Twenty-Seven Degrees

Content Summary: Flashlight

Sometimes he spoke very straightforwardly, as if he didn’t know what shyness was. Wei Congying touched her ponytail and played with the ends of her ponytail.

Who knew where he found the fun in this.

Wei Congying was actually closer to a street gangster in nature. However, he went to college to major in Chinese. So he was a street gangster with a scholarly air who always had thousands of ways to justify himself whenever in trouble.

After he drank, his usually languid voice became more relaxed: “You see, even the Nobel Prize-winning works contain sex.”

“Which fragments of those handed-down masterpieces are the most vivid in your mind?” Shi Yun played with the ends of his hair. When she turned to look at him, she felt a slight pulling sensation on her scalp.

Fortunately, Wei Congying didn’t hold on too tightly, and Shi Yun’s hair was pulled away from his palm.

He stopped: “Man is an animal, but you are my spring.”

The first half of the sentence was by Zhang Ailing.

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“Tso eke vblu nlzlcayvl uswa ckavbeyu vseyu?”

Mbl vsrkn oyp nbydtle ycawrvzu, vyjkdt yehydvytl sq vbl rsppkckzkvu vbyv bl xktbv dsv cl yczl vs dsvknl pkdnl bl bye clld eakdjkdt vseyu.

“Today’s game was not fun,” he said.

It sounds like he was sidestepping the question.

“It wasn’t fun?” Shi Yun curled her lips upward after hearing this, and said in a coquettish tone, “Then no wonder you came to me suddenly. If it was fun, you probably wouldn’t come.”

Maybe he really likes her, and sometimes seeing her lose her temper was the icing on the cake. Or maybe it was that she was very good at knowing when it was appropriate to give a little attitude, so he didn’t feel irritated at all.

Wei Congying held her face: “I really do miss you.”

Just by holding her face like this, Wei Congying could see the teeth marks on her face.

His thumb brushed over the tooth mark on her cheek. The skin on her face was very pale, which made the mark from his bite particularly obvious.

The instigator smiled very heartlessly: “What will you do about this bite mark?”

What else could be done?

Shi Yun was furious: “Let’s just say that I bumped into someone else’s dentures when I went to the dentist.”

Just listening to it, it sounded like a lie.

“But did your game end so early?” Shi Yun felt that it wasn’t their modus operandi. In fact, it would be strange if they didn’t stay up all night playing.

Wei Congying had a proud look on his face: “That’s why I said I really missed you. I sneaked out.”

In response to his proud look, Shi Yun also had a slightly proud look. Shi Yun took the initiative to come over and said, “Then do you have a particular birthday gift in mind?”

What did he want? Wei Congying honestly didn’t lack anything. He didn’t lack money and had whatever he wanted. Therefore, he once thought that he was a person with very few material desires.

But if Shi Yun wanted to give him something, Wei Congying thought about it for a moment.

While thinking, he saw Shi Yun’s expectant expression.

She leaned closer and put her hands on his thighs, waiting for his answer.

Wei Congying raised his hand, and his fingertips brushed against the tooth marks on her cheek, across her earlobe, and finally stopped on the back of her neck.

The distance between the two people had already been narrowed by Shi Yun, but now he moved closer and the distance between them was now even smaller.

He opened his lips and spoke just two words.

With a drunken nonchalance.

“F**k you.”

This answer really surprised Shi Yun, but not too surprised at the same time.

The hand on his leg slapped him mercilessly. Shi Yun was very forceful, but Wei Congying not hurt by the slap.

Shiyun sat up straight again, and his hand on the back of her neck left its place.

It was unrealistic to expect him to give a good answer as to what gift he wanted.

Shi Yun thought for a moment, then turned on her phone and shrank to the other side of the car door as if guarding against a thief. She was tightly guarded, but she seemed to have forgotten that the car window would reflect the screen of her mobile phone.

Wei Congying did not expose her, who was unable to see the bigger picture, deceiving herself and those around her and shopping online.

A white coat and stockings.

Though she showed disdain for his words, aren’t the things she is buying to serve that very request?

Shi Yun huddled by him and shopped online unaware of his peeping. Wei Congying watched, and the more he looked, the drier his mouth became. After she placed the order, she put the phone back into the pocket of her coat, having successfully accomplished her goal, and declared, “Done buying.”

Wei Congying had seen it all, but still pretended not to know, catering to the sense of mystery she deliberately created, and moved towards the person who had shrunk to the other side, asking despite knowing: “What did you buy for me?”

Shi Yun made a zipper motion over her mouth: “I won’t tell you.”

Pretending to be mysterious, Wei Congying also acted along with her.

“Then what birthday gift do you want?” Wei Congying asked her.

Shi Yun shook her head.

She was not one to be duplicitous in such matters. She said she didn’t want a birthday gift, so it meant that she really didn’t want a gift.

Or maybe it was that she wouldn’t be able to get what she wanted in this life.

Seeing her shaking her head, Wei Congying didn’t give up.

Following Shi Yun’s example, he leaned to the other side, not forgetting to push Shi Yun’s head away with his fingers.

She was fine with keeping him in suspense, but Shi Yun was even more curious when Wei Congying was like this.

He was being mysterious, which made her particularly curious.

The difference in size was truly a disadvantage at a time like this. He put his hand on Shiyun’s head, and Shiyun couldn’t hit him even if she stretched her arm all the way, not to mention looking at his phone.

His hands moved very quickly, and it didn’t take him long to place the order. Then he put the phone into his pants pocket like how she had, and made a zipper motion over his mouth: “I won’t tell you.”

If you don’t want to say it, then don’t. Shi Yun was no longer curious. She couldn’t help but feel that people like him all gifted the same thing, and it would probably be some kind of designer bag.

Shi Yun: “I don’t want a birthday gift, I really don’t.”

The snow outside the car fell silently on the roof. Shi Yun and he were both natives and didn’t like the heavy snow of the north that much.

The night was coming to an end, and the lanterns began to shine.

The street lamp standing in the snowy night seemed particularly lonely. Shi Yun couldn’t slip out for too long. She had to go back. Catching the smell of alcohol on Wei Congying’s body, Shi Yun reminded him to let Lin Fang drive on the way back and put a glass of water on the bedside table when he went to bed at night.

She opened the car door and prepared to get out of the car, then took off the cotton-padded jacket jacket and gave it back to Wei Congying.

Wei Congying got out of the car with her, and Shi Yun handed him the cotton-padded jacket. The chill instantly hit her: “What are you doing, getting out of the car? Just wait in the car.”

Wei Congying took the cotton-padded jacket and wrapped it around her: “It’s only a few minutes, stay with me for a while longer.”

He was wearing a round-neck sweatshirt underneath, and Shi Yun struggled to get him to put on his clothes: “Then I’ll accompany you in the car. Be careful of catching a cold.”

Wei Congying did not listen. He looked up at the dark night, unable to see where the snow fell from. “It snowed very early this year. If everyone avoids the snow, it will be sad.”

What was that?

Shi Yun got goosebumps: “When did your university literature major include modern contemporary non-mainstream literature from the 1990s?”

“A head of white²[2] This can mean to grow old. It’s often used in the phrase, “grow old together,” “白头偕老”.” Wei Congying held both sides of his clothes with one hand, caught the snow with the other, and then made to pour it over Shi Yun’s head, “This statement is quite romantic.”

Hearing Wei Congying’s words, Shi Yun stared blankly at him. Pouring snow over their heads to have a head of white?³[3] As mentioned before, a head of white can be taken to mean grow old, thus, this sentence could have been translated as “Pouring snow over their heads to symbolize growing old together?” Another fun fact is that this phrase comes from two well-discussed lines of a poem no one seems to know the origins of. The poem is
“忽有故人心上过，

回首山河已是秋，

两处相思同淋雪，

此生也算共白头。

Which translates to:

An old lover suddenly passes through your thoughts,

When you look back, time has already flown by,

Snow falls on both people who yearn for each other,

So it can be considered that they grew old together.”

It seemed that it was also a winter like this. Under the eaves that could provide shelter from the rain in summer, neither she nor the other person had a key.

The two of them stood in the first snow of that winter. There were beehive briquettes⁴[4] These are coal briquettes used across East Asia for home cooking and residential home heating purposes. -Source: Wikipedia piled under the eaves during the winter and the wind was gusting through. But there was not much space under the eaves to protect them from the rain.

The other person stood under the snow, letting her stand under the eaves.

And she secretly moved to stand side by side with him and then pulled off her hat.

She had once gathered snow on her head before with another.

It was obvious that she was lost in memories.

Wei Congying looked at her: “What are you thinking about?”

Shi Yun was probably grateful to the night for hiding the look on her face She only took a moment to return to her previous expression.

“But I don’t want to grow old. I want to remain like this when I am eighty years old.” Shi Yun shook her head and shook the snowflakes from her hair.

“Then you will be an old witch.” When Wei Congying saw her shaking her head, and he pulled the hood of his cotton-padded jacket over her head.

They didn’t know when Lin Fang would come over. The clothes Wei Congying was wearing weren’t very thick but he still wrapped the cotton-padded jacket around Shi Yun tightly

This act was patient and considerate.

Shi Yun looked down at his hands, whose knuckles were red from the cold in the snowy night. She felt ashamed like a plum tree with buds growing in winter.

She knew that Wei Congying might just be playing with her, but she felt guilty for treating him as someone else.

Her hand touched the flashlight in her coat pocket.

She looked up at him: “I’ll give you a gift beforehand.”

“Oh?” Wei Congying couldn’t think of what she could give him right now. Could it be a kiss?

He watched her take out a small flashlight from her pocket.

The flashlight looked very ordinary, it was probably used by the doctors to check the patient’s pupil dilation.

“What’s the meaning?” Wei Congying looked at the small flashlight in the palm of his hand, “Light up the way forward?”

Shi Yun patted his shoulder in satisfaction: “After all, you are a literature student, very smart.”

Wei Congying faced the dim night in front of him and turned on the flashlight switch. The illumination power was as visible as the naked eye. It was still dark three meters away: “It seems that my future is not very bright.”

Thinking it would be easy to fool him after having imbibed,  Shi Yun thought for a while: “I’ll reserve a big one for you, it’ll be super bright. It’ll show up on time at seven o’clock tomorrow morning. And the experience is limited up to five o’clock in the evening, and then it needs to cool down for over twelve hours.”

Just from listening, you would know it is the sun.

“The sun?” Wei Congying asked her.

It seems that he didn’t drink too much, so it was not easy to fool him at all.

Wei Congying touched the small flashlight in his hand: “Then are we both responsible for the global greenhouse effect?”

What a cold joke.

Wei Congying put the small flashlight in his pocket, but did not return it to her.

The minutes slowly approached toward midnight. Shi Yun told him to let go, then hugged Wei Congying in his cotton-padded jacket.

She touched the cool skin outside his collar, stood up on her tiptoes and rubbed her cheek against the skin of his neck: “Happy birthday.”

“How silly.” Wei Congying hugged her, “You should have told me about your birthday earlier.”

Shi Yun shook her head and rubbed his chin with her head: “I really don’t want to celebrate my birthday.”

After saying that, Shi Yun released her arms holding him: “Get in the car, you really will get a cold if you do this.”

Shi Yun pushed him into the car and threw the cotton-padded jacket to him: “Tell Lin Fang to pick up the pace and get back here. Go back and drink more hot water.”

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Notes:

[1] OMG What’s up with the innuendos?! (⸝⸝๑  ̫ ๑⸝⸝⸝)

[2] This can mean to grow old. It’s often used in the phrase, “grow old together,” “白头偕老”

[3] As mentioned before, a head of white can be taken to mean grow old, thus, this sentence could have been translated as “Pouring snow over their heads to symbolize growing old together?” Another fun fact is that this phrase comes from two well-discussed lines of a poem no one seems to know the origins of. The poem is
“忽有故人心上过，

回首山河已是秋，

两处相思同淋雪，

此生也算共白头。

Which translates to:

An old lover suddenly passes through your thoughts,

When you look back, time has already flown by,

Snow falls on both people who yearn for each other,

So it can be considered that they grew old together.”

[4] These are coal briquettes used across East Asia for home cooking and residential home heating purposes. -Source: Wikipedia

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Translator Corner:

Happy Lunar New Year!