Chapter 44: Haiyue and Yao

Xia Cun thought of two things at this hot moment. One of them was that she discovered that Jiang Song suddenly possessed the virtues of a prince.

A new version of Prince's virtues.

She stretched out her hand that was tightly holding the bag strap, but instead of hugging Jiang Song, she pushed him away.

Jiang Song was pushed back to an arm's length away, then knelt back down, staring intently at her. His hands drooped on his knees, his back straight, and he looked a little uneasy. His hair was disheveled, and his expression was a little reserved. In short, he looked like a large dog being told to sit down by its owner.

The two stared at each other, silence spreading. Xia Zun pondered. Then, she thought of how to stop the silence from spreading. "Student Jiang Song, do you still want to know what the virtues of a prince are?"

He should want to know, because that night at her house, he kept questioning her and Xiao Lan.

Sure enough, Jiang Song nodded and asked her in a low voice, so she replied, "Like what I did just now, it is a prince's virtue."

Like just now?

"Okay... okay?" He repeated the confession a little shyly, and asked her if it was like this.

Xia Cun seemed to stiffen for a moment, but he still said expressionlessly, "That's it."

"Why?" Why is it a virtue to be like this?

"Because you suddenly became very sincere just now."

The first virtue of a prince: sincerity.

She'd said he'd "suddenly become very sincere," implying that he hadn't been sincere before. Jiang Song couldn't help but lower his head, his hands clenched lightly into fists. It wasn't that he was sulking, but rather that he felt guilty after his flaws were exposed. No one had ever said that about him, just as no one had ever said he had many flaws.

He hesitated for a moment, feeling guilty, but he still made up his mind to ask her, "Do you think I was insincere before? Why?"

"Because, you never made yourself clear before."

He would always pretend that his Chinese was not good and only speak Japanese to her. Although she could understand those simple words and situations, how could she understand those words and long sentences that were not used frequently?

At first she would ask him what he meant, but since she realized that he was a very dishonest person, she understood that he just didn't want her to understand, so she stopped asking him.

Hearing this, Jiang Song raised his eyes to look at her again. His Adam's apple rolled up and down. He finally took a deep breath and said like a mantra: "You mean this?" ? なんか、有ちゃんって清みたいだな。

Xia Cun blinked, and the shadow of the jellyfish was reflected in his eyes.

This is what he said to her when they were on the helicopter. Now he explained to her in Chinese, "This sentence means: I always feel that Xiacun classmate seems to be transparent, but also seems to be colorful, and seems to glow..." At this point, he turned his head to look at the jellyfish floating in the water curtain, and said, "まるでふわふわ漂うクラゲみたいだね. It's like a floating jellyfish."

ふわふわ. It sounds so cute too.

Jellyfish? So that's what he meant when he talked about jellyfish in the pool?

Jiang Song turned back to look at her and whispered, "Did you know that jellyfish actually have fossils?"

"have no idea."

"...I didn't mean for you to answer." Why did it feel like her Chinese was worse than his?

"But I didn't know that in the first place." Xia Cun said seriously, and when he was depressed, he asked, "Why do jellyfish also have fossils?"

“Because there will be some very lucky jellyfish.”

For a soft-bodied creature composed mostly of water to become a fossil, a perfect combination of conditions is required: it needs to be buried in fine sediments immediately after death, it needs oxygen-starved water, and the sediments need to harden quickly, leaving an impression and becoming a fossil.

Jellyfish fossils do not preserve the jellyfish's tissue, but rather an imprint, an umbrella-shaped imprint left on the seabed sediment after the jellyfish died. That's why Jiang Song said they were some very lucky jellyfish.

In Japanese, jellyfish are called "Kurage," which translates to "sea moon" in Chinese characters. Jellyfish are transparent and skeletonless, like the moon in the ocean, seemingly both real and illusory.

Jellyfish also have no nerve center, so they have no sense of direction and always float aimlessly. They appear to be with a group of jellyfish, but they always swim alone. They only appear to be together, but in fact they are alone.

But Jiang Song believes this is a kind of loneliness without pain. Similarly, he believes Xia Cun gives people a sense of lightness, dreaminess, and ethereality. Like a jellyfish, she needs no companions and is not afraid of loneliness. She is so interesting, like a phantom that cannot be caught.

He thought about all the knowledge about jellyfish in a confused manner and told it to Xia Cun in a disjointed manner. By the end, his words were so vague that they sounded like a dream.

He felt dizzy and his whole body was burning. He even suspected that all this was just an illusion caused by the heat, and he suddenly felt a little depressed.

I'm so sad that Xia Cun is still angry with him. I'm so angry, it's all Shinji Mizuno's fault.

His head was dizzy, and at this moment, his forehead suddenly felt cold, and he felt something cool covering his forehead.

He instinctively thrust his head forward, bumping into the cool touch, and then rubbed it like a cat, sighing, "気持ちいい (It feels so good)..."

As for Xia Cun, she almost thought her palm had touched a ball of fire. She suddenly understood why he had pressed his head against the glass when she came in, because he was really burned.

Could it be that his sudden frankness was because some avoidance cells had been burned to death?

She daydreamed without any scientific basis, then interrupted herself and said, "Student Jiang Song, you should go back to your room and rest."

Although she still wanted to know more about what he had not said clearly before, he seemed to be cooked now. Maybe if he continued to burn like this, he would become a real Baka.

"やだ (Don't)." He resisted, then came to his senses and realized that he was actually touching the girl's hand, so he asked her pleadingly, "もう片方の手に Um... Can you use another hand?"

“…”

The language system seemed to be damaged by the heat. Xia Cun had no choice but to put his other hand on his forehead.

He then asked her, "Your hands are so cold, why?"

"Because I'm on my period." And he turned the room temperature down really low.

“What is menstruation?”

How strange. Has no one ever mentioned menstruation to him?

Xia Cun didn't know how to say it in Japanese, so he took out his cell phone with his other hand and learned it on the spot.

Her AI teacher said in a gentle voice, "It's physiological." So she looked up and repeated it.

Jiang Song suddenly realized, "That must be very hard." He asked her, "Will a hug warm you up?"

“…”

Because of her indifference, Jiang Song lowered his head again and refused to touch her palm anymore, so Xia Cun's raised hand touched his hair.

That day, when he showed her his earrings, she noticed that his hair had grown a lot longer. Thinking of the sudden change of heart, she chose this moment to ask him, "Jiang Song, can you dye your hair white?"

"Nana?"

“Because it will be beautiful.”

"I think my hair is beautiful, too." He suddenly started to act cocky before responding to her request, "Okay, I'll let Mizuno-san..." He paused mid-sentence, his mind seemingly clearing up. After a pause, he asked her, "He actually asked you to come, right?"

"That's about right."

"...Then you also knew he would leave, right?"

Xia Cun responded again.

Another thing she realized when Jiang Song hugged her was that maybe Mr. Mizuno's plan would actually work.

Around spring, Shinji Mizuno formulated a plan: during his final six months as Jiang Song's assistant, he would devise a "growth trial program" for the boy who seemed to never grow up. He hoped he could make some changes this summer, at least... at least this way, the situation of the previous two years wouldn't happen again this year. He didn't intend to work for another year.

He regarded this trial plan as his final performance before the curtain call of his assistant career. He knew that this was the most flawed plan he had ever made, but he still wanted to give it a try.

At that moment, Xia Cun felt that some changes had taken place in Jiang Song, which might be the change that Mr. Mizuno wanted to see.

Jiang Song buried his head deeply, but Xia Cun stretched out his hands and lifted his cheeks like he did that night in this room.

She wanted to ask Jiang Song if he wanted Mr. Mizuno to stay, but he seemed to realize what she wanted to ask. He suddenly put on a pitiful look and said to the girl in a coquettish manner, "I feel so uncomfortable. I want to sleep."

Okay. Xia Cun knew that Jiang Song had only changed briefly, and now he was back to his dishonest self.

"Then go back to bed."

She stepped into his bedroom again under the boy's guidance. He seemed to no longer feel uncomfortable and took her around the ducks on the floor. They sat down on the sofa where they had watched the movie before. He pointed at the rubber duck on the coffee table and asked her, "Did you find anything?"

Two crooked rows, no rules.

"Did you mean 'I'm sorry,'"

“…”

His trick exposed, Jiang Song turned and buried his head in the sofa pillows. After all, this was a Chinese pun he'd been thinking about for a long time. Failure だ.

Jiang Song still didn't want to go back to bed to rest. He lay on the pillow for a while, then turned his head to look at the girl with his apple-colored cheeks. The girl leaned against the edge of the sofa, holding a little yellow duck in her hand, looking very focused.

After looking at it for a long time, he felt sleepy and slowly closed his eyes.

He remembered that jellyfish were quite mysterious. They appeared on Earth during the Cambrian explosion of life, and after more than 500 million years of evolution, they still retained their form from 500 million years ago, with almost no changes.

This must be because they were almost perfect from the moment they appeared, so they did not need to evolve further.

So, even after a long time, Xiacun-san will not change.

It occurred to him that he should ask her one more question.

"So am I your boyfriend now?"

There was no response. Perhaps she didn't speak, or perhaps he had already fallen asleep there and didn't ask.

Xia Cun poked his shoulder and heard him grunt.

If she were a prince, she should carry Jiang Song in her arms like a princess and take him back to bed, but she only had the virtues of a prince but not his stamina, so she had no choice but to put the little duck in her hand on his head and get up and leave.

Event 13: I will avenge Pony.

Event 14: I will go talk to Ms. Tanaka.

That is to say——

remote.

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Author's note: Welcome, Ms. Haruka Tanaka! I've finally reached this point. A long time ago, someone in the comments section guessed Haruka's identity, but she seems to have missed it early on [poor thing] failed!

But why is the third volume so long?! I'm writing it every day, so why haven't I finished it yet? [Breaking down in tears] わたし is so broken (T_T)