ATLAS TRANSLATES

Zhan Xi avoided the evening rush hour by taking the subway home, finally finding a seat.

Her WeChat, which had been quiet during the day, suddenly became lively, probably because all the corporate workers had gotten off work.

—

Player number one was Lin Yan.

[Lin Yan]: Did you take sick leave? Is it serious?

[Egg Pudding]: Just a cold and fever, nothing major.

[Lin Yan]: How many days are you taking?

[Egg Pudding]: I’ll rest one more day tomorrow, then back to work the day after.

[Lin Yan]: Okay, rest well and remember to take your medicine.

[Egg Pudding]: Yes, thank you.

—

Player number two was Wang He.

[Wang He]: Why aren’t you replying to my messages?

[Egg Pudding]: Sorry, I’ve been sick these past few days, mostly sleeping.

[Wang He]: Are you feeling better?

[Egg Pudding]: Much better, no more fever.

[Wang He]: How about this weekend? Are you free? I’ll treat you to a meal.

[Egg Pudding]: This weekend won’t work. I’m moving into a new apartment near the company. How about next weekend?

[Wang He]: You rented a place? Weren’t you living at your brother’s?

[Egg Pudding]: My brother’s place is too far from my company.

[Wang He]: Your company is at Qingque Gate, it is quite far. Alright then, next weekend. We’ll decide which day next week.

[Egg Pudding]: Okay. [smile]

—

Player number three was the [Four Fairy Girls] group chat.

[Yao Ying]: Ahhhhh I’ll probably have to work until midnight tonight!! #MyBossIsAnIdiot#

[Luo Xinran]: [Movie tickets & popcorn.jpg]

[Egg Pudding]: Everyone! I’ve found an apartment!!! [evil smile]

[Yao Ying]: Damn! You moved that fast? Living alone or sharing?

[Egg Pudding]: Living alone, right next to the company, just a ten-minute walk. [victory]

[Yao Ying]: Poor Ying Ying sheds tears of envy… crying.jpg

[Egg Pudding]: @Luo Xinran, @Zhao Qingqing, you two should come over to visit! We can have hotpot! [grin]

[Yao Ying]: Where’s your integrity???? [angry]

[Zhao Qingqing]: Poor Qingqing is writing homework, staring at you all with a numb face. crying.jpg

—

After chatting with everyone, Zhan Xi unconsciously opened “Big Fish”‘s WeChat again.

He hadn’t closed his Moments to her. Scrolling through his posts, there weren’t any photos of people. He only posted about ten times throughout the year, mostly his pressed flower works and some exhibitions and events related to pressed flowers.

Thinking about him promising to deliver flowers on Friday made her happy. She thought, his typing might have grammar issues, but surely his speaking would be fine? She could invite him for coffee at the café on the first floor of the building and chat.

She wondered what he looked like. With such beautiful hands, was he fair-skinned too? Looking at his wrists, he probably wasn’t overweight. A boy skilled in handicrafts probably looked quite refined. He also liked making flowers, so he definitely wasn’t messy… Ah! Could it be that he wore makeup too?

Zhan Xi was startled by her sudden thought, but then realized it wasn’t impossible. Loving flowers meant he appreciated beauty, and if you appreciate beauty, wouldn’t you want to take care of your appearance?

Many boys wore makeup these days, some even got cosmetic procedures!

Sitting on the subway, Zhan Xi found herself increasingly amused. Actually, she wasn’t nervous at all about meeting “Big Fish”, only excited. An interesting boy – no matter what he looked like, she already considered him a friend.

—

On Tuesday, Luo Jingyu started working on the bird of paradise flowers.

In the photo, the three bird of paradise stems had very different poses. One was ordinary, one had its head lowered as if drinking water, and the tallest one had its head raised and beak open, as if singing loudly.

Finding three such bird of paradise stems at the flower market would require careful selection, but with pressed flowers, you could make them look however you wanted.

Bird of paradise flowers weren’t difficult to make. The bird’s belly was stuffed with cotton. Luo Jingyu finished all three stems in one day and sent photos to “Egg Pudding” for inspection, receiving another stream of praise and compliments.

Luo Jingyu told her his plans.

[Big Fish]: Tomorrow, I will make broad-leaf mahonia. Zhan Xi didn’t understand, thinking he had made another typing error.

[Egg Pudding]: What? What mahonia? [Big Fish]: Broad-leaf mahonia, it’s a plant name. The tallest one in Good Fortune has many leaves, look at the picture. [Egg Pudding]: … [Egg Pudding]: What a strange name! [sweat] [Big Fish]: I didn’t name it! So I’ll just call it broad-leaf. [sneaky laugh]

When they chatted, the atmosphere was still relaxed and pleasant. However, Luo Jingyu didn’t know how “Egg Pudding” felt, but for him, as time passed, he actually began to feel nervous and anxious.

It was an indescribable emotion. Luo Jingyu even regretted impulsively agreeing to deliver the flowers.

He felt comfortable chatting with “Egg Pudding” on WeChat, but what about meeting in person?

Imagining that awkward scene – he couldn’t hear, couldn’t speak, only knew sign language, and although he could read lips, he couldn’t understand everything.

How should he greet her? Type on his phone to show her? Tell her that he was actually deaf and mute?

Would she accept it? Could she accept being friends with a deaf-mute person?

Since childhood, Luo Jingyu had inevitably experienced bullying and discrimination because of his deafness.

When he was young, his parents worked at a welfare factory where most workers had mild disabilities. Everyone lived in the factory dormitory area. The workers’ children were mostly able-bodied, and while they played together, they didn’t like including Luo Jingyu because he couldn’t hear.

Some called him “little deaf one,” others called him “little mute.” This situation only improved gradually after Luo Jingyu started attending a school for the blind and deaf, where he met many classmates who were also hearing-impaired.

But in his teenage years, when he and his classmates went out to eat, they still encountered some excessive incidents.

They were all young then and didn’t know how to control their vocal cords, especially some classmates who wore hearing aids and would speak while using sign language. They thought they spoke well, but to able-bodied people, it might have seemed like a joke – unclear speech with loud voices that seemed noisy, so people would often look at them strangely.

At first, Luo Jingyu didn’t take it to heart – the word “noise” was difficult for him to understand.

Until one day, a drunk adult man from the next table rushed over and violently slapped one of Luo Jingyu’s male classmates, knocking off his hearing aid. Looking at that person’s fierce face and moving lips, Luo Jingyu finally understood – they were being disliked.

The scene of that fifteen-year-old boy crouching on the ground, covering his ears and crying secretly, remained branded in Luo Jingyu’s mind.

He didn’t really remember what happened afterward. Did they fight? Did someone call the police? Did anyone call an ambulance? Did anyone make sarcastic comments?

He couldn’t remember any of it, only remembered that crazy, painful feeling of wanting to instantly disappear when he stood panicked at the small restaurant’s entrance.

After that, they rarely went out to eat together. Even when they did, everyone controlled themselves not to make sounds. If someone’s vocal cords vibrated, they would look around anxiously, not knowing if they had made strange sounds, not knowing if they would get beaten up again.

There was a wall between hearing-impaired and hearing people.

The difference in communication methods meant they could rarely be friends. Hearing people like Gao Yuan who were fluent in sign language and could even marry Luo Xiaomei were very rare. At least in Luo Jingyu’s view, “Egg Pudding” was very likely to become scared of his disability and distance herself from him.

He didn’t want her to be afraid, nor did he want to be distanced.

He just couldn’t chat with her face to face, but they could chat on WeChat!

Although he was bad at chatting, she had never despised him, and was even willing to teach him grammar. Wasn’t maintaining this way of communication better?

Luo Jingyu had no one to confide his troubles to, so he could only pour all his energy into making flowers.

Making the broad-leaf mahonia look realistic was difficult.

A branch much thicker than the flower stem, topped with a large patch of broad leaves, needed to show the texture of the tree branch and the irregular leaf veins. The coloring needed to be layered.

Using three colors – young grass green, lemon yellow, and coffee – he mixed different shades of green, dyeing the leaves in small clusters. Each leaf had a slightly different color, so when combined together, they would have the authentic vitality of green plant leaves.

Luo Jingyu was very patient. Handicrafts could immerse him in a peaceful world where he no longer overthought things.

He wrapped wire in rubber tubing to make the main branch, covered the tubing with dyed new satin damask, then assembled the pressed broad leaves one by one.

Slow work produces fine results. After a whole day, he finished making both the broad leaves and the dragon cypress leaves.

On Thursday afternoon, Fang Xu contacted him.

[Fang Xu]: Fish, is that flower arrangement done? [Big Fish]: Done, I’ve adjusted it and am about to put it in the vase. [Fang Xu]: Then deliver it tomorrow, I’ll send you the address and contact person. [Fang Xu]: Let me tell you, it’s super convenient! Very close to your home! You can just walk there.

Fang Xu sent Zhan Xi’s company address and phone number to Luo Jingyu.

Luo Jingyu saw that the contact person was Miss Zhan, along with her mobile number, and thought, is “Egg Pudding” surnamed Zhan?

What’s the pinyin for “Zhan”?

Zhan, right?

Luo Jingyu raised his right hand and made three sign language gestures for the letters z-h-a-n.

It was her surname.

He thought, if he greeted her like this, she definitely wouldn’t understand.

Luo Jingyu’s anxiety peaked that night, and he actually couldn’t sleep.

His heart was filled with waves of dejection and even some fear. Unable to sleep until four in the morning, he simply got up, put on a jacket, and went to the balcony for some air.

Only when he reached the balcony did Luo Jingyu realize it was raining.

He couldn’t hear the rain, he could only see it falling through the glass window.

The sky was still dark, and the street scene outside was shrouded in a curtain of rain. He could see the blurry silhouette of an office building several hundred meters away.

So, “Egg Pudding” worked here, so close to him.

That “Good Fortune” arrangement had transformed from pictures into reality, quietly placed on the living room workbench, sprayed with setting spray, brushed with special glue. The flowers and green leaves were perfectly combined in that gray ceramic vase, delicate and beautiful, representing Luo Jingyu’s consistently stable standard of work.

But he didn’t feel at ease despite completing the work. Instead, he became increasingly nervous – he hadn’t been this nervous even before going on a blind date with Chang Ting!

Luo Jingyu didn’t know what was wrong with himself. Looking out the window, he wished the daylight would never come. But time wouldn’t stop for him, and soon, day would break.

—

On Friday morning, winter rain drizzled, and the temperature dropped a bit more.

After getting up, Zhan Xi pondered what clothes to wear to work.

This was an ordinary workday, yet not so ordinary. Today, she would receive that pressed flower arrangement for the Japanese clients, and she would also meet “Big Fish” in person.

Zhan Xi had planned to wear a pretty dress, but then thought it might be too much. It was raining and cold, and she had just recovered from a cold and fever. Her colleagues would probably laugh if she dressed up carefully.

In the end, Zhan Xi went to work dressed as usual, wearing a sweater, down jacket, and thick woolen pants.

She hadn’t set a specific time with “Big Fish” – as long as he could come before work ended, it would be fine.

So that day, Zhan Xi was a bit distracted at work, checking her phone from time to time to see if that fish had sent any WeChat messages.

Unfortunately, there were none.

Around 2 PM, while she was helping Wen Qin organize a spreadsheet, her phone rang. Zhan Xi excitedly picked it up, only to find it was Chi Guilan’s call.

She answered, but before she could speak, she heard Chi Guilan’s roar: “What’s wrong with you? Who told you to move out? You’ve gotten quite bold now! Renting a place to live without even telling me! Tell me honestly! Is it Qin Fei’s doing?!”

Zhan Xi only felt her head buzzing, and quickly left her workstation to take the call in a private place: “Mom, lower your voice, I’m at work.”

“I don’t care if you’re at work!” Chi Guilan was truly angry, “This job was just temporary anyway! You’re supposed to quit as soon as you pass the civil service exam! Why did we find you such a leisurely job? It was for you to study well for the exam! Now you’re getting too invested in it?”

“Mom!” Zhan Xi shouted and then lowered her voice, “Listen to me first. My brother’s place is very far from my company, I spend over three hours commuting every day, that’s why I rented a place near the company. Brother agreed! Did he tell you? I was planning to tell you myself when I came back for New Year’s.”

“Don’t ask me who told me!” Chi Guilan was like a machine gun, “bang bang bang” exploding in Zhan Xi’s ear, “Do you have any sense? This job won’t last long! You rent a place nearby, for a whole year! What will you do when you get into a good unit? Got too much money to spend? You have a place to live but won’t live there? You have no sense and neither does your brother! Tell me! Is Qin Fei bullying you? Tell Mom the truth!”

“It has nothing to do with sister-in-law! Or with my brother!” Zhan Xi didn’t understand why her mother kept fixating on Qin Fei, “Sister-in-law treats me very well! She’s never mistreated me! Mom, can you let me make some decisions for myself? You keep pushing me to take the exam, but I’ve told you I don’t want to be a civil servant!”

“You must take it!” Chi Guilan flatly refused, “Huanhuan, listen to me, you’re going to marry a boy from within the system, and boys from the system are very picky, don’t you understand? If you’re not in the system yourself, they won’t even look at you!”

Zhan Xi felt suffocated: “Why must I marry someone from within the system? And even if I do, why must I also be in the system just because he is? What kind of logic is that?”

“You’re not afraid of being looked down upon by your in-laws?” Chi Guilan felt her daughter was so obtuse, “Huanhuan, why have you changed? You used to be so obedient! Your dad and I work so hard, isn’t it all for you? Finding you jobs, introducing boys, little Wang is so excellent! You need to seize the opportunity…”

Zhan Xi suddenly understood: “Was it Wang He who told you?”

“…” Chi Guilan paused, “I told you not to mind who told me, anyway, you renting a place is wrong!”

“Mom, I have to go to a meeting now, I’ll explain when I come back for New Year’s.” Zhan Xi had nowhere to vent the anger in her chest, forcing herself to stay calm, “Also, you can tell Wang He directly, there’s no chance between us.”

After hanging up, Zhan Xi returned to her workstation angrily and immediately deleted Wang He’s WeChat.

She was furious – how could a man be such a gossip! Never mind that he wasn’t anything to her yet, even if he were her boyfriend, he had no right to report their chat contents to her parents without her permission! It was absolutely pathetic!

Chi Guilan called two more times, but Zhan Xi didn’t answer, directly hanging up.

When her phone rang for the third time, Zhan Xi was about to hang up when she noticed it was an unfamiliar number from Qiantang.

She quickly answered: “Hello?”

“Is this Miss Zhan?” A stranger’s male voice came through the phone.

Zhan Xi’s heart began to race: “Yes, I am.”

“Hello Miss Zhan, I’m from the pressed flower studio. I’ve brought your flowers, I’m downstairs at your company now. Could you please come down to collect them?”

So polite?

Was this “Big Fish”? He shouldn’t talk like this.

Zhan Xi put aside her doubts, grabbed a paper bag she had prepared, and hurried downstairs.

In the first-floor lobby of the office building, a man was sitting in the guest sofa area, with a flower arrangement on the coffee table – it was the “Good Fortune” arrangement that Zhan Xi had become quite familiar with.

She had seen its progress every day, watched the calla lilies being made, the bird of paradise flowers being created, the broad leaves and dragon cypress being completed, and finally saw them all properly fixed in the ceramic vase.

Every day she had heard him talk about the difficulties in making the flowers, especially when making the broad leaves – there were so many leaves that he complained he almost fell asleep while dyeing them.

Now, Zhan Xi finally saw it in person, and it was truly beautiful! A thousand times more beautiful than in photos. It was something he had made bit by bit, from nothing to something, with his own hands.

She looked at the man by the sofa, who had already stood up. He was around thirty, with a proportionate build, wearing an olive-green windbreaker, jeans, and black leather boots. His face had distinct features, with proper facial features, and he had a meaningful smile as he looked at Zhan Xi.

But Zhan Xi couldn’t smile. She walked up to him and said: “Hello.”

“Hello.” The man’s smile became more obvious.

Zhan Xi wasn’t in the mood for small talk and asked directly: “Big Fish, why didn’t he come?”