Chapter 53 Chapter 53 "So, let's break up." ...
Yu Sixie and Xi Tong walked quickly into the teacher's office. The first person they saw was not the little girl standing in the corner with her head down and red eyes, but Xi Zhi sitting on a chair.
The little guy's hair was messy, a button of his light blue school uniform shirt was broken, the collar was crooked, and there were three thin scratches on his left cheek that were already bleeding. What was particularly eye-catching was that there were several obvious blue and red pinching marks on his forearm where he rolled up his sleeves.
Xitong's heart suddenly sank, and she almost lunged forward, her voice changing tone: "Xiaozhi! Your face! Who scratched it?!"
She tried to touch her son's cheek cautiously, but was afraid of hurting him, so her fingers were suspended in the air, trembling slightly.
Yu Sixie's eyes swept sharply towards the girl standing alone in the corner on the other side of the office, her eyes swollen like peach pits.
But Xizhi pursed his lips, turned his face away stubbornly and refused to speak.
"Xizhi's father, Xizhi's mother, don't worry, things may be a little different from what was said on the phone..."
Teacher Li looked at the obviously angry parents, sighed helplessly, and rubbed his eyebrows.
The girl in the corner shrank back when she saw Yu Sixie's look. Her lips pursed and bigger tears rolled down her cheeks, but she bit her lips tightly and dared not cry out loud. She was so aggrieved that her whole body was shaking slightly.
Yu Sixie remained relatively calm. He held Xi Tong's trembling shoulders and said in a deep voice, "Teacher Li, what exactly is going on? We need to know the whole story."
His eyes also swept over the injuries on his son's face and the girl who was alone and aggrieved, and his brows furrowed even tighter.
…
Xizhi and Luo Xuanji are recognized as the "good kids" in Class 3, Grade 2.
In Luo Xuanji's eyes, this new student is both smart and handsome.
He has a calmness beyond his years.
He loves Legos, gear circuit boards, and all kinds of complex data.
He speaks clearly and has a clear gaze. He likes to observe ants moving and can accurately tell their scientific names.
In Xizhi's eyes, he only recognized Luo Xuanji among the girls.
She is like a butterfly kissed by the sun, lively and enthusiastic, with a rich imagination and a strong desire to express herself.
Her paintings are always colorful and are posted in the most conspicuous place in the classroom.
She was also the first student in the class to actively invite him to play together.
They used to be very good friends.
During lunch break, Luo Xuanji would give half of the pink strawberry cake in her lunch box to Xizhi, and Xizhi would use his neat handwriting to help Luo Xuanji correct the occasional typos in her diary.
They would squat by the flower bed and marvel together at a new iris.
Perhaps it was this kind of beauty that gave Luo Xuanji a vague and sweet illusion.
In her seven-year-old logic, "especially good" should mean "good only to me" and "listen to me in everything."
She began to rely on Xizhi habitually.
"Xizhi, I can't tie this bow properly."
"Xizhi, my eraser is missing again. Can you lend me yours?"
"Xizhi, this handicraft is so difficult. Can you help me? You make it the most realistic!"
Xizhi would usually quietly help her tie the bow, hand her an eraser, or make some key reinforcements on her crooked handicraft.
He liked to see the smile on Luo Xuanji's face, which made him feel that he had done something very valuable.
However, this balance was broken before the annual campus technology production competition.
This is the activity that Xizhi values most. He started conceiving of it a month ago - an "automatic watering gardener" powered by gear transmission and solar panels.
He spent several weekends, under the guidance of his teacher, carefully soldering tiny circuits and debugging the meshing of gears.
That small model carries all his concentration and pride.
Three days before the competition, Luo Xuanji came to him excitedly holding a shoe box, which contained some colored paper, bottle caps and colorful straws.
"Xizhi!"
The girl's eyes sparkled with anticipation. "Can you help me make a spinning windmill house? It has to spin like a real windmill! And it has to be the most beautiful!"
As a matter of course, she placed the box on Xizhi's desk and added, "Isn't your watering can move? This will surely be super easy for you!"
Xizhi raised his head, looked at the box, and then looked at the "little gardener" on his desk which was not yet fully formed and had exposed wires.
His small brows furrowed slightly.
"Hyun Ji," he said softly but seriously, "This is my competition. I want to do it myself. You should also do your own work."
The smile on Luo Xuanji's face froze instantly. She seemed to have not expected to hear the rejection at all.
"Why? Can you help me? It's not like you don't know how to do it!"
She stamped her feet, her voice filled with coquettishness and dissatisfaction.
"I can do it, but I can't help you." Xizhi insisted. He tried to explain, "The competition is meaningful only if you do it yourself. The teacher said..."
"You're just stingy!" Luo Xuanji interrupted him, feeling a surge of grievance and anger, her eyes quickly turning red. "You don't like me at all! Otherwise, why wouldn't you help me with such a small favor?"
These words were a bit too heavy for seven-year-old Xizhi.
He opened his mouth and saw that Luo Xuanji was about to cry. He felt a little panicked, but a stronger concept about "rules" and "right and wrong" occupied him.
"This is no small favor."
Xizhi lowered his head, avoiding Luo Xuanji's gaze. His fingers unconsciously fiddled with a small gear, but the sound was unusually clear. "Besides, if you don't do it yourself, you will never learn. This is not good."
With a cry of "Wow", Luo Xuanji's tears completely burst out.
She didn't cry silently, but cried loudly, as if she had suffered a great injustice.
She grabbed the shoe box on the table and threw it to the ground, scattering colored paper and bottle caps all over the floor.
"Xizhi! I hate you! I hate you the most!"
Luo Xuanji ran away crying, leaving Xizhi standing alone facing the mess on the ground, feeling confused and a little sad.
He didn't understand why he became an "annoying" person just because he didn't help her with the handicraft.
The story did not end there. The next day, Xizhi felt a change.
During recess, he wanted to join the science group discussion with Luo Xuanji and several other classmates. Normally, they would have welcomed his participation. But today, Luo Xuanji simply glanced at him, turned her head, and said to the others, "We've had enough people."
At lunch, he habitually tried to sit in the empty seat next to Luo Xuanji with his tray in hand. A girl immediately put her coat on that seat and said, "This seat is taken."
No one spoke ill of him, but an invisible, cold wall quietly erected itself around him.
He was excluded.
The world of children can sometimes be cruel and straightforward. Luo Xuanji used her tears and influence to successfully get most of the classmates to "ignore" Xizhi.
From then on, he read books alone, played on the horizontal bar alone, and squatted by the flower bed to watch ants alone.
Xizhi tried to reconcile with Luo Xuanji by using a very exquisite blueprint of an interstellar spaceship that he had drawn, but Luo Xuanji didn't even look at it. She crumpled the blueprint into a ball and threw it into the trash can in front of him.
The final blow came this morning.
As soon as the bell for recess rang and Xizhi walked out of the classroom, a tall figure stopped him.
He was Luo Xuanji's older brother, who was in the fourth grade. He was a head taller than Xizhi, and his face was filled with indignation as if he had stood up for his sister.
"Are you Xizhi? Did you bully my sister?" The brother pushed Xizhi angrily.
Xizhi, who was much smaller in stature, staggered and took several steps back, and his schoolbag fell to the ground.
"I didn't." He lowered his voice.
"You still say no! She has been crying for several days! She said you called her stupid!" The brother pushed Xizhi hard again.
The students around gathered around and watched, pointing and talking.
Without further words, a most primitive conflict between boys broke out.
In other words, it was a one-sided shove.
Xizhi wasn't a good fighter, so he just tried to block the blows in vain. Several red marks were left on his little arm, and a button on his school uniform broke off from the tug. Finally, he was pushed to the ground, his elbow scraping against the ground, burning with pain.
He didn't cry, but just picked up the black glasses that fell on the ground, got up silently, and brushed off the dust on his pants.
Luo Xuanji's brother snorted and ran away.
When Xizhi looked up, he saw Luo Xuanji standing on the podium not far away, looking at him.
Her face no longer had the previous anger, but instead had a complicated expression, as if she was frightened.
When her eyes met Xizhi's, she immediately turned her head away and pretended to look elsewhere.
At that moment, something in Xizhi's heart seemed to shatter with a "snap".
It's not just pain and grievance, but also a deep disappointment.
During lunch break, Xizhi took something out of his schoolbag - it was not a windmill house made of a shoe box, but an extremely delicate mini windmill model made of thin wood sheets and metal shafts. The blades could even turn gently with the breeze.
It's too beautiful to be the work of a seven-year-old.
He gently placed the little windmill on Luo Xuanji's desk.
The little girls' attention was immediately attracted to it. Luo Xuanji also looked at the rotating windmill in surprise, with a hint of subtle liking and hesitation in her eyes.
"Luo Xuanji," Xizhi spoke. His voice was calm, neither angry nor sad, but rather serious, as if announcing a fact. "This is for you."
He paused, as if to organize his words, and then spoke clearly:
"But I don't want to be friends with you anymore."
These words came from the mouth of a seven-year-old child, with a determination and weight that was inconsistent with his age.
"You made my classmates ignore me and even let your brother beat me." He stated, looking at Luo Xuanji. "Good friends don't treat good friends like this. So, let's break up."
After saying that, he turned around, walked back to his seat, took out his homework and started writing quietly.
It was as if a necessary handover ceremony had just been completed.
The whole class was stunned and silent.
After a few seconds of dead silence—
“Woo…”
A suppressed, small sob sounded first, and then the cry quickly escalated into an uncontrollable, heartbroken howl.
Luo Xuanji lay on the desk, crying so hard that her whole body was shaking. Her tears rolled down like beads from a broken string, wetting the little windmill that was still turning gently.
She lost.
What she tried every way to redeem, or to punish, ultimately hit her back hard in a way she had never expected, a complete loss.
She may not fully understand the full meaning of "breaking up", but she clearly felt that something in the once gentle and friendly boy was completely closed and could never be opened again.
That was an outcome that was more unbearable for her than not being helped or being criticized.
The only sound in the classroom was the little girl's loud and sad crying.
The sunlight outside the window is still bright, shining on the delicate but lonely little windmill, flashing a slightly dazzling light.
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