Chapter 99: Cold Sauce Lied for the First Time

Seeing tears in Wu Bo's eyes, Zhu Yingning was about to stand up but was stopped by Shao Yanjun.

"What are you doing? Let me go." She shook her hand, trying to break free.

Shao Yanjun quickly let go, yawned loudly, and said lazily and nonchalantly, "I was just about to ask you, what are you going to do? Stand up and roar like a lion, and tell the class to stop laughing?"

"No?"

She scoffed, shook her head, and looked at her with pity, as if she were a fool. "Believe it or not, after you yell at me, not only will your classmates hate you, but the fat girl won't appreciate your kindness either."

"...What do you mean?" Zhu Yingning didn't understand what she meant.

She held a simple sense of justice, wanting to stop any bad behavior she saw, nipping it in the bud. She had been prepared for her classmates to dislike her for her reprimands, but she didn't understand why Shao Yanjun kept insisting that Wu Bo would dislike her, too.

Just as I was wondering, Hong Qingyang came in from the front door. Unaware of the commotion in the class, he tapped the blackboard and got straight to the point: "How's it going? Winter vacation is over, everyone had a good time, right?"

His words successfully interrupted the brief incident involving Wu Bo's figure. The students turned their heads and responded in unison:

"happy--"

"Unhappy——"

"Whether happy or not," Hong Qingyang smiled and extended his right hand, "it's time to hand in your winter vacation homework."

“No!”

"No--"

The class was suddenly filled with grief.

Everyone was busy worrying about their winter vacation homework, and no one paid attention to Wu Bo anymore.

Zhu Yingning also felt that now was not a good time to resolve this matter. She planned to talk to Zheng Zekai and others after class.

After handing in winter break homework, there was the heavy lifting of distributing textbooks and workbooks. It was already lunchtime, and Zhu Yingning finally found a moment to breathe. Coincidentally, Zheng Zekai and the others were probably free too. As soon as she stood up, she saw them making mischief in the back row.

Zheng Zekai lay on the desk behind Wu Bo, poking her back with a ballpoint pen. He spoke to her in a tone that sounded like an old friend chatting, "Hey, seriously, how did you get so fat? How much do you weigh? 160 pounds?"

Wu Bo said nothing.

"I'm telling you, you really need to lose weight. Otherwise, if you take two steps, this building will shake. In a few months, when summer comes, will you be able to wear short sleeves and short skirts? Look at your elephant legs and your arms...tsk tsk tsk tsk. Seriously, you're even uglier than a sow."

As he spoke, he made mischievous faces at the others.

Wu Bo didn't refute, but just smiled awkwardly.

Zhu Yingning walked to the back row with thumps on her feet, stood in front of Zheng Zekai, glared at him, and was about to explode with anger when Wu Bo suddenly jumped up and rushed over, pulling her away.

She pulled her aside, ignoring the laughter of Zheng Zekai and others, and said anxiously: "Don't do this, you make me embarrassed."

Zhu Yingning was a little confused: "Embarrassed? But they were clearly bullying you, I just wanted to stop them."

"If they want to laugh, let them laugh. Anyway, just ignore them or go along with them. After a while, they'll slowly stop laughing. The more you argue, the more excited they get, and the more attention they'll attract. Originally, only Zheng Zekai and a few others paid attention to me, but if you scold them, everyone else in the class will look over too. Have you ever considered how I'd feel when everyone else is watching me?"

Zhu Yingning was stunned by what she said. After thinking about it, she suddenly realized that it made sense. "So that's what you're worried about. I understand. Don't worry, Wu Bo, I will find an opportunity to teach Zheng Zekai and the others a lesson later. I will definitely not do it in front of the other students in the class."

She thought she had fully understood Wu Bo's meaning, but after she finished speaking, Wu Bo seemed even angrier. He pushed her lightly and yelled, "Why do you have to cause trouble for me?!"

Zhu Yingning was stunned by her yelling. She watched Wu Bo leave angrily and was completely confused.

They didn't eat together at noon that day. Zhu Yingning wanted to go to the cafeteria with Wu Bo, but Wu Bo avoided her because he was angry.

She wasn't sure if they were arguing. If they weren't, Wu Bo's attitude towards her was indeed cold, not as warm as before. But if they were, it didn't seem that way, because when she went to talk to Wu Bo the next day, he took the initiative to apologize, saying that he had been rude the previous afternoon and asked her not to take it personally.

Their relationship seems to be the same as before, but it is no longer as close as before.

In the past, after class, Wu Bo would take the initiative to come to her seat to find her, as if he had endless things to say. Now, although Wu Bo would come to find her, he would occasionally sit alone in his seat in a daze, not knowing what he was thinking about.

Zheng Zekai and the others remained the same. Far from "calming down" as Wu Bo had suggested, they only grew more comfortable with their ridicule, changing Wu Bo's nickname from "Da Bo" to "Zhu Po," calling him "Zhu Po" every day. Sometimes Wu Bo pretended not to hear, sometimes she would join in the laughter. Every time she forced a false smile, attempting to dismiss Zheng Zekai and the others' ill intentions with a relaxed demeanor, Zhu Yingning felt utterly uncomfortable.

Wu Bo never mentioned she was trying to lose weight, but at lunch in the cafeteria, Zhu Yingning noticed she was consciously dieting. She rarely cut out meat, and only ate a couple of ounces of rice. Every day at noon, she only ate two or three mouthfuls of green vegetables with her fistful of rice.

Dieting is the hardest thing to stick to. During breaks between classes, she often sneaks in snacks.

The word "stealthily" comes from the fact that Wu Bo was always afraid of being seen snacking, especially by Zhu Yingning and Zheng Zekai. She'd developed incredible speed, able to quickly unwrap a snack in under a minute and swiftly chew and swallow it. She thought her movements were discreet, but the snacks were actually quite strong, and Zhu Yingning could smell them every time. She was heartbroken that her status in Wu Bo's eyes had fallen to the same level as Zheng Zekai and the others.

Despite eating very little for meals and a lot of snacks, Wu Bo not only did not lose weight, but instead became more and more puffy like a steamed bun made of leavened dough.

Zhu Yingning originally thought that when the new semester started, it would be Xu Sirui that would make her worry, but unexpectedly, after a few days, Xu Sirui adapted well, while Wu Bo made her extremely worried.

She concealed Wu Bo's personal information from the incident and recounted the entire story to Xu Sirui one night, hoping to get his opinion and see if he could shed some light on her friend's psychology. Xu Sirui responded with a rather provocative, "I don't know. I don't understand. I've never been fat, and I've never been ugly."

“…”

She clenched her fists and resisted the urge to beat him until he was bleeding.

Zhu Yingning wasn't one to keep secrets; whenever she worried about someone, her face would turn grim. After witnessing her bereaved expression countless times, during a break, Shao Yanjun suddenly pulled out a bottle of 75% alcohol and sprayed it into the air.

Zhu Yingning was lying on the desk, distracted, and her alcohol almost sprayed her eyes. She sat up in shock and asked her, "What are you doing?"

"Disinfection." Shao Yanjun said, giving her a look full of disdain. "Unlucky thing."

“…”

After being scolded, she just sighed sadly, holding her chin with her hand, and instantly fell into her own world. Her soul flew away without knowing where it was. She suddenly remembered that Shao Yanjun was so obsessed with beauty and might have some experience in weight loss. But she was worried that she would give the same reaction as Xu Sirui.

Shao Yanjun's scalp tingled at her hesitant look, and he shuddered. He said, "If you have to fart, just fart. Don't look at me with such disgusting eyes."

She took the opportunity to ask, "Do you know why Wu Bo..."

Before he could finish his words, Zheng Zekai in the back row started to act like a jerk again and said to Wu Bo, "Pig, pick up my pen for me. It's at your feet."

Wu Bo bent down and picked up the pen without any resistance, then turned around and handed it to Zheng Zekai.

"Thanks, pig woman." He said with a playful smile.

Wu Bo smiled slightly, but the smile was fleeting. It was more like crying than laughing.

Zhu Yingning was so anxious that she continued, "You see, that's it. I can't figure out why she did that. Sigh..."

Shao Yanjun looked at her with a half-smile: "You really don't understand?"

"I really don't understand." Zhu Yingning was almost worried to death, "She said she didn't want me to help her stop Zheng Zekai and the others because she didn't want to be watched by irrelevant people. I said that I would talk to Zheng Zekai in private so that no one would watch, but she still didn't want to. Instead, she forced herself to smile and deal with the bullying of Zheng Zekai and the others. Why? Why on earth?!" At the end, she even grabbed the hair by her ear.

Shao Yanjun said: "It's simple. This reason is obviously nonsense. The real reason is not this."

Zhu Yingning immediately perked up and humbly asked, "Ah? What's the real reason?"

"There are two reasons. One is that she wants to use an entertaining attitude to alleviate the impact of obesity on her, and the other is that she is jealous of you."

Both of these reasons were beyond Zhu Yingning's expectations, and she was shocked.

Seeing her so clueless, Shao Yanjun rarely said a word. "The first one is easy to understand. Deep down, she's actually very concerned about her weight, but she doesn't have the courage to face it. So she wants to downplay it to appear indifferent. She resists any attempt to make it a serious matter. For example, if you insist on standing up for her, you're making it a serious matter. This kind of serious attitude will force her to face her weight and admit that she's really gained weight."

It was like an epiphany for her.

"The second one is easier to understand." Shao Yanjun reached out, tugged on Zhu Yingning's sleeve, and said jokingly, "You're so thin, yet you're still insisting on standing up for her. To someone as sensitive as her, this behavior, well... you figure it out for yourself. Rather than feeling warm and touched, your standing up for her might seem more like humiliation to her."

"That's not what I meant!" Zhu Yingning said immediately.

"You're useless." Shao Yanjun rolled his eyes. "That's how she thinks of you anyway."

Ever since they first met, Shao Yanjun felt that Zhu Yingning was very unsophisticated, and this thought has not changed to this day.

This "rustic" quality is comprehensive, encompassing not only her dress and accent, but also her frighteningly unsophisticated way of thinking and acting. Shao Yanjun suspects this stems from her origins in a poor mountain village where people struggle to make ends meet. School is all about studying, and after school, helping with household chores, leaving little energy for other matters. Over time, this has fostered a simplistic, linear mindset.

But it’s different in cities. People in cities have solved the problem of food and clothing, are exposed to more abundant information, tend to think in multiple ways, and think in more complicated ways.

For example, if someone wears a pair of very expensive brand-name shoes, when Zhu Yingning sees it, he will only think: These shoes are so expensive.

When they see it, they will extrapolate the information and think that it is no wonder that the stationery this person uses is so expensive, it turns out that his family is so rich, or they will guess what his family does for a living, or they will want to go up and verify whether the shoes are Putian shoes, or they will secretly wonder if there is a chance to make friends with him, and so on.

In short, the way of thinking is very different.

Because she thought she was unsophisticated, Shao Yanjun was convinced that Zhu Yingning would be excluded or bullied on the first day of school last semester. She watched with a look of anticipation, but was surprised to find that -

Nothing happened.

She did not change her simplicity and straightforwardness. Instead, she used this simplicity and straightforwardness to strangely integrate into the new group and even made friends.

Now, this difference in underlying logic between urban and rural areas had finally been exposed between her and her friend. Shao Yanjun once again took up the opportunity to watch the show, curious about how she would resolve the situation, so he rarely spoke more.

After she finished speaking, Zhu Yingning looked even more worried, sighing more frequently, and asked her, "Then what should I do?"

"Cold dish." Shao Yanjun did not intend to provide any substantial help.

**

Before Zhu Yingning could come up with a solution, Zhou Tianqing called her and asked her when she would write to Zhou Tianlan again.

"When I went to visit my sister, she asked about you." She said with a smile on the other end of the phone.

Zhu Yingning was flattered and took the time to write another letter. This time, in addition to explaining Xu Sirui's situation, he also wrote a little about himself, mentioned his help to him, and praised him as a very good person.

On Saturday, she found time to meet with Zhou Tianqing and handed the letter to him.

Zhou Tianqing took her to the bookstore and bought her some new stationery. As they passed by the bookshelves, Zhu Yingning unexpectedly learned that Zhou Tianqing had also read many books. The two of them had a pleasant chat about "Sophie's World", and Zhou Tianqing also recommended her several philosophical books with a deeper meaning.

When Zhu Yingning returned home with the new stationery and new books, she felt quite guilty, as she felt that Zhou Tianqing was almost becoming her own aunt from Xu Sirui's aunt.

Perhaps it was because he felt guilty that he was prone to seeing ghosts. When Xu Sirui got home, he was sitting in the living room, playing his discontinued PSPGO. When he heard her enter, he glanced up at her, then quickly returned to his console. He asked casually, "Did you have fun playing with my aunt?"

"Ah?" Zhu Yingning shuddered and subconsciously pretended to be stupid.

"Oh, you." He put down the game console, pointed at the landline, and said expressionlessly, "The call log is all on it."

“…”

Being caught, she had no choice but to lower her head and stand at the entrance, staring at the tips of her shoes.

"Why are you going to see my aunt?" He looked at her suspiciously.

Considering his attitude when she had let Guo Yingying in without permission, Zhu Yingning felt that if Xu Sirui knew that she had contacted his mother without permission, this matter would definitely not be easily let go. So she lied for the first time in her life, looked at him with wide eyes, and said, "Nothing. It's just that she came here to look for you before, and you were not here, so I received her. We had a great chat, so we would occasionally make plans to meet up..."

She felt ashamed after telling the lie.