Chapter 5 Chapter 5: The Make-Up Exam
This was the first time Su Yuan had ever exposed her most private area to another person. Though the anatomy was now unfamiliar, the exposure made her deeply uneasy, as if ants were crawling under her skin, tickling and itching.
Her body tensed. Something touched her most sensitive spot. Dr. Li, gloved hand pulling the folds apart, examined the delicate pink tissue inside. A thin intact membrane was faintly visible.
Experienced and thorough, Dr. Li quickly determined there were no physical abnormalities. She moved on, placing the cold stethoscope on Su Yuan’s abdomen to check internal organs.
“Ow” Su Yuan cried out suddenly. Dr. Li frowned, repositioning the stethoscope. “Here”
Su Yuan nodded miserably.
“We will do a B ultrasound and color Doppler scan later. For now, lift your shirt”
Su Yuan obeyed, pulling the thin top up to her chest. Dr. Li’s eyes settled on her nearly flat breasts. Nearly because, lying down, two faint soft mounds were just visible beneath the skin.
Dr. Li pressed gently. Su Yuan gasped at the sudden ache, a tenderness like young grass pushing through stone, eager to grow.
Dr. Li prescribed tests including urinalysis, B ultrasound, female immune panel, and six hormone panel. She did not order chromosomal analysis, likely never considering it.
Su Yuan rushed through the exams, returning with lab reports hours later.
Dr. Li scanned the results. Multiple hormone levels were low. The ultrasound confirmed her suspicion. “No structural issues” she declared. “Just delayed development”
Su Yuan froze. No physical problems. Relief warred with bitter disappointment. It was good news, yet it left a hollow ache.
Seeing her dazed expression, Dr. Li grew serious. A girl this clueless needed a wake up call. “Your uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, and breasts are all underdeveloped. This requires attention. Do not ignore it. You also have mild anemia and critically low estrogen. This triggers chain reactions”
Su Yuan absorbed the warnings numbly. Dr. Li prescribed anti androgens and oral estrogen.
Leaving the hospital, Su Yuan walked back to campus under the blazing sun. The visit had cost several hundred yuan bills. Her mood was tangled. Thankfully, Dr. Li had not overcharged the student, recommending diet and exercise over expensive treatments. Still, her wallet felt lighter. She had joked before that medical exams turned healthy people into patients. Today she had been diagnosed with delayed development, hormonal deficiencies, and anemia.
Me, deficient in estrogen. The thought was absurd. She had never imagined lacking something so fundamental. Walking out, she felt like a lab rat, formerly the one in the white coat, now the specimen on the table.
“So life is unpredictable” she sighed to the sky.
Back at school, famished, she grabbed lunch at a cafeteria near her dorm. In the hallway, a shadow blocked her path. Wang Ping, basketball under his arm, headed for the courts.
“What is wrong. Sick” He noticed the red crossed pharmacy bag in her hand.
Caught off guard by his concern, Su Yuan nodded weakly. She rolled the bag tightly, hiding it. This illness could not be public.
“You just need exercise” Wang Ping declared, flexing his biceps. “A real man looks like me, strong, powerful. None of this delicate flower stuff” His dark skin gleamed under the lights. Su Yuan did not envy his healthy glow. He was overdoing it. Ji Yehan’s balanced physique appealed to her more.
After parting ways, she returned to Room 330. New textbooks sat on the desk. Ji Yehan and Gao Jun must have collected them. She stared at the pharmacy bag, then swallowed the prescribed pills with water. A dead horse treated as a live one. She did not know why she took them, habit perhaps, or blind trust in the doctor’s authority.
Hiding the medicine in her wardrobe, she opened her calculus book. The make up exam was at 1:30 p.m., less than half an hour away. One last cram session.
Strangely, this illness seemed to have sharpened her mind. Calculus problems flowed effortlessly. She credited last night’s all nighter. But thoughts of her changed body clouded the satisfaction.
The exam was in Classroom NA110, North Zone, Building A. Su Yuan arrived early. Over a third of the class was there for the make up. This course really was a disaster zone. As she thought this, exam papers were handed out. After checking student IDs, the proctor started the clock.
The format was familiar. Multiple choice first. Basic concepts, yet classmates already frowned, chewed pencils, and scratched their heads.
“Weird. This is not hard” Su Yuan blinked, doubting herself. Am I missing hidden traps. She pushed the thought aside and trusted her instincts.
She breezed through ten multiple choice questions, hesitating only on the last two. Fill in the blanks, true or false, calculations, applications, all felt medium difficulty. While others struggled with fill ins, Su Yuan reached the final section, proofs.
Problem one. Prove that if lim f(x) equals A as x approaches positive infinity, then lim f(1/x) equals A as x approaches zero from the right. Straightforward.
Problem two. Prove the equation x e^x equals 1 has exactly one real root in the interval from zero to one. Also manageable. With elegant flowing handwriting, she finished and submitted her paper.
The exam confirmed it. Her mind had truly unlocked. She recalled struggling with the second proof months ago, only grasping that the Intermediate Value Theorem was needed. Now she understood it deeply.
Stepping out of the classroom, she exhaled. “Great talents mature late”
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