translator: daisy
proofreader: jay
Walking out of the office after receiving an ashen-faced expression from the director, Sheng Renxing felt that a complaint text would be arriving very soon.
Once he got concerned about this, he even drafted out a response on how to answer.
However, Sheng Renxing’s curiosity about another matter soon took precedence.
“Do you have any tattoos?”
Although afternoon classes had already begun, Xing Ye had yet to leave. He stayed in Sheng Renxing’s seat the entire time, and no one said anything.
Due to the temperature spike, many young bosses walked around campus with uncovered arms and legs, where tattoos could be seen, including Jiang Jing and the others.
Jiang Jing’s design was on the inside of his wrist, consisting of a string of English letters and a rose. Whoever designed it did a rather good job.
Huang Mao had a lot more; several behind his ears, as well as on his arms.
To say the least, he definitely did not look like a serious person.
In Sheng Renxing’s previous friend circle, the only one with a tattoo was Qiu Datou, who got it done with his first love.
After the breakup—when his new girlfriend questioned it—he said that this was a friendship tattoo with his “good ge.” Needless to say, Sheng Renxing ended up being the hapless ge.
Tattoos could also be divided into categories, and while lots of people had them, it didn’t mean that they were necessarily good. To be frank, some of them were downright horrible, and Sheng Renxing had to hold back a frown upon seeing them.
Xing Ye’s group must have had their tattoos done by the same shop, as all their designs were pretty good.
“No.” Xing Ye whispered back to him.
The class was strangely quiet, and they lowered their voices even further to compensate.
“Why not?”
“I don’t see a point to it.” Xing Ye replied as he finished the drawing on Sheng Renxing’s arm.
“Don’t you help out at night with the stores? With a floral arm tattoo, you’ll seem even more imposing.” Sheng Renxing glanced at his face, “Then fewer people will come looking for trouble.”
Xing Ye had once mentioned that when a group of junior high school students came to play arcade games, they ended up starting a huge fight. When he came to break it up, none of the children listened to him. It was only until he bodily threw one of the boys onto the dance machine that they obediently shut up. The group ran away gloomily without even playing the games they spent money on,
Sheng Renxing laughed. The others probably assumed that he couldn’t fight because of his tender-looking face. If Xing Ye had a “king” tattoo on his face, no one would dare mess with him.
“No need.” Xing Ye didn’t lift his head.
He wasn’t afraid of people coming up to make trouble.
Sheng Renxing didn’t respond, and reached out to tap on a scar on the side of the other’s neck: “Or one here to cover up the scar.”
Xing Ye suddenly cast his eyes upwards to glance at him while patting Sheng Renxing’s hand, “That’s enough.”
“Tsk”, the other retracted his hand and lowered his head to compare the design with the one on his phone.
Xing Ye didn’t draw it according to the reference and made a lot of changes.
For instance, he only drew the outline and compared to the image, it immediately gave an “advanced” feel to it.
After a while, Sheng Renxing turned his head to praise him: “This drawing is so great too. Help me take a picture!”
Xing Ye didn’t say anything as he took a photo of his arm with his phone.
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.
The other was still exclaiming, “When I take a shower, I’ll have to wrap my arm in a plastic bag so that I can keep the design.”
“Tbe rtbeiv kjrt la vlgfmais.” Wlcu Tf mbcalcefv klat mbwqifalcu abemt-eqr joafg ajxlcu qtbabr. Dflcu ecerfv ab ufaalcu remt ragjlutaobgkjgv qgjlrf, tlr ilqr kfgf j ilaaif qegrfv.
“Ktja kbeiv yf j qlas,” Vtfcu Efczlcu gfmjiifv atf qtbab, “Aljcu Alcu jcv atf batfgr jirb tjnf ajaabbr, gluta?”
“…” Wlcu Tf, “Tfr.”
Ktf batfg aliafv tlr tfjv—tf kjr pera mjrejiis wjxlcu yjcafg, yea Wlcu Tf’r fzqgfrrlbc rffwfv j ilaaif bvv.
He found out the answer in the evening.
“Xing ge helped us with the sketches,” Amidst the hustle and bustle, Haung Mao rolled up his sleeves and stretched out his arm to Sheng Renxing, “Liang ge almost accepted him as an apprentice on the spot.”
They were sitting at a food stall.
“Who’s Liang ge?” The other stared at the tattoo sleeve consisting of an amalgamation of bizarre facial expressions, which looked rather scary at first glance.
They are sitting in a food stall.
“Tattoo artist,” Jiang Jing answered, “Liang ge is one of the best in Xuancheng.”
“If it wasn’t for Xing Ye, we’d have to wait another two years just to get an appointment,” Dong Zhou smiled and pulled down the collar of his shirt to reveal a tattoo on his collarbone.
“What do you mean by almost?”
“Xing ge refused on the account that he had no time and needed to go to class.” Huang Mao explained while shaking his head, “If Lao Li heard this, he’d be moved to tears.”
Sheng Renxing turned to Xing Ye and raised his eyebrows.
The other met his gaze but said nothing.
“Do you also want to get a tattoo?” Jiang Jing asked him.
“Huh?” The other considered the question for a while before nodding, “But I haven’t thought of any designs I’d like.”
“Where do you want to get it?” Huang Mao immediately became energized, “I want Xing ge to design it! Ours were all drawn by him!”
Sheng Renxing rolled up the sleeve of his left arm, exposing his elbow: “Here.” He pointed to a scar on it, which was around seven to eight centimeters in length.
“Fuck, what happened there? A fight?” Huang Mao craned his neck to move closer and pressed half his body onto Xing Ye. In response, the other pushed him back.
“My bike fell.” Sheng Renxing wasn’t willing to explain more.
Back then, he hadn’t started playing with motorcycles for long, and sometimes he didn’t even wear the proper attire for the thrill. In a competition, the other person was playing dirty, and Sheng Renxing had too much confidence in his abilities despite not knowing the terrain well. Overestimating the difficulty of a turn, he ended up crashing his motorcycle.
Fortunately, he landed on a haystack by courtesy of protective measures, but his arm took the brunt of the damage.
Sheng Renxing still managed to win.
Afterward, there weren’t many who dared to compete with him in this sort of game.
Qiu Datou once remarked that he was the “Death squad’s number one choice to send to the frontlines.”
Huang Mao “tsk-ed” a few times, and thinking that he fell off while riding a bicycle, comforted him, “Who doesn’t fall a few times while riding a bike? And this idiot—” he pointed to Lu Zhaohua, ”dragged me out to ride around in the middle of the night after listening to those brats. And then he fucking barrelled us into someone’s backyard!” Needless to say, he was still very angry about it.
“Who the hell was dancing in the backseat!?” Lu Zhaohua spluttered with mirth and gave him a sideways stare, “I’m neither a car nor plane, and you didn’t lose any limbs in that experience, did you?”
“Which idiot boasted about his cycling skills that doubled as both an aircraft carrier and a ship?” Huang Mao swallowed a mouthful of imaginary bitter wine, “When I went home my parents didn’t even let me take a bath, wash my clothes or change into new ones! I knelt at the front of the house all night, and became the damned Buddha by the next morning!
“Fuck…” Lu Zhaohua wanted to scold him but ended up half-heartedly holding back his laughter. “Yes, my uncle and aunt are such wonderful people!”
Everyone held back a laugh, and the atmosphere was very cheerful for a while.
Huang Mao couldn’t hold back and asked Sheng Renxing, “Did you get punished after the bike crash?”
“How can people get punished if they already fell like that?” Jiang Jing rolled his eyes and kicked the other.
The two started clamoring immediately.
Sheng Renxing raised his eyebrows but said nothing. When Huang Mao started questioning him even more desperately, he shook his head, “No, I went directly to the hospital.”
The other wailed loudly, “It’s only my old man and lady that’s like this! I’m absolutely fucking my own!”
Jiang Jing interjected with a surprised expression, “Ah, I thought you already knew a long time ago.”
“Go away!!!”
After eating, Sheng Renxing waved his palm in front of Xing Ye. The other grabbed it and stared at him.
“Awake?” Sheng Renxing was surprised, “I thought you fell asleep.”
After all, Xing Ye didn’t say a word in the second half of their conversation.
“I’m Cao Cao?” Xing Ye was speechless; he didn’t know that he could fall asleep with his eyes open.
“You know Cao Cao?” Sheng Renxing was even more surprised.
“…” Xing Ye stared at him coldly, “Did you drink too much?”
The other laughed, “Let’s go.”
It was seven o’clock in the evening, and he was heading to the library for an eight o’clock study session with the mooncake. The two slowly strolled on the road on their way back.
“Where are you going to head after this?” Sheng Renxing stretched his arms lazily and turned his head.
“Watching a store.”
“Wasn’t there one yesterday?” The other glanced at the time, “and so early?”
Xing Ye nodded, “It’s another one, but I’m going to sleep a bit first.”
Sheng Renxing shot him a complicated look: “Which one?”
“Chess and card room.” As long as there weren’t any customers, he could take a nap.
“Isn’t it pretty chaotic there?” Sheng Renxing patted him on the shoulder, “Go to the library to sleep? I’ll wake you up.”
Xing Ye contemplated for a while before nodding.
Seeing the other’s lethargic expression, the nagging thought in Sheng Renxing’s mind about this being Xing Ye’s second all-nighter only grew.
“Are you taking shifts for the next few days as well?”
“Mn, it happened to be arranged like this.”
Sheng Renxing frowned, “Why not do alternative days?” He raised his hand and pointed to Xing Ye’s eyes, “These dark circles are almost catching up with the pandas.”
“It’s troublesome to find replacements, as well as change shifts.”
“Are you still on call?” Sheng Renxing tutted.
The other didn’t answer.
Sheng Renxing pondered for a while, “Is it because of this that you didn’t accept Liang ge’s offer?”
Xing Ye was taken aback for a moment, and remained silent, “I don’t have the time or the money.” As an apprentice, he wouldn’t be able to make money, and would instead have to pay for the lessons.
“But you do like creating tattoo designs, right?” Sheng Renxing stared at him.
“It’s alright.” Xing Ye just shook his head lightly in response.
As if thinking of something, he lifted Sheng Renxing’s arm and rolled the sleeves up to his scar.
“Ah!” The other withdrew his hand subconsciously, “What’s with the sudden manhandling?”
“Do you mind?”
“Fuck,” Sheng Renxing relented and gave in, “Are you offering to design me a tattoo?”
“You want me to help?” Xing Ye asked back.
“Ah,” Sheng Renxing momentarily found himself at a loss for words, as he hadn’t actually thought about getting a tattoo yet, “That depends on how pretty your sketches are.”
The other chuckled lightly and let go of his hand.
“What are you laughing at?” Sheng Renxing rolled down his sleeves, thinking that his smile was a little unsavory.
“It hurts a lot if you get it there.”
“And I’m afraid of pain?” Sheng Renxing stared back at him.
Xing Ye went quiet for a bit: “What kind of style do you like? I’ll talk to Liang ge to get his help.”
“You’re not going to design it?”
The other shook his head, “Mine doesn’t look good.”
“Oh,” Sheng Renxing lowered his head to stare at their shadows, “Then I won’t get a tattoo.”
Raising his line of sight to see Xing Ye studying him, he hurriedly rushed to explain, “It’s not that I have to get one. I just saw that Jiang Jiang and the rest of the group’s tattoos looked pretty cool, but if you don’t want to design it, that’s fine.”
Xing Ye nodded.
Silence fell between them before Xing Ye asked, “How did you fall?”, and effectively broke the weird atmosphere.
“Because of a motorcycle.”
After another pause, Sheng Renxing quietly cursed in his heart before replying, “I was competing with people at the time, and wasn’t very familiar with the mountain’s terrain. When making a turn, I didn’t realize that the grandson was playing foul and I fell into the grass. My hand got scraped by the branches.”
“A competition?”
“Mn, but it was someone else who judged. Did you think I fell while learning how to drive?”
Xing Ye smiled: “You weren’t scolded?”
“You don’t believe me?” Sheng Renxing glanced at him, paused, and sighed, “The aftermath was rather ugly.”
“Got beaten?”
“I’ve never been beaten.” Sheng Renxing cast his gaze downwards.
When Sheng Yan arrived at the hospital, he didn’t scold or beat him and only asked a single question.
“Only beasts can be dominated by emotion. So tell me, Sheng Renxing, are you the same as an animal?”
Sheng Yan’s cold and sarcastic face—combined with his condescending attitude made Sheng Renxing want to get out of bed and have a fight with his father.
To tell the truth, if he hadn’t won in the end, he suspected that Sheng Yan would have thrown him out of the hospital and made him stay on the mountain with nothing but his motorcycle for company for half a month.
This was part of Sheng Renxing’s dark history, and even thinking about it now, he wanted to find the Sheng Yan of his memories and beat him up. As such, he didn’t elaborate, remaining quiet while looking at his arm. Luckily, the other didn’t inquire any further.
After a while, Xing Ye said: “I’ll help you with the tattoo.”
Sheng Yan doesn’t deserve to be a dad. He doesn’t deserve be looked at highly by others. He’s trash, and deserves to live in a dumpster.
+1 garbage of a human being
Thank you❤
shen renxing’s father is quite a character. it seems he doesn’t care about anything but win, but on another side, he honestly put a huge trust on his son’s ability. a huge tsundere who think the best in the worst way that he got misunderstood. i honestly think he didn’t mean bad for renxing, but his method is indeed awful especially to a child with huge pride and ego like renxing.
thank you for the chapter
His “father” doesn’t know how to be a father at all. He doesn’t deserve it anyways. I’ve seen bad fathers in novels before but this?… one of the top worst…
On a brighter note, now we kinda know what could be Yeye’s future job! He seems to really enjoy drawing and making tattoo sketches, a true artist!! If he wasn’t born into a poor family and street, i bet he’d be quite famous by now >v<
Ty for the chapter!!💜💜💜
thanks for the chapter <3
Ohh Xing Ye’s likes designing tattoos!!
Thanks for the chapter!