Chapter 67 Football Don't Mess with Her and Him
While Zhu Yingning and Wu Bo were arguing, Zheng Zekai had already wandered over with a few other boys. As he passed by them, he said maliciously and nonchalantly, "Tsk, are Jichang and Dabao planning to huddle together for warmth?"
“…”
The anger in Zhu Yingning's stomach, which she had not had time to digest, suddenly swelled up again and blocked her throat. If it weren't for her crown covering it, it would have probably smoked.
Wu Bo saw that her expression was not right, so he quickly grabbed her tightly and said, "Don't worry about it, don't worry about it, it's not worth it."
"Did you hear that?" Zheng Zekai added fuel to the fire, as if not satisfied. "No one else cares, but you're the one who's so pretentious and fussy."
Wu Bo felt he could no longer hold Zhu Yingning back. She was like a cannonball, already aimed at the enemy and ignited. If he dared to let go, she would immediately launch herself towards Zheng Zekai. Wu Bo struggled to hold her tight, opening his mouth to continue persuading her. But before he could finish his words, Zhu Yingning turned around and said, "He just scolded me, too. I'm doing this not only for you, but for myself as well."
This reason was too natural, so natural that there was no reason for her to stop her. Wu Bo let out an "ah" in confusion and had to let go of her hand.
Then she saw Zhu Yingning walking towards Zheng Zekai.
Zheng Zekai was also holding a grudge after being pushed down by Zhu Yingning. When he saw her coming, he neither hid nor was afraid. He looked at her with his nose up, with an expression that said, "Let's see what you can do."
She didn't throw a punch like Wu Bo had worried. On the contrary, despite her grim expression, her movements and tone were calm. She stood in front of him and asked, "Zheng Zekai, you're not going to apologize no matter what, right?"
Zheng Zekai's response was to spit on the ground.
Zhu Yingning frowned in disgust, nodded, and said, "Okay, in that case, I'll make you a deal. Let's have a competition. It doesn't matter what. You decide. If I lose, I'll learn to bark like a dog five times in the middle of the playground. If you lose, you'll apologize to us in the middle of the playground. How about that?"
Wu Bo's eyes nearly popped out of his head as he listened to this. Just as he was about to ask Zhu Yingning "Are you crazy?", he heard Zheng Zekai laughing in a strange voice.
It goes without saying which is more insulting, barking or apologizing. This bet seemed pathetic and ridiculous to him. Did she think her provocation was clever? Stop being ridiculous.
Zheng Zekai laughed briefly, then stopped, a smile still playing at the corners of his mouth. He placed his right hand on his neck and cracked it, a teeth-grinding sound of bones rubbing against each other at the joint between his shoulders and neck. He nudged the side of his face with the tip of his tongue and said in a nonchalant, dismissive tone, "Alright, since you love competitions and being a hero, I'll give you a chance to shine. Let's see—" He paused, his smile widening, "Whose urine is the loudest?"
Almost the moment he finished speaking, his companions laughed in unison.
The sharp, piercing laughter was like boiling bubbles, gurgling and bursting in the sweltering summer afternoon air, sending up clouds of shameful smoke. Wu Bo lowered his head, empathizing with Zhu Yingning's embarrassment. His cheeks flushed, his eyes sore, his fingers twisted together and trembled violently. He even felt a sense of inexplicable resentment in his heart, and thought desperately -
Why should you stand out?
Wouldn't it have prevented the current embarrassing situation if I had just endured the ridicule and pretended nothing had happened?
Why won't you listen to her? Why can't you just endure it silently?
However, she soon discovered something was wrong.
The few boys who were laughing so hard that they were unsteady on their feet gradually calmed down and looked at Zheng Zekai and Zhu Yingning. Zheng Zekai also lowered his eyes and looked down at her expressionlessly.
Because Zhu Yingning's face did not show any embarrassment that they expected to see.
She kept looking up at him, her dark eyes like a spinning black hole, bottomless, sucking him into the depths of her soul, past the event horizon, collapsing into a vile singularity. He saw a calm smile rise at the corner of her mouth and heard her calmly reply, "Okay."
OK.
She actually said—
OK.
Sometimes, the hearts of young people are easily provoked, and a challenge that is calm enough to be considered provocative is enough.
Zheng Zekai's teeth creaked, his chest filled with the dryness of the afternoon air, and he was breathing heavily, as if he could reach out and strangle her at any moment. His companion was silent for a moment, then realized something was wrong and quickly intervened, saying, "...Let's compete! Let's compete in basketball shooting, dare you? Let's make a deal, if you lose, you have to bark like a dog in the middle of the playground for five minutes. There's no point crying then. Don't think we'll indulge you just because you're a woman."
"Okay." She still looked at Zheng Zekai with a smile, "I accept."
The shooting option was specially tailored for him by Zheng Zekai's younger brothers. They believed that girls could not be good at shooting. There were not many girls who played basketball. What's more, Zhu Yingning was so small. She had neither height advantage nor strength advantage. It was hard to say whether she had the strength to shoot the basketball into the basket, let alone shoot accurately.
As a result, as soon as they threw the basketball to Zhu Yingning, she took it, jumped on the spot to warm up, raised her hand, and easily shot a three-pointer that didn't hit the basket.
"...Lucky." Zheng Zekai's younger brother hurried to cheer him up.
However, one thing that could be considered an accident was that after she shot three three-pointers in a row to warm up, Zheng Zekai and his younger brother's faces turned bad.
What? What kind of accuracy is this?
Monster!
“…”
The younger brother realized that the situation was not going well and immediately yelled at Zhu Yingning, "Hey! I was just joking. What's the point of shooting? If you have the guts..." He glanced around the playground in panic and found that people were playing football on the football field in the middle of the playground. It was difficult to play, so he pointed at the track and said, "If you have the guts, compete with our Dakai in a 1,000-meter race!"
Zheng Zekai's face darkened, and he gritted his teeth: "You idiot, you want to tire me to death?"
"You don't understand, Dakai. This is my tactic." The younger brother said slyly, "Have you forgotten that this girl just ran 400 meters and took first place among the girls? This shows that she is also very good at running. But no matter how good she is at running, she is definitely only good at the girls' part. Girls can only run 800 meters at best. But we are different. We have been practicing 1,000 meters. So, 1,000 meters may seem very tiring, but it is your advantage! And you are so much taller than her, and your legs are longer than hers. I don't believe that you can't outrun her!"
Zheng Zekai felt something was amiss, yet at the same time, he also felt it made sense. Just then, Wu Bo, inspired by Zhu Yingning's impressive shooting skills, suddenly felt emboldened. He changed his timid attitude a few seconds earlier and said to them, "What are you guys competing in? Are you guys still men? Can you give me a definite answer?" This statement greatly irritated Zheng Zekai's pride, and he immediately shouted angrily, "Just a 1,000-meter race!"
Wu Bo looked at Zhu Yingning and asked nervously, "How about it? One thousand meters, can you do it?"
"It should be possible." She considered.
"Don't say 'should,'" Wu Bo said with a sad face. "I just said something harsh. This is the first time I've ever said anything harsh to them. Zhu Yingning, if you lose, my life will be in danger. You must save me."
"I'll try my best."
"Don't 'try your best'!"
They chatted back and forth until they reached the starting point of the track. Zhu Yingning and Zheng Zekai each took their spots. Zhu Yingning squatted down and stretched her legs as a warm-up. Zheng Zekai, trying to show off, stood there motionless, like a soldier on guard, and even mocked her, "You need to warm up for a 1,000-meter run? What a jerk!"
"That's right, that's right!" The younger brother played his role and responded actively.
Since there were so many of them, they all gathered at the starting point, which quickly attracted some classmates who had nothing to do. Dai Yize also brought Shao Yanjun over, who came to watch the fun and said that he would be their referee.
As the class bully, Zheng Zekai particularly looked down on Dai Yize, thinking that he was a sissy. But now he thought that the more onlookers there were, the better, so that Zhu Yingning would be embarrassed enough after winning. Based on this mentality, he agreed.
Dai Yize found a whistle from somewhere and put it in his mouth. Shao Yanjun cooperated by counting beside him: "Three - two - one!" As the word one fell swoop, the whistle sounded, and Zhu Yingning and Zheng Zekai rushed out at the same time.
Due to her height advantage and the inherent physiological advantages of men, she was left far behind by Zheng Zekai from the moment she started running.
**
Xu Sirui's class's physical education class was originally scheduled for the morning, but the physics teacher had something urgent to do in the afternoon and couldn't teach the physics class, so they had to ask the physical education teacher to change the class. Coincidentally, their physical education class was scheduled for the same period as Zhu Yingning's class.
However, she hadn't noticed him since the start of physical education class.
Xu Sirui was a little unhappy.
He himself couldn't explain the reason for his unhappiness. It might be because he noticed her the moment he came to the playground for class, but she ignored him like a blind man. The psychological gap of being completely ignored made him feel very unbalanced.
Is he not very conspicuous?
Out of this childish dissatisfaction, Xu Sirui pretended not to see her after free time. Feng Da invited him to play football, and he looked at the big sun above his head, feeling annoyed, but he didn't refuse.
After playing ball for a while in the middle of the playground, there was suddenly a commotion on the track, causing the players to stop playing and look over there. Xu Sirui himself lifted up his shirt to wipe the sweat from his chin, and cast a calm glance over there.
"It seems like Class Eight is having a running race." Guo Yingying handed him an unscrewed bottle of mineral water, glanced at his fair, muscular abdomen beneath his shirt, then looked away, her cheeks slightly flushed, and said softly, "I don't know what's going on, but it's a girl and a boy competing."
Xu Sirui took it and took a few sips. His eyes fell on the "girl" who was far behind the so-called "boy". After watching for a while, he asked, "How many meters are we running?"
"It seems to be one thousand meters."
One thousand meters.
Xu Sirui snorted in his heart.
If it was a 50-meter or 100-meter race, Zhu Yingning would definitely be blown away. No matter how powerful her instantaneous explosive power was, there was no way she could beat a boy. Besides, the guy she was running with was tall and looked quite strong. But... who would dare to compete with her in a middle-distance race at 1,000 meters? Come on, this is her absolute domain, okay?
He wasn't worried about her losing, nor did he bother to figure out why she had nothing better to do than run a race with a man. After finishing his drink, he tossed the bottle to Guo Yingying like a servant. Only then did he remember she wasn't a servant. He put on a smile, nodded gently, and said, in a hypocritical yet alluring way, "Thank you."
The voice is as clear as jade.
"You're welcome." Guo Yingying ran away shyly with her head down, holding the mineral water bottle.
Then continue playing football.
While playing football, Xu Sirui would occasionally glance at the track. Just as he expected, although Zhu Yingning was left behind by Zheng Zekai, she always kept a constant distance and followed him like a shadow.
Zheng Zekai was very proud at first, but when he found that he couldn't get rid of the tail behind him no matter how he ran, his expression became a little subtle.
In the second half, his physical strength declined sharply. Although his speed did not decrease, his steps became heavier and his breathing became more intense.
As his physical strength dropped sharply, Zhu Yingning slowly sped up behind him.
Fifty meters, forty meters, thirty meters...
The gap between them was shrinking at a steady pace. The change was not obvious, let alone thrilling, but everyone watching couldn't help but hold their breath.
Zheng Zekai didn't realize what was happening at first until he heard breathing sounds.
The sound of her breathing.
Unlike his increasingly chaotic breathing, Zhu Yingning's breathing was shallow and steady, so steady it was terrifying. He couldn't even tell if his rapid heartbeat was from the intense aerobic exercise or from being frightened by her.
Damn... Shit! Is this woman even human?!
Before his fear could fully take shape, something even more terrifying happened—
Zhu Yingning slowly ran to a position side by side with him.
It would be more accurate to say that she glided over rather than ran, because her speed was so steady, as if she was gliding smoothly on the ice rather than running awkwardly.
It was unclear who started it all, as the track erupted in a torrent of screams. Led by Wu Bo, the usually introverted and timid girl, she went wild, stamping her feet and shrieking in their direction. Her screams were incoherent, even tears streaming down her face.
He thought, "Is it really that important?", and at the same time, he felt—
Fuck, that’s it!
Was he really going to lose to this woman, and then stand in the middle of the playground and apologize to them like an idiot according to her bullshit bet?!
Realize their long-lasting dream!
Zheng Zekai tried hard to speed up and sprint, and in fact he did speed up, but no matter how hard he tried, Zhu Yingning stuck to him like a piece of taffy and he couldn't get rid of her no matter how hard he tried.
He felt like there was a lump of air in his lungs, so blocked that if he didn't let it out, he might suffocate himself to death. Driven by a fear of failure, Zheng Zekai reached out to her in a daze.
**
"Si Rui, what are you looking at?" Feng Da trotted over, gently bumped Xu Si Rui's shoulder, and urged softly, "It's your turn to tee off."
Xu Sirui then retracted his gaze and replied with a smile: "Okay."
He used his foot to hold the ball that rolled to his feet, raised a finger, and calmly aimed at his teammate who received the ball.
Zheng Zekai behind him.
Then, there was a loud bang.
Just before Zheng Zekai stretched out his right hand and was about to pull Zhu Yingning down, a football flew along a straight and graceful line and hit his temple heavily.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
