CYCYW?: Chapter Two

Today was the day Xiao Yao was moving.

The moving company drove very fast. By the time he arrived at the downstairs area of his new apartment, he had nearly thrown up all the contents of his stomach.

He felt like he could finally breathe freely as soon as he got out of the car. He saw a man standing a fair distance away, wrapped up like a little ball. He wore fluffy slippers and, every now and then, jumped a few times. Xiao Yao was not able to see his appearance clearly. He was only able to occasionally see flashes of the tied-up hair on top of his head. Even though he was only able to see this, he couldn’t help but think it was very cute.

His house’s predecessor could be considered to have a good conscience. The room was left quite clean and tidy. The only thing that made him slightly discontented was that the internet cable had been nibbled through by rats.

The landlord had already contacted the internet company people. It was estimated that the repairmen from the Tin Hau company would reach his house in three days. These would be the first few days of Xiao Yao’s bitter caveman life. He figured that he could perhaps thicken his face and ask to freeload some internet off one of his neighbours.

Xiao Yao had been living abroad for a few years. From childhood, he had been taught that he shouldn’t use other people’s things without asking. He didn’t have a thick enough face to act that cheeky and low.

If worst came to worst, he could tolerate it for several days. In any case, he still had internet on his cell phone.

However, when God closes a door on you, he also shuts the window, too. He leaves no cracks behind.

It turned out his cell phone had no credit left either.

He wasn’t able to go online, and there were no news kiosks with internet nearby either. It seemed like the only thing he could do was go and borrow the office wifi in the morning. He dejectedly looked at the WLAN inside his cell phone once again. It was called ‘I will not give you a hint’. The characters in the wifi signal made him lost in thought.

These closely-packed characters almost seemed to give off a ridiculing feeling.

Xiao Yao collapsed onto his bed and rolled over. The small wooden bed squeaked pitifully as he did. He didn’t know what he did to make the god of his life so angry.

——————

Ti Xiao firmly ended his live transmission. Tonight he was finally going to upload a new drawing to Weibo. The drawing of the man in white’s back was quite profitable. It got many favourable comments and retweets. This allowed him to increase his number of fans.

His fans were steadily increasing from the original 2w. Recently, due to 《Little Wolf》, he had experienced a growing trend in his total amount of fans. It was gradually getting closer to 3w. Because of this, he began checking his phone more often than usual. He vowed that he would screenshot the follower that got him up to 3w.

“Tomorrow we’ll eat South Street’s spareribs with soybean sauce, Uncle!” Ti Nanyi messaged.

Ti Nanyi attended a private high school near Ti Xiao’s house. There wasn’t much of an age difference between them, so they get along well. Sometimes, at noon, she would come over to Ti Xiao’s house to freeload some takeout. Conveniently, his manhua was also going to start updating again soon.

“Uncle, ah. When do you start updating again?” Ti Nanyi stealthy gave Xiao Hulu some spareribs. “If you don’t update soon, I won’t be able to live much longer.”

“Next week. I’ll think about the script in the next few days. Also, don’t feed Hulu anymore of this. She’s been having indigestion problems lately.” Ti Xiao, who was sharp-eyed and deft-handed, quickly gathered the pieces of spareribs and stood up. Xiao Hulu mewed discontentedly.

“Fine.” Ti Nanyi stuck out her tongue. “Come, let me tell you about the English teacher.”

“Today it seemed like his spirit wasn’t very good. At the moment, he has dark under-eye circles, although he doesn’t let it influence his temperament. Today he wasn’t wearing a suit either. He was still wearing that white shirt, though, haha.” Ti Nanyi said. “It was similar to the one you drew during your live stream yesterday.”

Speaking of this, Ti Xiao couldn’t help but think about his new neighbour. He never got to see what sort of appearance he had.

But overall, that figure still aroused his desires.

“Uncle, are you intending to stay single forever? You’re already 23 years old, la. Besides, 173cm is a great height to find a boyfriend with. Trust me.” Ti Nanyi’s words cut like knives, with her manner of speaking cutting Ti Xiao like a piece of meat.

“Leave it.” Ti Xiao spat a bunch of bones out. You can’t speak nice words for once, can you? Scram. Don’t bother coming here tomorrow to leech off my takeout either.”

Ti Nanyi grinned, both outwardly and inwardly. “Leave, ah? I guess you don’t want me to give you the English teacher’s WeChat name?”

“Goodbye.” Ti Xiao looked at the time and unceremoniously drove her out the door.

Today, Ti Nanyi was also very tactful. Ti Xiao wanted to meet with his editor to ask him if he could set up a new serialization. She quickly ran out as soon as she finished her meal. She even took out the garbage on her way out so he could focus on his manhua.

As he entered the building, he noticed there was a heating supply notice downstairs. They had postponed it until late November. Ti Xiao shook his head, silently speaking several sentences cursing the natural gas company in his heart.

Just as he was about to turn around and go back upstairs, he caught sight of a thin and tall silhouette in the distance. He was wearing a white shirt with black trousers and looked very similar to yesterday’s drawing. It was his neighbour!

Ti Nanyi’s words came to mind.

Ti Nanyi: When the English teacher was going to class, he realised he had forgotten his books. When he reached into his bag, he brought out the 《Little Wolf》he had recently confiscated instead. He had then rushed home to swap the books. It was very funny.

Ti Xiao hung his head and took a quick look, still not taking this news to heart. Soon after, he raised his head again to look at that passing silhouette.

He didn’t know why, but when he realised he was going to see the appearance of his neighbour, his heart sped up and thumped loudly, even though it was obviously still winter.

Last night, because Xiao Yao didn’t have any internet on his phone or wifi, he was very bored. He decided to look through the manhua he had confiscated today. One of them was called 《Little Wolf》. The front cover had two men looking into each other’s eyes. There was a considerable charming and ambiguous colour to it. It had words strewn across it in big letters: ‘Created by Zhiyong Shuangquan. He indulged himself in beauty for a year and created this masterpiece!’

He knew what it meant to indulge yourself in beauty. Same-sex marriage had already been legal for several years. As he had spent some time overseas, he had met many people like this.

It was just that this was the first time Xiao Yao had come into contact with this type of literature.

To tell the truth, he had stayed up all last night to finish this thick book. Even to the extent that he began to look forward to its sequel. However, he had to suffer through only having this one copy and no internet.

Because he didn’t have enough sleep, his brain was lacking in oxygen. It was because of this that he mistakenly packed the wrong books into his bag. He had packed 《Little Wolf》 but had left the other textbooks at home. Since his class started in the afternoon, and he had been busy the entire morning working in the school office, he didn’t discover his mistake.

It wasn’t until he was preparing for his afternoon class that he realised he had brought the wrong book.

In order to save his moral integrity, he hastily swapped classes with the mathematics teacher before hurriedly running back home to get his textbooks.

Although Xiao Yao’s face was quite thick, all things considered, he couldn’t help but feel that this incident caused him to lose face. After all, it was only his second day at work, so it was still pretty serious to just walk back home.

As he was walking, he couldn’t help but notice a flash of short hair outside of his building. It seemed that he was unintentionally walking closer.

It seemed like it was the wrapped-up little ball he had seen jumping around downstairs yesterday.

Wasn’t he a little… short?

Ti Xiao took his mobile out of his pocket and looked up at this man who was taller by half a head. His face turned a little uncomfortable, while his heart continued to beat like a drum.

Thump, thump, thump.

Hey, he looks pretty good.

I want to tease him a little

Since he wanted to tease, he decided to take some action. Ti Xiao vigorously pretended to be calm and cool before opening his mouth. Then, he quickly shut it, an alarmed and panicked look on his face.

Xiao Yao caught sight of the man whose hair was still tied up. He looked like he was going to say something but decided against it, somewhat similar to a goldfish blowing bubbles. He took the initiative and nodded his head in greeting, a smile on his face. He then moved past him to go upstairs. After all, he still had a class to teach.

The young man in question was rushing up the stairs and into his home at a rapid pace. As soon as he shut the door, he fell onto the carpet and grabbed a pillow. Holding it, he rolled around in circles for a bit. Afterwards, he looked at his hair and noticed it was looking a bit crumpled. This impression was rather… silly, ah.

Until he started drawing, he was still rather dumbfounded and silly.

Editor Gua Pipi: Don’t forget to send your draft to me at tonight at 8, ah. I want to see it. Also, don’t forget to send your themes, too.

Ti Xiao looked at the characters he’d been drawing. Why did they all look like the next-door neighbour?

‘I want to tease.’

These two words became bubbles that filled the entire sky until his head was jam-packed with them. Since the two were neighbours, he was in a favourable position. Despite this, he still didn’t even know his name.

But his smile this afternoon was a spear that imprinted his figure into the depths of his heart.

Ti Nanyi’s WeChat message appeared.

Your Cute Nan Nan: Ah, ah, ah. I didn’t want to message you. QAQ I want to cry.

Zhiyong Shuangquan Ti Xiao: Normal.

Elder Brother: Did you fall in love? 🙂

Mother: What message, ah, Nan Nan?

Zhiyong Shaungquan Ti Xiao: Just ignore her.

Your Cute Nan Nan: 【emoji】Dad! No, I’m not in love. I’m helping uncle find a boyfriend!

Elder Brother: Every day that you spend eating salty and light radishes I worry. You got a 57 on your last English test, don’t think I forgot. [1]

Your Cute Nan Nan: Dad! Didn’t we agree not to talk about that?

Sister-in-Law: 57? What? I guess when I come back from this business trip we’ll have to have a little chat. 🙂

Ti Xiao watched the messages flicking past his screen. After seeing how the topic changed away from him so suddenly, he couldn’t help but praise his older brother as a god.

He calmed his state of mind and prepared to draw. Just as he did so, he was interrupted by a knock on the door. Ti Xiao thought it was his beloved takeout finally arriving, so he eagerly moved towards the door.

These past few days had been cold. The fact that the takeaway place offered a door-to-door service only served to encourage his laziness, giving him the opportunity to simply laze around at home.

Ti Xiao opened the door and caught sight of the face that had been haunting him all afternoon. The hair that was tied up on his forehead was shaken due to the movement. Xiao Yao wasn’t able to clearly see his appearance before, but now he couldn’t help but notice that hair. He felt that it was very cute.

The two people stared at each other blankly.

“Can you even connect to your wifi?”

He heard his neighbour say.

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[1] – According to Baidu, the “salty” and “light” here represents two different people with different tastes. The salty person enjoys radish salty, but the light person (Ti Nanyi) cannot understand why and worries about it. Basically, Ti Nanyi isn’t gay and doesn’t understand what Ti Xiao likes but still worries and interferes anyway.

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Ramblings: Eh? Another chapter so soon? I’m motivated! Since I’ve found that each chapter only takes like, ~90 minutes to do, I may release them more frequently (dare I say daily?). But, I’m also going to the doctor’s tomorrow to check for a lung infection, so idk if that will slow me down. Anyway, no promises (but also, like, stay tuned! ^-^)

Oh, oh. Double also: I’m gonna add any thoughts I have down here so it’s easier for y’all to skip past me, haha.

Triple also: I’m sick, so I may have made mistakes. Feel free to call me out.

Quadruple(?) also: Me, reading this: Author-san, it’s fine… everyone has their kinks. Just please don’t advertise them so blatantly. ;;

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