When they arrived in England after their long journey, Xu Qichen and Song Yuanyan rented a small two-story house. The landlady was an aunt with curly hair who looked very kind. She couldn’t tell Asian people apart, and thought they were brothers.
“Now that we’ve come here, nobody’s going to wait on you,” Xu Qichen did not forget to tease the young master who had grown up in luxury.
Song Yuanyan was not amused. He picked him up from behind, put him on the sofa and took the broom from his hand while he wasn’t paying attention. “You know, even outsiders know that I am a young master, but when did I ask you to serve me? Instead, it was I who delivered food and clothes, and performed all kinds of tricks to make you happy. I really can’t tell who the real young master is.”
Xu Qichen leaned back on the sofa and kicked Song Yuanyan’s calf. “So you had so many complaints. That name was really aptly chosen.”
Song Yuanyan, who had bent over to sweep the floor, grabbed Xu Qichen’s ankle. “Your mouth is getting sharper and sharper now.”
Xu Qichen, who was caught by his ankle, did not realise that this was the time to beg for mercy. He tried to free his leg, until Song Yuanyan threw the broom down and put his weight on him. He continued to laugh and said, “No matter how sharp my mouth is, it’s not anywhere near as sharp as your sharp tooth.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Song Yuanyan gently bit Xu Qichen’s cheek, leaving uneven teeth marks on his face, “At least you know it.”
Xu Qichen covered his face and turned over on the sofa. “I’m injured and can’t clean the room.”
Song Yuanyan was amused, “Okay, young master.”
Life in Britain was not particularly difficult for Xu Qichen. The most difficult thing was to pretend to be completely unable to understand English. One fine weekend, the landlady knocked on the door.
Xu Qichen was washing the apples when he heard it and shouted for Song Yuanyan, but he was upstairs and didn’t seem to hear, so Xu Qichen shook off the water on his hand and opened the door.
The landlady held a snow-white Persian cat in her hand. As soon as she saw Xu Qichen, she explained that she had to travel soon, so she wanted to ask them to take care of her cat. Xu Qichen understood it clearly, but he recalled that he was not supposed to understand English, so he pretended to be embarrassed and ran upstairs to pull Song Yuanyan down and talk to the landlady.
Xu Qichen went back to the kitchen, washed the half washed apple under the faucet, then walked into the living room with it, sat cross legged on the sofa, and listened to the conversation between the two.
“I’m so sorry to trouble you. She’s called Anna, and she’s quite obedient. As long as you give her food and water, she won’t bother you.”
Song Yuan smiled and said, “It’s no trouble. We’ll take good care of her for you.”
The landlady glanced at Xu Qichen on the sofa and said with a smile, “Your brother is really cute. I wonder if he likes cats?”
Song Yuanyan laughed, “He’s just like a cat himself.”
Xu Qichen heard it clearly, but he had to feign ignorance as he bit down on the apple.
Who’s like a cat?
Why would he say I’m like a cat?
The snow-white Persian cat jumped down from Song Yuanyan’s arms and walked to Xu Qichen’s feet.
What do you want?
“Looks like Anna likes your brother a lot,” the landlady said with a smile.
Xu Qichen touched Anna’s ear with his foot. It was rather ticklish.
Do you want an apple?
Song Yuanyan glanced back at him, “Everyone likes him.”
Now, Xu Qichen’s ears were also feeling ticklish.
Why must he exaggerate like that? So embarrassing…
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.
After seeing off the landlady, Song Yuanyan prepared cat food and litter according to what she had instructed. Then he went to the sofa, picked up the cat and brought her to the small bowl with cat food. “You will eat here, okay?”
Llr nblmf kjr nfgs ufcaif. We Hlmtfc kjr islcu bc atf rboj gfjvlcu, yea tlr fsfr obiibkfv atf mja lc Vbcu Tejcsjc’r jgwr.
He said I’m like a cat, but it seems he has a new favourite pet now.
One mountain cannot house two cats.
Qlat atlr atbeuta, We Hlmtfc vgbqqfv tlwrfio bc atf rboj, wjxlcu j ibev cblrf.
Vbcu Tejcsjc ibbxfv ja tlw, “Qtja lr la?”
“Qtja vlv sbe jcv atf ijcvijvs ajix jybea?”
Song Yuanyan said with a smile, “Nothing much. She told me how to take care of the cat.”
Xu Qichen turned slightly so he could keep an eye on Song Yuanyan and the cat, “What else?”
Song Yuanyan lied with a straight face, “That’s all.”
Xu Qichen knew he was lying, yet he had no way of exposing his lies. This was a very excruciating feeling.
Later, during dinner, Song Yuanyan suddenly said, “Let me teach you English. It’ll be very inconvenient to live here without knowing English.”
Xu Qichen was swinging his legs under the table, “Sure.”
It might have been based on a lie, but the thought stil made Xu Qichen feel good.
After dinner, Song Yuanyan made a pot of hot black tea, while Xu Qichen wrapped himself in a blanket and sat at the small table in the balcony. The setting sun shone on the balcony, illuminating the potted plants and flowers in their bloom and beauty.
Anna lay on Xu Qichen’s feet, her soft belly pressed against his cool insteps, warm and comfortable.
“Where should we start?” Song Yuanyan handed him a cup of tea. “Let’s start from basic conversation.”
Xu Qichen took a sip, and felt the warmth of the tea spread through his chest. “Sure. I already know how to say hello and goodbye.”
Song Yuanyan lowered his head and smiled, “Then, let’s learn self-introduction today.”
Xu Qichen put down his glass, said yes very obediently, and then pretended that he really didn’t understand anything. He watched Song Yuanyan write down a line of English, and then taught him to read it word by word.
As Anna woke up and slept, fell asleep and woke up, several times, Song Yuanyan had already taught him a full ten sentences, all of which were necessary daily expressions. Xu Qichen felt a joyful feeling of having succeeded in a prank, his toes lightly rubbed the hair on Anna’s belly, and his eyes quietly glanced at Song Yuanyan who was writing seriously with his head down.
“Let’s just learn these for today.”
Xu Qichen nodded.
Anna, who had finally had enough sleep, was hungry now and walked back to the bowl. Xu Qichen lifted his feet to put them on Song Yuanyan’s thighs, and pretended to be focused on the sheet of paper. Song Yuanyan pulled the blanket from the back of his chair to cover his feet.
The moon pushed back the sun, which was unwilling to leave, and climbed up the dark blue sky with the starlight. Xu Qichen stretched his waist, retracted his legs that were about to go numb, and lifted his head to stare at the sky, “How can time pass so fast, the stars all came out in a blink of an eye.”
Song Yuanyan closed the book in front of him, smiled and commented, “Time is an illusion.”
When Xu Qichen heard this sentence, he found it very interesting. It was probably an occupational disease of writers. Kicking Song Yuanyan’s knee, he asked, “Why do you say that?”
Song Yuanyan propped his chin with his hands, “I didn’t come up with this, it was said by a famous scientist.”
Xu Qichen nodded, folded his hands, rested his chin on the back of his hands, and looked at Song Yuanyan with an eager appearance.
Song Yuanyan thought for a while, and explained, “Not to mention the entire universe, even on this balcony, there are two completely different time and space.” His eyes glanced lightly at Xu Qichen’s face,”What you feel now is different from what I feel now. Because we have a completely different time perception.”
Xu Qichen nodded thoughtfully, “Is it because the way of observation is different?” He recalled what Su Shi’s had written, “If you focus on what changes, the world cannot be defined by the moment. If you focus on what doesn’t change, then the things you see are endless.”
“There are reasons for this. In fact, this theory is quite complicated to explain.” Song Yuanyan touched the pen with his finger and caught it when it was about to roll off the table. “Though, aside from physics, it’s also inseparable from things like the brain and nerves. The book I just read was about how this is linked to human biology.”
Xu Qichen stretched out a hand, picked up the book Song Yuanyan was reading just now, and flipped through it. It was all in English, so he put it back with a look of confusion.
“Time is, to some extent, a perception and measurement of the brain.”
Song Yuanyan copied him and lay down on the table, stretched out his hand and lightly poked Xu Qichen’s forehead, “Our brain secretes a substance called dopamine. Someone has studied it, and found that this substance will affect our judgment of time.” His finger moved to Xu Qichen’s cheek, “It’s like an invisible hand.”
Pinching his face outward, the corners of his mouth were stretched by him, “When there is very little dopamine, time is stretched, and it feels very slow.”
Xu Qichen patted his hand with dissatisfaction, and Song Yuanyan let go with a smile, “On the contrary, if there is a lot of dopamine, time will pass quickly.”
“Do you know when your body secretes a lot of dopamine?”
Xu Qichen shook his head, “When?”
Song Yuanyan picked up a small piece of chocolate dessert from the plate and fed it to Xu Qichen. Xu Qichen happily opened his mouth and swallowed the dessert in one gulp.
“While eating chocolate, and…” Before he finished speaking, he waved to Xu Qichen again, motioning him to get closer, Xu Qichen moved forward obediently, and the two of them were very close.
Song Yuanyan’s eyelashes flickered slowly, grabbing Xu Qichen’s attention. Taking this opportunity, he briskly pecked Xu Qichen’s soft lips.
“When in love.”
The snack had already been eaten and was in his stomach, but a lingering sweetness slowly came back, and it became more intense after seeing his two small canine teeth.
Xu Qichen believed that this must be caused by dopamine.
“Dopamine will bring us a sense of pleasure, which is why in our eyes, the happy time is always very short. Dopamine controls our brain, so our brain does not measure time objectively.” Song Yuanyan picked up the pen and spun it subconsciously, and the spinning pen drew a beautiful arc on his slender fingers.
This scene made Xu Qichen feel familiar and he almost got lost in his thoughts again.
The person in front of him seemed to gradually overlap with the figure in the school uniform in his memory.
“Are you cold? Let’s go back to the room.”
Xu Qichen came back to his senses, nodded, didn’t bother to lower his head, and stretched out his feet on the ground to fumble for his slippers. Song Yuanyan walked directly to his side, put his arms through the hollows of his knees, and carried him up.
After listening to the theory class for half a day, Xu Qichen was indeed sleepy now. He usually struggled a bit when he was carried like this, but now he was too lazy to move, leaning on Song Yuanyan’s body, listening to his strong heartbeat, until he sank into the soft bed, and was only willing to put in some token effort to get under the quilt. He lay on his stomach as was his habit, just like how Anna had lazed around in evening.
Song Yuanyan lifted a corner of the quilt, lay down, stretched out his hand and turned Xu Qichen’s face buried in the pillow, making him face him sideways.
“Do you want to review what you learned today?”
Xu Qichen’s eyes were bright in the dark night, “Stop going to work and become a teacher instead. You will definitely be a competent teacher.”
Song Yuanyan moved closer, and rubbed the tip of his nose against Xu Qichen’s cool nose, “Let me teach you one more thing.”
Xu Qichen shrank back slightly and asked with a laugh, “What?”
“Good night.” Song Yuanyan’s voice was warm like mellow black tea.
Xu Qichen blinked, “Okay, how do you say it?”
The person close at hand stretched out his hand, gently pinched Xu Qichen’s earlobe, and slowly said word by word with a very believable serious expression, “I love you.”
An unknown nerve in Xu Qichen’s mind jumped, and the four words [I knew it] were written all over his mind.
With Song Yuanyan’s scheming, how could he teach him to speak English honestly? If he didn’t lie to him, he wouldn’t be Song Yuanyan.
Xu Qichen sniffed, and recited it in a fluctuating manner, and his eyes quickly caught the sly cunning flashing in Song Yuanyan’s eyes.
“Well, you can say good night to me now.”
He said this like the witness at the wedding who has finished a long speech and announced that the couple could now kiss.
Xu Qichen moved towards Song Yuanyan’s side, and then simply lay down on his body, leaning close to his ear.
He said the words one by one, like an extremely obedient student, “I, love, you.”
Song Yuanyan quickly came to his senses, hugged the person on his body tightly, and listened to him giggling in his ear.
“You tricked me!”
Xu Qichen stopped laughing, and looked at Song Yuanyan face to face, with an expression that he would rather die than take any blame, “You lied to me first!”
It was indeed the case, Song Yuanyan had no choice but to ask, “How did you know?”
“I guessed.” Xu Qichen knocked his forehead against Song Yuanyan’s.
“The old man selling apples downstairs always says this to his wife.” His expression was very sincere. “Whenever he says it, he would hug her and kiss her on the face.”
After finishing speaking, he added another sentence, “And he will say it no matter the time of the day.”
Song Yuanyan patted his hair, “You’re too clever.”
Xu Qichen deliberately pressed heavily on him, causing Song Yuanyan to groan, and then he rolled down, “Sleepy, I’m going to sleep.”
Song Yuanyan went around from behind and hugged him in his arms, like two spoons clinging to each other tightly.
Xu Qichen suddenly recalled the conversation they had earlier about time.
A sense of loss suddenly overcame him.
“If only time could go on forever.”
He didn’t want this to stop, he didn’t want it to end.
“When it is too fast to catch, then there is no end point to be found.”
Song Yuanyan kissed the back of his head, “In my time and space, you and I are endless.”
Hearing Song Yuanyan quoting a poem he hadn’t meant to mention, Xu Qichen suddenly felt a misplaced romance.
He turned around in Song Yuanyan’s encircling arms, faced him, leaned close to his side neck, took a bite at the beating pulse, and moved his lips slightly against the small piece of skin, “Then in my time and space…”
“You are an inexhaustible source of dopamine.”
Everyone’s so romantic today~❤
Roses roses roses
That’s very sweet, but feels too abrupt for the end of the arc…
Anyway, thank you for the chapter(s)!
🥰♥️
Kdrama script writers: NOTE THAT DOWN
.so damn sweet …..ah …i think in their time and space ..there’s only them…haha