“Crêpe..pancake. You can just use it directly here in the original text…”
“Huh?” Chi Dongting looked up, confused. “But Wenyu, didn’t you just say crêpe should be translated as “chiffon” here?”
Ye Wenyu paused, focused again on the original sentence and carefully reread it. It really should be chiffon, not pancake.
**Depending on the context, “crêpe” can be translated as either 薄煎饼 (báo jiān bǐng, “pancake”) or 绉纱 (zhòu shā, “chiffon” fabric).
“Sorry.” He pressed a knuckle to his brow. “I was distracted.”
“Sigh, what’s there to apologize for? It’s fine, really.”
Chi Dongting was totally relaxed: “It must be because it’s so late today, and you didn’t take a nap in the afternoon, right? Go sleep first. We still have all day tomorrow.”
“No need, I can finish translating these few passages tonight.”
Ye Wenyu stood up and pulled out the chair: “Take a look first. I’ll go wash my face.”
The weather in Xuan City turned like a child’s face once September hit, changing without warning.
When they got back from dinner, it was still a warm and clear night. But now, just an hour later, a fine drizzle different from midsummer had started falling outside.
The sound of water rushing from the faucet and hitting the bottom of the sink was loud, drowning out the sound of the rain.
Ye Wenyu splashed cold water on his face twice, turned off the tap, and wiped away the droplets that kept sliding down his cheeks. Listening to the soft pattering of the rain, he turned his head toward the balcony.
It was just after class. Looking down from above, the crowd had turned into a colorful sea of umbrellas, slowly flowing toward the dormitory buildings in the rainy night.
Bustling, congested…just like his current mood.
A tangled mess.
Chi Dongting’s words had reminded him.
He had finally found his “perfect collectible”, and obviously, just one glance wouldn’t be enough to satisfy him.
But reality was like an invisible shackle, coldly restraining his steps.
—The owner of the “collectible” was just a complete stranger, someone totally unrelated to him.
In other words, not only could he not admire it freely and without concern, even getting close again in a justifiable way would be difficult.
Not to mention, taking the initiative in social situations was practically his weakest point of all.
That rare excitement had barely lasted before a bucket of cold water drenched it completely.
Like a wild deer blinded by blooming flowers and weeds, by the time it sobered up, it was already standing in the middle of a rickety bridge on the edge of a thousand-foot cliff, stuck between going forward or back.
The cool wind brought rain droplets drifting in. He raised his hand and touched his damp forehead with the back of it.
He couldn’t tell anymore.
That unexpected encounter before sunset…was it a good thing or a bad thing?
–
“Those people invited from other schools were too rowdy. They used the entire cake to smear each other’s faces and the walls, and didn’t eat a single bite.”
Dong Xi sat on the table, drying his hair with a towel. He brought it to his nose and sniffed, then sighed: “Weird, I already showered, but why does it still smell like cream?”
Yang Liang came in from the balcony wearing just shorts and shirtless. He shook his head like a big dog, then turned on the computer with his half-wet hair. His voice was muffled and deep to the point of sounding dopey: “Because you used my shampoo instead.”
“Huh? Really?” Dong Xi suddenly realized: “You bought that shampoo last semester, right? How come it’s still not finished?”
Yang Liang looked annoyed too: “It was on sale at the mall. My mom bought the family-sized pack of three full bottles. I still have one unopened in my cabinet.”
Dong Xi squinted and laughed, then turned when he heard the sound of the door unlocking. He saw Yan Chen walk in holding books.
“Yan-ge, why are you so late today?” Dong Xi kept drying his hair. “Lights out is almost here, and you’re just getting back.”
Yan Chen hummed and placed the books he brought back on the desk.
His fingers stayed pressed on top of the books for a moment before he turned around, opened his closet, grabbed clean clothes, and went to the bathroom.
Dong Xi watched Yan Chen’s figure disappear toward the balcony, then hopped off the table and walked over to Yang Liang: “Old Yang, don’t you think Yan-ge’s acting kind of strange tonight?”
Yang Liang looked confused: “Huh?”
Dong Xi: “Remember, our school grass Yan never stays in the library past 9 o’clock.”
*School grass means the most handsome guy on campus/ school hunk/campus heartthrob. The girls are usually called “school flowers”.
As he spoke, he gestured toward Yan Chen’s desk: “And it’s obvious…his whole vibe is different from usual.”
“Isn’t it normal to come back late from intense studying?” Yang Liang really didn’t get it. “And this vibe stuff, how do you even notice that?”
Dong Xi looked back with even more confusion: “Do you need to “see” such a thing?”
A giant question mark might as well have popped above Yang Liang’s head: “Don’t you?”
Dong Xi stared at Yang Liang’s clueless expression for two seconds, then straightened up: “Forget it. Where’s your hairdryer? Lend it to me.”
In the bathroom.
Yan Chen stood under the shower. Hot water poured down from above, running through his soaked hair, over his face, and down the well defined shoulders and back, flowing over his whole body.
The small space quickly filled with thick steam.
From afternoon until now, more than five hours, he had given his brain plenty of time to cool down.
But even now, whenever he recalled it, he still couldn’t help but be stunned by that hand.
It wasn’t just that the overall proportion was so perfect it caught the eye. Every part, every detail of that hand was beautiful to the extreme.
If it were anyone else, they might savor the memory a little, chat about it with friends, and hope for another lucky glance next time…then move on.
But for Yan Chen, this wasn’t the kind of thing he could just let go of easily.
Not for any ordinary reason, but because he had a rare, secret quirk: he was a hand-con.
And his standards for hands were extremely high.
From fingers, to the back of the hand, to the wrist, the arm, the elbow…if even one part had a flaw or didn’t meet his aesthetic, he would lose all interest in the hand as a whole.
Because of that, whether in real life or on-screen, he had never come across a pair of hands that fully satisfied his craving for appreciation.
Until this afternoon, in the quiet, open library, in front of a bookshelf warmed by the setting sun, those hands suddenly entered his vision without warning.
As if holding a handful of dazzling stars, the fingers were so fair and clean it felt like even light could pass through them.
Accompanied by the continuous sound of water, like an addiction, the image that had been engraved in his mind played over and over again, each frame perfect.
Before today, he had truly never imagined that someone in this world could have such beautiful hands.
It was as flawless as a meticulously carved work of art, as if custom-made to suit his aesthetic preferences, satisfying his extremely picky and exacting appreciation.
To the extent that it made him want to double-check if he was awake, or whether it was even real.
The increasingly accumulating heat seemed to cause thoughts to swell infinitely.
He wiped the water off his face, raised the back of his hand, and calmly switched the shower handle from left to right.
The water temperature turned from warm to cool, the steam in the bathroom gradually dissipated, and the stream of water slid down his clearly defined muscles, yet it couldn’t suppress the surging emotions in his chest.
Outside the building, the drizzle continued nonstop.
Yan Chen walked out of the bathroom, and the wind carrying traces of rain brushed past his shoulders and neck, carrying a hint of early autumn’s chill.
Back in the dormitory, Dong Xi, having dried his hair, was idly leaning by Yang Liang’s desk, watching him type on the computer.
“What happened to your hand?” Dong Xi lifted his chin at his hand. “Were you scratched by something?”
Yang Liang: “It was that cat raised by the dorm manager. I passed by it this afternoon, thought it looked pretty cute just sitting there, tried to pet it, and got scratched.”
Maybe the mental image of a buff guy teasing a cat popped into his head, Dong Xi couldn’t help but laugh out loud: “That cat’s kind of like Brother Yan, it has a slight aversion to physical touch and hates being touched the most. You are quite brave, you still dared to pet it with your bare hands? If it doesn’t scratch you, who else would it scratch?”
As he spoke, he casually looked up at the mysophobic in question next to him.
The latter was leaning against the back of the chair with half-dried hair, flipping through a book he brought back from the library, seemingly not paying any attention to their casual chatter.
Yang Liang scratched the back of his head: “It had its eyes closed, okay? Who knew it was pretending to sleep?”
Dong Xi laughed.
Yan Chen suddenly lifted his eyelids and asked: “What kind of majors do you think usually borrow foreign language books from the library?”
