Rock Sugar And Pear Stew

Chapter 49 - Face-to-face revision (Translated and edited by Xing)

For two days straight, Mrs Liang attended two dinner parties. The first dinner party was with the RCU figure skating team. The other was with Coach Yang, the province team"s coach and management executives, and also the Winter Sports Administrative Centre"s management executives.

Yu Yan was like an exhibition piece that was hauled along by his mother. Being a quiet person, he would not initiate conversations on his own. He mostly stayed silent unless someone asked him a question.

The management executives praised him for this "composed" and "dependable" demeanour. Everyone"s mouths were glib and full of flattery.

It made Yu Yan felt exhausted.

At the end of the dinner party, Mrs Liang and Yu Yan returned to school together. After getting off the taxi, Yu Yan walked Mrs Liang back to the Conference Centre Hotel where she was staying at.

On the way there, Yu Yan asked Mrs Liang, "Mom, I have something that I don"t understand."

"What?"

"Why am I signing on with the club team instead of entering the province or national team like others?"

"The club team is not as restrictive and we can have more control over certain decisions. However, it"s still important to build a close relationship with the official administrative inst.i.tutions," Mrs Liang replied. She was in a good mood and looked at her son with a warm and loving gaze.

There was one thing she omitted in her reply. Entering the national team would bring numerous benefits but also subject Yu Yan to being controlled by others. Allowing other people to have a say in what her son should do was something that she would never allow. Translated by Xing for teafragrance[dot]wordpress[dot]com and no other sites.

After answering Yu Yan, it was Mrs Liang"s turn to ask him a question. "I have something to clarify as well."

"Go ahead, Mom."

"Yan Yan, do you currently have a girl that you like?"

Yu Yan nodded without hesitation. "Mm."

Mrs Liang was displeased but did not show it on her face. "Is it that Tang Xue?"

Yu Yan kept silent and looked down at his feet. After a while, he raised his head and looked at her. "Mom, did you contact Tang Xue privately?"

Mrs Liang was startled by his question.

The docile look in Yu Yan"s eyes faded and he began to express hurt instead. He looked at her and said, "Tang Xue has been ignoring me. What exactly did you say to her?" His tone was slightly sharp as he asked the question.

Mrs Liang was extremely irritated but pretended that she was innocent and stunned by his words. "What did I say to her? You should be asking her what she said to me. I merely asked about the two of you and got lectured by her instead. Tsk, tsk, tsk, she rattled off like a gun and didn"t even leave me a chance to speak."

Yu Yan was shocked for a moment but swiftly followed with a shake of his head. "Tang Xue is not someone like this."

"Are you saying that I"m lying instead?"

"Ah? That"s not what I meant…"

Mrs Liang slowly took a deep breath. She watched him and said solemnly. "Yu Yan, I"ll admit that I don"t like that girl. But that"s not important. What I want to tell you is that no matter who the other party is, you cannot get into a relationship now. Do you understand?"

"Why?"

"Because you must focus on your professional career for now. Your sole goal and dream is to be a world champion—nothing else matters. It"s not that I"m restricting your freedom because I"m your mother. Think of the ma.s.sive amount of energy and money that everyone in the family has invested in you for the past few years. Do you understand how high everyone"s expectations for you are? It"s not just our family. Do you know how much others have invested in you as well? Right now, you don"t represent yourself. Your life is not fully yours either. Your dream doesn"t belong to you alone," Mrs Liang said with one breath. Towards the end, she became slightly agitated and spoke rapidly.

Yu Yan tried to defend himself. "I understand. I"ve been working hard all this while so as to not disappoint anyone. Getting into a relationship doesn"t hinder me from achieving this."

"How is it not a hindrance?  She"ll distract you." Mrs Liang crossed her arms and held his eyes, taking up an imposing stance. "Can you tell me honestly that she hasn"t distracted you? That you didn"t think about her during your training or when you had a compet.i.tion? Or that you haven"t wasted any time because of her?"

"I—"

Mrs Liang cut him off. "Whether the answer is "yes" or "no", you know very clearly yourself."

Yu Yan lowered his gaze and said softly, "I can adapt."

"Oh, you can adapt. So how long will you need to adapt? Why don"t you first consider whether you have time to adapt? Yan Yan, how tall are you now? You"re already 1.78 m! You can"t possibly not know what this height means for figure skating. Who knows when you"ll start growing again? And how tall you"ll get? Your dream might stop halfway and right now you"re still thinking about getting into a relationship. You"re treating your dream as a child"s play!" The more Mrs Liang spoke, the angrier she became. In the end, she inhaled a deep breath and shook her head. "Yan Yan, I"m very disappointed in you."

"Mom…"

"Between your dream and love, you can only choose one."

For the duration of the province skating championship, no one monitored Tang Xue"s activities. During the day, she"ll carry out her own training. At night, she"ll drag herself back to the dorm, feeling as exhausted as a dog but still forcing herself to study after showering. She felt that she was currently working even harder than when she was preparing for the university entrance exams.

And Li Yubing was back to annoy her with a video call invitation.

Tang Xue rejected his call.

She texted back: Finals are coming, dude.

Li Yubing: I need to revise as well. We can revise together and monitor each other.

Tang Xue: You"re already out striving to make our country proud. Do you still need to take the exams?

Li Yubing: I have to take makeup exams after I go back.

Fine, his life was more miserable than hers.

Li Yubing sent over another video call invitation. This time, Tang Xue accepted it.

Her phone mounted on the desk, Tang Xue felt a little strange revising while facing another person"s face. Fortunately, she soon got used to it.

While Tang Xue looked down at her paper and focused on solving her maths questions, Li Yubing"s attention was on his phone screen. He rested his hand on his textbook and glanced at her surrept.i.tiously. He watched how she furrowed her brows every now and then and how her lowered lashes curved into beautiful arcs. He watched the outline of her raised but delicate-looking nose and her lips which was like a cherry blossom petal. As she concentrated, she would hold up her pen and bite on her lower lip. Her soft lip was bitten into numerous shapes by her teeth.

Li Yubing stretched out his index finger and lightly touched the knot between her brows. Then, his finger moved down slowly. Eyes, nose, cheeks… little by little, he traced the features of her face.

Finally, his finger stopped and lingered on her lips. This chapter is a labour of love that should not be found outside of teafragrance[dot]wordpress[dot]com.

Jiang Shijia came out of the shower. He was tightly wrapped in a thick layer of clothes and looked like he had just crawled out from a cave after hibernating for winter instead of being someone who just finished showering. That could not be helped; it was what Li Yubing commanded.

When he came out, Jiang Shijia immediately saw Li Yubing touching a girl through the screen. The captivated look in his eyes was too darn perverted. Jiang Shijia was very worried that Brother Bing would do something even more nefarious as he looked at the screen.

Fortunately, Brother Bing was not such a depraved person. He withdrew his hand and gently pressed his finger against his own lips.

This tiny gesture caused Jiang Shijia"s face to redden at once. He thought of turning away but could not bear to actually do so. He continued to watch on. Jiang Shijia could not understand why a single dog like him was watching another person being affectionate. In any case, he had grown accustomed to it after the past few days of abuse[1]. Currently, he was feeling extremely calm and had the urge to open a bag of melon seeds[2].

Tang Xue pondered for a while with knitted brows and suddenly raised her head. Li Yubing immediately a.s.sumed the appearance of reading his book earnestly. His actions were beyond fast and Jiang Shijia vaguely felt like he was watching a video that had suddenly jumped from one frame to another.

Tang Xue regarded the Li Yubing in the screen. The way that rascal read his book with lowered eyes was quite a pleasing sight. She tapped on the screen with a pen and said his name, "Li Yubing."

Li Yubing raised his eyes. "What?"

"Do you know how to do this?" Tang Xue moved her homework in front of the camera.

She had discovered an advantage to revising like this.

Li Yubing quickly calculated the solution and explained it to her in detail.

As Tang Xue listened on, she became more and more puzzled. Was it because "absence makes the heart grow fonder"? Why did she feel that Li Yubing"s voice sounded really gentle? She was getting drunk on it…

After he finished explaining the question, Li Yubing saw that Tang Xue was in a daze. "Hey," he called.

"Ah? Thanks, thanks." Tang Xue picked up her pen and started writing swiftly on the question paper according to how Li Yubing explained it. She rubbed her face subconsciously with her left hand.

Li Yubing said, "There"s no need to thank me. Just go and like my posts in WeChat."

"Weirdo."

Li Yubing kept quiet for a moment. Then, using a tone that sounded like an older brother asking after a younger brother, he asked, "How"s Yu Yan doing?"

"Don"t mention him in front of me," Tang Xue said gruffly.

Done with their revision, Tang Xue and Li Yubing bade each other goodnight. She did not forget to like Li Yubing"s posts. Lately, she was too busy to browse her Moments feed. When she clicked into Li Yubing"s profile, she was stunned. Gosh, that fellow was only out for a compet.i.tion. Was there a need to post so many things? Tsk, tsk, tsk, you"re seeking so much attention that you"re nearly becoming a rainbow.

Li Yubing received a huge wave of "likes" from Tang Xue. He was about to praise her for it when he suddenly received a text from his mother.

Mama Li: Did you get into a relationship?

Li Yubing: ?

Mama Li: Go on, continue acting dumb.

Li Yubing: ??

Mama Li: Your Moments feed was growing gra.s.s[3] previously. Now, you"re posting daily at such frequent intervals. Who are you posting them for?

Li Yubing: …

Translator"s Notes:

[1] From Chapter 27: Single dog, 单身狗 (dān shēn gǒu), is a very common Chinese internet slang for single people to refer to themselves self-deprecatingly. This phrase also comes with dog food, 狗粮 (gǒu liáng), and dog abuse, 虐狗 (nüè gǒu). All affectionate gestures displayed by couples can be considered either dog food or dog abuse (to all single dogs).

[2] Melon seeds are the Chinese equivalent of popcorn.

[3] 长草 (zhǎng cǎo): Growing gra.s.s. Meaning something has been undisturbed for so long that gra.s.s is starting to grow.

/inserts long rant on parents who project their dreams onto their children. I started fuming while translating Mrs Liang"s words. Mrs Liang made a choice between dream and love as well and I think it"s apparent enough what she chose.

While Li Yubing was tracing the features of Tang Xue"s face. All I could think of was Li Yubing as a sullen child saying "not adorable at all" in response to his mother"s comment on Tang Xue in Chapter 1.