Chapter 101: My ecology is not going to give me an explanation?

After finishing the call, Zhu Zhiwei found that Zhu Yingning was the only one left on the sofa in the store.

"Where are your friends?" she asked.

Zhu Yingning looked down at her crossed fingers and sighed imperceptibly: "She went back first."

Zhu Zhiwei noticed she was feeling down, stepped forward, patted her shoulder, and consoled her, "It's normal for friends to have arguments."

She replied with a muffled "hmm," as if she was relieved, but not completely relieved.

**

At the beginning of the new week, Hong Qingyang mentioned in the class meeting the Model United Nations competition for middle school students recently jointly organized by several districts.

"Registration requirements are exactly that—no requirements." He read the red registration notice for the event. "Any student from first to third year of high school can sign up. The requirement is to form a team of three, and you can join from different classes. In the end, you're representing the school. Registration closes in seven days, which is next Monday."

All the classmates were drowsy after listening to him, but Zou Hao was the only one who was very excited. After class, he went to find Tan Jingjing and asked her if she wanted to join in.

Zhu Yingning stayed out of the situation; she had other things to worry about. She suspected Wu Bo had taken diet pills. This suspicion was confirmed during the fourth class of the morning, when Wu Bo suddenly raised his hand to report needing to go to the restroom.

During school days—especially middle school—this kind of reporting undoubtedly evoked shame in most people. As long as someone said they were going to the restroom and brought a pack of toilet paper, everyone could guess what they were going to do. It couldn't be to play with origami, could it? While poop, pee, and farts are perfectly normal, during the sensitive years of adolescence, everyone hoped to avoid the need for excretion in front of the opposite sex.

Unfortunately, Wu Bo not only went, but went more than once.

After she raised her hand for the third time to say she needed to go to the restroom, the lecturer grew irritated and said sarcastically, "If you have an upset stomach, go to the school hospital instead of constantly interrupting me and wasting everyone's time." She pointed to Wu Bo's deskmate and said, "You, accompany her to the infirmary."

Wu Bo's deskmate was studying very hard, but when he heard this, he pouted and looked very reluctant.

"Teacher, let me go with her." Zhu Yingning stood up on her own initiative.

The teacher waved his hand and said, "Anyone is welcome. Come back soon. Come on, other students, let's continue looking at the question we just asked—"

Zhu Yingning first accompanied Wu Bo to the toilet. After she had taken care of her urgent needs, Zhu Yingning wanted to help her go to the school clinic, but Wu Bo said it was not necessary.

"I'm detoxifying." Wu Bo lifted up his school uniform pants and measured the extra weight with his fingers. "Do you think I've lost some weight? I stepped on the scale this morning and I've already lost three pounds. I've detoxified so much today, so I'll probably lose a few more pounds when I go back tonight."

Zhu Yingning felt powerless: "Wu Bo, you can't take that medicine anymore."

"Oh, it's okay." Perhaps because he noticed he had lost weight, Wu Bo's eyes lit up like two light bulbs. "This medicine has no other side effects except diarrhea. And it can't be considered diarrhea. It's just detoxification."

At the end of the class, Zheng Zekai gave Wu Bo a new nickname.

The new nickname was related to feces, which was ugly and extremely insulting. Zhu Yingning was very angry and would stop them every time she heard it. However, Wu Bo said that as long as they didn't call her pig woman, they could call her whatever they wanted.

Four days later, Wu Bo happily told her, "I have good news for you. Since I started taking that medicine, I've lost a full ten pounds! I've completely grasped the true meaning of weight loss. How could I achieve this kind of results just by exercising or eating a healthy diet? I still have to take medicine."

Her weight loss was obvious to all. Over the past week, due to frequent diarrhea and loss of appetite, her face was pale and sallow, as if she had come from a famine era.

She said, "To reward me for my hard work this week, I decided to go out for a nice meal after school tonight. Do you want to go with me, Yingning?"

Zhu Zhiwei asked her to come to the store early after school on Friday to help out, but Zhu Yingning could only refuse: "I have something to do and can't go. Um, Wu Bo..." She asked worriedly, "What are you planning to eat?"

"I'm craving Korean fried chicken. I've been craving it for a week now."

"How about...something healthy, like casserole porridge or something?"

Wu Bo's face darkened. "Do you think I'm too fat to eat fried chicken?"

"No!" Zhu Yingning felt at a loss for words. "I noticed you haven't eaten well this week. Your stomach might not be able to handle fried food all of a sudden."

"You don't have to pretend to be kind, my stomach is in good health!" Wu Bo left angrily like a firecracker.

That evening, after helping out at Zhu Zhiwei's shop, Zhu Yingning received a call from Wu Bo. She called in tears, saying she had eaten a double portion of fried chicken and ended up throwing it all up.

"I'm really craving junk food right now, but when I do eat it, I feel guilty. I don't know if it's because my stomach isn't working properly, or if it's because of this guilt. Anyway, I throw up everything I eat. The more I eat, the more I throw up, and then I want to eat more."

After hanging up the phone, Zhu Yingning thought more and more that Wu Bo was sick.

An online search revealed that Wu Bo's symptoms closely matched those of early-stage bulimia. While he hadn't yet reached the point where he vomited after eating, if he continued to do so, his situation would be dire.

She carefully browsed the web and looked up the self-reports of bulimia patients on Tianya Forum, Baidu Tieba and various blogs. Finally, she decided to go to school on Monday. No matter how Wu Bo protested, she must throw away her cheating weight-loss pills and help her resume a healthy diet.

She planned very well, but she never expected that Wu Bo would give her a huge surprise before Monday came.

**

On Sunday, Zhou Tianqing contacted her and said that Zhou Tianlan had written her a reply.

So they found time to meet again, at a restaurant outside the building. After dinner, Zhou Tianqing handed her the reply letter. She opened it and glanced at it, realizing that this time Zhou Tianlan had written her a very long reply.

Zhou Tianqing stirred the red date and longan soup in the bowl and said with a smile, "My sister is actually quite lonely in there. She's been telling me lately that it would be better to have a daughter. Yingning, you're much more considerate than Ruirui."

Zhu Yingning blushed at the praise, but also felt unworthy. She subconsciously defended Xu Sirui, "I think Xu Sirui must miss Aunt Zhou too, it's just..."

"It's just that he likes to escape, right?" Zhou Tianqing smiled helplessly.

After the two separated, Zhu Yingning returned home, turned on the desk lamp, spread the letter out on the desk, and planned to read it carefully. But before he even sat down on the chair, the landline outside rang.

She got up and went to the living room to check the incoming call number.

It’s Wu Bo.

Zhu Yingning picked up the phone and heard Wu Bo's intermittent sobbing.

She was worried and helpless, thinking it was a similar situation as before. Unexpectedly, Wu Bo cried for a while, then gave her the address of a hospital she had never heard of on the phone and asked if he could come and pick her up.

"I just had liposuction surgery here," said Wu Bo.

"……What?!"

Zhu Yingning felt as if his brain was hit by a flash bomb. With a bang, everything turned white.

She calmed herself down, knowing now was not the time to get angry. She suppressed the sudden surge of anger in her chest and said, "I'll be there right now. You stay where you are and don't move."

She ran into the room, hurriedly found the change for the taxi from the drawer, hurriedly changed into her going-out clothes, and went to the entrance to change her shoes.

"Where are you going so late at night?" The noise was so loud that Xu Sirui could hear the noises she made in the room. He opened the door and asked her while leaning against the bedroom door.

In this private and vulnerable moment, Zhu Yingning believed that Wu Bo absolutely did not want any outsiders present—especially someone of the opposite sex like Xu Sirui, who was naturally thin and good-looking. So she quickly replied, "Nothing. I have something to take care of. I'll be back soon."

After saying that, he even forgot to say goodbye and rushed out the door.

She took a taxi and arrived at the hospital where Wu Bo was after more than forty minutes.

If it weren't for the word "Beijing" in front of the name of this hospital, Zhu Yingning would never have guessed that this hospital was built in Beijing. It looked more like a product of the poor county town where she came from, a small and dilapidated building. The nurse at the reception desk on the first floor was sleeping on the counter with her mouth wide open, snoring like a motorcycle engine. The whole hospital exuded unprofessionalism and non-standardization from the inside out.

Wu Bo was sitting on a stool in the waiting area on the first floor, his eyes swollen like peaches.

Zhu Yingning glanced at her from head to toe, and only after confirming that nothing serious had happened to her did he breathe a sigh of relief and ask seriously, "What happened?"

Wu Bo hunched her shoulders. She had mixed feelings about Zhu Yingning. After the surgery, she'd thought about everyone she knew and realized she was the most reliable and trustworthy. So, she couldn't help but call her for help. On the other hand, she was a little afraid of her because of her straightforward, authoritative demeanor.

Under her serious gaze, Wu Bo thought for a long time and finally stammered out the whole story.

It turned out that she herself knew that if she continued to let things go like this, she might develop bulimia. Out of fear, she wanted to stop taking the medication, but because she had tasted the sweetness of permanent relief, she didn't want to go through the pain of dieting or exercising again.

It just so happened that someone in the weight loss QQ group she joined had just undergone liposuction surgery and posted a comparison picture of herself before and after the surgery. Wu Bo was very excited. Without telling her parents, she took out the New Year's money she had saved for many years and found a cosmetic surgery hospital far away from her home to have the surgery.

She was in a state of impulsiveness throughout the whole process. From the time she saw the comparison pictures from her group friends to the time she completed the surgery on her own, it took no more than two days in total.

Recalling this, Wu Bo burst into tears again, rolling up his sleeves and exposing his upper arms. "The doctor gave me a local anesthetic. I told him to start with my arm first to see if it worked, and then decide whether to do other parts of my body. I thought it would be just like they advertised, that I'd lose a lot of weight afterward, but... look at my arm!"

Wu Bo's upper arms are uneven, with fat particles unevenly accumulated under the skin, like an asphalt road that has been in disrepair for a long time.

"The doctor said this is normal and there's going to be a recovery period. I'm so scared. I don't know if he's telling the truth or just lying." Wu Bo cried louder and louder, grabbing Zhu Yingning with her unoperated arm as if she were holding onto a piece of floating wood. "Do you think I'll be disfigured, Yingning? What should I do if this arm can't be restored?!"

Zhu Yingning was shaken by her, her face looking very ugly: "I really want to scold you, Wu Bo."

"I'm already in such a miserable state, and you still want to scold me? Is it my fault that I'm fat?" Wu Bo burst into tears. "If I had a choice, I wouldn't want to gain weight just by drinking cold water!"

"I'm not angry because you're fat!" she said, her voice rising, excitedly, "I'm angry because you don't love yourself at all!"

"Here we go again! How could I not know how to love myself?" Wu Bo rubbed his nose, making the tip red and swollen. "Everyone says you should love yourself, but how do you actually do it? Excellent people don't need to emphasize loving themselves; they naturally know how to love themselves. But for someone like me, with no merits and nothing worth loving, even if you tell me to love myself a hundred times, I won't be able to. I hate myself! I don't have your brains or your perseverance, and my grades are mediocre. I can't change my IQ, so I can only become more beautiful, so that I have more or less good qualities worth loving. What's wrong with that?!"

Zhu Yingning was so angry at her paranoid and self-consistent logic that she almost fainted. She took a deep breath, calmed herself down, and said, "Now is not the time to argue about these things. We can discuss the issues of world outlook, values ​​and values ​​later."

Things had to be solved one by one. She walked to the counter, took a few tissues from the sleeping nurse and handed them to Wu Bo, asking her to wipe her tears first.

Wu Bo took the tissue in a daze and heard Zhu Yingning ask, "How much money do you have left?"

"There are probably still eight or nine hundred left..." Wu Bo guessed.

"Okay, calm down first. When you're ready, we'll take a taxi outside and find a reputable tertiary hospital to have your arm checked out."

Her face was still as dark as the bottom of a pot, but the calmness in her words and the clear and detailed arrangements greatly soothed Wu Bo's originally anxious mood. Wu Bo nodded unconsciously, his expression still dull.

After her tears and snot were wiped dry, Zhu Yingning helped her stand up and went outside to hail a taxi.

The taxi driver asked them for their address, and Zhu Yingning gave the name of the nearest Grade A hospital.

As the car was driving on the road, she reached out to Wu Bo for his cell phone again.

Wu Bo was basically in a state of wanting everything. Upon hearing this, he blankly handed over his phone. Seeing Zhu Yingning lower her head and open the browser, he couldn't help but lean over and asked curiously, "What are you looking for?"

She didn't look up or say anything, but just typed word by word in the search bar: Can teenagers who are over 16 years old but under 18 years old undergo liposuction surgery independently?

The result that popped up was——

No, teenagers aged 16 to 18 must be accompanied by their guardians when undergoing liposuction surgery, and the guardians must be informed and agree.

This result made Wu Bo a little flustered. She swallowed and asked again, "You, you want to...?"

Zhu Yingning dialed 12320 on her phone and said calmly, "I want to report this hospital."

Wu Bo was shocked: "This... is it not good?" At this juncture, she felt inexplicably timid and began to doubt herself. She felt that it was her own fault that she had come to this kind of hospital for surgery without permission.

Zhu Yingning glanced at her and explained, "You're a minor, and the doctors and nurses in the hospital are all adults. You're confused because of your age, but are they also limited by their age and don't even know the laws that hospitals need to follow? If this kind of hospital doesn't rectify itself, it will only hurt more people in the future, and it will continue to hurt you. I will definitely not sit idly by."

After saying this, he pressed the number 12320 fiercely, with such force that Wu Bo was silent and dared not say a word.

After she made the complaint call, we arrived at the Grade A hospital.

Zhu Yingning returned the phone to her and told her that if she received a call back from 12320 in the future, she must cooperate with the investigation. Then he helped her down and ran around to register for her.

The doctor examined her arm and told her to wear an elastic brace for a while. If the injury didn't heal on its own, she'd consider reconstructive surgery. Wu Bo, pale with fear, turned to Zhu Yingning for comfort. She calmly replied, "If your complaint is successful, the plastic surgery hospital should compensate you. That's enough for reconstructive surgery."

"I'm not worried about the money," Wu Bo said shyly. "I'm afraid my parents will find out... If they knew I did this without telling them, they would definitely kill me."

"What's more terrifying, your arm never recovering, or your parents finding out?" she pointed out mercilessly.

Wu Bo cringed and muttered softly, "Can I say the level of terror is comparable..."

After leaving the hospital, Wu Bo realized that her mood had calmed down a lot. She had originally felt like the sky was falling, but after following Zhu Yingning's instructions, it didn't seem as scary as she had imagined.

"Thank you, Yingning."

It was almost eleven o'clock now. She glanced at her cell phone, then glanced at Zhu Yingning who had been running around for her all night, and a belated feeling of guilt welled up in her heart.

Zhu Yingning shook her head to indicate that everything was fine.

They stood outside the subway station outside the hospital. The early spring evening breeze was still cold. After blowing for a long time, their faces exposed to the sun felt colder than others.

Wu Bo rubbed his face and sighed, "I think you're mentally strong."

"Um?"

"Look, you don't even hate yourself," Wu Bo said gloomily. "Don't you ever feel ugly and particularly hate your appearance? Don't you envy other girls for being pretty? Like Guo Yingying... or even Shao Yanjun. Shao Yanjun isn't a great beauty, but she knows how to dress herself up, with makeup, curling her hair, and everything else, she's objectively beautiful. Why wouldn't you be jealous of them when you're with them?"

Zhu Yingning sighed and said softly, "I know I'm not beautiful, but I don't think I'm ugly either."

"Why? How did you do that?"

"I didn't do anything intentional. I just felt..." She used the tip of her shoe to brush a cigarette butt off the ground, then bent down, picked it up, and threw it into a nearby trash can. "As long as my eyes can see the world clearly, they are good eyes. As long as my nose can smell fragrance, it is a good nose. As long as my mouth can let me communicate with others, it is a good mouth."

She looked at Wu Bo and spread out her palms. "As long as my skin can protect my internal organs, it's the best skin in the world. My legs can take me anywhere, and my hands can pick up cigarette butts like I'm doing now."

He turns his hand into clouds and turns it into rain, and he controls the universe.

"If you had psoriasis on your skin, would you still like it? If you had mouth ulcers and it hurt so much that you couldn't speak, would you still think your mouth was good?" Wu Bo deliberately found fault.

She laughed. "I don't know. I haven't thought about it. Maybe I'll dislike them temporarily. Once they get better, I'll like them again. Or maybe I won't dislike them. They've worked so hard for so long, so it's normal for them to get sick or make mistakes occasionally."

Wu Bo was also amused by her statement. He laughed for a while, then turned to a wry smile. "I really can't be as optimistic as you. I understand the logic, but I just can't do it. They say girls are like flowers. I also want to find my own way to bloom, but maybe I won't ever bloom."

Zhu Yingning looked at her and said gently, "Then don't bloom. You don't have to be a flower. You can be grass, mud, air, or even a carnivorous pitcher plant. Fragrant doesn't have to be the right thing to do. You have your own ecology."

The wind blew across the sky and earth, and also blew across Wu Bo's sore eyes, bringing out choked sobs.

She held her hand and whispered, "You said you can't find any good qualities in yourself that are worth loving. It's okay. Then take your time to look for them. I'll accompany you."

**

After sending Wu Bo home safely, Zhu Yingning returned to Xu Sirui's house.

Tired and sleepy, she leaned back in her seat for a nap before getting off the bus, taking the elevator, and opening the door, all in one smooth motion. When she entered, she found that all the lights in the house were off, except for her room. She figured she had forgotten to turn off the light before leaving, and for a second, feeling guilty for wasting electricity, she quickly put on her slippers and went to her room.

As soon as she entered the room, she saw Xu Sirui sitting at the foot of her bed, which almost scared her.

He was wearing pajamas and had no expression on his face. When he saw her come in, he just turned his eyes away coldly and gave her a cold glance.

The alarm in Zhu Yingning's heart suddenly started squeaking.

She had a bad guess in her mind and went to check the desk. The letter Zhou Tianlan had written to her was indeed gone.

The next second, Xu Sirui took out the letter from his pajamas pocket, shook his wrist, and unfolded the letter.

Silence weighed heavily on her shoulders.

After an unknown amount of time, Xu Sirui finally spoke slowly, lowering his voice and asking with a half-smile, "Why, you don't plan to give me an explanation?"

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The author has something to say: Ning: Dangerous.