Chapter 28: How can beating up a villain be called fighting? That's called punishment...
Gu Dachun was standing at the door with an empty bucket. Seeing Xu Sirui approaching him aggressively, he knew he was in the wrong and quickly pointed at Zhu Yingning and shouted, "I was going to throw the water on her. Who told you to stand next to her? It's none of my business!"
Xu Sirui walked up quickly and without saying a word, punched him in the face.
Gu Dachun hadn't expected this man to be so reckless, attacking without even listening to the other person finish speaking. He couldn't dodge in time and was hit hard, with a sharp pain in his nose.
Xu Sirui shook his fist and said to him with a fake smile: "I was going to hit the door behind you. Who made you stand in front of the door? It's none of my business."
“Fuck!”
Gu Dachun covered his nose, which had been nearly twisted by a punch, and was furious. He freed one hand and tried to grab Xu Sirui, but before his fingers touched his collar, he heard Zhu Yingning shouting, "Gu Dachun, how dare you! Do you know who he is?"
He was stunned by her shout and asked unconsciously, "Who is he?"
"I'm telling you! He's—" Zhu Yingning glanced at Xu Sirui, then paused imperceptibly. The next second, she feigned indifference, raised her voice, and continued, "His father is the CEO of a listed company, his uncle is the police chief, and his aunt is a famous star. If you dare to cause trouble for him, his whole family will crush you like an ant! There's a cameraman filming them, and you were the one who threw the liquid first. I advise you to be careful."
These words made Xu Sirui dizzy, and the anger that had risen to his head subsided a lot.
His family was wealthy, but not to this extent. A publicly traded company? That was indeed his father's goal. A goal, in other words, that he hadn't achieved. A police chief uncle? Forget police chiefs; he didn't even have one. And famous celebrities. Zhou Tianqing would have laughed herself awake in her dreams upon hearing that. It was a shame her blog account only had 40,000 followers. Zhu Yingning made him sound like a domineering male protagonist who could make anything happen. Even the thickest-skinned Xu Sirui couldn't help but blush. He glanced at her, wondering what was wrong with her.
However, Gu Dachun was obviously frightened by her words. He stopped grabbing Xu Sirui's collar and looked at him suspiciously, with a thoughtful look on his face.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Zhu Yingning pulled Xu Sirui's sleeve and bluffed to Gu Dachun: "You are lucky. We are in a hurry to do other things. We won't bother with you today. If there is a next time, you will be unlucky!" After that, he pulled Xu Sirui away.
"What are you doing?" He frowned and tried to shake off her hand.
Are you kidding me? How could a single punch possibly alleviate his hatred? Gu Dachun had poured some kind of water on him, it had a sour, foul smell. He was merciful for not beating him to death.
But Zhu Yingning was extremely strong, and Xu Sirui was dragged all the way to the village entrance before she successfully pried her hands apart.
He was still furious and about to explode, but then he thought about it and remembered something. His eyes narrowed into slits and he gave her a meaningful smile. His tone became especially gentle: "Zhu Yingning, he just said he wanted to splash you."
Hearing this, she shuddered with guilt, laughed awkwardly twice, and lowered her head to run away. However, before she had taken a few steps, he grabbed her clothes by the back of her neck and pulled her back. She looked up and saw that he was smiling sinisterly: "No wonder you took the small road to enter the village. Are you avoiding him?"
Although it is a question, it is spoken in a declarative tone.
"No……"
"Tell me!" He frowned. "What on earth have you gotten yourself into? Taking advantage of me is fine, but you've gotten me into this mess. If you can't give me a reasonable explanation, I'll throw you into the pigpen right now."
She was held in his hand, dejected, and secretly observed him with the corner of her eyes. Seeing that he looked annoyed, after a long while, she raised her hands in surrender and said, "Okay... I'll tell you."
She touched her nose and murmured softly, her voice as soft as a mosquito's hum: "Actually... he is Zhu Juan's husband."
Xu Sirui didn't expect this answer. He was stunned for a moment before pressing the issue, "Zhu Juan's husband is Zhu Juan's husband. Why did Zhu Juan's husband splash water on you? Is he bored?"
Zhu Yingning looked left and right, avoiding his gaze, until he lifted her collar like a dish, shaking her up and down, almost lifting her feet off the ground. Then she continued to mutter like squeezing toothpaste: "Because I beat him, so he holds a grudge against me."
"...Who did you hit?"
Xu Sirui suspected there was something wrong with his ears. Although he knew she was strong, looking at her small frame compared to Gu Dachun's fat and strong body, he found it difficult to imagine her beating up a middle-aged man.
Since she had said it all, she simply confessed everything, twisting her fingers as she whispered, "Wasn't Zhu Juan often beaten by him in the past? The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. So I found an opportunity, sneaked over to their place, and when he wasn't paying attention, I knocked him unconscious with a brick from behind, and beat him up in the process. It was supposed to be a perfect match... but unfortunately, his family saw us, and our two families became enemies. It's not that I was afraid of him, but during that time, he would come to our village every day to curse in the streets, disturbing the neighbors and causing complaints. He even threatened to destroy our house. To get rid of him, my father compensated him with two chickens and half a pig, and told me not to go to their village to provoke him, so I took a detour."
Xu Sirui was stunned and didn't know what to say for a long time. He felt that such an impulsive thing was unlikely to be done by her, but he also felt that it was reasonable for her to do it.
After thinking for a moment, he asked the dumbest question: "Didn't you say a gentleman uses his mouth, not his fists?"
I had thought she'd feel guilty—after all, Zhu Yingning always held her traditional values as her guiding principle—but unexpectedly, she waved her fists, her face flushed, and said righteously, "That's for people who are also gentlemen. How can Gu Dachun be a gentleman? He's just a villain! How can beating up a villain be called fighting? That's called punishing evil and promoting good! I even thought I didn't hit him hard enough!"
This set of values is quite flexible and double-standard, and strangely enough, it justifies itself within the scope of values, forming a logically self-consistent set. Xu Sirui couldn't help laughing.
He laughed a few times, but when he smelled his own scent, he couldn't laugh anymore. He put away his smile, put her on the ground, and said unhappily, "I can let you go for now, but I have to take a shower when I get home."
Zhu Yingning had long been aware of his lack of gentlemanly manners. Furthermore, since this incident was caused by her, she had no objection: "Alright."
She was in good health, so a little delay in washing was not a big deal. However, Xu Sirui often gave her the feeling that she was spoiled and prone to illness.
**
What he said came true.
When Xu Sirui woke up on Saturday morning, he had a stuffy nose. Liu Guifang made him a bowl of ginger water, which he drank while pinching his nose. However, by the evening, the cold had developed into a severe cold.
Xu Sirui is prone to laziness, and when he is sick he is even more lazy to get out of bed.
On Monday morning, Zhu Yingning went to school by herself, while he stayed at home to sleep.
After drinking 999 Cold Relief Granules, which was like taking a sleeping pill, Xu Sirui slept from dawn to dusk. Except for being woken up by Liu Guifang for lunch, he was completely drowsy the rest of the time. When he woke up in the evening, it wasn't naturally, but rather because he was forced to wake up again at lunchtime to replenish his energy.
He struggled to get up from the kang, supported his heavy head, and curled up on the edge of the kang with his knees bent. He saw that the curtains were drawn and a four-legged low table was placed in the middle of the room as usual. Liu Guifang was kneeling beside the table, placing dishes and chopsticks. Zhu Yingning was standing in front of the window with the old lady's bowl in his hand, pounding rice while staring blankly outside.
It wasn't until Liu Guifang called him over to drink some hot water that Zhu Yingning came back to his senses. He pulled out a few test papers from his schoolbag, walked towards him, and said softly, "The midterm exam papers have been distributed."
His head still ached, and he casually glanced at the paper. He didn't reach out to take it, but simply hummed softly and replied in a nasal voice, "Please keep it for me."
"Ah, don't you want to check your score first?" She opened the test paper and held it in her hand as if she were showing off a certificate of honor. She showed a proud expression and grinned at him, "You did very, very well—excellent!"
Except for Chinese, all other subjects got full marks.
The score was about the same as he guessed. Xu Sirui breathed a sigh of relief and asked casually, "What place did you get?"
"First."
The rankings were also not surprising.
Although being ranked first in a grade of only fifty students was nothing to brag about, his worries about his grades were somewhat alleviated by this ranking.
The conversation should have ended here. Xu Sirui was too lazy to take the initiative to care about others. His self-centered personality was so serious that even in his former strong school with so many talented students, even though he knew that there were people with better grades than him in the school, he could not remember their names and rankings - because he only cared about himself.
But, for some reason, he suddenly remembered what Zhu Yingning had said before the exam. She said she couldn't fall behind her former self. He hadn't really thought about it at the time, but now it suddenly came to mind. He couldn't help but ask, "What about you?"
She curled her lips, and her expression instantly changed from proud to dejected: "Of course you stole my first place."
Xu Sirui observed his expression and felt that the expression was mostly joking, not really angry, so he snorted, "There must be a second place, right?"
"certainly."
"That's all right." He raised his eyebrows jokingly. "It's not shameful to lose to me."
Based on his previous experience with classmates, normal people would have said something insulting at this point, and everyone would have been making fun of him, and it would have been a joke. But Zhu Yingning's reaction was different. She smiled at him and said sincerely, "Xu Sirui, I'm really happy that you did so well in the exam."
…
Damn it.
He turned away, his palm pressed against the back of his neck, a faint blush rising from his ears. Although he had seen this several times before, he was still not used to her sudden, direct and serious way of expressing her inner feelings.
It makes the listeners feel uncomfortable, but also heartwarming.
I felt like a rat in the gutter, inexplicably moved by a ray of sunshine.
Xu Sirui patted his arms to get rid of the goose bumps caused by this association.
After dinner, he drank another pack of 999. Despite others' dissuasion, he took a shower, cleaned himself up, and then lay down again.
His last memory of that day was that Zhu Yingning came over to his bed and asked if he could lend her his test paper to check the answers. He replied in a daze, "Sure, it's up to you," and then completely lost consciousness.
However, perhaps because he slept too much during the day, 999 was unable to let him sleep until dawn this time.
Around midnight, Xu Sirui woke up, more awake than ever before, feeling like he wouldn't be able to fall asleep again for the next twelve hours.
He cursed silently in his heart, not knowing whether to continue lying on the kang or get up and do something else.
As he was hesitating, he saw the familiar dim light on the curtain.
No way? Xu Sirui tilted his head to look at the other side of the 38th parallel and found that the bed was empty. Zhu Yingning hadn't come to sleep yet. It was so late, could she still be proofreading the test papers?
Since he had nothing to do anyway, he figured she was still awake and there should be hot water in the kitchen, so he simply lifted the curtain and went downstairs to find some water to moisten his throat. Not wanting to wake Liu Guifang and Zhu Yingning's grandmother, he carefully controlled his movements and quietly slipped off the kang.
Because his movements were so quiet, even Zhu Yingning, who was studying at her desk, didn't notice him. Xu Sirui stood up straight, stretched on the spot, and his eyes naturally fell on her.
It was this one glance that made him stop so suddenly that he almost sprained his waist.
The author has something to say:
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【V front mine clearance rules】
① Regarding who ranks first and who ranks second
I personally dislike plots where the heroine is perpetually second best, forever outshined by the hero. The reason we chose to set the hero first and the heroine second here isn't because we believe the heroine should be inferior to the hero, or vice versa. Rather, it's because we've considered the disparity in educational resources between urban and rural areas and feel this is the most realistic approach. This is an objective resource gap, not a matter of individual intellectual ability. Ningning simply hasn't found the right soil for her, hasn't accessed the resources needed to fully develop her abilities. Her failure is temporary; once she enters the city, she'll be no less capable than Xu Sirui.
② Regarding the question of whether the male and female protagonists are C or not and their emotional experiences
I only have requirements for the male lead and I am very tolerant of the female lead, so the male C is certain, and I can guarantee that the male lead is pure both physically and mentally.
As for Ningning, although she met Xu Sirui first, it's possible that she first dated the second male lead and only ended up with Xu Sirui after their breakup. This means Xu Sirui might not be her first love. There's a reason for this setting, which will be addressed later in the story. I said "possibly" instead of "definitely" because I'm still struggling with this plot point myself. It's not because I'm afraid of being criticized for writing it out, but because I tend to write based on my instincts. While I'll outline some plot points, only by actually writing them can I develop the most consistent direction for the storyline.
However, since this possibility exists, those who cannot accept this possibility should carefully consider whether to subscribe.
③About insulting words about women
To be honest, I am also very conflicted about this issue ><, I can guarantee that the heroine in my book will not say any insulting words to women, but considering that the story background of this article is the real 2010, when the domestic female thought had not yet risen on a large scale, as well as the characteristics of other characters in the book, such as the elderly men in the village who favor boys over girls, the problem teenagers who are addicted to Internet cafes, and the little hooligans who love to stir up trouble... These people themselves have no awareness of respecting women. If they are asked to only use insulting words to men and not insulting words to women, or if they are asked not to curse and speak politely, the whole story will seem very fake and unreal.
After a long struggle, when I started writing, I decided to record the dirty words and bullying against women in that era, but my original intention was definitely not to promote these dirty words.
I actually hope to demonstrate this process of change through the protagonist's subsequent transformation. Early on, he's arrogant, self-centered, and treats all men and women equally. So, when he curses, he uses whatever swear words come to his mind, without shying away from any. But if he wants Ningning's affection, he must learn to respect others and learn healthy ways of loving. His swear word system will evolve as his personality develops.
Of course, this was just my idea at the time. People will change and update their ideas with the development of the times. Maybe one day, when my feminist consciousness becomes stronger, I would rather sacrifice the realism of the story than use any insulting words to women in my story.
④ Regarding the tone of this article
This is not a cool story, not a cool story, not a cool story. Growth is inevitably accompanied by pain, and the story cannot proceed smoothly. The hero and heroine each have their own strengths and weaknesses. If you cannot accept the hero and heroine having flaws, and cannot accept that they will hesitate and retreat like ordinary people, please carefully consider whether to subscribe.
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