Chapter 023 (1/2)
The Complete Guide to the Use and Care of a Personal Assistant
Translator: Jury
Editor: NomNom
First Published on Chaleuria
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Chapter Twenty-three
Every afternoon, Su Yuyang would go to a nearby gym to work out and Ling Miao would stay at home to write, but today, Ling Miao was doing laundry.
During Ling Miao’s four years in college and the one year since then, he hadn’t even washed his socks, to say nothing of washing clothes. What flummoxed Ling Miao the most was that Su Yuyang had a washing machine at home. So why did he need Ling Miao to wash his clothes by hand?
“Tcheh, what’s the difference between washing by hand and using a washing machine?” Ling Miao grumbled to himself as he stuffed clothes indiscriminately into the machine, not bothering to sort them by color. “Mm-hmm. I’ll use the machine, it’s not like he can do anything to me!”
Humming a tune, Ling Miao happily pressed the start button and began to clean Su Yuyang’s room.
Su Yuyang walked through the door and glanced around the living room; everywhere he looked, it was cleaner than before. He nodded to himself and was about to call Ling Miao to eat ice cream when he slipped on the floor, almost falling. The bag in his hand wasn’t as lucky.
Ignoring the ice cream and popsicles on the floor, Su Yuyang turned around and looked at the culprit of his near fall—a puddle of water.
Su Yuyang hesitated to move. Beneath the sunlight that shone into the room Su Yuyang could see a lot of water shining on the floor, and he promptly took back his earlier thoughts—the ice cream would be wasted on Ling Miao!
Su Yuyang then thought: Did Ling Miao intentionally leave all this water on the floor to make me fall?
Thinking this, Su Yuyang called: “Ling Miao, get over here!”
Ling Miao answered with an “Mm!” and nothing more. The implications of the perfunctory reply were obvious, and from Ling Miao’s tone, Su Yuyang could tell that Ling Miao was panicking.
Ling Miao didn’t show up for a long time, and Su Yuyang’s sense that Ling Miao was intentionally making things difficult for him intensified. Ling Miao’s voice seemed to have come from the balcony. Without thinking too much more, Su Yuyang walked towards the balcony, but he slipped in another puddle of water. This time, he wasn’t so lucky.
Thunk—Ling Miao heard a loud noise from the living room and asked loudly, “Su-ge, what happened?”
“Hss—uh—” Su Yuyang sat on the ground rubbing his knee and grit out: “Ling Miao, you decided you couldn’t let me end the day without falling on my ass, did you?”
“What?” Ling Miao ran over holding an article of clothing. Seeing Su Yuyang on the floor, he quickly went to help Su Yuyang up.
“Su-ge, are you okay?”
“Exactly how much water did you leave on the floor?” Su Yuyang pointed at the shiny parts of the floor. “Those are a lot of traps you’ve set. I think it’d be hard for me not to fall.”
At this point Ling Miao didn’t even need to hear the insinuation in Su Yuyang’s words to know that he’d gotten himself into a lot of trouble. If this were any other day, Ling Miao would have loudly reproached Su Yuyang, but today he didn’t have a leg to stand on so he just said miserably: “I was just mopping the floor, but used a bit too much water, so … so it’s like this now.”
“Mopping the floor? Ling Miao, you don’t need this much water to mop the floor! Don’t tell me you’ve never done chores before.” Su Yuyang suddenly wanted to find a block of tofu to hit his head with.¹ He just fundamentally could not understand Ling Miao.
“I only know how to cook,” Ling Miao said awkwardly.
You only know how to cook? Su Yuyang began to worry for his clothes. Washing clothes didn’t take a lot of skill, but there were still things one had to pay attention to. Just then, Su Yuyang turned his head and saw an item of clothing tossed over the back of the sofa. If he was remembering correctly, he definitely did not own any tie-dyed clothing.
The instant Su Yuyang’s gaze landed on the shirt, Ling Miao fled to a corner of a room and squatted down, doing his best to curl into as small a ball as possible, as if that would keep Su Yuyang from seeing him.
Su Yuyang looked the shirt up and down, inside and out, over and over, and came to the conclusion that this shirt was indeed his. But … the shirt was supposed to be white, wasn’t it?
“Ling Miao, oh, Ling Miao. Don’t you know dark clothes and light clothes needed to be washed separately?” The words were squeezed out one by one through Su Yuyang’s teeth, every one landing like another stone, heavy in Ling Miao’s heart. Ling Miao tried even harder to curl up into a smaller ball, and he wanted fiercely to find a gap in the ground where he could hide for a while.
“That… I… I always washed my clothes like this and never had the color run. Su-ge, clearly it’s your clothes that are bad quality, the dye even comes out… if the color didn’t run, this wouldn’t have happened!” Ling Miao sounded indignant, and Su Yuyang felt a throbbing at his temples, feeling like they would explode at any moment.
“I told you. You’re healthy but your brain is simple. Looking at you … You’re a prime example of ‘simple brain means simple limbs, too.’” Su Yuyang looked at his shirt and sighed.
“Hey, Su Yuyang.” Ling Miao suddenly raised his head, and his eyes were fierce like a war general about to go to battle. He walked up to Su Yuyang and raised his head and shouted, “Yeah, my brain is simple and my limbs are simple. What’re you going to do about it? I didn’t know that dark clothes have to be washed separately from light clothes. What’s it to you? Every day I wash your clothes and cook your meals and clean your room, and keep you fed and clothed and comfortable. If you’re not grateful, that’s fine, but you have so many demands?! Do you really think I’m a clay statue that you can poke and pinch into the shape you want?!
If you think I’m not doing it right, then do it yourself!”
Every word that came from Ling Miao’s mouth was accompanied by a gob of spit that landed on Su Yuyang’s face. Su Yuyang’s complexion first turned green, then gray, and wisps of black smoke seemed to rise from his eyebrows.
Ling Miao maintained a haughty manner, but in his heart he felt the galloping of ten thousand fawns. He couldn’t tell what tidal waves were surging beneath Su Yuyang’s calm exterior, and, even more, he couldn’t tell what Su Yuyang intended to do to him.
“You’re in the wrong, yet you’re still so indignant. Ling Miao, you’re the first person I’ve met who’s like this.” Su Yuyang didn’t hold back his barbed words.