Shiwen Lake – ch.1

Translator: churnie

“So that’s the end of this class, for the students who haven’t submitted their appreciation homework last week, please do it now.”

Following Tang Xiuwen’s words, the students in the classroom began to pack up their books and leave one after another, and a few people came over with flash drives to make up homework.

“Again, you just did it last night, didn’t you?” Tang Xiuwen ignored the others and only focused on one of them, “Student Ling Yang.”

Ling Yang, who was named, was embarrassed: “Teacher, you know it is enough, why bother to say it.”

“Teacher, this is mine.” Another classmate interrupted their conversation and handed over the document bag in his hand.

“Wow,” Ling Yang hurriedly took the opportunity to change the subject, “Class leader, you hand it in so late, is it not in line with your usual style?”

Tang Xiuwen was also a little surprised, but it wasn’t that the other party handed in late, but that everyone else handed in electronic manuscripts, but Wei Shi handed in paper manuscripts. When he took it, he squeezed it, and there were about seven or eight sheet thickness of the manuscripts.

“Because the school library didn’t have the book I wanted, it took me a while to find the information, so it was late.” Wei Shi explained.

Wei Shi is a well-known top student in the department, and he also delayed handing in homework, Ling Yang was likely delaying just want to have fun, while Wei Shi must be striving for perfection, so Tang Xiuwen didn’t say anything.

After the last student finished copying their homework, Tang Xiuwen packed up all the things and left to eat and met Teacher Liu of the faculty outside the staff cafeteria. Teacher Liu is a warm-hearted woman in her 40s who worked as a counselor in her freshman year, since Tang Xiuwen was young and alone, she usually took good care of him.

“Xiao Tang’s class is over.”

Tang Xiuwen nodded politely: “Liu Jie.”

(T/n: jie is older sister, not necessarily blood related)

“There will be a gathering of young teachers between our faculty and the Faculty of Foreign Languages ​​tonight, you must remember to attend.”

Tang Xiuwen didn’t plan to attend at all: “I have evening classes.”

“Well, that’s a pity.” Teacher Liu regretted, “You should find opportunities to get in touch with other colleagues more, don’t always be alone, you will get bored and break down.”

Tang Xiuwen handled it flawlessly: “Thank you for your concern, I will.”

After finishing the last evening class, Tang Xiuwen returned to his dormitory alone, while waiting for the laptop to turn on, Tang Xiuwen took Wei Shi’s homework to read.

To his surprise, he originally thought that what was in the file bag was a typed manuscript, but unexpectedly it was a nine-page handwritten manuscript, few people would hand in homework like this these days, let alone wrote that much. Nowadays, people type a lot, and there were not many people who could write well, Wei Shi’s handwriting was like flowing water, and the first impression could give people a good impression.

The content of this homework was appreciation of literary works, and students chose their own topics, Wei Shi chose a more controversial modern novel “Azure Buckle”. Coincidentally, Tang Xiuwen also liked this book very much, and he had quoted it several times in class, seeing that Wei Shi was commenting on this book, he began to read it carefully.

(T/n: “琉璃扣/Liuli Kuo” is a modern romance online novel written by Qi Sheng, i’m following the previous translation to use Azure Buckle).

After he finished flipping through the nine pages, a full 40 minutes had passed, and the login screen on the laptop had already been replaced with a screen saver. However, instead of going on to check on other people’s homework Tang Xiuwen picked up a red pen on the desk, and carefully wrote the comments in the blank space of Wei Shi’s handwork. His writing style was flexible and elegant, which was another style compared to Wei Shi’s, the arrangement of the two fonts was indescribably pleasing to the eye.

After finishing the last line, Tang Xiuwen stopped writing. Wei Shi coincided with him in some views, but there were also some slight differences. Instead of correcting it, Tang Xiuwen wrote down his ideas in a discussion tone, unlike a teacher preaching to their students, but like a pair of like-minded people communicating freely.

After completing the annotations, he read it again from beginning to end, and slightly revised a few of them, he had more ideas to express in his heart, but the space was limited, and many ideas could only be scratched. If other students could be as hardworking as Wei Shi, he didn’t mind having in-depth exchanges with them.

Tang Xiuwen put Wei Shi’s homework aside, and then opened the file folder where the students copied the homework, Ling Yang’s name was in a very conspicuous position, Tang Xiuwen, who couldn’t remember the names of a few students, clicked on his document first.

But Tang Xiuwen frowned lightly after opening it, what is this?

Just when he was at a loss, a sudden knock on the door interrupted his thinking. There were not many people who would come to his place to knock on the door, Tang Xiuwen stood up and opened the door full of doubts, only to see Ling Yang who was running panting, with one hand on the door frame, and sweat all over his forehead.

“Tea…Teacher…my…homework…”

“Let’s talk after you get rest.” Tang Xiuwen interrupted him.

Ling Yang took a few deep breaths, and finally calmed down: “Teacher, I took the wrong flash drive this afternoon, and my homework was swapped.”

In fact, Tang Xiuwen had guessed a few points at the moment he appeared: “I thought your homework was original book.”

Ling Yang was a little embarrassed: “You saw it all, let me change it, Xiuwen Ge?”

“Don’t act close.” Tang Xiuwen gave way, he had known Ling Yang a long time ago because of his younger brother, the other party was one of the few people who had been to his dormitory, and he was called Xiuwen Ge since then, “Come in.”

Ling Yang connected the newly brought flash drive to his laptop, and copied his homework into it again, his previous wrong document was still open, and there were pictures and text on it, he wrote more than a dozen pages, which was more serious than doing his homework.

“What is this?” Tang Xiuwen asked him.

“It’s a game strategy written for a magazine. Several of us researched it together, and I summed it up.”

“Gaming strategy?”

“《Pale Soul OL》, an online game, teacher, do you play games?”

“Only children playing games.”

“No way!” Ling Yang cried out strangely, “There are even uncles in their forties in our guild, look, this is it.” He pointed to a strong man on the screen to show Tang Xiuwen.

“It’s so ugly.” Tang Xiuwen commented.

“That’s because he’s ugly. Look at me, am I handsome enough?”

Tang Xiuwen looked carefully, the figure in the picture was wearing a light green robe and holding a long weapon, probably like a staff, with a golden light on the top.

“Oh, right.” Ling Yang pointed to the game character beside him, “This is *Lao Hu, this is a *Xiao Bai Long, you have seen them all, do you see that Xiao Bai Long is dressed flamboyantly?”

(T/n: the Lao and Xiao here are Chinese term of endearment for friends)

“Aren’t they in military school? Do they have time to play games?”

“Occasionally.” Ling Yang rolled his eyes, “Xiuwen *Ge, would you like to join us? I’ll take you?”

(T/n: Ge is older brother, not necessarily blood related)

“No need,” Tang Xiuwen refused expressionlessly, “You’d better concentrate on your study, and don’t put off handing in your homework until the last minute every time.”

“That’s because I was catching up on this strategy before, we have a contract with the magazine, we submit a column every month, and the deadline is tomorrow.”

Tang Xiuwen was not interested in this: “Have you copied your homework? You can’t be wrong this time.”

“No, no,  in the afternoon, I dragged it over without even looking at the file name, it won’t happen this time.”

Ling Yang pulled out the flash drive, got up and said goodbye: “I’m going back to the dormitory, if Xiuwen ge wants to play games, you must come to me! I’m in Daishan server, Hushuo District, and my name is Little Antelope.”

“Not interested, go away quickly.”

Tang Xiuwen chased people away mercilessly, Ling Yang knew him well and didn’t mind, so he ran away with a smile, leaving only Tang Xiuwen in the dormitory.

After closing Ling Yang’s document, Tang Xiuwen began to check other people’s homework again, some people wrote seriously, and some were obviously dealt with it, but either way, Tang Xiuwen no longer had the urge to discuss it. The neat square characters do not show any emotion from the typewriter, and Wei Shi is the only one who could make Tang Xiuwen felt close and wanted to discuss further.

Because Wei Shi aroused his interest, Tang Xiuwen spent a few days revisiting “Azure Buckle” again. Every time he read it, he deeply felt the depth of the author’s skill in characterization, which he definitely would never be able to do it. Was it true that, as Teacher Liu said, it was because he was sealed himself off and lacked of contact with others, which limited his grasp and imagination of the characters?

But he was unwilling and not good at communicating with others, except for his younger brother, he rarely chatted with anyone for more than five minutes.

Thinking of his younger brother, he dialed Tang Xiuwu’s number, the other party was not on guard, so the call was soon connected.

“Hello, Ge,” Tang Xiuwu’s forever energetic voice came from the speaker, “Class is over?”

“En, you’re not on duty?”

“Today is night duty.”

“Why is it night duty again?” Tang Xiuwen sounded a little displeased, “why do they always line you up during the night?”

“You’re thinking too much Ge,” Tang Xiuwu quickly explained, “Everyone’s line order are the same, you think it’s always me because you only pay attention to me.”

Tang Xiuwen was not appeased: “The guard team is still too hard, do you want to find a way to change it?”

“No, no, if I want to be transferred, I can only transfer to the cooking team. I don’t want to wash vegetables and raise pigs. Besides, it doesn’t matter to me, it’s good now. I like the guard team, and I can carry guns.”

Hearing what he said, Tang Xiuwen had no choice but to give up: “Then you have a good rest and don’t be too tired.”

“Don’t worry Ge.” Tang Xiuwu shifted the topic away from himself, “It’s weekend tomorrow, what are your plans?”

“Stay in the dormitory and read.”

Such an answer was what Tang Xiuwu expected: “Don’t be bored by yourself all day, it’s not good.”

“Are you teaching me in return?”

“I’m also doing it for your own good, I think Gege also need to make some friends, the newspapers say that you will become autistic if you like this for a long time.”

This was the second time Tang Xiuwen heard such words in just a few days, but it was still from his younger brother’s mouth, and the weight was much higher than Teacher Liu.

“I see, I’ll try my best.”

The two chatted for a while before hanging up, Tang Xiuwen just picked up the book and was about to continue reading when his brother’s words rang in his ears.

It seemed easy to make friends with a familiar person like Ling Yang, but it was not easy for him, after thinking about it a few times, he remembered the online game Ling Yang mentioned a few days ago.

He had long forgotten the name Ling Yang mentioned at that time, but luckily the strategy document Ling Yang mistakenly handed in hadn’t been deleted, Tang Xiuwen quickly extracted the keyword from it – “Pale Soul OL”, and Baidu went to the official website.

The user client of Pale Soul OL was not small, and the campus wifi was not so powerful, so that after the user client was downloaded, another twelve hours had passed. Tang Xiuwen, who knew nothing about online games, followed the official guidelines to register an account, applied for trial points, and finally entered the selection interface.

Since you are playing games to experience life, then you choose an image that is completely different from yourself. With this in mind, Tang Xiuwen created a female character, he hesitated when typing his name, Wei Shi’s homework happened to be at hand, and he subconsciously typed the keyboard —— Azure Buckle.

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This is how the story of Azure Buckle began… The story is taken from Daishan server before Ling Yang changed server. Far before the main novel story happened.

Tang Xiuwen just knew Ling Yang identity in the game but Ling Yang was clueless about his identity. I’m really curious about Little Buckle love story with Lion King. I’m so happy to find this novel. Hope someone put it on novelupdates because i want TANW fans to read it too.