My One And Only Love/ Exclusive Memory (Somewhere Only We Know) — 独家记忆 Chapter 1 Part 3
Greetings, hello my dear readers!
Hola, I'm back☺.
In the last chapter, our Xue Tong was 'dragged' by her good friend, Bai Lin, into choosing Russian. What unexpected thing will Tong Xue encounter this time? Oh? Why is she emitting such a dark AURA *Lee Youngjun style. lol*? Read on to find out! ⇾(¬‿¬)⇾
Translated by Fei斐 & Proofread by Fanie
Russian classes were held twice a week on Monday evening.
Unexpectedly, there were a lot of people who chose Russian this year. It was completely beyond the expectation of the department that they had to change into a larger classroom. They could catch up with the number of student who signed up for French and even surpassed Japanese and Germany.
Before the first class started, the old dean of the Russian Department came to the classroom specifically to encourage everyone to study hard, so on and on. As he was watching the crowds of knowledge-seeking students, he said in tears, "Students, back then, when our School of Foreign Languages was called as the Department of Foreign Languages, there was only one majorー that is Russian. At that time, there was a surge of Russian wave throughout the country. If you don’t understand Russian, going out was equivalent to illiteracy. Later, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s strength gradually declined. Some people even predicted that our Russian language department would come to an end. Today, when I see you, I know that the second spring of Russian language is coming back!"
"Old Fu[1] is very excited," I said, "I am so moved that I cried."
"Yes. If this old man knew the truth, he would cry even harder." Bai Lin said.
The Russian teacher was Chen Ting, who studied in Moscow before returning to China and had only started teaching last year. The Foreign Language department had few boys, fewer male teachers, and much fewer young male teachers. Therefore, as long as there was a slightly younger and unmarried male teacher, he became a rare species. If he happened to be attractive-looking, he would be a popular idol among students. And Chen Ting, was one of them. He was tall and wore a pair of glasses gracefully, which was said to have a kind of refined feeling. However, this person was at the very most only this much. When I saw him in the first Russian class, I felt utterly disappointed.
"This is also can be called handsome, ah." I felt cheated. I regretted that I didn't personally identify him in advance.
Bai Lin said with bright eyes, "If this is not handsome, then show me who is handsome."
I opened my leather purse, took out the photo inside and said, "This man is the most handsome guy in the world."
Bai Lin took it happily. The photo was a single person. A white-skinned middle-aged man standing on one side with a plump beer belly and a joyous look of Maitreya Buddha[2].
"You don't want to use your dad's heroic bearing to ridicule us, right?!" Bai Lin said angrily. "I don't know whether the image of your father in your eyes is just too great, or you have problems with all your three views of aesthetics."
"You are the one who have problem with three views!" I always thought that a man who looked like my dad was handsome.
Chen Ting said on the podium, "I am someone who will not do attendance roll call. I always thought it is pitiable to use this solely to maintain the number of people attending my classes." There were boys who were secretly cheering.
"Sometimes you may think my class is boring. You don't need to ask me for a leave if something happens suddenly, but—" Chen Ting smiled, "You have to be 100% serious when you come."
Originally, this second foreign language class was the same as those required common subjects, not so interesting. However, Chen Ting was very patient and had a great sense of responsibility for his work. Thus starting from the 33 Russian letters, he started to teach us using both English and Russian.
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| Russian letters |
After self-study, Bai Lin and I carried warm water bottles to the boiling water room to fetch water. On the way, we suddenly ran into the next class' Zhong Qiang who made me take the blame for cheating before. I gave him a look as cold as ice.
"Xiao Tong, wasn't that all in the past? Just forgive me." Zhong Qiang said.
"Bahー Xiao Tong Xiao Tong, is it also your name?!" Bai Lin spurned him, "You don't need to care about this kind of man, ignore him." After speaking, she pulled me out and left.
Halfway through, Bai Lin said to me, "The teacher who arrested you last time was pretty good. He didn't bother you after, but why have we never seen him in school?"
"It doesn't matter if he really is a teacher, but he looked like thatー he looked like a gangster! Maybe he's only a poser who stole the work permit."
Although more than two months had passed, I still got angry whenever I thought of him.
Chen Ting's class was quite interesting, the person was too. But the teacher's charm was, at last, weaker than the outside 'Huahua' world[3] and the ups and downs of life in online games. After a month, when the whole class found out that he really didn't do the attendance roll call, some began to skip classes. Strangely, on this day at 7:01, Chen Ting hadn't arrived. At 7:05, Chen Ting was still yet to arrive. The people in the classroom began to whisper.
"It couldn't be that he forgot, right?" someone asked.
"How can it be? Also, teacher Chen is very punctual every time." someone said.
As the murmurs were gradually increasing, a man came in. The man walked up to the podium with a book in his hand. He then smiled faintly at the bottom, "Mr. Chen can't come because he has something to do. I will be a substitute for him temporally. I didn't expect the classroom to be so hard to find." All the girls in the class were shocked by his appearance and gasped in an awe, well except for me!
I clenched my fists, and suddenly remembered a saying: When enemies come face to face, their eyes blaze with hate. This man was none other than the fake teacher, who disappeared without a trace from our school like smoke after catching me for cheating last time. Now that I found a place to wear out one's iron shoes[4] and vent out my annoyance, I would deal with that no matter what.
"Teacher Chen[5] went out of town for training. I will give you Russian lessons in his stead." The man said.
A girl raised her hand, "Teacher, are you teaching Russian? How come we have never seen you before."
I know what this woman meant: Teacher, if you're a teacher from the Foreign Languages Department, how did you escape our gossip probe.
The man said, "No, I am not a Russian language teacher."
Everyone said "Oh" in unison.
"You don't even learn Russian, yet you dare to say you will substitute." I said bitterly.
"But—" the man paused, "I have been in Russia for six or seven years, and my level is probably not much worse than your teacher Chen."
Everyone "oh" together again, the meaning was different from before.
I curled my lips. Really conceited. Was it that amazing to be able to say two sentences in Russian? Could you understand me when I speak in English? As long as it was an annoying person, the person would be annoying from head to toe, from the innermost being to the outermost skin.
At this time another girl exclaimed, "Teacher, can you tell us what's your name?"
"My surname is Mu." After the man said, he picked up the chalk on the desk and scribbled three words on the blackboard: Mu Chenghe. He turned around and stretched his eyebrows, "You can call me Teacher Mu, Xiao Mu[6], or Lao Mu[7]. Of course," he gently threw the chalk between his two fingers back into the box, his eyes raised and continued speaking with smile, "If you want to call me Chenghe privately, it is okay too."
Bai Lin suddenly grabbed my hand and said excitedly, "Xiao Tong, this teacher is really full of smiles..." She knitted her eyebrows, "How can I describe it..it's a four-character idiom, I think the other person looks goodー how did it go again? "
I gritted my teeth and replied, "祸国殃民![8]"
Bai Lin, "..."
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[1] 傅老 Fù lăoー Fu is the Russian Department dean's last name, Lao literally means 'old'. In this case, lao expresses seniority of the other person that is called.
[2] Maitreya is bodhisattva in buddhism. The name Maitreya is derived from the Sanskrit maitrī (“friendliness”). In Pali the name becomes Metteyya, in Chinese Milefo, in Japanese Miroku, and in Mongolian Maidari; in Tibetan the bodhisattva is known as Byams-pa (“Kind,” or “Loving”). (credits: read more)
[3] 花花世界 Huāhuā shìjiè, literally translated into 'Huahua✿world', is an idiomー meaning the dazzling human world with its myriad temptations.
T/N: Actually I don't really get that last sentence. Sorry. But, I believe you get the point right? ;)
[5] In Chinese schools, they don't usually use Mr/Ms/Mrs to address their teachers. They directly address them as 老师 lăo shī= teacher + (last name).
[6] 小慕 Xiăo Mù一 Xiao means young/to show familiarity, and Mu is Mu Chenghe's surname.
[7] 老慕 Lăo Mù一 Lăo means old/to show seniority with someone familiar.
[8] 祸国殃民 Huò guó yāng mín, literally translated to 'To harm the country and cause suffering to the people', is an idiom一 meaning to bring calamity because of someone's action or possession (e.g. good appearance/beautiful face).
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First surprise update! Well, it's not really a surprise because I have announced it on my Instagram story beforehand hahaha. Anyway.. thank you for everyone who are reading my blog!!!
This week has been a good start for me, who is still a newbie to translating and writing blogs, as I got my very first 'genuine' blog-reader comment ｡^‿^｡ (not saying that my friends' comments are not genuine, but you know what I mean, lah. It's a first from a stranger! hehehe), I'm very happy to know that people who don't know me are also reading this blog!
Once again, my gratefulness is beyond words. Feeling so lucky to have the opportunity to share something with all of you. And that concludes today's update ^^ See you on Saturday as per usual~!
Right! Now you can also find me on Novelupdates ^^
Hadur
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