Rock Sugar And Pear Stew Chapter 13

Chapter 13 – Standoff 

During dinner, Tang Xue recounted to Liao Zhenyu and Xia Menghuan how she met her primary school cla.s.smate at the ice rink.

In the past, she was the one who was bossing him around. Now that they had met again, the great disparity between his numerous achievements and her mundane existence was a direct mockery to her from life.

What’s more, the mediocre her was now subjected to the beck and call of the accomplished him. This was simply adding insult to injury.

Liao Zhenyu used his phone to browse the school ice hockey team’s website. “Boss, we need to lay our groundwork properly. This Li Yubing is headlining the ice hockey team’s official website.”

Tang Xue propped her head on one hand and stirred her egg drop soup with the other. She listlessly replied, “It’s too late to say this now.”

Xia Menghuan looked at Li Yubing’s photo on the website and exclaimed in admiration, “This person looks really hot.”

Liao Zhenyu sternly looked at her. “Girl, please get your priorities straight. Right now, he’s my boss’s enemy.”

“Right, right[1]. This Li Yubing looks really ugly!” Xia Menghuan enthusiastically nodded and changed her opinion.

At this moment, a person walked past their table with a lunch tray in hand. On hearing Xia Menghuan’s words, the person snorted, “Blind a.s.s.”

Tang Xue lightly rapped the table and steered the conversation back to the main point. “Guys, come up with a plan…… Li Yubing is being petty and wants to take revenge on me.”

Liao Zhenyu: “Boss, there’s no need to fear. We’re all medical students. After we’ve studied medicine, we can poison him.”

Xia Menghuan: “Study anatomy and make him bleed.”

Liao Zhenyu: “Study clinical science and break his leg.”

Xia Menghuan: “Study surgery and castrate him.”

Liao Zhenyu: “Study internal medicine and dupe him into buying health supplements.”

Xia Menghuan: “Liao Zhenyu, I don’t know how to continue with this new train of thought of yours……”

Her face still propped on her hand, Tang Xue’s expression was stony. “Great. After you guys come back from mastering all that, my bones would have long chilled. During Tomb Sweeping Day[2], just bring me some food. Don’t burn me paper

offerings. It’ll pollute the environment. Also, please write this on my epitaph: I had two friends. One was an idiot. So was the other.”

Liao Zhenyu rubbed his face and lowered his head to look at Li Yubing’s photo again. He said, “Why not we get physical and solve this in a crude but simple way. With just one look, anyone can tell that this person is just a pretty boy. What do you think are the chances of success if I get into a fight with him?”

Tang Xue did not know whether to laugh or cry. She tilted her head and looked at him. “Dude! Don’t you know what kind of sport ice hockey is?”

Xia Menghuan raised her hand. “I know. Ice hockey is a sport that involves fighting.”

“It’s not as simple as simply fighting. Ice hockey compet.i.tions involve intense collisions between the players’ bodies. To partic.i.p.ate, your physical condition has to be like this.” Tang Xue said and raised her thumb. “Don’t be fooled by his pretty boy looks. That b.u.g.g.e.r has hidden depths. The school specially arranged an a.s.sistant for him—it’s absolutely a privilege only enjoyed by an important core player. If you get into a fight with him, on next year’s Tomb Sweeping Day, I’ll bring you eight treasure congee and takoyaki.”

“What should we do then? Boss, it can’t be that I can only look on helplessly while you fall into the pits of h.e.l.l.”

“It’s still too early to talk about falling into the pits of h.e.l.l. I’ll take everything as it comes first.” Tang Xue gave a long sigh. “I just can’t completely resign myself to this—from happily being an emperor to suddenly becoming a eunuch.” The more she thought about it, the more indignant she felt.

……

Tang Xue officially a.s.sumed her duties the next day. Her work started in the morning with a 6.30am phone call.

At 6.30am, Li Yubing’s low voice sounded especially energized and irritating. He said, “Every morning, I take breakfast at 7am sharp.”

“Oh, what does this have to do with me?”

“Help me to get breakfast.”

“p.i.s.s off.”

“My a.s.sistant.” There was a hint of smile in his voice, making it all the

the more irksome. “Being disobedient on her first day.”

“Li Yubing, you’re doing this deliberately aren’t you.”

“I eat rice for breakfast in the morning. By helping me to buy breakfast, you save me at least 15 mins. That’s the school’s purpose in hiring you.”

Tang Xue clenched her teeth. “Li Yubing, I’m going to tolerate you for a month. After that, I’ll let you know who’s daddy.”

Li Yubing was completely unmoved by this threat. He said, “I want to eat a boiled egg, beef patty, steamed bun stuffed with pork and vermicelli, steamed bun stuffed with spinach and shrimp, congee with pork and century egg……”

Tang Xue was enraged, “Do you think you’re ordering take out from a restaurant?!”

“And also fresh milk. Two servings. Hurry, if not it’ll be sold out.”

“Just you wait.”

“I’ll be waiting for you at the north exit of the east sports field.”

“……”

Tang Xue got out bed with much difficulty. Earlier, she was too groggy to register Li Yubing’s breakfast orders and only remembered the fresh milk he listed at the end. Therefore, she casually bought some random food at the canteen.

Afterwards, she carried Li Yubing’s breakfast to the north exit of the east sports field. She found Li Yubing with one glance. That fellow wore a white tracksuit and track shoes, and had on a cyan blue sweat headband. It was a typical outfit of a sporty youth. At this moment, his arms were folded while he leaned leisurely against the poplar tree growing at the entrance to the sports field. His head was lowered with an unreadable expression and the rays of the morning sun shone on his body. With the image of a bright, s.h.i.+ning youth leaning against the mottled tree bark, and the backdrop of a green football field surrounded by a brick red track behind a blue wire fence, it resulted in a scene that seemed to be straight out of a professionally arranged studio shot.

Honestly speaking, even though Li Yubing excelled at making her angry, she had to admit that his skills at being pretentious were…… second to none. This was an indisputable fact.

Tang Xue went over, her mood still extremely

still extremely cranky from having just woken. She let out a “hey.”

Li Yubing raised his head and looked at her.

His face was flushed and looked as if he just finished exercising. When he saw that it was Tang Xue, he said, “You’re 5 mins late.”

“Li Yubing, I’m warning you. As a human, you need to know when to stop before going too far. Otherwise, I’m going to be delivering chrysanthemums[3] to you a year from now.” After saying this, she hefted the stuff in her hand towards him. “Your dog food[4].” If you see this, this translation has been reposted without my permission. Head over to teafragrance[dot]wordpress[dot]com if translator’s notes are missing or to leave me lovely comments that  I (the translator) will actually see.

Li Yubing did not get angry at her words and took his breakfast from her. He was a little thirsty after finis.h.i.+ng his run and drank a large mouthful of milk.

Looking at him drink, Tang Xue suddenly gave an evil smirk. “Drink it quickly while it’s warm. I milked it myself.”

Pfffff——

Li Yubing spat out his mouthful of milk.

He wiped off the white liquid at the corners of his mouth and looked at her expressionlessly before grinding his teeth.

Tang Xue straightened her neck and glared at him. She lightly raised her eyebrows, her eyes somewhat provocative.

The two were locked in this standoff for goodness knew how long. Li Yubing was the first to open his mouth.

“Tanned freak.”

“b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”

Translator’s Notes:

[1] Chinese interjections such as 哦 (ó) or 嗯 (ń) are often not directly translated as their meaning are lost most of the time. When reading other translations, I find that direct translations often result in characters conveying completely different expressions from what was originally intended. I do my best to fill them in with English equivalents that convey the same meaning but this may be a little subjective depending on the culture that you live in.

[2] Qingming Festival, 清明节 (qīng míng jié), also known as Tomb Sweeping Day, is a Chinese festival where descendants visit the resting place of dead relatives of dead relatives and ancestors (be it columbaria or actual graveyards) to clean up the area, pray and make offerings. For those of you who are not Chinese, offerings come in the form of both food and joss paper. Food offerings include actual dishes that one will set out in front of the grave. The food will be taken back and consumed after praying to the dead relative. As for joss paper offerings, it usually comes in the form of bank notes for the underworld and material goods such as cars, paper servants and clothes. People these days are really creative with what can be burnt as offerings. I’ve seen joss papers such as credit cards, phones, tablets and even mini replicas of ma.s.sage chairs. (Souhi: Huge a.s.s houses too!!!! Jewelry and guitars!)

[3] Traditionally, chrysanthemums are used for more ominous and solemn events such as funerals, religious rituals or visits to graves. TX should be warning LYB to not go too far or she’ll end him.

[4] Remember how I mentioned in the previous chapter’s translator’s notes that in the original raws, TX actually called LYB 狗子 (gǒu zi), with 狗 meaning dog and 子 being a Chinese suffix? The closest translation would be “doggie” but it sounds a little funny to me. “Cur” and “mongrel” doesn’t really seem to quite hit the spot either. I’m most satisfied with the insult “b.a.s.t.a.r.d”. Just keep in mind that TX is insulting LYB with a dog related insult when she calls him “b.a.s.t.a.r.d”, so it’s not that out of place for her to continue along with this line of dog related insults. Let me know if you guys feel that the alternatives I’ve mentioned sounds fine to you or it’ll be less confusing if I use them instead.

Not a morning person. I’ll go nuts if someone calls me at 6.30am in the morning to buy breakfast for them.

I’ve realized that most of the time, the translator’s notes are just an excuse for me to ramble on about mundane stuff that I think you guys might find interesting. I swear that I sometimes have more fun writing them than the actual translation.