Chapter 51 Another Gimmick: Killing Zero and Losing 1,000
"……What did you say?"
Sun Mingyuan felt like a machine with a burnt-out CPU. He heard the instructions but couldn't comprehend them. He stood there with his mouth wide open for a long moment. His initial shock gradually gave way to understanding and anger. His lips trembled violently as he asked, "...Why? Don't tell me it's just revenge on your dad?"
The eagerness and trembling in his voice didn't catch Xu Sirui's attention. Instead, the words "your dad" struck a nerve. Xu Sirui frowned and said with the annoyed expression of someone who had accidentally stepped in dog poop on the road, "How many times do I have to tell you? He's not my dad."
"Fuck!" Sun Mingyuan was furious. He stepped forward and grabbed his arm. "I'm telling you something serious and you're talking nonsense here. I think you got your head stuck in the door, Xu Sirui! Why are you using your grades and future to get back at him? Who are you getting revenge on besides yourself? Others kill a thousand enemies and lose eight hundred of their own, but I think you're even more stupid than that! You kill zero enemies and lose a thousand of your own! Are you going to sacrifice your entire future?!"
But no matter how passionately he spoke, Xu Sirui remained indifferent.
Sun Mingyuan was so angry that he felt like vomiting blood. He punched him in the chest, making a dull thud, and shouted, "Why?! Tell me why!"
"Just think of it as my revenge on him." Xu Sirui didn't even raise his eyebrows. He turned around and walked forward after saying this.
Sun Mingyuan truly longed to find someone to duel with, preferably one that would draw blood, otherwise it would be difficult to relieve the hatred in his heart. He felt a stagnant energy stagnating in his chest, unable to dissolve or expel it. This stagnant energy, if examined closely, could be described as the feeling of being disappointed in one's ability to become a better person.
Even when he lay in bed at night, his nightmares were about Xu Sirui being unable to go to school and repairing shoes on the street after graduating from junior high school.
Xu Sirui mocked him, saying it was the eunuchs who were anxious, not the emperor. This infuriated Sun Mingyuan to death. He couldn't understand why Xu Sirui could act so nonchalantly, as if the future was none of his business. Compared to him, he, the bystander, felt more like a participant. Since learning that he had handed in a blank paper, he hadn't slept well a single night, either waking up from nightmares or suffering from insomnia.
Before the high school entrance examination results came out, Sun Mingyuan always had expectations, hoping that everything was just a clumsy joke played by Xu Sirui, and that after the results came out, he would still be among the top students as before.
But the facts were like a bucket of cold water poured on him. A few days later, on the day the results were released, after he checked his results and entered Xu Sirui's admission ticket and password on the web page with trembling fingers, the result that popped up almost blinded his eyes.
"You're really finished, Xu Sirui." Sun Mingyuan looked at the result again and again, and burst into tears without any warning.
Xu Sirui had thought he would be excited, but he hadn't expected him to be this excited. He felt a little uncomfortable. He was indeed touched, but this was too...
"Can you please stop doing this?" He sighed and kicked his lower back with his slippered foot. "It's not that easy to be ruined."
Sun Mingyuan waved his hand back, indicating that he didn't want to talk to him. He took a tissue and covered his philtrum with it, crying loudly.
“…”
Xu Sirui watched silently for a moment, afraid he would burst into tears and flood the house. He could only reluctantly speak, "Xu Zhengkang wouldn't let me go without education. If he worked hard for over a decade and only had a son with a junior high school diploma, he would definitely commit suicide. My grades are just good enough to get into the lowest tier of the most expensive private school in our city."
Many private schools divide admitted students into score levels. The higher the score, the less tuition you have to pay. Conversely, the lower the score, the more tuition you have to pay. His terrible score just happened to put him in the lowest and highest tuition level. The tuition was over 100,000 yuan a year. It would cost Xu Zhengkang at least 500,000 yuan to study in high school for three years.
Hearing that Xu Sirui still had school to attend, Sun Mingyuan finally stopped howling, but he was still twitching, expressing his confusion: "What are you trying to achieve? You could have gone to a high school, but now you can only go to a mixed private school. Xu Sirui, I really want to split your head open and see if it's full of water."
"The human brain is 70% to 80% water, so you're not wrong."
"...Fuck, I'm talking to you seriously!"
Xu Sirui lay on his back on Sun Mingyuan's bed, staring at the ceiling. He explained helplessly, "Xu Zhengkang hasn't given up on the idea of a comeback, and he still wants to hang out with that friend of his, but he's lacking a gimmick. He's always wanted me to get into Renmin University High School. That way, he could use the title of 'genius son' to attract media interviews and build momentum for his business." He paused, a sneer that didn't suit his age and was ambiguous. "I won't let him have his way. He wants me to do well in the exam? Fine, then I'm determined to do poorly. He wants to make a comeback? No problem, I'm determined to spend all his start-up capital. He's proud? I'm determined to make him lose face. This beast, why should he ever make a comeback? He deserves to live a life of poverty and unhappiness."
At the end of his speech, Xu Sirui's voice was a little hoarse. Sun Mingyuan looked at him with complicated eyes and was unable to respond for a long time.
As a childhood friend of Xu Sirui's, Sun Mingyuan was naturally well aware of what was happening in Xu Sirui's family. It was difficult for him to judge anything, so he could only sigh and say, "The high school entrance exam results will be sent to parents' phones. I guess Xu Zhengkang will come to our house looking for you soon. You..."
"It doesn't matter." Xu Sirui turned over, sat up from the bed, and sneered, "Anyway, I've lived in your house long enough. I don't need him to invite me. I will go back on my own."
**
After selling the house they originally lived in, Xu Sirui's family now lives in an ordinary community.
The new house, at 130 square meters, had three bedrooms and a living room, making it a quarter of the size of their previous home. Xu Sirui felt no sense of belonging in this new home. Although he had lived there for nearly a year, his bedroom showed virtually no signs of life. Apart from the basic bedding and a change of clothes in his closet, there was nothing else. His desk was also empty.
He opened the door with his key, walked into the house, threw the deflated schoolbag he had been carrying with him since the high school entrance examination onto the sofa, went back to his room to get a set of pajamas, and then went straight to the bathroom to take a shower.
It was a little after five o'clock. He estimated that it would take Xu Zhengkang at least an hour from receiving the high school entrance examination results to rushing to Sun Mingyuan's house and then discovering that he had returned here alone, so he took a leisurely shower.
After taking a shower, he still had some time to spare, so he lay sideways on the sofa and started watching TV with the remote control.
Xu Zhengkang returned at seven o'clock sharp. Hearing the sound of the door opening, Xu Sirui remained unmoved, watching TV. The moment Xu Zhengkang entered, he saw him sprawled unmoved on the sofa, his head propped up by his right hand, his left hand idly toying with the remote control, his pajamas disheveled, like a duck in a club.
"How dare you watch TV?" He threw away his briefcase, his face as dark as the sky before a storm, his eyes bloodshot. Without even changing his shoes, he strode over to him in his leather shoes, his voice filled with suppressed rage. "Tell me, what happened to your high school entrance exam results?"
Xu Sirui glanced at him casually, shrugged and said, "It's just what you saw."
“Xu Sirui——!!”
After Xu Zhengkang finished roaring, he raised his hand and overturned the coffee table. The teacups on it fell to the ground with a crash and shattered into pieces on the ground, making a loud crackling sound.
"I think you're asking for a fight!"
Xu Zhengkang raised his broad palm and was about to slap him in the face, but Xu Sirui just smiled meaninglessly, pointed at his own face and said, "Fan it, fan it, if you dare, do whatever you want."
Xu Sirui looked a great deal like Zhou Tianlan. From his snow-white skin to the contours of his eyebrows and eyes, even down to his nose and lips, they looked as if they were carved from the exact same mold. Xu Zhengkang's hand, raised mid-air, froze. He remembered when Xu Sirui was born, he was delighted that his son resembled his wife, always saying, "Looking like you is better. Looking like me is pointless. I'd love him more if he looked like you." But now, this resemblance had become a knife stabbing him—a sharp blade, each cut slicing at his conscience.
His hand did not fall on Xu Sirui's face again, but instead snatched the remote control from Xu Sirui's hand and began to smash everything he could touch.
The house was soon in tatters, as if it had been bombed by a cannon, with the wreckage of furniture and appliances everywhere.
Xu Sirui leaned calmly on the sofa, his expression indifferent, as if everything happening around him had nothing to do with him.
After venting his anger, Xu Zhengkang plopped down on the sofa. Trembling, he fished out a lighter and cigarette from his trouser pocket. Shakingly, he lit his own cigarette and took a deep drag, like a drug addict finally getting a taste of drugs. "You think you can bring your father down like this? Naive!" He sneered, "You're useless now, and there are plenty of others who can."
Xu Sirui didn't bother to pay attention to his trapped speech, thinking he was just bluffing. But the next second, Xu Zhengkang said, "I've heard about that. The kid you swapped places with on that variety show you participated in has also finished his high school entrance exam. If I can sponsor him to attend school here, there's no shortage of media coverage."
“…”
Xu Sirui looked at him incredulously, "Are you mentally ill?"
Even though the variety show incident happened just over a year ago, it felt like a lifetime ago when he thought about it. He was a bit dazed when he first heard the word "variety show". Only after he heard Xu Zhengkang's words did his daze turn to anger. "For your crappy business, have you lost all your dignity? It's not enough that you hurt my mother like that, what else do you want?!"
Xu Zhengkang, holding a cigarette between his fingers, turned a deaf ear to his insults and said with a nonchalant smile, "Xu Sirui, you eat my food, use my money, and even rely on me to cover your studies. It's not your turn to nag me about what I want to do. If you're unhappy, just go out and make some money."
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