CH 25

Translation checker: Rin

Editor: Junyans

“Oh my God, I’ve never seen such a beautiful girl!”

The sun was warm at noon and the breeze was humid. Yu Ran stood on the roof of the experimental class building, reciting lines with passion. After several days of repeated practice, he had finally finished the manuscript smoothly.

“…It’s a pity that she can only sleep in this gloomy and scary forest.” Yu Ran walked up to Chu Mian, grabbed his neck and shook it vigorously. “Oh! Let me Res! Cue! Her! Okay — Wake Up!”

The original lines should be full of a tone of pitying the princess, but under Yu Ran’s performance, it had turned into a prince seeking revenge.

Chu Mian grabbed Yu Ran’s wrist and moved it away from his neck. “With you being the prince, the princess should be more willing to die.”

“Just be as proficient as you are now on the day of the primary audition,” Ye Xi said, “There are still a lot of classes competing for Sleeping Beauty. If you want to impress the judges and teachers, it doesn’t matter if you exaggerate a little. After all, the stage drama is ultimately for children to watch.”

“Since the director said so, then it’s okay.” Yu Ran breathed a sigh of relief and sat down next to Chu Mian. “Ai, you guys, it would be good if this stage drama was a beauty pageant, Chu Mian would fucking win without a fight… Fuck, I was wrong, I was wrong, Ge!”

Recently during the lunch break, a few people liked to gather on the rooftop to spend their time. Ye Xi would supervise the two leading actors reciting their lines, and Fang Zhao and Cui He would watch them play around.

Yu Ran leaned on Chu Mian’s arm, folded the paper in his hand into a paper airplane, then aimed at the sky and threw it, his mouth not forgetting the dubbing “Xiu—”.

The paper plane’s route in the air was quite straight, and the tip was accurately inserted on the rooftop guardrail net. Yu Ran visually measured the height, and felt that even if he jumped up, he wouldn’t be able to reach it, so he said to Fang Zhao: “Diuge, detach your dick and help me pull the plane.”

Fang Zhao: “You fucking…”

Chu Mian tilted his head and said carelessly: “It’s not enough to reach.”

Yu Ran deliberately showed a surprised reaction: “Huh? So short?”

Fang Zhao: “Fuck you guys!”

The vulgar jokes between boys often made Cui He laugh out loud with no qualms, and she would even pick up the conversation and join in the banter, while Ye Xi would just hook up the corners of her mouth in a reserved manner, too embarrassed to disturb them.

Since the day Yu Ran had brought her to eat together with them, Ye Xi’s daily lunch break had suddenly become richer, which she still found incredible whenever she thought about it.

Whether it was Yu Ran, who was enthusiastic and cheerful, or Cui He, who did whatever she wanted, their strong and dazzling aura was diametrically opposed to her own, not to mention Chu Mian, who she felt had the most sense of distance. As for Fang Zhao… Well, although he was an ordinary person, he was also quite interesting.

Ye Xi felt it was a privilege to be able to stay with them, even if it was just for the time being.

The bell rang at the end of the lunch break, and they took their time in returning to the classroom.

There was a thick stack of “Anime Weekly” on Yu Ran’s desk, which Ye Xi had brought from her home and lent to him. After class, the two often discussed which new series they had been chasing recently. Ye Xi’s after-school life basically revolved around anime, and only on such topics could she release her most cheerful side with vigor.

When they were chatting happily, a girl’s voice came from the door of the classroom: “Ye Xi, come here for a minute, I’ve something to discuss with you.”

“Oh, okay.” Ye Xi wished to continue chatting but she could only leave Yu Ran’s side and walk towards the corridor. “What’s the matter?”

The person who called her out was a Class Committee member named Bian Tingting. The two of them had been in the same dormitory during military training, but Ye Xi had rarely communicated with her during that time, because she could feel that…Bian Tingting didn’t like her.

Bian Tingting got straight to the point: “How is your stage drama going? Has the script been handed in?”

“Yes, the actors have all finished memorizing their lines now.”

“Oh, that’s good. It’s like this… Teacher Bai wants to change the director and thinks that I’m a little more experienced than you because I had also rehearsed a similar stage drama when I was in junior high school. So how about we do this, you continue to be the scriptwriter, since the script was written by you, and I’ll help you rehearse. Is that okay?”

After she finished speaking, the girl stretched out her hand and grabbed Ye Xi’s arm, which made her shrink back timidly.

Just staring at Bian Tingting’s phoenix eyes, Ye Xi was stunned. Hearing the other party’s tone, it did not seem to be a discussion at all. It was clear that she had already made an irrefutable decision and was just letting her know in passing.

“Ct, atlr… yea atf jmabgr jgf jii erfv ab wf yflcu j vlgfmabg.” Tf Wl ijmxfv mbcolvfcmf jcv aglfv ab xffq atf vlgfmabg’r qbrlalbc obg tfgrfio. “Ktf qglwjgs jevlalbc lr bc Vecvjs, rb cbk la’r abb ijaf, sbe rff.”

“Pa’r cba ijaf ja jii. Gbc’a kbggs, P’w vfolclafis yfaafg ja atlr jrqfma atjc sbe.” Dljc Klcualcu rwlifv. “Prc’a la jii obg atf tbcbg bo beg mijrr? Kfjmtfg Djl jrxfv wf ab ajxf mjgf bo la, ktja vb sbe atlcx?”

Since the homeroom teacher had agreed, Ye Xi couldn’t find any reason to object at the moment.

It was just that she was unwilling to change from the chief person in charge of the stage drama to a person behind the scenes, and to have the fruits of her labor be shared with others.

“Okay then… I’ll go back and talk to the actors,” Ye Xi said in a soft voice.

In fact, sharing the credit with others was not the main reason why she felt frustrated.

Her task as a screenwriter had already been completed, which meant that she had no reason to spend her lunch break with Yu Ran and the others… She wondered if they would still bring her to lunch with them tomorrow. Although being alone at school was originally something normal for her, Ye Xi inevitably felt reluctant to leave after having contact with them and gaining happiness for a while.

After returning, she did not notify the two actors for the time being, but sat in a seat by herself to digest the frustration.

On the way out of school, Yu Ran tirelessly used the lines of “Sleeping Beauty” to talk to Chu Mian, calling him “Little Princess” for a while and calling him “Royal Highness” for the next while. He was so annoying that Chu Mian took out two band-aids and crisscrossed them to seal Yu Ran’s mouth.

Yu Ran also obediently didn’t take it off. With his closed mouth, he said a few ‘mmm’ to Chu Mian, the tone sounded like “goodbye”.

Chu Mian watched him cross the road, and then watched him follow the crowd to the station. Obviously this was a scene he was accustomed to, but because recently it was getting darker earlier, the reflection of Yu Ran’s figure in his eyes actually felt novel.

After hurrying home and eating dinner, Chu Mian immediately began to study extra courses, striving to study the difficult knowledge of the midterm exam thoroughly in the next few days. In the last monthly exam, he had easily gotten the first place in the grade, and his overall score in eight subjects had been a full 70 points higher than the second place. On the day the ranking was announced, the whole class couldn’t help but marvel.

But this was not enough for Chu Mian in the slightest.

When he was halfway through translating traditional Chinese, his phone screen lit up. Chu Mian discovered that it was a QQ message from Cui He.

[Whale Song.]: I opened our school’s confession wall, you’re really a man who fucking stands tall on the honor roll.

She sent several screenshots from the “Chengjun Middle School Confession Wall”, and without exception, they were all anonymous confessions to Chu Mian. He had long been used to this kind of stuff, so he didn’t bother to pay attention to Cui He and continued to review.

[Whale Song.]: This confession to Yu Ran is so funny. I can’t tell whether it’s a girl confessing or someone in our class messing with him.

Chu Mian stopped writing, picked up his phone, and clicked on the screenshot.

“I want to tell my classmate Yu Ran in the first year of senior high school that I’ve noticed you since the start of school, and I think you’re handsome and bright! The way you jumped in the inter-class exercises has also been deeply imprinted in my heart, and from then on I couldn’t help falling in love with you! I’m embarrassed to confess in person, so I’ll just say it here: Yu Ran, I love you!”

“I want to confess to Yu Ran, who is in the experimental class of the first year of senior high school. Actually, I had a secret crush on Chu Mian, but now I’m attracted to you. Chu Mian is really fucking cold, and this old lady decided to change her goal in a fit of anger and found that you’re very good. You look mischievous when you laugh, and you’re handsome and cute. Would you like to be my boyfriend? If you don’t want to, you can also be my younger brother, this sister will really cherish you.”

After Chu Mian glanced at it a few times, he couldn’t help but look at it again.

After a while, he replied to Cui He: “Do you think Yu Ran has these merits?”

[Whale Song.] : Yes. Don’t ignore Yu Ran’s appearance just because he’s an idiot by nature.

Chu Mian didn’t reply again. He just placed his phone upside down and continued to write the problem.

But after a few minutes, he picked up his phone again and tried to search for “Chengjun Middle School Confession Wall”. This type of account had become very popular recently. In addition to the feature of confession, there were also “Quarrel Wall” and “Con People Wall”. Chu Mian had heard of them and his opinion on all of them was the same — boring.

It being boring was one thing, but when the names of acquaintances appeared, most people would of course see it out of curiosity. Chu Mian thought that it was for satisfying that little curiosity, so he added the Confession Wall to his friends list, feeling completely justified and at ease.

He started to browse the QQ feed of this account, and when he saw his name, he quickly ignored it; only when he saw the words “Yu Ran” appear did he stop and take a closer look.

Unexpectedly, there were actually quite a lot of people who had confessed to Yu Ran. Some people had even praised Yu Ran to the highest degree by showering him with compliments and using extravagant and colorful descriptions, so much so that Chu Mian suspected that Yu Ran had opened an alt account to submit the confessions himself.

Chu Mian was very puzzled, so he sent a message to Cui He: “Don’t they like Yu Ran only for the way he looks?”

Cui He: “Yeah, isn’t it okay to like someone for the way they look?”

“What’s okay about it?” Chu Mian typed, and after thinking about it, he added two more words: How superficial.

After remaining silent for half a minute, Cui He sent a long string of ellipses.

Then, she asked Chu Mian: “Are you trying to say that Yu Ran isn’t worthy of being one of the most handsome boys in the school like you, or do you think that the compliments made by those girls to praise Yu Ran aren’t good enough?”

Chu Mian thought for a moment, and then ignored her. He silently deleted the confession wall account, and once again returned to the sea of knowledge.

At bedtime, as he was lying on the bed and playing with his mobile phone, he saw that Yu Ran had made a new post.

[The Wolf is Hiding Next to the Dog]: We watch Teacher Cat and you watch Teacher Cang, so our views are different. You can dislike everything about the 2D world, but if you spread hatred about my 2D world, I’m sorry, please kneel down and apologize, okay?”

When Chu Mian saw the second half of the sentence, he thought Yu Ran was going to fight with someone, and then he found that Ye Xi had forwarded this post, accompanied by a sentence: “Sharing this angrily! If you don’t like the 2D world, you can leave quietly, but please don’t make a fool of yourself by acting like an elitist.”

Chu Mian looked at the words of these two people and suddenly laughed.

In the past, Yu Ran had liked to forward some anime and manga dialogues, and Chu Mian had found it childish and ridiculous. He hadn’t expected that there would be more people who would accompany Yu Ran to go crazy together. Now it seemed that just like how two negatives become a positive, the two of them could bring out a kind of wonderful earnestness in each other.

Chu Mian casually clicked into Ye Xi’s QQ feed, wanting to see what was different about their “2D” world.

What greeted his eyes were nine black and white manga screenshots. It seemed that two people were kissing, and Chu Mian immediately scrolled it away. Then, there were many incomprehensible proper nouns, such as “black belly”, “tsundere” and “ABO”. The more Chu Mian read, the more confused he became, and finally gave up the idea of understanding their 2D world.

However, he still noticed two posts that he could understand. One of them was posted at noon today: “It would be great if I could enter the anime world. The world I’m in is really disgusting.”

The other was from a few days ago: “Sure enough, I was born to be a nuisance. Even if I die, no one will notice it. ”

Depressed and world-weary, it fit Ye Xi’s usual reticent image. Chu Mian didn’t have the enthusiasm to comfort and talk sense into others. He just liked the post that she had made today, and then exited the page indifferently.

At noon the next day, it was time to rehearse the stage drama again.

In most of his scenes, Chu Mian was lying on props and sleeping. So the real burden was concentrated on Yu Ran. As always, he was playing around with memorizing lines and laughing from time to time, and was criticized by Cui He for not being professional enough. When the atmosphere was pleasant, Ye Xi suddenly said: “I’ve something to tell you.”

Everyone’s eyes focused on her.

“The director has been changed to Bian Tingting, and she’ll be directing the rehearsals in the afternoon self-study class.”

Yu Ran’s smile faded, and his face was full of surprise: “Huh? Why?”

“She’s more experienced than me and knows the people in the Student Union, so when the primary audition comes, it should go without a hitch…”

Yu Ran frowned, “She asked you to step down?”

Ye Xi replied in a low voice, “Teacher Bai also allowed it.”

“What’s the use of Teacher Bai’s permission, did I allow it?” Yu Ran dropped the script in his hand to the ground and approached her. “You’ve worked so hard to arrange everything for so many days, so why should she come and get involved now? It’s clear that she thinks you’re easy to bully.”

Ye Xi lowered her head and said nothing.

“Tch.” Yu Ran snorted at her, then walked towards the skybridge. “I’ll go to find Bian Tingting. If the director changes, I won’t act.”

“Yu Ran, you shouldn’t be rough with girls.” Fang Zhao was afraid that he would become the topic of malicious gossip, so he hurried to follow.

Cui He didn’t understand the situation and asked, “Who is Bian Tingting?”

Chu Mian: “Communist Youth League.”

“Oh… the one with very slender eyes, right? Last time, she hadn’t apologized for taking my seat.” Cui He suddenly realized something, and turned to Chu Mian. “That girl must be interested in you. She always tries to come to your side after class.”

“I haven’t noticed.”

Cui He got up. “Forget it, I’ll go over and ask her.”

Only Chu Mian and Ye Xi, two quiet people, were left sitting on the rooftop, and the atmosphere became cold all of a sudden.

As he picked up a few pages of script that had fallen to the ground, Chu Mian asked her carelessly: “Why didn’t you refuse?

Ye Xi mumbled: “Compared to me, she’s more…”

“That’s her reason, what’s yours?”

Even after waiting for a while, the girl didn’t answer. Chu Mian continued to ask, “Do you know why Yu Ran is in a hurry to help you?”

Ye Xi pursed her lips, and gave an uncertain answer: “He hates the Youth League just like Cui He?”

After saying that, she raised her head and looked at Chu Mian, only to find a mocking smile on the corner of his mouth. She was so scared that she didn’t dare to say another word.

“Ye Xi.” This was the first time Chu Mian called her by name. “I probably know why you’re easily disliked.”

The girl was caught guard and her heart sank. Layers of cold sweat formed on her palms

A cold autumn wind blew over his ears, and when the air returned to peace, Chu Mian slowly said: “Your weakness isn’t that you’re weak, but that you’re immersed in your own world and don’t know how to perceive other people’s feelings.”

When he pointed out her weakness so bluntly, the taut string in Ye Xi’s brain suddenly broke. Obviously, the boy’s tone was very gentle, but it sounded harsher than the meanest rebuke, as if a small stone with weak attack power had accurately crushed the most vulnerable place in her heart.

Chu Mian noticed that her eyes were a little red. After a pause, he still chose to continue: “The real world isn’t exactly what you want it to be, so you watch anime as a way to distract yourself. But do you think that by escaping like this, you can completely get rid of interpersonal relationships? When others bully you, you may not dare to resist it, but when others help you, why don’t you understand the reason?”

He took out a packet of tissues from his pocket and threw it into her lap.

“Do you think Yu Ran is idle?” Chu Mian lightly told her the conclusion, “He just treats you as a friend.”

The young girl was stunned, and the tears that she had been holding back for a long time started to fall.

Chu Mian stopped looking at her, turned his gaze to the direction of the small shop near the school, and said in a deep voice, “Actually, I’m similar to you. For example, now, I wouldn’t bother to care about your emotions. But since Yu Ran and the others attach great importance to you…then I can barely include you in my circle of friends.”

Ye Xi immediately took out a tissue and covered her eyes.

To hold back her sobs, she needed to tighten her throat and couldn’t make a sound. After taking several consecutive deep breaths to stabilize her emotions, she spoke to Chu Mian apologetically, “I’m sorry, I didn’t ignore Yu Ran, it’s just that I…”

Chu Mian added the latter half of the sentence for her: “It’s just that I didn’t expect that after only getting along with Yu Ran for a few days that I’d be easily regarded as a friend by him, right?”

Ye Xi nodded vigorously.

She had always assumed that Yu Ran was a person from another world, and she had also classified Chu Mian and others in this way. Ye Xi felt that being able to eat and chat with everyone for a while was a coincidence brought about by the stage drama. Since she didn’t stand out in the class, she already felt lucky that she was not hated by such glamorous people as them, so she didn’t dare to think that she could “become friends” with them.

But she hadn’t expected that in the process of having a series of conversations, she had unknowingly been recognized by Yu Ran as a friend.

Seeing her flattered look, Chu Mian couldn’t help laughing. It was rare that even the corners of his eyes were wrinkled up.

He smiled helplessly and told Ye Xi: “Yu Ran is a natural socializer, don’t take offense.”