Chapter 144: Sticky Wax Residue Doesn’t Matter
Xu Sirui stood at the corner of the stairs. Looking up, he could see Feng Da's face, backlit, above the steps. A faint halo of light surrounded him, outlined by the setting sun, while the center of him was lost in darkness.
He raised his eyebrows impatiently, and didn't even bother to ask Feng Da why he called him. He just looked at him coldly, waiting for him to say the next words.
Feng Da walked down a few steps, then pulled his right hand out of his trouser pocket, taking out his phone. He flicked on the screen, showing a photo in front of Xu Sirui. His voice was gentle, and at first glance, it seemed to tinge with a hint of feigned concern: "Is this your father?"
As soon as the word "Dad" came out, Xu Sirui's stomach twisted uncontrollably, and his neck was bound by invisible ropes. However, his eyes couldn't escape the inertia of the words and couldn't immediately flick away from the phone screen. So he still saw that photo -
The background is the first floor of an apartment building. Xu Zhengkang holds Xu Siyang's hand with his left hand, and his right arm is around the shoulders of the woman whose name Xu Sirui still doesn't know. It is a beautiful picture of family harmony.
"I live near this apartment building," Feng Da explained with a smile. "When I first saw him, I wasn't sure if it was your father. But after seeing them a few times, I felt sure it was him... I didn't expect something like this to happen. Are you okay?"
The last four words are pronounced very lightly.
Xu Sirui sneered and gave him only one word: "Get lost."
When he said this word, he couldn't even muster any excitement. His expression was so indifferent, as if he was reciting a boring text. After he finished speaking, he turned around and walked away, his steps neither fast nor slow, his expression lazy.
Feng Da put away his phone and the smile on his face gradually faded.
Xu Sirui continued downstairs, passing Zhu Yingning's floor. He completely forgot about the thought of stopping to wait for her a few minutes ago. He simply walked past her floor and down to the first floor. His forced demeanor finally cracked. He turned into the men's restroom on the first floor, flung open the stall door, and bent over the squat toilet, vomiting profusely.
It had been a long time since he had lunch at noon. His stomach was empty and he couldn't vomit anything real. The burning stomach acid and bitter bile mixed together and washed over his esophagus and throat.
The throat was burning with stomach acid, and the tongue was filled with the bitterness of bile.
He was vomiting so hard that he couldn't even care whether the toilet walls were clean or not. He had to reach out to hold on to the wall to support his body.
He vomited until he felt like he was going to throw up his entire stomach if he continued, and the urge to vomit gradually subsided. When he straightened up, perhaps because he had been crouching for too long, his vision went white and his head was dizzy. He closed his eyes for a moment before gathering enough strength to flush the water and clean himself at the sink outside the cubicle.
The faucet was turned on and cold water splashed out.
Xu Sirui put his hand under the water and tried to scoop up some water to rinse his mouth, only to realize that his hand was shaking.
Looking up, the person in front of the mirror was paler than the wall, as pale as a ghost, a drowned ghost.
**
It took him more than half an hour to clean himself up. He stayed in the bathroom, spending a lot of time to soothe his overly pale face. That was until a teacher came in, saw his school uniform, and said unhappily, "Hey! Students can't use the teachers' bathroom."
Xu Sirui walked out without saying anything.
He walked into the corridor, staring blankly at the students coming in and out of the school gate. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone standing on tiptoe at the corner of the school gate, looking around. Her schoolbag was a striking color. He moved his gaze over to her, and when he saw her, he suddenly remembered that he had completely forgotten about going home.
Zhu Yingning looked around anxiously, and caught sight of Xu Sirui walking towards her. Her eyes lit up, and she ran towards him, chattering, "Where did you go just now? I went to your class to look for you, and they said you came down a long time ago. I thought you went home early."
He mumbled that he had gone to the bathroom.
"That's too long. Did you get an upset stomach?" She carefully observed his frail face, took out a bottle of stomach-regulating pills from her schoolbag, and insisted that he take them.
Xu Sirui originally wanted to refuse, but he thought that vomiting was probably a sign of stomach problems, and since she was so firm, he swallowed a few pills with the remaining warm water in the kettle.
As they walked side by side toward the subway station, she seemed to be worried about something and said she would call her part-time worker to ask her to replace dinner with pumpkin porridge. As she spoke, she took his phone from his schoolbag and called him. As a typical "three good" student, Zhu Yingning usually didn't bring her phone to school.
Her voice murmured in his ears, like spring water from the melting winter icebergs, flowing into his blood like a continuous warmth. He felt the subtle pulse in his wrist again, and even in the early spring breeze, his fingertips were still slightly cool.
As dusk falls, the blue hour paints the sky a rich indigo, and the breeze caresses your face and hair, bringing the sweet scent of early spring - if you ignore the lethal amount of pollen in the air.
Xu Sirui suddenly felt the urge to talk and wanted to say something to her, but before he could open his mouth, he heard her ask if they wanted to study together next Saturday like they did on the first day of high school.
"Wu Bo said her grades weren't ideal and she wanted to continue tutoring. The final exams for her second year of high school will affect the placement of her senior year classes. I hope to help them achieve better grades so they can be placed in better classes in their third year."
"Okay." He answered and casually asked, "Who are they?"
"Wu Bo, Zou Hao, a boy named Dai Yize who sits behind me, and..." After a pause, she continued, "Zhang Jiacheng." She vaguely sensed that Xu Sirui might not like Zhang Jiacheng, so she quickly added, "If you don't like them, I can also reject them."
Xu Sirui's steps paused subtly upon hearing Zhang Jiacheng's name. He didn't show it, continuing to walk forward, his profile perfectly still. But the words that were about to burst out of his throat suddenly vanished into thin air at the mention of Zhang Jiacheng's name.
He lost the desire to talk, his throat was dry, and he couldn't tell what his current mood was. He only felt tiredness from the inside out, as if invisible threads were peeling away his spirit and body.
His mind was in a mess. Sometimes he saw the image of Xu Zhengkang taking care of Zhou Tianlan who had just undergone appendectomy. Their sweet and happy smiling faces burned and melted like wax in his memory, melting into a pool of sticky tears. Sometimes he saw the image of Xu Zhengkang hugging his lover and illegitimate child. He seemed to hear their joyful laughter through the photos. Sometimes he saw Feng Da asking him if he was okay under the cold light of the mobile phone screen. Sometimes he saw the image of Zhu Yingning and Zhang Jiacheng chatting and laughing. She held the star that someone folded for her for the first time and said that it was the best gift she had ever received. Sometimes he saw his school classmates sympathetically saying that he was so pitiful after hearing that his mother was in jail and his father had cheated on him.
True and false, real and fake.
Fragments of thoughts raced through his mind, with only one sentence stubbornly lingering in his mind, saying—
True love is fickle.
He walked faster and faster, but his breathing became slower and slower. He took each breath very deeply, allowing the pollen to fill his internal organs and flow into his sore eyes.
He heard himself say, uncharacteristically indifferently, "It doesn't matter. Anyone can come."
**
Sun Mingyuan received a call from Zhu Yingning on Friday evening, asking him if he wanted to continue to come for tutoring on Saturday afternoon.
"Huh?" Sun Mingyuan was so frightened that he immediately looked around. After confirming that Wang Xiaoqian was not there, he surreptitiously refused, "Hehe, well... I won't go."
I was forced to go to tutoring in my first year of high school by Wang Xiaoqian. Although Zhu Yingning was undoubtedly a good teacher, he really had no interest or motivation in learning.
"Okay." Zhu Yingning didn't force him and hung up the phone when she saw he refused.
Sun Mingyuan didn't take the matter seriously, and by dinner time, he had already put it out of his mind. But halfway through the meal, Wang Xiaoqian suddenly said, "Why don't you go to Teacher Lin's house tomorrow morning?"
Teacher Lin was their geography teacher and homeroom teacher. Sun Mingyuan asked blankly, "Why would we go to her place?"
"Make-up class." Wang Xiaoqian calmly picked up a piece of lettuce and stuffed it into her mouth, chewing as she spoke, "I grabbed her make-up class spot. Let's go quietly and remember not to tell anyone in class. You're almost a senior, it's time to get serious."
“???”
Teacher Lin was nicknamed "Ghost-Seeing Lady". Sun Mingyuan usually tried to walk around her during class at school to avoid provoking her. Now that he heard that he was going to her house to give her special lessons, she was naturally not happy at all.
Unfortunately, his displeasure had no deterrent effect on Wang Xiaoqian. She calmly shifted her cheek and unilaterally concluded the conversation: "Get up at 7 a.m. tomorrow. It's a deal."
"No! No! How did it get decided?! How come I didn't know about this!" Sun Mingyuan slid down and hugged his mother's thighs, begging her for mercy with a tearful face, and instilled in her a lot of the necessity of a happy education. However, even after talking so hard that his lips were almost worn out, Wang Xiaoqian remained unmoved. With persuasion at a dead end, Sun Mingyuan could only retreat and wailed, "Can you please change my teacher? I really don't want to be taught by Teacher Lin! She's like a boiling kettle. The knowledge pouring out of her mouth can burn a layer of skin off my body!"
"Oh, I thought you were a dead pig that wasn't afraid of boiling water." Wang Xiaoqian patted his "pig's trotter" and said sarcastically, "Apart from your teacher Lin, who else can calm you down? Forget it!"
He was forced into a desperate situation, and a flash of inspiration struck him. He cried out, "I know! I know there's a teacher who can control me!"
"So this is why you suddenly came here?" Zhu Yingning stood at the door, looking at Sun Mingyuan who had arrived at their house to scout the place, feeling both amused and helpless.
Sun Mingyuan, carrying his schoolbag, rested his hands on the straps and nodded obediently, "Yes, Teacher Zhu, I think as a student, we should seize the opportunity to study hard. Studying hard and making progress every day is the motto we students should follow."
Wu Bo got goosebumps inside: "Eh~~~Did you take the wrong medicine?"
"Ms. Wu Bo, you are wrong. How can studying be called taking the wrong medicine? This is called turning back from the wrong path." Sun Mingyuan walked in familiarly while talking nonsense and changed his shoes at the entrance.
After changing my shoes, I glanced around the living room and saw two unfamiliar faces, both boys. So I asked in a more familiar tone, "Who are these two guys?"
“They are my classmates sitting behind me.”
"So you are my classmates. Hello, classmates!"
After saying hello, he realized that Xu Sirui was not among the crowd. "By the way, where is Brother Xu?"
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