Although he drew a pie[1] for himself to catch Lin Qinhe, and had a free guidance from his military adviser Qiao Yitang, Tao Xi was still very confused.
Qiao Yitang said when chasing someone who was too cold and difficult to deal with, he shouldn’t be impulsive and write a love letter. Eight out of ten he would be ruthlessly rejected and there was a high probability that they would no longer be able to appear within three meters of him.
Tao Xi imagined that if he told Lin Qinhe directly that he liked him, Lin Qinhe might make him a missing person in Wenhua No. 1 High School.
He couldn’t help but shudder.
Qiao Yitang said, chasing an ice cube[2], he had to moisten things[3] silently and gradually melt him with a constant temperature, brush his presence in front of him every day, and gave him a little care every day.
Over time, boiled the frog in warm water[4] , no, boil ice cubes, he would not be used to the sudden disappearance of this concern, and would gradually accept and rely on this affection.
But Qiao Yitang only gave him the theory, and the practical methods given were too difficult for him.
He really had no money to buy a glass of milk or milk tea every day for Lin Qinhe, and Lin Qinhe certainly didn’t like it either.
In physical education class, Tao Xi was looking for benches for self-study, and he unintentionally listened to the chats of a few girls gossiping.
“My boyfriend? He also sends me a WeChat voice message every night before going to bed.”
“Hey, I guess it’s nothing but baby, I love you over and over again.”
“It’s not so cringy! My boyfriend reads a bedtime story to me every day, okay.”
“Hey, it’s a thousand and one nights[5] , your boyfriend is quite good at it.”
Tao Xi passed by quietly.
In the evening, during the rest time before the evening self-study, Bi Chengfei rushed back to the classroom, sweating after playing basketball. He was drinking a few mouthfuls of cold water when he saw Tao Xi lying on the desk writing and drawing. His two arms were tightly guarded as if hiding something.
Bi Chengfei quietly approached and coughed. The voice was the same as the grade director. Tao Xi was shocked. The pen he was holding almost made a long mark. He quickly turned the piece of paper on the table, raised his head and glared at Bi Chengfei before cursing, “Are you sick?”
Bi Chengfei was not upset. He felt that Tao Xi was a bit more angry and willful than when he first came. He spoke solemnly with his hands behind his back: “This classmate, what did you secretly write just now? Which girl did you write a love letter to? Give it to me!”
He naturally didn’t think Tao Xi was writing a love letter, he was just joking, but as soon as his voice stopped, he saw Lin Qinhe who was coming in through the back door glanced at him.
Bi Chengfei who was feeling quite hot, suddenly felt as cold as drinking Sprite.
Tao Xi saw Lin Qinhe come in and hurriedly stuffed the reversed paper into the drawer. He watched Lin Qinhe holding a pile of papers in his hand. He propped his head with one hand, and blocked the drawer with the other, and said with a guilty smile: “You have to do so many papers?”
However, the pile of papers was thrown onto his desk in the next second, and Lin Qinhe dropped a few cold words: “Finish it before the end of the month.”
Tao Xi looked at the pile of blank papers covering various subjects in shock, wanting to die.
“Who gave it to me?!” He opened his eyes and looked at Lin Qinhe.
“Your head teacher.” Lin Qinhe glanced at Tao Xi’s drawer and replied indifferently.
Witnessing the human tragedy, Bi Chengfei touched his chin and wondered: “When did auntie[6] become so ruthless? Asking Xi ge to finish so many papers in a week, isn’t this destroying the grass[7]?”
As a result, Lin Qinhe glanced coldly at him again, and Bi Chengfei groaned in his heart and shut up.
Tao Xi was still struggling to death: “Where do I have time to do so many papers?!”
He tilted his head to look at Lin Qinhe, drooping the eyelashes, pretending to be pitiful to win Lin Qinhe’s sympathy. However, Lin Qinhe didn’t even lift his eyelids, and instead replied mercilessly: “I think you are quite free.”
“I’m very busy, okay?” Tao Xi retorted.
But the rebuttal was invalid. Tao Xi was still aggrieved and accepted the pile of papers, and he scolded Zhou Qiang for a hundred times in his heart.
At this time Zhou Qiang was drinking tea in the office. With his legs up, he listened to the old Liu Xun, the head teacher of Class 2 next door, nagging his students who didn’t do homework. He sneezed and said to the boys leisurely:
“Do you know that Lin Qinhe, who is the first in grade, is actively studying? He just took the initiative to ask teachers of various subjects for papers to practice. You guys are still delaying homework here, are you embarrassed?
Those boys showed shame on their faces.
Tao Xi accepted his fate to do the practice papers and he didn’t even bother to sneak a glance at Lin Qinhe on the side. Finally he finished a physics paper. When Lin Qinhe was out of class, he quickly took out the contents in the drawer and lowered his head to draw.
When Lin Qinhe stepped into the door, he naturally blocked it with the paper, then poked Lin Qinhe who had sat down with a gel pen. He took out the physics paper he had just done and pointed to a question: “Tablemate, enlighten me, how to do this question?”
The papers Zhou Qiang gave him were very difficult so Tao Xi couldn’t do many of the questions.
“Can’t do it.” Lin Qinhe said coldly without looking at it.
Tao Xi was taken aback. If it were others who said they couldn’t do it, Tao Xi would believe them. However it was Lin Qinhe who said he couldn’t do it, he must be fooling him.
What made Lin Qinhe angry again?
Tao Xi couldn’t figure it out.
Tao Xi failed to pry Lin Qinhe’s mouth open until the next night of self-study. It seemed that he was quite angry.
Because Yang Duole didn’t want to see his father, Yang Zhengming, he had been living in Lin Qinhe’s house for a month. In fact, to him, Lin’s family was his second home, and he was even more casual here than at grandparents’ home.
He was eating fruit while writing homework. When looking for notes, he found that he had forgotten to bring back an English exercise book. He took the homework he was doing, got up and walked to Lin Qinhe’s room, intending to ask about the question.
Yang Duole raised his hand and knocked on the door. He was very aware of Lin Qinhe’s personal space. If he didn’t knock on the door and went in directly, he would definitely be angry.
“Come in.”
Yang Duole just opened the door and walked in. Lin Qinhe was not doing homeworks. He had probably finished doing it at school. He was sitting on the chair, reading an English novel.
“Qinhe ge, borrow an English exercise book.”
“In the bag, take it yourself.” Lin Qinhe didn’t look up.
Yang Duole flipped through Lin Qinhe’s bag, and when he took out the exercise book, he found a folded piece of paper. He curiously picked it up and opened it, and found that there was a four-frame cartoon in it.
“Who drew this cartoon for you?” Yang Duole asked while reading it.
He hadn’t looked carefully, he had looked at it just a for moment when the paper in his hand was snatched by Lin Qinhe who got up suddenly. Lin Qinhe only lowered his head and glanced at it before folding it up, his expression didn’t change at all.
Yang Duole knew that many girls in the school liked Lin Qinhe, so he jokingly said, “It’s a girl who secretly stuffed it again? Should I throw it for you?”
In fact, he was just a little curious about what was drawn inside.
“No.” Lin Qinhe lowered his head and clipped the piece of paper into the English novel he had just read, and then put the novel on the corner of the table.
Yang Duole didn’t insist. He spread out the homework he brought on the table and said: “I can’t do some questions. Qinhe ge, teach me.”
Lin Qinhe frowned slightly, paused for a while and replied, “Okay.”
Yang Duole moved the chair as usual and sat down next to Lin Qinhe to listen to his lecture, but he soon realized that Lin Qinhe seemed a little absent-minded. When he was thinking about the calculation process, he saw that Lin Qinhe occasionally glanced at the English novel.
In Yang Duole’s memory, Lin Qinhe never indulged in the same thing. When they were young, they often watched cartoons together. Sometimes when seeing a wonderful place and Luo Zhengyin came over to ask them to eat the meals, Lin Qinhe always got up and left quickly while Yang Duole always had to delay it for a while.
It seemed that this novel was indeed very interesting. Otherwise, why would Lin Qinhe still think about it when tutoring him?
After finishing the topic, Yang Duole left wittily. Before leaving, he said very thoughtfully: “Qinhe ge, don’t read the novel until too late, it hurts your eyes.”
Lin Qinhe gave a hum and closed the door after Yang Duole went out.
He walked back to the chair and sat down. He opened the English novel, took out the folded paper, and opened it to look carefully.
On the paper was a simple four-frame comic drawn with black pens, with neat and simple lines, and Chapter 1 was written in the upper left corner, which was obviously a series.
The drawing was a dialogue between a moon and a meteorite.
The moon was wrapped in light and shone, while the meteorite was broken, small, and dull.
Moon: “Are you a star?”
Meteorite: “I am just a small meteorite, but one day I will become a small star that will glow.”
Moon: “Why do you want to become a star?”
Meteorite: “Because then I can illuminate you in the universe like the sun.”
The signature at the lower right corner of the comic: Xiao Tao Comics Club.
The author has something to say:
Xiao Tao Comics Club has opened its doors
Footnotes:
- Raw: 画大饼 internet buzzword, refers to making absurd and unrealistic promises and then using rhetoric to make people believe and serve them. In the end, the promise was not fulfilled, prevarication or running away. (cr: baike) / to draw a pretty picture of the future (not yet real); to produce a rosy scenario of the future (cr: trainchinese) ↩️
- Chasing an ice cube = literally a cold person in this context. ↩️
-
Raw 润物细无声 = “Moisturizing things silently” originally referred to the silently moisturizing the earth in the spring rain, but now it is often used as a metaphor for teaching and educating people, subtly. (cr. Baidu)
It refers to Chinese poem ; 春夜喜雨Happy Rain on a Spring Night by 杜甫du fu in Tang Dysnaty. Excerpt:
好雨知时节，当春乃发生。The good rain knows its season, When spring arrives, then it comes.
随风潜入夜，润物细无声。It follows the wind secretly into the night, And moistens all things softly, without sound (translation from omgchinese) ↩️ -
Raw: 温水煮青蛙. The boiling frog is a fable describing a frog being slowly boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. (cr Wikipedia)
The implication is that changes in the general environment can determine your success and failure. Too comfortable environment often contains danger, and you must be vigilant at all times in a superior environment. (cr: baidu) ↩️ - honestly I’m not sure what this means because after searching around, it can either refer to A thousand and One Nights book (or The Arabian Night in English) or it can also mean ‘many’. ↩️
- Refers to Zhou Qiang. Not his biological aunt, Bi Aoxue. Remember they called Zhou Qiang aunt because he talks a lot ↩️
- Destroy beautiful things with vicious hands, that is to use cruel means to destroy good things. ↩️
T/N: Please lmk if there’s any typo/grammatical errors. Thank you!
nightskytl.wordpress.com 
awwww i couldn’t help but comment…just imagining that comic made me smile!! 🥰
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