My One And Only Love/ Exclusive Memory (Somewhere Only We Know) — 独家记忆 Chapter 1 Part 2

 Greetings, hello my dear readers! 

    Never have thought that I can do this for another week! Feeling grateful and ecstatic (=^_^=) . Thank God my sore neck and back are gradually getting better QAQ. Btw, BTS just had their comeback yesterday, with their title song Life Goes On hehehe. This song is very heartwarming and comforting, giving us a beautiful message and strength to face difficult times :).

    Today, we will get to see how our female protagonist, Xue Tong, interacts with her dorm mates~ 

 Chapter 1 Part 2: Mr. Beaver VS Miss Astro Boy 

Translated by Fei斐 & Proofread by Fanie

    Under the guidance of Ministry of Education's enrollment plan, University A had expanded its enrollment quota year by year, and the old campus had long been overcrowded. Therefore, the school arranged all the students in the first, second and third grades to the newly-built Western District. It was not until the senior year of undergraduate or postgraduate when they finally be able to return to the main school. The West District was in a small town tens of kilometres away from City A, and most of the surrounding area was still a farmland. So, let alone shopping, it was difficult to even find some entertainment.

    There were a total of four people in our dormitory: I, Bai Lin, Song Qiqi and Zhao Xiaotang. We all went to the same class. When I was bored after dinner every weekend, Song Qiqi and I went to watch movies outside school. The so-called movie theater actually only had one screening theater, which only showed pirated copies, not the genuine ones. So if you want to watch a freshly-released new movie, it would be many days later than in the city. A ticket costed only eight yuan. However, if you had a pre-deposited one hundred yuan, you could get a membership card and it can be discounted into five yuan. This price was very attractive, but Song Qiqi and I had no cards. We felt sorry for the extra three dollars.

    "I'll buy two tickets at seven o'clock." Song Qiqi handed over twenty yuan.

    "Any card?" the aunt asked.

    "Yes, yes." Song Qiqi turned back and squeezed her eyes at me, "Xiaotong, where's your card?"

    "Oh." I opened my handbag and flipped through the wallet, pretending.

    "Hurry up, did you bring it?" Song Qiqi asked.

    "Ohー I forgot to bring it!" I exclaimed.

    "Ah, then what should we do?" Song Qiqi lamented, and then took back the twenty yuan.

    "It's better not to watch," I said.

    "Hey--" Song Qiqi sighed.

    "Auntie," I exclaimed sweetly, "Auntie, we applied for the card, but we forgot to bring it today. You can sell us two membership tickets?"

    The aunt was suspicious, "Really?"

    "Really, I forgot to bring it today," I hurriedly nodded and looked at her pitifully, "If I want to go back and get it now, it will be too late for the movie. This is the only time we have in a week. We will have to go for a self-study in other evenings, studying hard.. I only have ten yuan a day for living expenses. If this ticket saves three yuan, it will also allow me to buy more meat." I said tearfully.

    Auntie took a long glance at me, "You kid is really thin. Okay, remember to bring it next time."

    I took the ticket and secretly made a victory gesture towards Song Qiqi.

    In this case, they used this N method repeatedly. And later, as long as the kind aunt saw me, she didn't even check the card and said directly to the person next to her: "Hey, I know this kid. (She is) an old member."

    In the season when I was still lingering on the tree[1], I entered my third year. This semester, I had a compulsory elective course that we had been waiting for for a long timeー Second Foreign Language. The Foreign Languages ​​Department of University A was divided into five majors: English, Japanese, German, Russian, and French. Therefore, our second foreign language was choosen among Japan, Germany, Russia and France. In recent years, Japanese and French had always been in a great demand but short supply. As a result, there were a lot of English department students who took their elective in Japanese and French.

    One of the classmate from the Japanese department, as well as Song Qiqi's fellow villager, was living on the right side of our dormitory. Every day they would stop by to talk about how their seniors who had learned Japanese and how they had a good career in a Japanese company.

    "Oh, actually, I don't think you should have studied English in the beginning." Little Japanese[2] began to comment again.

    "Why?" Song Qiqi asked back.

    "Anyone who has studied (language major) will know this (English). What's the use of learning."

Song Qiqi had a good temper and just smiled.

    "One of our senior sister who graduated last year helped someone translate a Japanese animation and made money right after graduating. Later, people thought she has a good voice. As a result, now she was sent to Japan for training as also wanted her to work on the Chinese voice cover (dubbing)[3]."

    I couldn't help but to turn over from the upper bunk, and sneered, "Yes, how good learning Japanese is. I don't need translation when watching AV."

    Little Japanese didn't speak.

    I combed my hair in front of the mirror and said, "What is your senior sister dubbing for, Little Japan? Is it not 'Yameidie'[4] and 'Kemoqi'[5], ah."

    Little Japanese's face twitched.

    She used to show off in front of Song Qiqi. But because Song Qiqi had a gentle personality and never refuted her, she had become even worse. Now that I was the one who satirized her, I felt rather embarrassed.

    "I'm going to dinner, it's really 'Hatsikasi'^[6]!" I took my lunch box as I shyly covered my face, then went out.

***

    Originally, I always wanted to learn Japanese as a second foreign language with the dream of popularizing the foregoing films. But the repeated appearance of small Japanese made me abandon this idea. Just when I was lost in my thoughts, Bai Lin brought a news.

    "I want to choose Russian!" Bai Lin shouted in the dormitory.

    "Russian?" I swallowed the rice in my mouth. "Do you want to be an Eskimo?"

    "Xiao Tong[7]一" Bai Lin glanced at me, "Your idiocy level has intensified. You even can connect Russians and Eskimos together."

    "Aren't they all from the North Pole?" I argued for a reason.

    Song Qiqi interrupted and asked, "Why do you suddenly want to learn Russian? Didn't you say that you would choose French some time ago?"

    Bai Lin said with a smile, "The teacher from the department who came to teach us Russian this year is super handsome. He is the teacher in the Communist Youth League of China[8]. When he appeared in the cafeteria today, we were all conquered."

    Thanks to Bai Lin's incitement, I was also dragged to choose Russian.

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[1] 苟延残喘 Gŏu yán cán chuǎn, literally translated to what I wrote in the paragraph, is an idiom 'to struggle on whilst at death's door' 一 meaning to linger on in a steadily worsening condition.

[2] 小日语 Xiǎo (small) rìyŭ (Japanese)一 A nickname given by the author because she is a Japanese language student☺*)小日语 Xiǎo (small) rìyŭ (Japanese)一 A nickname given by the author because she is a Japanese language student☺

[3] This half sentence is so confusing (Ｔ▽Ｔ) If anyone knows the right translation for 还想让她配中文来着, please do let me know! Since I'm not quite sure about the correct sentence, I directly put it into the most sensible context (･∀･). Thank you for helping me, Fanie!

[4] 亚美爹 Yà mĕi diēー similar pronunciation to 'Yamete' in Japanese, which means 'stop it'.

[5] 克莫奇 Kè mò qíー similar pronunciation to 'Kemochi' in Japanese, which refers to how someone's feeling. T/N: You get the references right? If you don't, nevermind HAHAHAHA. #dirtymindedXueTong#dirtymindedTranslator (〃▽〃)

[6] 哈次卡西 Hā cì kă xīー similar pronunciation to 'Hazukashi' in Japanese, which means 'embarrassed /embarrassing'.

[7] 小桐 Xiăo Tóngー Xiăo literally means small. However, in this case, it is a word of endearment between people who knows each other well (friends, family). While Tóng is taken from Xue Tong.

[8] The Communist Youth League of China (CYLC), also known as the Young Communist League of China or simply the Communist Youth League (CYL), is a youth movement of the People's Republic of China for youth between the ages of fourteen and twenty-eight, run by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

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Yeay! Second part of chapter one, DONE✔. The next chapter is where all the excitements gradually start to rise up~ y（^ヮ^）y. 

FYI: starting from Monday of next week(23/11/20) ~ Wednesday of the following week (02/12/20), I will be having my end-of-semester examination. I will try my best to finish up the part 3 before Saturday. No promises tho! Have a great weekend!!! See you next week! (or 2 weeks later :p) Wish me luck🤞

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