My Mister Ostrich

Chapter 2

After awhile, Pang Qian started pulling at his sleeve, but he ignored her. Pang Qian used her pen to poke his waist, his back, and even his left thigh. Gu Mingxi tried twisting away, but couldn’t avoid her. He turned and glared at her, whispering, “Stop messing around.”

Pang Qian pursed her lips, withdrawing her pen. She muttered, “So petty.”

When school was over, the snow had already stopped. Pang Qian and Gu Mingxi went home together.

After passing through the gates to the metals factory, Gu Mingxi spotted a patch of thick snow that hadn’t been plowed away.

He called out to Pang Qian, who was swaying about ahead, “Didn’t you say you wanted to build a snowman? You can build one here.”

Pang Qian turned around and looked for a moment, “Forget it. It’s no fun to play by myself. There’s no point.”

Gu Mingxi said unhappily, “I’m not a person?!”

Pang Qian never hesitated when speaking to him. “You don’t have arms, how can you build it?”

Unsatisfied with that, Gu Mingxi said, “I can build it with my legs!”

Having said that, he’d already headed over to the snow pile.

He was wearing a beige colored cotton jacket, his backpack on his back, two empty cotton sleeves swinging on either side of him. Behind him, Pang Qian stood watching him. Gu Mingxi suddenly turned around and shouted, “Come on! Fattie, are you going to build or not?”

Pang Qian’s hair frizzled. Stomping on the ground, “I told you not to call me Fattie!”

Gu Mingxi’s mouth turned up, his smile revealing two small teeth. He said, “I’ll call you if I want to. Fattie, Fattie, Fattie…”

Pang Qian ran after him with chagrin, as if wanting to hit him. Gu Mingxi turned and ran. The two sleeves at his sides fluttered intensely, just like two little wings. When the two kids neared the pile of snow, Pang Qian reached out and pulled at Gu Mingxi’s backpack. He staggered and fell onto the soft snow.

He lay on the ground, facing the sky, his body sunken into the snow. He inhaled the smell of winter surrounding him, and gasped lightly. Pang Qian threw the two backpacks to the side, then stepped onto the flower bed. Like a queen, she condescendingly said to Gu Mingxi, “I’m not fat anymore! You can’t call me Fattie!”

Gu Mingxi smiled again, eyes clear and bright. Lazily, he said, “Who told you to have the last name Pang? Should I just call you Pang Pang in the future?”

Her last name is the character páng (庞). He calls her pàng pàng (胖胖), which means “fat.” Calling her by her last name is kind of the same anyway, isn’t it? Hahaha!

That’s right, Pang Qian used to be very fat.

And before the age of 6, Gu Mingxi was a very healthy child.

Not only healthy, he was also smart, beautiful, lively, and loved by all.

This was where he was different from Pang Qian.

On an August afternoon in 1985, the weather was unbearably hot. In the maternity ward of a hospital in E City, Jin Ai’hua spent a day and night in pain, but was still unable to birth her daughter. In the end, she was pulled into the operating room and cut open.

When Pang Shuisheng first saw his daughter, he jumped in shock. The baby girl was rounder than any other child, with a lot of dark hair on her head. Her face was full and glowing. There weren’t any wrinkles on her skin at all. She was 51 cm long, 9.8 jin (4.9 kg / 10.8 lb), the champion baby of the hospital that month. The nine jin girl.