Don’t Pretend to be Poor with Me - Chapter 16

How could he be so sorry to his brother like that in his dream

Song Yan was originally already irritated by the complicated and tedious skirt, and upon hearing movement, raised his head to look, and saw a certain someone raise the hem of the cloth, peeking openly and brazenly. Then he expressionlessly said: “ Do you want to die?”

Xia Zhiye willingly said: “I’m just looking.”

Song Yan: “Fuck off.”

Quite an irritable sentence.

Then Xia Zhiye was kicked out.

The pain was quite real, and it seems he hadn’t inadvertently breathed in some hallucinogenic agent, and Song Yan had also not been possessed by some alluring witch.

After all, alluring witches didn’t usually have such bad tempers.

Also, the pain he felt allowed Xia Zhiye to dazedly feel he was straight once again.

At least he should be straight once again.

The feeling just now was probably because of the secretion of dopamine due to the rise in adrenaline after seeing an unusual scene.

Xia Zhiye stood in front of the dressing room, fanned himself with his shirt collar, while reasoning with himself via scientific analysis.

But wasn’t the owner of this shop too stingy?

Such a big shop in the midst of summer, and they didn’t even open the air conditioner in the changing rooms. It was both stuffy and hot, and his mouth was dry and parched.

The curtain behind him was pulled aside.

Xia Zhiye turned back, and saw Song Yan had gone back to wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, and Xia Zhiye didn’t seem to notice his own disappointment.

Song Yan thought it was inexplicable: “What kind of face is that.”

“Nothing.” Xia Zhiye once again fanned himself twice with his collar, “Why’d you change back to your regular clothes.”

“Too annoying, can’t wear it.”

“But you look pretty good crossdressing.”

“……”

“Hss — — be more gentle, it hurts.”

Kong Xiaoxiao heard the movement and walked over, didn’t care to bother as to why their grand school bully was getting beat once again, and only asked Song Yan: “The clothes don’t fit?”

Song Yan released Xia Zhiye: “Too complicated.”

“So it’s like that…… Then I’ll choose a less complicated one, or else you won’t have enough time to change during intervals.” Kong Xiaoxiao didn’t seem to feel at a loss regarding this, “Anyways, with our Yan ge’s attractiveness, you can beat others at will. Clothes are mere worldly possessions and aren’t important at all.”

She was a model bootlicker.

But Song Yan wasn’t the least bit happy with her praise, and instead twisted his hand to slap away Xia Zhiye’s wandering claws.

Xia Zhiye tsked. If only a certain someone’s temper was as soft as their ears.

.

After choosing the costumes, paying the down payment, and reserving the costumes for 9/29 and 9/30, they had nothing else to do.

It was already three or four in the afternoon, and the weather was so stuffy one could die.

Kong Xiaoxiao sighed: “It’s almost autumn, when can the weather cool down.”

Zhao Ruiwen pushed up his glasses: “I counted on my fingers. It’s supposed to rain next week, then it’ll start cooling down.”

“At that point this father will already be close to death.” Kong Xiaoxiao had gotten along with the boys in Class 1 for a while now, and vulgar words came out as soon as she opened her mouth. She grew irritated while waiting for the bus, and looked around, “Ooh, there’s a cafe over there, let’s go drink something cold.”

As long as it had something to do with food, the little fatty would agree and as long as Kong Xiaoxiao said it, Zhao Ruiwen would agree.

Xia Zhiye looked at a certain classmate standing next to him wearing a face mask while remaining quiet, and found that the skin around the other’s collar had already turned red under the sun.

But even if the bus came, the other would continue to be exposed to the sun. Might as well take a break first.

So he smoothly hooked his arm around Song Yan’s neck: “Let’s go, I’ll treat you to dessert.”

If Xia Zhiye said he’d treat someone, then he’d treat someone, and was quite proficient at settling the bill. The others also laughed rowdily as if it were nothing.

Song Yan originally wanted to pay, but also felt that fighting for the bill was something stupid that old people did, so he didn’t say anything.

Just wondered why this guy was foolishly acting so generous all the time? Was it that amazing calling others jiejie?

Xia Zhiye also didn’t know what the little young master was thinking, and placed a lemonade in front of him: “Are you sure you want this?”

A five yuan drink, no matter how you look at it, it didn’t suit the little young master’s tastes.

Song Yan’s face didn’t change: “I don’t like sweet things.”

Fine.

A new note was added to Xia Zhiye’s notepad.

The group of students found a large table in the corner of the dessert shop to sit at.

Zhao Ruiwen pulled out a pile of A4 booklets: “I finished editing the script. Why don’t we take the time to check out the new lines I added, and see if it needs to be changed anymore. That way when Liu Yue comes back next week, we can directly start rehearsing, and the week after that we can do the dress rehearsal for the joint performance.”

Other than them, there were no other customers in the dessert shop, and the two staff members were also drowsy.

Although Song Yan wasn’t that interested in the whole situation, but he had the temperament of ‘not wanting to pull others’ back legs’: “Sure.”

The play was more or less a comedy, and the dialogue was lighthearted, comedic, and full of memes, and it was smoothly done.

The rest were the few serious scenes in the comedy.

Zhao Ruiwen flipped two pages: “It’s coming, it’s coming, my favorite section is coming.”

Xia Zhiye glanced over: “You’re using so many lines from the Huangmei opera, and no one sued you for copyright infringement?”

“You say this, but the neighboring class already copied ‘Thunderstorm1.’ This is called public domain, understand? Also I very professionally marked out the source, that way our class looks super artistic.” Zhao Ruiwen was confident.

Xia Zhiye: “Fine.”

He drank a sip of water, cleared his throat, then unhurriedly read: “Yingtai isn’t a girl, but why are there scars on you ear”

“There’s a reason for the scars on my ear, there is no need for brother Liang to doubt. During the temple fair in the village, every year I play as Guanyin2……”

“Yan ge, that’s not right.” Zhao Ruiwen interrupted Song Yan’s AI-like reading of the script, “At this part you should be anxious and apprehensive, while also being bashful but coolheaded, to cover up a young girl’s yearning for love……”

Song Yan calmly stared at him.

He shifted backwards, then extended a hand outwards: “You3 continue.”

Xia Zhiye lowered his head and laughed: “Let’s try again?”

Song Yan also felt that reciting the lines that way made no sense, then fanned himself with his collar twice: “Okay.”

He was skinnier than other boys his age, and the collar of his T-shirt was already a bit big. When Song Yan pulled at his collar, from Xia Zhiye’s angle, he could plainly see the other’s thin and pale shoulder and collar bone, and suddenly thought of the scene he just saw in the dressing room.

He only recovered when Song Yan, who had finished his lines and had been waiting for the other’s reaction, had knocked on the table twice.

Then he just happened to see the little mark on Song Yan’s right ear, and inexplicably followed up: “From now on I don’t dare to look at Guanyin.”

Song Yan didn’t seem to notice the other’s strange behavior: “Why don’t you dare to look at Guanyin”

Xia Zhiye once again didn’t continue the dialogue.

Song Yan impatiently tapped on the table again: “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.” Xia Zhiye looked away, then leaned back against the chair so he could easily size Song Yan up, “Just wondering whether you’re really a girl dressing up as a guy.”

“?”

“Or else why have you never changed clothes in front of me?”

“……”

What followed next was the familiar scene of Song Yan beating people, and Xia Zhiye coaxing the other.

But it wasn’t as if he was really beating the other. His fist was clenched hard, but landed softly, as if he was a small cat lashing out.

And the other really was coaxing seriously, with his eyes bent, and with a good temper and laughter, as if he felt the other was cute.

Kong Xiaoxiao expressionlessly turned to look at Zhao Ruiwen: “This scenario is familiar to you?”

Zhao Ruiwen intuitively understood and nodded: “Every time I annoy our family’s cat is like this.”

Sure enough.

Kong Xiaoxiao woodenly lowered her head, then sent Xia Zhiye a message: [Lord Xia, it doesn’t matter if it’s a girl dressing as a boy, gender isn’t a problem]

.

When Xia Zhiye saw the message, it was nighttime, and he had already finished showering and gotten in bed.

His fingertip landed on ‘gender isn’t a problem,’ and tapped against it twice, then understood exactly what Kong Xiaoxiao was trying to say.

It was fine if she didn’t say it, but now that she did, he once again thought back to the moment he lifted the curtain to the dressing room earlier this afternoon.

It was as if he was bewitched, and he was able to trace over every single detail, every single shape from that scene without any errors. Also probably because that scene seemed to have some kind of a filter, everytime he remembered that scene, it brought along with it that strange feeling to haunt him.

But he couldn’t have actually gone so far as to have been bent.

After all, for the past 16 years, he had never had a strange awakening in his consciousness.

Although Shang Huai and Zhou Ziqiu were like dogs, they were quite good looking. He began hanging out with them in middle school, and had fought together, slept together, visited bath houses together, and had even taken health classes together.

They got along with each other day and night, and had done all they could possibly do with one another. If he really had the tendency for that field, then how come he hadn’t had any reaction at all, and only thought about how those two idiots could be that dumb.

So he should still be straight.

Xia Zhiye had this kind of confidence, but that feeling from this afternoon had exceeded his knowledge blind spot.

He laid on the bed with one hand under his head and the other hand tapping against the message that Kong Xiaoxiao sent, thinking that he was at a fork in the road of life.

He pondered, and pondered, and suddenly thought of something.

His finger scrolled down, and began to search through their earlier chat records.

He hadn’t scrolled for too long when he found the legendary reference materials regarding the ‘changes and possibilities of future reproduction of human beings in biology.’

He hesitated for three seconds, then opened the link.

After ten minutes, he exited the page.

Sure enough, he couldn’t understand why the evil male prince who was extremely clean, ascetic and reserved would suddenly be able to engage in all kinds of yellow play4 the moment after he saw his male wife take off their clothes.

He also couldn’t understand why the class grass and school bully fought because of some strange perfume, and then after the class grass’s neck was exposed he was bit by the school bully, after which the class grass became a medical miracle and was able to get pregnant.

This world wasn’t a domain that he could understand.

So he probably was very straight, and Song Yan was just his good brother.

Xia Zhiye thought of this answer, tossed aside his phone, shut off the lights, and fearlessly fell asleep with ease.

Probably because he had all kinds of thoughts during the day, so he had all kinds of dreams at night.

While Xia Zhiye was half asleep, he seemed to have heard someone calling him Your Majesty.

He turned back, and the wind lifted a white veil. The moonlight shone down magnificently on someone wearing a red outfit standing in front of a window, and their red sleeve began to loosen, slowly sliding off their shoulder.

A long and thin neck, frail and thin shoulder, bitingly cold butterfly bones, a delicate but tenacious waist, and skin as white as snow contrasted against the red gown that was as luminous as fire.

Xia Zhiye remembered this was the scene of the wedding festivities in the first chapter of ‘The Overbearing Prince’s Subordinate Male Wife.’ His rationality told him the following plot was unsuitable for a minor such as him, but his dream couldn’t be controlled, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t look away.

So he could only helplessly watch on as that person slowly turned, their face covered by the hazy moonlight. He couldn’t see clearly, and could only see that tiny piercing on their earlobe, as if it were a cinnabar mole, eye catching and dazzling.

When Xia Zhiye awoke, hot sweat had completely soaked through his pajamas, and his entire body felt uncomfortable.

He spread apart his legs, sat up with his legs bent, his elbows supported by his knees, and irritatedly scratched at his lowered head.

Fuck.

How could he be so sorry to his brother like that in his dream.

1. Thunderstorm is a famous play written in 1933 by the dramatist Cao Yu.

2. In Chinese mythology, Guanyin is the goddess of mercy and the physical embodiment of compassion.

3. The ‘you’ ZRW uses here is the formal you, haha

4. Play was originally written in English. Also remember, yellow refers to pornographic/sexual matters