CH 48

Murong Jihua asks, “what are you doing?”

He Jünle answers, “you’re awake? Then go sit there. Right now, we’re…”

Murong Jihua repeats himself, “what are you doing?”

He Jünle “…”

Murong Jihua slowly gets up by himself. His head is throbbing. There are multiple versions of objects in his vision. It takes him half a day to finally move his hand from He Jünle’s nose and eyes to the device in the young man’s hand.

He tries to pry it away, but fails.

He Jünle “…”

Murong Jihua looks like he’s lost patience almost immediately, ‘tch’ing and squirming his body towards the young man, determined to rob him of his device. He yells out,

“Surrender it to this shaoye!”

He Jünle silently sighs and lets his hand go.

And the drunk man knows no privacy with his brain clouded by ethanol. He opens He Jünle’s vv account without a second thought, and checks his chat history like some Internet police.

Meanwhile, He Jünle is sitting, crossing his arms, looking at him with what could be a smile.

Should he remind him out of courtesy, that he has the screen upside-down?

Meanwhile, CEO Murong, completely failing to realise his screen wasn’t upright, could of course not discern a single character when his vision is all doubling and tripling too, but he is at least able to conclude that the mess of vibrant colours on the side are portraits of the girls, so with a cold harrumph, he throws the device down onto the ground.

Chen Ergou, hearing the clank, stops his steps peddling the rickshaw to ask,

“What’s wrong, boss?”

“… Nothing, really, just keep driving,” He Jünle rubs his brows and gives up on reasoning with a drunk person, deciding to tolerate him this time and smacks him away. Then he leans down to pick up his device.

Realising what he wants to do, Murong Jihua harrumphs again and immediately stomps the device firmly under his foot.

He Jünle’s hand is now awkwardly hovering in the air.

“…”

Then he looks up with this gloomy, disapproving gaze.

Murong Jihua bites his lips and seems to fall deep into thought, then comes to some conclusion and takes the lacy rabbit ears on his head along with the crown of flowers down, and puts them onto He Jünle’s head.

He says, “I’ll give this to you.”

He seems dissatisfied still, and removes the thick gold chain from his neck next, hanging it onto He Jünle’s neck,

“I’ll give you this too.”

He Jünle “…”

“And this, this, this and this,”

Murong Jihua has basically stripped himself of everything he can, hanging them all onto He Jünle, saying,

“I’ll give everything to you.”

He Jünle doesn’t even know if he should laugh or twitch at this, asking, “what are you pulling this time?”

Murong Jihua, hearing that, suddenly and forcefully drags He Jünle by the gold chain on his neck, and the tips of their noses touch (TL: I was worried for a second the chain would’ve snapped our dear He Jünle’s head off, haha); he says,

“Delete all of the girls. I’ll sign a damned contract and give you whatever you want.

This shaoye can buy out all the ponds you want, so, can’t you damned well fish me out of your pond?” (TL: Juggling multiple relationships is referred to in Chinese net slang as ‘keeping a pond’ with ‘multiple fishes’)

He Jünle’s gaze twinkles a little; he can see himself in the eyes of the person right in front of him.

That silhouette looks cold, distant, uncaring.

He opens his mouth, but he doesn’t say anything;

He tries to back off a little, but his body wouldn’t move.

Taking advantage of this, Murong Jihua puts his lips next to the young man’s ears, whispering, murmuring,

“See, I like you so damn much, so, do you like me? At least, a little?”

“You’re drunk,” says He Jünle, whose breathing is no longer as regular now. Suddenly, the rickshaw runs over a piece of pebble and shakes a little. Poor Murong Jihua slips and falls.

He Jünle quickly pulls him back so he doesn’t tumble.

Murong Jihua “…”

“Never mind. You don’t have to like me back, really. It’s not like I’d die even if you don’t… Hmm, wait a minute…”

He Jünle can feel the skin on his head tingling from Murong Jihua’s stare – in some sense, Murong Jihua’s post-drunk behaviour is quite bad, too.

The young man listens when the man says with a gravelly voice,

“I remember now. If you really fell in love with me, it’ll kill the shaoye.”

He’s referring to the game, to the rules;

To this fascinating mirage of a life in his eyes.

Murong Jihua’s gaze drifts to some corner of his vision, and He Jünle, perplexed, follows, but naturally, he sees nothing.

・

“Never mind… You won’t understand anyway,” Murong Jihua says, steadying himself using He Jünle’s grip, then leans on him as his brain gives out entirely and he begins blabbering whatever.

Then he gets He Jünle’s device, opening the screen, and isn’t holding it upside-down, finally. He manages to find himself at the very end of the list of contacts, and so, unhappy, his features droop down as he pokes his way into settings.

“… What are you trying to do now?”

He Jünle observes this man that is acting stranger and stranger by the second with his chin resting on his arm.

——He’s not sure what he’s feeling.

At least, he doesn’t hate him, that much, probably.

Murong Jihua quickly changes his default name displayed on-screen as [Dogs Took All the Good Names], and gives himself a new personalised nickname that only He Jünle’s account can see,

[TripleballnのDemonblood Empress] (TL: The tripleballn part is a pun – it reads out in Chinese the same way as having the ‘Three highs’ – High blood pressure, high blood cholesterol and high blood sugar content)

He Jünle comes to take a peek.

He Jünle “…”

He Jünle asks, “Murong, are you plagiarising?”

(Note: He Jünle’s own net handle is [NobleballnのDemonblood Emperor]; please refer to Chapter 25 for more details) (TL: Incidentally, the word for ‘noble’ is written with the character for ‘lone’ in Chinese – i.e., Nobleballn can be interpreted as lone-ball. Murong Jihua is now three-balls… so yeah, that’s the pun the title was going with. I’m sorry I couldn’t translate it over easily and has to stuff this into the notes; anyway, that’s what they’re talking about in the dialogue a few lines down)

“Plagiarism? What plagiarism? Look, look more closely!”

He basically stuffs the screen into He Jünle’s eyes, saying,

“This is called ‘Couples’ Handle,’ got it? It’s 9102, do you have the Internet where you live yet?”

“Couples my arse, it’s just a few changed characters…”

“No, no no no, Emperor-Empress, Noble (TL: Lone)-Triple (TL: Three), got it? Or do you need me to repeat myself?”

“… Why would noble fit with triple?”

“Because you are ‘lone-ball,’ you know, so if I’m ‘three-ball,’ I can share one with you, and we both have a pair of testicles then.”

“Le-gege, did you know that all men have two testicles?”

“…”

“…”

Chen Ergou, trembling from the noises of the vehicle sex brawling going on inside the carriage, and not daring to look behind, can only shout,

“Boss, at least pay attention to the surroundings, you know, our rickshaw isn’t actually that sturdy, you might accidentally tumble out like this!”