Xue Rui thought for a long time, but he had absolutely no clue why Lin Ruoxi had attempted suicide. He simply turned on the TV in the school infirmary and started watching.
The TV was playing the hit show, X-Change.
The premise was also incredibly cliché: some rich city slicker swapping lives with a poor kid from a rural village;
The rich kid would wreak havoc in the countryside, while the village kid, like Granny Liu entering the Grand View Garden, would tour the city...
In short, from Xue Rui's perspective as someone from the year 2024, it was all just a script.
However, his mom watched it with great relish, so moved that she was a sobbing mess. She'd even copied the show's premise and dumped Xue Rui in the countryside to live for a while...
"Pleasant Goat is still better."
It wasn't that Xue Rui actually liked watching Pleasant Goat. It's just that with broadcast television, you watch whatever they put on. There's no real choice in the matter...
By the time Xue Rui had watched a few episodes of the cartoon, the IV bag was already empty.
When Dr. Liang came to change the IV bag, Xue Rui noticed that Lin Ruoxi had woken up and was also staring intently at the TV.
"You're awake?" Xue Rui moved aside a little, so he wouldn't block Lin Ruoxi's view.
"Th-thank you."
Lin Ruoxi thanked him softly, her eyes fixed on the cartoon on the screen. A rare glint of light shone in them.
Xue Rui didn't want to keep getting to know this girl bit by bit. He decided to be more direct—to ask why Lin Ruoxi had attempted suicide so he could come up with a plan.
However, he didn't want to put too much pressure on her. He faced the TV, his back to Lin Ruoxi, and asked, "Is anyone at school bullying you?"
"Bullying?" Lin Ruoxi murmured to herself. She didn't understand why Xue Rui was asking this question.
"Bullying doesn't just mean getting hit," Xue Rui explained. "When people force you to do things you don't want to do, or order you to run errands for them, that's also a form of bullying." What he was subconsciously thinking of was outright harassment.
Lin Ruoxi pulled her knees to her chest. She thought for a moment. No one was "bullying" her. 'If I had to name one person, it would be Xue Rui.'
'But he's the one who asked the question. How could I possibly give him that answer?'
"N-no, no one's bullying me," Lin Ruoxi explained, her eyes darting around evasively.
"Do you think the world is a good place? What do you plan to do in the future? What kind of person do you want to be?" Xue Rui fired off several questions in a row.
He regretted asking them the moment he finished, because Xue Rui realized that even he himself couldn't answer these "philosophical" questions.
After a long while, Lin Ruoxi said, "I... after I finish the proficiency exams at the end of sophomore year, I'm going to stop studying."
Xue Rui wasn't surprised at all. Lin Ruoxi sat in one of the last two rows—what kind of good student could she be? Most likely, she wouldn't be able to get into college.
The proficiency exams took place during the second half of sophomore year. As long as you passed them, you could receive a high school diploma.
Many students were only there for that piece of paper and had no plans to take the college entrance exam. Naturally, they had no reason to continue on to their third and final year.
In fact, most students with very poor grades planned to do this.
"And then what? What are you planning to do?" Xue Rui asked.
"Go back to my village... and farm," Lin Ruoxi said timidly.
"..."
Xue Rui's brain short-circuited. He simply couldn't connect this devastatingly beautiful girl with the image of a dirt-poor farmer, forever facing the loess soil with their back to the sky.
Teachers often said "if you don't study hard, you'll go home and farm," and students would self-deprecatingly joke about "going home to farm, going back to the village to herd sheep."
These were all just jokes, really.
Even in the future, very few people from this generation would go back to farming.
But Lin Ruoxi's tone was very serious, which made Xue Rui turn his head to look her in the eye.
When Lin Ruoxi saw Xue Rui turn around, she quickly lowered her head again.
"Farming? Are you serious?" Xue Rui asked, completely baffled.
Students who dropped out in this era would usually go learn a trade.
For example, cosmetology, hairdressing, auto repair and waxing... or, if nothing else, operating an excavator or working in the service industry...
'So why go back to the village to farm?'
"HAHAHAHA!" Dr. Liang, amused by their conversation, burst into a fit of laughter.
She would never have imagined that a student as shy and introverted as Lin Ruoxi would crack such a joke. And to top it off, it had left a smooth-talker like Xue Rui completely baffled. It was just too funny.
"Stop laughing. She's serious," Xue Rui sighed.
'If anyone else had said that, I'd never believe them,' he thought. 'But this is Lin Ruoxi. A girl I can scare into trembling wouldn't dare joke with me.'
"Classmate Lin, are you really planning to go farm?" Dr. Liang asked, looking curious.
"Mhm..." Lin Ruoxi buried her head in her knees. She knew she'd be laughed at for saying it, but she didn't dare lie to Xue Rui.
This time, it was Dr. Liang's turn to be silent.
"What, not laughing anymore? Go on," Xue Rui said sarcastically.
"Why?" Dr. Liang felt it was a shame. "You're so pretty. Even if your diet isn't the best, your hair is so healthy it makes me jealous. Such great assets shouldn't be wasted."
Xue Rui and Dr. Liang were actually on the same page. Sordid adults like them would subconsciously think of using her beauty to trade for a higher quality of life.
This girl was so fiercely independent; how could she ever accept something that required selling her dignity?
'However,' Xue Rui thought, 'in a few years, after the mobile internet explodes, Lin Ruoxi's face alone will be worth endless money. She could live a great life without having to sell her dignity.'
'But... that's all dependent on Lin Ruoxi living to see that day.'
"Grandma... is in poor health. I have to take care of Grandma."
Lin Ruoxi's voice was muffled, her slender shoulders trembling slightly. She was crying silently.
"What about your parents?" Dr. Liang pressed.
Lin Ruoxi didn't answer, just curled up even tighter.
"Such a hard-fated child." Dr. Liang and Xue Rui exchanged a look.
No answer was, in itself, a silent answer.
The two of them had already pictured the scene: an orphan and an old woman, depending on each other to survive...
Dr. Liang's maternal instincts overflowed. She hugged Lin Ruoxi, comforting her for quite a while. Xue Rui watched with a pang of jealousy; he felt that spot should have been his.
After that, the three of them fell into silence. It wasn't until Lin Ruoxi's last IV drip was finished that she broke the quiet atmosphere. "Thank you, Dr. Liang. I have to go back to class now."
Just as Lin Ruoxi was about to get up, Xue Rui pressed down on her shoulder.
"What's the rush? You sit in the back row anyway. Missing one or two classes won't matter," Xue Rui said with a grin.
It was only third period in the morning, still an hour before lunch. Xue Rui felt that returning to the classroom now would be a total loss—he had, after all, gotten permission to be out for the entire morning.
"Um... okay." Lin Ruoxi obediently sat back down.
Dr. Liang wanted to say something, but she didn't know how to start.
Normally, if a student tried to use being sick as an excuse to linger in her office, she would have certainly yelled at them to get to class.
But with these two who came in this morning, she just couldn't bring herself to say it.
"You know, I think you should still study hard. If you find a good job in the future, your grandmother's living conditions could improve, too," Xue Rui said, trying his best to earnestly persuade her.
'As long as a student isn't a complete idiot,' he thought, 'it's not too late to catch up if you start studying hard at the beginning of sophomore year. The college entrance exam in '12 isn't the hellscape it'll be a decade later. Hard work still pays off handsomely.'
It's just that, coming from his mouth, these words clearly had no persuasive power;
Because his current grades were probably at the bottom of the whole year...
"By the way, what was your grade ranking on the last exam?" Xue Rui asked. He was planning to create a study plan for Lin Ruoxi.
"Sec...ond."
"Hm? What place?" Xue Rui thought he must have misheard.
"Second," Lin Ruoxi repeated.