Hey, first of all, thanks for reading my lousy Machine Translation. To be honest, I’d really like it if you guys corrected the mistakes I made. But please speak nicely and politely. My heart is not strong enough to read your too-harsh comments. Have a nice day. 🙂
Chapter 2. Shā mǎ tè1
Watching his daughter eat two bowls of rice, Song Hai said happily: “It seems that my cooking skills have not declined over the years.”
Yan Xi put down her chopsticks and stood up to clear away the dishes. Song Hai hurriedly said: “Yan Yan, what are you washing dishes for? Don’t hurt your hands. Go upstairs and play by yourself.” He took the dishes from Yan Xi’s hand and said, As he walked towards the kitchen, he kept talking about how girls should take care of their hands.
Listening to Song Hai’s talk, Yan Xi followed Song Hai to the kitchen and talked about household matters with Song Hai. Song Hai talked about the company and his friends. Finally, he said, “Why don’t you go to the company to familiarize yourself with the business? From now on, these things will be yours, so you must be familiar with them.”
“Dad, you are still young,” Yan Xi smiled. “When you are 70 or 80 years old, you can consider me as your successor.”
Coaxed to smile by his daughter, Song Hai put the washed and wiped bowls into the cupboard. Looking at his daughter’s fair and delicate face, his heart suddenly became filled with excitement. His daughter was soft and frail, and as a father, he needed to earn more. Only by having a family fortune can your daughter have more things with her.
Song Hai, who couldn’t wait for his daughter to grow old, saw that Yan Xi really didn’t have the heart to become the princess of his own company. He could only express a little disappointment that his daughter could do whatever she wanted. He was a very open-minded father and would never point fingers.
The father and daughter have not gotten along well for many years, but the atmosphere is very pleasant. The next morning, Yan Xi didn’t wake up until nine o’clock. The father and daughter took their cards and went to major shopping malls to make special purchases.
In the afternoon, Song Hai insisted on taking Yan Xi to buy jewelry. The reason was that his daughter must not wrong herself in dressing up.
Song Hai, who was wearing a brand-name suit and a brand-name diamond watch in his hand, seemed to have the three characters “spendthrift and foolish” written on his face as soon as he entered the jewelry store and was warmly received by the shopping guide.
“Yan Yan, buy whatever you like, don’t save money for me.” Song Hai took a sip of the coffee brought by the shopping guide, put the coffee cup aside, pointed to a sparkling diamond necklace on the promotional page, and said, “This is beautiful, Yan Yan please try it.”
Yan Xi looked at the necklace. The only feature was… too flashy.
Who can wear this kind of necklace except for special occasions?
“Dad, I don’t like this,” Yan Xi pressed down Song Hai’s ready-to-move wallet and chose a ring with a simple and elegant design, “I want this.”
“If you like it, buy it.”
Yan Xi knew that her father wanted to make up for all the regrets of not being able to get along with each other all these years, so even though she had a lot of jewelry left by her mother, she still followed her father’s wishes and came here to pick out jewelry.
But this kind of style that looks too flashy at first glance does challenge her aesthetics.
“Ling Qianjin2 has really good taste. This is a new limited edition released by our company’s chief designer this month. There are only three pieces in the country.” The shopping guide praised Yan Xi’s beautiful fingers and how they matched the ring while asking his assistant to get the ring for Yan Xi to try on.
At first, the shopping assistant thought this was the sugar daddy and sugar baby they often saw in the wealthy circle. She didn’t expect them to be biological father and daughter. Probably because the two people’s bodies were too different, people subconsciously ruled out their blood relationship. However, when people looked closer, the corners of their eyes and brows were somewhat similar. Still, the father’s face was too fat, and the facial features were a little out of shape.
For Song Hai, praising Yan Xi was more effective than praising him, so he ordered an extra pair of earrings for Yan Xi. The shopping guide then turned around and praised Yan Xi as a little fairy with a dazzling aura.
When Yan Xi heard this, her face felt hot, and she turned to look to the side, hoping that the shopping guide would stop praising her.
“Second Young Master, this is the necklace you ordered. Is there anything you are not satisfied with?” The manager took out a brocade box from the safe and gently handed it to Yuan Yi with both hands.
Yuan Yi opened the box, took a look at it, and nodded slightly: “Not bad.”
The manager took a deep breath and handed various certificates to the assistant beside Yuan Yi, “We also have this month’s new jewelry here. If Second Young Master needs it, I will have someone bring it in for you to choose from.”
“No need,” Yuan Yi stood up, “My mother has always liked your company’s jewelry. If you have the latest designs, you can give the brochure to my mother and let her choose.”
“It is our honor that Mrs. Yuan likes our works. We will send someone to deliver them to Mrs. Yuan today.” The manager was ecstatic in his heart and stood up to escort Yuan Yi out of the guest room. When passing by the hall, he saw a fat middle-aged man holding two or three jewelry bags in his hands, and he was holding a beautiful little girl in his arms. This little girl looked low-brow and delicate, but it was obvious that the man around her valued her very much and persuaded her to choose a few more things.
The manager has long been accustomed to seeing all kinds of couples, old and young, beautiful and ugly. He has long been accustomed to this kind of thing. He stretched out his hand and made a gesture of invitation, “Second Young Master, please come this way.”
Yuan Yi, who was walking in front, paused slightly. He glanced at the man and woman not far away, turned around, and strode out.
The assistant quickly followed.
“Second Young Master, please walk slowly.” The manager bowed and turned around to see a fat man and a young woman walking towards the door.
“Dad, you are so easily fooled, how did you start the company?” Yan Xi looked at the bag in Song Hai’s hand, it was all money.
She has never had a hard time since she was a child. Even when she was a child, her family conditions were average, and her parents pampered her very much. Later, she went to Haicheng with her mother. Her mother opened a gallery, and the business was very good. She even gradually became famous in the painting world, so her mother’s economic conditions were also very good, and her father gave her a lot of money every month. She has never worried about money.
Just because she doesn’t worry about money doesn’t mean she likes to spend money randomly.
“The shopping guide is very discerning and the things she sells are beautiful. It doesn’t matter if you buy a few more.” Song Hai opened the car door with a smile and let Yan Xi sit in before he followed suit. “Tomorrow I have to go to the company for a meeting. Do you have any familiar friends here? Otherwise, I will arrange for an assistant to accompany you shopping.”
“No, I made an appointment with my friends to have dinner together tomorrow,” Yan Xi explained. I have two friends from college who came to work in the Imperial City after graduation. They heard that I was going back here, and we had already made an appointment to meet. Don’t worry; I won’t be bored.”
“That’s good,” Song Hai felt relieved, “There are also your former junior high school classmates. If you have a good relationship with them, you can also contact them.”
“That happened several years ago. How can I still have contact information?” She left the imperial capital at the age of fifteen. At that time, she had just been in her first year of high school for half a year. Now that nearly nine years have passed, even if she has a few good friends, the feelings have faded away after so many years.
She studied in Haicheng as a graduate student with a decent major. Now that she has finished her studies, she doesn’t know what to do for a while.
After returning home, Yan Xi closed the door, reached into her collar, pulled left and right, pulled the bra out of the neckline, threw it on the bed, sat cross-legged in the chair, and turned on the computer.
After logging into the chat software, the message prompts kept sounding. She put the earphones on her head and started typing.
She is an amateur artist. Sometimes, she draws cute cartoons and posts them on Weibo. However, maybe because many people are under great pressure in real life, her little cartoons, which are not very professional, are quite popular. Not only does she have nearly one million fans on Weibo, but she also signed a publishing contract with a publishing house a few days ago, and the editor urges her to submit manuscripts every day.
After posting a cute joke that she had drawn before on the Internet, Yan Xi ignored the editor’s various reminders on the chat software. She opened the game website, and people in the game called her brothers and sisters and ran into the wild to hunt down opponents.
Soon, the world was filled with curses.
“You are a shemale, I am a girl, pure and simple!” Yan Xi took apart a lollipop and stuffed it into her mouth, bought a tracking charm in the game mall, and continued to hunt down the person who scolded her.
After closing the game, Yan Xi remembered that she still needed to take off her makeup. She ran to the bathroom to wash her face, put on a facial mask, and started browsing Weibo.
It has been more than an hour since she posted the cute comic strip. There have been five to six hundred reposts on Weibo and two to three thousand comments. Most of them screamed that the cartoon was so cute, and there were also a few who criticized her for not being good enough. However, those people were sprayed back by her stupid fans.
After replying to several popular comments, Yan Xi dialed her friend Tao Ru’s phone on speakerphone.
“Dahe!”3 The phone was picked up soon, and Tao Ru’s loud voice came out, “You finally called me. I almost thought you were missing.”
“Who’s missing?” Yan Xi took off the mask on her face and patted her face gently, “We’ll go out to dinner tomorrow and you’ll treat me.”
“You have arrived in the imperial capital?” Tao Ru’s voice was filled with joy, “Okay, I will be on vacation tomorrow, so I will call Yang Min and the three of us will have a good get-together.”
The two chatted for a while, and Tao Ru hesitated, “Are you planning to work and develop in the Imperial Capital?”
“Well,” Yan Xi wrapped her cell phone in tissue paper and went to the bathroom to wash her face and hands. “My mother is gone. I go back to the Imperial Capital to work, and I can spend more time with my father.”
“That’s fine, we will have more opportunities to meet in the future,” Tao Ru didn’t want to mention Yan Xi’s sadness, so she changed the topic. The two chatted for a while before hanging up the phone.
Early the next morning, when Yan Xi woke up, Song Hai was no longer at home, and there was the breakfast he had prepared on the table.
After Yan Xi finished breakfast, she went upstairs to change her clothes and put on makeup before going out.
There was a red coupe parked in the garage, which Song Hai specially prepared for his daughter. Yan Xi opened the door and got in. The seat height was just right, and it was easy to drive.
This shows Song Hai’s care in preparing this car.
Although the three friends have not seen each other for more than a year, there is no awkwardness at all when they sit together, as if they have never been separated.
“Hey, look at this,” Yang Min put the phone in the middle.
Yan Xi stretched her neck and took a look. It was an article that reviewed the popular styles of teenagers in the past twenty years.
One of them has a weird look. The hair is dyed like a traffic light, and the long hair stands straight. The aesthetic is unforgettable after just one look.
“Ten years ago, some bad boys in our school loved this style,” Yan Xi pointed to the screen of his mobile phone. There used to be a bully in our school. He had green and red hair, and I found him climbing the wall.”
“What happened next?” Tao Ru asked with interest. Most students who dared to have such a hairstyle back then other students would not dare to offend them.
“There was nothing that happened after that,” Yan Xi held her chin in one hand, recalling the distant past. “Before I said anything, two teachers came over and scolded him not to bully me. Until I walked away, he was still beaten by two teachers. There are teachers around.”
Yang Min and Tao Ru were speechless when they looked at Yan Xi’s innocent and weak face.
“What did you do when you… ran to the wall?”
“Of course I’m skipping class.” Yan Xi replied confidently.
The footnote below can not happen without the reader. Thank You so much. 🙂
- Shā mǎ tè – Chinese subculture of young urban migrants, usually of low education, with exaggerated hairstyles, heavy makeup, flamboyant costumes, piercings, etc. (loanword from “smart”) ↩︎
- Ling Qianjin is a nickname. Ling here means the official title, while Qianjin is a word that is courteous when calling a daughter (other than one’s own). It’s like – Your Daughter’s vision is really good – but using the “Ling Qianjin” is more polite and honorable. ↩︎
- Dahe, which means mighty river, is one of many Yan Xi nicknames, but it still has the same correlation with her original name, Xi, which is a (small) stream. Both nicknames are water nature type categories. All of her alter or other nicknames are like a different version of small stream water. Her nickname is taken to suit her father’s name, Song Hai; Hai means sea or ocean. Yan Xi’s full name, Yan, means face or facial appearance, and Xi means ‘small’ stream. ↩︎
Thank you for the update.