Mistaken Canary Chapter 76
TL Note: Well, I only JUST realised this chapter that the Chinese name for Rolls-Royce (劳斯莱斯) is where Tei Cher and Lae Leon's name came from..... no wonder they sounded so related... Yes, I feel very very dumb (╥ ω ╥)
While we can acknowledge the author has an incredible talent with play on words, I decided to keep their translated name as is since I believe it's more important for you to associate their names with their backstory because that's what distinguishes them:
Tei Cher (Láo Sī; 劳斯) - is a homophone to teacher (老师 Lǎo shī) because he was previously a teacher.
Lae Leon (Lái Sī; 莱斯) - has 'lion' (狮子 Shī zǐ) as a nickname.
Their original names are so similar that it'll be too confusing if we used pinyin (I for one had some trouble while translating). Moreover, 劳斯莱斯 is just a phonetic translation of Rolls Royce. If written individually, each character doesn't really have any association with the brand. So yeah, we kept it as Tei Cher and Lae Leon. Thanks for understanding and for reading my spiel. (ง ͠ಥ_ಥ)ง
Edited by bob
Chapter 76
04. Regarding Tei Cher and Lae Leon
As spring turned to summer, the company was thriving more than ever. Ying Tongchen had grown confident and capable in his role, and spent each day discussing business matters with Zhuo Shu.
From time to time, he’d phone Lu Zongcai as a gesture of concern. Their conversations always began with casual updates on life, but inevitably circled back to work.
But today, Lu Zongcai brought up something entirely different.
“My mother-in-law had surgery a little over two weeks ago,” she said. “She’s been staying at a rehab facility since then. When I went to visit her a couple days ago, I overheard her and the other patients talking about this rather odd man in the ward. He barely speaks, always keeps to himself, but he’s actually quite kind to the other patients—helps them out a lot, though he avoids any real interaction. Most of the time, he just sits in his room folding paper cranes.”
Ying Tongchen smiled, thinking she was just making small talk. But then she continued, “I didn’t think much of it at first, but someone at the hospital mentioned that he’s been living there for thirty years. In the early days, he still had family visiting, but he drove them all away. He has a strange temper. And now… there’s no one left who visits him. I felt bad, so I asked his name. The nurse said his name is Lae Leon. And that made me think, weren’t you looking for someone by that name? He’s also the right age, around forty-seven or forty-eight years old?”
Ying Tongchen froze in shock. His voice trembled slightly. “Are you sure? Did you say… Lae Leon?”
"That's right," she said. "I checked the name tag—it really is Lae Leon."
"Which rehab facility is it?"
…
Once Ying Tongchen got the address, a wave of emotion surged through him. They had never met, yet his heart was pounding. He wanted to tell the old man right away, but hesitated. What if it was the wrong person? What if it only led to more disappointment?
So he told Zhuo Shu about it. Zhuo Shu said, “Why don’t we go confirm it first? If it really is him, then we can tell your teacher. But I have a feeling… your teacher might want to go in person.”
"I was thinking the same."
“Let Senior Sister send over a photo first. You go talk to teacher, feel things out, and perhaps compare with a previous photo of him. If the resemblance is strong, then tell him.”
“Good idea.” Ying Tongchen was so excited he could barely think straight, flustered and scattered, the thought hadn’t even occurred to him.
He immediately asked Lu Zongcai to take a photo. It wasn’t until that evening that she sent one over. It had been cropped from a group photo taken during a Christmas event at the rehab center. The man sat in the front row, his expression icy and stiff, clearly reluctant to have participated in the photo at all.
She said the old man never liked having his photo taken, almost as if he couldn’t bear to face the fact that he was slowly growing old.
That evening, Ying Tongchen went over to his old man’s place for dinner. Midway through the meal, he casually brought up the idea of looking at some photos from the teacher’s younger days, trying to sound as offhand as possible.
Tei Cher was helpless, but didn’t object. He opened an old box that had been tucked away for years. Inside were all kinds of things, and next to a battered metal tin was a small stack of photographs.
On top was a black-and-white photo of two teenage boys leaning over a wooden desk, doing homework. They hadn’t noticed the camera at all, just grinning at each other like fools.
Ying Tongchen quickly snatched it up and studied it carefully. It was easy to identify—under the corner of Lae Leon’s eye was a distinct beauty mark, a tear-shaped mole.
“Give it back,” Tei Cher snapped, snatching the photo out of his hands.
Ying Tongchen looked up, eyes slightly misted, and curved his lips into a soft smile. “Teacher, I think… we’ve found your lover.”
Tei Cher froze. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. His chest rose and fell sharply before he finally managed a hoarse whisper, “Don’t try to pull my leg like that…”
Ying Tongchen handed him the phone.
Tei Cher slowly lowered his head, staring at the photo for a long while. His hands trembled uncontrollably.
…
On the flight to England, Ying Tongchen and Zhuo Shu had dozed off for a bit. When they woke, they saw Tei Cher still gazing out the window, lost in thought—the same posture he had held for over three hours.
Ying Tongchen recalled how, just the night before, teacher had kicked him out of the room. Not long after, muffled sobs had begun to echo from within, raw and suppressed.
His heart ached at the memory.
Worried that he might be overthinking things, Ying Tongchen tried to distract him.
“Teacher, I’ve always been curious, what happened between you two? Could you tell us the story?”
Tei Cher didn’t respond for a long while. Then he slowly turned to look at him, then at Zhuo Shu beside him and their intertwined fingers. A passing flight attendant noticed but showed no reaction, clearly used to scenes like this.
“What a wonderful era this is,” Tei Cher gave a small smile. “Shame we weren’t part of it.”
Tei Cher was only six when he first met Lae Leon.
Back then, his whole family lived in a crowded communal building, where life bustled with noise and warmth. He and the neighborhood kids practically grew up running around naked together.
The first time he saw Lae Leon, he was climbing an ancient tree with four other boys from the building. A large truck had stopped beneath the tree, and out stepped two well-dressed adults.
The man wore a crisp Mao suit*; the woman had on a long embroidered cheongsam, her hair done up in the latest fashionable curls.
(TLN: A male Chinese tunic suit, also known as the ‘Zhongshan suit’ (中山装). The name "Mao suit" comes from Chinese Communist Mao Zedong's fondness for the style.)
The truck was packed full of furniture; most of it strange, new things the neighborhood kids had never seen before.
Tei Cher had overheard his parents saying that a new family was moving into the big unit downstairs, said to work for the government. They had even warned him to behave from now on, and especially not to climb the tree in front of their new neighbor’s door.
"Or you'll get caught and thrown in jail," they had said.
Tei Cher had been terrified. He climbed a little higher into the tree, while the other kids giggled and snickered below.
The woman standing by the truck looked up at them and smiled gently.
“It’s dangerous up there, little ones. Come on down.”
Tei Cher didn’t want to spend the rest of his life eating jail food, so he stayed put, clinging tightly to the tree.
But then he caught sight of the woman handing out candies to the kids who had already climbed down. His mouth began to water.
In that moment, the thought of bland, miserable jail meals vanished from his mind. Without a second thought, Tei Cher scrambled down from the tree.
Because he was in such a hurry to get the candy, he jumped down when he was still about a meter from the ground and didn’t see that someone was standing right below him. He landed squarely on the person, knocking them to the ground.
And then came a loud wail as a little boy had burst into tears.
Tei Cher realized he was sitting right on top of the boy. He quickly turned around for a better look—the kid was about his age, with fair skin and delicate features, dressed in a white shirt and black suspender pants.
He’d ruled the street like a little tyrant for six years, but he had never seen anyone so good-looking, so well-dressed.
Then he glanced down at himself and his friends, all of them wearing patched-up, hand-me-down clothes. That boy, in his spotless getup, didn’t look like a proper guy at all.
A real man wasn’t afraid of mud. A real man was king of the trees.
So Tei Cher turned around, still straddling the boy, and rubbed his dirty hands all over the little boy’s clean, delicate face. Only when his cheeks were smudged with dirt did he feel satisfied. He grinned and said cheerfully, “Come on, man up. Big boys don’t cry.”
“But it really hurts…” The boy's eyes brimmed with tears. Embarrassed, he tried his best to hold them back, but ended up letting out a hiccupping sob instead, which sent the group of boys around them into fits of laughter.
The woman hurried over, pulled Tei Cher off, and scooped the little boy into her arms. She gently brushed the dust off his clothes and soothed him with soft, comforting words.
Tei Cher watched the scene in a daze, thinking: Mom would never talk to me like that. I’m lucky if she doesn’t beat me.
But now that he’d made the new family’s precious son cry, there was no way he was getting any candy. Deflated, he sulked and waved his buddies to head home.
They hadn’t gone far when a voice called out from behind. “Wait!”
Tei Cher turned around and saw the little boy running toward them. His face was still streaked with drying tears, and in his hand was a small handful of candy.
“For you,” he said.
Tei Cher stared in surprise. “For me?”
“Mom said I have to make friends with you all, but I… I don’t like you one bit! Hmph!”
The boy said his harshest words in the timidest tone—then bolted right back.
Tei Cher’s little gang burst out laughing.
He glanced down at the candy in his hand and barked, “Quit laughing. Go home.”
That night, Tei Cher’s parents took him to the new family’s home to formally apologize. That was when he learned the boy’s name: Lae Leon.
He came holding a plate of roasted sunflower seeds and peanuts, stiff and awkward. Imitating Lae Leon’s tone from earlier, he said, “Mom and Dad told me to come say sorry—but I don’t like you either! Hmph hmph!”
As he spoke, he passed him the plate.
Lae Leon didn’t take it, so the plate crashed to the floor, scattering seeds and nuts everywhere.
Tei Cher got a thorough scolding from his mother, then crouched down to pick up the sunflower seeds and peanuts one by one.
Just then, a clean broom appeared beside him. Lae Leon stood there with a smirk. “Just sweep it up, dummy.”
Right then and there, Tei Cher swore to himself: You and I are enemies for life!
On the first day of elementary school, he ran into his little nemesis.
For once, Tei Cher’s mother had dressed him in a decent outfit, and he thought he looked particularly sharp. He walked with his chin held high—until he saw Lae Leon.
The boy stood out in the crowd, dressed in crisp, eye-catching clothes that drew a circle of curious kids around him.
Before long, Lae Leon had made plenty of new friends, thanks to his striking looks, but something about him just didn’t mesh with the rest of them.
While everyone else was busy sharpening pencils every day, Lae Leon would click click click on his mechanical pencil.
When the boys were out climbing trees, showing off on the monkey bars, or picking on girls, Lae Leon stayed in the classroom doing his homework.
Tei Cher sat quietly in the corner of the classroom, watching as his classmates gathered around Lae Leon like a swirling cloud. His frustration had grown into a small, brooding mushroom of resentment. Every day, he’d carve Lae Leon’s name into his desk and mutter a chant, “Amitabha, please bless him with failing grades!”
But Lae Leon’s grades were always at the very top of the class. Both teachers and students adored him. Even Tei Cher’s old friends from the neighborhood began to drift away, swayed by Lae Leon’s charm.
Tei Cher was furious, his resentment and curses never ceasing. Every day when he saw Lae Leon, he’d provoke him—rolling his eyes or sticking out his butt, pretending to let out a stink bomb.
But Lae Leon would act as if he didn’t notice, simply smiling back with a look of silent provocation.
The classroom furniture changed every year, desks and chairs replaced, but Tei Cher stubbornly kept the same desk, as if it were a monument to his grudge.
After all, every scratch and scribble on that desk was a silent crusade against Lae Leon.
Years later, Tei Cher still couldn’t quite understand why he’d hated him so much back then. Maybe it was envy, or perhaps a desperate wish for attention, just like how other boys would tease the girls they liked by pulling their braids.
Lae Leon didn’t have braids to pull, so Tei Cher found other ways.
For example, the first two Chinese characters he learned to write were “来” (Lae) and “师” (Leon), so he could carve his enemy’s name into his desk.
Then there was his first composition in third grade.
Among a sea of recurrent essays titled “My Dad,” “My Mom,” and “My Dear XXX,” Tei Cher’s piece called “My Aenmy Lae Leon” caused quite a stir in school.
I have an aenmy his name is Lae Leon.
He is very ugnly and his voie is very bed. He wears fanci clthos all day to amke the girls smell, and the is a teachers pet.
I’m sware I will learn marital ars and beat him up 1 day.
He even listed a bunch of martial arts moves in detail, leaving the teachers wide-eyed, wondering if he was a disciple of Jin Yong* himself.
(TLN: Louis Cha Leung-yung (查良鏞), better known by his pen name Jin Yong (金庸), was a Hong Kong wuxia novelist. He authored 15 novels between 1955 and 1972 and became one of the most popular Chinese writers of all time, with over 100 million copies sold globally—excluding widespread pirated editions.)
They ended up pulling him onto the stage to read his ‘masterpiece’ in front of the entire school.
Laughter erupted from the audience below.
Halfway through reading, Tei Cher suddenly caught sight of Lae Leon.
Lae Leon neither laughed nor cried; his head hung low, staring blankly at the ground, looking somewhat pitiful.
Tei Cher abruptly stopped and dashed off the stage. “I’m not reading anymore!”
…
After school, he was punished with cleaning the classroom as the other students gradually left.
When he finished, he slung his empty backpack over his shoulder and headed out the school gates—only to find Lae Leon standing there, seemingly waiting for him.
Trying to put on a brave front, he asked, “You want to fight?”
Lae Leon quietly looked at him and asked, “Why do you hate me?”
Tei Cher opened his mouth but could find no reason, so he stayed silent.
Lae Leon then stepped closer, and Tei Cher instinctively took a step back. “If we really fight, don’t cry, okay?”
Without a word, Lae Leon reached into his backpack and pulled out a mechanical pencil, handing it to Tei Cher.
“Let’s be friends. This is for you.”
Tei Cher glanced down at the pencil in his hand, a small lion figurine adorned its tip.
He’d heard it was a special gift from Lae Leon’s mother, brought from abroad. Though Lae Leon had lent it to classmates many times over three years, he always took great care of it because it was the only one he had.
Tei Cher accepted the pencil and asked, “Then what will you use?”
Lae Leon replied, “I can sharpen pencils.”
“Alright then.” Tei Cher tossed the pencil into his backpack, feeling unexpectedly happy. “Want to walk home together?”
Lae Leon nodded.
Halfway there, Tei Cher asked, “Wanna climb trees together?”
Lae Leon shook his head.
“Tch, not manly at all!” Tei Cher rolled his eyes.
…
As they neared home, Tei Cher awkwardly asked, “Why do you want to be friends with me?”
Lae Leon pressed his lips together. Since he’d always been a model student, his mind was filled with ideals of honesty and kindness. So he answered truthfully, “Because you're the only one who refuses to be friends with me. And since I can’t beat you in a fight, my only option is to reform you.”
Tei Cher: “?”
"Reform, my foot!" Tei Cher suddenly went wild like a mad dog, lunging forward to bite Lae Leon’s cheek. "Not only will I fight, hmph hmph! I’ll beat you every time!"
Lae Leon touched the teeth marks on his face, his lips trembling as tears welled up in his eyes.
Tei Cher suddenly panicked, unwilling to lose the mechanical pencil he had only just gotten. He quickly reached out to touch Lae Leon’s face. "Don’t cry, no crying. If you cry, I won’t be your friend anymore and next time, I’ll hit you with my fists."
Lae Leon dared to be angry but dared not speak.
Tei Cher scratched his head and leaned in. "How about you bite me back? Even the score."
Lae Leon bit him hard, finally feeling some relief.
It hurt like hell. Tei Cher wanted to cry, but he held it in.
…
The next day, Tei Cher went to school to vent his pain by breaking his desk.
Subsequently evidence of his grudge was destroyed.
After a stern scolding from his homeroom teacher, he got a brand-new desk.
Before class, Lae Leon started sharpening his pencil, but he was rather clumsy. Before the day ended, the pencil was completely used up.
Lae Leon: "......"
Feeling discouraged, he reached for another pencil, but when he pulled it out, Lae Leon found it was a freshly sharpened, sharp pencil instead. He inexplicably glanced back toward the corner and saw Tei Cher hastily turn his head away to avoid looking at him.
A moment later, Tei Cher waved a fist in the air: "Keep staring and I’ll beat you up."
Lae Leon turned back and silently smiled.
After that, whenever Lae Leon finished a pencil, he no longer sharpened it—he simply switched to a new one.
He would place all the used pencil stubs on his desk, and the next day, several freshly sharpened, neat pencils would mysteriously appear inside his desk cubby.
His deskmate found it strange and asked, but Lae Leon said nothing.
Since Tei Cher rarely spoke to him at school, this quietly became their little secret.
Because Tei Cher was always causing trouble, he was often punished with classroom cleaning duty. When he walked out of school, he’d always see Lae Leon waiting there for him.
As his antics escalated, Tei Cher found himself cleaning more and more, to the point where he was doing the work of all the on-duty students.
Though they walked home together in secret, Tei Cher still didn’t dare use the mechanical pencil at school. Everyone knew whose it was. If he took it out, people would surely laugh at him for reconciling with his life-long enemy. That would be such a huge loss of face!
So, he hid the mechanical pencil inside an iron box, which was then placed inside a medium box, and that medium box was finally stored inside a large box.
Every day after school, he’d ceremoniously open all three boxes one by one to take out that magical pencil.
Though he never cared for homework before, he suddenly found it a bit enjoyable, writing it while muttering: “I must be going crazy.”
No, it must be the irresistible charm of this mechanical pencil.
At dinner, he told his mom he wanted a mechanical pencil.
His mom slapped his butt twice and told him to scram.
.
.
.
TL Note: This is not child abuse, it’s love!