Chapter 157: Not bad! Don’t talk nonsense

Xu Sirui didn't fall asleep.

Zhu Yingning discovered this because she herself was suffering from insomnia. She was lying in bed, tossing and turning because so many things had happened today. Since she couldn't fall asleep anyway, she simply got up and went to the bathroom.

She walked into the living room and checked the clock. It was a little after two in the morning. She was about to go to the bathroom when she was surprised to find a small light on in the kitchen. When she walked in, Xu Sirui was standing at the sink with his back to her, pouring pills into his hands.

The pills were in a small white bottle called Estazolam. Even if she squinted her eyes, she could only see the name of the pills, but not the instructions for use in the smaller words.

"What medicine are you taking?"

The sudden sound behind him startled Xu Sirui, causing his hand to tremble and the pills in his palm to fall to the ground. Instead of picking them up immediately, he grasped the bottle in his palm and quickly hid it in his pajama pocket.

It was this action that aroused Zhu Yingning's suspicion. She quickly grabbed the bottle of medicine from his pocket and successfully took it out. Ignoring his obstruction, she lowered her head and took a closer look. She saw the word "insomnia" in the column of drug efficacy.

I shook the medicine bottle and found only two or three tablets left in it.

“…”

Xu Sirui grabbed the edge of the kitchen sink, hunched his shoulders, looking weak and pitiful. He tried to cover up by saying that he had the bottle of medicine a long time ago and that his mother had bought it to treat insomnia. He just happened to remember its existence tonight and wanted to find it and give it a try.

She was not fooled by his lies. She put the medicine bottle in her pocket, looked at him with her eyes, and asked calmly, "Which bottle?"

"What?" He still wanted to play dumb.

"Which bottle?"

The power of repetition is infinite. Xu Sirui was defeated under her gaze and said with evasive eyes that this was the second bottle.

She wanted to calculate how long he had been suffering from insomnia, but her mind was a little confused. She couldn't figure it out after a long time. In the end, she just sighed deeply, took out the medicine bottle from her pocket and returned it to him.

"It's okay if you take it in moderation." He explained again, trying to cover up the truth.

"Then give me one. I can't sleep either." She spread her hands towards him.

Xu Sirui didn't give it to her. After being stared at by her for a long time, he stammered, "Okay, there are indeed some side effects. You'd better not take it carelessly... If you really can't sleep, I have melatonin here. It's milder."

“…”

She suddenly felt a surge of anger, and reached out and hit him hard on the chest, even making a hollow sound.

Xu Sirui couldn't count how many times she had hit him today. He was thinking in a confused way that it was a good thing he was a boy. If he was a girl, his breasts would have been underdeveloped by her hitting him.

"Eat, and then go to sleep." She said unhappily.

After saying that, she turned and left. He asked her whether she still needed melatonin, but she ignored him.

Xu Sirui couldn't quite grasp her attitude. Her words sounded like sarcasm, but he didn't think she was the type to speak sarcastically. After a moment of hesitation, he finally succumbed to the fear of insomnia. He poured out another pill and swallowed it with water.

He woke up naturally the next day and got up at around eight in the morning.

Zhu Yingning woke up earlier than him and was brushing her teeth in the bathroom. When she saw him coming, she spit out the foam in her mouth, rinsed her mouth, and said, "I have an appointment at nine o'clock. Hurry up and brush your teeth and wash your face."

He was confused: "What number?"

"The hospital number." She put the mouthwash cup back in its place, took the towel, and said while washing her face, "Since the insomnia is so serious, let's go to the hospital for a checkup."

Through the bathroom mirror, she saw Xu Sirui's face hesitant to speak, as if he wanted to refuse but didn't know how to start. So she immediately changed her expression and said fiercely, "If you dare to refuse, we will end our friendship now. I won't care about you even if you die outside and your body rots."

“…”

The threat worked, at least he didn't say anything she didn't want to hear.

After packing up, they went out together. Zhu Yingning deliberately avoided the hospital where Xu Siyang was hospitalized and made an appointment with the neurology department of another tertiary hospital.

It was exactly nine o'clock when she got there. After taking a number to see the doctor, Xu Sirui became inexplicably awkward and pretentious, and refused to let her go into the department.

"Okay." She gave in and sat outside waiting for him.

Xu Sirui stayed inside for a long time before coming out. She stood up, walked over to him and asked, "What did the doctor say?"

He was vague: "He asked me to do an EEG, an EKG, and an eye movement test."

Zhu Yingning didn't know what these tests meant, but she was someone who listened to doctors very much. She nodded and said, "Okay, let's go over there. Which one should we do first?"

"You don't have to follow me. It's tiring to walk back and forth. Just wait for me here." He pushed her back to her seat and asked her if she wanted some water.

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "You still have the mood to buy me some water?"

He hummed: "My leg is not broken."

"Go get checked first. I'm not thirsty."

After watching Xu Sirui leave, she entered the department and asked the doctor why he had insomnia.

"Are you his family member?" The doctor asked while he was examining another patient.

Zhu Yingning replied without hesitation: "Yes."

"We have to wait until he's finished his examination to confirm, but I just gave him a psychological test, and his condition is most likely caused by psychological problems."

**

It took Xu Sirui nearly two hours to complete the physical examinations assigned by the doctor. When he came back to show the doctor the results, it was just the time when the doctor got off work in the morning.

The doctor prescribed him some medicine and then went off to take a lunch break.

Zhu Yingning had been waiting outside, holding a bottle of water that Xu Sirui had brought her after the examination.

"How is it?" She stood up when she saw him come out.

"good."

"What do you mean by 'okay'? I've never heard of any disease called 'okay'." She frowned and held out her hand to him. "Give me the diagnosis sheet. I want to see the results."

“…”

The strength she displayed at such times always made Xu Sirui feel that she was very suitable to be a teacher, and she would be the anchor of the world once she stood on the podium.

There were only the two of them here, and there wasn't much hiding space for him to hide the medical records. He knew that not letting her see the consequences would be serious—serious for the medical records, and he might get seriously injured in the fight. Although he was reluctant, he sighed and slowly handed the things to her.

She took it and looked down at it.

She couldn't understand the results of the electrocardiogram and electroencephalogram, but she understood the concise final diagnosis - moderate depression with acute anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I don't want you to see this... It makes me look useless." He chuckled softly, a smile that was somewhat helpless. "Compared to the truly miserable people, what I've been through is nothing. My parents are still alive, my family's financial situation is okay, my aunt and her family can support me, I'm also able to make money, and I've never been bullied in the true sense of the word... Just such a small thing can make me so upset. Am I too... Zhu Yingning?"

The warm liquid dripped onto the back of his hand. He stared at the teardrop on the back of his hand in surprise. "Why are you crying?"

She raised her head, her eyes misted with tears, but her voice was clear: "No, everyone's pain threshold is different. Even if it's a shot in the buttocks, some children won't react, while others will cry loudly. If you feel pain, then the pain is real. Don't belittle your feelings."

He reached out and held her face in his hands. His voice was deeper than usual as he repeated the question: "Why are you crying?"

She didn't want to say she was crying because she felt bad. "I feel it's so unfair. Xu Zhengkang tortured you like this, but he himself was fine. I said such harsh words to you before. Was I also behind your illness fueling the flames?"

"What nonsense are you talking about?" He chuckled and wiped the tears from her face with his fingertips. "If it weren't for you, I would be even worse off than I am now. It's you who has been holding me back."

She shook her head desperately in his palm: "No, I'm not good enough, I..."

"How much better do you want to be? If you were any better, you'd be a god, you know?" He laughed even more helplessly, "You've been much better to me than I've been to you. It's me who has never given you anything good."

"You gave it to me," she cried. "I told you, you gave me the courage to be selfish. You don't know how much it means to me."

Thousands of words were stuck in his throat, and he was speechless for a long time. In the end, he just wiped her tears, ruffled her hair, and said in a deliberately light tone: "Okay, do we have to cry here in the middle of the day? If you don't know, you would think I have cancer."

"Bah!" She slapped his mouth with the back of her hand rudely, "Don't talk nonsense."

**

Some of the antidepressants prescribed by doctors can cause people to feel drowsy all day and experience memory loss. Xu Sirui joked that the purpose might be to make people faint so that when they fall asleep, they won't have time to think about random things or consider suicide.

"Have you considered committing suicide?!" Zhu Yingning rushed out of the bathroom nervously, with foam still dripping from her hair.

She has been feeling a bit paranoid recently. She originally had a positive attitude towards this disease, thinking that depression was a gentle disease. It was not until she read a few psychology books and found examples of depressed patients committing suicide from somewhere that she became suspicious. She worried every day that Xu Sirui would commit suicide if she didn't keep an eye on him.

"...That's not what I meant." Xu Sirui urged her to go back to the bathroom and rinse her hair.

He was a little worried that even though he finally recovered, Zhu Yingning would be frightened into developing an anxiety disorder.

He can now mention this disease in a joking manner, and is also using this method to desensitize her so that she doesn't feel nervous every day.

Fortunately, he chose the right time to take the medicine, which was during the summer vacation. If he felt tired or dizzy, he could just fall into the bed. Unlike when he was in school, he didn't have to worry about whether it would affect his studies.

But it was impossible to have no impact at all. Next semester would be his senior year, and those who had prepared had already bought a bunch of exercises and started studying in advance during summer vacation—Zhu Yingning was naturally one of them. Xu Sirui could only spare two hours a day to go over the difficult questions, and these two hours were not continuous; they had to be broken up because he couldn't concentrate for long periods of time.

Fortunately, he has a strong desire to recover, and he takes medicine and exercises on time every day.

Before this, he hadn't stepped on a scale in a long time. The doctor recommended that he start exercising, so he stepped on the scale for the first time in a long time. He was shocked by his current weight and didn't dare to tell Zhu Yingning the result. When she asked him about it, he could only lie and say he weighed ten pounds more.

During the summer vacation, Zhou Tianqing also came here often.

She came here because Zhu Yingning complained to her, abandoning the principle of respecting personal wishes that she had previously followed, and told her everything about Xu Sirui's situation and Xu Zhengkang's actions.

Xu Sirui didn't know what Zhu Yingning and Zhou Tianqing talked about. Anyway, after they talked, Zhou Tianqing often came here. Every time she came, she would bring various tonic soups. She not only brought one for him, but also for Zhu Yingning. She also asked them if they wanted to live with her.

Not wanting to make the two elderly people worry, Xu Sirui refused.

"I actually have an apartment in a residential complex, so it's okay for me to live there," she suggested again.

But Xu Sirui still refused.

Zhu Yingning could tell he refused because he didn't want to leave Zhou Tianlan's house, fearing Xu Zhengkang would bring Xu Siyang and the others to live there after he left. He had a stubborn, unspoken insistence, feeling that defending this home was defending the illusion of a former home.

Zhou Tianqing didn't insist any more: "Okay, then I'll come visit you often."

**

The summer vacation between the second and third year of high school was only one month long and passed in the blink of an eye. When school was about to start, they went to the hospital for a follow-up check-up, and Zhou Tianqing insisted on driving them there.

Xu Sirui still went into the treatment room by himself and did not allow them to follow him.

The doctor said that he was doing well if he continued to develop at this rate and asked him to keep up the momentum. He also said that if he was under too much academic pressure in his senior year of high school, the disease might relapse, as this was how the disease recurred. He asked him to be careful not to put too much pressure on himself.

After coming out, he felt much more relaxed. He flexed his arms and was about to tell them the good news when he saw Zhu Yingning staring blankly in one direction with an extremely solemn expression.

"how……"

Before she could even ask the word "了", she shot up from the spot, rushed towards a man who was waiting in line for an EEG, and pulled him out of the crowd.

Zhou Tianqing was shocked and stood up quickly: "What happened?"

Xu Sirui stuffed the various medical records in his hand into her arms and said, "Take it. I'll go over and take a look."