ATLAS TRANSLATES

Chapter 1: I’m Too Lazy to Even Copy

The September night wind was cold in the north, and the Western District was dimly lit with occasional passersby.

Tao Zhi leaned against the traffic light pole at the intersection, watching a young man in the distance crouching by the roadside lighting a cigarette.

The youth pulled out a lighter from his pocket, cupping the tiny flame in his palm. The darkness of night was tinged with a thin layer of warm red light.

He was clearly practiced at it.

Tao Zhi took out her phone and dialed the last missed call.

After two seconds, the young man a hundred meters away looked down at his phone and answered: “Hello—”

“Are you here?” Tao Zhi asked.

The young man still had a cigarette between his lips, his voice muffled as he dragged out his words: “Yeah, I’ve been waiting for ages. Only you could make me wait like this.”

“You know, when you were little in kindergarten, you were always trying to look pretty, wanting your hair in braids. You made me wait even back then,” he suddenly recalled through the wisps of smoke. “Then in school, you’d sleep in, and I’d have to wait for you.”

“I even had to wait for you to be born, if it wasn’t for my strong life force, I would’ve suffocated waiting.”

The young man concluded with a world-weary look: “Tao Zhi, you’re the woman I’ve waited a lifetime for.”

“…”

Tao Zhi rolled her eyes, walked over, and smacked the back of his head: “Are you done?”

Ji Fan yelped, holding his cigarette in one hand and his phone in the other as he turned around.

The woman he’d waited a lifetime for was now standing behind him, drooping her eyelids and staring at him expressionlessly.

Ji Fan tilted his head back, ash falling from his cigarette.

“Hehe,” he gave a silly laugh, “You’re here?”

Tao Zhi hung up the phone and crouched down beside him.

Ji Fan shifted slightly backward, trying to hide his cigarette hand behind him, forgetting that she was standing behind him.

Tao Zhi looked down and watched as that hand holding the cigarette passed right under her nose, brazenly extending right in front of her eyes.

Then plop, another bit of ash fell.

Tao Zhi: “…”

Tao Zhi called his name: “Ji Fan.”

“Yeah?” Ji Fan trembled, feeling a bit nervous.

“Do you know what illness our great-uncle died from?” Tao Zhi said, “Lung cancer.”

“…”

Ji Fan quickly withdrew his hand, stubbed out the cigarette on the tile, walked to the trash can to throw it away, then dutifully came back to await his lecture.

Tao Zhi glanced at him: “Didn’t you say you quit?”

“…It’s not that easy.” Ji Fan scratched his head, “Fine, I’ll quit. Don’t scold me.”

“If scolding worked, you’d be a model student by now,” Tao Zhi rolled her eyes, her tone full of undisguised disdain. “I heard you only got nine points on your final math exam? Is this how all the tough guys at your Affiliated School are?”

Ji Fan countered, “How much did you get?”

“Twenty,” Tao Zhi said.

“…”

Ji Fan looked at her with a complicated expression, wondering how someone who scored twenty points could be so confident in criticizing him: “All the tough guys at our Affiliated School get nine points.”

Tao Zhi: “Well, the tough guys at our Experimental School get twenty. When you transfer here, remember to figure out how to make up those eleven points.”¹

Ji Fan had moved away with Ji Jin in middle school, crying and making a fuss about not wanting to go. Now years had passed, and he had friends he couldn’t bear to leave and a familiar environment, yet he was being forced to return.

He didn’t want to come back, Tao Zhi knew, but this wasn’t his choice.

Children had no say in such matters. Whether you wanted to or not had no impact on adults’ decisions – if they told you to go east, you couldn’t take half a step west.

For a moment, neither spoke. They just crouched by the roadside, watching the sparse traffic flow in the night. After a while, Ji Fan sighed.

“When are you going back?” Tao Zhi asked first.

“In a while,” Ji Fan said, “Seems there’s still some paperwork to do.”

Tao Zhi propped her head up with one hand, fingers resting on her lips, looking at the youth’s face that barely shared two points of resemblance with hers, and unusually showed some mercy in consoling him: “Look on the bright side, you’ll be at the same school as me.”

Ji Fan had just started to feel better, but hearing this made him despair again: “Now that you put it that way, I want to go even less.”

“…”

Tao Zhi’s teeth itched with the urge to beat him up, but she held back and thought for a moment before saying, “At our school, we don’t have to do homework. Sometimes when the teachers are in a good mood, they don’t even check.”

Ji Fan turned his head and looked at her with confusion: “What homework? You do homework?”

“…”

Tao Zhi felt her dignity as a delinquent being completely trampled under his questioning gaze.

“Of course I don’t do it,” Tao Zhi said, “Why would I waste time doing homework? I’m too lazy to even copy it.”

—

September 2nd, first day of school.

Class 1, Second Year.

The morning wind carried a slight chill as it rustled the curtains. Just past 7:15, most of the seats in the classroom were already filled.

Tao Zhi sat in the second-to-last row by the wall, with a stack of completed test papers on her left, dense with answers, and another identical stack of blank ones on her right.

The girl was currently biting a pen cap with a black pen in hand, rapidly copying answers onto the blank papers.

Her dark eyes would scan the left side, then her right hand would swiftly write line after line, almost without pause, as smooth as a well-oiled machine, clearly practiced and quick.

After finishing one page, she flipped it with a rustle and kicked the chair leg of the student in front of her.

With a light “clang,” the chair of the boy sitting in front of her shifted forward, and he quickly turned around.

Tao Zhi continued writing furiously, not lifting her head, asking through the pen cap in her mouth: “You were in Teacher Wang’s class before, right?”

The boy nodded and made an affirmative sound.

“When does he usually collect homework?”

Experimental First High School’s second year had split into tracks, with twelve science classes and seven liberal arts classes, and homeroom teachers and subject teachers were being reassigned.

Tao Zhi had never taken Teacher Wang’s class before, only knowing he taught physics and was quite fierce – she often heard him scolding students in his office from the hallway.

New semester, new atmosphere – at least it should start with successfully turning in holiday homework. Unlike Ji Fan, she was a positive-minded delinquent.

She was very sunny.

She’d copy what she could, and if she couldn’t finish, well, that couldn’t be helped.

At least she tried.

Grades could be low, but sincerity had to be there.

Besides, Ji Fan didn’t know about this now.

With the mindset of copying whatever subject she could manage, Tao Zhi had specifically come to school early to work on her holiday homework. As she quickly filled in the blanks, the boy in front spoke up: “Teacher Wang usually comes right on time, but sometimes he comes early to check on morning self-study. He collects homework before class,” he paused, then added, “Physics is first period today.”

Tao Zhi’s pen stopped, and she looked up with furrowed brows, making a surprised sound.

Li Shuang Jiang was a bit surprised.

She was quite famous at school – rich family, good looks, good at fighting, a fierce ancestor who could command wind and rain.

But right now, this ancestor was sitting behind him copying his Chinese test papers, frowning and looking at him with the worry that plagued all high school students: “What should I do? This is too much, I can’t finish copying it all.”

“Maybe I should copy physics first, show Teacher Wang some respect,” Tao Zhi said while sweeping the Chinese papers aside. “Hey front desk, can I copy your physics papers?”

Before she finished speaking, Li Shuang Jiang had already taken out his physics papers and handed them to her.

Tao Zhi took them, said thanks, and opened them to continue her diligent writing.

She copied with focus and concentration, copying as if no one else existed, clearly having reached a state of selfless dedication to her task.

After some time, she vaguely heard some noise in the classroom, and the good brother in front who had lent her his homework to copy kept coughing, but she paid no attention.

At this moment, she was completely immersed in her own diligence.

As she copied, Tao Zhi felt something wasn’t quite right.

It felt like someone was standing beside her.

Tao Zhi kept writing but lifted her head to look, and met a face full of wrinkles.

Tao Zhi’s mind was still on the last physics formula and answer she’d just seen on the front desk’s paper, her hand didn’t stop, and she didn’t look down, continuing to write the last question while maintaining eye contact with the wrinkled face.

Wrinkles looked like a middle-aged man in his forties, Tao Zhi had seen him a few times in the physics-chemistry-biology office, and made an initial judgment – this must be Teacher Wang.

Teacher Wang stood beside her with his hands behind his back, who knows how long he’d been watching, his facial wrinkles trembling: “Finished copying?”

“Not yet,” Tao Zhi said.

“How much is left?”

“Just finished half of Chinese and four pages of physics,” Tao Zhi answered honestly.

The wrinkles on Wrinkles’ face started trembling again.

Tao Zhi couldn’t tell if he was angry or laughing, and could only conservatively estimate that he was laughing from anger.

Teacher Wang slammed the desk in anger: “Take your homework and go write it in my office, don’t leave until you finish, you’re not going anywhere else, no class, no lunch!”

Tao Zhi was already used to this routine, obediently took out the remaining subject papers from her bag, and managed to slip her phone into her sleeve.

She hadn’t been to the physics-chemistry-biology office many times before, as her previous homeroom teacher taught English, and she didn’t know which desk belonged to Teacher Wang, so she simply walked to the windowsill in the office, put all her papers on it, and stood there writing.

It was still early, and there weren’t many people in the office, just a female teacher sitting in the corner and a male student sitting at the desk by the windowsill, head down writing something.

The office desks were arranged facing each other, with two computer screens between Tao Zhi and that male student, blocking most of the desk surface so she couldn’t see what he was writing.

But it didn’t matter whether she could see or not, Tao Zhi had seen too many such situations – half of her good brothers had come out of writing makeup homework and self-criticism reports in the office, helping each other out. She could tell at a glance that this person was a kindred spirit.

Tao Zhi immediately understood.

Another one who hadn’t done his homework.

Tao Zhi obediently bent over the windowsill and opened her physics papers, first making a show of scanning through them, only to discover she couldn’t do a single problem.

So she simply took out her phone, snapped a photo of the papers, and started searching for answers.

After writing four or five questions, the female teacher finally left with two books.

Tao Zhi turned her head to look – her fellow traveler was still making up homework.

Head down, face hidden behind the screen, showing only black short hair and the hand holding the pen.

It was quite a beautiful hand, with long fingers and a lean, bony back.

She had a thing for hands, and her impression of this person immediately improved by several points.

Tao Zhi shuffled two steps forward, leaned on the edge of the desk, and bent over the monitor to whisper: “Brother.”

That male student didn’t stop writing, nor did he respond.

Really focused on making up his work.

Tao Zhi propped her elbows on the desk and leaned forward more, her head poking halfway over the computer screen, only her eyes showing: “You didn’t do your homework either?”

The young man’s pen paused, and he looked up.

Tao Zhi got a clear look at his face, blinked, and unconsciously whistled.

The clear whistle was particularly sharp in the empty office.

This person’s eyes were even more beautiful than his hands, with deep eye sockets, long corners, contained features, and in the daylight, his pupils were somewhat light, cold and clear to the point of seeming almost inhuman.

Like a glass princess.

The glass princess’s expression was bland and indifferent, saying nothing.

Tao Zhi came back to her senses, not embarrassed, and remembered the important matter.

Since he didn’t say anything, Tao Zhi took it as agreement and asked directly: “I didn’t do mine either. How many subjects do you have left? I finished copying half of physics earlier, I can let you copy it later. Right now I still need to do Chinese, English, Chemistry, and Biology.”

The glass princess raised his eyebrows, his pen tapping lightly on the desk, those beautiful peach blossom eyes also slightly raised: “You’ll let me copy later?”

The end of his tone lifted slightly, his voice like a thin cold ice line cutting through the early autumn sunlight.

Tao Zhi wanted to whistle again.

She felt this guy was happily dancing on every single one of her aesthetic preferences.

Sure enough, another one who didn’t do homework!

A kindred spirit!

Tao Zhi felt the joy of finding a comrade: “Yeah!”

“…”

Tao Zhi raised her head a bit more, chin resting on the computer monitor: “Math and Chemistry Biology, we each look up one subject, then switch to copy, deal?”

Glass Princess: “Sure.”

Tao Zhi was delighted: “Then I’ll take Chemistry.”

“Then I’ll take Biology.”

He put down his pen and leaned back in his chair, watching this little girl who looked like a prairie dog showing half her head while counting on her fingers as she instructed him: “You need to be quick, we can finish Math and Science before lunch break.”

As the prairie dog was speaking, her gaze dropped to look at what he had been writing on the desk, barely catching a glimpse when the office door creaked open.

She didn’t have time to react, still maintaining her posture of leaning on the desk with her upper body while talking to him, when Teacher Wang came over and hit her head with a rolled-up book in his hand.

Whack-a-mole.

“I told you to come write homework and you’re chatting? You can chat anywhere, can’t you?” Teacher Wang threw the book in his hand on the office desk and looked up at Jiang Qi Huai across the desk: “Finished filling it out?”

Jiang Qi Huai handed over what he had been writing on the desk.

Teacher Wang took it and looked it over, nodding: “Good, I’ll check if there are any issues later and help you submit it,” Teacher Wang looked up, his perpetually furrowed brows relaxing slightly, “I used to be colleagues with Teacher Liu from Affiliated School, heard him mention you. You got full marks in Math for last semester’s three-school mock exam?”

“…”

Tao Zhi turned her head, looking at him bewildered.

Jiang Qi Huai gave her a bland glance: “Mm.”

“Barely lost any points in Science either,” Teacher Wang continued, “Affiliated School’s top student transferred to our Experimental School, your Teacher Liu kept saying I got lucky, he was reluctant to let you go. Alright, now that you’ve finished filling out the forms, there’s nothing else. Head back to class, it’s the first day of school, take your time to adjust.”

Jiang Qi Huai responded with a sound, pushed back his chair and walked out of the office, brushing past the frozen prairie dog.

Tao Zhi: “…”

Tao Zhi: “??”

Tao Zhi: “????”

Author’s Note: Jiang Qi Huai: Not too bright, are we. This story could also be titled — “Beauty and the Beast: The Glass Princess and His Prairie Dog”

1. There’s a lot of different types of schools in China. Affiliated schools are connected to universities (so they get that benefit of resources/reputation), Experimental schools test new teaching methods/educational reforms. There’s also general public/private schools and ‘key schools’ for the academically inclined. ↩︎