Ch10 - Ho Ho Ho

Edited by Zaki

Except for Qi Linqing, the remaining small number of students very clearly were reluctant to learn Tai Chi and hence even the teacher was very unwilling to put any effort in teaching. 

Halfway through the lesson, the teacher allowed the students to move around freely.

Qi Linqing initially thought that he could learn the essence of Tai Chi. Unexpectedly, he couldn’t even scratch the surface.

The weather in March turned unseasonably cold for spring. However, the sun was blazing down on the brownish-red semi-circle track of the playground.

In the distance, there was a loud rumble of an aircraft as it skimmed low in the air. 

He bent down and picked up his thermos from the steps, unscrewed the lid and drank two mouthfuls of hot tea, and then slowly walked towards the classroom.

Along the way, Qi Linqing could still hear several passing classmates talking boisterously about Zhong Chen.

“Just now Brother Zhong’s archery was so striking!!”

“My heart was almost moved by a man.”

“He already plays basketball so exceptionally well and now unexpectedly he can also win everyone’s hearts in archery…..”

“We must follow him well in the future. With a big brother like him covering us, the future is boundless!!”

Zhong Chen’s image as a ruthless school bully has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

Qi Linqing felt the same way, until he once again saw the pink cat paws cotton socks that were inadvertently exposed by his deskmate when he stretched his legs. 

Last time it was polka dots, this time it was the cat paws. He could see that this school bully was quite “Mensao”.

Qi Linqing remembered that his former little apprentice was also like this. He was a serious teenager, but secretly embroidered a pink purse behind his back..

“Do you have some water?” Zhong Chen gently patted the person who was seated at the table in front of him.

He had also changed into his short sleeves shirt in PE class just now, revealing the intimidating dragon tattoo on his right arm. Coupled with that short hair, handsome and deep facial features, if matched with a pair of sunglasses and cigarettes, he would look like a rich and young gangster from a 1990’s Hong Kong drama. 

The person at the front table turned around and said in a trembling voice, “Zhong, Brother Zhong, no, I don’t have any, I’ll run to the kiosk to buy it for you now!”

“Then forget it.” Zhong Chen leaned back.

“I have.” Qi Linqing handed over the thermos and asked, “Do you want to drink?”

Zhong Chen hesitated for a moment, but in the end took it. It was not that he was narcissistic, rather because the description in the book about the other party’s liking the original owner was really too idiotic. 

In just a few seconds, he even conjectured whether Qi Linqing wanted to use this instance of water borrowing as an opportunity for an indirect kiss.

Only.

Zhong Chen poured out a pill, raised the thermos high and without his lips touching the cup, he directly poured the water straight down.

His movements were so fast that Qi Linqing hadn’t had time to complete his sentence: 

“Be careful —-” Hot.

“Pfft –!”

Zhong Chen directly sprayed a mouthful of tea onto the back of the person at the front table.

After getting sprayed the person at the front table stiffened for a moment, then he quickly took off his shirt, turned 90 °, bowed to him and said, “Thank you Brother Zhong for the water!” 

Zhong Chen: “……..”

The prestige of the original owner was terrifying.

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.

Qi Linqing took out some tissues and handed them over. He said to Zhong Chen, “I forgot to say it first, be careful it’s hot”

Itbcu Jtfc: “!!!” 

Who drank hot water in summer? Hey! And also this strange smell of chrysanthemum tea ……

Wrong. Zhong Chen silently took out a wolfberry from his mouth.

Wolfberry + Chrysanthemum tea????

What was this supreme dark drink? 

——

Zbcvjs pera qjrrfv ys klatbea jcs regqglrfr.

Szmfqa obg rqbcrbgfv raevfcar, peclbg tlut rmtbbi raevfcar ufcfgjiis vlv cba ilnf bc mjwqer.

Coafg rmtbbi, atf rmtbbi fcagjcmf kjr mgbkvfv klat qfbqif jcv pjwwfv klat iezegs mjgr bo jii mbibegr. 

Ge Tejcyjl qertfv jrlvf atf mgbkv jcv tegglfv ab mjamt eq klat Hl Olcdlcu: “Gb sbe kjca ab rluc eq obg atf Rjalbcji Tbeat Kjifca mbwqfalalbc?”

Qi Linqing asked back, “Why should I participate?”

Du Yuanbai was speechless.

He paused, organized the wording in his head and tried to convince the other party: “This competition has a high gold prize, Qi Lele signed up for the piano. Aren’t you very good at Traditional Chinese Painting? It would be a shame not to win the grand prize and get revenge. 

Qi Linqing sensitively caught the key word: “Gold prize? Can I get a lot of gold by participating in the competition?”

Du Yuanbai’s face was full of black lines,  “Of course not… It refers to the social recognition of this competition.”

“Oh, then I’m not free.” Qi Linqing was instantly disinterested.

Truly it was the case that the emperor was not in a hurry, but the eunuch was. Du Yuanbai thought to himself, now he had no choice but to use his ultimate skill. He took out his cell phone from his pocket, pulled out the bad comments from the netizens, magnified them and dangled them in front of Qi Linqing. 

“Look!” Du Yuanbai said loudly, “All these people are cursing you! Calling you a country bumpkin, saying that you cannot even compare to one of Qi Lele’s toes, a dirt dog is always a dirt dog, a pheasant also presumes to fly to the branch as a Phoenix ……”

Qi Linqing was completely unconcerned: “It has nothing to do with me.”

Anyway, he could not surf the internet; out of sight, out of mind.

Du Yuanbai: “……” 

Personnel officer?

What puzzled Du Yuanbai most was that Qi Linqing didn’t care about the disturbances of the outside world at all.

In the past, he was able to create 100 trumpets to switch seamlessly and scold these netizens until dawn, known for his fighting skills as a keyboard warrior

Du Yuanbai thought to himself that Qi Linqing had changed.

He seemed to have been smoothened by life, and he no longer had that kind of worldly desire. 

————

When he got home, Qi Linqing went upstairs to the study room for the first time to fiddle with the painting pigments.

The ore raw materials bought from the mounting shop previously needed to be processed again.

He bent down in front of the table and carefully pounded and ground it with a mortar and pestle, then slowly filtered it with a layer of fine yarn. 

This step was very delicate. If impurities were accidentally mixed in, the pigment would be ruined.

Qi Linqing was so absorbed in the world of pigment making that he didn’t even notice that the Aunty was knocking on the door three or four times in a row.

Knock, Knock, Knock.

A moment later, Qi Linqing was startled out of his absorption. He took a paper towel, wiped his hands, turned and walked to open the door. 

“What is it?”

Housekeeper Aunty: “The young master’s fiance is here… He and the eldest young master are not at home now. Would you like to go down and have a look?”

Qi Linqing nodded slightly, “Okay.”

Even if the visitor was unpleasant, he could not forget to be courteous or hospitable. 

Qi Linqing gently closed the door, blocking the housekeeper aunty’s curiously roving eyes and then stepped on the wooden steps of the villa and went downstairs.

On the sofa in the living room on the first floor, there was a figure sitting.

The protagonist gong of the book – Fu Hanri.

In terms of appearance, he was well-deservedly eye-catching. The eyebrows and eyes were beautifully straight, the nose was high, and the lips were thin. It was a beautifully chiselled face. 

In terms of talent status, he was an extremely famous movie emperor in China, with superb acting skills, and was admired by thousands of people.

In the original novel called “The Fake Young Master and the Movie Actor Love First and Marry After”, Fu Hanri’s persona was totally cold and detached. He maintained a polite and courteous attitude towards everyone, but in fact, he was mentally very distanced from everyone.

Only the protagonist was touched by Qi Lele, just like a pure fawn breaking into his heart, which made him beyond redemption. Bah! Let the aloof and remote film emperor who was above the common populace taste the bitterness and sweetness of love.

“Hello.” Qi Linqing nodded towards Fu Hanri and said, “Do you need some more tea?” 

Fu Hanri was slightly stunned. He immediately shook his head and said, “No need.”

Qi Linqing: “Then I still have something to do. Please sit down slowly?”

This person’s “you” sounded really awkward, Fu Hanri wrinkled his sword like brows and said in a cold voice: “No, I came here specifically for you.”

“For me?” Qi Linqing was a little surprised. There was no relevant plot like this in the original novel. 

Fu Hanri: “Did you take part in《Tang Yue Fengyun》?”

Qi Linqing: “Yes.”

In the novel, Fu Hanri agreed to take over the male lead role in 《Tang Yue Fengyun》 for Qi Lele’s sake, but for the time being, this matter was still in the stage of confidentiality. With his position and status, he wouldn’t easily appear in the crew.

This morning, Fu Hanri had just flown back from the U.S. Awards ceremony and received a text message from Qi Lele complaining about his suffering. 

He stared at the teenager, his dark eyes glittering with coldness, and warned, “You’d better stay away from Lele.”

Qi Linqing nodded, “Okay.”

Fu Hanri: “If I find out that you set him up with those insidious schemes, don’t blame me for being rude to you!”

Qi Linqing continued to nod: “Okay.” 

Fu Hanri’s chest surged and fell for a little while. He usually didn’t get angry unless he couldn’t help it.

The other party’s indifferent attitude was really! too! irritating!

Qi Linqing remembered that he had not watered the flowers when he came back, and stood up and said, “I really have something to do, Goodbye, Mr. Fu.”

When Fu Hanri heard this sentence, it was like: Get out! I won’t bother sending you out. 

After not having met for a while, this guy seemed to have suddenly upgraded to version 2.0. Upgraded from the original uncouth buffoon to an infuriatingly mouthy ‘i-don’t-care’ master.

Fu Hanri left in anger. As soon as he stepped out of the villa door, he met the eldest young master of the Qi family who had just come back from work.

Under the night.

Meeting the love rival – extremely jealous. 

Qi Yingjun quickly took out the mask from his pocket and tried to put it on.

But it was too late——

Fu Hanri’s usual cold expression had a slight change in it.

In one glance, he saw the sharp slap marks on Qi Yingjun’s left and right cheeks. 

Qi Yingjun became instantly alert. Currently there were many rumours flooding in about him cheating on his girlfriend.

What if Fu Hanri made some irresponsible remarks in front of Qi Lele…….

“Don’t misunderstand.” Qi Yingjun’s ears turned red and he snarled in a low voice, “I just… Accidentally slapped myself when I was hitting mosquitoes!”

Fu Hanri: “En, there are so many mosquitoes in summer.” 

Qi Yingjun: I suspect that you are connoting me, but I have no evidence.

——–

On Tuesday, Qi Linqing got up early to go to school.

He thought he was going to have a whole day like listening to lectures that made no sense, but he didn’t expect to have an art class. 

Qi Linqing thought it would be interesting, so he brought his books and arrived at the classroom early.

The art classroom was on the top floor of the school building, the electric fan was whirring and whirring as the young Teacher Yi, swaying his waist and pushed the door in.

Qi Linqing heard several students behind him muttering:

“I bet a pack of spicy strips that Yi Chaoming is definitely gay!” 

“I also think so, hahaha.”

Qi Linqing frowned and pondered: What did ‘gay’ mean?

Yi Chaoming walked up to the podium and put down his designer handbag. His gaze roamed the room like an eagle and soon saw Qi Linqing sitting in the corner.

The teenager’s messy blonde hair was particularly eye-catching. 

Yi Chaoming immediately looked away in disgust and looked down at his mobile phone. The screen lit up, and his mobile phone wallpaper was a photo of Qi Lele in the swimming pool.

Yes, Yi Chaoming was a fan of Qi Lele, to be specific – a mother fan.

Maybe it was the fan circle psychology. They were mother fans who always hated people like Qi Linqing whose existence was a threat  to their own pups. Yi Chaoming was no exception. It was not known how many toxic insults he had spewed on the internet – ostracising the teenager.

“All of you quiet down! Don’t make any noise.” Yi Chaoming knocked on the blackboard and began to instruct the class representative to distribute paper and pen and ink. 

“This semester focuses on the quintessence of Chinese culture. Today, let’s practice a few simple calligraphy fonts.”

Qi Linqing immediately sat up straight and looked over.

After buying the paint, he would also need to buy brushes, inkstones, silk and other things, which was estimated to be a big expense.

It was good to get a few sheets of paper and brushes and ink for free. 

After receiving the paper and pen, many students put them aside. They didn’t even bother taking care of them even if they were blown to the ground by the electric fan. They continued to chat or play games in rows.

Yi Chaoming was used to this and did not bother to say anything. Anyway, Class 18 had been completely abandoned by the school.

These uneducated rich second generations didn’t have to worry about their own lives. After graduation, they could inherit their family business or go abroad to get a diploma.

Qi Linqing bent down to pick up the rice-latticed, rice paper scattered on the ground and ended up walking right in front of Zhong Chen. 

He thought that the school bully from the original novel should not be willing to write calligraphy. He immediately pointed to the paper on the other party’s desk and asked, “This, can you give it to me if you don’t need it?”