ATLAS TRANSLATES

After sending Jiang Qi Huai away, Tao Zhi felt utterly hopeless.

Tao Xiu Ping probably saw those white sneakers when he came back, which was why he suddenly came to inspect her room. She felt her performance at the time had been flawless, without any slip-ups.

And Tao Xiu Ping’s reaction was also very natural, showing not the slightest hint of suspicion, leaving Tao Zhi unable to determine whether he had discovered anything about this matter.

If he had really found out, he should have gone straight to her room to look for someone, but Tao Xiu Ping didn’t. He just asked a few questions and left casually.

In the time that followed, Tao Zhi kept secretly observing Tao Xiu Ping’s reactions.

Old Tao continued doing everything as usual – coming home for dinner, working, chatting casually with her and Ji Fan. As for the size 43 white sneakers incident that Saturday, he didn’t mention a word about it.

He didn’t even try to probe indirectly about the progress with that “little beast” she had a crush on when talking to her.

While the enemy remained still, Tao Zhi became restless first. At dinner, she picked up a shrimp into her bowl. Not wanting to get her hands dirty, she poked at the shrimp head with her chopsticks, peeling it slowly while casually mentioning: “Jiang Qi Huai from our class recently participated in that National Olympic Mathematics Competition.”

Hearing this, both Ji Fan and Tao Xiu Ping looked up.

Ji Fan silently rolled his eyes, thinking it was quite restrained of her to say “Jiang Qi Huai from our class” rather than “our family’s Jiang Qi Huai.”

“Yesterday our teacher said he seemed to have achieved quite an impressive result,” Tao Zhi continued, “The school is going to publicly commend him at Monday’s flag-raising ceremony.”

After speaking, she watched Tao Xiu Ping closely, not missing any subtle changes in his expression.

Tao Xiu Ping nodded, showing an approving expression: “Well, this child is quite outstanding.”

“…”

Tao Xiu Ping sighed, his gaze suddenly becoming distant as he began reminiscing about the past: “Back when I was in school, everyone just studied hard, who knew about participating in competitions? If I had participated back then, I probably could have won first place or something too.”

Completely watertight.

The older ginger is indeed spicier.

Tao Xiu Ping was the real secret agent.

Truly worthy of being a self-made man who had worked his way up from nothing to where he was now.

Tao Zhi admitted defeat.

After entering December, the cold weather became increasingly noticeable. There was a light snow at the beginning of the month, and the temperature seemed to drop another two or three degrees every few days.

By mid-December, Tao Zhi’s thermal underwear started becoming inadequate. She dug through her wardrobe to find her winter cotton pants from the very back.

Girls her age didn’t really like wearing thick pants – once they got thick, legs looked bulky and unattractive.

Fortunately, the school uniform pants were loose, so it wasn’t very noticeable.

With Christmas approaching, the previously subdued class that had been focused on test papers, exams and studying became lively again.

Li Shuang Jiang and Zhao Ming Qi had been heavily punished by Wang Er before, having to write mathematical formulas in his office every day for a week. But after barely half a month of behaving, they started getting restless again, preparing to stir up some trouble.

Christmas Day fell on a Thursday, so they had classes and couldn’t go out to play, meaning they could only celebrate at school.

The night before on Christmas Eve, Li Shuang Jiang discussed with Tao Zhi whether they should have some entertainment activities.

[Li Shuang Jiang]: Christmas only comes once a year!

Tao Zhi didn’t quite understand his logic and typed: [Boss Li, all holidays in this world only come once a year.]

[Li Shuang Jiang]: That’s different, isn’t Christmas like a second Children’s Day? Our boss is still young, we must celebrate it.

Thinking about it, Tao Zhi agreed with this reasoning.

She actually didn’t really like celebrating these random holidays. When she was younger she might have enjoyed joining in the festivities, but after growing up she didn’t even want to participate.

Although Tao Xiu Ping would try his best to make time to come back and spend important traditional holidays with her, there were many times when he couldn’t make it back.

So Tao Zhi would eat mooncakes alone, eat tangyuan alone, set an early alarm to get up at dawn, then go out to buy two tea eggs and white rice dumplings filled with honey dates from the breakfast shop, and run to the riverside to enjoy spring and watch dragon boat racing.

Last year, she couldn’t even be bothered with these rituals anymore, simply sleeping until noon and going about her business as usual.

But Li Shuang Jiang and Zhao Ming Qi were very enthusiastic, and even Fu Xi Ling had become more active these days, giving each of them an apple wrapped in pretty colored paper the day before.

Besides her, probably the only person completely unaffected by the holiday atmosphere was Jiang Qi Huai.

Such unwavering calmness – Tao Zhi felt this was truly worthy of being the man she had her eye on.

On Christmas Day, besides her schoolbag, Tao Zhi brought a large bag to school.

Teacher Wang Zhe clearly sensed these kids’ restless mood – they weren’t as enthusiastic about answering questions in class. After Li Shuang Jiang turned around to talk to Tao Zhi and Fu Xi Ling and was called to the blackboard to solve two problems, Wang Zhe finally put on a stern face: “You kids just love celebrating these foreign holidays, what’s so good about Christmas? It’s other people’s New Year, not our New Year. Li Shuang Jiang, neither of the two problems you did on the blackboard was correct, and that homework you submitted today – were you saving the half-angle formulas for me to derive? With math like this you can still score 140?”

Li Shuang Jiang stood at the podium nodding meekly, making a face at Wang Zhe when he turned around to go back to his seat.

The last class was self-study as usual. As soon as the bell rang, nearly half the class instantly emptied out, with students from other classes gradually walking out into the corridor.

Li Shuang Jiang and the others stayed seated, but when they turned around, they found Tao Zhi was gone too.

Li Shuang Jiang: “Where’s boss? Weren’t we supposed to celebrate Christmas together?”

“She went out to buy some things,” Ji Fan said, “Told you guys to entertain yourselves for a while.”

“Alright then.” Li Shuang Jiang waited until everyone had left the classroom.

About fifteen minutes later, Zhao Qi Ming, who was responsible for monitoring the teachers’ office movements, came in from outside and stood at the door giving a salute: “Report! Old Wang has retreated!”

Li Shuang Jiang stood up rubbing his hands together, calling to Zhao Ming Qi as he pulled out a bunch of things from his desk: “Old Zhao, time to get to work.”

It was mostly decorative trinkets – colored Christmas balls, plastic covered with foam bits made to look like snowflakes, and strings of small colored lights that he pulled out and hung around the blackboard.

They weren’t planning to go out to play this year, wanting to celebrate Christmas in the classroom, saying it would create better atmosphere this way.

Fu Xi Ling happened to be on duty today, responsible for getting the classroom key from the student council. She was usually well-behaved and different from the troublemaking boys, so the student council gave it to her without hesitation.

Fu Xi Ling and Jiang Zheng Xun drew a large Q-version Santa Claus on the blackboard with colored chalk. While hanging Christmas balls on the air conditioner, Li Shuang Jiang turned his head to see Ji Fan sprawled in his chair playing with his phone like a boss, and called out to him: “Fan ge, put the snowflakes on the windows!”

Ji Fan put away his phone, looked at the person sitting beside him, pointed and said dissatisfied: “Why don’t you make him work?”

Li Shuang Jiang didn’t turn around, waving his hand with great leadership style: “Huai ge, since you’re here, do some work.”

Ji Fan picked up a bag of snowflakes and walked to the window, raising his eyebrows at him: “Deskmate, lend a hand?”

Jiang Qi Huai: “…”

When Tao Zhi returned, the classroom was already mostly decorated.

Red and white everywhere, with a small Christmas tree placed on the podium, covered in pinecones and colored light strings.

Tao Zhi was carrying two bags that looked quite heavy. She put them down on the desk with a “thud” and started taking things out.

A box of frozen fish balls, a box of shrimp dumplings, two large boxes of lamb rolls and fatty beef rolls, luncheon meat, crab sticks, a bag of red shrimp, mushrooms, beef noodles, frozen shrimp paste, tofu skin, and a large Chinese cabbage.

Hot pot base, mahjong dipping sauce, chili oil, as well as disposable bowls, chopsticks and cups.

Everyone watched as she pulled things out one by one like magic tricks. Finally, Tao Zhi walked to her desk and picked up the bag in the corner, pulling out an electric cooking pot and a very long power strip.

Everyone: “…”

Li Shuang Jiang stared in amazement: “Boss, is this what you meant last night when you said you’d prepare the food?”

Tao Zhi looked up, glancing at him matter-of-factly: “What else would you eat in the dead of winter if not hot pot?”

Jiang Qi Huai hadn’t expected Tao Zhi to bring a hot pot directly to the classroom either – he thought she would just order takeout at most.

The only one who knew, Ji Fan, had already pushed several desks together, covered them with a disposable tablecloth, and pulled over the power strip to plug it in.

Tao Zhi poured in the large bottle of mineral water, then opened the hot pot base, pointing at the Chinese cabbage on the table as she looked at Jiang Qi Huai: “Don’t just stand there, go wash the cabbage.”

“…”

Jiang Qi Huai was silent for a moment, but surprisingly obediently picked up the large Chinese cabbage.

Huai ge is washing cabbage!

Huai ge is washing Chinese cabbage!

Li Shuang Jiang was excited, immediately raising both hands enthusiastically: “I’ll go too!”

By now there weren’t many people left in the teaching building. The water room was quiet as Li Shuang Jiang watched Jiang Qi Huai tear off the cabbage leaves one by one to wash them clean, then place them in a clean bag beside him, his movements skilled and quick, as if he did this regularly.

Li Shuang Jiang watched in amazement.

By the time they finished washing and returned, the hot pot was already boiling, with the fragrant spicy aroma wafting throughout the entire classroom.

Tao Zhi pulled up a chair and sat by the table. Hearing sounds, she turned her head to see Jiang Qi Huai carrying a bag of cabbage. She smiled and patted the spot beside her: “Come quick, let’s fight for the meat.”

Jiang Qi Huai walked over, put down the cabbage, and sat beside her.

Since they had class the next day and were still at school after all, they had to show some restraint. Zhao Ming Qi went to buy cola and orange juice, pouring it cup by cup.

Fu Xi Ling put all the fish balls and shrimp dumplings that Tao Zhi bought into the pot. By the time they were halfway through eating, night had fallen.

One light was turned off, and in the darkness the strings of lights decorating the classroom looked like hanging little stars. Snowflakes were stuck one by one on the windows, and Santa Claus’s white beard hid a big smile underneath.

In the classroom, Jiang Zheng Xun and Zhao Ming Qi were fighting over the fatty beef in the pot, their disposable chopsticks suspended above the pot engaged in a duel, locked in fierce combat.

Li Shuang Jiang took out his phone and played a Christmas song, then stood up holding his disposable paper cup of cola: “Brothers, to our fleeting youth.”

His cheeks were red, his eyes bright.

In front was the blackboard, beside them were desks, and looking out the window was the familiar campus where they had lived and studied for over a year. And before them, the spicy hot pot bubbled away on the joined desks.

This strange feeling made everyone’s emotions run high. Zhao Ming Qi also stood up, raising his cup high: “To basketball!”

“Can’t you think of anything besides basketball, you sports idiot?” Jiang Zheng Xun said seriously, “We should toast to everyone’s future dreams.”

Fu Xi Ling took a small sip of juice, then slowly and solemnly said: “To the college entrance exam.”

Ji Fan burst out laughing beside her: “Called you a bookworm – who toasts to the college entrance exam at a time like this?”

Fu Xi Ling rarely showed her emotions. She looked at him and nodded, somewhat disdainfully saying: “You wouldn’t understand, anyway you’d only toast to Demacia.”

“He’d also toast to his 20 points in math,” said Zhao Ming Qi.

“And his 50 points in English,” Li Shuang Jiang nodded.

Ji Fan wasn’t happy: “Alright you guys, why are you attacking people’s grades? Basic human morality, no personal attacks, understand?”

Li Shuang Jiang laughed heartily while Jiang Zheng Xun laughed so hard he fell to the side slapping the table.

Ji Fan got more annoyed, pointing his chopsticks at them: “Everyone’s equal before the hot pot. If you’ve got what it takes, let’s see who’s really awesome by who can grab the meat in the pot!”

Everyone immediately responded, joining the new round of battle. Li Shuang Jiang rolled up his sleeves: “Come on! Today if I don’t grab the last piece of meat, I’m your grandson!”

The boys were bantering back and forth, their chopsticks fighting over the fish balls and fatty beef in the pot, engaged in a fierce battle.

Too childish to watch.

Tao Zhi rolled her eyes, put down her cup, and continued eating the cabbage leaves in her plastic bowl. From the corner of her eye, she saw a pale slender hand reach over from beside her – Jiang Qi Huai holding a paper cup, gently tapping it against hers.

The rims of their cups where lips would touch clinked together. Tao Zhi paused, biting on a cabbage leaf as she turned her head.

Jiang Qi Huai was also turned sideways, his eyelashes slightly raised.

Under this atmosphere, some of his cold shell had been shed, making him look more youthfully vibrant and unrestrained. His light pupils held the dazzling light reflected from the colored string lights.

He looked at her, his voice low and slow, carrying a hint of seemingly illusory gentleness: “To our Zhi Zhi.”