Ch44 - You Can Do It

Translation checker: Rin
Editor: Junyans

It seemed that adolescent boys could never get away from adult topics. They refrained from talking about such things with their parents and teachers, but they talked a lot with their peers in school. Chu Mian was not averse to these discussions, he just couldn’t understand why they could brazenly talk about all kinds of ambiguous and dirty jokes when it was obvious that they themselves were inexperienced. Did they have no shame? 

What surprised him more was that Yu Ran was also similar to those vulgar boys, and had even called him to boast about the length of time he had lasted. This had immediately overturned Yu Ran’s image in Chu Mian’s heart, even more so than Muggle.

As a result, in March, “Everything Miēmiē Hates” was full of Yu Ran’s name. Chu Mian didn’t even think about the reason for his dislike this time. He repeated the two words directly as if he was venting his anger, and the tip of the pen carved deep marks on the paper.

At the end of writing, Chu Mian found that there were not many empty pages left in the notebook, and it would not last until the end of April. Before buying a new notebook, these empty pages could be used to record other things.

After being in a daze for a few minutes, he drew a short horizontal line on the new page. 

— This represented his excessive care for Yu Ran for the day.

In spring, the monthly exam came faster than it took for the weather to warm up. During the exam period, the school allowed students to enter and leave the school freely. Every time Yu Ran went to McDonald’s to eat a double-layer cheeseburger, he also called his friends to join him.

Fang Zhao poured a box of French fries onto a dinner plate, topped it with two packs of ketchup, turned to Zhao Wuli and said, “Learn from me to eat like this, very cool.”

Zhao Wuli’s reaction was always half a beat slower than others. Only after he had squeezed the sauce into a small pile did he remember Fang Zhao’s words, and he couldn’t help but feel a little regretful.

When the two of them looked up, they found that Chu Mian had only squeezed out a little ketchup after eating a piece of french fries. His movements were so elegant that they were in stark contrast to the others. Fang Zhao couldn’t help but admire: “Chu Mian, your way of eating is the most high-class I have ever seen.”

“What high-class?” Yu Ran curiously went over to see. “This is nothing, I eat fries without dipping them in ketchup, it’s more high-class!”

“Tsk.” Zhou Weixi who was next to him deliberately sneered. “So what? I only eat the core of the French fries.”

“What a pretentious prick! Just eat and show me!” 

Zhao Wuli found that they were competing with each other, so he refused to be outdone: “So what? I only eat ketchup for French fries!”

As he said this, he lowered his head and stuck out his tongue. He licked all the ketchup on the plate in his mouth. The thick red sauce slowly flowed down the corner of his lips, giving a shocking effect like dripping blood. The others were stunned.

Fang Zhao hurriedly stopped him, “Dude, don’t go so far, buddy, don’t do this…”

Yu Ran immediately laughed. He was used to being evaluated as a “fool”, but Zhao Wuli was even more stupid than him. Therefore, he felt superior because he was second to last in the food chain. He couldn’t help but say, “Zhao Wuli, you’re the only person who makes me speechless because of how low your IQ is! Hahahaha…” 

Probably want to word it differently but to me it means: (you’re the only person that makes me go wtf because of how low your IQ is) xD

“Do you know that he is in the same exam room as me?” Chu Mian’s voice drifted in slowly.

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.

Yu Ran, who was laughing, immediately became silent. He lowered his head and bit the hamburger.

Coafg j ktlif, tf rjlv, “Pc ojma, Mgfcmt oglfr jgf yfra vlqqfv lc j recvjf, vbc’a sbe xcbk?” 

Lf qea j ofk Mgfcmt oglfr lcab j mtbmbijaf recvjf jcv ralggfv atfw. Ktlr kjs bo fjalcu kjr lwwfvljafis gfpfmafv ys fnfgsbcf, ktb jaajmxfv la jr “vjgx melrlcf”. Te Ejc vlv cba jguef flatfg, yea qlmxfv bea j ibcu bcf jcv rlwqis ygbeuta la ab Jte Zljc’r wbeat.

Chu Mian subconsciously held it in his mouth, and the ice cream quickly bloomed at the tip of his tongue, melting into a sweet taste. He forgot to savor the taste of French fries dipped in the sundae and swallowed it unconsciously. The only thing left in his mind was the fact that “Yu Ran just fed him”.

“Tasty, right?” Yu Ran asked expectantly.

Chu Mian nodded perfunctorily. 

This kind of behavior between boys… could probably be considered intimate. Chu Mian paid attention to Yu Ran’s next actions and when he saw that he didn’t feed the others one by one, he moved his gaze away with confidence.

After returning that day, Chu Mian had another horizontal line on his notebook.

Then he thought over and over again about the reason why Yu Ran had hand-fed the French fries only to him, when he had clearly been closer to Zhou Weixi at that time. In the end, he came to a conclusion: Because Yu Ran had thought that the French fries dipped in sundae were the best, he had given it to him specially.

By analogy, Yu Ran thought that porn was a precious thing, so he had asked him if he had ever seen it; Yu Ran felt that masturbation was a comfortable thing, so he had invited him… In the final analysis, Yu Ran seemed to value him more than he valued his other friends. 

Chu Mian’s heart started to beat faster when this conclusion dawned on him.

He pursed his lips hard, not wanting to laugh alone in the room. He quickly opened “Everything Miēmiē Hates” and crossed out all mentions of Yu Ran’s name.

After a few spring rains, the air in Ronggang became cold and clean. The monthly exam was over and the students were looking forward to the first holiday of the semester. Yu Ran looked more cheerful than usual after school today.

As soon as he entered the house, he heard his mother yelling, and lowered his head to find an extra pair of men’s leather shoes on the floor. 

Dad’s home — Yu Ran easily judged the situation.

His coming home could be regarded as a pause for his parents’ quarrel. Li Guirong came out of the kitchen with dishes, followed by his father, and Yu Jin had been waiting at the table for a long time. None of them remembered the last time their family of four had reunited, but now when they were eating together again, none of them showed any special resistance or nostalgia.

“Stupid cunt, really a stupid cunt.” Li Guirong was obviously still angry and couldn’t help but talk to his two sons, “You two are so stupid because you follow your father. I’m ashamed to tell you what stupid thing he did. The handle of the plastic broom at home is broken. I asked him to pass by the supermarket to buy a new one and he bought one back. Guess what he did after that?”

Li Guirong said, sneering, “He removed the stick of the new broom and replaced it with the old one.” 

She turned her face to glare at the man. “You fucking think that broom is useless, don’t you?”

Yu Hui glanced at her disdainfully. “So uncultured. The IQ of the boys follows their mother, and their stupidity has nothing to do with me.”

These words made Li Guirong roll her eyes in anger. She put down the bowl with a “bang” and looked at Yu Ran and Yu Jin with gnashing teeth. “You see, this idiot can’t catch the point when he listens to people. I can’t do anything. Really. ”

The two teenagers were not interested in participating in the quarrel between their parents. They just smiled and bowed their heads to eat. 

Yu Hui didn’t want to talk to Li Guirong either. He turned to ask his two sons about their recent studies. Yu Jin was just in the first year of junior high school. He could finish his homework by about 10 o’clock every night, but Yu Ran didn’t go to bed until early morning every day, which made Yu Hui very distressed.

The man patted Yu Ran on the shoulder and sighed: “It’s all my fault that I am incapable. I wish I were a corrupt official. That way, I could send you to the best school and give money to the teachers and ask them to not care about you. You could play as you like. ”

Li Guirong’s chopsticks pointed at Yu Hui in the air. “Did you two hear him? Is this dog talking human words?”

Yu Jin did not hold back and laughed out loud. 

Yu Ran reassured his father, “Dad, it’s okay. When you get rich, it’s not too late to let us both go through the back door.”

“Silly boy, how could I get rich?”

“Hurry up and shut up!” Li Guirong kicked him angrily.

Yu Hui came back this time because he had to visit his mother’s grave on Tomb Sweeping Day. When his mother had been alive, she and Li Guirong had had a good relationship as mother-in-law and daughter-in-law so after she died, the couple went to the cemetery together every year, pretending to be as loving as ever and chatted a little in front of the gravestone. 

It was important for Yu Ran and Yu Jin to study. They just needed to stay at home and wait for their parents to come back.

“How come mom and dad are still not divorced?” Yu Jin asked his brother as he lay on his bed playing mobile games. “I think their time to part has come. They can find us a new father and a new mother, so that we can have four times the pocket money!”

Yu Ran was reciting the notes Chu Mian had given him, and casually said, “We children shouldn’t care about adults’ affairs.”

“You are turning sixteen this year.” 

“Even if I am twenty-six, I am still a child in the eyes of my parents. You are even more so.”

Yu Jin put down his cell phone, turned over, scratched his cheek, and asked, “Do you know how our parents met? I don’t remember them mentioning it.”

Yu Ran didn’t have much of an impression either. Since he could remember, his parents’ mode of getting along had nothing to do with the word “harmony”. However, he had flipped through the photo album at home. His parents were young, they were wearing the same technical school clothes, hooking their shoulders and smiling brightly. They were about fifteen or sixteen years old.

The same age as I am now. 

When he was remembering the photos, he heard the sound of keys turning at the door of his house. Li Guirong came back alone, looking exhausted, and she cursed Yu Hui: “I think he was out with wild girls so much that he didn’t know who he was. He knelt down in the cemetery and cried. It took him a long time to realize that he was crying in front of the wrong grave.”

Yu Ran asked, “Didn’t you stop him?”

“Why should I stop him? I let his own mother in heaven see his shameful behavior.” Li Guirong gasped heavily. “I’m so angry. I lose a year of my life everytime I see your father.”

She went back to her room and stayed quiet for a long time. After her emotions eased, she came out to talk to her two sons. 

“Yu Jin, have you been in puppy love this semester?” Li Guirong asked. “Let me tell you, you can’t find a girlfriend at this age. You can’t tell whether people are clever or stupid. You two are too stupid like your father. Don’t go out and deceive other people’s little girls.”

The two brothers agreed in a loud voice.

Yu Jin asked her directly: “Are you two still not getting divorced?”

Li Guirong sighed and waved her hand and didn’t answer. 

She didn’t bother to explain to the children that “feelings” had a shelf life, but it was a pity to throw it away like an overnight meal. Yu Hui has been in her life for most of her life. She had been exceptionally beautiful when she was young but she had had too little insight. Now she had come to her senses but was still willing to spend it like this. She didn’t know who she was competing with.

She simply didn’t want to think about this matter. Seeing Yu Ran reading and writing, she felt a lot relieved: “You have been working hard these days, is your exam coming soon?”

“The exam is already over.”

“Ok, work hard.” Li Guirong finally smiled and gently touched Yu Ran’s hair. “You’ll go to a good university in the future. I’ll ask my colleagues what majors are popular now.” 

Yu Ran did not speak, but wrote the questions quietly.

When she went out, Yu Jin whispered, “You haven’t told our mother you want to learn Art.”

“No hurry, we’ll talk about it later.” Yu Ran put on his headphones and recited his notes with his head down.

After the three-day Tomb Sweeping Day holiday, the monthly exam results were announced. 

Yu Ran’s grade ranking was 162. Although it had improved a lot from before, there was still a significant gap from the score line of the experimental class, which meant that he must double his ranking in the next few exams, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to raise his average score for this year.

Yu Ran finally discovered that the exam to stay in the experimental class was much more difficult than he had thought. The knowledge of senior high school was not as easy to understand as that of junior high school. He might not have the luck he had had during the high school entrance examination ever again.

“Chu Mian…” Yu Ran turned around and lay down on Chu Mian’s desk, slightly dejected. “Maybe I should go up the mountain to worship the Buddha.”

When Chu Mian had been most troubled by narcolepsy, he had also ranked more than a 100th place in the whole grade. He clearly remembered how hard he had worked to get back to the upper ranks. But he didn’t want Yu Ran to have too much pressure, so he just said lightly “You can do it”. 

With that, he raised his hand and pinched Yu Ran’s face, a soft touch that he had not felt for a long time.

Chu Mian had just loosened his fingertips when Yu Ran suddenly grasped his hand.

He saw a bright smile on Yu Ran’s face. He looked firmly at him, and said cheerfully, “For you, I will.”

The two words “for you” were so powerful that Chu Mian didn’t even care that his hand was being held by Yu Ran. He hurriedly looked into the eyes of the other person, and then his heart was filled with joy. 

At some moments, Chu Mian almost concluded that Yu Ran’s attitude towards him was different from his attitude towards others.

I seem to really… be the more important one.

“Hmm.” Chu Mian didn’t say much, tightening the corners of his upturned mouth, and holding Yu Ran’s palm with his backhand.

He was cherishing the moment when suddenly Yu Ran said “Hey”, quickly pressed the back of his hand to the table, then flexed his muscles and shouted: “I won!” 

Chu Mian looked at the two people’s hands in a daze. The subtle beauty of their entangled hands just now was all gone and it was more like they were arm wrestling.

… I’m really the one who lost.