Chapter 32: Aftereffects Are Not a Disease, but They Can Be Fatal When They Flare Up

When people are in adverse circumstances, their ability to adapt to the environment is truly astonishing.

People can endure misfortune, and they can also overcome it, because people possess astonishing potential; as long as they are determined to exert it, they will certainly be able to overcome difficulties.

——

Carnegie

Zhou Xiaoru felt that the difficulty she was currently experiencing was uncontrollable.

She thought that if it weren't for that pair of devilish best friends at Tengyuan Company, she would be very well-adapted to the environment there.

Yet all her misfortune was man-made, and her potential simply could not help her overcome these difficulties; it could only push her into a deeper, darker gutter!

Finally, she summarized the reason for her misfortune over this recent period.

She and Tengyuan Company were clearly incompatible! And she was even more at odds with someone and someone else in there!

Forget it, she had better take a break; having worked for less than a month, her heart was thumping every day, and if this continued, she would sooner or later die young.

Just like that, our Miss Zhou Xiaoru went on strike for the first time!

She was done!

Anyway, the trouble with the two-hundred-million contract was gone now, so this time, she left even more decisively.

So decisively that she didn't even write a resignation letter, simply lying like a corpse in the dormitory.

She felt that her vitality was severely damaged and she needed to go into seclusion to cultivate for a period of time.

And Jiang Bufan did not try to persuade her to go back this time; after all, she had seen with her own eyes how inhumanly tortured "certain Ru" had been these past few days, and no matter what, she could not push this little white rabbit back into the fire pit.

And so, Zhou Xiaoru lay in the dormitory for a whole day...

She had thought that after pulling an all-nighter the day before, she would be able to sleep soundly for a day.

But...

Why! Why!!

She wailed in her heart! Why were her eyes just like an owl's, simply unable to close!

Jiang Bufan said she was "dying with eyes wide open"!

But she felt like she was about to "reanimate as a corpse"! Or perhaps it was a final flash of brilliance before death!

And the result of her not going to work for a day was that there were dozens of missed calls on her phone.

Zhou Xiaoru was already too lazy to deal with them, and even lazier to look at them.

Even thinking with her backside, she could figure out who was calling.

After a day of reflecting on life, she decided to go to Tengyuan tomorrow to resign.

Doing things with a beginning and an end was her principle! What's more, having worked for nearly a month, there was still salary waiting there!

Who would go against money? Especially when it was her own hard-earned money!

What was hers, not a single cent could be missing; what wasn't hers, she wouldn't take even a hair's breadth!

After making up her mind, Zhou Xiaoru finally crawled off the bed.

Her posture was like a big sloth, looking somewhat funny.

She now had to turn on the computer to write her resignation letter.

Just like the English interview that day, her resignation letter was finished in less than five minutes.

After finishing the resignation letter, she inexplicably felt a sense of lightness and an indescribable release!

No! It was liberation! She was going to be completely liberated!!

She really wanted to shout to her friends right now, "Brothers! I'm finally being let out! Cheer for me! Applaud for me!!"

But at this moment, she was the only one in the dormitory!

Xiao Lan hadn't returned from work yet, and Jiang Bufan and Yao Xiang said they were going out for dinner; they had left at five, and it was nearly eight now, but they still hadn't returned.

At this moment, her stomach was already so hungry that it was sticking to her spine.

From the time she got off work yesterday until now, she had truly managed to not consume a single drop of water!

Thinking about waiting for those two, Jiang Bufan and the other, to bring her food, she would have already starved to death in the dormitory.

She washed her face and prepared to put on some clothes to go out and forage...

At this moment, the phone screen lying on the table lit up again.

She glanced at the caller ID, and it was Du Feng.

Thinking about how she had dialed the wrong number early this morning and scolded him without rhyme or reason, she felt a bit guilty.

She felt that this young man Du Feng was not bad; although she didn't like the two high-level executives at Tengyuan, she still got along well with her colleagues.

They say, having more friends means more paths in the future...

Thinking of this, Zhou Xiaoru picked up the phone, pressed the speaker button, and answered the call.

She spoke while putting on her clothes.

"Hello."

A sigh of relief immediately came from the other end of the line.

"You finally answered the phone."

"What's wrong?"

Du Feng asked worriedly, "I wanted to ask what's wrong with you, why you didn't go to work today, and why you didn't answer your phone when I called."

He had specifically gone to the Personnel Department to look for her in the morning, and hearing she hadn't come to work made him very worried.

He had even called all day, and was just about to call the police...

Zhou Xiaoru replied with some guilt, "Sorry, something happened to me yesterday, so I didn't go to work today."

Thinking of the outburst of profanity in the morning, she quickly continued to apologize.

"I'm sorry about this morning; I didn't look closely when I made the call at the time, I'm sorry."

At the time, Gu Liyan's number and Du Feng's number were both in her call logs, and they were even right next to each other.

Perhaps she was too angry at the time and her hand shook, which was why such a mix-up happened.

Du Feng was not unhappy because of the morning's events; on the contrary, because of what Zhou Xiaoru said yesterday, he had been waiting for her to send a message to ask him out.

"It's fine, I didn't mind. You, on the other hand, are you feeling better now?"

The phone call this morning was all cursing Gu Liyan; presumably, Gu Liyan must have done something to make her so angry.

"I'm fine now, thank you, Du Feng."

At this moment, she had already put on her clothes and was preparing to go out, thinking about hanging up the phone.

"Um, if there's nothing else, I'm going to hang up now. I'm about to go out to eat."

However, at this moment, Du Feng was actually downstairs at their Phase Two student dormitory building...

Du Feng looked at the dormitories, where most of the lights were on, and hurriedly continued.

"What you said yesterday, does it still count?"

Zhou Xiaoru was stunned for a moment, and the movement of putting on her shoes also paused.

What she said yesterday...

Yesterday, she had been going through a living hell, one moment in heaven, the next in hell; the things she had said to him...

What were they?!

"Uh... that..." What did she say!

At this moment, a low laugh came from the other end of the phone.

"Hehe, I knew it. Things said on April Fool's Day can't be taken seriously."

Hearing this, Zhou Xiaoru hurriedly replied, "No! That, because a lot of things happened yesterday, could you remind me what it was? I... I forgot. I absolutely didn't mean to play you at all."

She had already been pranked twice in a row; the person doing the pranking was having fun, but who knew how the person being pranked felt.

Seeing that there was no sound on the phone, Zhou Xiaoru thought the person on the other end was angry.

She then called out, "Du Feng?"

After a moment of silence, Du Feng replied, "It's nothing major, it doesn't matter. If you've forgotten, then forget it..."

"Hey? Don't! We have the friendship of several meals together, how can you be like this?"

During this time at Tengyuan, they had often eaten together in the canteen; they could be called dining buddies.

Hearing this, Du Feng smiled and decided not to tease her anymore.

"Hehe, you said yesterday that you were going to treat me to a meal today."

Hearing this, Zhou Xiaoru suddenly realized; it seemed there was such a thing.

"Oh, a meal. How about tomorrow? Tomorrow at noon, does that work for you?"

"But I'm very hungry right now, I haven't eaten dinner yet." Du Feng's words carried a hint of acting spoiled, and also a bit of a pitiful tone.

Zhou Xiaoru couldn't help but frown. It was just a meal, was this guy really that hungry?

"That, I'm at school right now, and it's so late. Are you asking me to go out and treat you to a meal!"

It was hard to refuse, so she had to say it like this, to see if he would still have the nerve to ask a young maiden like her to go out and treat him to a meal so late at night.

Du Feng's inner joy grew even greater; he looked at the dormitory building not far away again and replied.

"You don't need to come out. I'm already downstairs at your school dormitory."

Zhou Xiaoru was stunned again after hearing this...

For the sake of a meal, this guy was really going all out; he actually came directly to her school?

She asked suspiciously, "You want to eat at our school canteen?"

"Yeah, aren't you just about to go out to eat anyway?"

Zhou Xiaoru asked again, feeling a bit uncertain, "Are you sure you want me to treat you to a meal at the canteen?"

What kind of treat was this!

"I'm sure."

Since this person had already arrived at her doorstep, it wouldn't be good to refuse again.

"Alright then, where are you now? I'll come find you."

"Which canteen at your school has good food?"

She replied without hesitation, "The Sixth Canteen."

"I'll wait for you outside the Sixth Canteen."

"Okay."

Grabbing her keys, Zhou Xiaoru hurriedly left the dormitory.

In her heart, she silently despised Du Feng for calling her nearly twenty times just for a meal.

Was this guy starving crazy! Should she buy him a Snickers bar?

She had just checked her phone; besides the calls from the starving-crazy Du Feng, there were also calls from Zhang Yao, Su Poyang, and...

Gu Liyan!

She was going to resign anyway, so she decided to change her phone card after getting her salary tomorrow.

She wanted to say a complete goodbye to this past...

But after she left the dormitory, she was 'pleasantly' surprised to find that she looked a bit disheveled; she had only washed her face and hadn't even brushed her teeth.

And, what was even more serious was...

To save trouble and to be able to return to the dormitory as quickly as possible, she hadn't even worn underwear; she had just put a coat on over her pajamas!

She touched her flat chest; without underwear, how could she not feel anything at all?

Xiao Lan always mocked her for having over 120 pounds of flesh for nothing, as none of it grew in the right places.

She looked at the "towering" sixth floor and zipped her coat all the way to the top.

Forget it, it's late at night, she's just going to the school canteen for a meal and nothing else, so if she doesn't dress up, she doesn't dress up.

When she arrived downstairs at the Sixth Canteen, she caught sight of Du Feng, who in her eyes appeared to be anxiously waiting for a meal ticket.

She called out, "Du Feng."

The person over there, who had been waiting expectantly, smiled even more warmly when he saw her attire; in his eyes, Zhou Xiaoru was cute like this too.

"You're here."

He thought for a moment and then added a compliment, "Your pajamas are very cute."

After he finished speaking, Miss Zhou's expression stiffened, and she subconsciously glanced at her clothes.

She had zipped her coat up so high, so how did this guy see the pajamas she was wearing underneath?

At this moment, the person who looked very hungry urged her.

"Let's go in quickly, I'm really going to starve to death."

"Oh, okay."

The two of them went into the Sixth Canteen together, chatting and laughing...

In fact, Du Feng wasn't in a hurry to eat because he was hungry, but because...

Just a short distance behind Zhou Xiaoru's back, a sharp gaze was fixed upon the two of them.

On the road opposite the canteen, the other three people from the Dormitory, along with a handsome man in a black suit, were standing by the roadside, all of them glaring fiercely at the people who had just entered the canteen...