My One And Only Love/ Exclusive Memory (Somewhere Only We Know)

Greetings, hello my dear readers!

I'm back again this week! Finally keeping my last week's promise :,). I'll be getting busier starting from next Monday and hopefully I can slip out some time to finish a chapter or two before the end of the month ^^.

Teacher Mu shares a bit of his childhood with us today...

And... do you have a 'tiger tooth'? I found it cute but sadly I don't have one 〒▽〒.

Monday coming straight at me be like... School will resume on Monday T.T

Chapter 4 Part 2: Left-handed VS Right-handed
Translated&edited by Fei斐

The Russian class was two consecutive classes, whether it was with Chen Ting or other teachers. It was generally held continuously as long as it was an evening class, and there would be no break in the middle. If there were students who wanted to go to the toilet, not making too much movement would do, just quietly leave the classroom by yourself.

In this way, everyone was happy. Everyone just wanted to leave class early, shrink back to the dormitory, and ought to do what we wanted to do.

But Mu Chenghe refused to do so.

He was usually a very democratic person, but no matter how much everyone resisted, he insisted on taking a break for ten minutes in each class.

He said: "We rest to meet the following forty-five minutes with a fuller spirit." During the conversation, the corners of his mouth rippled with a smile that people loved, and naturally no one had any objections.

After the first class, I felt that the tightly-closed classroom was too packed with people that it was becoming terribly stuffy, making one feeling hypoxia, so I wanted to go to the end of the corridor and breathe against the railing.

Right then I saw Mu Chenghe also standing by the railing, looking pensive. I didn't know what was going on inside his mind.

It was cold at night, yet the moon was very bright. Silver light poured down from the sky, reflecting his back on the ground, stretching it long, almost extending to my feet.

I took the opportunity to step on it a few times, then walked over to him pretending to be a gentle lady.

"Aren't you cold standing here? What are you looking at?" I held onto the railing and stood beside with him.

As he looked out, it was the lotus pond next to the six classes on the opposite side. It was very beautiful during Summer, with the soft emerald light against the background, together setting off a contrast which was enough to be one of the campus' scenic view. Too bad that winter, a season full of stumps and a pool of desolateness, had arrived.

He did not turn his head and nodded with his chin facing downstairs' opposite view instead, "That pond, there (also) used to be one in front of the library of our school headquarters, but was then filled and leveled when the library was renovated, exactly alike, both were crescent-shaped."

"The main library renovation? Looks like it's been years ago?" I recalled the matter seemed to have happened a long, long time ago.

"En." He complied.

A moment had passed before he finally spoke again, "I don't usually come to the West End, but when I caught a sight of it, I'd think of the former pool in the headquarters (main campus). I used to net fish there everyday," his face, with a faint smile, was bathed in the moonlight, "Simply take a basket, put some steamed bread crumbs in it, and carefully putting it in into the water." The other end was hung with a rope. Ten minutes of standing later, it would then be lifted up all at once as the basket would be filled with quite a lot of small fish. As a result, I once had fallen into the pond and nearly unable to get back ashore."

I was astonished, "Your childhood?"

"My father was a teacher at A University and I lived with him in his dormitory when I was a child, I bet you didn't know."

It turned out that he was also a school teacher, Could it be that he came to our school as a substitute teacher because of his father ('s relationship)?

"What did your dad teach?" I asked.

"Math."

"Math?" Speaking of mathematics, I did have a question, "You are really amazing, how did you calculate that problem last time?"

He laughed, "There's a trick."

"What trick."

"Actually, it just so happens that the two numbers you asked are very special as it can be complemented (补数– complementary number. You can search it up on your own if you're curious about it, because I'm not. LOL). I studied abacus mental arithmetic."

Abacus | Courtesy of Gratuit

"Pig, mental arithmetic*?" Could pigs also do mental calculations?

(*T/N: What MCH said was 珠 [zhū] 心算= abacus mental arithmetic. But what XT thought instead was 猪[zhū] as in PIG. LOL.]心算. I can't with you, XT🤣🤣. But I kinda understand her in so many different ways...🥲)

"..."The corners of his eyebrows twitched slightly.

"Was it not?" I was puzzled.

"It is a mental arithmetic method that uses the principle of abacus, so it is called as the abacus mental arithmetic."

"Abacus, ah. I also learned abacus when I was in elementary school, thereafter learned from my little aunt to calculate accounts using abacus. I still remember the mantra goes: one up one, one down five to four, one to nine into one; two up two, two down five to three, two to eight into one.*"

(*T/N: I have never even touched abacus, so my apologies if there's any error in translation. I truly don't understand the rules at all :/ and I did try asking my younger sis since she studied abacus for a year or two but alas, it turned out she didn't understand it either😂 on the other hand, I actually took Kumon math classes for 8 long years!....（⊙ｏ⊙）)

"It's not uncommon for someone who was skilled with abacus calculation, or a trained professional, to have their four arithmetic operations faster than a computer."

"Right, right, right, my little aunt was studying accounting, she's totally faster than a calculator."

"And abacus mental calculation is practically the same, but when you want to do mental arithmetic, you need to turn the physical abacus into a virtual one in your brain."

"But it's definitely hard to do."

"It was very difficult when I first learned because I needed to memorize my own instantaneous numbers, visualizing a virtual abacus on simultaneously, simulate the situation of plucking beads in my mind at the same time, and finally internalize the beads' imagary."

"Thinking about it makes me dizzy."

He chuckled, "This is the result of the comprehensive use of logical thinking, visual thinking, and inspirational thinking, so it was later used as a training method to develop children's intelligence. If you are skilled, the speed can completely exceed average calculator, (such as) getting the answer as soon as you finish listening to the question." He paused, "In final conclusion, human intelligence can't be triumphed over by any machine." Faster than a computer? Sounds pretty tempting.

I was somewhat excited, "Can I still learn now?" In case it really is possible, I can take it out and flaunt about it later.

"I'm afraid it's too late, the age four or five years old is relatively more suitable."

With a sunny smile, he instantly destroyed my only hope of becoming a genius in this life.

After a while, he suddenly asked me, "How many private tutoring do you do?"

"Just that one kid."

"How many lessons a week?"

"There were a lot of sessions during the summer vacation, but now it's once a week."

"Is it hard?"

"It's not hard, it's quite fulfilling."

"You..." He looked at me.

"What?" I wonder.

"Nothing. Just study hard, and you can let me know if you have difficulties (regarding money)."

During our conversation, I saw a strange boy walk to the door and probe into the classroom. It was not an strange occurrence to begin with as there were quite a few school boys who went to the Department of Foreign Languages to 'visit' the class, and everyone had a tacit mutual understanding.

But the odd thing was that the man caught a classmate and asked, "Excuse me, are you a junior in the English Department?"

"Yeah, what's wrong?"

"Is there a person named Bai Lin in your class?"

Hearing the two words 'Bai Lin', I immediately raised my vigilance and carried my ears to pay attention.

"Bai Lin—" The person who was questioned shouted loudly, "There is a man looking for you."

I saw Bai Lin walked up to the boy and asked, "What are you looking for me for?"

The boy glanced at her, then looked at her again, "You're Bai Lin?"

"Yeah."

"Not you." The boy shook his head.

"What's not regarding me?" Bai Lin asked him impatiently.

"Is there anyone else in your class named Bai Lin?"

"Such a nice and rare name, who else can have it? In the whole department of foreign languages, I'm the only person who is called as such, no one else!" Bai Lin overwhelmed the other party with her usual strong momentum.

Seeing her like this, the boy was embarrassed and said as he stammered, "I am looking for that Bai Lin who is not very tall, with big eyes, a ponytail, and a tiger tooth* (protruding canine tooth) on the left and right side when she smiles..."

*Tiger teeth | Image credit

Mu Chenghe suddenly looked at me.

"What's wrong?" I touched my face and couldn't help asking.

"Tiger tooth."

"You have tiger tooth huh, I have it too." I exclaimed.

He smiled faintly, "I don't, but I know you do."

At the same time, Bai Lin, who was not far away, pointed to me and said to the boy, "Classmate, you should be looking for her."

♡ 💜 ♡ 💜 ♡ 💜 ♡

I'm in the middle of translating Why Secretary Kim as well! I think I'll finish translating chapter 3 by the time this post is uploaded.. [edit: I haven't finished translating them yet😭SCHOOL]