Melon Seeds and Boobs： Breast Hyperplasia in an Absurd Era

Lao Li, fifty years old and supposedly at the age of knowing his destiny, had been feeling a strange swelling in his chest lately. At first, he didn't think much of it, assuming it was just his blood pressure rising from arguing with Widow Wang next door. But the swelling in his chest grew increasingly strange, from a slight distension to a dull ache, and then, eventually... eventually, damn it, he grew boobs!

This terrified Lao Li. He was a real man, burly and rough, with a bristly beard. Anyone who saw him on the street would call him "Brother Li." How could he have grown these things? He secretly went to the hospital, registered, got checked, and the doctor pushed up his glasses, looking at him like he was an alien: "You have... breast hyperplasia."

"Breast... hyperplasia?!" Lao Li almost jumped out of his chair. "I'm a grown man, how can I have this disease? Doctor, don't scare me!"

The doctor flipped through the lab report and said slowly, "Have you been eating anything you shouldn't have lately?"

Lao Li scratched his head, thought for a long time, and finally remembered: "If there's anything special... it's that I've been addicted to eating melon seeds lately, and I've eaten a lot of peanuts too, about two pounds a day..."

When the doctor heard this, his glasses almost fell off: "Two pounds?! Are you treating yourself like a hamster?!"

Lao Li finally realized that peanuts and melon seeds contain a large amount of phytoestrogens, and his non-stop munching had turned him into a "hermaphrodite."

If this got out, how could Lao Li ever face his neighbors again? He grimaced and begged the doctor to prescribe him some medicine to get rid of these damn boobs. But the doctor shook his head: "Medicine probably won't work for this, you need surgery."

Surgery?! When Lao Li heard this, he shook his head like a rattle drum. He'd rather live with these "boobs" than get a knife in his chest.

So, Lao Li became a "celebrity" in a muddle. The neighbors secretly called him "Boobs Li," and some even made up a rhyme: "Lao Li has boobs, he eats two pounds of seeds."

Lao Li was so frustrated, but what could he do? He could only vent his anger on melon seeds and peanuts, continuing to eat two pounds every day, rain or shine. In his words, this was "fighting fire with fire," and maybe one day he'd munch them away.

You say this is absurd? But if you think about it carefully, behind this absurdity, there is an unspeakable sadness. It's like a black curtain suddenly tearing open, revealing a glimmer of light. You think you see hope, but when you get closer, you find that it's just a deeper darkness. This world, sometimes, is like Lao Li's boobs. You think they shouldn't exist, but they just grow, and they grow so boldly, leaving you speechless and with nowhere to complain. You ask me what to do? I don't know. Maybe, just like Lao Li, we can only continue to eat melon seeds, until the end of time, until the seas run dry, until this absurd world completely collapses, or... until we ourselves become real hamsters.