[Chapter 010] Gathering people for betting, reported for gambling!

When Lu YunFei woke up in the Tmall Genie that night, he saw that Shuang Shuang was already sitting in front of him, and wanted him to tell him a story.

Lu YunFei thought for a bit, and began to tell the story《Calabash Brothers》. There were seven brothers, enough to to tell over a few days.

Bian JinYuan was doing his homework beside them. When Bian Jie came over, he told her, “Small aunt, I may be leaving earlier tomorrow morning, so you don’t have to make breakfast for me, I’ll heat up the Bāozi.”

“Why are you leaving early so suddenly?” Bian Jie asked.

“The sports festival is commencing soon. I signed up for an event, so I’ll be practising for it.”

“I see,” Bian Jie smiled, “Then practise hard and try to get first place.”

“Don’t worry, there seems to be a prize if I really win.”

“That’s great,” Bian Jie was evidently happy, “Then good luck, small aunt will support you.”

“Mmm.”

Lu YunFei heard this and guessed that he was probably going to practise basketball. How serious, Lu YunFei thought, he still knows to practise. He’s very diligent.

The next morning, Lu YunFei woke up to his alarm and swiftly got out of bed. He hadn’t stopped thinking about Bian JinYuan practising basketball in school, and was quite curious as to his skills, and so he told the driver upon entering the car, “Uncle Li, drive faster, I have something on today.”

Uncle Li stepped on the gas pedal and arrived at the school 25 minutes earlier than usual.

Lu YunFei didn’t even put his bag down and hugged a basketball as he headed straight to the gym. As he entered the large doors of the gym, he saw Bian JinYuan wearing his autumn uniform and shooting balls. In the morning light, the image of a young man wearing a white short sleeved shirt and navy pants as he leapt up high created a cool and charming sight.

After he was done shooting balls, he turned to look at Lu YunFei.

Lu YunFei twirled the basketball on his finger and said to him, “What a coincidence, you’re also practising at school.”

It was a coincidence, but not unexpected. After all, the basketball match was an invitation by Lu YunFei. Hence, Bian JinYuan emitted a low “Mmm” in response.

Lu YunFei walked over and tossed his basketball to Bian JinYuan, “Let’s compete, I want to see your skill level.”

Bian JinYuan heard this and gave a rare smile, “You don’t even know my level and dared to invite me to your team.”

“Wasn’t it because you said that you could play? You’re the top student in the school, there’s no reason for you to lie in this area.”

Bian JinYuan threw the basketball back at him and asked, “How do we compete?”

“You attack I’ll defend. Later I’ll attack and you defend^#. Each person gets three chances.”

“Sure.”

The both of them started to play against each other. Lu YunFei’s basketball was quite good. Surprisingly, Bian JinYuan was actually on par with him. They kept on competing until Bian JinYuan’s phone alarm rang, and then Bian JinYuan hugged the ball back, “Let’s stop, it’s time for class.”

Lu YunFei saw his handphone and wasn’t able to decipher its brand. However it was easy to guess that it probably wasn’t any brand of value.

He picked up his basketball and walked towards the classroom with Bian JinYuan.

“Are you going to be practising at school for the next few days?” Lu YunFei asked.

Bian JinYuan responded with an “Mmm.”

“Great, then we’ll practise together,” Lu YunFei said.

Bian JinYuan didn’t say anything to the contrary, so it was considered an affirmative.

Lu YunFei creased his brow, “But I can’t simply practise basketball, I also have to practise running, otherwise it’ll be very embarrassing if I don’t get first place.”

“Your burden is heavy and the road is long,” Bian JinYuan remarked.

“Sigh, he takes goodness as his burden, is it not heavy? His journey ends only with death: is it not long?” Lu YunFei followed^§.

Bian JinYuan turned to look at him, and suddenly said, “Fulfilment, perform, complete, finished plans.”

“What?” Lu YunFei didn’t understand.

“How do you say that in English.”

Lu YunFei: …

Lu YunFei went silent.

Bian JinYuan shook his head, “Classmate Lu, you need to get better at memorising English vocabulary. You seem to have a grasp on memorising Language classics, there’s no reason for your English to be bad.”

“Didn’t I tell you before? I really can’t.”

“Then memorise a few more times.”

Lu YunFei didn’t want to talk to him anymore.

Bian JinYuan calmly said, “fulfilment，f-u-l-f-i-l-m-e-n-t. Remember it.”

Lu YunFei: …

It was then when a new thread appeared in the school discussion board.

《Shocking! Bian JinYuan actually played basketball with Lu YunFei and they’re chatting and laughing together!!》

I’m first place: Chatting and laughing??? Do these words even have anything to do with Bian JinYuan? Is the original poster sure that they saw Bian JinYuan?

I’m prettiest: Big brother said it right, I almost dropped my pen when I saw the words chatting and laughing.

Original poster: It’s true, [picture.JPG], Look, isn’t this Bian JinYuan and Lu YunFei!

A frog leaps into the pond⁺: Shit! It’s really them! But how is this chatting and laughing?

Original poster: There really was laughing just now, I just didn’t manage to take a picture of it. You have to believe me!!!

Moonstruck: Why would the both of them be together anyway?

You know who I am: They’re now deskmates.

I’m first place: When was this? The both of them being deskmates, my god, the girls from class one are so lucky!

You know who I am: It was two days ago, it likely happened so as to bring Lu YunFei’s English scores up.

Memorise the entire text: As they should. Lu YunFei’s subject bias is well-known even to other classes. But will Bian JinYuan help him?

Original poster: I’m betting he will! Just as I saw from this morning, they both were chatting and laughing, I’m sure he will!

You know who I am: Impossible, Bian JinYuan may be the top student in school, but he’s famous for being indifferent. No matter who asks him for help, he’d always say that he’s too busy. There’s no way he would help Lu YunFei bring his scores up.

Trigonometric odd functions change but even functions remain unchanged^※: Let’s bet, I’ll bet fifty cents that Bian JinYuan will help Lu YunFei in English!

Give me back my physical education class: Betting fifty cents that he won’t.

You know who I am: Betting a dollar fifty that he won’t!

Original poster: Betting fifty, he will!

…　　

There’s still so many days till winter break: Fuck, already 150 posts, then I’ll bet 150 that he won’t!

Lu YunFei calmly read the thread that Li YuanQing had forwarded him, and then slowly typed out a sentence.

A deer bleats^★: Gathering people for betting, reported for gambling!

Original poster: ????!!!! What the fuck!!

Lu YunFei kept his phone and was about to take out his English textbook when he saw Bian JinYuan push a piece of worksheet over to him.

He took it and looked over, only to see that the first row had two neatly-written words, Spelling Memorisation. The second row onwards were full of Chinese characters — these were Chinese translations of the words that the teacher had told the class to memorise.

Lu YunFei looked at Bian JinYuan in shock, “What’s the meaning of this?”

Ahhh we’re one eighth of the way there! Also I got my very first Kofi!!! Thank you so very much Mo, it came as such a nice surprise and I’m very grateful for your appreciation! ( ˘ ³˘)♥ I even got so excited that I went in to spruce up my barebones page and doodled a pair of mandarin ducks for my profile picture eheh. 

I won’t be implementing a Kofi goal for more chapters at this point, I poked my nose at how other translators use Kofi but I think with school looming, my hands are pretty tied with my current plan – to create a queue of at least 20 chapters which will buffer for a chapter a week until the end of next semester. After I have these 20 chapters prepared, subsequent chapters that I (miraculously) have prepped in advance will help to push releases to twice a week. But anyway, today is a special holiday + first Kofi commemoration release! Happy holidays all!

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# Huhuhu the actual words used were “You attack (攻, gōng) I’ll defend (守, shǒu). Later I’ll attack (gong) and you defend (shou).” This is the exact same gong (top) and shou (bottom) we’re familiar with for BL roles. Lu YunFei is saying this in the purest sense of the words, but I’m pretty sure the author is inserting this allusion on purpose. 

§ Bian JinYuan quoted philosopher Zengzi, and in here Lu YunFei followed up with the rest of the saying. You can find a translation of the philosophical text here (Book 4, Chapter 7).

+ This is part of a Chinese translation of the famous Matsuo Basho haiku:

Japanese: 古池や蛙飛びこむ水の音 (furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto)
English translation: an old pond / a frog leaps in / the sound of a splash

Chinese translation: 闲寂古池旁 / 青蛙跳进水中央 / 扑通一声响
English translation of the Chinese translation: by the quiet old pond / a frog leaps into the middle / a sound of ‘pū tōng’ (onomatopoeia for ‘splash’) rings out

The Chinese translation actually adheres to 5-7-5, but adds more details to the haiku as a result of this conformity. Pretty interesting to see the differences!

※ I spent way too much time trying to understand this confounded mathematical shortcut rule and still couldn’t grasp it, but basically it’s like CAST, for calculating the positive or negative of Trigonometric functions. As it’s a short phrase in Chinese (奇变偶不变, qí biàn ǒu bù biàn), teachers tend to emphasize this phrase, plus how it kinda rolls off the tongue, this phrase apparently got quite popular outside of the classroom as well. 

★ We’re back to Cao Cao’s famed Short Song Style poem (it’s the same one that the class was reading out loud for morning reading class at the beginning of the previous chapter! Here, Lu YunFei chose this portion because his surname ‘Lu’ sounds the same as the word for deer (lù). This deer imagery for Lu YunFei comes up again in later chapters, but I’ll explain it again when we get to it since it’s still a while till we get there.