Chapter 2 – Old Wang is Crazy

After sleeping for a lovely night, Wang Bo wakes up with the ringing of his alarm clock, after a shower and gargle he went out to work, once again start a whole day of struggle.

At the neighborhood’s entrance he once again met with Bro Liu and his son, in the morning Bro Liu doesn’t sell baked sweet potato instead he changed to sell veggies, looking at Wang Bo he once again warmly greeted : “Little Wang going to work? Don’t want to buy something? Come have a look, Bro Liu’s things here are complete*.”
(TL : complete as in have everything)

Wang Bo wryly smiled : “Bro, I’m a programmer not a chef, why would I buy veggies to work?”

Bro Liu lifted a jade-green cucumber and said : “I don’t only have veggies here, but also fruit, look at this cucumber, so green that would make you happy just looking at it. Come buy two, your whole day is facing computer, eat some cucumber to supplement vitamins for your good.”

Wang Bo also think that is true, during the winter fruits are expensive he himself is unwilling to buy, they buy some cucumber to eat is also quite good. So he picked four little cucumber, after paying Bro Liu’s son looked at him, pretending to be naive and said : “Uncle Wang, I learned a few more ancient poetry do you want to hear?”

Wang Bo lightly pinched a little on his check, whispered softly in conspiring voice : “First of all, let brother correct you a little bit, last night that phrase of poetry is wrong, that is 《YueFu’s Poetry Collection – Long Song Type》’s famous line, it should be : When young and strong does not try hard, grown up to be coolie/physical labor (少壮不努力，长大做苦力 / shao4 zhuang4 bu4 nu3 li4, zhang3 da4 zuo4 ku3 li4). And then, brother is going to work, and have no time to listen to you recite ancient poetry, but you can recite it for your father to listen, he will surely praise you for learning a new line of ancient poetry, maybe he might even give you some reward.”

After saying that, he lightly took away his cucumber, like having a gust of wind under his feet and went away as quickly as he can (脚底生风迅速闪人 / jiao3 di1 sheng1 feng1 xun4 su4 shan3 ren2 / literally : gained wind under the feet and went away in a blink of the eye).

Not long after, Bro Liu’s loud voice shouted out at his back : “Hey you brave kid*, who did you learn that line of twisted poetry from, even me you dare to ridicule, look how I’m going to make buttock blossom.”
(TL : he actually said 熊孩子 / xiong2 hai2 zi3 which literally mean bear child as in grizzly bear child, not pregnant but the sentence sound very unnatural in English, so I’ll just leave this here, also the line below also use the same phrase 熊孩子)

“Ouch ouch ouch!” the brave kid use an even louder voice to reply back.

Bringing my cucumber squeezing with the crowd in the train to kill my way to the office, Wang Bo finish punching-in his attendance card about to walk away, behind him rang out a woman’s voice : “Little Wang, these cucumber are your breakfast? Company has a system, you can not eat things during office hours, you don’t even remember this?”

Listening to this voice, Wang Bo subconsciously trembled a bit, he was too familiar with this voice, this is his direct supervisor who is speaking.

Turning around, it really is that yellow-faced woman* (Huang Lian Po) leader. Originally his leader’s name is Huang Lian Xiang (黄莲香 / huang2 lian2 xiang1 / literally : yellow connected fragrant), a graceful (风姿绰约 / feng1 zi1 chao1 yue1 / character by character : wind gestured well-off approximately) name, but because of her menopause temper that is irritable and like to curse people, add along her poor skin color, so her underlings gave her this nickname ‘yellow-faced woman’.
(TL : yellow-faced woman or 黄脸婆 / huang2 lian3 po2 in Chinese slang is used to call a woman who has married for a long time and had aged with burden thus losing her beauty with it)

Seeing that leader has already found out about his cucumber, Wang Bo chose the best cucumber he hold and handed it over, politely he said : “Leader do you want to eat it? I’ll give you one.”

Yellow-faced woman coldly shook her head and said : “Forget it, how could I eat during office hour? Besides I don’t like eating cucumber.”

Wang Bo subconsciously said : “I understand leader, I would definitely eat off office hour, but you really don’t want it? Cucumber is good stuff, even if you don’t eat you could still use it…”

Surrounding them are a few people waiting to punch-in their attendance card, hearing him said that suddenly laughter can be heard all around the hallway, yellow-faced woman’s face turn even more yellow, she coughed a little and stared at Wang Bo, asked while biting her teeth : “Little Wang what do you mean?”

Wang Bo’s cold sweat kept flowing, with a wronged expression said : “Leader you misunderstood me, I mean cucumber can be cut to slices then apply on face to protect the skin, I didn’t mean that…”

“Then what do you mean?” yellow-faced woman in her angry voice asked, her expression is extremely savage.

Wang Bo did not dare to explain anymore, he lowered his head and sneer prepared to use silence to welcome yellow-faced woman’s exploding volcano-like mood, but suddenly when his heart turn cold from discouragement, he remembered last he took that testing phone, today he went out to work too hastily, he actually forgot to bring it back!

This time he is over, Wang Bo is very anxious, he secretly though, yellow-faced woman was already angry with him, if she found out he didn’t bring her testing phone back, then surely she would get even furious! And that [Core of Landlord] game, don’t know whether the game is still stuck — just when he suddenly thought of this, a scene unbelievable even by him happened:

A basketball-sized green 3D heart-shaped figurine bounced out from his body, and then this heart-shaped figurine rapidly changed,

The color from green change to white, toward the surrounding expanded at the same time the surface changing up and down, finally turning into a sandbox with the size of around one square meter.

This sandbox is rectangular, above it are mountains and rivers, there are flowers, grasses, and trees, there are birds, beasts, insects, and fishes, there is also an approximately sesame seed sized castle, all of which have a clear translucent appearance, very life-like, as if all of it are real…

Looking at this shocking scene, Wang Bo’s eye suddenly stared wide, he can’t be bothered with yellow-faced woman’s stern voice reprimanding him, stretching his hand out pointing at the half-transparent crystal sandbox in shock and horror while shouting : “woho*, woho, woho! Look everyone, what is this stuff?!”
(TL : He didn’t actually said woho, but 卧槽 (wo4 cao2) which is more like when American is surprised they might shout “Damn, damn, damn!” kind of thing and the second character 槽 is quite commonly used in Chinese novels as profane that is used in some Chinese slang)

The surrounding employee who was waiting to watch the fun are at loss looking at where Wang Bo’s finger is pointing, after that their expression also become horrified, because they found out, Old Wang this dude is impressively pointing yellow-faced woman’s bloated barrel-sized waist…

“Damn it*, Old Wang is crazy?”  “Give anesthetic to this grandson/bastard he is finished, is he ridiculing yellow-faced woman’s waist is thick?”  “He really is a man, but his death is really miserable!”
(TL : Damn it here also used 卧槽 (wo4 cao2)  again)

All the employees were whispering here and there discussing, even though they can hold down their voice, but the people discussing is too much, the voice is still spread to Wang Bo and yellow-faced woman’s ear.

Yellow-faced woman is so mad that she almost gone nuts, she twisted her face and shouted toward Wang Bo : “Little Wang, you don’t wanna work anymore is it?”

Wang Bo didn’t care about yellow-faced woman, he is still seriously, pointing toward his front where the crystal sandbox is and shouted toward the employee surrounding him : “No, I’m saying you guys look at this thing, what is this toy*? You guys can’t see it? This, this, this, this thing**, this thing in front of me you guys can’t see it?!”
(TL : *玩意儿 / wan2 yi4 er2 / actually is in Beijing accent if I remember correctly, meaning plaything roughly could be translated as toy. **东西 / dong1 xi1 / character by character : east west / but could also mean thing or stuff)

Someone dared out to ridicule : “We see it, in front of you the thing isn’t it Manager Huang? Manager Huang is your leader, how could you points fingers at her like that? How could you said she is ‘toy’, ‘thing’? “

Wang Bo with a horrified expression looked at these people, he on people around him only expression of sympathy and ridicule, none of which have surprised or shocked. So he quickly with all his strength rubbed his eye, when he opened his eye the crystal sandbox is still in front of his very own eye, of course his leader is also in front of him, with a twisted face!

But this time he really doesn’t have the mood to care about yellow-faced woman, on Wang Bo’s face and body suddenly cold sweat starts to emerge, he hardly believing it while looking at his colleagues’ face and asked out : “You guys can’t see it? Impossible, this thing is just floating here, you guys can’t see it?!”

The staff around him didn’t laugh at him anymore, they from Wang Bo’s expression could see that he isn’t joking and also isn’t pretending to be a fool more is he not ridiculing yellow-faced woman, but he really did saw something scary, because Wang Bo’s current expression on his face and his eyes is seriously seriously very serious.

(TL : please don’t vote down for grammar or sentence structure, I want to keep the original context and sentence structure for this)

But there really is nothing at all here, so someone hysterically said : “Damn it, Old Wang didn’t really turned crazy right?”

Someone else anxiously said : “It really is possible, recently didn’t someone died from overwork? Could Old Wang have turned crazy from overwork? His mental couldn’t handle the stress, recently he had always been working overtime, last night he seems to be the last one to leave the company…”

The staffs started to get noisy, after listening to their words, yellow-faced woman also got a little panic, she couldn’t care to punch her attendance card, grasping her handbag hurriedly walked into her office, ‘peng’ she closed her door.

Wang Bo knows his own mental is still sane, but what is up with this exquisite green crystal sandbox in front of him? Is he hallucinating? How did this toy appear? How to make it disappear?

Just when his brain thought of making the sandbox disappear, the white crystal sandbox once again have changes, after that like earlier when it appears but in reverse, the sandbox is contracting, the color changing until finally it becomes a green heart-shaped crystal figurine, finally crawled into his chest!