After Transmigrating into a Book, I Have an Entire Family of Cannon Fodder

Teacher Xingxing was a bit confused.

​​It was currently in the dead of the night, with no soul in sight in their surroundings, and there was not a sound to be heard. With the male protagonist wearing the face of the idol and speaking to him at such a close distance, even the gravel in his voice was exceedingly obvious, causing his ears to heat up uncontrollably.

“Cough,” Qi Xingchen could not help but take a step back, “If- if you’re going to talk, just talk, why are you standing this close?”

Bo Ye: “……”

Bo Ye was very innocent; when he saw from his room window that the little fan was stumped just now, he came out right away. In the end, not resting in the middle of the night in order to accompany the little fan to do the lion-nuisance-dance1, actually resulted in him being regarded with disdain for standing too close while speaking…… 

It is indeed a difficult life, the idol sighed.

Bo Ye didn’t say anything, picking up the embroidered ball to study it for a while. It wasn’t long before Qi Xingchen finally recovered and silently brought out some stools to serve as the Plum Blossom Poles2.

He then snatched the ball from Bo Ye’s hands and stepped onto the stool, thinking of hanging it from the eaves.

He exerted all his strength, reaching his hands out and standing on tiptoes, but could not reach it no matter what.

“You come down,” said Bo Ye, “I’ll try.”

Qi Xingchen came down as he was told, and Bo Ye went up. He was tall and had long arms; within a fraction of a minute, he could lift the tassels on the two sides of the embroidered ball and hang it up.

This time it was Qi Xingchen’s turn to feel wronged. In the real world, he was taller than the original owner, about less than half a head shorter than Bo Ye. Unlike this situation right now, where he was a full head shorter than Bo Ye, unable to even hang an embroidered ball.

Bo Ye nimbly jumped off the stool, brushing the dust off his hands and asked, “Is there anything else that needs to be fixed up?”

“Plum Blossom Poles, check; the embroidered ball, check; there is no need for anything else.”

“Good,” Bo Ye inclined his head at him, “come on then.”

He had to say, the idol like this could really compel others; Teacher Xingxing obediently began to explain:

“Lion dance has a lot of techniques and movements, but for our programme that was put together at the last minute, we don’t need it to be so professional. As long as the lion’s congratulatory atmosphere can be expressed, it would be enough. The pace and movements should focus on being light and quick.”

“Among the moves, the ones that will definitely be used is the jump onto the poles and on the poles, that requires coordination between the both of us to complete.”

Bo Ye expressed that he did not understand: “How do we coordinate?”

“It’s similar to a lift,” Qi Xingchen patted the side of his waist, “you will hold my waist and lift me up onto the Plum Blossom Poles, then leverage on me to jump up.”

Having seen lion dance performances while attending New Year’s Eve parties, Bo Ye had a slight impression of what the little fan was saying, recalling as he walked behind him.

With two hands clutching both sides of his waist: “Is it like this?”

“……En.”

“Why are you this thin?”

Qi Xingchen: “……”

Isn’t your3 focus point a bit skewed?

Blood from his entire body reversed their flow into his head; Qi Xingchen’s whole face rapidly reddened, as if blood could drip from it, it was both red and scaldingly hot.

Fortunately, the main offender was behind him and could not see his complexion. Qi Xingchen gritted and gnashed his teeth: “Learn seriously!”

“Eat more in the future.” Bo Ye did not give up.

Qi Xingchen: “……”

“I’ll supervise you.”

Qi Xingchen felt as if he was about to suffocate. However, the other person was doing this for his own good, and he was not the sort of person who was unable to recognise others’ good intentions, thus he could only force himself to nod.

Only then did Bo Ye let him off. Putting a little strength into his arms, Qi Xingchen suddenly had nothing underneath his feet.

“Is the lift something like this? How about the height?” Bo Ye’s arms continued to rise, “do you want it higher?”

He was a living and breathing man, why did Bo Ye speak as if he was holding up a bok choy? This was the Nth time Qi Xingchen produced a question mark tonight4.

“The specific height would depend on the height of the Plum Blossom Poles,” Qi Xingchen told himself internally that this was work, then took a deep breath, “Go over to the Plum Blossom Poles and have a look.”

“En.” Bo Ye walked to the side of the stool while still lifting Qi Xingchen.

​​……Couldn’t he just put him down?

But Bo Ye was very smart, with a glance, he knew which height to raise him to, and could also follow the method mentioned before to leverage himself to jump up.

​​”Like this, right?” Bo Ye said.

Seeing that he could do it almost right during his first lion dance, Qi Xingchen was considerably surprised: “Right, more or less. Because being the lion head would include control of the lion’s eyes, mouth, and other expressions, we can only have me being the lion head and you being the lion tail.”

“Throughout the performance, you’ll be bent over almost all the time, regarding the wedding…… thank you in advance for the hard work5.”

Bo Ye just let out an “en” and did not say anything.

Mindful of Bo Ye’s inexperience, as well as the fact that a wedding banquet did not need much professionalism, the moves that Qi Xingchen designed were very simple, only requiring four poles. It did not take long for Bo Ye to learn it.

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After a few practices in full lion clothing and pants, and with the lion’s head and tail on, the two could generally follow each other’s rhythm, and they gelled considerably well.

Qi Xingchen pulled up the music that was chosen, then played it.

Bo Ye had a strong grounding in dance and did not need Qi Xingchen to remind him of the beat; his finding of the pace and rhythm was even more accurate than him.

Throughout the whole song, the two were well-coordinated, without any problems such as falling off the poles or stepping on feet.

Qi Xingchen had learned lion dance as a child while training6, afterwards he had specialised in acrobatics and never touched a lion head again. It had been a long, long time since had he played this exhilaratingly, like tonight.

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Footnotes

劳什子 — dialect for something that is annoying/a pain/nuisance, or just dislikedThese are the small circular platforms on long poles/stakes that act as steps. They are supposed to get progressively taller. honourable you辛苦你了 — this phrase here can have several meanings based on context. QXC is thanking BY (this phrase can be a replacement for xiexie) in advance, telling him that his job will be difficult AND that he will be counting on him.童子功 — there’s no english word for this, it means a skill that needs to be trained from young to be good at.