recently—and your skin looks fairer too.”

Li Luo’s eyes lit up, and she couldn’t stop the smile tugging at her lips. “Really?” Ever since she transmigrated, it was the first time she had heard someone use the words “slim” and “fair” about her.

“Really. Even your hair isn’t frizzy anymore—it looks smooth. What shampoo are you using?”

“This one.” Li Luo picked up the bottle Qin Mian had left behind.

“I use the same thing! Why don’t I get results like you?” the woman muttered.

“Maybe different hair types,” Li Luo replied, neatly packing her things before greeting her. “Big sis, I’ll be going now.”

“Alright, take care.”

After getting home, Li Luo put away her bath items and started washing clothes.

At Han Qiuyu’s house, Deng Cuiping and a few other women were sitting around a table, cracking melon seeds and gossiping.

Deng Cuiping pointed outside the window. “Isn’t that Li Luo?”

“Can’t be. Li Luo’s so fat,” Han Qiuyu said as she craned her neck to look, eyes fixed outside.

The figure was still plump, but compared to a week ago, she was clearly slimmer.

“It’s her. Lately she’s been out early and back late—I don’t know what she’s up to. But she’s definitely thinner, and her skin’s lighter too. This morning when I saw her, I thought I’d mistaken her for someone else,” Aunt Liu remarked.

Han Qiuyu couldn’t resist switching on the porch light. The dim courtyard suddenly brightened, and Li Luo’s figure became clearer.

Walking up to her, she saw for herself—Li Luo really had slimmed down, her complexion brighter than before. Her face was still broad, but her eyes shone brilliantly. “How many pounds have you lost? How did you do it?”

Aunt Liu joined them. “Luoluo, what have you been up to? Out so early, back so late—did you find proper work?”

Li Luo chose to answer Aunt Liu instead. “I haven’t found any proper job. These days I’ve just been helping villagers in the nearby countryside dig irrigation ditches for exercise.”

“If you’ve been digging ditches to slim down, how come your skin’s fairer too?” Aunt Liu asked curiously.

Li Luo grinned, baring her teeth. Am I really fairer? She didn’t admit it outright, afraid people would accuse her of making things up. “I don’t know either.”

“You just don’t want to say,” Han Qiuyu sneered. “You’re afraid the rest of us will get fair too.”

Li Luo frowned. “I already said I’ve been digging ditches to lose weight. If you want fairer skin, why don’t you come dig with me?”

“That kind of work is distributed by the headcount in the countryside. They don’t even know you—how’d you manage to join in?”

That set Li Luo off. “Believe it or don’t, I don’t owe you an explanation!” She dumped out the wash water, carried her clothes under the eaves to dry, then shut her door, switched off the light, and went straight to bed.

“Qiuyu, your tone was too sharp,” Aunt Liu scolded.

“She’s the petty one. I only asked a question,” Han Qiuyu muttered, clenching her fists.

Inside, Li Luo heard every word. She cursed silently, What a fake white lotus!

At dawn, the eastern sky just beginning to pale, Li Luo woke up. After a week of physical labor, she’d already developed the habit of rising early.

She boiled an egg, ate it, drank a large glass of water, and went out for her run.

Timing it carefully, she returned just as the sun was rising—and ran right into Han Qiuyu.

Pinching her nose dramatically, Han Qiuyu said, “You stink! Like a dead fish. Do you have body odor?”

Li Luo shot back without hesitation, “You stink, you loudmouth hag!” She marched inside, drew water to wipe herself clean, and scrubbed away any smell.

As she was pouring out the water, Aunt Liu said kindly, “Qiuyu went too far, but she’s childish at heart. Don’t take it personally.”

Though she wasn’t home much during the day, Li Luo already had Aunt Liu figured out. She seemed friendly with everyone, but deep down she looked down on them all—smiling to their faces while gossiping behind their backs. Li Luo had no intention of growing close to her.

She gave a perfunctory hum, packed up her basin, and went back to her room. Closing the door and drawing the curtains, she started exercising again.

If I want to lose weight, I must control my mouth and keep moving nonstop.

She only stopped when she was truly exhausted.

After resting a while, she ate a plate of boiled greens and went for another run. Along the way, she noticed mugwort growing by the roadside. Remembering how Han Qiuyu mocked her for smelling bad, she stopped to gather some. Dried and burned, mugwort could remove odors.

In truth, her body odor had already lessened quite a bit. At first it had been worse, but Han Qiuyu had been the first to point it out. The villagers, though simple, had more decency than her.

Collecting the mugwort, she continued running. As dusk approached, she turned back.

Under the eaves, she grabbed her laundry to bring inside—only to find it still damp.

The sun had been strong today. It should’ve dried.

Clearly, someone had wet it on purpose.

Han Qiuyu, no doubt. She had no other enemies here.

She hung the clothes indoors to dry, then opened the cabinet and pulled out Qin Mian’s clothing.

Not a single one, even the largest, fit her.

Unbelievable. A man lighter than a woman. Useless!

Stuffing them back into the cabinet, she grabbed her toiletries, locked the door, and left.

Han Qiuyu, watching in secret, smirked in satisfaction.

For the next week, she tried the same trick again—wetting Li Luo’s clothes—but Li Luo stayed in her room too much for her to succeed.

So instead, she turned to verbal attacks. Every time she passed Li Luo, she’d pinch her nose and loudly declare that Li Luo stank of body odor.

One day, as usual, she sneered, “Li Luo, your stench is filling the whole courtyard!”

Li Luo flushed with shame. These past days, although she still sweated, the smell was nearly gone. Just yesterday, the back-scrubber at the bathhouse had even said, “When you first came, you reeked. But today, I didn’t smell a thing. Were you sick before?”

The woman had even kindly weighed her. Li Luo was down to 180 pounds, from her original 200.

And it was only April. With summer heat ahead, she’d lose weight even faster. By the end of the season, she could definitely slim down to 100 pounds.

At 165 cm, 100 pounds would be just right.

“You don’t bathe, do you?” Han Qiuyu pressed.

“I do—every single day,” Li Luo said.

“Then you must not bathe properly. Or maybe it’s hereditary body odor. Brother Qin’s practically a doctor—why don’t you ask him to check? Passing by people reeking like that, aren’t you embarrassed?” Han Qiuyu continued to pile on.

Li Luo was so angry she cried. That woman’s doing it on purpose.

If not for her entanglement with Qin Mian, Li Luo would have already slapped her.

“You think it’s fine to humiliate others in public?”

A deep, steady voice cut in at her ear.

Li Luo turned—and saw Qin Mian.

So, the man who said he’d be gone ten days to half a month… had come back exactly on the fifteenth day.

Han Qiuyu froze. “Q–Qin… Brother Qin, you’re back?”

Qin Mian’s gaze swept over the courtyard, pausing on Li Luo. His eyes narrowed slightly.

She really had slimmed down. And her complexion was brighter.

Her cheeks were still fleshy, but the contours were smoother.

The frown lines on her forehead were gone.

Her big round eyes shone, her lips were no longer dark and purple but rosy and soft.

She looked much prettier.

How did she manage that?