Chapter 16 You are a good person. Are your standards for being a good person too low?

"?"

Xu Sirui was stunned. "When did I agree to be the flag-raiser? How come I didn't know it?"

Zhu Yingning flipped through her diary. "Anyway, that's what the teacher told me. He told me to find time this weekend to teach you the steps of raising the flag. You can rehearse with me as another flag-raiser."

He carefully recalled his conversation with Chen Bin, racking his brains for any response that could be misinterpreted as an agreement. Disregarding someone's wishes, acting first and asking for permission later—this practice seemed so familiar. Xu Sirui was so angry that his temples throbbed. He pressed his fingers against them and rubbed them, wondering if there were any normal people left in this place. Why were they all so weird?

Weird Number One closed his notebook and began to talk to himself: "You know how to march, right? The other flag-raiser is a little shorter than you, so you might have to pay a little attention to his steps when you march. It's actually very simple. Let's go to school early tomorrow morning. I'll show you the route you need to take, and then you just need to--"

"Stop." Xu Sirui stopped her. "It's no use telling me. I don't want to be the flag-raiser."

She blinked in surprise. "Why?"

"Why? If I don't want to be one, then I don't want to be one."

"Why don't you want to be one?"

Seeing that she was determined to get to the bottom of it, Xu Sirui could only casually reply, "Not everyone likes to be in the spotlight."

"But how can this be called showing off? This is clearly a glorious and great task. The national flag is dyed with the blood of soldiers. Raising the national flag is an indispensable activity to strengthen patriotism, commemorate revolutionary martyrs, and carry forward fine traditions."

"?"

Xu Sirui was stunned. He realized it would be difficult to convince Zhu Yingning using normal logic, as she had her own set of logic that was completely different from normal people's. To avoid further wasting time, he could only change his approach to persuade her: "Anyway, just leave me alone."

But she didn't buy it at all: "No, I have to complete the task assigned by the teacher."

"...I'll go talk to the class leader myself and tell him that I don't want to complete the mission and it has nothing to do with you, okay?"

She still shook her head: "No."

"Why not? What do you want?" He was going crazy.

Zhu Yingning thought for a moment, looked him in the eye, and answered seriously, "Because I realized what the teacher said was right. He said that although you appear arrogant, domineering, and undisciplined on the surface, you are actually soft-hearted. As long as you are treated with kindness, you can be reformed. I may have been a little prejudiced against you before, but now I realize that you are a good person, so I won't give up on you easily."

"?"

This short sentence shocked Xu Sirui so much that he was speechless for a long time. It took him a long time to regain his ability to speak. He first picked out the most obvious one from the many complaints and asked, "...Are you praising me?"

She nodded.

“…”

Xu Sirui lost his ability to speak again. He opened his mouth and barely formed a complete sentence, "What did I do to you that made you feel that I am soft-hearted?"

"You don't want me to compensate you for your down jacket." She thought carefully and added, "Besides, you actually knew it was my mother who took the down jacket a long time ago, right? But you didn't want to make a fuss about it, so that night you asked me to stop looking at the camera and go back to sleep. You are much more considerate than I thought."

"...No, Zhu Yingning, aren't your standards for good people too low?"

"You don't realize that you are a good person."

“…”

He took two deep breaths and said through gritted teeth, "Alright, fine... just treat me as a kind person with a soft heart. Since I'm a good person, why do you repay kindness with evil? Can't you just be kind and let me go and study in peace for a while?"

"This is not repaying kindness with evil. I just want to help you integrate into the class. Raising the national flag is a very sacred task and will help you establish a glorious image among your classmates." She explained seriously.

Xu Sirui was completely speechless.

Zhu Yingning's logic was deeply rooted and indestructible. He didn't think he had the ability to change her mind, so he simply threw himself onto the bed, pulled the quilt up to cover himself, and acted like a dead pig that was not afraid of boiling water, intending to ignore her existence and go to sleep.

She climbed up, sat next to him, and kept trying to persuade him for a while. However, no matter how she persuaded him, he had no response, and even imitated the people on TV and deliberately snored.

“…”

He didn't want to do it, and Zhu Yingning had no way to force him to do it. Seeing that persuasion was futile, she had to close the diary for the time being and decided to think of a new solution after waking up the next day.

**

The new approach is to continue to persuade.

On the way to school, Xu Sirui deeply realized that the most important thing about living here is not anything else but to have a pair of earplugs.

Zhu Yingning's words were as long as the road to school. He didn't understand how she could contain so many different ideas in her small body. She chattered all the way, but surprisingly, not a single word was repeated. She talked about the traditional virtues of China's five thousand years of history and the modern and contemporary philosophy of the West. His ears were almost callused, but she kept speaking passionately.

Xu Sirui also tried to lose his temper during the process, but no matter whether he scolded her, yelled at her, or ran away in despair to get rid of her, she would always follow him and continue to brainwash him as if nothing had happened.

By the end, Xu Sirui was numb, and even had the leisure to comment: "Have you read a lot of books?"

Her eyes lit up when she said this, and she smiled sheepishly: "Yes, our head teacher is very good. He brought a lot of books, and he is willing to lend them to us as long as any student asks him to borrow them."

When I arrived at the school, I found that the atmosphere of flag-raising was everywhere.

There were already a few sparse lines of people on the basketball court to the right of the teaching building. There were elementary school students and junior high school students. Xu Sirui glanced at them casually and was about to go up to the teaching building.

Before he had taken a few steps, he was grabbed by someone.

Zhu Yingning pulled his arm and asked, "Where are you going? We have to go to the flag-raising platform to rehearse."

Xu Sirui cursed softly and tried to pull his arm out, but couldn't.

He had a vague feeling of her strange strength before, so the second time he secretly put a lot of strength in his hand, and pulled it hard -

There was no change, she still pulled his arm motionlessly,

Xu Sirui laughed angrily: "You must do this, right?"

She expressed her persistence through silence.

"Okay." He nodded and stepped forward. "As long as you don't mind being embarrassed, I don't mind anyway."

Zhu Yingning was used to doing farm work and had strong hands. Xu Sirui couldn't pull his arm away, but there was a weight difference after all. As soon as he moved, she was lifted up and hung on his arm as she followed him forward.

The photographer followed silently behind to record this psychedelic scene.

The stairs of the teaching building were busy, and as they walked past, they happened to see a group of elementary school students lining up to walk down. These children, led by their teacher, filed down the stairs, and everyone who passed by them would cast a surprised glance at them.

Xu Sirui bravely walked upstairs, his face growing increasingly hotter. When he reached the second floor, a primary school student pointed at them and loudly asked his classmates, "What are they doing? Why are they clinging to each other like this?" Unable to bear it any longer, he stopped, pulled Zhu Yingning aside, took a deep breath, and said, "...Okay, Zhu Yingning, you win. I don't give a damn."

"So are you going down to raise the flag now?"

"...Do I have any other choice?"

Xu Sirui looked at the playground below the corridor in despair, and all he wanted was to jump down from there.

**

The flag-raising ceremony went on as scheduled.

Before starting, Zhu Yingning diligently explained the steps to him and personally demonstrated them twice. Then he let him go, trotted to the playground, and took the microphone from the teacher.

Yes, she is the host of the flag-raising ceremony.

Xu Sirui felt that no matter how many positions Zhu Yingning held, he wouldn't be surprised anymore. This man was a complete iron man with high energy, seemingly never feeling tired.

The other flag-raiser, only slightly shorter than Xu Sirui but considerably wider, stood there like a wall, a stark resemblance to the burly generals in ancient paintings. His scent, like that of someone without access to baths in ancient times, was sour, acrid, and pungent, its moldy clothes masking a layered stench. Xu Sirui, standing next to him, felt the stench nearly retching. Concerned that his retching expression would be too unsightly and would tarnish his image on television, he gritted his teeth and held back, covering his nose with his palm in disgust.

The flag-raising ceremony was, as expected, simple and bleak as he had expected.

The flag had been used for who knows how long; it had long since faded from red to yellow, becoming dirty and wrinkled, little more than a rag. The flagpole was short, and Xu Sirui and another flag-raiser took turns tugging on the rope, but it reached the top in just two pulls. With no wind, the flag couldn't flutter; it could only droop, shrunken, and hung from the pole like a rotten pickle.

The microphone's sound transmission effect was very poor, and it was only because of Zhu Yingning's loud voice that it did not affect the hosting effect. If it were the principal who took the stage to give a speech, it would be a completely different scene.

The principal spoke for more than ten minutes, but Xu Sirui didn't hear a word.

He was sure that he was not that hard of hearing. In other words, it was definitely not his problem.

The speech he couldn't hear was like hypnosis. He stood there listening dryly, yawning from sleepiness. It was not until the speaker changed from the principal to Chen Bin that he woke up with a start.

Of course, he was not sober because he was influenced by someone, but because Chen Bin took the microphone and said passionately: "Let us all welcome the new student Xu Sirui with the warmest applause——"

Everyone in the school looked at him and applauded loudly and violently.

Xu Sirui's mood could only be described as "fucked up." He stood stiffly, accepting the applause from his classmates as Chen Bin rhythmically introduced the variety show "Swap Life" and expressed his hopes for him: "I hope Xu Sirui will have a meaningful semester here with us! We should all learn from each other, engage in friendly exchanges, and make progress together. We should not only demonstrate the spirit of our school, but also humbly seek advice from Xu Sirui, learn from his strengths, and use our practical actions to promote urban-rural exchanges and create a bright new future together!"

After he finished speaking, there was another round of thunderous applause.

After finally making it to the end of the flag-raising ceremony, Xu Sirui felt like his face was numb from smiling.

The first class in the morning was math class. He originally planned to catch up on his sleep, but before he could lie down, Zhu Yingning in the back seat started poking him with the pen cap.

Xu Sirui was overwhelmed and stared at her tiredly: "What happened again?"

She said, "The teacher is going to give a test in this class, you can't sleep."

He rolled his eyes and lay down as if he had ignored it.

Five minutes later, Xu Sirui kicked the chair in front of him hard and stood up from the table with a dark face.

He had to get up, his spine was almost broken by Zhu Yingning.

The innocent passenger in the front seat glanced back at him without saying a word. The math teacher also glanced over, cleared his throat, and said indifferently, "Take your time on the test."

The quiz paper was placed in front of Xu Sirui. He picked it up, took a look at it, sighed, took out a pen from under the table, and began to answer the questions resignedly.

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