You Have Everything I Dislike

Third Master’s illness was quite severe, with the main issue being that he was exceptionally lazy. 

On more than one occasion, his father had invited me over to their house for dinner. When I finally went to the third master’s house, his father specially cooked braised turbot. 

For some reason, the meat and the fish bones were so tightly stuck together that I could not get it off even after trying for a long time. 

Just as I was about to give up and clip something else, I heard his father mutter in a low voice, “How stupid can….”

Me: “……”

In order to change the image my future father-in-law had of me in his mind, I continued to clip on the stubborn piece of meat that kept refusing to separate from the fish bones, only stopping after I had finally gotten a firm hold on it with my chopsticks. 

I could not help but quietly let out a long sigh of relief.

The third master’s father probably also noticed the change in atmosphere and became a little embarrassed, so he began to scold his son. 

He said to me, “Look at him. He doesn’t usually eat fish. And it’s not because he doesn’t like it – he’s just too lazy to pick apart the bones.”

The third master argued, “I’m not being lazy – I just don’t want to get pricked by fishbones, ah!”

His father snickered and put a large, tender, and boneless piece of fish into his small plate. Without further prompting, the third master immediately stabbed it with his chopsticks and ate it.

Third Master’s father spat out, “Look at how happy he’s eating! You tell me, is he lazy or not!”

After a minute or so of watching the third master get his face slapped, I noticed that my future father-in-eyes law’s were blazing!

I heard from one of my classmates that men in the field of science apparently have big hearts, but I think it is more accurate to say these men only have low EQ instead…

I was on a train once, and it was in the middle of the night. My phone was about to run out of power. So, I sent the third master a message, weakly asking him what to do.

“What should I do if my phone turns off while I’m sleeping? And if something bad happened, how am I supposed to contact you?” I sent to him.

He replied, “Sleeping paralyzed you Hi!”1T/N: One of the popular slang words for young people on the Internet. It means, “It’s not time to sleep/Are you sleeping so early? Let’s get out of bed and play!”

I actually only wanted him to reassure me by saying that nothing would happen and that I should just turn off my phone and go to sleep, but the advice this guy gave me instead was, “Go to the corridor – get your phone charged and keep playing with it if you want. Just go back to sleep after.”

I looked at the carriage. The lights had already been turned off. It was 1:30 in the middle of the night, and I was surrounded by nothing but utter darkness and silence.

Where was the boyfriend back then who was worried I’d get kidnapped while picking up a courier…

I was washing grapes once, pulling each one off one by one. I threw away the rotten and damaged ones before neatly placing the rest on a plate. Next to them, I also put a durian pancake. 

Along with a fork for him to use, I took the dish to the Third Master, who was busy playing games.

The third master sneered and said, “It’s just grapes – why are you being so troublesome?”

I ignored him and went back to the kitchen to stew the spare ribs for lunch. This only took me less than ten minutes. 

When I returned, I instantly noticed that the plate had already been licked clean…

“You didn’t leave me some to eat at all. You could have at least let me finish taking pictures! It took me a lot of time to finish washing those grapes! For who knows how long, I was cleaning and plating that! Just to wind up in that state, huh?!” I yelled angrily.

The third master shivered in fear. 

As he lifted the plate to his open mouth, the last grape he hadn’t had time to eat yet fell on the plate…

In a panic, he asked me, “Do you still want a picture?”

The devil in me had already sprung into action, performing a hundred roundhouse kicks.

Probably because I’ve known and am familiar with the third master for so long, I’ve pretty much said almost everything I could possibly say over the many years we’ve been together. Except for the occasional discussion of new things that both of us were concerned about, we usually spent most of our time together playing games on the phone.

So the day before Third Master went back to work in Wuhan, we had agreed to put our phones away and spend an entire, fulfilling day together instead. 

Since I kept a daily schedule of updating my at-that-time still ongoing novel, I had told him to wait for an hour, leaving him alone to watch TV. Halfway through my work, I noticed that the third master, who should have been sitting on the sofa, had disappeared.

I did not care about finding him – I needed to hurry up and complete my chapter quota for the day. 

When I finished writing, I went to the bedroom with my laptop to look for him. I eventually found him lying on the balcony playing games on his phone. 

Frustrated, I went over to his side and kicked him in the calf. “I thought we agreed not to play with our phones today!”

In a flash, he locked the screen. Slipping the phone into his pant pocket, he closed his eyes and pretended he was sunbathing.

I got even angrier. “I’m not blind! I saw it all! You were playing with your phone!”

“We agreed not to let it interfere with our daily routines, but you were too busy typing and didn’t have time for me, so I could only play with my phone!” he protested eloquently.

I said with a dark face, “Go ahead and play all day without bothering me, then! I’m in a bad mood right now, and I don’t want to go to the movies with you anymore!”

I took my laptop with me and left. Because we were both at my grandmother’s house, we couldn’t argue too loudly. After leaving the bedroom, I went to the kitchen to help my grandmother cook dinner.

Moments later, my grandmother kicked me out of the kitchen and made me sit on the living room sofa with some fruit. I was about to make a salad when the third master came out of the bedroom and sat beside me silently.

We just sat side by side amid this weird atmosphere, both of us not saying anything.

A short while later, I peeled an apple. After cutting it into smaller slices, a very large apple core remained. 

I took the core and said to the third master, “If you eat this, I’ll make up with you.”

Third Master and I, in particular, did not like apples. He had an orchard at his grandmother’s house and got hurt while eating them as a child.

As for me, I had decided to lose weight on a whim. I was eating three apples a day and nothing else to satisfy my hunger. I did not lose a single pound, but the bad memory involving apples lingered.

Anyway, the third master stared at the apple core for half a minute before reluctantly asking me, “Really?”

I nodded my head.

He took it and nibbled his way through it. I guess he didn’t taste anything because, with a smile, he tugged my arm. 

“We’re making up right now, don’t be angry.”

I looked at his eager-to-please expression, and my mood noticeably got a lot better. I continued to cut the fruit and peeled another apple. 

He took the initiative to take its core and eat it, proudly telling me, “That was an advanced make up payment, so I still have one more chance to make you angry today!”

Me: “……”

How can someone say so bluntly to others, “I can still piss you off again today”?!

I tried to calm down my anger and told him in the most pleasant voice I could muster, “Okay, well, your ‘advanced make up payment’ chance just got used up.”

The author has something to say: After seeing Third Master off at the station, I was on the verge of tears… I suddenly realized that I hadn’t studied yet for my exams tomorrow… So, because I wasn’t in the mood to,  I hurriedly said goodbye to him and dashed to the subway to get to school.