Ch18 - Parallel World.

Editor: Waterlily- Overlord Shay

In the glow of the candlelight in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, Xue Yingshuang said: “When I was a kid, a guest brought sashimi to the house and asked me to make the dipping sauce. I had no idea what wasabi was, so I ran to ask him. He told me that wasabi is green, has a strange taste, is very pungent, and looks like mud. Later, I ground the coriander into a mud paste, and he ate it too. Now that I think about it, he probably didn’t know what wasabi was either.” 

Xing Yun imagined Xue Yingshuang’s childhood appearance in his mind, he must have been a quirky child.

He waited for Xue Yingshuang to continue, but Xue Yingshuang just put the soy sauce plate aside, stood up and said, “I’ll pour you some more soy sauce and you can make do with it.”

 

 

Xue Yingshuang came back after refilling the soy sauce, but didn’t say anything, he just ate.

His eyes were clear, and he ate very seriously. It’s not like he opened up at all, and was waiting for someone to ask him while he ate. It is clear that the explanation is over, and he doesn’t want to say anymore. 

But Xing Yun wanted to hear it. He wanted to know what Xue Yingshuang looked like when he was a child and why he dropped out of school.

 

Xing Yun: “You never told me that you used to study in A high school.”

Xue Yingshuang: “I didn’t graduate anyway.”

Xing Yun: “That’s a very good school. Why did you later drop out after being admitted?”

 

Xue Yingshuang: “There is nothing to say, I couldn’t continue to study, so I left.”

 

Xing Yun: “Tell me.”

 

Xue Yingshuang looked at the salmon and said seriously: “It’s boring, forget it.” 

Many people have the desire to talk about their own pain, just like Xing Yun when he let Xue Yingshuang examine his injured foot, so that Xue Yingshuang knows that he has been wronged.

But Xue Yingshuang is different. He has no interest in complaining, and he doesn’t like to show his misery.

But Xing Yun very much wanted to know, and Xing Yun has also fully mastered Xue Yingshuang’s habits.

Xing Yun looked at Xue Yingshuang, and tapped the floor with his slender fingers: “Triple overtime pay.” 

Xue Yingshuang put down his chopsticks for a second: “This will start from my birth…”

It was a story as ordinary as it could be.

Both parents are gangsters and get married, the young couple is idle, and when with the disreputable, they are tempted, and they learn to gamble.

Gambling is the kind of thing where you win small amounts of money and lose large amounts. The two tasted the sweetness a few times, thinking that their lives had turned around, but it hadn’t turned around yet. They first fell into Mahjong, Texas hold’em, horse racing, gambling… They gambled away all they could, and in the end they didn’t have a dime, but much debt. 

“So why do I have this name? It’s not because there’s any expectation of me, it’s just to win a good bet,” Xue Yingshuang said, “Because all they want is to win money, not just one person wins, but both of them have to win.”

However, although the couple are not mature (when it comes to money), Xue Yingshuang, who was then born, was very capable and could make money at a young age.

 

When Xing Yun heard that there were some bad associates around, he asked, “So the guest you just mentioned, what kind of guest is it?”

“The gamblers who come to the house, they love to gather in our house.” After Xue Yingshuang finished speaking, seeing Xing Yun’s expression was thoughtful, he suddenly understood what he was thinking, and said, “Don’t worry, my parents didn’t let me go out to pick up customers to make money. They still had some conscience.” 

Xing Yun breathed a sigh of relief, but Xue Yingshuang immediately added: “But I still became the first person in my family to sell their body, and I was even more worthless than my parents.”

Xing Yun stopped and looked deeply at Xue Yingshuang, but Xue Yingshuang didn’t care. Xing Yun changed the subject: “So you learned to cook by yourself?”

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Xing Yun still remembers the last time he asked Xue Yingshuang why he was so good at cooking. Xue Yingshuang just smiled and didn’t answer. Now he knows that there is such a story behind it. 

Xing Yun asked, “How old were you at that time?”

Xue Yingshuang: “8 years old.”

Xue Yingshuang was eight years old that year, with very short legs, he could barely touch the stove when he stepped on a small stool, and he had to stand on tiptoe to see what was in the pot.

He couldn’t lift the pot, or even handle the spatula, so he loved to cook noodles, at least he didn’t have to hold the spatula all the time to cook noodles. 

“At the beginning, I made a bento, and everyone ate it all the same.” Xue Yingshuang said, “Later, they found out that I made it and started ordering. Telling me what dishes they wanted to eat so I could cook them.”

“How do you know how to cook?”

“If you were beaten several times, you’ll know how to cook.”

If he couldn’t do it well, he would be beaten. After a few times, Xue Yingshuang could cook a meal with a satisfactory taste. At the age of nine, he could even cook a table of New Year’s Eve Dinner by himself. 

Xing Yun couldn’t help frowning when he heard it: “They beat you?”

Xue Yingshuang’s eyes were sly: “I spat in the meal when they hit me and I’m not stupid either. After I grew up a little, I could run faster than everyone else, so they couldn’t beat me anymore.”

“Afterwards, I stopped cooking, because they always wanted to put it on credit, so I didn’t want to cook for them anymore.” Xue Yingshuang said this and looked at Xing Yun with a smile in his eyes, “So you are now the only customer of Shuangshuang Restaurant after it reopened.”

“The boss cooks delicious food.” Xing Yun said. 

“Of course.” Xue Yingshuang said.

“What happened later?”

 

“Then I got into high school, but the debt they owed kept getting bigger every day, and I was the only person in our family who could make money, so I dropped out of school to pay off the debt.”

Just now, Xue Yingshuang talked about cooking in detail and vividly, but when it came to this, he only talked about it in a few words. 

Xing Yun was displeased: “The debts owed by your parents do not need to be paid by you as far as the law is concerned.”

Xue Yingshuang looked out the window to the pitch-black outside and said with a calm expression: “I know. But some was borrowed from relatives and friends, some was borrowed from local ruffians and hoodlums, and the money was not repaid, and some… was borrowed in my name.”

“You could’ve at least finished high school.”

“Those people blocked me at the entrance of the school, called my whole class, and made trouble in our class,” Xue Yingshuang’s voice unconsciously raised, “I was the class monitor, how could I affect my classmates’ studies?” 

Xue Yingshuang looked at the heavy rain outside the window, his breath unsteady.

But after a while, he turned his head to look at Xing Yun, and his tone had returned to its usual calm, “I’m not originally very smart. I narrowly entered the school, my grades were not very good, and it was not a big loss to drop out of school. What’s more, I started the self-examination. Isn’t this starting again?”

Xue Yingshuang was obviously smiling, but Xing Yun could hear the pain.

Xing Yun couldn’t imagine how much effort it took for Xue Yingshuang to be admitted to a school like A high school under those circumstances. He was the class monitor, not to mention that the teacher trusts him, and the classmates must have also liked him. 

But in the end, the ending was to drop out of school.

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“Your parents didn’t say anything?” Xing Yun asked at last.

“They didn’t say anything.” Xue Yingshuang said, “Because when I got home, I found that they had hanged themselves.”

Silent, the candle quietly shed wax tears. 

Xue Yingshuang looked at the clock, one hour was up, and overtime was paid.

He picked up his chopsticks again and said to Xing Yun: “So it’s a boring story, it’s not pleasant to listen to. Come and eat, do you want soup?”

Xing Yun sat there quietly, still digesting what Xue Yingshuang said.

Seeing that he was unresponsive, Xue Yingshuang got up and went to cook the soup by himself. He doesn’t know when the power outage will end. There is a rare sense of silence during the power outage. Xue Yingshuang doesn’t find it annoying. He only feels that the workers who have to rush to repair in the heavy rain are very hardworking. 

After the soup was cooked, Xue Yingshuang brought it back to the floor-to-ceiling window.

After nightfall, the temperature was even lower, and Xing Yun reached out his hand to take Xue Yingshuang into his arms. Xue Yingshuang couldn’t resist the heat from a heater, so the two cuddled up and drank soup together.

 

Xue Yingshuang: “Thank you for speaking up for me in front of Teacher Fang today.”

Xing Yun was satisfied when he heard this, and said in his heart I’m afraid this little stand-in would love me even more. 

Xing Yun said, “If you were a few years older, maybe the two of us would have met at school.”

Xue Yingshuang: “If that’s the case, I would be the first to bring you and Mr. Bai together and be your CP fan.”

Xing Yun chuckled softly, but did not answer, he just said: “If we met, I could have taken you to play. Speaking of which, I was going to take you out yesterday.”

“To where?” 

“To a hot spring.” Xing Yun gritted his teeth, “But you ran away.”

Xue Yingshuang now knows why Xing Yun is so mad. Xing Yun hadn’t said it before, and must have wanted to surprise him, but he didn’t expect to find out he wasn’t there until it was too late.

As soon as he imagined Xing Yun’s dismayed and frantic appearance, Xue Yingshuang couldn’t help but want to laugh, and then he really laughed.

“Still laughing? Laugh again and I’ll deduct your money.” 

“Hahaha, I won’t laugh anymore, hahaha.”

Xing Yun was so furious that he grabbed Xue Yingshuang and started tickling him: “I’ll deduct your money! Deduct your money!”

Xue Yingshuang held back his laughter, but couldn’t resist Xing Yun’s attack, and finally laughed out a series of pig squeals.

After a while, the two had had enough. 

Xing Yun hugged Xue Yingshuang as the two watched the rain outside the windows.

Amidst the tranquility, Xing Yun suddenly said: “Actually, I was not very good in high school, and I may not have been able to take you to play with me.”

Xue Yingshuang listened quietly.

“In the most difficult times, I sometimes imagined that there is actually a parallel world.” Xue Yingshuang moved slightly in Xing Yun’s arms, and Xing Yun continued, “I imagined myself in that parallel world to be very happy, different from the me in this world. As long as I think about it like this, I feel much better.” 

After Xing Yun finished speaking, he lowered his head and saw Xue Yingshuang raised his head with wide eyes, looking at him in disbelief: “I think so too!”

Xue Yingshuang imagined the existence of another self in a parallel world more than once.

 

In that parallel world, his family situation is not good, but his parents love and support him.

He doesn’t have to wear work clothes and work in a factory every day. He wears a school uniform and carries a backpack to school every day to study with his classmates. 

He doesn’t have to work in three shifts. In that world, he comes home from school every day and talks to his parents about what happened in school that day.……

Xue Yingshuang stretched out his hand and gestured towards the darkness: “I would imagine that there is a line from my world that goes all the way to the other end of the universe, and at the end is me in a parallel world.”

Xing Yun smiled: “I think so, too.”

Xue Yingshuang: “I don’t have to be so good in that world.” 

Xing Yun: “As long as he is better than me in this world, it’s enough.”

Xue Yingshuang: “Just thinking about it is very satisfying.”

Xing Yun: “I feel that there is another self who is happy for me.”

Xue Yingshuang: “That’s right.” 

It never occurred to them that there were others who shared the same fantasy as themselves.

They are like two lonely souls in the endless night, walking alone in the silent night for thousands of years.

Until this day, they met.

They couldn’t believe that they were not the only ones in the universe that never saw the light of day. 

It turned out that in the darkness, they were never alone.

The two maintained the posture of hugging and looking at each other. At that moment, as long as Xing Yun lowered his head, or Xue Yingshuang raised his head, the two of them could touch each other’s lips.

Xing Yun warned Xue Yingshuang that kissing is something that two people in love can do, and Xue Yingshuang is not allowed to overstep the rules, let alone be delusional. Xue Yingshuang himself was not interested in this, so even when they were most intimate, the two had never kissed.

But at this moment, the two men were moved by the same coincidence. 

Just a little bit more, it’s fine if the other takes the initiative first.

The candle went out at some unknown time, and in the dark, someone seemed to have moved.

 

All of a sudden, the room was bright ー electricity came back.

The entire kitchen lit up, and the floor-to-ceiling windows instantly reflected the picture of the two embracing each other, and the heavy rain outside could no longer be seen. 

The two people almost kissed, and when the light came on, they immediately separated.

Xue Yingshuang stood up: “Do you want anything else to eat?”

Xing Yun also stood up: “Noodle soup.”

The world resumed its operation, the two souls met, staggered, and then continued to walk on their own path. 

 

Editor’s note: My emotions were not ready. I have three words, money, sad, and NO (shouted in all caps).

 

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