Chapter 6 Who is Gu Yingming? Pigs, chickens, and various farm chores...
Xu Sirui was sound asleep when a hand suddenly appeared on his shoulder, clamping his joints and shaking him awake. He opened his eyes and saw a camera lens so close to him. He frowned and was about to explode when Yang Ji's big face appeared from behind the camera, smiling amiably: "Xu Sirui, don't sleep anymore. Don't you want to go home? I have a way to get you home early."
Just one sentence dispelled his bad mood when he woke up.
go home?
Going home was indeed what Xu Sirui longed for most at the moment. Although he knew that Yang Ji probably had bad intentions, he still sat up from the bed, squinting at him with an expression that said, "Let's see what you can say."
"I should have introduced the system of our program to you yesterday, but you disappeared for the entire day," Yang Ji said leisurely. "Our program is based on a points system. It's called an exchange for a semester, but in reality, as long as you accumulate 100 points, you can go home early."
After saying that, he deliberately paused for a moment, waiting for Xu Sirui to ask him "How do you accumulate points?"
Who knew that Xu Sirui had no reaction at all, still maintaining the same posture and expression, sitting in the quilt looking at him, his eyes still a little sleepy.
The atmosphere fell into an awkward silence for a moment.
Yang Ji had no choice but to continue the conversation in a sullen manner: "As for points, they can be earned by doing more good deeds. Helping with farm work for four hours a day can earn you one point; helping the villagers and having them come to praise you can earn you one point; studying hard and staying in school for the normal school hours can earn you one point..."
Before he could finish his words, Xu Sirui covered himself with the quilt and lay down again. Yang Ji said, "Hey," and asked curiously, "What's wrong with you, Xu Sirui? Don't you want to go home?"
He sneered from under the covers, "Do you think I'm retarded? It's the end of March now, and a semester here is just over three months. And according to your bullshit points system, I'd have to do good deeds for over three months to get 100 points. I might as well lie here and wait for death for three months instead of working hard. Get out of here and stop bothering me."
“…”
Yang Ji was stunned.
The few dudes who had joined the show last season were wailing their heads off for the first two days, wishing they could grow wings and fly back home. So, after hearing about the point system that would shorten their stay, everyone pitched in—of course, how long they could keep working was another matter. Xu Sirui, however, seemed to understand his own lazy nature so well that he knew he couldn't keep it up, so he didn't even try and just lay down.
I have seen lazy people, but I have never seen someone so lazy and hopeless. Yang Ji was speechless, thinking that Xu Sirui's pretty face was well worth it. Not only did he look like a pretty boy, but he also embodied the spirit of a pretty boy who eats for free.
Of course, he couldn't just let Xu Sirui lie there like that. Otherwise, what would the show even be about? The whole point of the show was the process of a dandy being tortured and reformed. If Xu Sirui just lay there the whole time, what would the audience be watching? Would they just watch him sleep soundly under the covers?
After thinking for a moment, Yang Ji threw out the second bait: "For every ten points you earn, you can get a chance to contact your family."
He didn't believe that Xu Sirui would not be tempted by this condition.
“…”
Sure enough, five seconds later, the person on the bed turned over again and said through gritted teeth, "If you dare to lie to me, I promise to tear down your entire crew."
**
Although he agreed to work, Xu Sirui still wanted to stay in bed until dawn. Unfortunately, Yang Ji seemed determined to make things difficult for him. He kept pointing the camera at his face, which annoyed him so much that he couldn't sleep well. In the end, he had to get up and wash up with his hair in a mess.
After finishing everything, he turned into the kitchen and saw Zhu Yingning squatting in front of the fuel hole of the stove and stuffing firewood into it.
"Hey, bumpkin."
He picked her up easily.
She struggled, turned around and glared at him: "Let go!"
Xu Sirui loosened his grip, resting his right elbow casually on his crutch. He made the old crutch look like a magician's scepter. He exuded an air of arrogance and grandeur, as if his next words were an imperial decree: "Teach me how to work."
“……?”
She looked at him in surprise, not understanding why he suddenly changed his personality.
Work? Is that his line?
Xu Sirui was too lazy to explain too much and got straight to the point: "Find me some easy work, preferably one that requires sitting, where you won't sweat and won't be exposed to the sun. It will be done quickly."
“…There’s no such job.”
She rolled her eyes at him, turned around, added cabbage and brown rice to the boiling pot, and started cooking pig feed.
"Anything else is fine, anyway, just find me some work and teach me how to do it."
Ingredients for pigs didn't need to be prepared in a particularly elaborate manner. Zhu Yingning, stirring the ingredients in the pot with a large iron spoon, wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. Without even turning her head, she said, "If you want me to teach you, I can. But—" She pouted and said righteously, "I'm not a bumpkin. If you want me to teach you, you have to be polite to me."
"Okay, okay, got it."
Xu Sirui just wanted to brush this off quickly, but he didn't expect Zhu Yingning to be so particular about her name. She glanced at him, pointed her finger at her face, and asked earnestly, "Then tell me, what's my name?"
Her fingers were as thin as steel cables, extending from mid-air and connecting his sight straightly.
It was a little after four in the morning, and the morning light was dim. With the help of the spring scenery of the mountains and rivers and the dim light of the fuel stove, Xu Sirui looked at her face seriously for the first time.
It had to be said that every moment he'd been here, the only thing occupying his mind was the thought of leaving. He saw everyone through a veil of mist, everyone a blurry mosaic of NPCs. Only now, after she asked him that question, did the mist gradually dissipate, revealing her ordinary features.
What did Qian Zhongshu say? To an ugly person, close scrutiny is cruel. She wasn't ugly, but she wasn't beautiful in the universal sense either.
Her nose wasn't straight enough, her nostrils weren't narrow enough, her skin wasn't fair enough, her eyes weren't double-lidded, one of her canine teeth was crooked, and her face was flat. All her features were dull and bland. If I had to find a few positives, I'd say her face was small, her chin was pointed, her eyes were distinct, and her pupils were brighter than average. Beyond that, that was it.
When asking for help, it's not good to comment too much on someone's appearance. Xu Sirui touched his neck and tried to recall it. He dug out a name from his memory: "I know, your name is Gu Yingming, and your mother calls you Mingming."
“…”
Zhu Yingning was completely stunned.
If she wasn't used to cursing, she really wanted to ask, "Did you not clean your ears clean?" How could you be so deaf?!
"Even if you don't remember my first name, at least pronounce my last name correctly. This is Zhujia Village. How could my last name be Gu?"
"Who knows, maybe you'll take your mother's last name."
"My mother's last name isn't Gu either. Her last name is Liu."
Her methodical explanation made Xu Sirui feel a little dull, like throwing out a joke, but the other party not only didn't pick it up, but also asked him "what do you mean".
"Okay, then what's your name?"
"Zhu Yingning, Ying for baby, Ning for tranquility." She tried hard to pronounce her own name in Mandarin with an accent.
Hearing this, Xu Sirui was stunned. "Yingning? That's the name of a beautiful fairy from Liao Zhai, right? Why did your family give you such a girly name?" It had nothing to do with "beautiful" or "female." Then he thought again, remembering that some underdeveloped areas do have the custom of giving boys girls' names. He felt that a cheap name would make life easier for a girl, and that a girl's life would be even more "cheap." So he stopped talking immediately, and his impression of this place plummeted even further.
Zhu Yingning had no idea what was going on in his mind. He scooped the cooked feed into a clean paint bucket, padded the handle with a cloth, exerted force with his arms, lifted it up neatly, and turned to him, "Since you want to work, then come with me to feed the pigs."
**
Xu Sirui didn't have the habit of keeping a diary. He felt that this form of writing was like a cow chewing its own vomit over and over again, and there was nothing romantic about it. If he was forced to summarize his experience today, he would only write two huge words in his diary:
Fuck it.
In just one day, he came into contact with many animals that he had only encountered on the dining table, such as pigs and chickens.
The pigs were two fat lumps of meat. As they moved in the pigsty, their white skin surged towards him like waves of greasy flesh, drowning him in the damp and stuffy pig stench.
Chickens are manure-making machines that poop as they walk.
He didn't understand why, given the advancements in human technology, fully automated livestock feeding machines hadn't become widespread. Why did he have to help carry a bucket of mushy pig feed, pour it into the trough, splashing rice soup all over his pants, and then sneak into the pigpen to clean up the pigs' excrement when the pigs weren't paying attention? Why did he have to sneak into the chicken coop, breaking through the hens' numerous defenses, just to find two eggs covered in hair and feces?
Perhaps his expression after feeding the livestock looked too miserable, so Zhu Yingning kindly showed him a little sympathy: "Your foot is not healed yet, so don't chop wood. Sit next to him and pick some vegetables." Then she handed him two large basins of miscellaneous vegetables and told him how to deal with them.
Break the corn kernels, remove the tendons from the beans, and peel the water chestnuts.
Although these are tedious and boring, they can be done.
The worst part was peeling the taro. No one had told him to wear gloves when handling the taro skins, otherwise his hands would itch. By the time he'd peeled two taro heads, his hands were itching like crazy, and the backs of his white hands were covered in large, hideous red marks. Zhu Yingning heard his cry for help, ran over to take a look, and couldn't hide the embarrassment on her face: "Oh no... I forgot to remind you to wear gloves."
"Fuck, did you do that on purpose?"
"No," she said, hastily defending her innocence. "We're used to farm work, and our hands are calloused. We don't need gloves to handle taro. I forgot you're different."
Xu Sirui scratched the back of his hand vigorously. The more he scratched, the more itchy it became. The more itchy it became, the more he wanted to scratch. In the end, he almost wanted to chop his hand off. "No, I'm itching so hard I want to jump off the building. Tell me how to stop the itch first, quickly!"
The way to relieve the itching is to place your hands on the stove and heat them for a few minutes until the itching stops.
The itching was gone, but there was a stinging pain. Xu Sirui looked at his red and swollen hands, and for a moment he suddenly felt very dazed.
It was not until the end of the chaotic day that he lay on the kang, looking at the long-legged spider weaving a web in the corner of the ceiling and a gecko fatter than a human thumb, that he realized what this trance meant.
It's numbness.
Numbness towards this kind of life that can be seen to end at a glance.
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