Realm of Mirrored Words

Yun Duo had not expected that she would see Tang Yi-Bai again so soon. Entering November, the autumn winds suddenly turned cold. Yun Duo caught a cold once, and had a nosebleed twice. Applying random cures to herself, her condition finally took a turn for the better. On this day, she received another interview assignment. This time, she would not have to travel far — the assignment would just be at the Sports University campus within the city. A 'National Sports Employees Communications Exchange' was to be held there. This news value of this kind of conference was relatively limited, often just a brief existence in the newspapers — the page-space it took would be no larger than half a block of tofu. That's why the agency had only sent Yun Duo alone to conduct interviews. Compared to the actual contents of the conference, Yun Duo was much more interested in the Sports University itself. This school was known to be the one of the prestigious elite among the sports schoo

Exchanging contact information with athletes is a boon for reporters, so Yun Duo had no reason to refuse. She pulled out her phone and said humbly, "Then, shall I scan your WeChat QR code?" She did not dare to ask directly for their phone numbers — it would be so awkward if that request was rejected. The four athletes whipped their handphones out. Yun Duo scanned each phone one by one, starting with Qi Rui-Feng, and then Tang Yi-Bai. After she scanned Tang Yi-Bai's code, she heard him emit a soft hum, tone rising at the end in confusion. It was so soft that she wasn't sure if it wasn't just her imagination. She lifted her head to look at him and saw that he was looking at her through half-lidded eyes, his lips pressed together in a small smile, as if he were trying not to laugh. Yun Duo could not see any reason for it, so she could only focus on scanning the code of the next person, Zheng Ling-Ye. And then, Zheng Ling-Ye also gave her a strange look. She

In the subsequent days of the competition, Yun Duo gradually found her groove and did not make any more mistakes. She produced quite a few decent manuscripts which were accepted by the news agency, while several more of her manuscripts were published on the website of Sports Weekly. Besides that, that candid photo she had snapped, which included Qi Rui-Feng, Tang Yi-Bai, and Ming Tian in the frame, had also been selected for use by the agency, becoming the final picture in the series of photos illustrating the summary of the tournament. In this competition, Qi Rui-Feng was as dominant as ever. He had signed up for 4 solo events and 2 group events, and had netted 4 golds and 2 silvers, perpetuating his legend as the King of Swimming in China. Coincidentally, both of his silvers had been gained through losses to Tang Yi-Bai. As for Tang Yi-Bai himself, he had signed up for 2 solo events and 2 group events in total. These were, respectively, the men's 50-metre freestyle, the m

At nine o'clock in the evening, Teacher Sun showed Yun Duo the headline he had carefully crafted. Of course, this so-called headline was just his subjective opinion right now. In the end, what the headline would be would still depend on the publication company's decision. Yun Duo had thought that Teacher Sun would definitely set Qi Rui-Feng as the headline — after all, he was a die-hard fan of Qi Rui-Feng. However, when she glanced down at the manuscript, it was about Tang Yi-Bai. In his manuscript, Teacher Sun used the word count of a university entrance exam essay to describe Tang Yi-Bai's arresting performance in the pool. He excavated the light and dark sides of Tang Yi-Bai's history in depth, offering professional analysis on all of Tang Yi-Bai's strengths and weaknesses, and predicted optimistically that: He will become another one of the brightest stars of the Chinese swimming arena. Yun Duo found it a little hard to believe. "Teacher Sun, your affec

Blushing furiously, Yun Duo began ignoring Tang Yi-Bai and company, pretending to fiddle with the camera. Qi Rui-Feng was somewhat bemused, but as an idol, he did not plan to give his fans too much of his time. As such, right after the photos were taken, he led his brothers away with him. Yun Duo seized the moment to pull away from them as well, snapping several shots with her camera. Regardless of whether the photos taken could be used, she could at least console herself that their ambush here had not been completely pointless. Sending off the pantheon of swimmers with their gazes, Teacher Sun asked Lin Zi curiously, "Why didn't you ask Tang Yi-Bai for an autograph just now? It should be easier now. If you wait till he becomes famous, it'll be too late if you want it then." Lin Zi's expression was still as placid as before. His eyebrows were slightly drooping, making him look very listless. Speaking of which, he seemed to have been like this the whole 10

Teacher Sun helped Yun Duo by sharing the burden of the flowers. With their arms filled with flowers, the two of them left the sight of the crowd. Teacher Sun did not plan to conduct anymore interviews — as he walked, he said to Yun Duo, "Yun Duo, it was not your place earlier to say those things. We're reporters, not advocates for the athletes. As a reporter, you only need to record the subject's replies and ask questions." Yun Duo was still unwilling to admit any wrong 嘴硬: Literally translates to 'mouth hard'. Think 'having a stubborn mouth which does not want to submit'. . "But that question was really too horrible." Teacher Sun's eyebrows knitted together. "Well, you didn't ask the question, so you needn't feel stressed out about it." "But that's unfair to the one being interviewed. He hasn't even answered yet and he has already had a chamber pot flipped over his head. What if the interviewee isn