Ch23 - Sleeping Beauty

Translation checker: Rin
Editor: Junyans

The monthly exam scores of each subject were issued one by one. Since the previous National Day holiday and military training took up half a month, there was no parent-teacher meeting arranged for this exam. The students only needed to take the transcript home and give it to their parents to sign. 

Yu Ran, who had ranked fifth-to-last in the class, was unsurprisingly scolded furiously by Li Guirong.

“What’s wrong with mom today? Did she quarrel with her boyfriend?” After Yu Ran served as his mother’s punching bag, he went back to his room to do his homework with Yu Jin.

“I’ve just been asked to invite my parents…” Yu Jin replied timidly.

“Why? Did you also not do well in your monthly exams?” 

“No.” Yu Jin shook his head. “My teacher found out about my relationship.”

The pen in Yu Ran’s hand abruptly stopped, and he turned his head to look at his brother in surprise: “There’s actually a fucking girl who’s interested in you?”

Yu Jin opened his eyes wide and tried his best to argue for himself: “I’ve inherited the best features of my parents, and one can’t find anyone more handsome than me in my whole grade! The girls go crazy when they see me, and I’m chased by them every day!”

“You get chased to be beaten, right?” Yu Ran felt incredulous, raised his hands to pinch Yu Jin soft cheeks, and shook them, “It’s only right to pay what is owed.”

“Don’t touch my face!” Yu Jin slapped him. “You single dog!”

Yu Ran smiled and let go of his hand. He had no interest in the love affairs of his younger brother. He was just a kid who had just entered the first grade of junior high school. What could he understand about what a “relationship” was? Boring. But Yu Jin had boasted that he was handsome, and Yu Ran would not refute this. Mocking his younger brother’s appearance would be tantamount to cursing himself. The facial features of the two of them were somewhat similar, but the elder brother looked brighter and sharper, thereby making him look more outgoing.

Yu Ran ran out of patience after writing the beginning of his homework, so he dropped his pen and lay down on his bed to draw.

Yu Jin watched quietly for a while, and couldn’t hold back from asking, “Ge, is it really useful to draw sketches every day? How about asking mom to enroll you in a class?” 

Yu Ran said calmly: “Ask her what, she will get divorced one day, and she will be under even more pressure at that time.”

“But what you study by yourself and what others learn in a formal class will definitely be different. Your master also doesn’t contact you anymore. Has he forgotten you?”

Yu Ran glanced at him. “Don’t talk nonsense, he’s busy outside. I’ll look for him when he returns to Ronggang.”

The master who had taught him to draw was an interior designer, and he was always flying around the country. Yu Ran could only see him once every few months, and it was also not easy to contact him. 

The sphere on the drawing paper gradually showed shadows under the pencil outline. Yu Ran had mastered very few skills in drawing, and had only slowly progressed to a level similar to that of ordinary art students by relying on instinct and experience. “If you continue to draw, you’ll definitely get better and better.” Master always encouraged him like this, and Yu Ran had no doubts about it.

The next day, it rained heavily.

Afraid that his newly bought shoes would get dirty, Yu Ran wrapped his shoes in several plastic bags before going out, so he had to keep his weight steady when he walked to avoid slipping. The bus was overcrowded, and he often couldn’t squeeze in, so he waited for the next one.

When he arrived at school, he had completely missed the morning self-study of English, and Bai Yuzhu took him to the office to ask him why he was late. 

“I saw an old grandfather who had fallen down on the road, and I went to help—”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

“Tbe jigfjvs erfv atlr gfjrbc yfobgf atf tbilvjs.”

Te Ejc qbcvfgfv: “Ktfc…atfc P pera uba j tfjvjmtf atlr wbgclcu jcv mbeivc’a kjix, yea P ralii lcrlrafv bc mbwlcu ab rmtbbi.”

Djl Tehte kjr ybat jcugs jcv jwerfv ys atf kjs tf abiv ilfr klat jii rfglbercfrr, yea rtf jirb tjv ab kjgc tlw rafgcis cba ab yf ijaf cfza alwf. Te Ejc tjv jc fzqgfrrlbc bc tlr ojmf atja ibbxfv ilxf tf qijccfv ab mtjcuf tlr qgfnlber wlrajxfr, jcv tf qgbwlrfv tfg jujlc jcv jujlc atja la kbeiv cba tjqqfc jujlc. 

“You take this form back to the Publicity Committee member.”

Yu Ran took it and asked her, “Who is the Publicity Committee member?”

“It has already been so long since school started, and you still don’t recognize the students in your class?” Bai Yuzhu couldn’t believe it. “It’s Ye Xi, the girl with short hair.”

“Okay.” Yu Ran left the office with the piece of paper. While walking down the corridor, he looked down, and found that this was an application form for a cultural performance. There were several registration categories on it, such as singing, dance and poetry recitations. Yu Ran was not interested in these. He went back to class, looked for the seat of the Publicity Committee member, and handed it over to her. 

Ye Xi had been immersed in the excitement of browsing the trailer of a new anime. When her vision was suddenly blocked by a blank piece of paper. This made her shoulders shrink in fright and she raised her head in a hurry.

“Anime Weekly?” Yu Ran tilted his head to recognize the newspaper on her desk, and then smiled at her. “Can you lend it to me after reading it?”

Fortunately, it was not a teacher, Ye Xi reluctantly calmed down, but she just couldn’t relax when facing Yu Ran. Her impression of Yu Ran had always been that of a rebellious and aggressive boy, who would beat those people who didn’t listen to him.

“Here you go.” Ye Xi immediately respectfully handed him the newspaper. 

“Thank you, Dajie!”

Ye Xi breathed a sigh of relief. After reviewing the form Yu Ran had handed to her, she got up, and starting from the first row, she asked the students in the class one by one if they would like to participate in the art festival.

Invariably, everyone she asked refused to participate. In the end, she didn’t hold out much hope and handed the registration form to others as a formality.

After Fang Zhao asked “For singing, can we choose the songs ourselves?”, Ye Xi regained her spirits: “Yes, you can bring your own soundtrack, there are no extra requirements. That… Are you interested in stage drama?” 

Fang Zhao moved his gaze to the bottom of the page and saw the names of several fairy tales. He shook his head and only signed up for singing.

Ye Xi felt that things would be a bit troublesome. Fairy tale stage dramas were the most important project in this festival. Each grade had to select a work to perform at the Ronggang Children’s Welfare Home. As the Publicity Committee member of the experimental class, if she couldn’t mobilize her classmates to actively participate, the homeroom teacher would definitely be disappointed in her.

After hesitating, she decided to stand on the podium and face the class: “Fellow classmates, can I have your attention for a moment? The school art festival’s stage drama…”

As soon as she opened her mouth, she was so nervous that her breath was unsteady. Some students gave her a curious look, but soon ignored her and focused on their own business. Ye Xi endured the awkwardness and continued to read the selection rules of the stage drama. At the end of the briefing, no one was paying attention to her anymore. 

Yu Ran noticed that the atmosphere in the class was not lively enough, and now he naturally wanted to help the girl who had lent him the Anime Weekly.

“Reporting to the Publicity Committee! Fang Zhao wants to sign up!” Yu Ran shouted with his hand raised high.

“Fuck, I don’t want to!” Fang Zhao quickly denied it. “It’s Yu Ran who wants to! You fill in his name!”

As long as someone was willing to respond to her, Ye Xi seemed to have caught a lifeline. She stepped down the podium, walked towards them and handed out the registration form. 

Yu Ran pretended to think, then nodded. “Well, this isn’t bad.”

Fang Zhao turned his head and saw that Yu Ran had already filled in Chu Mian’s name in the performance column of “Sleeping Beauty”.

“Fuck, Yu Ran, you’re really not afraid of death.” Fang Zhao lowered his voice, and did not forget to confirm that Chu Mian was sleeping. “You’re provoking him again. Did you forget the last time when he stuffed your head into the bookcase and you couldn’t pull it out?”

Yu Ran felt that he was making a fuss: “This is nothing. I still want to get Chu Mian conned.” 

Fang Zhao was shocked by his audacious idea. He hadn’t expected that Yu Ran was not satisfied after having touched Chu Mian’s dick. He still wanted to reach for a yard after getting an inch.

“How do we con him? You become the object of his conning.” Fang Zhao pointed out a clear road to him.

Chu Mian didn’t know anything about the stage drama, but he found that Yu Ran was very happy after school today.

“Want to visit the kiln again today?” Yu Ran carried an umbrella and kept in step with Chu Mian. 

Chu Mian still hadn’t given up the idea of buying the two-headed snake from Xu Si. He would go to the “Copper Sparrow Club” from time to time to look for someone. Yu Ran was worried that he would get into a fight with someone like he had the first time they had met, so he always accompanied Chu Mian.

On the way there, Yu Ran saw a few familiar faces who were also wearing Chengjun’s school uniforms. They always walked with a slouch for fear that others would not be able to tell that they were arrogant and domineering. But Cai Hanchuan and the others didn’t notice him, so Yu Ran deliberately slowed down, as he didn’t want to have any contact with these people anymore.

To his surprise, Huang Feng was also in that group, smoking and laughing, and seemed to be on good terms with them.

“It’s someone you know,” Chu Mian noticed. 

“En, I don’t know when they came into contact.” Yu Ran was a little puzzled, but thinking about it carefully, Ronggang was only so big, and it was normal for the gangsters in the several schools in Jiangdong District to be familiar or hostile towards each other.

But intuitively…Yu Ran felt that it was not a good thing.

He remembered the phrase Huang Feng had said to him during the military training “As you sow, so shall you reap”. Probably in Huang Feng’s eyes, Yu Ran’s victory against him during the third year of junior high school was too disgraceful. And since then, the people in No. 44 Middle School had believed that Huang Feng bullied the weak and feared the strong, and this “strong” naturally included Yu Ran who had a stubborn temper and was not afraid of being beaten to death.

Chu Mian asked as they walked on, “Do you think the two of them will talk about you?” 

“Me?” Yu Ran looked at the backs of Huang Feng and Cai Hanchuan in the distance. “Are you saying that the two of them will get together to beat me up? Whatever, I’m not afraid.”

“Anyway, you’re resistant to beating, aren’t you?”

“Do you think I’ll endure their beating, and not call the police?” Yu Ran was confident. “In a society under the rule of law, fighting is not allowed.”

Chu Mian chuckled lightly, and slowed down with him. 

But even after passing a few street corners, the people in front were still going in the same direction as them. After a while, Yu Ran saw them enter the Copper Sparrow Club. “Damn, why can they enter at will from the front entrance, aren’t they also underage? Why are they going in?”

“You call it a ‘kiln’, why do you think they went in?”

Yu Ran froze for a moment, then said with a disgusted look on his face, “Ai, they’re jumping the gun…”

Chu Mian couldn’t help but turn his face to look at Yu Ran. He couldn’t tell whether the other party was indiscriminately using idioms or deliberately talking perverted nonsense. 

“Let’s go back.” Chu Mian turned around.

“Then, we won’t go in to find your someone?”

“I don’t think you want to run into Cai Hanchuan and the others.” Chu Mian raised his arm and gently hooked the back of Yu Ran’s neck before dragging him towards the station.

It was normal for boys with good relationships to hook their shoulders and backs, but the reason why Chu Mian put his arms around Yu Ran’s shoulders was only to prevent the other party from getting handsy with him. 

Suddenly running from behind and jumping on his back could be regarded as Yu Ran being well-behaved. Sometimes when Chu Mian passed by a telephone pole, Yu Ran would quickly lean over and hug his thigh, trying to use his own strength to perform a “conning move” on him. Of course, in terms of strength, Yu Ran was not his opponent at all and Chu Mian could kick him away expressionlessly at any time.

The skin on Yu Ran’s neck was very thin, and blue blood vessels were looming. When the skin on the inside of Chu Mian’s arm was pressed against the blood vessels, he could feel the pulsation of Yu Ran’s carotid artery.

— Suddenly, he had an urge to strangle his neck.

It was not because he hated Yu Ran or had violent tendencies, but he still couldn’t help but have a desire for destruction at the moment. Just like how many people liked to squeeze bubble wrap to relieve their stress, when Chu Mian felt the temperature of Yu Ran’s skin and the blood vessels beating, he instinctively wanted to tighten his arms to strangle the other party. 

Even an expression of Yu Ran suffocating strangely appeared in his mind.

Chu Mian was startled, and immediately let go of his arm calmly.

However, the next day, he really strangled Yu Ran’s neck, which could barely be regarded as “getting his wish”—

“You see, apart from you, there’s really no one in our class who is more suitable for that role. Why can’t you… you make a contribution for the collective honor of the class?” While Chu Mian clutched Yu Ran’s neck, Yu Ran still held his arm as he defended himself loudly. 

Chu Mian sneered: “I’ll play ‘Sleeping Beauty’?”

“Yeah.” Yu Ran smiled unknowingly, and raised his hand to pat Chu Mian’s handsome face. “How suitable.”

Although Yu Ran was not exactly sure of the contents of ‘Sleeping Beauty’, just hearing the name made him think that it perfectly described Chu Mian.

Chu Mian raised her eyebrows and asked, “What about you?” 

“I’ll cheer you on.”

Ye Xi, who had been watching the two noisy people from the side, finally couldn’t help blushing.

Because Chu Mian was tightly hooking Yu Ran’s neck, their faces were very close when they spoke. Whenever the distance between them was shortened by one centimeter, Ye Xi’s heartbeat would speed up for a while. She sighed in her heart, “The BL manga has become a reality”. She was holding the corner of her desk to stabilize her body, otherwise it was very likely that the pink bubbles popping up around the two teenagers would cause her to faint.

No, you can’t pay attention to others falling in love like this… Ye Xi sat down with trembling fingertips and quietly glanced at them from the corner of her eye. 

— Ah! They’re almost hugging!

“Yu Ran, don’t even think about being only a bystander.” Chu Mian pulled Yu Ran and walked up to Ye Xi. “Please arrange a role for him too.”

“No! I won’t…” Before Yu Ran could finish speaking, Chu Mian covered his mouth tightly.

Ye Xi’s brain was buzzing and she secretly clenched her fist. 

— Ah! He’s almost being forcibly kissed!

She hurriedly turned her face away, embarrassed to look directly at them. When her heartbeat stabilized a bit, she picked up a pen and signed up Yu Ran for a role according to Chu Mian’s instructions.

“Then, the protagonist is also settled,” she lowered her head and told them, “Sleeping Beauty and the Prince…”

“Who? Me, the prince?” Yu Ran became proud when he heard that he had such a noble identity. “What am I responsible for?” 

Ye Xi cautiously stretched out a finger to point at Chu Mian, and told Yu Ran: “Kiss him to wake him up.”

The smile on Yu Ran’s face instantly froze.