Chapter 45: It's just like Fan Jin passing the imperial examination
She clearly heard his apology, but her brain was like a broken instrument, unable to interpret those simple words and phrases, and kept reporting errors. The only feeling she had was—
His palms are so hot.
Her experience in handling similar situations was close to zero. After staring at each other for a few seconds, she parted her lips slightly, unsure whether it was embarrassment or nervousness, and blurted out, "Didn't you just say something?"
Xu Sirui looked into her eyes bluntly: "It just came out all of a sudden."
"It's not that I can't try hard..."
“Suddenly, my efforts succeeded.”
"It's not about overcoming..."
"Suddenly I overcame it successfully."
"Oh." She nodded, and like a leader going to the countryside to inspect the performance of grassroots cadres, she commented, "Well, that's very good." After saying that, she nodded again, agreeing with herself.
Xu Sirui lowered his head and laughed.
Unlike the wild, uncontrolled laughter from just now, at this moment, in this situation, his laughter was a bit hoarse and deep, like both a mockery and a sigh of resignation. Dusk fell, the shadows of the mountains overlapped, and they felt like they were tossed into a corner of the world, surrounded by an eerie silence. His laughter echoed from the contact of their skin, and the wrist he held could even faintly feel the vibrations of his body as he chuckled, like a magnitude 3 earthquake, unnoticed, unknown, and uncaring, yet it stirred subtle ripples in the veins that made up her body's crust.
Her cheeks were slightly hot from his smile. She bit her lower lip and pretended to be nonchalant as she pulled her hand away. She looked left and right and said something to make conversation: "It's getting late. Let's go home first."
"Okay." He still had a faint smile on his face. He withdrew his hand as if nothing had happened and stood up from the ground.
Zhu Yingning immediately breathed a sigh of relief, and took the lead, striding towards the rooftop stairs as if there was a ghost chasing him.
As a result, before he took a few steps, he heard Xu Sirui's weird cry with his teeth bared behind him: "Uh...! Wait a minute."
"What's wrong?" She turned around in confusion.
Xu Sirui was seen holding onto the rooftop railing, his expression distorted, his back hunched, his legs trembling like a baby just learning to walk: "Damn, I've been squatting for too long, my legs are numb!"
“…”
The ambiguous atmosphere disappeared in an instant.
**
When they got home, Xu Sirui was still arguing with her about whether the numbness in the legs or the cramps was more uncomfortable.
Zhu Yingning hadn't wanted to argue with him about such a childish topic, but he wouldn't stop, buzzing like an annoying mosquito. She was so annoyed by him that she finally had to join the verbal battle, saying, "Of course it's a cramp. You feel the numbness in your legs is more uncomfortable because you just experienced it, and the feeling is more vivid to you. But leg numbness is just numbness, while cramps hurt. Pain! How can you compare?"
Xu Sirui rolled his eyes. "Stretching a cramp will be enough. How are you going to deal with the numbness in your legs? One can quickly relieve it, but the other can't. There's definitely no way to deal with it, so which one is more uncomfortable?"
"I can't communicate with you." She waved her hand and walked to the kitchen, taking over the busy Liu Guifang and started cooking.
Xu Sirui followed in, leaned against the edge of the stove, crossed his arms, and snorted, "I can't reason with people like you."
“…”
She dug out a piece of dried bacon hanging from the ceiling, brought it to the chopping board, sighed, and curled her lips in confusion, "Xu Sirui, do we really have to discuss such a meaningless topic?"
He said happily: "You know it's not nutritious, yet you still argue with me."
"It's obviously you... Oh, never mind." She surrendered and started cutting the meat, thinking that shamelessness is truly invincible.
He didn't know what was so good about winning such a boring argument. He just smiled foolishly beside her for a long time before he came over to help her peel garlic.
At this time, Yang Ji walked into the kitchen from the back of the house and looked at Xu Sirui: "I have something to tell you."
"We'll talk later."
He was concentrating on peeling garlic and didn't even turn his head, so he didn't see Yang Ji's gloomy face behind him.
The photographer who was filming Xu Sirui noticed something was wrong with Yang Ji, walked over, and asked in a low voice, "What's wrong?"
Yang Ji hooked his finger at him: "Come out with me first."
They chatted outside for a while. Zhu Yingning didn't take it seriously at first, but when she turned around, she saw the photographer's jaw drop as Yang Ji spoke, his mouth wide open like a black hole. Unsure of what he meant, she frowned and said to Xu Sirui, "You'd better go out and take a look. It seems Uncle Yang has something important to tell you."
"What could possibly be the matter with him?"
Having said that, Xu Sirui still put down the clove of garlic, turned around and walked out.
Seeing him come out, the conversation between the two people outside the door spontaneously paused. Yang Ji looked at him with a face as dark as the bottom of a pot.
"I haven't offended you, have I?" Xu Sirui was very puzzled. He put one hand on his waist and shook the hand that had just peeled garlic - there was still a little moisture from the garlic juice on it. "Why do you look like that?" he asked casually.
Yang Ji finally spoke, and said coldly: "Your parents gave me 200,000 yuan."
"Huh?" Although he was quite puzzled as to why his parents were so careless and wanted to spend money on Yang Ji, his wealthy family background still made him blurt out subconsciously, "Just give it to me."
"——As liquidated damages." Yang Ji took a deep breath and added.
"Liquidated damages?" Xu Sirui was stunned. "Who breached the contract? Me? My parents? Or Zhu Jixiang? Why should I pay you liquidated damages?"
"I want to know what happened more than you do," Yang Ji sneered. "Fuck it! I've been doing this show for so long, and this is the first time I've seen anything like this! They didn't explain anything, just gave you liquidated damages and told you to go home tomorrow night. Xu Sirui, didn't you always want to go back? Okay, you're free. Fuck!"
Xu Sirui froze in place.
**
Two minutes later, he stumbled back into the kitchen, trying to pick up the unpeeled clove of garlic to continue peeling, but his eyes widened as he grasped nothing. Zhu Yingning glanced at him in confusion, explaining as she continued cooking, "I've already peeled it and brought it in. What did you say to Uncle Yang just now?" Seeing his detached look, she had a feeling something was amiss and asked cautiously, "...Are you okay?"
"It's okay." He replied mechanically, his hands resting on the edge of the stove, still immersed in this sudden news.
The more Zhu Yingning looked at it, the more she felt something was wrong. She silently put down the cooking spatula, wiped her greasy hands on her apron, and walked outside: "I'll go ask Uncle Yang."
"Hey!" Xu Sirui quickly called her.
For some reason, he subconsciously wanted to hide this matter from her first, so he lied endlessly: "It's really nothing, it's just... uh... Yang Ji said that my pet dog died." In fact, his family didn't even have a pot of flowers, let alone a dog. Whatever Zhou Tianlan raised died, and he had this self-awareness that he would do anything ruthlessly, so he didn't harm any animals.
"Ah?!" Although it was the first time she heard that his family had a dog, Zhu Yingning still frowned and expressed sympathy, "How could this happen? Is he sick?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Bar?"
"It's just... Anyway, I'm not sure. It might just be the end of old age. Our dog is quite old."
"Is that so?" She lowered her eyebrows and patted him gently on the back. "Then don't be too sad, Xu Sirui. Death of old age is called a happy funeral here. It will go to a good place."
Xu Sirui felt guilty and ashamed after being comforted by her. He nodded randomly and looked away.
Zhu Yingning obviously believed his explanation and felt it was inappropriate to go to Yang Ji to inquire about such a sad thing, so she turned around and walked back to the stove, continued to cook with the spatula, and glanced at him from time to time, as if she wanted to comfort him but didn't know how to start.
He was so upset that he stood by the stove for a while. He couldn't stand her caring look any longer and said, "I'm going to go out for a walk and get some fresh air."
"Oh, go ahead." She watched his back with concern.
Xu Sirui wandered out in a daze.
It was not until he reached the big tree at the entrance of the village that he realized something—
What on earth was making him so confused and distracted?
Wasn't going home what he'd been looking forward to since his first day here? This shabby mountain valley, with no air conditioning in the summer, a dry toilet, and everyone had to sleep on a single kang. There was no modern transportation, and even school had to be a five-kilometer walk. The school was so shabby and small, with elementary and middle school students crammed into the same building. Not to mention the internet cafes, where even phone calls had no signal. And the hair salons cut his hair like that! Now that he'd finally escaped this hellhole, shouldn't he be beaming with joy? Why was he so irritated now?
Xu Sirui squatted on the familiar stone in a trance for a long time, and finally came to a conclusion -
Because it's too abrupt.
This news came so suddenly.
There was no preparation, let alone any buffering, and it just came down with a bang. Although it was good news... but if it hit someone on the head so suddenly, it would also make them stunned.
He is now in a typical state of being stunned, just like Fan Jin who passed the imperial examination. It's good that he didn't get so excited that he foamed at the mouth and convulsed on the ground. As for joy, he would have to wait until he slowly recovered to experience it.
Yes, that's the truth.
After deducing the truth, he slapped a mosquito that was sucking blood on his arm to death and returned to Zhu Yingning's house with heavy steps.
She had already prepared the meal. Liu Guifang had already set out the familiar, tattered, low table on the bamboo mat in the center of the house. She set the dishes on the table, while Zhu Yingning, as usual, added broth to the rice and mashed it with a spoon, preparing to feed her grandmother later. The incandescent light bulbs illuminated the crowded, simple house, a brilliant glow that seemed shrouded in a thin mist.
This scene, which he once strongly despised but later gradually got used to, actually made him feel a little sad at this moment.
He sat cross-legged at the low table, looking at his bowl.
"Eat, eat more." Liu Guifang pushed all the bacon in front of him as usual.
Xu Sirui hummed, picked up the bowl and chopsticks, and slowly put the rice into his mouth.
Behind her, Zhu Yingning's voice could be heard, coaxing her grandmother to eat. The old lady was sometimes difficult to please, and would only eat when she heard a joke. Zhu Yingning had no choice but to repeat in dialect the jokes she had told so many times that she had grown tired of them—but because of Alzheimer's, the old lady could never remember them.
Everything was the same as usual, even the photographer squatted quietly beside him and filmed. Xu Sirui knew that Yang Ji was probably trying to squeeze every last bit of value out of him and capture his reaction to leaving.
He chewed the food in his mouth until his saliva converted the starch into glucose, which gave him a sweet taste.
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