Chapter 133 Lucky Star and Thousand Paper Cranes Left Early
Zhang Jiacheng handed over the glass bottle. Zhu Yingning didn't react at first to what he meant. It was not until he said it was a thank you gift that she realized he was thanking her for her help before the physical education class yesterday.
The glass bottle is a five-pointed star style commonly seen in stationery stores. It is the size of a palm and is filled with paper-folded stars.
"Did you fold these yourself?"
He nodded slightly: "It's not a valuable thing, please don't despise it."
"How come?" She smiled. "Then I'll take it. Thank you."
Just as he was about to put the gift away in his desk, he heard Dai Yize say to Zhang Jiacheng, "The paper you used to fold the stars is quite unique. Is it transparent candy wrapper?"
Zhang Jiacheng probably didn't expect Dai Yize to see it. After being surprised, he looked a little embarrassed. He looked at Zhu Yingning and explained, "I washed them all."
"I don't mind." She picked up the stars again and looked at them. The transparent wrappers reflected pink, purple, or yellow, blue light. "What beautiful wrappers! What kind of candies are these?"
"Regular fruit-flavored hard candies, peach and lemon flavored," he explained in a low voice.
As it happened, they were all flavors Xu Sirui liked. Curious, she inquired about the brands and planned to buy him some later. It was said that sweet things could help lift one's spirits. Ever since discovering Xu Zhengkang's infidelity, he had been depressed for a long time. Although he went to school as usual, he seemed to be covered in a constant veil of gray, and he smiled much less often than before.
She turned around and continued studying, while Dai Yize and Zhang Jiacheng in the back seat started a heated discussion - it was mainly Dai Yize who was talking.
He said he hadn't thought of the idea of folding candy wrappers into stars, but he might try it later. Then, the conversation turned to other crafts. Dai Yize boasted about her crochet skills with a beaming expression, and Zhang Jiacheng's excitement might have been contagious. Zhu Yingning overheard Zhang Jiacheng discussing, for the first time, the technique of sewing with a hidden needle and the color scheme for scarves.
"You can actually knit scarves!" Dai Yize's tone was filled with regret for not meeting each other earlier. "How come you are so tasteful? I suddenly don't think you are so annoying after all."
Zhu Yingning was shocked by their virtue. She didn't expect that Zhang Jiacheng, who looked so cold, would like to knit scarves. She was also very pleased that the ice between them had been broken.
After school in the evening, she took Xu Sirui to a convenience store near the community to see if there was the candy that Zhang Jiacheng mentioned.
Xu Sirui grumbled to himself, "I'm not a child, nor a dog. Do you think a piece of candy can make me happy?"
"Then don't laugh."
He manually pulled down the corners of his mouth that were raised: "How could I be smiling?"
She described the brand of candy to the clerk, who was a new young man and didn't quite understand. He asked, "What does it look like?"
Zhu Yingning took out the box of stars and pointed at the candy wrappers folded into stars: "The outside is this colorful transparent candy wrapper."
"Oh, I remember this one. It's on the third shelf straight ahead."
"Thanks."
She thanked him and turned to go to the container, but saw Xu Sirui standing behind her with a subtle expression, or to put it bluntly, a constipated expression.
"...What's wrong with you?" Weren't you smiling just now? It's not even June, so why does your face look like June?
Xu Sirui didn't say what happened to him, but asked, "Where did you get this? Did you buy it yourself?"
"A classmate gave it to me."
"oh."
He left after saying "oh", leaving Zhu Yingning alone and disheveled in the wind. What does "oh" mean?
When she spent a few dollars to buy a bag of candy and stuffed it into his hand, he still had an indescribable expression on his face. He took out a candy and held it in his mouth for a long time. It was not until they were almost at the door that he asked vaguely and unclearly, "Male or female?"
She gripped the doorknob, and in a flash, her mind clicked, and she suddenly understood everything, including the reason for Shao Yanjun's awkward reaction the day he gave her the scarf. A smile welled up in her chest, and she tried to hold it back, but couldn't, and burst out laughing. When she turned to look at him, her eyes were also smiling: "Xu Sirui, you..."
"Okay! No need to tell me." He was angry and embarrassed, his cheeks flushed, he walked past her, opened the door, and walked in first.
I thought the matter was over, but unexpectedly, during dinner, this person still insisted and asked, "So is it a boy or a girl?"
She was so embarrassed that she didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "It's a man, but because I helped him, he..."
I don't know if he heard the second half of the sentence, because from the moment he heard the three words "it's a boy", his expression went straight to Bao Gong's.
"Why are you helping him if you have nothing to do?"
"Xu Sirui, please stop picking fights." She patiently explained, "I'm helping him because I'm the class monitor and he's a new student. It's my responsibility to help him adapt to the new group."
"That transfer student?"
"Yes, has your class heard about it too?"
"I don't want to discuss him."
"...Weren't you the one who wanted to talk about him first?"
But this man was determined to be unreasonable to the end. He stopped eating halfway through, picked up the bowl and snorted heavily.
After cleaning up the dishes, he went to the entrance to change his shoes. When asked where he was going, he refused to tell her. Zhu Yingning was a little angry and didn't bother to care about him anymore.
She originally thought that they would have a cold war for at least a few days. When she heard him come home, she was buried in her studies in the room and did not say hello to him. But when she came out to get some water after studying, she saw him sitting cross-legged at the coffee table, holding a desk lamp in front of him, and concentrating on doing something with his head down.
She walked over curiously and saw a large pile of colored paper in front of him, with which he was folding paper cranes.
"Why are you folding this?" she asked softly.
Xu Sirui was startled by her sudden outburst, but perhaps feeling that she would have to know sooner or later, he stopped trying to hide it in embarrassment. While struggling with the colored paper in his hand, he replied without looking up, "Wait until I'm done folding, and then you replace all the stars in the glass bottle." After a pause, he added softly, "Replace them all with the ones I folded."
"?"
She almost laughed out loud and wanted to curse, "Are you crazy, Xu Sirui?" But before she could say anything, she felt that she might be the one who was crazy. Otherwise, why would she think that his petty and mean-spirited appearance was so cute?
Zhu Yingning sat down opposite him and took some of the colored paper out of the pile and placed it in front of herself.
He finally lifted his eyes from the paper cranes and looked at her: "What are you doing?"
"I'll fold it with you," she said.
The desk lamp was placed between them, dividing the table into two, like the Chu River and Han River. One was at one end of the coffee table, and the other was at the other end. Both of them were silent.
The light flowed softly between them like a river.
It illuminates his red ears and her drooping eyebrows.
**
After the first monthly exam, the results of the entire class were not ideal. Except for the top students who remained top students, the middle-level students had obviously regressed.
Hong Qingyang was very angry and scolded them for a whole class on the podium, saying that they had played around during the summer vacation and asked if they all had no intention of taking the college entrance examination. If there was a mine at home to inherit, they should drop out as soon as possible to free up their degrees for other students who wanted to study.
The school leadership decided this wasn't a good idea, so they added Saturday morning tutoring for the second grade—two classes, two exams, and one free discussion. While it was voluntary, in reality, anyone who didn't show up would be recorded by the teacher.
Hong Qingyang also established a study group system in the class, requiring groups of four to be formed nearby. Under his drastic reforms, Zhu Yingning became the study group leader for her table and the table behind her.
She had the best grades, and Zhang Jiacheng also did well. He was severely biased in his subjects, struggling with English, politics, and history. However, he was exceptional in other areas, and even with these factors, he ranked in the top 100 in the class. The real headaches were Shao Yanjun and Dai Yize. Shao Yanjun had scored remarkably last in the class, while Dai Yize fared better, but not by much, finishing eighth from the bottom.
The key point is that these two people not only have poor academic performance, but also have a terrible attitude towards learning. Shao Yanjun falls asleep as soon as he starts class, and Dai Yize suffers from ADHD as soon as he starts class. They are interested in everything other than studying - from small things like compasses and triangles to big things like a new magazine.
Hong Qingyang asked the members of the study group to learn and make progress together in the free discussion class on Saturday, but on the first Saturday, Zhu Yingning encountered unprecedented difficulties.
After finishing two classes they had to attend and exams they had to take, Shao Yanjun and Dai Yize left the final free discussion class early.
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