Forty-Three Degrees Part 1

Content Summary: m78

It was the first time that Shi Yun saw Wei Congying like this. Shi Yun always felt that he was a good-tempered person, warm on the outside but cold on the inside, so it was rare to see him fuming.

The quarrel outside continued for a while, before he finally ordered them to leave in a cold tone. It seemed that he was talking to the driver who brought his grandmother, requesting him to take her away.

After the sound of the door opening and closing, it became completely quiet outside.

Wei Congying opened the door and saw her sitting on the edge of the bed, looking up at him.

His expression had returned to normal, as if he was not the one arguing with someone in the living room just now. He walked to the bedside, stopped in front of Shi Yun, and looked down at the person before him.

Shi Yun did not ask about what happened in the living room, and he did not explain. Instead, he called out to Shi Yun and told her, “My grandma brought some soup. Would you like to have some?”

After his grandmother came, his phone went quiet.

The thermos contained pork rib soup cooked with cordyceps. He handed the bowl and spoon to Shi Yun but did not make to eat it himself. Instead, he went back to the sofa to play games.

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The game interface showed that the challenge failed, so he simply lay down, his eyes met Shi Yun’s, no longer smiling as usual: “I feel that forming a family, getting married, and the existence of family are really shitty.”

This statement left Shi Yun struggling to figure out how to answer him for a moment.

He got up from Shi Yun, threw away the game controller, rubbed the hair that Shi Yun had played with, and said again: “It’s really shitty.”

Shi Yun’s legs were a little sore from sitting crisscrossed, so she stretched them out and placed her heels on the carpet, a familiar feeling. “Didn’t Joyce’s book on your bookshelf say that? Recreate life out of life.¹[1] This is quote from James Joyce’s book, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The further you stay away from things that you think are rotten, the worse they will get.”

People and life are like flower pots with soil. As long as there is a flower pot, even if the flowers in it die, you can still pull out the dead flowers and plant the next one.

Wei Congying was startled, and looked at her, although his sight turned and he looked past her to the bookshelf behind her. His expression just now disappeared, and then, as if he were wearing a mask, he immediately returned to his usual cynical look.

He said in a frivolous tone: “Not bad, you read Joyce.”

As he spoke, Wei Congying thought of something else: “Where are you going to study in the future? And what major are you going to study?”

Shi Yun had thought about this question before she chose to take the doctoral exam at the capital university. The general direction of her major would definitely not change. As for the school, her first choice was definitely not the United States. But she had not yet made a final decision on which school she’d settle on from among the schools in other countries.

Just when she was about to tell him, Shi Yun closed her mouth again.

Wei Congying saw the hesitation from her, so he asked, “Why don’t you say anything?”

Shi Yun snorted softly: “Because I haven’t made up my mind yet, I haven’t decided what country to find a boyfriend from, so I haven’t decided which country to go to continue my studies.”

Wei Congying realized that he had said the wrong thing before, and she was deliberately trying to get a rise out of him.

But he knew how to twist his words, he hugged Shi Yun, and said with a smile: “My education is average, I only have a bachelor’s degree. You have a higher education, don’t you? In the future, you will meet someone who is on the same level as you in vision and outlook, and even soul-matched. I am encouraging you in advance to dump me if you really meet such a person in the future.”

He held Shi Yun, but her body language revealed her resistance when she remained stiff: “Then I still like you the most, and I still want to choose you.”

Her tone was serious and her expression was serious too.

It was just a joke in the beginning, but seeing her serious expression now, Wei Congying began to take it a little more seriously.

But this seriousness did not last long, after all, he was a free spirit at heart.

He held Shi Yun in his arms, kissed her on the side of her cheek, and brushed off the topic: “Okay, what I said before was wrong. But you are a real Scorpio, you really can hold a grudge. I will take you to a good place later, as my apology.”

As he said that, he released his arms around Shi Yun and asked her to change her clothes and get ready to go out.

–

The place where Wei Congying apologized was a baseball field.

The popularity of baseball in China is very low, far less than table tennis and badminton, which was suitable for all ages in China.

However, the baseball atmosphere in countries like Japan and the United States was relatively strong. He went to high school in New York and even joined the high school baseball team.

By now, he was an old hand at playing baseball.

Wei Congying seemed to be very familiar with the place. He drove the car directly into the parking lot, took Shi Yun in through a side door, then found the front desk, and bought her a set of baseball clothes.

When Shi Yun came out of the locker room after changing, he had already changed into a blue and white baseball uniform of the same color as hers.

Holding two baseball bats and a baseball cap in his hands, with his feet about shoulder-width apart, he stood a short distance away from the door of the women’s locker room waiting for her.

Wei Congying saw her coming out, took two steps forward, and put the hat on Shi Yun’s head: “Come on, I’ll take you to relax.”

It was Shi Yun’s first time at the baseball field and she knew nothing about baseball.

Wei Congying told her that the button to control the ball machine was next to it, and gave some guidance on Shi Yun’s batting posture.

After watching her do it a few times, her batting posture had become quite standard.

However, after Wei Congying turned on the ball machine and started, he watched as Shi Yun missed three sets of shots in a row without hitting a single ball. He sighed, took off his gloves, walked to the storage rack at the back, and picked up his phone: “I’ll call Lin Fang over.”

“Is he a better teacher than you?” Shi Yun was suspicious.

“Him?” Wei Congying chuckled when she asked, and continued to swipe over the screen of his phone, shaking his head, “He is Cao Pi’s wife who went into the vegetable garden, fit to be your partner.”

Cao Pi’s wife who went into the vegetable garden?

Shi Yun pondered over his response, but her mind still couldn’t fully grasp the meaning, and she was confused. It was not until Wei Congying finished sending the message and put down the phone that she realized what he meant.

Notes:

[1] This is quote from James Joyce’s book, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Translator Corner:

Belated post. The holidays are wearing me out. I’ll see you next year!