Chapter 54 - Bedtime story (Translated and edited by Xing)

The next day was the 1000 metres event. Tang Xue had been focusing on the 500 metres race for her training and the mid and long distances were only afterthoughts. Without both experience and capability, she still put up quite a formidable fight in the first half of the compet.i.tion. However, in the second half, she became tired and feeble like a man unable to last even a minute.

Thus, her journey stopped at the quarterfinals.

Zhang Yuewei was extremely capable and clinched the gold for the 1000 metres event as well. After claiming her prize and wrapping up her interview, Zhang Yuewei rushed to find Tang Xue. She finally said to Tang Xue what she had been holding in for a long time.

"Since you didn't manage to come in first, shouldn't you be barking like a dog?" After saying this, she happened to glance at Li Yubing unintentionally.

Li Yubing was beside Tang Xue. At her words, he instantly perked up and looked at Tang Xue with a raised brow.

Br.i.m.m.i.n.g with ease and confidence, Tang Xue put one hand on her waist and brushed her head with the other. She said, "What's so difficult about this? Woof."

Zhang Yuewei did not expect Tang Xue to simply bark out like that and was momentarily at a loss for words.

Tang Xue, "Woof woof woof, woof woof woof, woof woof woof woof woof…" She even managed to bark out a tune. She bent one of her legs and tapping lightly against the ground, began to tap out the beat for herself.

Zhang Yuewei originally wanted to make Tang Xue eat her words. However, she was once again defeated by Tang Xue's shamelessness. Her face darkened. "You lunatic."

At the side, Li Yubing burst into laughter.

Zhang Yuewei looked over.

His healthy, light red lips were raised into a beautiful curve. His good-looking eyes held ripples of amus.e.m.e.nt as it lingered on the top of Tang Xue's head.

"You're right," Li Yubing said, "She's really a lunatic."

Zhang Yuewei's face reddened at once. She lowered her head, turned and left without saying another word.

Just a moment ago, that fellow was still strutting about like a proud rooster. The way she suddenly turned into a humble flower made Tang Xue very puzzled. Stretching out her neck to look at Zhang Yuewei's leaving figure, Tang Xue discovered that the back of Zhang Yuewei's neck was a little red.

"That's odd," Tang Xue mumbled to herself.

Li Yubing rubbed Tang Xue's head and ruffled her hair into a mess. Then, he said, "You've scared her off."

Tang Xue dodged his hand, held her head and glared at him. "Is this king's[1] head up to you to touch as you please?"

"You can also touch mine, provided that you can reach."

Tang Xue was speechless. "How can you bully someone like this…"

Li Yubing's lips curved and he laughed with a lowered gaze. He thought of something and asked, "When are you heading home?"

"The 28th of the twelfth lunar month. What about you?"

"So late for the speed skating team?"

"Mm." Tang Xue nodded. "Winter training. It's voluntary but everyone in the speed skating team has signed up… You?"

"Around the same for me. Ice hockey training. We have a compet.i.tion after the New Year." Li Yubing then asked for the details of Tang Xue's ticket home.

In the afternoon, Tang Xue b.u.mped into Zhang Yuewei in the changing room. Zhang Yuewei had just finished changing her clothes. Here, she twisted off the cap of the water bottle tucked under her arm singlehandedly, appearing especially formidable. This chapter is a labour of love that should not be found outside of teafragrance[dot]wordpress[dot]com.

Tang Xue thought of Zhang Yuewei's abnormalities the past two days and walked over to call her. "Xiao Zhang Zi."[2]

Zhang Yuewei replied in annoyance. "What?"

After measuring her for some time, Tang Xue suddenly asked, "Are you secretly in love with me?"

Zhang Yuewei almost smashed the water bottle onto Tang Xue's face.

"You lunatic," Zhang Yuewei said.

Tang Xue felt that Zhang Yuewei was a very poor thing. She did not know how to scold people and could only recycle those few phrases again and again.

It was not clear what Zhang Yuewei was thinking about but her eyes reflected a trace of guilt. Holding her bottle, she left hurriedly. Tang Xue stood where she was and declared to the leaving figure, "I'm straight, as straight as a pencil!"

Somewhere from the corridor came Zhang Yuewei's enraged roar. "Go to h.e.l.l!"

Tang Xue shrugged and sat on the bench to browse her phone after changing. She discovered a new message.

Yu Yan: Congratulations.

Tang Xue: Thanks. I haven't congratulated you for your outstanding results in your compet.i.tion yet… When are you coming back?

Yu Yan: I've entered the national team. Won't be going back for now.

Tang Xue: Oh. Congratulations.

……

There seemed to be a barrier between the two of them. Polite and restrained, they were careful in their exchange. Tang Xue felt a little unaccustomed to this. They had only been separated for a short while… Tang Xue clutched her phone and gave a faint sigh.

Here was another person wandering away from her.

Tang Xue suddenly thought of Li Yubing. So what was he? Someone who wandered off? Someone who wandered off for a long time but returned?

Eh…

After the Ascendance Cup, Tang Xue and the rest transitioned rapidly into training mode. Most students had already begun winter vacation and the entire campus was like a ghost town. Going out at night came with a special kind of atmosphere—the kind of atmosphere found in horror movies.

Liao Zhenyu and Xia Menghuan had both returned home and Yu Yan was not around as well. Within a short frame of time, Tang Xue was left all by her lonesome self. This was especially apparent at night when she was alone in her dorm. She kept feeling that there was something behind her and would jump from fright at every slight noise.

The first night, she did not dare to turn off the lights. She lay in bed till 11 pm but was still unable to fall asleep. Finally, she browsed through her contact list and tried to find someone to chat with.

Liao Zhenyu was afraid of ghosts, Xia Menghuan was afraid of ghosts, her dad and mom… Forget it, best to not let them worry…

She scrolled and scrolled, and the most suitable person turned out to be Li Yubing.

Tang Xue was still quite hesitant. Eventually, between the decision of "saving her face" and "saving her life", she decided to press the call invitation b.u.t.ton. Translated by Xing for only teafragrance[dot]wordpress[dot]com.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Mm, Li Yubing…"

"Yes, it's me. What's wrong?"

"Cough," Tang Xue was a little embarra.s.sed and said in a small voice, "I think your Yang energy should be quite strong, right?"

Li Yubing replied, "What do you mean? Are you trying to… replenish Yang with Yin?"[3]

"Ah?  Cough, cough, cough…" Tang Xue was overwhelmed by a wave of embarra.s.sment. "No, I'm just asking casually."

Unexpectedly, Li Yubing started chuckling. His low and pleasant laughter was carried over the phone into her ears. The room was very quiet, so quiet that it was only filled with his laughter.

Li Yubing had remembered that when they were young, there was once when their cla.s.smates were discussing a horror movie that was popular at that time. Tang Xue had claimed to watch it but when others began discussing the ghosts in the movie, Tang Xue's expression was braced as if she was about to face a great enemy.

Heh, so this brat was scared of ghosts…

Tang Xue could sense from Li Yubing's laughter that she had been seen through. Her face heated up uncontrollably and she tugged her blanket up over her head, trying to pretend that nothing was wrong.

Li Yubing was finally done with laughing but he did not expose her. He only asked, "How was today's training?"

"Eh, still alright. These few days' focus was on trailing and I've learnt numerous new techniques that I need to digest." After reporting everything in detail, she began rambling about mundane matters, the bulk of which was her scoffing about Zhang Yuewei. She even swore very seriously that Zhang Yuewei was secretly in love with on her.

Li Yubing felt that this world cannot be more bleak. Even girls were trying to steal his person away.

After finis.h.i.+ng her story, Tang Xue asked Li Yubing about his day. Li Yubing's train of thoughts had been disrupted by Zhang Yuewei and he merely gave a half-hearted reply. This made Tang Xue feel that Li Yubing did not want to entertain her. She said, "That's about it. You can head to bed if you want."

Li Yubing said, "Let me tell you a bedtime story."

"Oh?"

Li Yubing turned on his laptop and searched for a bedtime story. He selected one casually and began reading it out loud to her.

It was a fairytale starring a little pig and a little frog and was suitable for children aged three to six. After listening to it for a while, Tang Xue griped, "Li Yubing, are you taking me for a r.e.t.a.r.d?"

Li Yubing grinned. "Stop interrupting."

Fine, r.e.t.a.r.ded it shall be.

Li Yubing continued narrating the story of the little pig and the little frog. His voice was low and unhurried, and sounded so gentle and exquisite that it was about to melt into the endless night. With it by her ears, Tang Xue's body began to relax slowly. She felt that voice drift further and further away…

The moment right before she fell asleep, there was only one thought left in her head: He has a really pleasant voice…

Translator's Notes:

[1] 本王 (běn wáng): Can mean either "this prince" or "this king" and was used by those of a certain rank in ancient times in place of the personal p.r.o.noun "I". Tang Xue is play-acting and elevating her own status/importance by using this. (I feel like I'm explaining something that's pretty durh, especially for those who read lots of translated Chinese novels.)

[2] From Chapter 10: 小 X 子 (xiǎo X zi) is the standard way of naming eunuchs in the past. Replace the X with a random character and voila, you have yourself a new eunuch name. By calling her Xiao Zhang Zi, Tang Xue is essentially addressing Zhang Yuewei with a eunuch nickname. You can really see why Zhang Yuewei is perpetually annoyed with Tang Xue.

[3] Yin and Yang are concepts under Daoism on the duality of the world. A very brief example: Yin represents females, feminine energy and concepts of darkness while Yang represents males, masculine energy and concepts of light. Ghosts and death are a.s.sociated with Yin while humans and life are a.s.sociated with Yang. 採陰補陽 (Cǎi yīn bǔ yang): "Replenis.h.i.+ng Yang with Yin" is a cultivation method popularly seen in Wuxia works that has to do with s.e.x. I tried to do some research on this but there's too much info so I'm just typing what I very briefly remember.

Mm so a translator I'm following mentioned how she's doing additional release to motivate herself to translate more and I thought that I should do that same. I'm done with school and should really get on with the job search but I'm letting myself rest a bit. I have a humanities degree and my biggest difficulty now is deciding where I want to go next.

This is supposed to be this week's chapter but well… see you guys again this Sunday ? Weekly update will always happen on Sunday around 12 am (UTC +8) unless announced otherwise. Anything released on other days are all extras.