Chapter 17: Exclusion He is still self-aware of his own character...
The quiz papers were handed out that day. Xu Sirui happened to go to the bathroom when they were distributed. When he returned, he found the whole class discussing the results. He wasn't interested in the results. He tore off a piece of scratch paper and began drawing a World of Warcraft map—his newfound way to pass the time.
After entertaining himself for a while, a head popped out from behind his shoulder and asked him, "Xu Sirui, how did you do on the exam?"
He didn't even look up: "I don't know."
"Don't know? Didn't you get the test paper?"
He looked around and said, "It didn't reach me."
Zhu Yingning retracted her head.
The last class was self-study. Most of the students in the class were passing around the test papers and checking their answers. Xu Sirui had no interest in participating, but Zhu Yingning's test paper was borrowed by many people. It was passed from the front of the row to the back of the row, and then from the back of the row to the front of the row. It passed in front of him several times. He inevitably glanced at the score on the test paper and found that her score was actually not bad. There were 15 multiple-choice questions and 5 big questions. She only got the last small question of the last big question wrong.
The class discussion largely focused on the last question, everyone arguing over the correct answer. Xu Sirui knew the answer, but he was too lazy to say it. His previous school had taught similar questions as early as the seventh grade, but this school didn't seem to have them yet. He felt that speaking out would seem pretentious, and he didn't have the enthusiasm to help out.
When the self-study class was over and the school bell rang, he immediately threw away his paper and pen, stood up and stretched, and couldn't wait to go home for dinner.
Eat, sleep——
Xu Sirui found that his life was getting worse and worse, and he was no different from a pig in a pigsty.
Zhu Yingning was packing her schoolbag behind him. She looked up at him and asked in surprise, "You haven't got the test paper yet?"
He spread his hands and shrugged.
Zhu Yingning immediately stood up and said, "I'll go help you look for it."
Before he could say no, she had already trotted to the podium and started a carpet search.
Xu Sirui had no choice but to stand there and wait.
The classroom was so small, Zhu Yingning searched from the front podium to the back blackboard, carefully looking in every corner, but she couldn't find Xu Sirui's paper. Undeterred, she searched again from back to front, but still found nothing.
Xu Sirui followed with her schoolbag: "Forget it, it's just a test paper, if it's gone, it's gone."
"How can that be?" she said, "Wait here for a while, I'll go to the office to ask the teacher, maybe she left it in the office." Then she was about to go out.
It just so happened that today's student on duty was also walking out the front door carrying a trash can. Zhu Yingning subconsciously glanced inside as they passed by. This glance made her stunned. She called the student on duty, reached out to pick up a crumpled piece of paper from the trash can, and carefully spread it with her fingers.
It was Xu Sirui's test paper.
"...Why is it in the trash can?" She was confused and muttered subconsciously.
Xu Sirui stood behind her and looked over her shoulder.
The paper was not only wrinkled but also covered in scribblings with a signature pen, as if someone had used it as a draft paper for calculations. He began to laugh as he read it, his laughter tinged with sarcasm and meaninglessness.
Zhu Yingning was a bit clueless, lacking sensitivity to subtle situations, but Xu Sirui wasn't. Growing up, he'd seen similar things before, so he quickly realized what was happening. He glanced at the students who hadn't left the podium yet, and said in a moderate voice, "Someone doesn't like me."
He spoke softly, but the classroom was so quiet that everyone heard it clearly. After he finished speaking, the atmosphere froze for a few seconds, and then everyone lowered their eyes in tacit understanding, busying themselves with their work, as if their backpacks were suddenly filled with too many books to handle.
Zhu Yingning was still digesting his words when Xu Sirui walked over, patted her arm, and urged, "Alright, let's go now that we've found it."
She followed him out like a fool.
It wasn't until they reached the school gate that Zhu Yingning suddenly realized, "I know, someone deliberately threw your test paper into the trash can!"
“…”
Xu Sirui was speechless at her reaction time and glanced at her silently.
As a newcomer with a sassy personality, it was understandable that his classmates would dislike him. He hadn't planned on making friends in the mountains, so he naturally didn't care if others disliked him. But Zhu Yingning didn't see it that way at all. She seemed to be struggling to accept this fact, her expression changing rapidly, sometimes shocked, sometimes stunned, sometimes depressed, as if she was the one being excluded.
On the way home, she was dejected and looked even more miserable than if her father had died.
Xu Sirui found her reaction strange and funny. When she sighed for the seventh time, he couldn't help laughing.
"What are you laughing at?" Zhu Yingning asked curiously.
"Why are you sighing?" Xu Sirui asked curiously.
She wrinkled her cheeks and said, "I don't know why people do this."
Xu Sirui chuckled, "How normal."
He is aware of his own personality, but he just doesn't want to change and is too lazy to do so.
**
Being excluded was a very small matter in Xu Sirui's eyes. He woke up from a sleep and completely put it out of his mind.
But Zhu Yingning was completely different from him. She had the ability to treat all small things as big things. During the five minutes of free time after morning reading, she suddenly said to the students in front and behind her, "I know how to do the last question."
Xu Sirui had an inexplicable sense of foreboding. He pricked up his ears and heard people around him asking her, "How do we do this?"
She explained it in clear, concise language. The more Xu Sirui listened, the more uneasy he felt, because the method she described was exactly the same as the one on his test paper. Sure enough, after she finished, amidst the praises of the students in front and behind her, "Oh my god, it's so simple!" and "Amazing, how did you come up with that?", she said solemnly, "Xu Sirui taught me. He's actually very enthusiastic."
“…”
Xu Sirui endured it again and again and didn't turn around to expose her.
No wonder she spent a long time looking at his test paper last night... Could it be that she thought that by giving him the credit for answering the last question, she could change his image among his classmates?
As he'd guessed, everyone fell silent the moment they heard he'd come up with the last question. After a few seconds, someone offered a lukewarm "Really?", someone else laughed and said, "That's a really interesting question," and someone else changed the subject, asking if there would be a random recitation check in today's Chinese class. In short, no one expressed anything like gratitude for his "enthusiasm," as Zhu Yingning had hoped.
**
Zhu Yingning's first attempt at breaking the ice failed miserably, but she didn't let it get her down. Xu Sirui was troubled to discover that she had begun to employ other methods of breaking the ice, such as doing good deeds in the class in his name, from small things like lending her own pen to others and falsely claiming it was his, to big things like taking it upon herself to swap classmates' duty responsibilities on his behalf.
When he mentions the latter, he still feels angry when he thinks about it.
According to his seat number, he wasn't supposed to clean until mid-May. But when a classmate needed to go home early to do farm work and was worried about no one wanting to swap shifts with him, Zhu Yingning suddenly stepped forward and said, "Xu Sirui can switch with you."
Xu Sirui always adhered to the principle of never being diligent if you can be lazy, and never being early if you can procrastinate. He also hated it most when others assigned him work. So when he heard Zhu Yingning had been so clever as to decide the duty rotation for him, he couldn't help but curse on the spot: "Fuck, are you stupid?"
This swear word successfully attracted the attention of the entire class. Although Zhu Yingning kept smiling awkwardly, trying to show that he didn't mind Xu Sirui's vulgar habits, everyone's eyes looked at him more gloomy and complicated.
In the end, the duty rotation fell on Zhu Yingning, because Xu Sirui refused to change no matter what.
Not only did he not change, he also put his legs high on the desk, holding the kettle to drink water in one hand, and supporting his chin with the other hand as he watched Zhu Yingning busy cleaning, just like an emperor ordering eunuchs to work.
**
I originally thought that after this incident, Zhu Yingning would be less nosy, but——
When she handed him a basketball game registration form, Xu Sirui found that he had completely underestimated the power of her words "I will not give up on you easily".
The basketball game was small, just an intramural friendly, with one group from elementary school and one from junior high school, each competing separately. Just by looking at the battered basketball hoop on the playground, Xu Sirui could already guess how shabby the game was.
He picked up the wrinkled application form with disdain and asked Zhu Yingning, "What do you want to do?"
She enthusiastically introduced, "I recommend you to participate in the competition! Each class must send at least three participants, but our class only has two boys signed up, so we're still one short. Everyone's fretting over the lack of participants and worrying about not even qualifying. If you can step up at this critical moment, everyone will definitely see you as a savior and change their minds about you. This is a perfect opportunity to break the ice!"
Xu Sirui was on the verge of despair. He took a deep breath and said, "Zhu Yingning, please let me go, okay?" He said, "I'm just a pile of mud. Mud can't be helped. Don't waste your energy on me. I don't care what others think of me."
She wasn't at all discouraged by his words. "Even though rotten mud can't be propped up against a wall, adding some cement might still save it. And you're not rotten mud, you're just a little... uh... crooked. I know you don't care what others think of you, but I still hope you can leave some good memories here with us."
He really wanted to ask what a good memory it was to play basketball with a bunch of idiots, but in the end he held back and didn't ask.
Based on various previous experiences, Xu Sirui had realized that using "I don't want to go" as an excuse would not be enough to convince Zhu Yingning, so he changed his approach and directly said, "I don't know how to play basketball."
Zhu Yingning was shocked: "Really? I remember the crew told me you could play basketball?"
"Really." Xu Sirui summoned his lifelong acting skills and revealed an exceptionally sincere look. "Really, really, more real than pearls."
This reason seemed to convince her successfully. She pondered for a moment and sighed, "...Well, I can't play basketball, there's really nothing I can do."
He was delighted and just as he was about to say that this method was so effective, it seemed that he could use it frequently in the future, he saw Zhu Yingning pull out another registration form from behind him and said to him, "Since you can't participate in the basketball game, then you can sign up for the girls' rubber rope skipping competition."
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