Su Xiaotang was a bland, fat and round female shut-in.
She opened a Taobao shop during her university days, called "You Look Like You"re Very Tasty", which sold all sorts of snacks.
While she initially set it up to pa.s.s time and earn some extra cash, she didn"t expect this shop to have such good business under her management. By the time she was in her second year, Su Xiaotang could already earn enough to cover her tuition and living expenses, and was known amongst her cla.s.smates as Little Miss Moneybags.
After graduating from university, while everyone else was busy looking for jobs, Su Xiaotang stopped being a reseller of snacks. Instead, she rented an apartment with two rooms and a living area to buy wholesale, and continued running her snack shop until today.
Although this shop had allowed her to earn plenty and become rich in her own right, it had also made her roll further and further along the road of being bland, fat and round…
【Su Xiao Tang: sorry hun, there"s no more stock for the cranberry cookies~】
【I await hangrily: but I saw that there was still a bag left!】
【Su Xiao Tang: I"m really sorry, I just opened it up and ate it all (*^_^*) 】
【I await hangrily: 0.0 ……】
Her hair untied and extremely messy, Su Xiaotang did not portray a good image as she sat with crossed legs on her chair, throwing cookies into her mouth with her chubby hands. She was in the middle of convincing the buyer to buy another snack when her phone rang.
Her close friend, Li Ranran, had some bad news for her.
"Don"t blame me for not telling you ahead of time, but our university cla.s.s reunion is tomorrow night. You better clean yourself up properly!"
"Huh? Do I have to go? That"s so troublesome, I have to wash my hair, change my clothes……"
"SU, XIAO, TANG! Do you want to be a shut-in until the day the sun dies and humanity is wiped out?" Li Ranran yelled from the other end of the phone.
The corners of Su Xiaotang"s mouth turned downwards as she held the phone a bit further away. "I really don"t want to go……"
"You don"t have a choice. How long has it been since the last time you went outside? If you keep living like this, you"ll devolve into a primitive caveman! I heard from the cla.s.s pres that our cla.s.s has plenty of high spec guys who are still single, so think about it! It"s a good opportunity! You might even find a boyfriend……" Li Ranran paused as if she was struck by a thought and softened her voice. "Um…… Do you not want to see that b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Song Minghui?"
Li Ranran"s temper flared just by mentioning the name. "You sacrificed so much for that son of a b.i.t.c.h, you spent so much on him, you even funded the tuition fees for his master’s degree. Then what did he do? Started working and snagged himself a younger girl from his company. What did I tell you? You can"t trust those country boys, they"re only out for your money. All those posts on Tianya Forum and they still didn"t deter you……"
While Li Ranran raged on the phone, Su Xiaotang cheerfully made another successful transaction. As she confirmed the delivery address with the buyer, she said to her friend, "Ranran, he already returned that money, with added interest too. Anyway, the past is in the past. I don"t want to go to the reunion because I"m lazy, not because of anything else."
"What do you mean, "the past is in the past", so what if he returned the money? What, did he think of you as a credit card? So he can get an advance and pay back later? You can"t settle this with just a bit of money!"
"Okay, okay! I"m busy right now so I"m going to hang up. I"ll be there on time tomorrow bye~" Su Xiaotang said rapidly, and hurriedly hung up before Li Ranran could say anything else.
*
When Song Minghui said he wanted to break up, it would be a lie to say she wasn"t upset.
Despite the lack of firework-like romance, she had started dating him with the intention of marriage and had been serious about their relationship. You"d be upset if you raised a dog from birth but it ran off with someone else, right? Even more so if it was a man you were in a relationship with for so long.
However, if you were to ask just how upsetting it was, it would only be around how upset you would be if a buyer bought a packet of snacks from you, ate half the packet, and then came back demanding a refund.
The times of major upheavals and memorable moments in her life were all given to a man named Fang Jingshen. From high school to university, she had a crush on him for a solid seven years. Her crush lasted until graduation in their fourth year, when her nanshen finally got a girlfriend–who just happened to be her roommate, Shu Tian, the campus belle. The two seemed to be perfectly matched, and were envied by many others……
As a measurement of how upset that made her, she felt despairing limbo, emptiness… it was as if she would never eat something delicious again in her life.
Then, not long after, Song Minghui confessed to her. He said that her chubbiness was very cute, and that he really liked her, and asked if she wanted to try being together with him.
So they became a couple too.
That was until half a year ago, when Song Minghui straightforwardly told her he had found his true love and made the move to break up. A few days later, he transferred ￥30,000 into her account with the intention to not have anything more to do with her. Of course, it was also because he didn"t want other people to talk about how he still owed her money.
Although Fang Jingshen and Shu Tian had broken up after just a few months together, Su Xiaotang wasn"t naive enough to think she would have a chance once Fang Jingshen was single again. She didn"t hold any hope to start with, which is why her one-sided love merely remained one-sided and his relationship with Shu Tian only cut off her prospects of looking upon him from afar.
*
The next day.
There was half an hour left before the reunion when Su Xiaotang finally forced herself to wash her hair and put on a set of her most comfortable clothes. While she was thinking about whether she had anything else to prepare, a round husky jumped over from her balcony and lay at her feet, panting and aggressively wagging his tail at her.
This "round weapon of ma.s.s destruction" she owned made Su Xiaotang very perplexed.
She had left her dog alone at home once, however, he not only made a mess in the bedroom and living area, but also managed to open the door to her stockroom. When Su Xiaotang came home that night, she found the place to be as if a tornado had ripped through, leaving a mess of destruction in its wake. Yet the culprit for the mess had the gall to come up to her, wearing an expression of innocence and acting cute with his tail wagging happily, making her so angry she was very tempted to just eat the thing……
After that incident, Su Xiaotang tied him up with a chain the next time she needed to go out. But because the d.a.m.n animal was so full of energy, she later found that the chain had rubbed off a circle of fur and had chafed the dog"s skin.
Su Xiaotang had a sharp tongue but a soft heart, so she couldn"t bring herself to tie the dog up again. Instead, she tried to take him along whenever she needed to go out. Thank goodness she barely left the house anyway.
Now, seeing that Su Xiaotang looked like she was heading out, this foolish dog immediately pattered over and tried to join in with her on the fun. First he rubbed against her leg, then he put both paws up on the door, clearly desperate to go out too.
Seeing that his owner was still standing in the same place, the dog confusedly yelped at her and went to pull her pant leg.
Exasperated, Su Xiaotang had no choice but to make a phone call to Li Ranran.
"h.e.l.lo? Xiaotang, have you arrived yet? I"m already at the restaurant!"
"I"m just getting ready to leave, but I don"t know what to do with Meatball. Does the hotel allow dogs?"
Li Ranran knew all about how energetic Meatball was, so hearing Su Xiaotang say this didn"t surprise her at all. "Give me a min, I"ll go ask for you!"
"Okay."
A while later, Li Ranran happily told her, "Xiaotang, it"s all good, you can bring Meatball along. The manager is a close friend of one of our cla.s.smates, and he said that it"s fine as long as you keep a firm hold over him."
"Alright, I"ll be there in roughly twenty minutes," Su Xiaotang said as she patted Meatball on the head.
"Give me a call when you arrive, I"ll pick you up at the front doors."
*
When Su Xiaotang arrived at the restaurant"s doors, Li Ranran excitedly made a mess of Meatball first, before eyeing Su Xiaotang up and down with a look of disgust. The desire to kick Su Xiaotang back home was very obvious in her eyes.
"Didn"t I tell you to clean yourself up properly? And yet you come here looking like this?"
Su Xiaotang was afraid of the cold, so she was already wearing a down jacket at the beginning of winter. She was fat to start with, and now she looked more like a ball.
"I did wash my hair! These clothes were washed yesterday as well……" Su Xiaotang replied weakly.
Li Ranran couldn"t stop sighing. "What do you want me to say about you, Su Xiaotang? Are you a woman at all! Can"t you spend some time on your own appearance? Just what do you spend all that money you"ve earnt on! I"m starting to regret calling you over. Oh man, you haven"t seen what that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Song Minghui looks like right now. It"s as if he"s at the top of the food chain. The woman beside him too, wearing brand names from head to toe and shining like a beacon. Apparently she"s the daughter of some higher up at his company? So he"s also climbed up a bit in the ranks. I was hoping you would be able to counterattack, but if you"re going in there looking like this, it would definitely be a KO for you. Also, Su Xiaotang, tell me honestly, did you put on more weight? What happened to losing weight……"
Girls will dress themselves up for their admirers, but there isn"t a guy who will even look at me as a woman, Su Xiaotang grumbled internally.
She had no desire to dress herself up because she didn"t have admirers, which led to having no admirers because she didn"t dress herself up, which then circled back to not wanting to dress herself up. It was a continuous loop which could not be broken.
"I live for myself, so why does it matter how other people are?" Su Xiaotang mumbled.
Li Ranran did not want to say anything more to this blockhead, because she knew Su Xiaotang wasn"t pretending to be open-minded; it was just that she had become a true airhead from being a shut-in for so long.
*
There were already ten or so people inside the reserved private room when the two (and dog) arrived. Some were chatting and singing in twos and threes, while another group was playing mahjong.
"See her? That"s Lin Xue! Looks like a pretentious b.i.t.c.h, doesn"t she!" Li Ranran gestured in the direction of the mahjong players. Su Xiaotang followed her line of vision and sure enough, there was Song Minghui, playing mahjong with a woman snuggled up tight against him.
Song Minghui had also raised his head at that moment and saw them. He swept his eyes over Su Xiaotang, then quickly looked away, as if he couldn"t bear to have her in his sight; utter disgust was clear in his eyes.
Although Su Xiaotang was fat, her face wasn"t wide, and her five sense organs were actually quite nicely grown. During the peak of her crush on Fang Jingshen back in university, she would spend a fair bit of time on her appearance too, leading to how Song Minghui described her as "chubby but cute" when he first confessed.
But the Su Xiaotang now looked a lot worse than she did back in the day. Wearing a ￥300 down jacket from Taobao and thermal pants despite being fat, with hair pulled back into a low bun because she didn"t like static, her appearance could be summarised with one word: loser.
Su Xiaotang"s face was very easy to recognise, so it didn"t take long before a cla.s.smate realised who she was. Then, after seeing the dog by her feet, they excitedly asked: "Su Xiaotang, is this your dog? It"s a husky, right?"
"Yeah." Su Xiaotang nodded and found a place to sit down.
"He"s so cute, what"s his name?" She was suddenly surrounded by several women.
"Meatball."
Meatball wasn"t shy with strangers at all, and was especially happy with all the attention given to him by these beauties, who would rub his fur and feed him nice things. He was evidently having a better time at this gathering than his owner was.
"Like owner, like dog. Su Xiaotang, your dog"s physique is so similar to yours!" someone said. It was unknown if this comment had intentional connotations or not.
Su Xiaotang laughed it off without thinking much of it, but Li Ranran was not happy. "Zheng Fang, what the h.e.l.l did you mean?"
Li Ranran wouldn"t care too much if someone else had said it, and would think of it as a well-meant joke; but this person was from the same hometown as Song Minghui, and had chased after Song Minghui at one point, although she did not succeed.
"It was a joke~" Zheng Fang looked like she didn"t mean it seriously, then purposefully asked, "Su Xiaotang, where are you working at right now? Unless you"re still fussing over that little shop of yours?"
Zheng Fang was working at this city"s top construction company, with a monthly income of ￥8,000, and had asked her question with a tone of superiority.
"Haha, that"s right." Su Xiaotang continued to smile.
Li Ranran couldn"t take it any longer and interjected: "Xiaotang"s snack shop is really popular, okay? Her monthly net income is at least ￥20,000, and at times like double eleven and end-of-year sales she can earn over ￥10,000 a day……"
Zheng Fang"s facial colour changed as she listened to Li Ranran and shut up.
Lin Xue decided to give her two cents too: "I didn"t realise snack shops could earn so much money! If I knew earlier I would"ve opened one myself, hahaha……"
Of course a rich missy like her wouldn"t need anything like that, it was obvious she was showing off her status. After all, a gossipy cla.s.smate had just teasingly told her about Song Minghui"s relationship with this fat woman.
Her giggles made Li Ranran get gooseb.u.mps, and she immediately looked over at Song Minghui, saying: "Hah, why else would a certain someone be so shameless when they chased after Xiaotang?"
Zheng Fang finally got the chance to sneer, "Hah, who would be interested in her if it wasn"t for her ￥20,000?"
Sparks crackled in the room between the parties involved.
The person in question was still happily playing with her dog as if she didn"t realise what was going on, but discreetly held a furious Li Ranran down in place.
It was not as if she wasn"t upset, it was just that she had become immune to these comments. Su Xiaotang had tried to lose weight before, but because of her digestive system, what could be done when she would gain weight even if she ate nothing and only drank water everyday? She had been at her thinnest during her university days, and that was the end of it.
At that moment, the door to the private room creaked open and a few people, who didn"t seem like her cla.s.smates, walked in.
Jiang Hua, the cla.s.s president, immediately went up to greet them. "We were just talking about why you guys haven"t arrived yet!"
"Alright everyone, let me introduce you to our medical faculty"s top students! Not many from our cla.s.s were able to make it today, so I called people over from another cla.s.s too!"
Medical faculty?
Su Xiaotang, who had been nestled in a dark corner, felt like she was a wilting little sapling which suddenly got a huge bucket of fertiliser dumped on it, and was instantly full of spirit again!
147’s translation notes: while I had to take some liberties and rephrase some lines with appropriate English meanings, I feel like it’s important to explain that Su Xiaotang’s name is written as 苏小棠 in Chinese, while her Taobao name is 酥小糖, which is read the same way as her real name. To differentiate between the two, but also keep the original punniness, I chose to use ‘Su Xiao Tang’ for her Taobao name.
General translation notes on this project in case you missed them:
TL #1: This is a translation of the web version, not the printed version! Web version is called 我男神变成了狗, whereas printed version does not have "我" in the t.i.tle. Other differences between the two versions will not be specifically noted. Please consider buying a printed copy to support the author!
TL #2: "nanshen (男神)" is literally translated to "male G.o.d", however it"s not the most accurate translation of the term. They"re usually the tall, rich and handsome (TRH) guys you see in standard Chinese web novels, but have an added status of being "worshipped". Because it"s so hard to pin down to one single English term, we"ve decided to keep it as "nanshen" within this novel translation.