After ten hours of flying, the flight carrying hundreds of young Chinese athletes arrived at the Australian airport on time.
The sun had already set when it landed, but the burning heat remained. They had left the Chinese capital in the morning at the coldest time of year, now they were being embraced by summer. Many athletes were overheated and sweated profusely as a result of the dramatic temperature difference.
The worst part was that they couldn’t quickly put on short-sleeved shirts and shorts. Because reporters were waiting outside the airport, they were compelled to wear their uniform dresses—a set of formal wear with a Chinese-style stand collar and buckle.
The formal attires were all custom-made and emphasized Li Cheng’s slim waist. He appeared even more slender, tall, and straight after putting on the formal attire. When the women’s squad saw it, their eyes lit up and they formed a queue to touch his waist.
Li Cheng couldn’t stand it any longer and yelled, arguing at the airport: “Stop, you pack of scum A! I’ll sue you for sexual harassment, believe it or not!”
The women’s squad used illogical reasoning: “You’re both the captain and an omega. Naturally, you must make personal sacrifices in order for the group to succeed. First and foremost, make us gals feel good!”
At this critical moment, Zhou Jian stood up and grabbed Li Cheng’s shoulder, rescuing him from the horde of girls.
The girls exchanged sidelong glances before stating in unison, “Oh~~Since Zhou Jian is here, we won’t disturb~~”
They separated in disarray and dashed to the luggage carousel to retrieve their belongings.
Li Cheng wiped the sweat from his brow and said with lingering fear: “Zhou Jian, thank you for coming. Otherwise, this pack of female monsters would not have spared me. Oh! But what do they mean? What is this ‘don’t disturb’?”
Zhou Jian: ” …… ”
Sima Jian’s intentions were obvious to everyone except for Li Cheng.
It took another half hour for everyone to gather and line up to walk out of the airport after they had retrieved their luggage.
The reporters had been waiting for a long time outside the airport. In addition, several passengers had congregated to witness the commotion. Hundreds of black-haired, black-eyed, and yellow-skinned faces appeared at the same moment in this foreign land, naturally attracting the attention of many people.
What Li Cheng didn’t expect was for local Chinese to swarm over in addition to the official media. In this day and age, where the entire public acts as a news media, everyone raised their phones and waved to the athletes in their own language.
The athletes were really shy. When they saw the cameras, they all lowered their heads bashfully to avoid looking at them. Only Li Cheng boldly waved and nodded, expressing charm without reservation. He was tall and gorgeous, with conspicuous blond hair strewn across his brow, and he smiled confidently and joyfully. He was a stunning beauty.
The Chinese people who had flocked to the airport to welcome the Chinese players invariably pointed their phone’s camera at him, and someone brazenly said, “Xiao gege, what is your WeChat ID!”
Li Cheng laughed heartily: “No WeChat ID, I’ll tell you my bank account ID!”
His voice was so loud that the assistant coach rushed over to admonish him not to talk nonsense, and coach Yu cast a harsh gaze across the crowd at him.
Li Cheng swiftly zipped his mouth.
Outside the airport, a bus fleet was waiting. The athletes boarded the buses and arrived at the sports complex after more than an hour of jolting.
Australia’s sports complex once held the Olympic Games, and its facilities were among the best in the world. Even the athletes’ dorms were lavishly adorned.
The dormitory was a double standard room. As the swimming team’s lone omega, Li Cheng once again shared a room with Chen Miao of the diving team. Chen Miao was busy decorating the balcony after moving in, working as hard as a busy little bee—he hung the national flag outside the window, and took out the ‘good fortune’ character, Spring Festival couplets, sound and light firecrackers, and lanterns from his suitcase, cramming the balcony.
Li Cheng was dumbfounded, thinking he was too exaggerated.
Chen Miao placed his hands on his hips: “We are going to celebrate the Spring Festival in a foreign country. We must not lose the New Year’s spirit!”
They were both male omegas, but their personalities were diametrically opposed. Chen Miao liked to decorate his house. Previously, he kept the four-person dorm they shared in pristine condition. Li Cheng, on the other hand… emmmm… Li Cheng’s clothes were all balled up and tossed into the closet.
It wasn’t a big deal, though. After all, as long as one member of the household did the chores, that was sufficient. Xiao Yiheng’s collar and cuffs were usually immaculate. A quick glance at his appearance revealed that he was an expert at housework.
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.
By the time Chen Miao finished cleaning up the new dormitory, it was late. After a little talk, they changed into their sportswear and went to supper.
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It was, however, Li Cheng’s first trip abroad. For the first supper, he naturally wanted to experience the foreign specialties!
Li Cheng and Chen Miao eagerly wandered in the restaurant with a large platter. Following several exclamations of “Oh! I want to taste this dish” and “Wow! This looks good!”, it didn’t take long for the food in Li Cheng’s tray to pile up and form a hill.
They arrived much later than expected. Dinner had long passed, and there were few dishes remaining in the cafeteria. Freshly prepared food had not yet been served.
Li Cheng took a fancy to baked fish with cheese, and there was just one piece left on the platter. He reached for the tongs next to it and was ready to pick it up when a hand reached out from the side and grabbed the baked fish that Li Cheng desired!
Li Cheng’s disposition was not one that suffered losses. He immediately reprimanded, “Hey! First come, first serve. Don’t you understand…”
He stared blankly before finishing his sentence since the person who had robbed him of his food was a foreign boy with white skin and brown hair! Other tall foreigners, both men and women, stood behind him, all of them alpha.
The foreigners were dressed in national team uniforms. The fish robber’s eyes were gray-blue. His gaze swept over Li Cheng, then away without a flutter, not even a smidgeon of an apology on his face.
Li Cheng’s English was terrible, but body language was the most effective language at the moment!
Li Cheng grabbed the foreigner, pointed to the fish on his plate, and then pointed at himself, emphasizing: “my! my !”
The foreigner looked at him impatiently, as though Li Cheng was causing trouble unreasonably, and inquired back, “So what?”
Li Cheng: “What 什么 what? My fish! My fish! 你听不懂啊？I, first! You, No. 2!”
{tn: As written in raws. I thought it’d be better to explain the Chinese rather than paraphrasing the sentence.}
The foreigner laughed contemptuously, jabbered a lot of unknown words, then knocked off Li Cheng’s hand, brushed his shoulder as if flicking away something dirty, and moved around Li Cheng with the intention of leaving.
Li Cheng: !!
Fuck! This Li-ge has never seen such an arrogant person!
It was said that the moon was rounder in other countries, thus apparently foreign bastards needed more spanking.
Chen Miao grabbed Li Cheng and persuaded him: “Li Cheng, since you don’t know the language, stop quarreling with them. If we cause trouble, the coach will definitely blame us. It’s just a piece of fish. If he wants it, just give it to him, okay? Harmony is to be prized.”
“The phrase “harmony is precious” isn’t used in this context.” Li Cheng refused to budge. “Of course Laozi will take up this matter. Why should I suffer the consequences of their mistakes? Besides, if you give up a piece of fish today, you may have to yield a medal tomorrow!”
“But…” Chen Miao wanted to say something, but Li Cheng had already caught up with them and continued to argue.
Li Cheng was a solitary person and an omega, whereas the opposing party was a bunch of alpha. Despite the fact that there were linguistic problems between the two parties, the argument grew louder and louder.
Chen Miao was worried that Li Cheng would lose and rushed to his rescue, but Chen Miao’s English was also quite poor. They talked for a long time without saying anything, with the entire cafeteria staring at them.
Zhou Jian, who had also arrived at the restaurant for supper, heard the ruckus and dashed over.
Zhou Jian had spent a significant amount of time in Australia. He spoke English perfectly and without an accent. He promptly engaged in the two parties’ dialogue and swiftly figured out what had happened.
Li Cheng: “Zhou Jian, what did they say?”
Zhou Jian: “They say he didn’t notice you reaching for the fish when he took it.”
Li Cheng: “Utter rubbish! Chen Miao and I were standing right there! Are we supposed to believe him when he swears he didn’t see us? You translate what I said!”
Zhou Jian was speechless. As he hesitated, the fish robber suddenly made an unexpected move—
The boy extended two fingers and imitated shoveling food into his mouth with chopsticks. At the same time, he deliberately squinted his eyes and spoke a stream of English words.
The teammates behind him narrowed their eyes as well. Some of them even used their fingers to draw the corners of their eyes together, making them appear small and narrow.
Zhou Jian’s face turned black in an instant. He scowled at the foreign athletes and rebuked them fiercely in English. His tone was very serious. He also subconsciously exuded the alpha pheromone, which pressed against his opponents. However, the other party was a collective, but Zhou Jian was a single person.
Chen Miao asked blankly: “Zhou Jian, what did they say?”
Li Cheng instantly cut him off: “Is it necessary to ask? These sonsofbitches definitely didn’t say anything nice!”
They squinted and imitated eating with chopsticks. Coupled with that mean expression, it was clear they were mocking them on purpose! Shit! Li Cheng had heard about racial discrimination in the international arena before, but he didn’t expect they’d come across it today!
Many, many years ago, the Chinese were unable to attain remarkable outcomes in competition because of a poor congenital system and a different nutritional pattern than outsiders. They did abysmally in international contests, and were humiliated and ridiculed as a result. Over the years, their predecessors had hastened to catch up, adopting more scientific training and diet practices, and shedding the stigma of the sick man in East Asia, eventually rising to the top of the world.
Despite their triumphs, several “noble” foreigners continued to look down on the yellow-skinned Chinese from the bottom of their hearts, and racial discrimination followed relentlessly.
Li Cheng sneered as he took a large stride towards the youth. Then he lifted his hand and smashed it towards his opponent’s nose—
— surprisingly, Li Cheng did not punch the boy in the face. Rather, he hurled something at him.
That something, by the way, was a banana.
In a moment, there was a deafening quiet.
Zhou Jian and Chen Miao both glanced at the banana and laughed aloud. The foreign athletes’ faces were flushed with rage, and their expressions were contorted.
— Throwing bananas at another athlete in the arena was a way of insulting the opponent for being an uncivilized ape who couldn’t even gain a point. Everyone in the opposing party was a tall, muscular male athlete with thick hair. The athlete that irritated Li Cheng had so much hair on his arms that it reached all the way to the back of his hands. He was perfect for eating bananas!
Li Cheng cocked his brow. Using violence to combat violence had always been Li-ge’s strong point.
… …
The farce at the dining hall quickly reached the organizing committee’s ears. The athletes from the two countries had a public spat. This was a significant situation that needed to be addressed. The organizing committee promptly alerted the coaches of both parties and requested that they respond as quickly as possible.
Li Cheng and Zhou Jian were summoned to Coach Yu’s dorm that night.
Coach Yu looked serious (but she always had a fierce face) and asked them what was going on.
She said: “The male athlete alleged that you threw a banana at him and racially discriminated against him.”
Li Cheng uttered a “Tut!” disdainfully.
That bastard is truly shameless. It was a case of right and wrong being inverted, with the thief shouting thief. He also claimed that I was racist? Come on! Calling him an orangutan was not racism, okay? I was clearly stating a fact.
Zhou Jian tried to explain: “Coach, they were the ones…”
Coach Yu: “Zhou Jian, I didn’t ask you anything. Don’t answer for Li Cheng. The other athlete stated unequivocally that Li Cheng fought them first and threw bananas at them, so now I simply want to hear Li Cheng explain.”
Li Cheng shrugged and continued, “I have nothing to explain. They robbed me of my food and also mocked our small eyes and chopsticks. When it comes to racism, aren’t they the first to be cheap? And there are cameras all over the place in the cafeteria. Simply select one and take a look.”
Coach Yu stated coldly: “With your personality, if you were truly retaliating, you would have rushed to beat them instead of just throwing bananas at them.”
Li Cheng: “I’m not stupid. They had five alpha orangutans on their side, and only three people on ours. I count as one combat strength, Chen Miao is an omega with short arms and legs, therefore he is 0.1 combat power, and Zhou Jian can barely be counted as a 0.8. We only added up to 1.9. Am I crazy to fight them?”
Zhou Jian: “…Why am I just 0.8?”
Li Cheng gave him a pitying glance and remained silent.
Li Cheng had made it clear that the rest was really a “trial” for the coach.
Coach Yu sat silently and remarked, expressionless: “Not bad. Li Cheng, you’ve finally grown a brain.”
Li Cheng: “…”
Coach Yu: “It appears that you accomplished more than merely gaining muscles after your two months of training at the camp. You’ve learned to use your brain before your fists.”
Li Cheng: “…” Strange. Coach Yu was clearly complimenting him, so why did the words sound odd to him, eh?
Zhou Jian inquired: “So we don’t need to prepare a report?”
Coach Yu glanced at him inexplicably: “What will you report?”
Zhou Jian: “We clashed with athletes from another country, and also got into trouble with the organizing committee. Don’t we need to write a report?”
“I’ve already explained to the organizing committee.” Coach Yu said lightheartedly. “I told them that in our country, banana is pronounced ‘xiāng jiāo‘ and “xiāng jiāo” means “desire to make friends”, which indicates we wish for a friendship. Li Cheng threw bananas at them merely to befriend them. How can this be called racism? They simply didn’t comprehend what “xiāng jiāo” meant.”
Li Cheng couldn’t help but applaud Coach Yu.
When it came to the ability to lie with wide eyes, you really had to watch out for old ginger!
“Well, Li Cheng. I called you today because there is another important piece of news to tell you.” Coach Yu brought the conversation back on track.
Li Cheng promptly inquired whether the news was good or bad.
Coach Yu finally showed a slight smile: “For you, it is good news that will satisfy you.”
“What’s the good news?”
“The Australian athlete who provoked you in the cafeteria is also a freestyle swimmer who specializes in short distance freestyle. Like two peas in a pod, he has also signed up for the 200m freestyle and 4x100m mixed relay events at this meet.”
Li Cheng’s eyes widened, and the corners of his mouth twitched with delight.
Coach Yu truly understood him—beating the banana man with his results in the arena was unquestionably the best news in the world!!
The author has something to say:
This chapter is a ChengCheng special, and the next chapter is a XiaoXiao special~
PS: The two incidents of racism mentioned in this chapter have both appeared on the field. In the NBA, foreign athletes laughed at Chinese athletes for their small eyes; during a football match, spectators threw bananas at aboriginal athletes.
The spirit of sports tournaments ought to be one of equality. Racism is abhorrent.
Gah! Beat the apes up
I rushed here as soon as I saw the notification! They dare to insult Li Cheng and the others?! Can’t wait to see how those bastards are completely defeated!! Loved the “the older the ginger, the spicier it gets” lmao
Thanks for the chapter!!
Beat him up Li Cheng! Thank you so much for the chapter ❤
Xiao Yiheng’s collar and cuffs were usually immaculate. A quick glance at his appearance revealed that he was an expert at housework.
Hahahaha
Author be like: he has nothing to do with the scene, but let’s mention him c:
XD
Thanks for the chapter♡
I’m pretty sure it’s all because of Li Cheng 😆😆
We stan Coach Yu 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
Thanks for the chapter € ^ *^)/// ~~ ♡♡♡♡♡
Thanks for the chapter ♥️♥️
Oh wow. Cheng cheng we are rooting for you. We all know you will win against that racist!
Cheng Cheng we are rooting for you. Show him what you are made of
Thanks for the chapter
–>”When the women’s squad saw it, their eyes lit up and they formed a queue to touch his waist.”
that is unacceptable behaviour. no means no.
–>The girls exchanged sidelong glances before stating in unison, “Oh~~Since Zhou Jian is here, we won’t disturb~~”
that’s… not good. if people think they’re together or support Zhou Jian’s very obvious courting and he confesses publicly? Li Cheng will be in trouble for saying no and be called a lot of bad things like ‘leading him on’ or being an ‘typical cheap omega’.
(really hope i’m wrong tho.)
Aiyo beat them in the game Li Cheng xD
thanks for the chapter <3
Racism goes both ways. I hope the banana throwing doesn’t have a racist connotation and just had a you suck meaning
I think it does have another connotation? The author says ” The two incidents of racism mentioned in this chapter have both appeared on the field.”
I can’t be sure if li cheng meant it that way tho
Me who’s ready to beat the crap out of those racist:
{__/}
(⌐■-■)
/>🔪
Show me what you got b*tch
Kick their ass son!
Even if there’s a bit of humor intermingled I’m glad the author brought up the racism that exists in the sports world!
Just wanted to add that ‘throwing banana at black football players’ that the author is talking about is not just once but it happened so many times in european football (soccer) that i lost count. If you follow european soccer, this racism is frequent and no amount of complaints or bans helped. This is pure racism… the racist indicating that the black soccer players are apes. I liked that the author made a reverse banana joke here, returning the insult towards those white racists.
Coach, I want to make confession to you ~! Badass, Coach.
Thanks for the chapter <3
finally I can say it! the frikiNG CAUCASITY OF THESE WHITE PEOPLE
EATING THEIR BISCUITS AND SPITTING IN THEIR TEA
Thank you for the chap!
(I’m kidding. I love Australia please don’t kill me)
I’m sorry but I hate when people know that others are in a relationship and still try to find a way to include themselves. 🙃
Ten years ago, some of my friends who have lived in Australia actually encountered the same racism. My sister now lives in Australia, but she has yet to tell me that she’s experiencing it. Then again, her looks are ambiguous, because no one could guess correctly that she’s Asian. And I think Australia is now being more conscious about inclusivity.
Coach Yu is the best😆
Coach Yu absolutely slayed! She has Li cheng’s back ಠ◡ಠ