Chapter 153 Frosted Glass Is Just a Friend

Before leaving Sun Mingyuan's house, Xu Sirui apologized to Wang Xiaoqian, saying that he had caused trouble for her and Sun Guoqing.

"What's the matter? Don't be so polite." Wang Xiaoqian squeezed his arm with a smile.

He left Sun Mingyuan's house, still wearing the same rain-soaked school uniform he'd worn the night before. After a night of drying, the clothes had become wrinkled and stiff, making them uncomfortable to wear. Instead of going to school, he went home first, intending to shower and find a dry set of school clothes to change into.

It was already past school time at this time. When he opened the door, he thought Zhu Yingning must have gone to school, but he saw her shoes in the shoe cabinet.

She hasn't gone to school yet.

Xu Sirui frowned, stood at the door for a while, closed the door, changed into slippers, and walked straight to her room.

He raised his hand to knock when the door opened. She came out with a crumpled-up piece of tissue stuck in her right nose, her empty cup in her hand, and her head drooping. Not watching where she was going, she nearly bumped her forehead into his chest. He reached out and placed a hand on her forehead, feeling its warmth. Fortunately, it wasn't hot.

Zhu Yingning raised her head and saw that it was him. She looked a little embarrassed, but because she was sick and not in good spirits, her embarrassed expression looked dull.

The two looked at each other silently for a while. Finally, Xu Sirui raised his hand and took away the cup with brown water marks of cold medicine from her hand, and went to the kitchen to wash it.

She didn't follow him, but stood at the door in a daze until Xu Sirui finished washing the cup, filled a thermos with warm water, and came back to her. The hand that was not holding the cup gently pushed her shoulder and said, "Go back to bed." Only then did she turn around like a robot and go back into the room, sitting on the edge of the bed.

Xu Sirui put the thermos on the bedside table. Seeing that her eyelids were heavy and she was listless, but she didn't lie down on the bed, he simply reached out and pushed her down and asked, "Have you asked for leave?"

"...Please." She struggled to turn over again, pointing to her left nostril, and said in a muffled voice, "I can't sleep. When I sit or stand like this, my left nostril is still open. Once I fall asleep, both nostrils are blocked."

“…”

He stared at her for a while with a complicated look in his eyes. After more than ten seconds, he sighed softly, closed the door and walked out.

Zhu Yingning didn't know what he was going to do. She thought he might be going to do his own thing. That was normal. Who would stay with a sick person 24 hours a day? But perhaps the illness had lowered her emotional defenses. She suddenly felt very wronged. Her nose was sore, and she sat alone on the edge of the bed, rubbing her eyes.

After rubbing it for a long time, I found a new sanitary napkin from the cabinet and went to the bathroom to change it.

She rarely got sick, but this time it happened to be her period. The emotional turmoil after the argument might have been a factor. She already had a headache, was bleeding profusely, and felt a dull pain in her lower abdomen and waist. As she changed her sanitary pad, she felt the sheer hardship of being a woman.

The trash can in the bathroom was full, so she squatted down and tied the garbage bag with great effort. Because she didn't have the strength to go downstairs to throw away the garbage, she just put the garbage bag at the door, planning to wait for the hourly worker to come and ask her to take it downstairs and throw it away.

I returned to the room and sat at the head of the bed with my eyes closed. Before I could even warm up the quilt, the door was opened and Xu Sirui walked in carrying a plastic bag.

She was stunned: "Didn't you leave?"

"I went downstairs to buy some medicine." He raised the bag in his hand to indicate, walked over to her, and took out an unopened bottle of oxymetazoline hydrochloride spray. He opened it in front of her and handed the spray to her while reading the instructions. "Spray it into your nostrils once in the morning and once in the evening. It's for nasal congestion. After you're done, get some sleep."

"Oh..." Zhu Yingning took it in a daze.

Xu Sirui then noticed her red eyes: "Are your eyes uncomfortable too? I'll go downstairs and buy you some eye drops."

"...No need." She fidgeted with embarrassment, but couldn't admit she was crying, so she could only lie harmlessly, "I just, uh, got an eyelash stuck in my eye. I've already gotten it out."

Xu Sirui didn't insist anymore.

She held the spray, feeling a little weird about putting it up her nostrils in front of him. After hesitating for a moment, she said to him, "How about... you go out?"

He obediently retreated.

Zhu Yingning then pulled out the tissue that was blocking his nose and sprayed it twice into his nasal cavity.

The oxymetazoline hydrochloride spray took effect quickly; within minutes, her nose was cleared by the time she lay down again. A stuffy nose is the biggest obstacle to sleep when you have a cold. Once the stuffiness was gone, sleepiness came over her. She forced herself to drink the warm water on the bedside table, then wrapped herself in the quilt and quickly fell asleep.

I had a sound sleep.

When she woke up again, it was already dark. Her mouth was dry and her stomach was hungry. She threw off the quilt and wanted to get up to find something to eat. She walked into the living room and saw Xu Sirui had changed into pajamas. His hand was supporting his chin, and his elbow was resting on the armrest of the sofa, as if he was taking a nap. Hearing her coming out, he opened his eyes. His eyelids had turned from double eyelids to triple eyelids due to fatigue, but his eyes were clear. He stood up and said, "Sit down, I'll get you something to eat."

Zhu Yingning didn't sit down. She followed him to the dining room and watched in surprise as he brought out a bowl of brown sugar longan soup from the kitchen with two beaten eggs in it.

She remembered the bag of trash she had left at the door of her house. The bag was blue and transparent. He might have seen the sanitary napkin she threw away through the trash bag.

After taking the bowl of soup, she didn't know what to say and could only squeeze out a stiff thank you after a long time.

While she was drinking soup, Xu Sirui sat across from her at the dining table. She asked him if he wasn't going to have dinner, and he said he had already eaten. He also said that a bowl of vegetable and lean meat porridge was cooked in the kitchen, and asked her to drink the porridge after finishing the soup. If that was not enough, he would stew some soft pork ribs for her.

As he spoke, she nodded along with his words, and as she nodded, her tears fell into the soup.

"I'm sorry." Xu Sirui suddenly spoke across from her, "What I said last night was not what I meant."

She shook her head, stirring the reddish-brown soup in the bowl with a snow-white porcelain spoon, swallowing back her tears, and said with difficulty, "I also said some very harsh words to you, and I should apologize to you... What I said was not what I really meant."

Later, for a long time, she kept drinking soup, and Xu Sirui sat opposite her and watched her drink the soup in silence.

When the soup was almost finished, he stood up, walked to the kitchen and brought out the vegetable and lean meat porridge. When he passed by her, he reached out and gently pressed her head.

His palms were dry, but the center was cold.

**

Zhu Yingning thought that she and Xu Sirui might have reconciled. This quarrel was not like before. They didn't even have a cold war and reconciled quickly.

However, the relationship that could not be erased by the previous cold war became estranged after this apology. She clearly felt that the atmosphere between her and Xu Sirui was very different from before.

They still went to and from school together, and had daily conversations. He would still respond to her questions and help her. However, she couldn't explain what was wrong. She always felt like there was a layer of frosted glass between them. When she looked at Xu Sirui, it was like looking at flowers through the fog. She couldn't see what he was thinking at all.

As final exams approached, Hong Qingyang handed each of them a piece of paper and an envelope, asking them to write their ideals on the front and their dream school on the back. It was said that this was a routine part of their school's annual process. When the college entrance exam results came out and they returned to school to receive their diplomas, the school would return the letter and their diplomas to them.

The class was in a state of chaos, everyone was engaged in passionate discussions with the desks in front and behind them. Zhu Yingning wrote down in her ideal column, "To become someone who contributes to the people," and in her dream school column, she chose a 985 university in Beijing.

After filling it out, she casually glanced at Shao Yanjun and saw that she had already written "become a big singer and make a lot of money" in the ideal column, but scratched her head in the column of dream school, thought for a long time, and honestly wrote "none".

Dai Yize behind her was the opposite. He listed several schools in the dream school column as if filling out his application, and even divided them into first and second choices. In the end, he became shy and timid when it came to the ideal school column, as if he was writing a pornographic article. He covered his right hand with his left hand and shouted at her as he wrote: "What are you looking at? Don't look!"

"Look at mine." Zhang Jiacheng handed her his note.

He also filled in a 985 university in Beijing, but the column for his ideal was very abstract, with only four words - to stand out.

Seeing her puzzled expression, he smiled shyly and explained quietly, "When my mother took me out of the fishing village, she told me to study hard and become a successful person, returning home in glory to make her proud. She's worked hard for me for most of her life and endured a lot of unfounded rumors. I want to make a name for myself so that the people in the village can only envy and be jealous when they talk about her."

She nodded in sudden realization.

Wu Bo's ideal had nothing to do with his future career plans; it was about "living with lots of handsome guys." Zhu Yingning was at a loss for words: "Aren't you afraid the teacher will scold you if you submit this?"

"It's okay. I heard that the envelopes are sealed after they are handed in, so the teacher doesn't have the time to open them and read them." She was calm.

Zou Hao's ideals were closest to what Hong Qingyang hoped for. Rather than ideals, they were more like a life plan. He detailed what he planned to do and achieve during his four years of college, whether he would take the postgraduate entrance exam, what kind of job he wanted to pursue after graduation, and what achievements he wanted to achieve within a few years. He even wrote down the year he planned to buy a house and a car, and when he planned to get married and start a family.

Wu Bo was stunned by this plan. "Oh my god, have you even planned when you'll be buried?"

"That's not the case, but I have considered which cemetery I want to be buried in after I die." Zou Hao calmly adjusted his glasses. "I'm not trying to be alarmist, but do you know how expensive cemeteries are these days? If you don't work hard when you're young, you might not even have a place to place your ashes after you die. To avoid becoming a lonely ghost in the underworld with no one to pay their respects to, I've made comprehensive financial plans for my afterlife."

Wu Bo & Zhu Yingning: “?”

Intrigued by everyone's diverse ideals, Zhu Yingning naturally thought of Xu Sirui, wondering what he filled in.

The class meeting is the last class of every Monday, and all classes have the same get out of class meeting. After the bell rang, she carried her schoolbag and went to Xu Sirui's class, wanting to find out about his ideals and dream school.

When I arrived outside their class, their teacher had just announced the end of get out of class. The students were walking out one after another, but most of them were still in their seats, discussing the contents of the envelope with great interest.

This week, Xu Sirui's seat rotated to the corridor window, near the back door. When Zhu Yingning walked over, his deskmate happened to pick up the note he had written. She clearly heard his deskmate ask him in surprise, "Huh? You don't plan to stay in Beijing? What about that girl who always comes up to see you?"

Her steps paused, and the smile that had just appeared on her face froze at the corner of her mouth.

"What does it have to do with her?" Xu Sirui asked.

"I thought you were talking about... like you were going to the same university and working in the same city."

"You think too much." He replied calmly, "We are just friends."

"Really? So you two really aren't in that kind of relationship? You don't like her? Not at all?"

This time Xu Sirui paused a little longer, so long that Zhu Yingning thought he would give up answering the question.

But even the longest pause had its limit, and he broke the silence and spoke:

"No."