Novel Turned Yuri – Chapter 12
by Little PandaTeacher Lin Has Only One Student.
From Qiao Yu’s perspective, this relationship was easy to understand. After all, every character in a book could be considered the author’s child. Even though she wasn’t the creator, just someone who’d taken over halfway through, she could barely count as a stepfather, right?
But from Lin Qing’s perspective, this was rather baffling. She’d been struck dumb by a single remark from Qiao Yu, unable to laugh, and pointed at herself with difficulty. “You… you think of me as… a daughter?”
Good grief—treating Cong Ye as a son and her as a daughter. Was she trying to steal Cong’s Mother’s job?
Qiao Yu didn’t nod directly. She tried hard to explain herself clearly. “It’s not like I literally want to be your dad and make you my daughter. It just means I’m especially happy when I see you, and I’d look out for you extra carefully, terrified you might trip or bump into things…”
…The more she talked, the more she realized how hard it was to explain this seriously. Was this the daily dilemma faced by those idol fans who mothered their favorite stars?
She ran out of words, becoming more and more incoherent. “Anyway, the point is I really like you, and you don’t have to treat me as your dad… uh, I mean, if Cong Ye called me Dad I’d actually be pretty happy, but you don’t have to…”
What was she even saying.
Lin Qing’s head throbbed from a speech with an alarmingly high dad-content. She rubbed her temples silently and decided to end the topic. “…So there’s no need to worry about this, and we can just interact the same way we always have, right?”
“Yes, yes, yes.”
Qiao Yu wore the pleased expression of someone whose pupil had finally seen reason, nodding again and again.
…So what had they even been talking about just now? Wasn’t that essentially saying nothing at all?
Lin Qing felt a little mentally exhausted.
She recalled that it all started when Qiao Yu emphasized she’d always treated Cong Ye as a son, and asked, “Why did you suddenly bring this up?”
“Ah.” Qiao Yu looked blank and said honestly, “I was afraid you’d misunderstand.”
For a split second, Lin Qing thought Qiao Yu had noticed her unusual feelings. Her heart lurched—only to realize that Qiao Yu had probably just gotten the wrong idea. She looked at Qiao Yu’s sincere, harmless face and lowered her gaze, concealing the emotion in her eyes.
“…I didn’t misunderstand. I just…”
I just… became a little strange.
She didn’t say the second half aloud. Lin Qing shook her head, pulled herself together, and gave Qiao Yu a radiant smile.
“It’s fine. I know you treat Cong Ye as… a son.”
Saying it out loud felt rather absurd. Obviously Cong Ye himself had no idea—otherwise he’d have gotten into a screaming match with Qiao Yu, his so-called fake dad, ages ago.
Thinking that the more was said, the more firmly it would stick in memory, and one careless slip at home would be the end of it, Lin Qing changed the subject. “He said before that he’d treat you to a drink for giving him a ride. Now that I’ve been in your car for the second time, shouldn’t I treat you to a meal?”
“Come on, what’s our relationship? No need to be so formal.” Qiao Yu waved her hand grandly, signaling Lin Qing not to worry about such a small thing.
The phrase “what’s our relationship” was not something to think too deeply about. The moment she did, it would lead straight back to the father-daughter relationship Qiao Yu had just described.
Lin Qing didn’t insist on treating her. After a moment’s thought, she proposed a new plan.
“How about I tutor you instead?”
Lin Qing, who’d scored near-perfect marks on the entrance exam, smiled faintly, radiating the aura of an academic goddess.
“See, the monthly exam is in less than two weeks, isn’t it?”
Even after Qiao Yu had returned home, she was still processing the news about the monthly exam. She asked the System bitterly.
“…Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it wasn’t important.”
This was exactly why the System didn’t understand the human heart! She’d transmigrated into an active high school student—of course exams were the most important thing!
And if her memory served her right, Yaohua took monthly exam results deadly seriously—the kind of deadly serious that set off alarm bells in her head the moment Lin Qing said the words “monthly exam.”
“You’re right, Host.” The System, sensing it had done wrong, tried to make amends by immediately explaining Yaohua’s school rules. “At Yaohua, if you fail a subject on the monthly exam, you have to attend remedial classes for that subject and take a retake a week later. If you still fail the retake, they’ll probably call your parents in directly.”
…She was fully grown. Being hauled in front of her parents was really too much.
Cold sweat poured down Qiao Yu’s back, but the System wasn’t finished. It continued in its emotionless mechanical voice, delivering cruel facts.
“Furthermore, after the monthly exam, the bottom ten students in each class will be regrouped with the bottom ten from other classes into a supplementary catch-up class. Your daytime classes stay the same, but in the evenings you have to stay for the catch-up class sessions, and they assign homework too. This lasts until the next monthly exam.”
Noooo!
Qiao Yu clutched her head in agony. One set of homework was already hard enough—double the homework, double the suffering. Just thinking about it gave her chills!
This meant she’d absolutely only be able to write her novel on weekends, and she might miss a lot of material for Cong Ye and Lin Qing’s interactions because of the supplementary classes!
And if she had both failing subjects and ranked in the bottom ten—
Qiao Yu pictured this future out of Avici Hell1, and sincerely thanked Bodhisattva Lin Qing for generously bestowing her grace upon this mere mortal.
“Don’t worry, Host. Don’t feel pressured.” The System tried to comfort Qiao Yu and quickly pulled up her Grade 10 transcript. “Look, Host! The original Qiao Yu was already very experienced with remedial classes and catch-up classes!”
Qiao Yu went pale at the sea of red failing marks. Trembling, she pulled out her phone and started typing messages.
Qiao Yu: Teacher Lin!
Qiao Yu: I’ll definitely study hard!
Qiao Yu: At least let me avoid failing and the bottom ten!
Qiao Yu: Fierce Tiger Sobbing.jpg
The sticker was used to perfect effect. Lin Qing looked at the little cat sobbing its eyes out and felt it looked quite a bit like Qiao Yu in the car earlier. The moment Qiao Yu heard the words “monthly exam,” she’d put on a blatantly shocked “there’s such a thing?” expression. Lin Qing guessed she’d completely forgotten about it. She watched helplessly as Qiao Yu lunged forward and grabbed her hand, teary-eyed like someone clutching their savior, wailing and thanking Lin Qing for her magical touch bringing back to life2 that had saved her sorry life.
Listening to her always made Lin Qing want to laugh. She was torn between tears and laughter at Qiao Yu’s death-grip-on-a-lifesaver act. She agreed to start tutoring her next week, which finally eased the anxiously weeping Qiao Yu’s mind a little.
Only, her attitude toward Lin Qing grew even more attentive than before. After dropping Lin Qing off at home, she scrambled to open the car door for her, helped her out of the car, and eagerly trailed her all the way to her doorstep. When Lin Qing asked if she wanted to come in and sit for a bit, she shook her head rapidly, saying no, no, don’t want to disturb Teacher Lin, and then hurried back to the car and drove off.
Qiao Yu seemed to quite enjoy the title “Teacher Lin.” Lin Qing skimmed the messages, suppressed a laugh, and replied.
Lin Qing: Student Qiao.
Lin Qing: If you study properly on a regular basis, you won’t end up like this.
Pfft.
On the other side of the screen, Qiao Yu clutched her chest as if she’d been shot, completely struck down by that flawless logic.
But but but, it wasn’t like she hadn’t been studying at all! It was just that after a few years as a college student, her skills had gotten way too rusty!
She drooped her eyebrows in misery and saw Lin Qing had sent new messages.
Lin Qing: Don’t worry.
Lin Qing: My teaching principle is to never give up on any student.
Lin Qing: Teacher Lin will help you.
Lin Qing: Strong.jpg
It seemed Lin Qing was also starting to enjoy the roleplay. Qiao Yu looked at her messages and couldn’t help smiling. She replied half-jokingly.
Qiao Yu: Never give up on any student?
Qiao Yu: Just how many good students does Teacher Lin have?
A reply came almost instantly—brief and to the point.
Lin Qing: Just you.
Oh my!
Qiao Yu beamed, cradling her phone, delighted by this remark—what a romance heroine! Lin Qing really knew how to flirt with a girl!
But she couldn’t see that on the other side of the screen, Lin Qing had sent those words without thinking, only to blush for no apparent reason. She tried to recall the message but found the time had already expired. Furious, she flopped onto the bed, buried her face in the pillow, and kicked her legs wildly.
After thrashing about for a good while, Lin Qing finally poked her flushed little face out of the pillow. She glanced at Qiao Yu’s messages—”Hahahaha Teacher Lin really knows what to say” and the like—and sighed softly.
Lin Qing felt that she might really have become a little strange.
After a long week, Qiao Yu welcomed her second weekend since transmigrating, and it was time to update her novel again.
She had no worries about material at all. The past five days had been incredibly eventful—progress every single day, practically. Just picking out the important events felt like enough for three chapters.
Unlike herself a week ago, Qiao Yu now typed away at her keyboard with confident ease, clacking away—though beneath that self-assured exterior lay the heart of someone who’d resigned herself to chaos. Hah, she was already tangled up so deeply with the male and female leads—what was the point of cutting her screentime?
Qiao Yu recalled the day she’d fought with Cong Ye and successfully made him clear up the misunderstanding in front of the whole class, and transformed into a faithful typing machine.
【…
Even his friends had been bewitched by Lin Qing—what was she trying to do!
That Qiao Yu, seriously—they’d known each other for so long, how could she switch sides so easily!
The more Cong Ye thought about it, the angrier he got. He gritted his teeth and began drawing a little caricature of Qiao Yu in his notebook.】
This was the first time Qiao Yu’s name had appeared in the novel.
Qiao Yu herself felt a strange sense of unreality looking at it, but she pressed on, trying her best to write Cong Ye’s baffling thoughts in a more positive light. But writing herself into the story was so embarrassing!
She finally finished writing the chapter, feeling more exhausted than when she used to write three. Qiao Yu covered her face and whimpered for a while before mustering the courage to review it from start to finish. Once she confirmed there were no problems, she sent it out.
The chapter covered up to the point where Cong Ye was told that Lin Qing had been bullied. Qiao Yu was just thinking she could write a couple more chapters to stockpile when the comments section started refreshing rapidly.
Publishing was the kind of thing that got easier with practice. Qiao Yu skimmed the comments without changing expression, then checked the two spheres above: Reader Satisfaction had dropped slightly to 77—readers had been very pleasantly surprised when the first chapter went up, so this decline was expected—and OOC Degree remained at 0.
Nothing unexpected. Qiao Yu closed the interface with the practiced ease of a seasoned author.
This gig was actually pretty simple.
Thinking this, Qiao Yu casually pulled out her homework and set it on the desk. She noticed that at some point, an incredibly ugly pig-headed stick figure had been drawn on the upper-right corner of the notebook cover. The culprit was glaringly obvious.
She silently cursed Cong Ye for an idiot, grabbed an eraser, and scrubbed it off. A faint smudge remained that wouldn’t come clean, so she simply drew a flower over it.
She stared at the overlapping lines, lost in thought. The ambitious confidence from the first day of school was gone, replaced instead by a faint sense of worry.
…Cong Ye, this elementary school chicken3—why did it feel like he wasn’t good enough for Lin Qing?
Qiao Yu honestly couldn’t picture Lin Qing and Cong Ye dating. She couldn’t shake the distasteful feeling of a fine cabbage being rooted up by a pig4. But if you asked her what kind of person would be worthy of Lin Qing, Qiao Yu couldn’t come up with an answer either.
After all, Lin Qing was absolutely wonderful—practically perfect! Ever since Lin Qing had offered to tutor her, her image in Qiao Yu’s heart had grown even more radiant. Qiao Yu’s spirits soared for a little while—until she remembered the truth of this world.
If this world developed on its own, then the male and female leads’ relationship would surely progress eventually…
She realized that worrying about it was pointless and gave up on thinking further. Whatever, whatever. She was just a writer. Better to play it by ear for the sake of the plot.
Qiao Yu sighed, pushed aside her disdain for Cong Ye, and resolved to continue being a proper Assist for the two of them.
Footnotes
- Avici Hell: the deepest and most terrible realm in Buddhist cosmology, where suffering is continuous and endless.
- A Chinese idiom originally praising a doctor's exceptional skill in curing patients; here used hyperbolically to thank Lin Qing for 'saving' Qiao Yu from academic disaster.
- Internet slang for a childish, immature, or petty person; literally 'elementary school chicken.'
- A popular Chinese metaphor: a high-quality girl (the 'cabbage') being pursued or taken by an unworthy, coarse man (the 'pig').
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