Extra: A Daughter’s Thoughts
Ever since Qu Tongqiu moved here, he had been suffering from sore waist and back every few days. He used medicated plasters and hired people to massage him, but nothing seemed to help. Seeing her dad constantly rubbing his waist like a little old man, his daughter couldn’t help worrying. Qu Tongqiu could only say, “It’s nothing. Daddy’s old now. Old people are all like this.”
One day, while Qu Tongqiu was in the kitchen making snacks for them, he saw Qu Ke walk up to Ren Ningyuan, who was sitting there drinking tea and reading the newspaper. She slapped both palms onto the table with a loud smack.
“From now on, you’re not allowed to bully my dad anymore!”
Ren Ningyuan didn’t even lift his eyelids, his expression unchanged. “I didn’t bully him.”
“Then why does his waist hurt?”
Ren Ningyuan put down his teacup. “Children shouldn’t interfere in adults’ business.”
In the evening, the three of them stayed together in the living room. He watched TV, Ren Ningyuan read magazines, and Qu Ke played on the computer. Each did their own thing, not interfering with the others, yet they were used to sharing the same space.
With a speed that made Qu Tongqiu marvel, Qu Ke clattered away at the keyboard for a long time, then said contentedly, “I’m going to take a shower now.”
After a while, Qu Tongqiu noticed that his daughter hadn’t closed her computer again. Whenever she took a shower, she would soak for ages, leaving the computer on the whole time.
“Sigh, this child—she doesn’t even turn it off when she’s done. That wastes electricity, and the machine can easily break,” he muttered. Thriftiness was already carved into his bones.
He walked over to the computer, intending to close the screen, but when he saw the page in front of him, he hesitated.
“Well… Little Ke stays up late these days, staring at the computer all day, I don’t know what she’s doing. It’s so late, and there are still so many people chatting with her online. I wonder if she’ll learn bad things,” he said, glancing uneasily at Ren Ningyuan. “Just taking a look at the webpage she left open, without touching anything, should be fine, right?”
Ren Ningyuan put down his magazine and smiled. “I won’t tell her.”
Qu Tongqiu bent down and leaned closer to the screen. “Mm, it’s a BBS, looks like a casual chat forum… eh?” His tone suddenly brightened. “Did Little Ke write this?
It seems to mention me.”
When Qu Ke was little, her compositions were always titled “My Dad.” Nothing inflated a father’s vanity more than reading those essays.
But as he kept reading, he grew troubled. “The things young people write nowadays—I can’t really understand them anymore. Sigh, times really have changed… what does this ‘meng’ mean?”
Qu Tongqiu went to look it up in the dictionary. “Plants sprouting, beginning to grow, same as ‘meng’, sprout… none of these seem to match. Could it be that she thinks I’m not good?” Adolescents always made fathers uneasy.
Ren Ningyuan laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s a good meaning.”
“Huh? If ‘gong’ has an opposite, shouldn’t it be ‘shou’? Why is it written as ‘shou’ instead? A typo, right… but we’re not fighting a war, so why talk about offense and defense?”
Ren Ningyuan said, “It means being friends.”
“So that’s it… then when you ‘gong’ me, what are you doing?” They hadn’t fought recently.
Ren Ningyuan coughed lightly. “That’s just exercising.”
Qu Tongqiu half understood, half didn’t. This short screenful of text contained not a single character he didn’t recognize, yet it left him feeling utterly lost. “Eh, it even says you’re ‘men-sao’? Sigh, this child is really rude, how can she talk like that. And what’s, ‘fu-hei’? A black belly—what’s wrong with that? Isn’t that an illness?”
For the first time, Qu Tongqiu felt worried about his own level of Chinese. But for the sake of communicating better with young people, he could only keep reading through the confusion.
“Looking forward to my counterattack—what does that mean? Oh, oh, guiding me to counterattack—does Little Ke want to teach me how to exercise?”
Ren Ningyuan snapped the magazine shut with a loud slap.
When Qu Ke came out after her shower, she found that both men were gone.
The next day, she didn’t even see her dad in the living room, because he had spent the entire day lying face-down on the bed, unable to get up at all.
—Extra: “A Daughter’s Thoughts” End
Ever since Qu Tongqiu moved here, he had been suffering from sore waist and back every few days. He used medicated plasters and hired people to massage him, but nothing seemed to help. Seeing her dad constantly rubbing his waist like a little old man, his daughter couldn’t help worrying. Qu Tongqiu could only say, “It’s nothing. Daddy’s old now. Old people are all like this.”
One day, while Qu Tongqiu was in the kitchen making snacks for them, he saw Qu Ke walk up to Ren Ningyuan, who was sitting there drinking tea and reading the newspaper. She slapped both palms onto the table with a loud smack.
“From now on, you’re not allowed to bully my dad anymore!”
Ren Ningyuan didn’t even lift his eyelids, his expression unchanged. “I didn’t bully him.”
“Then why does his waist hurt?”
Ren Ningyuan put down his teacup. “Children shouldn’t interfere in adults’ business.”
In the evening, the three of them stayed together in the living room. He watched TV, Ren Ningyuan read magazines, and Qu Ke played on the computer. Each did their own thing, not interfering with the others, yet they were used to sharing the same space.
With a speed that made Qu Tongqiu marvel, Qu Ke clattered away at the keyboard for a long time, then said contentedly, “I’m going to take a shower now.”
After a while, Qu Tongqiu noticed that his daughter hadn’t closed her computer again. Whenever she took a shower, she would soak for ages, leaving the computer on the whole time.
“Sigh, this child—she doesn’t even turn it off when she’s done. That wastes electricity, and the machine can easily break,” he muttered. Thriftiness was already carved into his bones.
He walked over to the computer, intending to close the screen, but when he saw the page in front of him, he hesitated.
“Well… Little Ke stays up late these days, staring at the computer all day, I don’t know what she’s doing. It’s so late, and there are still so many people chatting with her online. I wonder if she’ll learn bad things,” he said, glancing uneasily at Ren Ningyuan. “Just taking a look at the webpage she left open, without touching anything, should be fine, right?”
Ren Ningyuan put down his magazine and smiled. “I won’t tell her.”
Qu Tongqiu bent down and leaned closer to the screen. “Mm, it’s a BBS, looks like a casual chat forum… eh?” His tone suddenly brightened. “Did Little Ke write this?
It seems to mention me.”
When Qu Ke was little, her compositions were always titled “My Dad.” Nothing inflated a father’s vanity more than reading those essays.
But as he kept reading, he grew troubled. “The things young people write nowadays—I can’t really understand them anymore. Sigh, times really have changed… what does this ‘meng’ mean?”
Qu Tongqiu went to look it up in the dictionary. “Plants sprouting, beginning to grow, same as ‘meng’, sprout… none of these seem to match. Could it be that she thinks I’m not good?” Adolescents always made fathers uneasy.
Ren Ningyuan laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s a good meaning.”
“Huh? If ‘gong’ has an opposite, shouldn’t it be ‘shou’? Why is it written as ‘shou’ instead? A typo, right… but we’re not fighting a war, so why talk about offense and defense?”
Ren Ningyuan said, “It means being friends.”
“So that’s it… then when you ‘gong’ me, what are you doing?” They hadn’t fought recently.
Ren Ningyuan coughed lightly. “That’s just exercising.”
Qu Tongqiu half understood, half didn’t. This short screenful of text contained not a single character he didn’t recognize, yet it left him feeling utterly lost. “Eh, it even says you’re ‘men-sao’? Sigh, this child is really rude, how can she talk like that. And what’s, ‘fu-hei’? A black belly—what’s wrong with that? Isn’t that an illness?”
For the first time, Qu Tongqiu felt worried about his own level of Chinese. But for the sake of communicating better with young people, he could only keep reading through the confusion.
“Looking forward to my counterattack—what does that mean? Oh, oh, guiding me to counterattack—does Little Ke want to teach me how to exercise?”
Ren Ningyuan snapped the magazine shut with a loud slap.
When Qu Ke came out after her shower, she found that both men were gone.
The next day, she didn’t even see her dad in the living room, because he had spent the entire day lying face-down on the bed, unable to get up at all.
—Extra: “A Daughter’s Thoughts” End
