My One And Only Love/ Exclusive Memory (Somewhere Only We Know) — 独家记忆 Chapter 3 Part 3

   Greetings, hello my dear readers!  

    I feel like today's chapter is longer than usual.. and felt that something's gradually warming up between the two nemesis (though it's only Xue Tong's unilateral opinion about them being a nemesis☺). Wooohoo!! Anyway, enjoy this chapter, and sorry for the late post! >.<

Chapter 3 Part 3: Bright Moon VS Ditch 
Translated by Fei斐 & Proofread by Iping

    When the car arrived downstairs at Mu Chenghe's house, Bai Lin was finally half awake, and was able to greet Mu Chenghe very flatteringly during this half-dream and half-waking moment. This little girl's flattering skills could be seen with naked eyes. This time, I didn't dare to ask Mu Chenghe for a help, so I took Bai Lin into his house by myself.

    Mu Chenghe's home was not too spacious. This was a one-bedroom apartment with a pretty large space in each room. The living room and bedroom were facing the river, and it could be regarded as an out-of-print river-view room in City A.

(*T/N: I think it's an one-bedroom apartment, rather than a house, since it's more popular to live in a single apartment if you're living alone.)

    "This apartment is very expensive, right? How much is it per square meter?" I asked arrogantly.

    I didn't expect this person to have some family background.

    He put down the keys and went to wash his hands while answering, "Your teacher Chen owns the apartment. He won't come back any time soon and let me take care of the house for him."

    "Oh."

    Unexpectedly, the two of them were really good friends, so it's no wonder that he had been substituting for Chen Ting's class for so long.

    Bai Lin and I slept in the bedroom, while Mu Chenghe slept on the sofa with pillows and quilts.

    Bai Lin fell asleep as soon as she slumped on the bed with the remnant of the wine.

    After the tossing just now, I seemed to have passed my biological clock and couldn't sleep anymore. I was lying on my back, then I turned sideways and laid on my side, my face touching the white pillowcase.

    My pillow.

    It happened to be Mu Chenghe's pillow.

    He probably walked in a hurry after answering my phone call, that he didn't even have the time to clean up the bed. So when we entered the house, we saw that the quilt was still unfolded. One pillow was thrown on one side of the bed, and the other was crumpled. At first glance, it could be seen that it was being slept on not long ago.

    At this moment, there seemed to be a smell under my nose, a faint smell, there was nothing there thoughー it must be left by Mu Chenghe.

    That time, when he taught me very closely, I had also smelled it from him.

   What is it?

    I took a deep breath intently, then pondered over it.

    It smelled like pine wood or pine rosin.

    When I was very young, my dad worked as a carpenter to help others make furniture, and the unpainted wood products had this smell. Some people didn't like it very much, but I always thought it was fragrant.

    In the past, Chen Ting told us in class that Russians liked Birch trees very much. Yet still, the most common and useful tree in the vast Siberian forest was Pineー Pinus sylvestris, Larch, White Pine, arbor Pine, Silver Pine, Fir Pine......*

(*T/N: Those are kinds of pines [松 sōng])

    Thinking about it this way, I felt that Mu Chenghe itself was like a pine tree from Russia.

    Some teachers would hold their hands on the podium in class, but he did not. He always held textbooks in one hand and put his other hand in his trouser's pocket, standing in front of the blackboard, making others appeared very idle. But the entire spine was very straight, looking like a green pine in the snow. Green and powerful.

    Thinking like that, with the clock on the wall ticking each seconds away, like counting sheep, it was hypnotizing.

    I didn't know how long it had been. Bai Lin turned over and suddenly put her arm on my stomach, awakening me from my sleep. I thought it was already dawn, but I looked at the clock in the dark, and it was only an hour since I slept.

    I suddenly remembered that Bai Lin and my cell phones were in our coats that were hung in the hallway. If I didn't set the alarm clock, I would sleep restlessly for the rest of the time.

    I thought about it for a while and decided to get the phone. So, I got up from the bed and opened the door gently on my tiptoes.

    I thought it would be dark in the living room, but to my surprise, Mu Chenghe did not sleep.

    Mu Chenghe sat on the sofa with a notebook on his lap.

    Unexpectedly, he was actually short-sighted. At the moment, he probably had taken out his contact lenses and replaced them with a pair of black framed glasses.

    The light blue fluorescence from the screen was reflected on his face, clearly defined.

    Mu Chenghe was staring at the screen intently, and his fingers jumped quickly on the keyboard, making subtle ticking sounds with rhythm.

    He folded his eyebrows and his face was thoughtful. It was unusual to see him like this, and it seemed like he was not the same Mu Chenghe who was standing on the class' podium nor the person in the (teacher) office.

    After a while, he freed up one hand and left the keyboard, picked up the pen, and wrote on the white paper next to him. After stopping, he tapped the keyboard again with the other hand. This series of movements was done skillfully and smoothly, but when I looked at it, I always found it a little strange.

    As for what was strange, I couldn't tell.

    I wanted to lean in quietly to see what he was writing, but he noticed me as soon as I moved a few steps.

    He turned to see me, "Awake? Or still not asleep?"

    Looking at his front profile, I actually felt that Mu Chenghe's appearance— with glasses on the bridge of his nose— looked more tender and peaceful than usual.

    "I came out to turn on the alarm on my mobile phone for fear that I will oversleep." I explained obediently.

    He glanced at me again, then put the laptop onto the coffee table and turned on the lamp next to the sofa armrest. I wonder if he was afraid of me knocking against him in this unlighted pitch dark room.

    I quickly found the phone in my pocket, and when I walked passed him, he was taking out his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose with two fingers. He had a pile of books in bird-like languages beside him. As I glanced over at the cover of the top two books, I saw that they both had the word Аэродинамика. I only knew that it was Russian, but what we generally learn was nothing more than common vocabularies, so I didn't understand what they mean at all.

    "Can't you sleep?" I couldn't help asking.

    "I only recognize my bed*, and also, I (usually) don't sleep well."

(*T/N: 认床 rènchuáng— to have difficulties sleeping in a bed other than one's own)

    When I heard him say this, I was really embarrassed, "I'm sorry, Laoshi*. We have troubled you too much."

(*T/N: 老师 lǎoshī— teacher. Wrote this in Chinese because it feels more natural-flowing in my opinion😶✌️)

    "It's not because of you, I've always had insomnia at the first place."

    "How could one have insomnia at such a young age?" I always thought that insomnia was a symptom only for people around my old mother's age, as well as an additional symptom of menopausal syndrome.

    He put his glasses back on again and said, "Old illness."

    After recalling what seemed to be his hidden illness in the car, I also wanted to care about him. After all, he did such a big favor to Bai Lin and me. I walked around to the front of the sofa and sat down beside him, "Teacher, let me tell you this. My mother has a remedy that can treat insomnia very effectively. They said, you can mash some onions, put it in a bottle and sealed it. Just open the lid, put the bottle beside your pillow, and smell it every night before going to bed. ” While I was telling him this, I made a deep breathing motion of vigorously smelling the crushed onion fragrance, synchronizing the audio-visual, "Guaranteed you will be cured instantly!"

    He looked at me, suddenly shook his head and smiled, "Xue Tong, you really are interesting."

    I was stunned.

    It was the first time I heard Mu Chenghe call me by my name, except for when he mischievously nicknamed me Astro Boy*.

(*T/N:

Chapter 1 Part 5

    At this moment, the two words 'Xue Tong' was suddenly spoken by Mu Chenghe in a very articulate pronunciation. It sounded the same as other people’s pronunciation, but it doesn’t seem to resemble it either. It’s not like Bai Lin, Song Qiqi, or any teacher, not even my mother. All in all, it's peculiar, and it's vaguely different from how anyone in this world called my name.

    I coughed deliberately, covering my embarrassed face.

    "If you have other places..." I paused, "Where else do you feel bad, you can also let me know. My mom has a lot of special recipes and is widely well-known."

    He actually replied very seriously, "Okay, I will tell you when I think about it."

    I knitted my eyebrows, was about to take another look at this man whose appearance was so different from my aesthetics, but then heard him suddenly said, "Right, there is something I have forgotten to tell you."

    "What's the matter?" My cautious heart trembled. Based on my evaluation on his character before, there sure be nothing good.

    "Pronounce the letter and let me listen."*

(*T/N: you know it's the [P] russian letter sound)

    Hey, so it was just for this, ah. My heart was relieved.

    "Haven't I pronounced it before?" I asked.

    "Pronounce it again," he answered.

    Now, this thing was like a little chicken learning to eat rice to me, too simple. And so, I did it again.

    He also ordered, "Pronounce a word."

    "What word?"

    "Anything's fine, as long as it has the ([P]) sound."

    I picked the most familiar word 'Russia', and as soon as I said the word "Россия", I saw him with that expected expression.

    The long-lost smile appeared at the corner of Mu Chenghe's lips, and even his glasses couldn't cover his annoying expression.

    He said, "The problem is right here. Just because you can pronounce the letter, you shouldn't just apply it directly to the word like that. But instead, you should weaken it."

    I was at a loss.

    Let me pronounce it boldly when I couldn't, and lightly when I could. What do you want me to do?

    He continued, "So, no matter what the sound is, you must pay attention to the situation (each words' pronunciation can differ even though they have the same letter/letters). For example, there is a retroflex sound in Chinese language*. If a person speaks with a tongue sound that is particularly overlapping, what would call them?"

(*T/N: Retroflex sound is the zh, ch, sh, and r sounds in Chinese/Mandarin. It uses a tongue rolling against the top of your mouth, just like how you would pronounce [p] Russian letter actually. You can search these words beginning with the retroflex sound and listen to them using google translate: 只, 吃, 是, 肉)

    "Thick-tounged*." I replied without hesitation.

(*T/N: 大舌头 dàshétou— means a thick-tounged person, a.k.a, a lisper)

    "That's right, and your current Russian accent also feels like this."

    "......" I am thick-tounged?

    Mu Chenghe said sincerely, "Pride is the enemy of progress. Classmate, you still have a long way to go. Work hard."

    At this moment, I finally understood why I felt different when he called my name just now. Was it not because there was still a creature on this earth that had hatred against me, like Mu Chenghe?

    While I was aggrieved, he said again, "Go to bed, it'll be dawn soon, and I will call you when the time comes."

♡    💜    ♡    💜    ♡    💜    ♡

That's all for today! See you on Friday next week!

Table Of Content