Chapter 80: Mountain God You can be cowardly, you can escape, you can be timid...
It was not until the evening of the next day that I was able to get out of bed on my own.
Zhu Yingning repeatedly warned him not to take a bath until he was completely healed, to avoid catching a cold and having a relapse. However, Xu Sirui could not stand the sweat on his body, so he took a bath secretly like a thief while she was at school.
When she got home and noticed that he had changed into his pajamas, she was so angry that she just didn't want to talk to him.
Xu Sirui thought she was just joking and didn't take it seriously at all, until he found out that she was actually angry, didn't talk to him the whole night, and ignored his olive branches like "Do you want to eat fruit?" and "Do you want to drink milk?", then he belatedly felt guilty about doing something wrong.
It was impossible for him to apologize directly. He could only walk back and forth at the door of her bedroom, meaninglessly making his presence known, like an elementary school student, trying to get her attention.
She continued to do this until past eleven o'clock in the evening. She finally relented and opened the door, but not to make peace with him. Instead, she wanted to scold him: "Xu Sirui, are you annoying me? You're making me unable to do my homework!"
He dropped his eyes.
It's fair to say that sometimes, God is just so partial. Before this, Zhu Yingning hadn't really felt much for beauty or ugliness. It wasn't until this moment that she realized that good-looking people do enjoy some kind of invisible advantage. Seeing him lower his brows, his long eyelashes framing his pupils, her anger inexplicably subsided a little. And he hadn't done anything, just lowered his eyes.
She leaned against the door frame and sighed, "If you're so energetic, come in."
"What are you going in for?" He assessed the situation and asked cautiously, "Are you going to hit me?"
"..." She pulled the corner of her mouth and said speechlessly, "Yes."
In the end, he still stepped in reluctantly, risking being beaten.
However, what happened next made Xu Sirui feel like she might as well have hit him. She sat on the edge of the bed, arms folded across her chest, ready to have a heart-to-heart talk with him. The first thing she said was, "Tell me, what are your thoughts on going to school?"
The irritability that had always lingered in his heart and had been ignored for a while because of his illness resurfaced. Xu Sirui turned his face away and stared at the end of her bed with a stiff expression, not saying a word for a long time.
He didn't want to talk to her.
For some reason, when facing Sun Mingyuan, he could confess his inner fragility without any psychological burden, but when he thought about sending this vulnerability to Zhu Yingning like a shared file, he felt that it would be better to kill him.
After five minutes of silence, Zhu Yingning shifted his hips, put on a stern face, and said seriously, "Speak."
He stiffened his neck, still not looking at her. He said he had spoken, but what he said was: "Change the subject."
"No, I want to talk about this." She was determined not to let him get away with it anymore. At least, she had to know what he really thought about going to school.
Seeing that Xu Sirui was still stubborn and refused to speak, she changed her mind and asked a binary question: "Tell me, do you want to continue going to school?"
This time he was silent for a long time, and finally squeezed out a word from between his teeth: "...No."
"Because of the school gossip?"
He didn't expect her to ask so directly. His face darkened a little. It was only because he was concerned that the person in front of him was her that he didn't lose his temper and slam the door.
In the end, she didn't seem to notice that he was angry, or maybe she did, but didn't care, because she leaned forward and pressed, "Because you're afraid of the rumors?"
"...Zhu Yingning." He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, feeling the veins on his forehead throbbing. The rage in his heart was like a wildfire, burning up from his lungs and rushing straight to his forehead.
"Yes or no?"
He sighed, his eyes bloodshot, and frankly admitted, "Yes." A few seconds later, without warning, he roared in anger, a roar that was heartbreaking and full of the meaning of giving up. "I'm just afraid! I just don't dare to face it! So what!? "
He yelled so loudly that Xu Zhengkang came out of the master bedroom and knocked on the guest room door: "What's going on? Xu Sirui, what are you crazy about?!"
Zhu Yingning quickly tried to smooth things over: "It's okay, uncle, I was just chatting with him."
"I'm telling you, if you act crazy again, I'll beat you to death!" Xu Zhengkang said this harshly to Xu Sirui before leaving. Zhu Yingning secretly thanked him for not opening the door because he was concerned about her being a girl. Otherwise, given Xu Sirui's current state, they might have come to blows right in front of her, a bloody fight to the death.
She rolled her eyes and looked back at Xu Sirui in front of her, continuing the previous topic and saying, "Not very good."
"...What?" He was still immersed in his anger at what Xu Zhengkang had just said. His temples were in great pain, so he couldn't immediately understand what he was saying.
"I said," Zhu Yingning added slowly, "you don't need to do anything."
The light in the guest room was cold, casting a bluish light. It should have been cold and detached, but it gave her facial features a sacred and solemn hue.
She stated calmly, gently, yet firmly, "Xu Sirui, you don't need to change your personality. You can be cowardly, you can escape, you can be timid, it doesn't matter. If you don't want to go to school, then don't go. I can ask for leave for you until you feel ready. If you still aren't ready, then you can study at home. If you want to escape, then escape. No one says you have to be a strong person to live in this world. No one says you can only overcome difficulties and not just avoid them. Even timid people have the right to be timid."
He was completely stunned, petrified at the end of her bed, his eyes filled with confusion.
"But you have to promise me that you won't hang out outside anymore, you won't smoke or drink anymore, and you won't drive that motorcycle." She curled her lips, very dissatisfied with his previous reckless and careless behavior, and kept nagging him with demands beyond "escaping". "And every night, you have to study with me. I'll give you tutoring on the weekends, and you must..."
Zhu Yingning didn't say anything more. She swallowed back all the unformed words in shock.
The cold blue light washed the tears from his face, leaving them clear and pure. He stared at her blankly, his face still maintaining a confused expression, only tears welled up, gurgling like a rising river, raging without any warning.
A river of silence flowed between her and him. The expression on her face, initially panicked at discovering he was crying, gradually softened into a sigh of softness. It was incredibly soft, like a warm, simple dream. In the dream, there were no tall buildings or steel forests, only rolling mountains and a clear bow shot towards him, tearing the air with a whistling sound in his ears.
Xu Sirui was surprised that he could think of such a grand metaphor.
Perhaps it was because no one had ever told him before that, in addition to the bravery and tenacity demanded by the secular world, he could also be cowardly, evasive, and timid. It turned out that there were people who could accept all of this, and it turned out that in one's lifetime, there was a chance that someone would be so gently embraced and supported.
He felt that she was a mountain deity, a person who had transformed from the plants, trees, springs and rocks in the mountains and came to the mortal world to save people.
God saves the world, and he also saved him.
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