Chapter 116: Little Sheep Shaun, You Are Nothing But This

This shot wasn't even as good as the first one he'd fired at a street stall like this when he was eight years old. Xu Sirui was silent for a moment, wondering whether to comfort her. Before he could finish his words, he heard her say, "So it's so crooked."

"You can't get a refund after you've shot once." The boss added, adapting to the situation.

Zhu Yingning was in good spirits and nodded, saying, "No need to refund the money. I've almost found the trajectory." As he spoke, he reloaded the metal dart.

The boss chuckled and praised, "I knew you were a talented girl." But he remained calm in his heart.

Unexpectedly, before his smile could fully open, Zhu Yingning fired another shot. This time the sound was crisp and explosive, like the sound of a balloon bursting.

The crowd exclaimed wow.

Then, the third shot, the fourth shot...

After hitting the target three times in a row, Xu Sirui felt the skin on his back tighten slightly, and his scalp felt a strange tingling sensation. This feeling was similar to when he was using a gun to bully the weak in the game. It was very refreshing, and the feeling of pleasure came from the depths of his soul, mixed with an indescribable shudder.

Her expression remained calm, maintaining a seriousness that was unconsciously condensed by concentration. Her breathing was steady, and her heart rate did not accelerate or her breathing became disordered due to excitement after hitting the target.

Continue to reload the darts, the fifth shot, the sixth shot, the seventh shot.

More and more people gathered around, and every time a shot was fired, someone would exclaim "Oh my God" or scream like a groundhog.

When there were only five left, she turned her head and gave Xu Sirui a smile that was calm but, in the boss's eyes, quite provocative: "Pick another doll."

Five balloons for one doll. The first doll is already in hand. As long as the subsequent shots don’t miss, the second doll will be easily obtained.

Xu Sirui put his hand over her fluffy head, rubbed it a few times, pulled her closer, lowered his head and said in her ear: "Zhu Yingning, if you don't pretend, it's okay, but when you do pretend, you're amazing?" His voice was also filled with laughter.

"I rarely pretend, you have to seize the opportunity." She was pulled crooked by him, and she had to jump on one foot to avoid falling on him.

"Then let's get another Shaun the Sheep."

"good."

When I say “good”, it really is good. Darts are thrown in one by one and balloons pop one by one.

When there was only one round left, the eleventh one, the boss resisted the urge to recycle the test gun opportunity and silently told himself that this was just building his reputation. It was a marketing strategy, a marketing strategy...

After the last shot, a total of ten balloons were fired. Whether by accident or design, they were all placed in the same row. A closer look at the meaning behind this was truly impressive. The boss reluctantly handed over two Shaun the Sheep, his face slightly numb with a smile: "I told you I was a sharpshooter. See, how could I be wrong?"

"Thank you, boss." Boss Zhu Yingning took them without hesitation and handed both to Xu Sirui.

The two continued to stroll around the next stall. After walking a distance, she couldn't help but take one of the sheep from his arms. She looked at it from left to right and asked him, "Do you like Shaun the Sheep?"

Xu Sirui didn't say whether he liked it or not. He picked up the one in his arms with his slender fingers and replied, "It looks a lot like yours."

"Really?" Hearing this, she looked at the one in her hand more carefully. Feeling a little embarrassed by his praise, she said modestly, "I'm not as cute as it."

"I mean the faces are all black."

"?"

"You want to die, Xu Sirui——!"

Before she could utter this curse, he had already quickened his pace. When he saw that she was about to catch up with him, he immediately ran away.

Zhu Yingning chased after him at lightning speed.

Finally, Xu Sirui persuaded her to let him go by offering to buy her a sugar painting.

The owner of the sugar painting stall was a toothless old woman who spoke Sichuan dialect. Her toothless mouth muffled every syllable, and Zhu Yingning couldn't quite understand. It was only after Xu Sirui approached her and negotiated with her that she understood what they meant. Xu Sirui meant that he wanted to paint the pictures himself.

"I don't care if the painting is not good, you still have to buy it." The old lady may be old, but her mind is still young, and she made her responsibilities clear in advance.

Xu Sirui said of course.

So the old lady handed him the hot syrup. Zhu Yingning leaned over curiously and saw him holding a spoon and drawing smooth and round lines on the stick.

"Did you also play with sugar painting when you were a child?"

"Yeah." Xu Sirui answered while drawing, "I did social practice in elementary school, and my social practice was selling this thing."

As he spoke, the pattern under his hand had already taken shape. Zhu Yingning took a closer look and said through gritted teeth, "...Are you done yet, Xu Sirui?"

He actually drew another Shaun the Sheep!

The old lady scooped up the solidified sugar painting and handed it to Zhu Yingning. Zhu Yingning had no choice but to take it and angrily bit off one of Sean's ears.

He was laughing in an annoying way.

Taking the three little sheep, Shaun, off the path, they walked out of the park and back onto the street. The wind blew a swirling leaf down. Zhu Yingning swallowed the sticky candy in her mouth and muttered, "I'm sorry."

Xu Sirui was startled by her sudden apology: "Even though you just hit me, you don't need to apologize..."

"No, I'm talking about the competition." She smiled, and the sweet taste in her mouth dissipated, turning into a nagging feeling for the entire night. "I thought I could win the championship, but I didn't."

She knew exactly why she didn't win. Her individual award was for Best Document, not for Oral English. Ultimately, it came down to her lack of debate skills. After explaining the reason, she sighed and reflected, "I'm holding you back. I should have known there are always better people. If it were just three of you, it would have been great. We would have won, for sure. But if it were just three of me..."

"What nonsense are you talking about?" It was rare to hear her so discouraged. Xu Sirui was both amused and angry, and interrupted her, "Three of you and three of me? How can cloning technology be so easy?"

"It's just an ideal assumption." She muttered softly.

"That's not ideal." He looked at the road ahead without stopping, his voice sounding a little distant. "Without you, I wouldn't even be participating in the competition."

It was as if a bell struck her heart at these words.

"Besides, you also said that there are always people better than you." Xu Sirui chuckled, "I'm not as good as you think. When you see a wider world, one day you will look back and find that I'm just so-so."

When he said the words "look back," he happened to be looking back at her. Her eyes, bathed in the moonlight, were coated in a pure silvery white. A clear, sincere smile filled her eyes, unconcerned with anything else. He said, "Zhu Yingning, I have always believed that you can reach far and high, higher than any of us."

After a pause, his tone gradually turned helpless, "...What did you do? Did I say anything sentimental?"

"Yeah." She nodded with tears in her eyes.

"Okay, then just treat it as something sentimental I said."

Xu Sirui was about to say something funny to lighten the mood when she retorted, "You're nothing special."

The air was frozen in silence.

He walked two steps faster than her. At this moment, he stopped and looked back at her. The light from the street lamp drew a river of light between them.

She had already forced herself to hold back her tears and returned to her normal self. She rubbed the tip of her nose, adjusted her voice, and said, "I lost this bet. I have a request for you, and I'm willing to accept the loss. But it doesn't matter, because..." She extended her right fist towards him, smiling in the golden light, "I will keep betting with you until one day I beat you, until you agree to my request."

Her usually dark eyes reflected the color of rice ears under the streetlights.

The wind blows across the fields, and the fragrance of rice fills the air.

For a moment, he even wanted to say that there was no need to gamble, and he could agree to it now.

But he thought of Zhou Tianlan, and the fear he felt when he occasionally saw another face through his own facial features when looking in the mirror. Was he really ready to face his mother?

Of course not.

So he said nothing.

**

The school sports meet is scheduled to be held after May Day, overlapping with the school anniversary.

Unlike Zhu Yingning's previous school where the activities were simple tug-of-war, basketball and rubber rope jumping, the high school sports meet was much more grand, with more than a dozen events alone.

When Zou Hao got the registration form, he encountered an unprecedented difficulty. Many people signed up for events like basketball and badminton, but no one was interested in events like relay races and javelin throwing. When the news of rotating student numbers came up, classmates complained, and some even complained to Hong Qingyang, saying that rotating student numbers was a form of hegemony over students who were not good at sports, and that Zou Hao was a corrupt dictator.

Zou Hao couldn't bear to wear such a big hat, and was so worried that he got three pimples in two days.

After the Model United Nations competition, the team he and Tan Jingjing were in did not win the team award. In other words, his team did lose to her team as Zhu Yingning said. Moreover, the members of the team were Xu Sirui, whom he despised the most, and Wu Bo, whom he often ignored. This frustrated his self-esteem as he was always competitive, and he had ignored Zhu Yingning and Wu Bo for several days.

But now he had reached a point where he had no choice but to ask for their help. When Zou Hao approached Zhu Yingning with the registration form, he was incredibly grateful that she was someone who didn't hold grudges and loved sports. He didn't even need to persuade her; she excitedly took the form and checked off many unpopular events, like the hitherto unpopular relay race, the hitherto unpopular high jump, and the hitherto unpopular shuttlecock kicking.

Wu Bo was naturally not as easy to talk to as Zhu Yingning. When she went over with the registration form, Zou Hao gave her a lot of cold looks. Fortunately, the result was good and she also signed up for several projects.

After Zou Hao left, Wu Bo turned around and asked Zhu Yingning, "Are you sure these programs can really help you lose weight?"

"Sure, certain, and certain."