Chapter 102: Misfortunes never come singly. It’s unsightly…
Zhu Yingning forced a smile and laughed dryly a few times.
She had originally wanted to just smile and get away with it. Isn't it said that you shouldn't hit someone who smiles? But after laughing for a long time, she realized she was the only one laughing the whole time. Xu Sirui's face was as cold as ice, making her look like a fool. She had no choice but to shut up.
As soon as he stopped talking, the air froze again.
She glanced at Xu Sirui's face and saw that he was gloomy and looked like he was really angry. She had no choice but to straighten her attitude and stammered, "I, I just think Aunt Zhou is too lonely, so..."
"Oh?" He sneered with a wry smile, "You care so much about her? Whose mother is she? Why don't you just adopt her as your daughter?"
She remained silent.
"What happens between my mother and me is my own business. I'm the only one who has the right to decide how to handle it. Did you ever respect my opinion when you were stepping in? And in what capacity did you act on my behalf? Even my aunt wouldn't dare to do this. How dare you be so brazen? Or do you think I should be grateful to you for caring for my mother on my behalf? Don't you find this ridiculous?"
"I didn't mean that, I really..."
"have a finger in the pie."
Those few simple words could sting the heart most during an argument. She slumped her shoulders, sighed, and twirled the hem of her clothes with her fingers. Her nose felt a little sour, and she wrinkled it to suppress the sourness.
Xu Sirui seemed still furious. He stood up from the bed and said coldly, "Zhu Yingning, I'm not kidding you. If there's a next time, I won't be polite to you just because you're a girl." After a few seconds, he raised his voice and shouted, "Get it?!"
Zhu Yingning trembled when he yelled at her, and she didn't say she knew, nor did she say she didn't know.
He was annoyed when he saw her stubborn look. Then he looked down at the letter written by Zhou Tianlan in his hand, and he became even more annoyed. He raised his other hand and tore the letter into pieces without saying a word.
The sound of paper tearing was particularly abrupt in the silent room. Zhu Yingning was startled and quickly raised her hand to stop it: "Wait a minute, Xu Sirui, don't tear it——!"
She hasn't seen it yet.
Of course, she couldn't say this out loud. Saying it out loud would definitely piss Xu Sirui off to death. Seeing that words were useless, she hurriedly stepped forward and tried to stop it manually. In her haste, her slippers tripped on the slippery wooden floor. She let out a slow cry and staggered forward like a tumbler that had been pushed.
According to the development of the idol dramas that Wu Bo instilled in her, there are roughly two possible directions. Xu Sirui reaches out to catch her, and then the two of them spin 360 degrees in slow motion in mid-air and look at each other beautifully, or she throws Xu Sirui to the ground and engages in some intimate contact that is beyond common sense but seems unremarkable in idol dramas.
However, neither of these happened.
Xu Sirui subconsciously wanted to help her, but unfortunately, his eyes and hands were not quick enough, and his reaction was slow. His hand grabbed nothing in mid-air and missed. The next second, Zhu Yingning fell to her knees.
The moment she fell, her baby-like grasping reflexes returned, and she instinctively reached forward, trying to grab onto something to maintain her balance and prevent herself from falling too hard. In her panic, she actually found something to support herself, and without thinking, she grabbed it tightly, barely able to stabilize her body. When the fall was over, she opened her eyes and realized that she was holding Xu Sirui's pants.
She pulled his pajama pants down.
“…”
“…”
Dead silence.
Deathly silence spread between them.
She was stunned, staring at his legs so close to her. The first thought that popped up in her mind was -
He actually has no leg hair.
Xu Sirui was a man who was very particular about his appearance. Even in the hottest summer, he would never walk around in a vest and shorts like Sun Mingyuan. She had lived with him for so long, but she had never seen his legs or a vest.
She was thinking at a very inappropriate time, wondering if he was born without leg hair, or if he had the habit of shaving regularly?
It was not until Xu Sirui yelled in frustration that her thoughts, which had wandered into outer space, returned to Earth.
"You're a pervert, Zhu Yingning!"
He put his hands up to cover the key parts of his underwear, his face red, white, blue and black.
"Ah...I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
She then slowly realized the embarrassment, and without knowing what she was thinking, she actually reached out and helped him put his pants back on.
The elastic band retracted around his waist, also covering his hand that was blocking his crotch. This left a large, unsightly bulge in his pants, as if he was groping in front of her. Zhu Yingning pondered for a moment, then reached out and pulled his unsightly hand out.
Snap——
When he pulled his hand away, the elastic band bounced against his hip.
Looking up and meeting his gaze, Xu Sirui was completely petrified.
“…”
“…”
It’s over. It’s over.
Zhu Yingning had several white flags used for silent mourning floating through her mind, and she felt that she and Xu Sirui might never be able to reconcile in this lifetime.
Sure enough, after five or six seconds of stiffness, Xu Sirui moved, gritted his teeth, and squeezed out a sentence of "You are great" with all his strength, then turned around and left. His steps were full of anger, and a bit like fleeing in panic.
With a loud bang.
He kicked the door of his room and slammed it loudly.
**
"Did you have a fight with Xu Sirui?" Wu Bo suddenly asked during a break on Tuesday.
Zhu Yingning felt guilty and wiped the non-existent sweat from his forehead, saying, "No... Why do you say that?"
"Don't you usually go to and from school together? But not these past two days."
"Oh, that's because of these past few days..." She tried to come up with a decent excuse, but couldn't. Looking into Wu Bo's eyes, she said dejectedly, "Okay, we did have a fight."
It is really one crisis after another.
Wu Bo had been feeling much better over the past couple of days. She'd changed her mindset, believing Zhu Yingning's thinness must be due to her eating habits. So, she'd been imitating her diet. Every day at noon, she'd eat whatever Zhu Yingning ate in the cafeteria, chewing her rice as much as Zhu Yingning did, ensuring they both picked up their chopsticks and put down their bowls at the same time. She still cared deeply about her figure, but compared to her previous unhealthy weight-loss methods, Zhu Yingning felt this was at least healthier, so she didn't stop.
Unexpectedly, just when Wu Bo's condition improved a little, her relationship with Xu Sirui dropped to freezing point.
It's not that she hasn't thought about communicating with him, but he is completely uncooperative. Every time he sees her from a distance, he immediately takes a detour as if he saw a ghost, and when eating at home, he is determined not to appear at the table with her.
I don’t know how long the cold war will last.
Zhu Yingning rubbed his eyebrows, feeling a terrible headache.
"What did you quarrel about?" Wu Bo offered to provide support for reconciliation.
Unable to reveal the specific cause of the quarrel, she simplifies the narrative vaguely: "We started out arguing over incident A, but before we could resolve incident A, incident B suddenly happened. Now I can't tell if he ignored me because of incident A or because of incident B. Maybe it was both."
Wu Bo was confused: "What's this A and B?"
"I can't say." Zhu Yingning made a gesture as if to seal his mouth.
"Forget it, forget about A and B." Wu Bo waved her hand and offered her treasured Thirty-Six Stratagems. "Let me tell you, I was reading a psychology book a while ago and came across a psychological phenomenon called the Franklin Effect. It basically says that the more you ask someone for help, the more likely they are to like you. It seems that after helping someone, people tend to rationalize their behavior and lie to themselves, 'I helped them because I like them.' Do you understand?"
Zhu Yingning asked tentatively, "You mean, I can ask Xu Sirui to help me?"
"Yes, you can create some harmless little troubles, like lying to him at home and telling him you sprained your ankle so he can get you medicine, or pretending to get grease splashed on your hand while cooking, screaming, and wait for him to come and help you."
"oh……"
She nodded thoughtfully, planning to put Wu Bo's method into practice when she returned home tonight.
But by the evening, Zhu Yingning had completely forgotten about this matter.
Because Zhu Zhiwei suddenly lost contact.
After school, Zhu Yingning went to the clothing store and found that only Yi Yi and Emily were in the store, and both of them looked very pale. She casually asked, "Where's Sister Weiwei?"
Yi Yi forced a smile and said, "The manager went out for something."
Emily said, "She needs to go on a business trip for a few days..." After exchanging a glance with Yi Yi, she continued, "There's nothing much to do in the store these days, so she asked us to give you a few days off. Yingning, take this opportunity to relax. You haven't had much rest."
The last time she'd been given a day off for no apparent reason was on her birthday, but that day, Yi Yi and the others' faces were filled with joy and happiness, unlike today's grimace. Zhu Yingning had a hunch that something bad had happened, but when she questioned Yi Yi and Emily, they remained silent.
She insisted on staying in the store to continue helping, and Yi Yi and the others had no choice but to let her go.
She also had dinner in the store and worked until after nine o'clock in the evening. She had to leave first because she had to do her homework. Before leaving, she used the store's landline to call Zhu Zhiwei, but the other party's phone was always turned off.
Because she was worried about Zhu Zhiwei, Zhu Yingning naturally forgot about reconciling with Xu Sirui. When she got home, she immediately started to finish her homework, completely forgetting about him.
On Wednesday, during school hours, Zou Hao approached her and asked if she wanted to join him for the Model United Nations competition. He had originally teamed up with Tan Jingjing and the student council member, but the council member suddenly changed his mind, saying he had a piano recital scheduled for the competition, creating a conflict. Zou Hao had no choice but to come back and try to recruit someone else.
"I won't go." Zhu Yingning said.
"Although this competition isn't as impressive as Peking University's National High School Model United Nations Conference, and is merely an inter-district competition, winning will earn you a radio interview, making it a rare opportunity to test your mettle. Furthermore, if you plan on participating in the Peking University event next year, this will be a chance to familiarize yourself with the competition process."
Zou Hao spoke eloquently, but Zhu Yingning was worried about other things and still shook her head to refuse.
He had no choice but to find new companions and continue to lobby others.
**
As they had been in a cold war for three days, Xu Sirui deliberately walked slowly after school in the evening, hoping to be merciful and give Zhu Yingning a chance to see if she would come over and admit her mistake and seek peace.
Of course, he would not forgive her so easily. Even if she took the initiative to show her goodwill, he would not be able to give her a good face.
Facts proved that he was overthinking it. When he pretended to be casual and lay in the corridor looking downstairs, Zhu Yingning had already left his sight with her schoolbag on her back without looking back. She left in a hurry and obviously didn't remember him at all.
“…”
He was so angry that his liver ached, and he became even more determined to ignore her for the rest of his life.
It just so happened that Guo Yingying came over to invite him, saying that several classmates wanted to go to KTV to sing tonight and asked him if he wanted to join.
Their class was now essentially divided into two camps: one represented by Feng Da, the other by him. However, the group he represented didn't truly sympathize with or understand his situation; at least half of the students—especially the boys—were only willing to play the sleazy young master game with him out of respect for Guo Yingying.
Xu Sirui was actually quite annoyed by this kind of camp division and thought that taking sides was extremely boring, but in order to maintain the superficial peace in the class, he nodded and agreed.
By the way, I want to make Zhu Yingning angry.
Although he knew rationally that she would never get angry over such a small matter, and that when she found out that he and his classmates went to KTV, she would probably just say, "That's great, you've integrated into the group, I'm so happy for you," but Xu Sirui still childishly wanted to create the appearance that "I still have a lot of friends without you, and I'm very popular."
**
Zhu Yingning stared blankly at the clothing store in front of her, her heart pounding and her breathing difficult.
A clerk from the Watsons next door came out and saw her. She exclaimed, "Ah!" and asked hesitantly, "Are you the girl who helps out in this store?"
She looked towards the source of the voice and tried to speak, but her voice was trembling. She swallowed hard before regaining her voice and said with difficulty, "...I am."
"You've arrived at a bad time. The staff at this store were just taken away by the police," the Watsons clerk told her. "A group of people just came and started causing trouble, smashing the entire store. Your staff called the police, and they finally broke up the dispute. The troublemakers, including your owner and the two staff members, are now at the nearby police station, giving statements. If you're worried, you can go over and ask about the situation."
"Is anyone hurt?"
"In a fight, some scratches are inevitable, but no one was seriously injured."
"...Okay." She looked at the shattered glass door of the clothing store, the clothes scattered on the floor, and the words "bitch," "whore," and "die" sprayed on the wall with red paint. Her heart was still beating uncomfortably. She raised her hand and pounded her chest, took a deep breath, calmed herself, and said, "I'll put all the clothes away and then I'll be right there."
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