Don’t Pretend to be Poor with Me - Chapter 17

Beauty transcends gender

[Is it normal to dream at night about something you saw during the day]

[Is it normal to dream about your own roommate in a weird dream]

[Is it normal to be unable to forget the stunning visual effect of a particularly shocking same-sex scene]

[It’s normal. Because of thoughts during the day, you can have any kind of dreams at night.]

[It’s normal. The hormones and thoughts of boys in puberty can’t be controlled.]

[It’s normal. It’s human instinct to admire beauty, and beauty can transcend gender, or even transcend species.]

After he Baidu’d1 it, Xia Zhiye felt at ease.

It was just a normal physiological reaction of the psyche of a boy undergoing puberty. He wasn’t sorry to his brother, nor could he be considered a bastard.

It’s just that he needs to take a cold shower for the time being and calm himself down.

After showering, Song Yan had already been awoken by the sound of water, and opened his eyes drowsily: “Why are you showering in the middle of the night.”

Song Yan who was still in a daze due to his sleepiness didn’t have the cold face he usually had during the day, and with a low voice, he sounded so soft. His entire person was nestled within his blankets, and he looked extremely obedient.

Xia Zhiye who had just finished taking a cold shower: “……Because it’s hot.”

Song Yan: “Oh.”

He shut his eyes, and his eyelashes calmly drooped down.

Xia Zhiye stared for three seconds: “……”

Seems a bit cute.

It’s fine, admiring beauty is human instinct, and beauty transcends gender. He just happened to meet a roommate who was excessively good looking, and it wasn’t anything serious.

Xia Zhiye thought this, then gradually exhaled a warm breath. But September was nearly half over, how could the weather not have cooled down yet.

.

Once the weekend ended, Nan Wu underwent ten days of light rain. The temperature rapidly plummeted, and the feeling of autumn quickly followed on its heels. With the blink of an eye, it was the end of September.

That night was the joint performance of the Arts Festival, and the several people in the stage play were allowed to skip class in the afternoon to go to the arts floor to have a dress rehearsal.

Song Yan used his coat to cover his head, and laid on the exercise mat to catch up on sleep.

Xia Zhiye carried something and came in from outside the practice room, walked towards the other’s side, squatted down, pulled aside the coat, and exposed that pretty and irritable little head.

Song Yan raised his eyes: “Do you want to die?”

Xia Zhiye waved the thing in his hand: “I specifically bought this for you.”

Song Yan: “?”

Xia Zhiye: “The first milk tea of autumn. If other people have it, my desk mate can’t not have it.”

Song Yan: “……”

They were all adults, how could he be brainwashed by the silly talk of the merchants’ marketing campaigns on WeChat Moments2, how childish.

Song Yan scorned it while taking the cup of milk tea, and took a sip.

There were no tapioca balls in the milk tea, it was warm and was only at 50% sugar, and perfectly suited his taste.

The little fatty smelled the milk tea and sneakily moved closer: “Lord Xia, I also want the first milk tea of autumn.”

Xia Zhiye glanced at him: “Are you my desk mate?”

“?” The little fatty didn’t understand, “The difference between the person sitting in front of you and the one sitting next to you is that big?”

Xia Zhiye replied: “Not really.”

Little fatty: “That’s right.”

Xia Zhiye: “Just a difference in attractiveness.”

Little fatty: “……”

He couldn’t understand why he came over here in the first place just to invite insults to himself.

Kong Xiaoxiao also didn’t give him the chance to continue to reflect, and with a ‘bang’ pushed open the door to the practice room, a face full of fire: “I’m so fucking pissed off, so pissed off, I’m seriously pissed off.”

“What’s wrong, Xiao jie?” Zhao Ruiwen asked.

Kong Xiaoxiao: “Did you know the competition regulations changed this time?”

Audience: “?”

“I just heard in the office. This time, the award winner isn’t determined by the teachers in the year group, it’s determined by anonymous voting from the entire grade. Everyone gets three votes for the shows they like aside from their own show, and the winner is the one who gets the most votes.”

The little fatty was confused: “Isn’t that pretty good? It’s fair and partial, and even open to the public.”

“It is pretty good, so good that Yang Yue and Zhao Yu bought a few hundred cups of milk tea and distributed it everywhere. As long as they agreed to vote for ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ then they can go to Class 16 to pick it up.”

“What the fuck!” The little fatty reacted, “You’re telling me they’re bribing the voting panel?”

Zhao Ruiwen was also livid: “How could they corrupt the justice and unity of our people with such corrupt and capitalist tactics?!”

The little fatty began to scold: “They’re simply too shameless!”

Zhao Ruiwen also began to accuse with anger: “Clearly the scum of society!”

Little fatty asked: “So where can I pick up the milk tea?”

Zhao Ruiwen replied: “I also don’t know.”

‘Pa, pa’ could be heard twice, one plump and another thin, heroically died a martyr.

The two hadn’t had enough time to climb up from the ground to beg for forgiveness when they heard: “Oh, how is it you guys again.”

Hearing this sound, a sense of powerlessness bubbled up to Kong Xiaoxiao’s head. She turned around, then dispiritedly said: “I also wanted to ask, how is it you guys again.”

“There’s nothing we can do, the other classrooms are all taken. We already changed clothes, and there’s still an hour left until we go on stage. Just let us practice here, okay~ I’ll treat you guys to milk tea~”

Yang Yue probably had the model appearance of a youthful school flower. She was tall and thin, pure and clean. With her long and straight black hair combined with her delicate facial features, when she acted coquettishly it was as if no straight man could resist.

With a glance she could see little fatty and the others were about to defect to the enemy, and Kong Xiaoxiao glared at them, then turned back: “No need. It’s still that old saying, ‘first come, first serve.’”

Yang Yue pouted: “But last time I already yielded to you guys.”

Kong Xiaoxiao indifferently raised her eyebrows: “Who told you guys to always come one step late.”

“……”

Seems to make sense.

Yang Yue couldn’t defeat her with words, then turned around, “Hubby~”

Her illegal hubby glanced around the room from outside the door: “It’s fine, just let them have it. Anyways they’re just at this level, even if we don’t rehearse once we won’t lose.”

Yang Yue heard him say this, then followed his gaze to look into the practice room, then once again ‘oh’ed: “Oh my, do you guys plan on wearing these kinds of rental ancient costumes made from synthetic fibers to perform?”

Kong Xiaoxiao: “?”

Yang Yue’s entire face was as if she couldn’t understand: “That’s way too cheap, when the time comes, the visual effect on stage will definitely not be good. My mom spent over ten thousand yuan for the custom clothes Zhao Yu and I are wearing because she was scared that if it didn’t look realistic, the audience would be disengaged from the show.”

After rattling on for a while, it seemed she suddenly realized something, then covered her mouth: “Aiyah, sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just frank and outspoken, and I don’t think when I speak, I didn’t want to offend you guys. After all, I also know not everyone can spend so much on costumes. It was me that didn’t think before I spoke, I hope I didn’t offend you.”

Kong Xiaoxiao who had ‘ah’ed, had rolled her eyes so hard it nearly reached her heels.

But the person in front of her was a girl, and it wasn’t good to use physical violence.

She had just held it in to the point it was unbearable, when Xia Zhiye in the corner suddenly asked Song Yan a question lazily: “Was there too little milk in the milk tea I bought this time?”

Song Yan seemed to have understood what he wanted to say, then took a sip: “A bit.”

Xia Zhiye nodded: “I knew it, I was just about to ask why the tea smell was so strong3.”

Pft.

Kong Xiaoxiao couldn’t stop herself and laughed out loud.

Yang Yue’s face had already turned green.

Xia Zhiye raised his head, his face entirely innocent: “What’s wrong, what happened just now.”

Kong Xiaoxiao held back her laughter: “Nothing, just thinking I should treat you to DaHongPao some other day, the kind of Longjing before the rain4.”

After she said this, she turned to look at Yang Yue: “Your family is that rich, but you’re still at No.3 Middle High with the rest of us commoners competing on the same stage. Why don’t you first think about whether or not there’s a problem with you. Or else every time you take a test and only score half as much as other people, once it gets out, everyone will think the pretty girls at our school all have problems with their brain. How inappropriate.”

Class 16 was the class that specifically recruited arts and sports students.

But in reality, it was filled with students whose family condition was pretty good but the students themselves had horrible scores and had been forced into the class with the worst students in the lowest ranking key high school. If it really was investigated seriously, they probably couldn’t even register as a student at No.3 Middle High.

Usually everyone protects their reputation, and no one would bring up this matter.

But now, Kong Xiaoxiao directly attacked the other, and clearly expressed she didn’t want to argue with Yang Yue any longer.

Yang Yue was both bashful and angry: “You…… you……”

After saying ‘you’ for a while, she couldn’t quite retaliate due to her lacking vocabulary, and could only huffily toss out a “If there’s anything else we’ll meet at night,” then picked up her over ten thousand yuan dress and stomped away.

Zhao Yu hurriedly chased after her.

After Kong Xiaoxiao won that battle, her mood improved greatly, and turned around to call out: “Come on, let’s continue with the dress rehearsal. Getting the prize isn’t important, what’s important is we can’t lose to that pair of greasy tea bags. This is the bottom line for our Class 1 in the domain of art.”

Fortunately the dress rehearsal went very smoothly.

Zhao Ruiwen was a bit talented, and adjusted the character design to better fit each actor.

For example, Zhu Yingtai became a cold beauty, and her lines became cold and derisive. It was both comedic and memorable, and Song Yan was able to act naturally.

Ma Wencai was a silly second generation, and originally they were worried Liu Yue wouldn’t agree to act the character. But after he had rested for an entire week, his entire person had grown to be content with his place, and although he wasn’t entirely enthusiastic, he was at least cooperative.

The humorous supporting cast of little fatty and Zhang Mianmian were also appropriate.

As for Xia Zhiye, he was naturally a drama queen, and there was no need to worry about him.

Kong Xiaoxiao was completely satisfied: “Not bad, as long as our class’s basic level in art has no accidents, then we should be able to hold on.”

Zhao Ruiwen: “There may be an accident.”

Kong Xiaoxiao: “.”

Zhao Ruiwen: “I just remembered that I forgot to prepare the rose petals we need for the last scene.”

“……” Kong Xiaoxiao calmly asked, “Are you a pig.”

Zhao Ruiwen obediently replied: “So can anyone tell this pig what he should do.”

In order for the last scene to have a good visual effect, they needed at least one to two hundred roses, and after that, needed to pull the petals off one by one. The undertaking was large, and there was only 30 minutes left until the show started. Where could they go off to find that many roses?

Zhao Ruiwen was unafraid of death: “Why don’t you guys just directly kill me to liven things up. It’ll probably look more powerful compared to the rose petals.”

“No, I’m super delicate, can’t bear to see blood.” Xia Zhiye clapped his hands, then stood up, “You guys first go prepare the other things. Me, Song Yan, and little fatty will go out to buy roses.”

Song Yan: “?”

Xia Zhiye explained: “There’s definitely not enough time to find Ruan Tian to ask for funds, only you have the strength to act as our golden master right now.”

Golden Master Song: “……Fine.”

Little fatty: “Then why do I have to go?”

Xia Zhiye looked at him: “Flowers are pretty heavy. Can you bear to have this frail and delicate golden master father and I carry them?”

Little fatty: “……?”

Do you have some kind of misunderstanding with the words frail and delicate?

Xia Zhiye was worthy of being called No.3 Middle High’s Little Tyrant amongst the society brothers in this area as he was overtly familiar with the winding roads and alleyways.

After taking them out of the school entrance, he turned this way and that, and not long after, found a flower shop.

It was artistically renovated, and appeared to have just opened.

The bouquets were also packaged very nicely, not like the older flower shops in which the bouquets were tacky and inelegant.

“Xiao Xia, how come you’re here, are you buying flowers?”

The owner of the shop was a young and beautiful girl. As soon as she saw Xia Zhiye, she greeted him familiarly, as if they knew each other for a while now, and their relationship was also good.

Xia Zhiye tilted his head towards Song Yan to introduce each other: “This shop opened during the summer. Little mahjong particularly loves to come here to play.”

Song Yan had no idea why the other suddenly explained all this to him, and felt it was baffling: “So?”

“So……” Xia Zhiye also didn’t know why he suddenly explained this to the other, “It’s nothing, just randomly saying that.”

Then he turned his head to look at the shop owner: “Jiejie, we need one to two hundred red roses, do you have them here?”

He said jiejie quite proficiently.

Song Yan pulled up his backpack, his expression unfathomable.

The store owner jiejie on the side was very enthusiastic: “We do, I just received a batch of red roses from the market this afternoon. I haven’t removed the thorns or leaves yet, do you still want them? If  you do, I’ll sell it cheaply.”

After hearing the word ‘cheaply,’ the little fatty’s eyes brightened: “Yes, yes, yes. We want 150 roses.”

“Sure. Then I’ll go to the warehouse to count it for you.”

The shop owner just turned around, when the bell at the entrance jingled: “Boss, three hundred red roses, we want them now. Please be quick.”

A familiar, and artificial vocal fry5.

A quick look back, and it was indeed Zhao Yu.

Zhao Yu also saw them, and his face immediately sank. He then chose to raise his chin in a condescending manner, and continued to talk to the store owner: “99 of those roses must be wrapped. The others can be left loose. We need it urgently, please help us package it right now.”

The shop owner indicated to Xia Zhiye: “These two handsome boys came first. I’ll help them count it first, then I’ll help you, got it?”

Little fatty: “?”

Why wasn’t it three handsome boys?

The store owner was quite reasonable, but Zhao Yu felt there was no need to discuss: “First wrap up my order, I’ll pay you 25% more.”

These words were too similar to ‘The weather is getting colder, let Wang grow poor6.’

The store owner jiejie couldn’t hold back her laughter: “Little brother, have you watched too many Mary Sue and overbearing president dramas? I apologize, but this jiejie isn’t interested in that kind. Anyways, I pay particular attention to ‘first come, first serve.’ If you’re willing to wait, then wait, and if you’re unwilling to wait then go somewhere else. Take care, I won’t bother to see you out.”

After she said this, she turned and entered the warehouse.

Zhao Yu who was left behind, turned red, then white.

Even if one were unyielding, at this point one should lower their heads and let it go.

But in the surrounding area within several hundred meters, this was the only flower shop. If you went a bit further to buy flowers, there wouldn’t be enough time left. If he didn’t bring the flowers, the visual effect on stage would collapse, and Yang Yue would throw a tantrum for three days and three nights.

So even if he were unwilling, he still had to get this done.

Zhao Yu couldn’t help but lower his voice to scold: “What kind of dumbass girl.”

He turned around and planned to smoke a cigarette at the door, but his path was blocked by an excessively long leg.

He unhappily raised his head: “What?”

Xia Zhiye gestured with his chin towards the warehouse: “Apologize.”

“Are you sick, Xia Zhiye?” Yang Yue wasn’t there, and Zhao Yu was also too lazy to pretend to be a gentleman, “What does me scolding that girl have anything to do with you? After showing off all day long have you gotten addicted to it or something?”

After he finished yelling, Xia Zhiye hadn’t even opened his mouth, when the little fatty grew angry: “You have no shame saying others are showing off, but have you seen your own behavior?”

“What about my behavior?” Zhao Yu coldly laughed, “No matter what my behavior is like, at least I haven’t been reduced to getting expelled from ShiWai7 then ran to No.3 Middle High to look more impressive. What about it, you got so used to everyone calling you god Xia that you forgot you couldn’t stay in ShiWai?”

“You’re the one that can’t fucking stay in ShiWai, our Lord Xia came to No.3 Middle High for his brothers. Unlike a certain someone, who couldn’t even test into the key high schools and had to rely on their parents to spend money. Now after spending money for so long, you stuck chicken feathers on yourself but forgot exactly what kind of bird you are8.”

“That’s right, my family has money. What about it, are you jealous? Why don’t I pay for your roses so you can save some money to rescue your crappy show. After all, who asked your class monitor to be so poor that they can’t even hand in the class fees, and can only mess around with us in our shitty school?”

His voice couldn’t conceal his jealousy and disdain.

Because all other areas couldn’t be compared, he pulled out his only saving grace to slander others.

The little fatty really looked down on people like him.

Then, without waiting for little fatty to passionately go off on the other, Song Yan, who had been silently standing beside them in a corner, coldly opened his mouth: “Seems like your class’s stage is pretty anxious about getting those roses.”

He looked at Zhao Yu.

Zhao Yu had no idea why the other suddenly asked this, and impatiently tossed out: “Bullshit, if we weren’t anxious, why would I lower myself to argue with you guys for so long?”

Song Yan nodded: “That’s good.”

Zhao Yu: “?”

Without waiting for the other to react, Song Yan looked towards the bustling shop owner jiejie in the warehouse, then asked: “Boss, how many more roses do you have.”

The shop owner responded quickly: “We have 300 red roses, 300 white roses, and 200 champagne roses.”

Song Yan then asked: “What about ones that can replace roses.”

The shop owner thought about it for a bit: “Then I just have the Chinese rose, about 100 of those.”

Song Yan nodded after hearing this: “Okay, I want them all, don’t leave even one behind.”

“?” Zhao Yu, who stood to one side, stared blankly for a moment as he had been feeling self satisfied after winning the upper hand, then finally reacted, “Fuck, Song Yan are you fucking sick!”

Song Yan pulled out the black-gold card that Song Minghai gave him earlier, took the bill, then turned around, his face indifferent and exceedingly calm: “Sorry, not sick, just simply because I have money.”

Zhao Yu: “……”

Little fatty: “……”

Xia Zhiye: “……”

Hard to refute.

1. Baidu, China’s equivalent of Google, so much so that they use it as a verb much as English speakers do with Google (ie: I googled xxx)

2. Moments is a function on WeChat where one can post photos that others can like. Businesses also use this to sell/campaign their products, and it can be seen as long as you follow them. It’s kind of like Instagram or FaceBook.

3. A reference to green tea bitch, similar to white lotus, wherein someone looks pure/clean on the outside but is rotten on the inside. XZY is saying YY is acting so bitchy you can smell the tea in the air.

4. DaHongPao is an expensive brand of oolong tea. ‘Longjing before the rain’ refers to a specific type of Longjing tea, where the tea leaves are picked before ‘guyu’ a specific time somewhere in the spring/summer.

5. Vocal fry (气泡音) is the lowest vocal register, and can be produced. A lot of guys artificially produce it to appear more attractive in China.

6. This is the literal translation of 天凉王破. It generally means someone is showing off excessively, aka: overcompensating

7. ShiWai is the abbreviated name of a privately owned, foreign language school in ChengDu (成都市实验外国语学校). From what I can gather, it seems it’s a pretty prestigious school.

8. This is meant to mock ZY for buying his way into the school when he has no real skill.