[Online Gaming] Love You 59 Seconds - Chapter 40
Proofreader: Jesse
In the beginning he was nervous to death riding in the same car as the professor, since they had only said one or two short sentences here and there. Wu Han Ying did not know how or if they could have a good chat, but as he spent more time with Xia Chen that nervous to death feeling soon disappeared. He just felt that Professor Xia doesn’t always have that cold long face on, when the other man smiled he noticed the man had blossom bud shaped eyes that had a very nice curvy arc.
Xiao Shang at first chatted cheerily with them, but after a while he laid down to sleep like a little kitten nestled next to him. Wu Han Ying felt quite nostalgic as he looked at Xiao Shang, he was reminded of the time that he also used to like to sleep in the car when he was younger. Whenever his parents took him to play in the suburbs he would always get in the car and sleep.
Wu Han Ying had been to the zoo several times before, but then again he was still very young so he had no recollection of it. The only impression he had was the lion, tiger and monkey areas were all very smelly ==
Actually it was not too far away and even though driving was faster, they could not avoid the mid-morning traffic jam. Xia Chen wasn’t in a hurry, so when they arrived at the zoo it was already 11 o’clock.
Xiao Shang was still lying on the back seat fast asleep and it was obvious to anyone who looked that he did not want to wake up yet. Xia Chen parked the car and took his coat from the passenger seat; he conveniently placed the coat in Wu Han Ying’s arms and then went over to the backseat to carry Xiao Shang.
“Take the coat with you, you wear too little.” Xia Chen said as he pinched Xiao Shang’s cheek, “Wake up little brat; who stayed up all night to cause trouble saying he must go to the zoo today and now you want to sleep when we’re here.”
“Thank you, Professor Xia.”
Wu Han Ying was shocked for a moment as he held onto the long black coat. He remembered when Xia Chen wore it, it looked very fitting, but he was shorter than the other man by half a head…sure enough, he felt very delighted to be able to put it on. Wu Han Ying was a lot warmer with it on. Earlier when he left his house, he didn’t take a jacket with him because it was very warm inside, so he only put on some light long sleeved clothes; he didn’t even think to put on a sweater.
“The top button is unbuttoned.” Xia Chen said while frowning, he handed the half-awake Xiao Shang to him, “I’ll go buy the tickets. You take him to the entrance and wait for me there.”
Wu Han Ying quickly agreed, taking hold of Xiao Shang he headed to the entrance to wait. From where he was standing he could see the purchase line for the tickets was quite long, there were so many people. Among those people he saw someone that has a similar profile as Xia Chen, but since he was so far away he could not see clearly.
When they entered the zoo Wu Han Ying could only describe the scene before him as seeing a sea of people. It didn’t look like they were going to be able to see the animals; it was more accurate to say that they are going to see people instead. While he was squeezing through a horde of people he started thinking back to when he was younger and remembered that there were a lot of people who went to the zoo then as well. Since they were still enjoying the winter season, quite a few of the animals were hibernating so there wasn’t much to see; however, the children didn’t think so.
Xiao Shang was quite fortunate compared to them and even though Xia Chen pinched his face many times, the child did not wake up. He only made a “um hm” sound twice, rubbed his face and then went back to sleep. One time he did frown and raise his hand up to swing twice as if shooing away some insects… but in the end he stayed asleep for quite a while.
“I won’t babysit you the next time your mom and dad are on a business trip.” Xia Chen was getting a terrible headache.
“I’ll go with Little Uncle next time.” Xiao Shang laughed as he patted Xia Chen’s shoulder; while holding onto Xia Chen’s neck as his arms stretched out a few times he said, “I wanna see the lion, see the lion.”
Wu Han Ying looked around the room and all he could see was a sea of people; he couldn’t help noticing that he was getting trapped by a group of people. He was starting to feel dizzy and he could feel a headache coming on. He wanted to tell them that he wasn’t going to go see the lions and would wait on the side instead. As he turned around…there was a forest of people in front of him, if he was to take one step away he knew he would be lost in the sea of people. To top it all off, his phone was broken so there was no way for him to contact anyone if they were separated.
Before he could speak, Xia Chen had one hand holding onto Xiao Shang and then he stretched the other hand over to Wu Han Yin to pull him along, “Don’t get lost.”
“Oh…” Wu Han Ying was shocked as Xia Chen took his hand and led him out of the crowded place. He did not let go after they had successfully left the crowd. Wu Han Ying couldn’t help noticing that the other man’s hand wasn’t just bigger than his, it was also a lot warmer. Even though he had a coat on and his body was warm, his hands and feet were still ice cold.
“Lion, lion.” chanted Xiao Shang. Since he was sitting on Xia Chen’s shoulder he was a lot higher than the other people around him and had a clear view of the animal; he was cheerfully pointing at first, but then reached out his hand to shake as if doing a greeting.
Wu Han Ying could not see what was in front of him due to the crowd of people…but he had no special interest in the lion or monkey areas anyway so he didn’t mind.
“Don’t you want to see?” asked Xia Chen as he tilted his head to the side toward Wu Han Ying.
Wu Han Ying wanted to shake his head and answer, “It’s okay.” His mouth couldn’t help twitching in amusement as he realized Professor Xia had been treating him like an elementary school student.
Before Wu Han Ying was able to respond though, Xia Chen had already reached out and grabbed his arm.
After grabbing his arm Xia Chen had pulled the smaller man towards him and instead of pulling him to his side, it seemed to Wu Han Ying that he was standing right under the taller man’s chin. He inadvertently looked up and then let out a laugh; he also heard a low chuckle coming from Xia Chen.
“Hey kiddo, are you sure this is the lion? Actually, it’s the tiger.”
“It’s not the tiger.” Xiao Shang patted Xia Chen’s head, “isn’t that ”{wang/king} written on its head?”
Wu Han Ying tried to hold in his laughter. The tiger’s head did have quite a few lines on it and on closer inspection a few of the lines were neatly put together to make the word ‘king’ {}.
{Translator Input: The Lion is universally known as the king of the jungle and Xiao Shang doesn’t know what a lion looks like, he thinks that as long as the animal has the word “king” on it, then it’s the lion. *rolls* Since they don’t tell exactly how old Xiao Shang is in the story, I’m guessing he is like 7 years old; he has learned simple chinese characters and has a basic understanding of them. This is his first time in the story meeting a real lion and it seems to be his first time at the zoo. So this mistake is understandable, I mean even I couldn’t tell what the difference between a tiger and a lion was at 7 years old; mom told me that I assumed lion, tiger, leopard, and cheetah were all the same animal T.T so I can understand this mistake. But hey, this might not be the same in your case, who knows LOL}
The three of them walked around the zoo for a long time, when it was 12 o’clock, they made their way to the parking lot to head to the restaurant. As they were walking out, Wu Han Ying felt like he had just been through a fight, he felt very exhausted. He couldn’t believe fighting for seats with the other children while watching out for pickpockets could make him this exhausted. Xia Chen kept a good hold of him throughout the trip, making sure not to let him out of his sight.
When they finally got into the car, Wu Han Ying felt like his body was weighted down with heavy sandbags. He hadn’t exercised this much after getting into University, most of his time was spent sitting in the dorm and sitting in the classroom; the most he had done was to go out to play baseball, but the tension was not as high as this.
Xiao Shang on the other hand did not even have to use his legs, the whole time he was carried by Xia Chen while they walked everywhere. Wu Han Ying sincerely felt that Xia Chen did not have it easy and he deeply sympathized with him.
They got to the restaurant at exactly 12:30, before they started to walk in Wu Han Ying suddenly remembered he ran out of the house this morning and did not say anything to his grandma. He looked left and right at this high-end place, there wasn’t a phone booth in sight..
“Professor Xia, may I use your phone to make a phone call?”
Xia Chen handed the phone to him, “Come in and find us after you’re done.”
“Ok.” Wu Han Ying then stood beside the car while making the call and watched as Xia Chen and Xiao Shang made their way into the restaurant.
Wu Han Ying and the person on the other line hung up with less than a minute of talking. It was also lunch time at home and Wu Ning was not behaved during the meal; he could hear everyone trying to coax and sweet talk her, he could also hear his aunt shouting, “If you don’t eat now, I won’t give you a snack to eat in the afternoon.” So naturally, she only said two sentences or so with him then hung up.
Wu Han Ying did not find the short conversation strange, he slowly trotted to the restaurant to look for Xia Chen and Xiao Shang. Right as he entered he felt , it was so extravagant and resplendent inside which caused him to stand and look around in awe. He didn’t get to stand there in wonder for too long before a server came up to him to find out who his party was and then lead him to the private room.
“Big brother, you’re here.” said Xiao Shang.
Wu Han Ying’s eyes got even wider when he saw the table. He knew that the restaurant is a self-service barbecue, but there were a lot of plates on the table…obviously this was Xiao Shang’s masterpiece…
“These are Xiao Shang’s picks; let him be, just get what you want to eat.” Xia Chen was starting to get a light migraine from just looking at the table full of dishes. Honestly, this brat just takes whatever it sees.
“Don’t worry, not a problem. I can finish these, I’m not going to waste them.” Xiao Shang said as he patted his belly.
In all actuality…it is a problem…
Although Wu Han Ying rarely went to high-end places like this and the food here was very delicious, his stomach really could not consume that much food. After struggling to finish the food for almost half a day he couldn’t eat anymore and called it quit, he was so full that he might have a stomachache and it looked like he might need to lean on the wall for support when leaving.
Fifteen minutes into the meal Xiao Shang had finished eating, once he was done he clapped his hand and made a nest on the sofa nearby to sleep…
Xiao Shang is just like any other kid; after he is finished eating, he goes straight to sleep…
“Do you want some dessert?”
Wu Han Ying felt like throwing up at the mere mention of food by Xia Chen, he waved his hand and said, “Don’t mention dessert, I’m going to be stuffed to death.”
Xia Chen smiled and handed him a napkin, “Be careful, don’t make your tummy sick.”
He looked at his phone on the table and added, “Do you want to go buy a new cell phone?”
“Yeah.” Wu Han Ying nodded his head. Since his phone was unusable after being soaked he needed to get a new one soon, he touched his pocket and was relieved to find that he had his bank card with him. Thank goodness the school makes these cards for the students and every month they deposit canteen subsidies to the card; since he rarely touched it he still had some money on it.
“Um, then you take Xiao Shang to the car first to wait for me, I’ll go pay.” Xia Chen stood up and took out the car keys to give to Wu Han Ying.
Wu Han Ying picked up a sleeping Xiao Shang, put a coat over his small body and followed the waiter to the parking lot. He placed Xiao Shang onto the backseat and then stood by the car to wait for Xia Chen.
After a few minutes, Xia Chen walked over and took the keys from him and then climbed into the car; he casually threw the receipt onto the passenger seat. Wu Han Ying was talking with Xia Chen as a method to get in a position to be able to to take a peek, he almost bit his own tongue!
So expensive…
Wu Han Ying knew this restaurant was not cheap the moment he stepped into it, but what’s with the receipt’s price for 6 people?! …then he remembered a certain someone called this morning…to make a reservation for 6 people…
—
End of Chapter 40