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Language:
English
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Published:
2020-05-05
Completed:
2020-05-13
Words:
6,265
Chapters:
3/3
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65
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324
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Where Tang Fan Proves His Love Life is Just as Predictable as His Books

Summary:

Dong’er really didn’t understand how someone like Tang-dage, who wrote those kinds of stories in his spare time, could be so entirely oblivious to his own life playing out like one of his terribly clichéd plot lines.

One-shot collection:
Cliché #1 - Childish shenanigans
Cliché #2 - Hostage situation
Cliché #3 - Jealousy

Notes:

Let's be real. This is just an excuse to write out awfully cliché scenarios involving our SuiTang pair. Don't expect plot or anything particularly well thought out.

Gratuitous use of Chinese words, mostly because I'm a native speaker and just can't bear seeing the English translations ever sometimes. 'West Lake Dragon Well Tea' just doesn't quite have the same ring as its original pronunciation.

Hover over underlined words to translate or see notes.

Chapter 1: Cliché #1 - Always putting up with MC’s ridiculous, unreasonable, childish shenanigans

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Dong’er loved her Tang-dage, but she really didn’t understand sometimes how Sui-dage could continuously put up with a partner that was, most of the time, a six-year-old child trapped in a twenty-some-year-old body.

This was, once again, her thought as she looked on at the current scene in the kitchen, where Tang-dage and Sui-dage were making breakfast. Or rather, where Sui-dage was making breakfast while Tang-dage was milling about, chiming in with unwarranted criticism and running interference.

“Guangchaun! I told you the jianbing batter consistency looked off! See, it’s too thick now!” He woefully prodded the jianbing on the griddle while Sui Zhou barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes before nudging the other out of the way so he could check the readiness of the jianbing.

Predictably, Tang Fan moved on to another item on the counter. “Waah.... are these the youtiao from that street stall I told you about?” With his eyes lighting up like stars, he gently set his chopsticks down and not-so-discreetly moved to pinch off the top of the youtiao, only to have his hands smacked with the spatula. “Ow! Guangchuan, you hit me!” he wailed while nursing his hand, looking onward at the Jinyiwei with a look of betrayal.

Sui Zhou met his gaze with raised brows in between applying fluid strokes of bean paste. “Save it for the jianbing. Don’t eat now,” he chided without real heat.

Tang Fan pouted as he plopped down onto a barrel and started kicking his legs around. “But I’m hungry....and they’re best enjoyed hot!” he tried to reason, eyes not leaving the tantalizing sticks of fried dough sticking out of their paper wrapper.

Sui Zhou gave him a pointed look. “You wanted jianbingguozi. Jianbingguozi requires youtiao.” To emphasize his point, he grabbed the youtiao Tang Fan tried to steal earlier and threw it down onto the jianbing.

A mischievous grin flashed across Tang Fan’s features. He suddenly jumped up and edged into Sui Zhou’s personal space, causing the latter to lean back slightly, wariness written on his face. Tang Fan smiled prettily and batted his lashes, leaning into the counter, though thankfully far enough away from the griddle to not get burnt. “But one little bite can’t hurt, right? Guangchuan-xiong...” he pleaded, batting his lashes a few more times for effect.

Sui Zhou stared blankly at the other man for several heartbeats, caught between mild disbelief at the childishness the other man was willing to display and the treacherous little part of him that decided the display was (almost) cute. With ungodly speed, he threw on the rest of the ingredients, rolled up the jianbing, bundled it with some paper, and thrusted it at Tang Fan. “Your jianbingguozi,” he declared awkwardly, snapping his hands immediately back to his hips when the other eagerly snatched up the food.

Tang Fan looked at him like he was Buddha. And then he looked at the food like it was Buddha. And then he proceeded to take a monstrous bite most unlike Buddha. Sui Zhou initially seemed like he wanted to caution Tang Fan on the food being too hot, but settled for a sigh instead when the latter started huffing around the bite of burning food, “Haw! Haw! Sho haw!” He fanned the front of his mouth frantically while Sui Zhou just shook his head and turned his attention back to the griddle to start on a second one.

After Tang Fan finally managed to swallow, he cried out, “Guangchuan, this is soo good! So delicious! Too delicious!” He excitedly chomped down again while fluttering his eyes close dreamily.

Watching the scholar out of the corner of his eye, Sui Zhou couldn’t help a smile from twitching onto his face even as he continued to shake his head in apparent exasperation.

From across the courtyard, Dong’er mirrored Sui-dage’s head-shaking, though her own smile was for a different reason. Well, she’d never fully understand, she supposed. But she was glad her Tang-dage had someone like Sui-dage to embrace and accommodate all of him, including the childish parts. And at the end of the day, she knew that Tang-dage embraced and accommodated all parts of Sui-dage too, some of which the guarded man still refused to reveal to anyone but Tang-dage. She was glad they had each other...

A loud crash sounded from the kitchen. “Oops. Sorry, Guangchuan—”

“Runqing! Out!”

…even if one of them did have the trouble-making tendencies of a six-year-old.

Notes:

dage - Honorific translating literally to 'big brother'
jianbing - Literal translation = fried pancake
youtiao - Fried dough sticks; common Chinese breakfast item
Jinyiwei 'Embroidered Uniform Guard', which just does not roll off the tongue the same way
jianbingguozi - A delicious breakfast food consisting of fried pancake (or more like crepe in this case) covered in bean paste wrapping fried dough sticks
xiong - More formal honorific for referring to older males of the same generation. Literally, it just translates 'elder brother', but you'd never use it on its own to call someone.
Guangchuan and Runqing- *EDITED*. Alright, so this has been edited a couple of times, because it's complicated. Historically, educated Chinese families will give their children two names. The 'ming' is the birth or official name that every person (educated background or not) has from birth. The 'zi' or courtesy name is the name your friends and maybe family call you once you're an adult. Your family might call you other nicknames too.

Generally, once you're an adult, people will use your courtesy name. People who continue to call you by your birth name once you're an adult are a) clearly of superior status to you b) your parents, teacher, etc. c) they're close / familiar to you or d) they're disrespecting you. It's kind of like, if your name is 'Jennifer', your family might call you 'Jenny' and your friends might call you 'Jen', but unless you okayed it, it might feel insulting or awkward to be called 'Jenny' right off the bat by a stranger.

Guangchuan and Runqing are Sui Zhou and Tang Fan's respective courtesy names. Hence sometimes they're also called 'Sui Guangchuan' and 'Tang Runqing'.

The confusing part is that in The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, they use each other's birth names first, and then progress to use their courtesy names. Since they're the same generation, one would think they use their courtesy names first, then possibly use their birth names. But all the characters call them Tang Fan and Sui Zhou, their birth names, whereas only Tang Fan will say 'Guangchuan' and Tang Yu will say 'Runqing'. Not sure if this was an author's mistake or intentional swap, or there's some further nuances on name usage due to positions that I'm not familiar with.

tl;dr They have several names. Sui Zhou, Guangchuan, Sui Guanchuan; and Tang Fan, Runqing, Tang Runqing are all their names. PSA though: You'd never refer to them as simply 'Zhou' or 'Fan'. You never call someone with a monosyllable name. It's always two or three syllables.
-

This is the first time I'm writing a fic where the original work is not English but I speak the language. It does present an interesting dilemma where I feel I can't fully express the characters in their full personality (not that my grasp of the Chinese language would compare to a scholar like Tang Fan's anyway).

Hopefully they weren't particularly OOC though and were able to provide a modicum of entertainment!