Chapter 117 Prank A bizarre prank

Xu Sirui has always had little interest in school sports meets, but their class also adopted the strategy of rotating student numbers, and it was his turn to compete in the badminton competition. Thinking that the badminton competition was at least held indoors with air conditioning, he reluctantly accepted it.

Others who had their turn to do strenuous or unpopular sports inevitably complained and went to the class teacher to give feedback. The class teacher asked them to solve the problem privately.

Badminton is divided into singles and doubles. Unfortunately, Xu Sirui has to participate in both. His teammates invited him to practice together after school. He couldn't refuse, so he had to go to the badminton hall for rehearsal with a fake smile. In order to avoid picking up the balls, he played seriously and tried to make sure every ball landed in the opponent's court.

There were many students in the venue. In addition to badminton, there were also many people training in other sports. As expected, Xu Sirui saw Zhu Yingning here. He didn't know where she got the energy from, but she was vigorously carrying out some training with her companions, which he thought was tiring and thankless.

This was the second unilateral bet she had made with him. After that conversation the night after the Model United Nations, she had quickly put her superhuman energy into securing another competition opportunity at school. Xu Sirui was inconsolable at her promise to help her class win the school athletic meet. He didn't agree, but he didn't refuse either—at least not completely. He found that he actually enjoyed the whole process of her going all out for him. Every time he thought about her efforts, all aimed at him, he felt incredibly refreshed. If Sun Mingyuan had heard this thought, he would have screamed, "Xu Sirui, you're a pervert!"

The preparatory activities lasted for more than a week, and the school sports meet lasted for three days and was held on time in mid-May.

As freshmen in high school, they took the lead in all sports events. The second-year students would compete only after the first-year students finished competing. As for the third-year students, of course they studied hard in the classroom and were not even qualified to watch the games.

The playground was bustling with people, and some events were taking place at the same time, such as Xu Sirui's badminton match and Zhu Yingning's high jump competition.

His badminton teammate was a novice, barely able to swing the racket and hit the shuttlecock. He had no control over where it would land. During their doubles match, Xu Sirui's strategy was simple and crude: "Stand back and catch the balls from the corners. Leave the rest of the court to me."

My teammates like to lie down and be carried away, and they nodded happily when they heard this.

Xu Sirui's competitive spirit was quite flexible. He generally took it easy in matches he wasn't interested in, but only gave it his all in matches he was interested in. However, matches he wasn't interested in could be further divided into those with spectators and those without. If there were too many spectators, he would usually give his all to save face. This match was one he wasn't interested in, but there were too many spectators.

For the sake of face, he still cheered up and won a round of enthusiastic applause for his class.

Afterward, he was sweating profusely, feeling so uncomfortable he wanted to jump into the river, and he wiped his sweaty neck with a towel. Normally, at this moment, he should have stayed in the gym, enjoying the air conditioning, but after wiping off his sweat, he coaxed himself out to the playground under the scorching sun, silently observing the flop high jump competition, which was already coming to an end.

Strangely enough, he caught sight of her in the crowd without even trying to look for her.

Start running, run up, and jump with your back turned.

In addition to ordinary students, their high school also recruits sports students and art students. Zhu Yingning's posture is naturally not up to the standard of sports students, but she is very strong. This strength is not brute force, but every movement is done in a practical way, striving for fullness and not floating at all.

She was like a stretched bow, a migrating swallow, or a meticulously crafted arch bridge, swooping over the pole in a simple, clean arc.

The final result was second only to the sports students and won first place in the ordinary class.

She was excitedly hugged by the girls in her class and swayed back and forth in the middle. Xu Sirui drank some iced mineral water and wanted to leave, but he saw her raise her head as if she sensed something, and her eyes met his in the stands. She then waved and smiled at him, a smile more dazzling than the sun.

A classmate found him and hooked his shoulder: "What are you looking at? The teacher asked the students who finished the game to go over and cheer for the people waiting for the football game. Let's go."

"Yeah." Xu Sirui withdrew his gaze and was about to leave when the cell phone in his pocket started buzzing.

My friend laughed and said, "Luckily it's me you're with, if it was the teacher you'd be done for."

"I'm taking a call, don't wait for me."

"Okay, then come over by yourself later."

After the other party left, Xu Sirui found a shady place, took out his cell phone from his trouser pocket, opened it and saw that the caller ID was his aunt Zhou Tianqing.

The last time he contacted Zhou Tianqing was a long time ago, so long that he had forgotten the specific date, because Zhou Tianqing always wanted to abduct him to the prison to visit Zhou Tianlan. Later, he got annoyed and told her that he would block her number if she did it again, and she stopped calling.

After all, she was his aunt. Xu Sirui sighed, suppressed his annoyance, and answered the phone.

He didn't speak immediately after picking up the phone until Zhou Tianlan's voice came from the other end. She said softly, "Ruirui, are you free tonight?"

**

After breaking away from the warm embrace of the girls in the class, Zhu Yingning wanted to find Wu Bo to see how she was preparing. If she was nervous, she could comfort her. However, after looking around, she didn't see Wu Bo anywhere, but she saw Xu Sirui squatting under a tree beside the playground.

She had a match in the afternoon and had originally planned to wait until it was over before going to celebrate with him, but then she noticed something was wrong with his face. While he was usually pale, was he too pale now? He looked like a paper figurine. Hesitantly, she involuntarily walked towards him, waved her hand in front of his blank eyes, and asked, "Are you okay? What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"

His eyes finally regained focus, but they still showed a kind of wandering blankness. After a long time, he turned his eyes to look at her, and said in a daze: "Do you know about my mother?"

"Aunt Zhou's matter?" she repeated his words doubtfully.

He stared at her for a moment and made his own decision: "...You don't know."

"What's wrong? Aunt Zhou..." She wanted to ask if something happened, but was afraid of offending others by asking, so she stopped talking in time, but her eyes showed undisguised worry.

Xu Sirui didn't answer her hesitant question: "If you don't know, why are you so insistent that I go visit my mother? Why do you all want me to visit her?"

Zhu Yingning was stunned by his question. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. She lowered her eyes and looked at him for a moment before she said softly, "...I just think you must miss her a lot."

No matter how he defined himself, she always thought he was a very soft-hearted person.

How could a soft-hearted person truly ignore his mother's pain?

"Really?" He forced a smile, "So this is how I look to you."

After saying this, he handed over the phone he was holding in his palm. The screen was still on. Before Zhu Yingning actually took it, she lowered her head and saw the words on it clearly. It was a text message from Zhou Tianqing, the address of a hospital, and the ward was in the breast surgery department.

"Xu Sirui..."

She quickly deduced something from his vague words and the ominous address. Her heart sank slightly, then began beating rapidly, and her voice trembled a little.

She felt the same way again as when she first heard the news that Zhu Dashan had gotten into trouble and broke out in a cold sweat.

"It's breast fibroids, accompanied by atypical lobular hyperplasia. There's a risk of malignancy and further examination and control is needed. I've applied for medical parole from the prison." He numbly repeated what Zhou Tianqing had just told him on the phone. Although his voice was relatively steady, his expression was still blank.

Zhu Yingning didn't understand these complicated professional terms. She only understood the word "risk of malignant transformation", but understanding this word was disastrous enough, just like when her father had an accident at the construction site. She didn't understand which nerve he injured, but as long as she understood the four words "unconscious", it was enough to make her feel terrified.

She had experienced how insignificant and powerless people are in the face of accidents, especially illness. People can be so resilient that even in a coma they never truly die, or so fragile that even without truly dying they remain unconscious. Life or death depends entirely on fate.

She flexed her fingers, her nails touching her sweaty palms. She forced herself to calm down and asked him, "What are you going to do?"

"My aunt asked me to go see her." Xu Sirui answered her mechanically.

He was talking about "my aunt," not about what he himself wanted to do, because he had no idea what he could do. His mind had been empty from the moment he heard the news until now, filled with a strong sense of unreality, so unreal that he didn't even have time to feel any heartache or sadness. It just felt absurd and he suspected he was dreaming. How else could such a ridiculous thing happen?

It sounds unfilial, but the only thought he could think of right now was to go home and have some sleep.

Maybe when you wake up from a sleep, you will find that this phone call was just a weird prank.

Her voice rang out again, carrying the force of piercing the fog, passing through the thick fog barrier and reaching his ears. She immediately made a decision: "I will go with you, right now."

Xu Sirui was stunned: "Don't you still want to compete?"

"No more competition." She put down her shoulder pole and said decisively, "Our class has arranged a few backup players. Let them take my place."

"Actually, we don't have to go now..." He didn't understand why he had become so indecisive. He even felt sick listening to his own nonsense. "My aunt asked me to go there tonight. Maybe if we go too early, it won't be convenient for them."

Zhu Yingning shook her head and didn't agree with him. "Do you have the energy to do anything else if you stay here now? If you don't have the energy to do anything else, why don't you go and check on Aunt Zhou's condition earlier? Only by seeing it with your own eyes can you determine the severity of her illness and know how we can help. It's better to actually help than to sit here and wonder, isn't it?"

"I……"

"Xu Sirui, stop hiding." She stared into his eyes, grabbed his hand without explanation, and said in a rare firm voice, "Come with me."

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The author has something to say: There will only be one update tonight. The good news is that tonight is my last cervical spine therapy. After that, I should be able to resume updating twice a day.

The Chikungunya virus is rampant in Guangdong recently. Everyone should pay attention to mosquito prevention. Health is really too important. [Poor]