Edited by sexy yummers
In reality, Ah-Jiang’s surname wasn’t Jiang. There was no Jiang in any part of his name either. It could even be said that he had no relation to the word “Jiang” at all.
Ah-Jiang first met Shi Tou when he had just moved here due to his father’s job transfer. Shi Tou was known as the little idiot from the old man’s house in Cun Bei. They had relocated from their first-tier city home to this small place that couldn’t even be considered a third tier city. The job transfer was mandatory, but if they were able to endure through this period, they would be back to their high end place in a few years. Even if his grandparents were reluctant about him leaving, there was nothing Ah-Jiang could do about it as he followed his parents here.
Once he arrived, Ah-Jiang realized that the environment here was not as terrible as how everyone made it to be. But of course, this place was indeed as underdeveloped as it was described on the internet. The indolence of this rural place was everywhere. The majority of kids who grew up in the city would’ve been disgusted by it, but Ah-Jiang adapted to the place surprisingly quickly. Not even his parents were able to accept the place that quickly, but somehow he had managed to do it before anyone else.
Along with historical remains, traces of the lifestyle of those who lived here for the past dozen years could be seen everywhere. Those who still lived here were faithful to beliefs from ancient times, it seemed like the attempted science brainwashes did not work well on the villagers who were born and raised here their entire lives. But times will still advance no matter what. In this region where one would have a hard time even connecting to the wifi, not many young adults would choose to stay here. Therefore, the whole village seemed to be surviving off of one last breath in this old and suffocating atmosphere.
The village was next to a river and the locals usually didn’t allow their children to go near it. It was said that each year at least a few people would drown in it. That was what the old concierge that looked after the houses declared.
Ah-Jiang was sixteen. Based on his age, it meant that he was going to take the college entrance exam in just a few years. Though he was not concerned about it. Ever since grade school, he’s always been more talented than other kids. While those kids were still learning basic pronunciations, he could already sit up straight at his desk as he wrote words. While his classmates were struggling with their grades, he’d left them all in the dust without any efforts wasted. Then, during adolescence when the girl who sat next to him started passing him notes, or as everyone around his age developed interests for romantic love, he was colder than anyone else.
His passion for everything seemed to be withered. In other words, the interests and curiosities he was supposed to have towards this world were all abolished before they could sprout.
To be honest, for Ah-Jiang to come here, it appeared to be directed by fate.
As for the meeting between the little idiot and him, it was caused by something more difficult to grasp than fate.
It was the hottest moment of that July’s summer. The youngster shook as one of the bike’s tires was scratched open by a sharp rock on the road. In the end, he had to push the bike back himself on this scorching hot day. He was wearing the town’s school uniform and even though the clothing had the complete feel of the rustic country wear, the tall youngster managed to give it the vibe of formal wear. His skin was fairer than anyone else here, not even the kids from back in the city had fair skin like him. Below the rays of sunlight, his skin glowed like crystal clear gems.
Today was Ah-Jiang’s first time reporting to the school. Like his mother said, it would’ve been better for him to be homeschooled or taught by a private tutor than to receive the education given here. But he never regrets his decisions. He refused to have a personal car pick him up and drop him off every day. Such actions might’ve been normal in the city, but in this place where the roads weren’t even paved correctly, it would definitely be seen as something out of the ordinary.
Good for Ah-Jiang though, he was different from the unathletic city kids who were around his age. He walked for almost two kilometers while pushing his bike. When he passed by an alley, he happened to meet the scene of a few hooligans bullying and threatening another kid. This type of event can occur at any place, and usually they were all the same. Normally, he wouldn’t stop in his tracks for something like this. However, maybe it was due to the sweltering weather today, or maybe there was no reason at all, this time, he stopped.
The matter occurred at a small fruit stand, a very very small one. It was presumably just a few square meters, maybe smaller. However, the place was stocked full of items for selling. There were cans placed next to each other while many Lian Huan Hua laid on the ground, flipped open. Even bottles of colored drinks were available. Then, the stand was pushed down by the guy who was in charge of it. He crashed onto the table, causing items to rattle onto the ground.
Not many people passed by this alley and as for the few that did, they all choose to be bystanders. It could be seen that being cold-hearted wasn’t just the specialty of a city. After all, it’s better to have one less problem than one more. Sometimes, courage wasn’t the only thing one needed to act bold and righteous, they also required to be prompted by impulse.
And so, Ah-Jiang was prompted by impulse.
He parked his bike there and walked over.
His appearance was fairly outstanding, or it could be said that it was a very glaring type of outstanding. Although one couldn’t survive with just looks, a pretty person could confront the situation at hand more easily. The rest of their imposing manner was trained by their background, family situation, and their individual special qualities. Thus, just as he picked out an item by random while looking at the youngster who was getting up from the ground, even as he reached out a hand to help him, the others who were playing the antagonist roles still had no reactions.
“Who, who are you?” Someone was bound to speak up in the end, right? Though they must be cannon fodders, his words weren’t important in the slightest.
Ah-Jiang wasn’t planning to use force against force. Someone who had more awareness in the group pulled onto the person who just spoke, and said to him quietly, “Don’t piss him off. He just transferred to our school today and the principal particularly mentioned that…he was some cadre’s son. My dad also said his grandfather has great influence in S City.”
The concept of social classes existed no matter where one was.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Fortunately, the kids in front of him weren’t the extremely bad ones. The one who spoke up first immediately lost his ground. After all, who knew what was the consequence of offending the only child of a “big shot?” At the very least, the other kept silent. Hence, giving the trouble-making kids a smoother method to get out of here.
“Lfs, raeqlv lvlba! Qf’ii ifa sbe boo obg cbk! Xb, ub.” Ktf xlv rkecu tlr olra jgbecv ab ifjnf jc lcalwlvjalcu rfcafcmf yfobgf ifjnlcu.
Ct-Aljcu ofia atf batfg’r kglra delnfg lc tlr tbiv, wjxlcu tlw ibbx yjmx.
Fcvfg atf jkclcu’r rtjvbk, tf rjk j qjlg bo yijmx fsfr atgbeut atf batfg’r rilutais abb ibcu yjcur. Pc j asqlmji gbwjcmf cbnfi, atlr rbga bo wbwfca ktfgf akb qjlgr bo fsfr wffa kbeiv yf vfrmglyfv ys j ugfja cewyfg bo vfajlir. Snfc lo atja kjrc’a atf mjrf, atfgf tjv ab yf ja ifjra j rfcafcmf bo, “atbrf fsfr rffwfv ilxf atfs kfgf jybea ab remx tlw lc”…atja asqf bo kbgv mtblmf.
So, here, that kind of romanticness will be ignored first.
Ah-Jiang was only stunned for a bit. He quickly came back to his senses. It was just like how you would suddenly have eye contact with an unknown stranger on the streets. You would also stop for a few seconds, while some people smile and nod in your direction, others will bluntly avert their eyes and pass by you.
If it was the usual scenario, then Ah-Jiang would’ve picked the latter. But the youngster in front of him was one step ahead and picked the first option. His unclean face had a smile splayed across it, on one side of his cheek was a deep dimple and on the corner of his mouth seemed to be a stain from dried up sugar fluid.
“Thank you.” The youngster thanked him very calmly and his voice was also very bright, it sounded a lot more pleasant than what Ah-Jiang had imagined.
Then, the youngster pulled his wrist back to dust off the dirt on himself. He continued to lift his head before giving the beautiful Gege in front of him a big smile. “Grandpa said after someone says thank you, you have to reply with ‘you’re welcome’.”
Ah-Jiang hadn’t come back to his senses yet. Towards the smile that was unbelievably bright, he replied like a robot in disbelief, “You’re welcome…”
The youngster was satisfied as if he just proved his grandpa’s teachings to be correct. Then, he didn’t pay any mind to the person who helped him anymore. He bent over to focus on cleaning up the mess on the ground.
Ah-Jiang looked at him as he held a little bagged snack in his hand. He stood still in one spot, looking out of place.
The youngster had swift limbs and finished picking everything up from the ground quickly before he lifted up the fallen table. From the looks of it, one could infer that he was used to these types of situations.
Once he was done, he raised his head to find that Ah-Jiang hadn’t left yet.
“Ah.” The youngster quickly understood the reason and said, “That’s fifty cents.”
Ah-Jiang was puzzled for a few seconds before finally realizing what he meant. He let out an “oh”, and quickly dug out the wallet from his pocket. However, he also soon realized he only had paper money, there was not a single coin. The smallest paper money he had was ten yuan.
Therefore he could only take out the ten yuan to give it to the youngster. Logically, he could’ve just put down the bagged snack that he was never going to eat, turn, and leave. But he felt if he did such a thing, the eminent sparks in the youngster’s eyes would dim…
The youngster received the money and lifted it high to look at it thoroughly as if he was a cashier who just received a large banknote. Following, he turned around to hide the money inside a cookie jar in the back corner. Then he squatted down and started counting with his fingers.
After about a minute, Ah-Jiang eventually couldn’t endure it and spoke, “You should give me nine yuan and fifty cents worth of change.”
“Ah, oh.” The youngster lifted his hand and replied kind of dumbly. Though it seemed like he didn’t believe Ah-Jiang as he fished out a small calculator. After a few “da da da” pressing sounds, he let out a gasp of astonishment, “Your math is just as good as grandpa’s…”
Normally, in these moments, people would laugh at him or just roll their eyes while looking down on him. But Ah-Jiang was pierced by that smile as an odd, uncomfortable feeling bubbled within him. He suddenly had the thought, Who has tricked this little idiot so many times for him to have this kind of reaction?
Then, the youngster started to look for his change.
Ah-Jiang didn’t understand where his patience came from during this wait. The youngster had his head down as he flattened out the wrinkled up papers, after counting some more coins and carefully comparing the amounts, he finally placed the change onto his hand with a solemn manner.
“You’re welcome to come again.” His voice was still very bright.
Ah-Jiang recognized that he had no reason to stay any more so he continued to push his bike back home. Yet, after he’d only traveled out a short distance, he already couldn’t help and look back. That youngster sat on a small stool chair, it seemed as if he was also peeking back at him. When they realized each other’s gazes, they both averted their eyes dumbly.
One left as the other sat in the same spot.
From that day on, Ah-Jiang started to have weird dreams. All the dreams were vague and every time, it was a different scene in a different era.
He met with the youngster again faster than he had expected.
The village secretary took an old man to their house because they needed someone to take care of the plants in their Siheyuan. The village secretary recommended the old gardener to them. The old man appeared to be a trustworthy person, even the Missus thought he was pleasant. After some questions, she further obtained the fact that he had a decent educational background, so she made the decision to let him stay. The old man brought a child who was around thirteen with him as well. He said the boy was his grandchild and ever since birth, his brain hasn’t been the brightest. But he had swift working limbs and was very obedient. He was too concerned to leave him alone while he was on the job, so he bought him along. He could also help out. The pay could still remain the same as it was for one employee.
That day, Ah-Jiang came home from school and was about to walk to the yard when he saw the youngster on the parterre from the corner of his eye. His lips were rolled in a bit as he clipped away in a squatting position.
He didn’t feel the other coming towards him as he was focused on his task
Ah-Jiang stopped and lowered his head. The youngster’s hands were as swift. With just a few snapping sounds, he’d cut off all the messy branches and leaves. Ah-Jiang didn’t know why but he suddenly called out, “Little Rock.”
The youngster’s hair was cut to where he was almost bald. With the grey and thin hairs on the top of his head, while he squatted there, he looked like a piece of rock within the flowers.
“Ah.”
The youngster lifted his head from hearing his voice, his eyes blinked and he found himself trapped under Ah-Jiang’s shadow.
Ah-Jiang was finally able to take a proper look at the youngster now. He was unexpectedly good looking. Even though his features weren’t fully matured yet, his handsomeness in the future could already be seen.
“Young, Young Master!” The old man saw them from far away and he hustled over quickly as he worried that his dumb grandchild might offend the owner’s treasured only son.
He lifted the youngster and patted his head, then said, “Come on. Say Young Master!”
“Ah?”
“What are you ah-ing for? Say it, fast.”
“Oh…” The youngster lifted his head. Ah-Jiang was currently going through his growth spurt, even though their age gap wasn’t that big, he was still almost two heads taller than him. Though it may also have been due to the little kid being too skinny, which caused him to look even shorter. That old tank top he had on displayed his two tiny stick arms that have tanned into the shade of wheat under the sun.
“Say it…!” The old man was anxious. As he rubbed his hands, he looked at the Young Master in distress. “Young Master, please don’t blame him, my grandchild, this place…isn’t too good.”
The old man patted his own head as he looked at the youngster again, sighing.
Ah-Jiang suddenly felt like there was something stuck in his throat He looked at the youngster who was squinting his eyes under the bright sun as he looked back at him with a slightly tilted head. He clenched his hand that was currently sweating and said, “Since it’s so hot out today, how about you guys come in and have a cup of water?”
The old man had come here to work. He dared not to break the rules even if he had been invited by someone in the family. He accepted the cold water that the servant bought over. He let his grandson follow the Young Master into the estate. His heart ached for his grandchild as the sun was fiery hot today and he had forgotten to bring a hat. He didn’t want him to stay outside.
Ah-Jiang held onto his hand as he led him into the house. Unlike his usual self, he didn’t mind the other’s mud-stained hand. He ordered for the air conditioner to be turned on, and have ice-cold sour prune drinks, candied fruits, and snacks to be brought out.
It was noticeable that the youngster was not used to being treated like this. His eyes kept looking outside, not being able to see his grandpa made him feel somewhat unsettled.
The servant carried a basin of water over and Ah-Jiang said, “Wash your hands before eating.”
The youngster looked at that flower-designed basin and reached his hand in to rub them together. Then, the servant passed a warm towel over, but he didn’t take it. Instead, he instinctively wiped his hand on his clothes. Ah-Jiang quickly stopped him, it would’ve been a waste for him to wash his hands if he ended up just wiping it like that. Next, the elegant Young Master walked over and kneeled on one knee. He took the warm towel and wiped the youngster’s hands dry under the servant’s shocked eyes. He proceeded to flip the towel inside out to also help him wipe his face…and why did he look so experienced while doing this?
Ah-Jiang couldn’t comprehend the reason either. When he came back to his senses, he had already serviced the dirty little kid to a clean one.
“You can drink this.” To cover up the awkwardness, he stuffed the cup into the youngster’s hands. Then stood up to return to the other couch before he carelessly picked up the novel that he hadn’t finished reading.
The youngster took a sip cautiously and smacked his lips, showing an amused expression. Ah-Jiang flipped through the novel even though his two eyes were peeking at the sight in front of him, the corners of his mouth automatically curved up.
The youngster finished the whole cup and the servant quickly refilled it for him.
He didn’t move this time, instead, he kept glancing towards the outside.
“What is it?”
The youngster looked back at the person sitting on the couch, his position wasn’t the most formal, yet it was refined. Though of course, an idiot wouldn’t be able to think of such an advanced vocabulary like “refined.” He purely thought that the person looked good no matter what pose he was in. He was just like a painting, the really good looking type one as well.
“Can I give it to my grandpa to drink?”
Logically, this would be stepping over the line. Except who would bicker with an idiot? Ah-Jiang’s eyes softened and he ordered the servant to bring a cup of sour prune drink to the old man, he even had them take the candied fruits and snacks over. He was an elder after all, wasn’t it better to show some respect?
He tossed the book aside and walked over to sit on the long couch with the youngster. He did the thing that he had been wanting to do since a long time ago, he reached out his hand to rub the youngster’s head. “You sure have good filial piety.”
The youngster obviously didn’t know what “filial piety” meant, but his instinct told him it was a compliment, so he smiled shyly.
They chatted about random stuff, however, it would be an overstatement to call it a conversation. Most of the time, it was merely one person asking questions and the other answering. Often, the two sentences weren’t even connected to each other, it was like the sight of a chicken talking to a duck. Yet somehow, the Young Master was able to make it interesting. That day, he smiled more than he usually would in one year.
Throughout the conversation, he learned the youngster’s name. He still favored calling him Little Rock.
“What’s Gege’s name?” The youngster asked.
His surname was Jiang. The surname Jiang* was the family name of aristocrats even though, during this era, it held many other meanings as well. But the youngster wouldn’t know such things. He simply blinked his eyes and because he couldn’t properly remember the name of this nice person, he opened his mouth and called him──
“Ah-Jiang.”
Little rock is really cute ❤
Ah-Jiang can’t help but call him ‘Little Rock’, I can’t.
Ah-Jiang can’t help but call him ‘Little Rock’, I can’t.
Noooo where’s my next button.Ok time to return to reality.Thanks for the translation!
Couldn’t wait to find out how A-Jiang and Little Rock “love” span to many Next next next till Little Rock whole again… Love this story 💛🤗😍
Thank you for update 🤗
I almost cried
In the happy sort of sense
So happy
Thx for the chappy
Little Rock is so adorable!!!!!! thank u for the chapter~
So cute! So he is a little slow because of his missing soul pieces….. wonder if this is the life that they will gather all the souls in…
Thanks for the chapter! ♥️
“In reality, Ah-Jiang’s surname
wasn’t Jiang. There was no
Jiang in any part of his name
either. It could even be said
that he had no relation to the
word ‘Jiang’ at all.” “His surname was Jiang.” confusion are the two “Jiang”s different characters or is there something I’m missing here?