Chapter 207: Eternal Love, Repeated Heart-beating Moments...
Xu Sirui thought very clearly——
As Zhou Tianqing said, he should first find himself and realize his ideals. A person who does not know how to be himself certainly does not know how to love others.
As for how his relationship with Zhu Yingning would develop in the future, he was very open-minded and optimistic, and felt that they should just wait until they graduated from university and let fate take its course.
There are too many variables in the future; even the Mayan prophecies may fail to work. No one can predict how a person's feelings will develop.
Maybe she is single after graduation, but he no longer likes her.
Maybe he will still like her after graduation, but she has already found someone she has decided to spend her life with.
After thinking it over, he made a detailed plan for himself before the start of college, including which teacher's laboratory to join, what GPA level to maintain, what achievements to make during college, how much money to save, and when to start a business.
These things were not difficult for him. He had always been good at handling academic matters and had some experience in making money.
At the start of his freshman year, he rented an off-campus apartment, unwilling to share a confined space with a bunch of other guys whose socks stank after a week of washing. He wondered how these people, coming from all corners of the world and raised in vastly different environments, could be so uniformly unhygienic. For the sake of his sense of smell and vision, he paid his dorm fees and moved out. Using his savings and the pocket money his family insisted on giving him, he rented a house that was far too large and too empty for him to live alone.
After living there for less than three days, Xu Sirui regretted it and wanted to slap himself twice for his arbitrary decision to rent the house.
The disadvantage of the large house became apparent at this moment. Every day when he came home from school, he would spend a full five minutes worrying about whether to turn on all the lights.
Because if all the lights were not turned on, some corners would not be illuminated and would appear pitch black. He always suspected that a few ghosts would suddenly appear from those places.
But if he turned on all the lights in the house, the lights would reflect the size and emptiness of the house. He sat alone on the sofa, as if sitting in a barren desert, with no human voice around him. It seemed particularly desolate, and with the erhu music as the background music, it was even more chilling, worse than seeing a ghost.
What's even more hateful is that this house has excellent sound insulation - so good that although he has neighbors, it is almost the same as having no neighbors. Every day when he closes the door, it seems as if he is the only living thing left in the world.
Xu Sirui believes that humans are social creatures and cannot live in a space without other humans of the same kind.
However, the house couldn't be rented out short-term. Not only did he pay a two-month deposit and one-month rent, he also signed a year-long lease. After a week of careful consideration, Xu Sirui decided to sublet it. Even if he couldn't find a tenant in the short term, he had to move out immediately. Otherwise, his depression seemed to be getting worse.
After posting the sublet, he immediately found a smaller apartment near the school, about 40 to 50 square meters, with one bedroom and one living room. It was a self-built building, with two households per floor. Upstairs lived a faculty couple with a son and daughter; downstairs were two female students from the same school, seemingly close friends. As for his neighbor, a male PhD student who claimed to be only 26 but looked 36, balding and with bags under his eyes, as if he had prematurely lost his sexual function.
Xu Sirui was quite satisfied with this setup. After all, everyone was well-educated, so living together shouldn't present any quality issues. Furthermore, the soundproofing was excellent, allowing him to fall asleep to the sound of people talking, a fact that greatly satisfied his social needs as a social creature.
But he soon realized that he was overthinking it.
The couple upstairs were indeed highly educated; they rarely argued loudly, and their two children were well-behaved and never yelled. But precisely because of this, their parents placed great emphasis on their children's well-rounded development. Every evening, upstairs, the sounds of a little girl playing the piano and a little boy skipping rope would fill his ears. The thud of the rope slapping against the floor, the thud of the little boy landing on the floor, and the erratic piano beats would torture his eardrums. This noise would often continue intermittently from dusk until 10 p.m. On weekends, it was even more intense; he couldn't even think of resting all day.
The two girls downstairs have a very good relationship. They sleep together every night and discuss gossip. When they talk about something shocking, they will laugh silently. The laughter can be clearly heard by Xu Sirui through the wall panel, making him feel as if he is lying between them and being forced to listen to gossip.
Being a doctoral student was the main reason for his relocation. Whether it was academic pressure or a natural lustful nature, this guy watched porn almost every night. Xu Sirui finally understood why he looked so kidney-deficient; it turned out to be genuine kidney deficiency.
Considering his precarious mental state, he moved out again after living in the self-built building for a week.
This time I moved back to the dormitory.
Fortunately, he had paid the accommodation fee, so moving back was just a matter of making the bed and lying down.
Your roommate doesn't wash his socks? No problem, as long as he washes them himself.
Does your roommate snore? No problem, he has earplugs from when he lived in a self-built building.
Does your dorm smell bad? No problem, your nose is adaptive.
After solving the problems of smell and vision, his roommates were actually quite easy to get along with. He was lucky not to meet anyone who was too difficult to get along with, or maybe it was because he himself was such a difficult person.
His obsession with cleanliness became more severe than ever before under such circumstances. He strictly prohibited his roommates from touching his belongings without his permission, especially bedding and toiletries, because he could not ensure that they washed their hands after using the toilet every time.
Other than that, they got along pretty well.
Perhaps people are simply drawn to the strong—good academics, good looks, independent minds, and the occasional jokester—and with all these added up, Xu Sirui quickly becomes a hit wherever he chooses. Whether in class or at a meal, roommates or classmates of the same sex often approach him to invite him along. On the street, he's often given flyers for clubs by his seniors. During military training, his striking appearance earned him the instructors' choice for the honor guard on the first day. Since the start of school, he's been featured on countless confession walls. Every time he goes to the library to study, he's asked for his WeChat ID.
Compared to many people, his life seemed like a cheat. Countless people came and went around him, and whether it was friendship or love, he seemed to have it all at his fingertips. Even Zhou Tianqing encouraged him, "Ruirui, you can open your heart and make more close friends at your new school. If you meet the right person and want to fall in love, I support you."
But he doesn't want to make friends or fall in love.
He felt that he had a strong need for social interaction, but was also resistant to deep social interaction.
He just felt lonely.
In his book "Mind Control," plastic surgeon Maltz once said his patients needed at least 21 days to change their psychology. This statement was later widely quoted to describe how it only takes 21 days to form a habit. Xu Sirui thought this conclusion was pure bullshit. Otherwise, why did he never stop missing her even for a single day after so many 21 days passed?
For him, learning anything else was secondary; the most difficult part was actually dealing with the emotional backlash. It was then that he realized that "thinking it" and "acting on it" were two completely different things.
The so-called need for living in a group is, to put it bluntly, just an excuse to miss her.
They had never been apart for such a long time since high school.
This is not an ordinary separation, not as simple as him going somewhere to travel for a few days or her staying with relatives for a few days.
Opening up the chat history, he realized they were so estranged they couldn't even count as someone helping each other out, or even someone who liked posts on WeChat Moments, because she rarely posted. He was no longer the first person to hear about her joys, no longer someone who knew everything about her, no longer her default choice to share with, no longer someone who could see her distressed expression when she was lost, confused, and lost, no longer someone he could call out by name anytime, anywhere.
Hello, Zhu Yingning!
He will no longer have the chance to share in her joys and sorrows.
I want to type some words in the chat box and ask her about her recent situation as if nothing had happened, but I am afraid that I will burst into tears while talking, and then all my efforts will be wasted. I habitually rely on her, release all my fragile emotions in front of her, and cry like a three-year-old child, begging her to let us be together now and not worry about those trivial things.
Is he mature enough to manage a relationship? Or, in other words, what exactly is the standard of maturity?
Along with this question came his confusion about his own emotional state: sometimes he felt like he liked her so much that he might die if he didn't see her soon, and sometimes he felt like he no longer had any special feelings for her.
Sun Mingyuan's comment on this was: "Has your depression turned into split personality?"
"Sometimes when I think of her, my heart aches uncomfortably. Sometimes, my heart is as calm as water, and I feel like nothing matters. Everything about her has nothing to do with me. So, do I still love her?"
"Based on my experience of liking dozens or even hundreds of people..." Sun Mingyuan offered a rare piece of constructive advice, "You'll know once you meet her."
Xu Sirui thought it made sense, so he skipped a few classes, bought a ticket and flew to Beijing, of course, without telling anyone.
He had obtained Zhou Tianqing's class schedule in advance and used it to find her classroom. She was taking a large class, a multimedia classroom that could accommodate hundreds of students, and it was packed with students from three classes. He blended in without looking out of place.
Although it is a large class, the content is rather superficial. It talks about the image evolution of ancient Chinese mythological characters, and is used to help students get credits.
During the class, he tried to find her in the crowd, but failed. It was not until the class was about to end and the teacher called on people to make a presentation that he saw her when she went to the podium as a representative of the group.
The students in the audience were either drowsy or anxious to leave, and no one was paying attention to the podium, let alone listening to her presentation on such an insignificant group project. But Zhu Yingning was not affected at all. She stood straight as a pine tree, her eyes scanning the teachers in the front row and the noisy classmates, and she earnestly explained the research results of herself and her team members.
The arguments are clear and the logic is rigorous.
Although there were no audiences, she performed with great sincerity from beginning to end.
He still remembers that the topic she chose at that time was "On the Changes and Updates of the Image of Sun Wukong throughout the Dynasties."
The lights on the stage weren't bright, yet he felt as if she were radiant. It was strange. She wasn't describing anything passionate, no climaxes, no ups and downs, not even a random stock market plunge. She was simply reporting on the results of her investigation. Yet, his heart beat faster and faster as she spoke with such composure and force.
He had always thought that he liked her more because she was so nice to him, until that moment he realized he was wrong.
Even if she wasn't so nice to him, he would still like her because what attracted him was never just the kindness of one person to another, but her as a person, her consistent "seriousness" and "earthyness" from the beginning.
Besides someone as unsophisticated as her, who else would seriously give a report in such a frivolous class? He wanted to cry and laugh at the same time.
He discovered that he had made another mistake.
About what love is.
He once thought that love meant loving someone intensely all the time, and that fading passion was equivalent to betrayal, but that was not the case.
Life's fundamental principle is calmness. Even the most turbulent of lives cannot live in constant dramatic tension. Sometimes passion fades, sometimes family ties prevail over romantic love, and sometimes a touch of fatigue sets in. None of this matters, and it's not a sin. No one can constantly maintain their emotional peaks without fatigue.
Love does not mean being at the highest emotional point all the time, but even if the days are so dull, you will be moved by the same person again and again because of some shining moments.
It is these repeated heart-beating moments that constitute eternal love.
**
"So you think you're a burden to me, not even telling me your true thoughts, and making decisions for me without my knowledge?" Her tears, which had been stagnating for a while, suddenly burst out again. She shook her head and said, "Have you ever considered that this doesn't really respect me?"
"...I'm sorry." Xu Sirui lowered his eyes.
"I wasn't afraid of being dragged down by you, nor was I afraid of being in different places, or of your emotional instability. I could have completely..."
"I know you can." He interrupted her softly, raised his eyes and looked into her eyes again, frowning slightly, "You can tolerate anything, just like your parents treated you, you would not give up on them. Even if I was unreasonable, you could accept me at that time. But Zhu Yingning——"
"I don't need your great love, nor do I need you to be so selfless to me like you are to others. You can be more selfish in front of me." He said in a deep voice, "I hope that when you love me, you love me selfishly."
Zhu Yingning was stunned.
In her limited life, the word she heard most often was undoubtedly thank you.
She thanked her for her efforts, her help, and her assistance when they were in trouble. The more she heard about it, the more she felt that helping others had become her instinct and duty, something she could do without thinking, and a responsibility that she took for granted.
But from beginning to end, it seemed that only Xu Sirui had been reminding her that she could be less selfless.
She can selfishly choose herself.
She could selfishly pursue her own life without being bound or influenced by any feelings - not even his.
"...I'm not trying to force you to make any choice. I just want to know if you still like me. I only care about the answer to this question." He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, leaning against the wall. His voice became even lower and slower under the influence of alcohol, almost trembling and pleading. "So...did I make your heart beat again, Zhu Yingning?"
The damp smell of alcohol evaporated between them. Through the foggy light at the bathroom door, his facial features appeared blurry and clear in her eyes, clear and blurry.
She opened her mouth and asked with difficulty, "...Is the answer to this question important?"
"It's very important," he said.
Silence dissipated again, materializing between them like invisible and intangible glass.
She was slow to speak.
Maybe she should say something, whether it's a clear rejection or something else, she should take this opportunity to make it clear to him and shouldn't delay any longer.
She opened her mouth and was about to speak when a voice from a distance interrupted her: "Yingning? Why do you take so long to wash your hands? I saw that you hadn't come back yet, and I thought something had happened to you..."
It’s Wu Bo.
She walked towards her, and only when she was almost close did she see Xu Sirui standing in front of her. She was stunned for a moment, and her expression instantly became awkward: "Uh... did I interrupt you guys?"
Zhu Yingning shook her head habitually.
"Oh... If not, then let's go back?" Wu Bo scratched her head. Seeing that Zhu Yingning and Xu Sirui didn't say anything, she reached out and grabbed her wrist, leading her to their seats, and said excitedly, "If you don't come soon, they will eat up all the delicious food! And let me tell you, you really should go and see Sun Mingyuan's embarrassing appearance. Oh my - it's so funny! He's drunk and reciting the love poems he wrote for girls in elementary school. Hurry, hurry, if you go too late, you won't even be able to record the video..."
Wu Bo's words rang in Zhu Yingning's ears. She tried hard to hear them clearly, but the words slipped away from her ears in a crooked voice.
The way to the seat was not far. She followed Wu Bo, walking slowly and sluggishly. Her mind was not very clear. Her head felt heavy and dizzy. She was drunk and her thoughts were in a mess. She realized that her alcohol tolerance might not be that good.
I glanced back and found that Xu Sirui didn't catch up.
Is he still standing there?
Why didn't he follow?
"Wu Bo..." Zhu Yingning said in a low voice.
Maybe she spoke too softly, Wu Bo didn't hear clearly, and still pulled her forward.
Their seats were almost in front of them, so she had to use some strength to pull Wu Bo back, and her voice became a little louder: "Wu Bo, go over there by yourself."
"Huh?" Wu Bo was momentarily unresponsive. "What else are you going to do?"
Yeah...what is she going to do?
She herself couldn't seem to explain it clearly.
But her mouth was out of her conscious control and answered on its own: "I still have something to do, you don't have to worry about me for now." After that, she gently brushed away the fingers that were grabbing her wrist, turned around and ran towards the bathroom.
She ran the short distance with the momentum of a sprint in an 800-meter test. The passengers along the way were startled by her and cast surprised glances at her.
She ignored it, dodged the waiter who was serving the food, and ran to the bathroom panting.
Xu Sirui was indeed still there.
Still in the same position, still in the same posture, but his right hand was slightly covering his abdomen, and his expression was a little lonely.
When she stood in front of him, panting, he seemed startled. However, before he could speak, Zhu Yingning asked first, "Why are you still here?"
In fact, she knew he was waiting for her answer without him answering.
At that moment, it seemed as if all other concerns were unimportant. She looked into his eyes, took a deep breath, and said with certainty -
"Yes! I still like you."
"My stomach hurts a little."
Their voices rang out simultaneously.
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