Chapter 56

Tang Yi-Bai and Yun Duo walked hand in hand into the training base, drawing the eyes of many people along the way. Most of the people in the base knew Tang Yi-Bai. Now seeing him leading a girl in here without any prior warning, they were all surprised. Only team leader Xu looked smug, his face screaming 'I really know so much', when he saw them. He smiled at Tang Yi-Bai. "Yi-Bai, so this is your girlfriend?" As he said this, he visually scanned Yun Duo.

"Yes." Tang Yi-Bai's response was clear and direct.

"Cough." Yun Duo did not know how he could so easily adapt to their new relationship. Right now, her emotions were still struggling in the awkwardness caused by shyness, unable to settle. Thus, her face had been red all the way here. To avoid others seeing her red face, she had had to keep her head lowered.

Team Lead Xu scrutinized Yun Duo and said with some doubt, "This little lady looks rather familiar..."

Yun Duo introduced herself. "Hello, Team Lead Xu, I'm Yun Duo, a reporter with 'Sports Weekly'."

"A reporter, eh?" Team Lead Xu coughed and instinctively became a little stern. "Yun Duo, don't take any photos while you're inside. This is a rule."

"Yes, yes, I know. Don't worry!" Yun Duo nodded emphatically.

After Team Lead Xu let them go, Tang Yi-Bai led Yun Duo into the training hall. The swimming pool was in the middle of the training hall, and around it were individual training rooms. Each respective training room served a different function; there were all kinds of training equipment. Of course, Yun Duo only peeked inside the rooms from the doorways. She wasn't here to sightsee today.

She followed Tang Yi-Bai all the way to his training room.

Wu Yong had more than one athlete under him, so there were currently other people inside the training room as well. When Tang Yi-Bai returned, everyone inside the training room turned to look at Yun Duo.

"Hi, nice to meet you all." Yun Duo waved at them. She tried to tug her other hand out of Tang Yi-Bai's grasp but did not succeed...

Wu Yong knew the truth so he wasn't too surprised, but the others were rather shocked and were staring at Yun Duo curiously.

"My girlfriend." Tang Yi-Bai explained to his fellow trainee brothers. He had been waiting a long time for this moment, to announce to others that she was his girlfriend. At this moment, actually saying the words gave him an immense sense of satisfaction, even his very walk had an extra flair.

The crowd nodded dumbly, but continued to gawk at them with faces eager for gossip, hoping for more explanations.

Wu Yong frowned and growled, "What're you all staring for? Train! No food unless you finish all your training tasks!"

This threat was met with a chorus of groans but had instant effect — everyone turned back to their tasks and continued their training.

Wu Yong looked at Tang Yi-Bai with a half-smile. "I thought you wouldn't even coome back."

Tang Yi-Bai smiled. "How could I do that? Even if I wanted to, my Yun Duo wouldn't let me."

Yun Duo's eyebrows jumped. She really felt like stuffing his mouth shut.

Wu Yong couldn't bear to listen any more to this. "Showing off so much just because you're dating now!"

In a roomful of bachelors, Tang Yi-Bai merely grinned and said nothing.

He helped Yun Duo find a chair for her to sit on, and then he continued with his afternoon training tasks. In actual fact, he did not have many training tasks left for the afternoon. He was already done with his third set of medicine ball training, and his next task was several sets of balance exercises. Single-leg balance exercises, followed by belly-boarding with his hands behind his head and turning side-to-side, 30 times, 3 sets; hands behind his head, abdomen crunches for his elbow to meet the opposite knee, 30 times, 3 sets. After that, stretches. These exercises that seemed relatively simple to him were not that easy for the average person. Even watching from this side, Yun Duo felt her muscles aching in sympathy...

When the day's training menu was done, it was just about time for dinner. Tang Yi-Bai grabbed a white towel and wiped his sweat, then he said to Yun Duo, "I'm going to take a shower and change. Wait here for me."

Yun Duo nodded.

After Tang Yi-Bai left, Yun Duo sat obediently on her chair, observing the people coming and going outside. The training time of the athletes were all quite standard, so everyone was ending their training around this time. Therefore, there were quite a lot of people passing by outside. Many of whom Yun Duo had met before.

A tall figure walked by, the person glancing idly into the room as he passed. Not long after, the person returned.

Qi Rui-Feng leaned on one hand against the door frame. He stared incredulously at the person in the training room. "Yun Duo?"

"That's me." Yun Duo nodded.

He entered the room and perched on the training equipment beside Yun Duo. He considered her for a moment then asked, "Are you here looking for Tang Yi-Bai?"

"Mhm."

"Oh, I'll help you find him then."

"It's fine," she quickly stopped him. "He'll be back soon."

Qi Rui-Feng nodded. What a coincidence. Yesterday, Tang Yi-Bai was still fretting over how he should confess, and today, Yun Duo was sitting right here in his training room. Qi Rui-Feng scratched his head and suddenly recalled another thing. So, he rifled through the backpack slung across his shoulder, taking out a mobile phone charm.

The phone charm featured a rubber chibi figurine of Qi Rui-Feng. He tossed the phone charm to Yun Duo. "The TV station held a commemorative event and gave out a lot of these. You're my fan so I kept one for you."

"Thank you." Yun Duo took a closer look at it and laughed. "It's cuter than the real person."

"Hmph."

She noticed the corner of a book peeking out from his open bag and jolted in surprise. "Qi Rui-Feng, you read?" It was too hard to imagine...

"Yup." Qi Rui-Feng nodded sedately. Yun Duo was so curious she could burst, so he took the book out and handed it to her.

Yun Duo looked at the cover and was petrified. "The Cute-Moe Wife of a Wolf-Like CEO"? What the hell was this?!

She looked at the cover and then looked at Qi Rui-Feng's face, her gaze shifting back and forth between the two for a good while before finally asking, "You're using this book to hide your private nest egg, aren't you?" As soon as she said this, she wished she could slap herself — Qi Rui-Feng was a rich man who could use hammer boosters all the time when he played Anipop. Would a person like that need to have a private nest egg?

Sure enough, Qi Rui-Feng was giving her a 'you just can't appreciate this' look. He said, "This book is very fun to read."

"Really?" Yun Duo flipped through a few pages, asking him as she scanned the lines, "What do you like about it?"

"I can identify very strongly with the character."

"You i-i-i-i-identify with the character?!" Yun Duo was about to piss herself in shock. "Great God, please don't scare me. How do you manage to identify with this... little maiden Bing Xue-Er{冰雪儿: Literally, 'Icy Snow'.}?"

"It's Dongfang Haotian{东方昊天: This name is a bit harder to translate. The first part is 'Eastern' but the second part can refer to 'Vast Skies' or 'Heavens' or even allude to 'Heavenly Emperor'.}! The one I identify with is Dongfang Haotian!" Qi Rui-Feng stared at her like she was an idiot.

"Oh, right, right." Yun Duo knocked on her head. "A domineering CEO, yes, that's definitely you," she said soothingly. And then, she focused in on the parts Dongfang Haotian played in the book and she could not help but laugh as she read. "Ahahaha, this person is such a ditz, not like a wolf at all... more like a husky. Still, a husky is really the closest planet-woof resident in terms of appearance to a wolf, so that's not actually wrong. Wolf-like CEO... can you lend me this book?"

"No can do. This book was borrowed from Xiang Yang-Yang. You can only read it after I'm done."

"Sis Yang also likes this kind of book?"

"Yep, the one she identifies with is also Dongfang Haotian."

Yun Duo felt that the world felt a little chaotic right now.

Speaking of Xiang Yang-Yang, Xiang Yang-Yang abruptly appeared. She passed by the doorway, tugging Ming Tian behind her by the ear. Ming Tian was howling at the pain, but his eyesight was as sharp as ever. He caught sight of Qi Rui-Feng and Yun Duo in the training room and yelled, "Big bro feng, help! Big sis Yun Duo, save me! Ow, ow, ow!"

When Xiang Yang-Yang heard Yun Duo's name, she naturally turned to look over, and seeing Yun Duo, she was very happy. "Hey, Yun Duo, why are you here? Looking for Yi-Bai?"

Yun Duo thought, 'Does the whole world know she's here to look for Tang Yi-Bai...?'

Qi Rui-Feng said, "Xiang Yang-Yang, why are you bullying Ming Tian again?"

Xiang Yang-Yang said huffily, "Who's bullying him? You don't know what he's done! See," she said, opening her palm and showing it to them, "I spent over a month braiding this bracelet and he broke it! So much energy even before he has eaten. He's asking for a beating!"

In her hand laid two slender red braids. The pattern was a mess, slightly thicker than an earthworm but as ugly as an earthworm. If Xiang Yang-Yang had not told them, Yun Duo would find it very hard to believe that it was a bracelet.

Qi Rui-Feng said, "Such an ugly looking thing, it's not a shame it's been broken."

He said what Yun Duo was thinking but did not dare to say.

And so Xiang Yang-Yang whacked Qi Rui-Feng over the head.

Yun Duo quickly said, "Sis yang-Yang, I can teach you how to braid it prettier." Using thin threads to braid bracelets had been her pastime in high school — this would be peanuts to her.

Xiang Yang-Yang perked up again when she heard what Yun Duo said. She very quickly brought out some threads for Yun Duo to demonstrate. Yun Duo was rather speechless. Why would two well-known athletes bring things like a CEO novel and craft thread to training? How wilful. She looked at Ming Tian, wondering what this little fellow had brought.

Ming Tian rubbed his ear and then took out a piece of candy from a pocket. He tore open the packaging, threw the candy into his mouth, and began chewing. Pfft — he blew a large bubble.

Yun Duo: -_-|||

She always felt like she wasn't here visiting the national team but rather the kindergarten attached to the national team...

At this same moment, Tang Yi-Bai finished his shower and changed his clothes. He did not hurry to go meet Yun Duo though, instead sneakily going to seek out Wu Yong.

Wu Yong was surprised. "Tell me, what's with your secretive expression like you are going out to steal a melon? Aren't you going out on a date?"

"Coach Wu, can I ask you for a favour?"

Wu Yong rolled his eyes. "Never anything good! I'll hear you out."

"It's like this. This is the first time Yun Duo and I are going out on a date. I want to give her some flowers as a surprise."

Wu Yong said huffily, "What does you giving her flowers have to do with me? Are you here just to brag? To torment this bachelor?"

"No, I... don't have any flowers."

"Go buy some then! Asking me such a lame retarded question, did you graduate primary school?"

"It's like this. If I go buy flowers, Yun Duo will see me do it, then it won't be a surprise anymore."

Wu Yong thought about it and realised what was going on. He glared straight-on at Tang Yi-Bai, grieved anger in his eyes. "This old man has lived for 40 years, and I'm still not as good as you at dating! Damn it!"

Tang Yi-Bai said, "So, Coach Wu..."

"Easy," Wu Yong waved a hand, "You want flowers? There are lots of Chinese roses in the flower beds outside. Go cut them youself. If anything goes wrong, you can blame it on me."

Tang Yi-Bai sweatdropped. What could go wrong in cutting some Chinese roses?! He shook his head and said, "I don't want Chinese roses."

"Then what do you want?"

"I want regular roses."

Wu Yong raged, "Bastard, there are no roses!"

"There are."

"Where?"

"Matron Yuan has a pot of them. They're in bro Feng's training room."

Wu Yong knew this. Matron Yuan cared for that pot of flowers like it was filled with gold, otherwise the roses would not still be blooming so beautifully in autumn. Wu Yong looked at Tang Yi-Bai with awe. "You've got guts, daring to even covet something of Matron Yuan's. You're not afraid she'll kill you?"

"Of course I am. That's why I want you to help me be a lookout. I'm just going to take just one."

Wu Yong shook his head. "You're almost about to become a saint of love."

Tang Yi-Bai had just nabbed a girlfriend today and he was already showing off whenever and wherever he could. "This is why I have a girlfriend and you don't."

"...Fuck!"

Before Matron Yuan even had the chance to hit Tang Yi-Bai, Wu Yong had already given him a beat down. After that, the two of them headed to the training room. Wu Yong stayed outside as a lookout. Tang Yi-Bai entered and cut one of the loveliest blooms. After that, he carefully trimmed the stem to make sure that looked good and that it wouldn't prick Yun Duo's hands. When that was done, he carefully placed the flower into his bag.

Mission accomplished, he went off to look for Yun Duo.

Yun Duo was chatting with Xiang Yang-Yang and the others. Xiang Yang-Yang, Qi Rui-Feng, and Ming Tian still did not know that Tang Yi-Bai and Yun Duo were already a couple — as soon as they heard that the two was going to go out for dinner, the three of them instantly revealed the intention of crashing the dinner.

Yun Duo did not dare to agree, and Tang Yi-Bai finally showed up. Tang Yi-Bai did not even need to look at the trio to know what them fools were plotting. He said with a grin, "Sorry, we're going on a date today."

The jaws of the three dropped. Their gazes contained shock, realisation, and also a hint of envy.

Tang Yi-Bai walked over to take Yun Duo's hand in his. Under the intent stares of three pairs of eyes, they calmly left.

Holding his girlfriend's hand, bidding farewell to a bunch of singletons... In that instant, he felt like a winner in life.

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Previous: Chapter 55
Next: Chapter 57

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