Chapter 114 Narrow and Sour

It's said that a stationary adult releases about 100 watts of heat per hour, so crowded areas tend to be hotter than less crowded areas. This was a theory Zhu Yingning had read in a magazine and had recalled because it was so hot right now.

But this theory seemed like an excuse to forcibly refute the current situation. In fact, she knew very well that these were only secondary reasons. The main reason was the person standing in front of her.

Although Xu Sirui often gave off a refreshing vibe, like a gentle breeze or gentle rain, he was still a teenager, in the prime of his youth. Even if he looked refreshing, his body was still hot. His warmth emanated from his shirt and transferred to her, leaving their chests scorching hot as boiling water. The heat even spread to her face. She wanted to escape, like a fish surfacing to breathe before the rain, to some open space to breathe in fresh air. Unfortunately, the subway was packed, and she was trapped in front of him, unable to move.

Then think of something else to divert your attention.

She was thinking confusedly about the game that had just ended, but as she thought, her thoughts kept wandering and stubbornly returned to the part where they were touching.

The temperature around her seemed to be getting higher and higher. She could even hear her own deafening heartbeat, coming from where her chests touched, rumbling and shaking the empty chest cavity, as noisy as a bird.

...Can you please stop jumping?

She felt an inexplicable irritation with her heart, but thinking that if it stopped beating, she would die, she could only humbly change her complaints to asking if it could beat slower.

After silently taking a few deep breaths to regulate her heart rate, she realized belatedly that the deafening and unbalanced heartbeat did not seem to be her own. Whose heart is on the right side?

After realizing this fact, she didn't even dare to look up at Xu Sirui's face.

The carriage was filled with noise. Someone was answering or making a phone call, saying into the receiver, "The signal is bad, I'll call you back later." Someone was harshly scolding a disobedient child, someone was complaining to a colleague about their boss, someone was arguing with someone who stepped on their shoes, and someone was discussing the next tourist attraction with fellow tourists.

There are also people who are as silent as them.

In the noisy carriage, all kinds of sounds from the world flow by, and floating among them is the young boys and girls' first fear that they are unable to express.

**

"Are you okay?" When getting off the train, Wu Bo finally found Zhu Yingning through the crowd. He kneaded her like dough before laughing at her, "I told you that you would be squeezed out. Next time you squeeze into the subway, you should hold my arm."

She laughed a few times, but her mind was still blank.

The Western restaurant was also crowded, but fortunately Xia Jiayi had called in advance to make a reservation, and the waiter reserved a semi-open seat for them.

There were six people in the two teams, sitting on both sides of the dining table, and people from the same team happened to sit in a row.

When ordering, Zhu Yingning looked at the expensive dishes on the menu, thought about her tight wallet, and quietly requested a cheaper bibimbap—the best part of a Western restaurant's localization is that you can order affordable local food. However, when the food arrived, the waiter brought her a medium-rare filet mignon.

She pondered for a moment and was about to say, "You're on the wrong track," when Xu Sirui looked at her and said bluntly, "Eat it if you're told to."

“…”

She probably guessed who had made this decision on her own initiative. Since he had already treated her to several meals, Zhu Yingning accepted it silently. After all, she already owed him so much, so this meal didn't seem to matter to her.

Xia Jiayi was sitting across from them and happened to overhear their conversation. She smiled and said, "Order whatever you want. Don't be shy. I'll treat you to dinner today. No need to save money for me."

She panicked again and said quickly, "This isn't good. How can I let you treat me?"

Xu Sirui also echoed: "I'll do it."

She nodded rapidly, but stopped midway and began to wonder, both were invited by others, both were grateful for favors, so why did she feel that being invited by Xu Sirui was less of a burden than being invited by Xia Jiayi?

This is not right. This is very wrong.

Before she could figure out the reason, Xia Jiayi said, "No, you treated me to the graduation dinner after the high school entrance exam. You have to come to this one anyway."

At this point, she looked away, staring at Cheng Liang's clean knife and fork in front of her, and said softly, "You treat me, I treat you, it should be a give-and-take, just like Qian Zhongshu's borrowing of books."

Upon hearing this, Zhu Yingning stood there in a daze.

She suddenly felt a little resentful of the fact that her reading volume was quite extensive compared to her peers, because what Xia Jiayi said was just like Natsume Soseki replacing "I like you" with "The moon is so beautiful tonight", which was an obscure and classic confession.

Qian Zhongshu once stated in "Fortress Besieged" that borrowing books is the beginning of a love relationship between a man and a woman: you lend me a book, I return you a book, and over and over again, affection grows in the process of borrowing and returning. This confession was too subtle to be understood by everyone present; it felt more like a tacit test in public. Zhu Yingning wondered if Xu Sirui had grasped the implication of this youthful statement. She servilely hoped he didn't understand, yet she felt it was impossible for him not to understand. He also loved reading.

The dishes ordered by the others were also brought up one after another, interrupting the conversation at the table. Xia Jiayi cheerfully invited everyone to eat. Zhu Yingning noticed that her perfect smile concealed a hint of imperceptible panic, which was like the thin powdery film covering the plump white peanuts after the peanut shell is opened, which broke into pieces with a rub, carrying the clumsy embarrassment of a young girl.

This discovery made her heart float like a balloon, floating in the air, neither going up nor down.

I finished the meal without any taste.

She put down her knife and fork and sat down, waiting for the others to finish eating. At this moment, Xu Sirui's phone suddenly rang. He picked it up and looked at it, but didn't answer it. Instead, he handed the phone to her: "Your sister is calling."

Zhu Yingning took it and took a look. It was indeed Zhu Zhiwei. She stood up, apologized, and walked to a quiet place to answer the phone.

"Hello?"

Zhu Zhiwei's voice on the other end was filled with laughter. "Ningning! I guessed you'd be with Xu Sirui right now. How's it going? Have you had dinner yet? Do you have some free time? Our online Taobao store has been open for a week now, and I remembered we never had an opening ceremony. Why not take advantage of this opportunity tonight to have a drink together to celebrate the store's opening and the first advertising. I'll make the side dishes. Are you used to spicy and sour lemon chicken feet?"

She had to remind her softly: "Sister Weiwei, I'm not old enough to drink yet..."

"What are you thinking about? I'll have a cocktail and you'll have coconut water."

"oh……"

"That's a deal. I'll drive over to pick you up later. Where are you now?"

Zhu Yingning gave the address.

"Okay, I'll be there in about half an hour. If you think it's almost time, you can go downstairs and wait for me."

"good."

After hanging up the phone, she returned to her seat and stuffed the phone back into Xu Sirui's backpack.

Half an hour later, everyone had almost finished eating, and Xia Jiayi's teammates suggested, "How about going somewhere else for the second round? Wanna sing karaoke?"

"I have something to do, so I won't go." Zhu Yingning stood up and packed his things.

Wu Bo asked in surprise, "What's the matter?"

"My sister is coming to pick me up."

"Oh, then go and do your thing. I want to play for a while longer."

"Well, you guys have fun." Zhu Yingning smiled, put on her schoolbag and went downstairs.

She thought she'd better turn around and say goodbye to Xu Sirui, but for some reason, she didn't want to glance over at him.

As expected, Zhu Zhiwei's car had already arrived at the door on time. The passenger window rolled down, revealing her smiling face: "Come in! Parking is not allowed here."

She trotted onto the bus with her schoolbag in her arms.

Zhu Zhiwei chatted with her as she turned the steering wheel and drove onto the avenue. "I watched the live broadcast of your competition and happened to see the awards ceremony. You're amazing, Ningning. You won an award in such a difficult competition. And your acceptance speech..." She grinned. "I didn't expect your way of saying 'help me' was so creative."

Zhu Yingning scratched his face embarrassedly: "I heard from our class teacher that there will be interviews after the winners of this competition, so I thought of this. It would be better if this competition was bigger, if it was a national competition-"

"You want to advertise for me nationwide?" she laughed.

"Yeah." She nodded seriously, "I want to help, but unfortunately I can only help a little bit right now."

"It's not a small job." Zhu Zhiwei tossed her the phone. "You can log in to Tudou and take a look. Someone cut out your interview and added some background music. It's getting quite a few views. My store hasn't even officially launched anything yet, but I already have dozens of followers."

Zhu Yingning logged into Tudou Video as she said, searched for keywords, and sure enough, she saw a video titled "Shocking! Model United Nations contestants were actually present at the scene... Is this the loss of humanity or the decline of morality?"

This title… if you didn't know better, you'd think she was streaking on the scene. Zhu Yingning was both amused and confused. A few dozen fans wasn't a lot, but it was a good sign. She put down her phone and said with certainty, "You'll definitely get better and better in the future, Sister Weiwei."

"Then I'll take your good wishes." Zhu Zhiwei looked ahead with a smile on his face.

**

Before leaving, Zhu Zhiwei had already prepared the snacks that they had agreed on over the phone. She took Zhu Yingning to her living room, poured her a full glass of coconut juice, and then went back to the refrigerator to get her own iced cocktail. When she turned around, she saw Zhu Yingning sitting on the sofa with her chin in her hand, in a daze, her eyes empty, her brows furrowed, looking both distressed and daydreaming.

When Zhu Zhiwei met her at the door of the store, he vaguely sensed her absent-mindedness. This was even more certain. He walked over with a glass of wine in hand, sat down next to her, took a sip of the wine himself, and asked, "What's wrong? Are you worried about something?"

Zhu Yingning came back to her senses and denied it: "No... I was just daydreaming."

"Did anything bad happen during the competition?" Zhu Zhiwei was not fooled by her carelessness and began to persuade her.

She shook her head: "The competition was good, and the classmates were all good too."

"Huh? Did you have a fight with a friend? Was it Wu Bo or Xu Sirui?"

"No... we didn't have a fight." She unconsciously picked at the sofa cover beneath her, her eyes gradually becoming blurred, as if she was thinking about something.

Zhu Zhiwei waited patiently, not making any hasty noises to interrupt. After a long moment, Zhu Yingning finally spoke, hesitantly, "I just have a question I can't quite figure out... Sister Weiwei, I'm going to tell you this. Can you help me analyze the cause?"

"Okay." She responded readily.

After she responded, she waited for a while before Zhu Yingning finally spoke. She seemed embarrassed, her voice low and her words unexpectedly hesitant. She said that another person participating in the competition was an old friend of Xu Sirui's from junior high school, a very outstanding girl.

"She speaks excellent English, has strong organizational skills, and is quick to react. The team she led won the championship. Logically, I should admire her from the bottom of my heart and learn from her," she said pitifully, cupping her cheeks with a look as if she'd swallowed a bitter melon. "But... I don't know if I'm jealous of her award or what, but anyway... anyway, I just can't like her... I don't want to be so narrow-minded. This is so abnormal. I hate my current mood and thoughts. Why do you think this is happening?"

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The author has something to say: I will only update today. I don’t have time to write too much after finishing my cervical spondylosis treatment... I will try to update more tomorrow TT