Chapter 225: Impulsiveness is Love. What’s the point of being sober and restrained all day long?
Zhu Yingning rushed straight to Wang Sheng's house.
The three of them were having dinner. Seeing her come back, Lei Yuting stood up from her chair in surprise and asked her if she had left anything behind.
She shook her head repeatedly, only then realizing the rashness of her actions. But since she was already there, she could only lie without hesitation: "I...I suddenly remembered that my friend mentioned renting a place here. That tenant might be my friend. Secretary, can you lend me your phone so I can chat with him for a few minutes? I want to see if it's really him, or if I've misunderstood."
Lei Yuting and Wang Shengju exchanged bewildered glances. Wang Shengju slowly pulled out his phone and opened the chat interface on the rental app. Lei Yuting smiled awkwardly at Zhu Yingning, "Oh, look at me! I didn't even know this existed. Um... Yingning, don't take what I just said to heart. I don't mean to dislike your friend. I just have a quick tongue."
Zhu Yingning then remembered Lei Yuting's earlier complaints about the tenant and said with a smile, "It's okay, Aunt Lei. I know you don't mean any harm. He's certainly difficult to please. But he doesn't have a bad heart."
Over there, Wang Shengju found the chat interface and handed the phone to her.
As soon as he saw the other person's nickname, Zhu Yingning knew that this person must be Xu Sirui. Although his avatar was the default avatar of this software, his nickname was "Yan Wu San", which was similar to his QQ and WeChat nickname "Xu Three".
And the three is in traditional Chinese...
She knew without thinking that he must have felt that the simplified Chinese character for "three" was too "rustic", that it looked like Zhang San, Li Si, and that it lacked "style", so he had pretended to have installed the traditional Chinese character for "three".
How did this person manage to be so convoluted and yet still be so simple and understandable?
She wanted to laugh as soon as she saw the nickname, especially when she scrolled through the chat history and found that Wang Shengju had always called him "Mr. Yan", and Xu Sirui also accepted this name change as if nothing had happened.
Wang Shengju noticed that she was smiling the whole time, and he couldn't help but become interested. He asked, "Is she really your friend?"
She nodded and typed into Wang Shengju's chat interface, "Why did you come here to rent a house?"
Xu Sirui was probably browsing his phone while eating at this time, so he replied quickly, his tone rather arrogant: "It's none of your business."
"I think it's my business." She replied, "Are you Xu Sirui?"
The other end of the line fell silent instantly, and the reply speed was not as fast as before. It was obvious that he had guessed who she was. After two or three minutes, he sent the two words "no".
She quickly poked the screen:
“…Not you, you big-headed ghost!”
"Did you also sponsor that agricultural product livestreaming competition in July?"
This time he replied even slower: "No."
Okay, keep talking tough.
She was both angry and amused, gnashing her teeth as she continued typing, "Come to me about the rental. I'll record a video for you. Don't bother our branch secretary anymore." Then she returned the phone to Wang Shengju, telling him she'd be responsible for the rental from now on. Wang Shengju was overjoyed, saying a polite, "That's great," but his face was beaming. To avoid further bothering them, Zhu Yingning said goodbye and left.
When she returned to her dormitory, the team members were still eating. Hao Yuechu looked at her curiously and asked, "Captain, what did you do just now?"
"Nothing, something happened suddenly, so I went to the secretary's house." She found her cell phone and sent a WeChat message to the head of the base asking for the contact information of the personal sponsor of the live broadcast of the competition in July.
The other party didn't reply immediately. She put down her phone and sat back at the table to eat while waiting. Hao Yuechu laughed when she heard this: "Oh! I'm glad nothing happened. Captain, you don't know. Just now, Fang Yiliang thought you ran outside to vomit because his cooking was too bad."
"How is that possible?" She was at a loss whether to laugh or cry.
After dinner, Zhu Yingning took the paint bucket and went up to the roof to paint. After she finished, the phone in her pocket finally vibrated. It was the base manager who sent her a WeChat message from the sponsor. She clicked on the red dot and took a closer look. Yes, it was Xu Sirui, it was a done deal.
I decided to go all out and took a screenshot and sent it to him.
The evidence was irrefutable, and Xu Sirui could no longer deny it, so he sent a pitiful emoticon.
She shook her head and laughed, and was about to make a call when his call came first, so accurate as if he could read her mind.
"Hello?" The moment she picked up the phone, Zhu Yingning realized that after not contacting him for several months, she actually missed him far more than she had imagined. The last syllable of "Hello" trembled slightly. She quickly cleared her throat and chose a harmless greeting to ease the mood. "Have you eaten?"
Did you have meal?
This is indeed the most perfunctory, down-to-earth and warmest greeting from the Chinese people.
Xu Sirui chuckled softly, his voice lower than what could be heard in reality due to the transmission of electrical signals: "Yeah."
Not long after, he asked again, "What about you?"
"I'm done eating too." After answering each other, Zhu Yingning took the initiative to get to the point, lest he get carried away and forget about the main topic. She asked him, "Xu Sirui, why did you rent a house here? Forget about renting it, but you're so stupid, why did you ask for such a high rent? Houses here don't cost that much. And as for the sponsorship... why did you hide it from me?"
Just as she was browsing Wang Shengju's chat history at his house, she saw Xu Sirui's offer. This house in this remote area was priced at 3,000 yuan a month, which was enough to rent a nice studio apartment in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, or Shenzhen. It was a stark reminder of "I'm being taken advantage of, come and rip me off!" Wang Shengju and Lei Yuting were present at the time, so she couldn't say it directly. She held back until now, finally getting around to scolding him for his squandering.
Xu Sirui listened to her scolding him as a fool, as meek as a lamb, occasionally laughing, and asked, "Then how much should I quote?"
"Houses in the countryside are very cheap. A three-bedroom, one-living-room bungalow costs only 1,500 yuan at most. The price you quoted is twice the normal price."
"Oh..." Xu Sirui said, "I thought I'd quote a higher price. The landlord might feel guilty and treat me better."
"What the hell?" she said bitterly. "The landlord will just think you're easy to cheat and try to rip you off. I've seen landlords buy sofas for only a few hundred dollars, only to have tenants break them and demand thousands in compensation. They just think you're stupid and rich... No, you're stupid and rich to begin with."
He laughed again on the other end of the phone.
"Why do you always laugh?"
"nothing."
He just liked the way she openly favored him.
When you're around Zhu Yingning, you often assume she's someone who loves everyone equally, saving them all. But that's completely different. If she were truly so selfless, she'd be happy that the villagers rented out their house for a high price, instead of worrying about him quoting an unreasonable price, fearing he'd be ripped off by her fellow villagers.
When she was with him, her heart was always biased.
Favor him over others.
He wondered why he hadn't noticed this sooner.
Meanwhile, Zhu Yingning had noticed their conversation was drifting off topic, so she quickly brought it back to the point: "You haven't answered me yet. Why are you hiding this from me?"
Xu Sirui said, "If I don't hide it from you, you'll definitely think I'm not considering myself."
She was speechless because of what he said, and the words were choked in her throat and broke into two pieces, because that was exactly what she thought in her heart.
There was no shelter on the roof, and the moonlight poured down unrestrainedly, making the cement ground shimmer.
The wind blew by, lifting her bangs and blowing away the summer daytime heat, leaving only cool tranquility.
Xu Sirui's voice came slowly from the other end of the phone: "I know what you are worried about, Zhu Yingning, let me ask you a question first."
"Hmm?" She didn't say anything, tacitly agreeing to his question.
He asked: "When you are giving to those people, do you feel sorry for yourself and think that this is a sacrifice?"
This time she spoke, her voice not too loud, but firm: "No."
Using the word "sacrifice" to describe a job can easily put oneself in the position of a victim, and once wronged, one feels betrayed and hurt. Rather than "sacrifice," she prefers to use the word "pursuit," which reflects initiative, to describe her actions.
Xu Sirui smiled and said, "Me too."
She didn't react for a moment, and just when she was about to ask for clarification, she heard him say calmly: "Sacrificing for you is not a sacrifice for me."
Zhu Yingning was stunned, her cheeks slightly hot, and her voice seemed to be glued: "...This is different."
"It's the same," he said firmly. "It's the same, Zhu Yingning. It's just that I don't have the same noble state as you. You love many people, but I only love you. Other than that, there is no difference in our efforts."
"you……"
Her face suddenly turned from light red to a hot red.
Confessions interspersed in ordinary narratives are far more lethal than grand ceremonies, because ceremonies will make people have sufficient psychological expectations, knowing that the ceremony foreshadows the arrival of some kind of true confession, but in daily conversations, people are defenseless, and his sudden "I love you" caught her off guard so much that she almost couldn't hold the phone.
Xu Sirui was still talking.
He said, I wanted to answer you that day, long-distance relationship is nothing to me. I used to think that with my personality, I definitely couldn’t stand long-distance relationship, but later I realized that nothing could make me more painful than watching you fall in love with someone else during college.
He said, "I sponsored that competition, so you don't have to feel like you owe me anything. I believe you can find your way without me. You can raise sponsorship and find investment on your own; it just takes a little longer." But Zhu Yingning, life is too short, just a few short decades. You can't afford to waste any time. I hope you can use me to save time, improve efficiency, accomplish as many things as possible, and maximize your ambitions. There's nothing shameful about using resources wisely. My money and connections are your resources.
He said, "I know you want to see action that solves real problems more than just words, so I'll answer you with action. While I can't move in with you to work, 99% of the world's problems can be solved with money. I can afford round-trip flights on weekends, and I can certainly afford rent here. Even if you plan to work here for three to five years, or even longer, I can come over every weekend. And if you decide to leave, my savings will be enough for you to buy a house anywhere in the world."
After he said so much, Zhu Yingning felt she should express her excitement, but for some reason her attention strayed to the percentage: "What about the remaining 1%?"
What about those problems that money can’t solve?
He smiled and said, "The remaining 1% can be solved with love."
For a long time, Xu Sirui stopped believing in those cloyingly sweet fairy tales. It was only after he became deeply disappointed with them that he realized he had previously believed them to be the truth.
All it takes to go from belief to disbelief is a moment of family decline, a marriage lie being exposed, or a relationship ending in disgrace.
It took him so many years to go from not believing to believing again.
**
Receiving a call from Zhu Yingning in the middle of the night was a novelty for Wu Bo. It was no wonder she was surprised. She and Zhu Yingning had been in contact with each other so infrequently that their contact was regular, like a woman's menstrual period: once a month, they would visit on time, ask about each other's well-being, and then return to their own lives once they were assured of their safety. Their regularity was unbelievable.
However, she is a professional at staying up late. If she goes to bed at one in the morning, she will praise herself by saying "I went to bed early today". This call at more than twelve o'clock not only did not affect her at all, but also aroused her curiosity.
Pausing the drama he was watching, Wu Bo flicked the green answer button with his finger. He called out "Hello" with interest and then preemptively asked, "So strange? Are you suffering from insomnia?"
Zhu Yingning sighed over there: "If it was insomnia, it would be fine... I just did something very impulsive."
"Oh?" He was so impulsive that he needed to talk to her. It seemed that he was really impulsive. Wu Bo sat up straight in excitement and pinched the pillow in his arms. "What did you do?"
"I decided to go to Shanghai this weekend."
"?"
No, where was the impulse behind this decision?
Wu Bo was puzzled. After thinking for a long time, he remembered that Xu Sirui seemed to be in Shanghai. Then he suddenly realized: "Could it be that you are planning to..."
"...Well." She said on the other end, "I have something I want to say to him face to face."
Although Zhu Yingning was very tactful in her words, the things that needed to be said in person were mostly the same: love or breakup, death or illness or birth. Wu Bo had been immersed in online romance novels for years, so he understood immediately: "Oh~~~"
What she wanted to say more was, "How could you two not be together yet? How could you endure looking at that face of his every day until now?" However, considering that Zhu Yingning was a little stubborn, and her thoughts were sometimes open-minded and sometimes unexpectedly old-fashioned, she forced herself to hold back the words.
The stubborn little guy seemed a little hesitant: "I'm wondering if I made a hasty decision. I feel like I acted too impulsively..."
She didn't say anything more. Wu Bo took the initiative to pick up the conversation and said with a smile, "It's rare that you need my advice, but I really have to be fair. Don't calm down any more. If you calm down any more, you will be like an old lady in her nineties who has seen through the world. Seriously, isn't love all about impulse? How can you be called love if you are calm and sober? Friendship can still have moments of reckless fighting, so why can't love be impulsive? And how can this be considered rash? You and Xu Sirui have known each other for years. It's not like you just picked up some guy on the street and said you want to marry him. If you calm down any more, you will extinguish the biggest spark yourself."
It has to be said that the instigation of friends is sometimes extremely powerful. Zhu Yingning considers herself not to be someone who is easily instigated by others, nor does she consider herself to be irrational. But perhaps it was the late night that magnified people's emotional side. After hanging up Wu Bo's call, she squatted at the door and pondered, and actually felt that Wu Bo's words made a lot of sense.
What kind of love is it if you are always sober and rational?
She has lived rationally for so long, why can't she be impulsive?
Driven by an inexplicable passion, she took a deep breath and opened the calendar on her phone to check her schedule. It was Tuesday, and there were still three days until Saturday: Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
She exited her calendar and quickly ordered a high-speed rail ticket to Shanghai on the ticket purchasing app. Without giving herself time to hesitate, she quickly took a screenshot of the ticket and sent it to Xu Sirui.
She had just hung up the phone with him in a hurry because Hao Yuechu was calling her from downstairs: "Captain - Captain, are you there? There's a wasp in our house!!"
Then came a deafening scream, sounding like Qi Xiu's. She had no choice but to say to Xu Sirui, "Something's suddenly happened here. I'll get back to you later." Then, with a snap, she hung up. The hornet hunt took her some time, and once it was over, she had to comfort the other three people, who were frightened and nervous. By the time she'd finished cleaning up and washing up, it was already late at night.
Zhu Yingning didn't expect Xu Sirui to reply quickly when he sent the screenshot. In fact, he hoped that he would reply a little later so that she would have time to calm down tonight.
Unfortunately, Xu Sirui didn't give her a chance to calm down. He didn't even ask why she suddenly wanted to buy a ticket to Shanghai. He just said, "I'll pick you up at the station."
It was strange that after hearing his words, the last bit of hesitation in her heart finally dissipated, turning into a tranquility like a dissipating ripple.
She held up her phone, stared at the screen for a long time, and slowly typed back:
"good."
"You must come."
She had a lot to say to him.
That night, Zhu Yingning slept soundly and dreamlessly. Her mood was a bit like chewing a piece of gum that tasted faintly sweet no matter how hard she chewed it. This euphoric feeling lasted until she walked into the office. Wang Shengju hung up a phone call and turned to her, saying, "Yingning, you're just in time! I just received a notice from higher-ups asking you to go to another province in a couple of days to participate in an exchange program."
She was stunned. For the first time, she felt that the work had come at such an unfortunate time. After a long pause, she asked weakly, "Secretary, how long will I need to be gone?"
"Not long, just Thursday to Friday."
"oh oh."
Fortunately, fortunately, there is still time.
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