Your Distance - Chapter 25

25 – 50 Centimetres

It was a Souverän Black-Blue, with black and dark blue vertical stripes across its body, a silver nib with a gold tip and gold embellishments.

The more Ting Shuang looked at the pen the more he felt like this pen was a transformation of Bai Changyi himself. At first glance, it seemed dark and mysterious, and look closely and you’d find that it was all coquetry.

The spirit of a fountain pen.(1)

The teacher’s assistant still hadn’t finished giving out the lecture notes when a German student jokingly said, “Professor’s giving out lecture notes? I didn’t look at the calendar before going out. Is it Christmas today?”

Laughter rang out beneath the podium, and several students joined in, yelling, “Merry Christmas!”

Ting Shuang looked up at Bai Changyi.

What, to improve everyone’s learning efficiency…?

The great Professor Bai had been a professor for so many years and had never once considered the learning efficiency of his students, and yet and all of a sudden he was doing such a good deed. Of course everyone would treat it like a holiday.

Bai Changyi’s gaze slid over Ting Shuang, and the two locked gazes for only a fraction of a second, but Ting Shuang felt as if in that time, they had flirted with each other.

Damned tacit understanding.

Ting Shuang’s face felt a little hot.

Bai Changyi looked at the students who shouted Merry Christmas and laughed, teasing, “Ladies and gentlemen, you can treat my lecture notes as a Christmas gift, but please don’t wait till Christmas to ‘open’ these gifts, or you’ll cry at the end of September.”

The laughter beneath turned into wailing–

Robotik’s exam was at the end of September.

Ting Shuang also pretended to wail along with everyone.

But when he looked at Bai Changyi, his eyes were smiling, seeming like he was teasing him. Those eyes seemed to say; See, it’s a popular opinion, how could you not know about how hard the exams are?

That was arrogance that came from being spoilt.

Bai Changyi’s lips curved up slightly, resting his hands on the table in the first row and looking down at Ting Shuang. A distance of half a metre between them, he was half inquiring and half teasing, “This gentleman, do you have any opinions you’d like to share regarding my exams?”

The sigh he was about to release suddenly got caught in his throat.

The classroom went silent for a moment, before everyone started laughing again after two seconds.

“I…” Ting Shuang never thought that Bai Changyi would do such a thing in class, and suddenly flushed red.

Fuck.

The old beast definitely did it intentionally.

Pranking him again…

He couldn’t back down.

Ting Shuang thought, if he backed down now, wouldn’t he forever be at Bai Changyi’s mercy in class?

He had to face it straight-on.

“I believe…” Ting Shuang met Bai Changyi’s gaze, and simply answered Bai Changyi’s joke as if it was a serious question. “My classmates, and I, all think that the Robotik exam is too difficult… According to how it’s been like.”

Bai Changyi nodded while listening. Then he scanned the students in the classroom and smiled, “Is that so?”

Beneath the podium, it was momentarily silent.

They wanted to take action.

But yielded to the professor’s abuse of authority.

Then continued wanting to take action.

“Yes!” Someone suddenly answered loudly.

It was the signal for revolution.

“Yes!”

“Yes!”

“It’s a nightmare!”

“Disaster!”

“Hell!”

…

It was an extremely popular opinion.

As this went on, it only intensified.

Bai Changyi kept feeling like he also heard words like “Tyrant” and “Hitler”.

The great Professor Bai was very much loved by students, how could he be associated with these two words…

Well, it should have been an auditory hallucination.

At such an age, his hearing must have degraded. Mm.

Bai Changyi let the students yell for a while before making a gesture for “silence”. Under the many young gazes, he said “I will consider your opinions–

“And lower the exam’s difficulty to a suitable level.”

As soon as they heard the word “lower”, the classroom fell into a short period of silence, no one daring to believe it. Then, loud applause broke out.

It almost ripped the ceiling off.

This grand occasion could compare to that of Germany’s 2014 World Cup win.

Bai Changyi let the students be elated for a minute. In this minute, everyone was drunk on happiness. They laughed, shouted, talked to the people around them, high-fived, posted on Facebook or Twitter to celebrate the success of this revolution, in which no blood was spilt and no sacrifices were made. No one paid attention to who the professor’s gaze landed on.

A minute later, Bai Changyi once again gestured for “silence” amongst the cheer that hadn’t stopped yet.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we now start our class.” He picked up the chalk and wrote the topic of today’s lecture on the blackboard. After writing it, he turned around gracefully and smiled, “Democracy has won this time, hasn’t it?”

* * *

Translator’s Notes:

(1) tbh I don’t know exactly what the author’s trying to say, but should be about how Bai Changyi’s the spirit of that fountain pen, or how the pen’s spirit had materialised and became Bai Changyi hahaha.

So, Editor-san says Bai Changyi is way too biased, whoops. But I like that Bai Changyi spoils Ting Shuang hAHAH-

Anyways hope this chapter finds you well! Ganbatte in whatever you’re doing!

~Dee