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Qin Yu’s white and tender face had a thoughtful look. Was the “Yu” in his name the same as the “Yu” in “YuTou” (Taro).
Qin Yu knew how to write his own name, but he didn’t know how to write “YuTou”. He was a bit confused for a moment, but since they were pronounced the same, then there is a high probability of them being the same?
With that thought, Qin Yu nodded his head and said “Yes!”
MiaoMiao’s eyes immediately brightened and said, “Your name sounds really nice!” After all it had the name of a food in it! It’s clearly the best!
Qin Yu was praised and his snowy cheeks slowly turned pink. Ever since he was small, other than his parents and his teachers, the other students had never praised him before.
Today, he wasn’t only just told that he was cute, his name was even praised for being nice. She really was a little angel!
MiaoMiao tugged at his hand and said: “Let’s play together in the future.”
Qin Yu quickly nodded his head. “Okay, what do you want to play? Anything you want is good.”
MiaoMiao seriously thought about it. She originally wanted to play hopscotch with Xiong Da and Xiong Er, so she quickly brought Qin Yu to the hopscotch area. “This way, this way! We’re going to play hopscotch!”
Qin Yu was a little embarrassed and said: “I’ve never played this before. I don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll teach you.” MiaoMiao simply explained the rules of hopscotch and at this time, Xiong Da and Xiong Er also came.
“Little Aunt! We found you!” Xiong Da and Xiong Er dashed over. They were originally planning for things to be like before, where they’ll run into each other and then start playing together. But today… … What is there suddenly an extra person?
“Little Aunt, who is this?” Xiong Er said as he warily looked at Qin Yu.
In Xiong Er’s eyes, Qin Yu was too fat and he didn’t look that handsome, but Xiong Er knew very clearly that his Little Aunt liked chubby kids. She thinks that chubbiness = cuteness, so in Little Aunt’s eyes, this boy was clearly cuter than him!
Hmph! There’s another person who is here to fight over Little Aunt!
“My name is Qin Yu.” Qin Yu was a little shy as he introduced himself: “I am in Beginner Class 2.”
“Oh, we are in Intermediate Class 1.” Xiong Da answered: “I am Wen ChaoYu and this is my little brother Wen ChaoPei. We are Little Aunt’s nephews.”
Qin Yu was surprised. “You guys are older than MiaoMiao, but are lower than her in seniority? [1]“
“So what if we have less seniority? We have always taken care of Little Aunt like a little sister!” Xiong Er’s said seriously.
Once MiaoMiao heard this, she was immediately not happy. “I am the senior, so I have always taken care of Xiong Da and Xiong Er!” I clearly won’t accept any rebuttals, hmph!
Xiong Da and Xiong Er: “… …” But when we play together, all the elders clearly tell us to take good care of you.
After Qin Yu cleared up their relationships, he then curiously asked: “So during free time, do you guys always play with MiaoMiao?”
“Of course!” Xiong Er said: “Little Aunt’s desk mate moved away halfway through last term and left our kindergarten. During free time she will come play with us. Recently there has been no new students transferring into our kindergarten, so Little Aunt still doesn’t have a new desk mate.”
Little Star Kindergarten’s tuition fees were very expensive, every month the tuition was in the range of tens of thousands, so students who would transfer to this kindergarten were not very many. Once a student has transferred away, they most likely won’t have a desk mate for a long time.
Once Qin Yu heard this, his eyes immediately brightened and his eyes curved. He had lowered his head, so no one knew what kind of idea he had come up with.
“Then in the future let’s play together with Qin Yu during free time!” MiaoMiao looked at Xiong Da and Xiong Er. “He is being bullied by the boys in his class. We have to be good to him”
Xiong Da nodded his head. “We’ll all listen to Little Aunt.”
“Kay.” Xiong Er answered simply. Then he curiously asked: “Why are you being bullied? If someone is bullying you, you can just directly sit on them. Then wouldn’t it be fine?”
Qin Yu: “… …???”
“Are you stupid? If you sit on them, they’ll definitely be in a lot of pain. When they complain to the teacher, you just have to say you weren’t careful and fell onto them!” Xiong Er quickly said: “After all, my mom said, if you are being bullied you cannot just endure it, you have to tell the teacher and your parents. If you don’t say anything, they’ll think you are easy to bully.”
Qin Yu nervously twiddled his fingers. “I… … I’m scared of them. They said that if I tell the teacher or my parents, they’ll hit me everyday… … I’m scared.”
“What are you scared of! You’re a boy!” Xiong Da seriously said: “How about this, when you are bullied in the future, come and tell us. The three of us we fight back, we’ll take care of one each, while you sit on another!”
Qin Yu: “… … okay.” How terrifying!
When MiaoMiao returned home, she told her mom about how she made a new friend that day. Once Fu Rou heard that the other child was being bullied at the kindergarten and it was MiaoMiao who saved him, she said: “MiaoMiao is a good child, but in the future when you run into this kind of situation, you cannot charge up alone. What if you get injured?”
MiaoMiao looked at her mother in confusion. “How would I get injured?”
“If the group of boys are going to hit that boy and you charged up to block in the middle, won’t their blows end up hitting you?” Fu Rou seriously warned: “MiaoMiao needs to remember, it is fine to help people, but it needs to be within your abilities. You need to pay attention to your personal safety. Mommy doesn’t want to see MiaoMiao get hurt, so if you run into this kind of situation, MiaoMiao should call other people. If the teacher isn’t there, then call the other children. When the bullies hear the noise, they will leave, then MiaoMiao can go and find the teacher. This is the correct way to handle it.”
“MiaoMiao understands.” MiaoMiao nodded her little head. Then she remembered another thing: “Mommy, MiaoMiao’s new friend is called Qin Yu, it is the Yu from “YuTou” (Taro). His name sounds like it would be very very tasty!”
Qin Yu? (the Yu from Taro and not the Yu for brilliant)
Fu Rou thought the name was quite strange, but it is not her child and the name was decided by their parents, and she had no say in this matter.
“Okay, MiaoMiao should go wash her hands. We are going to eat dinner now.” After Fu Rou said this, MiaoMiao quickly ran to the washroom in her room. After she finished washing her hands, she quickly went to go eat dinner.
That night, as she was doing her home, she suddenly remembered something.
Qin Yu was in the class next door, so she didn’t have his contact information!
These days, all the children knew how to use electronics. MiaoMiao, Xiong Da, and Xiong Er all had their own WeChats [2] and Little Star Kindergarten also had a class group chat.
So all students in the class had each other’s WeChat. But because Qin Yu was in the class next door, she could only wait until tomorrow’s free play block to find Qin Yu to get his WeChat information.
MiaoMiao made a good plan, but she never thought that before she could put it into action, her new friend would come knocking on her door.
[1] “Seniority”: Family hierarchy is pretty important in Chinese culture, at least to a certain extent. Here Qin Yu is surprised that even though the twins are older than MiaoMiao, MiaoMiao still ranks higher than them in seniority, so the twins need to “show respect” to MiaoMiao. This is why the twins call MiaoMiao little aunt, while MiaoMiao can directly call them by name.
[2] WeChat: A very popular Chinese messaging app. It can be considered the equivalent of WhatsApp, but it also has features similar to FaceBook as well, where you can share stories (called “Moments” in WeChat). There are also other useful functions as well, you can hook up your bank card to it to use as a wallet. Then you can pay off your bills, top up your phone plan etc. It’s very useful.
The next morning, Fu Rou sent the three children to kindergarten. After MiaoMiao entered her classroom, she neatly took out her homework.
After the teacher collected the homework, she did not immediately start marking their homework, but instead she stood at the front of the class and smiled as she said: “Next, Teacher will introduce a new student to you guys. This new student just joined our kindergarten this term. He was originally part of Class 2, but he will be transferring to our Class 1. He is a bit introverted, so you guys need to take good care of him.”
MiaoMiao’s round black eyes curiously looked around, but she didn’t see anyone.
The teacher looked at the piano on the side, “Xiao Yu [1], come out and say hi to everyone.”
The little boy hiding behind the piano nervously looked at the teacher. After waiting a moment he knew that he couldn’t keep avoiding it, so he stepped forward without his legs.
Everyone curiously looked at the little boy, he looked about the same height as the other children, but his body had a lot more meat. His face was round and chubby, so he looked very plump and healthy. Because it was winter, everyone was wearing a lot, so he looked like a round ball.
Everyone looked at Qin Yu and Qin Yu also looked at his new classmates. His eyes quickly saw MiaoMIao and seeing MiaoMiao’s eyes were brightly shining at him, he quickly lowered his head with a guilty conscience.
“This is everyone’s new classmate, his name is Qin Yu. Who wants to be desk mates with Qin Yu?” The Teacher gently asked and looked at everyone.
Qin Yu nervously clenched his little fists, he didn’t know if MiaoMiao would want to be desk mates with him.
MiaoMiao immediately raised her hand. “Me! Me! Teacher, I want to be desk mates with him!”
Qin Yu raised his head and saw the little girl’s bright and smiling face. His face immediately turned red and he was a little embarrassed as he looked at MiaoMiao.
“Does Xiao Yu want to be desk mates with MiaoMiao?” The teacher smiled as she lowered her head to ask him.
Qin Yu shyly nodded his head, then the teacher brought him to the seat next to MiaoMiao.
MiaoMiao watched him sit down and placed her backpack into the drawer. Her heart was full of happiness.
This is great! She finally has a desk mate!
MiaoMiao quietly said: “We’ll be desk mates in the future. Before and After class we’ll play together.”
“Okay.” Qin Yu quickly nodded his head. Then he thought of something. From his little backpack, he took out a bar of chocolate. “For you.”
When MiaoMiao saw the chocolate, her eyes immediately brightened and she quickly accepted it. She carefully looked at the teacher and seeing that the teacher didn’t notice their sneaky actions, she said: “When the teacher is here, we can’t eat snacks. We’ll eat this together later, okay?”
“Okay.” Qin Yu’s face was red and he was a bit embarrassed when he looked at MiaoMiao.
The Teacher had actually already seen all their actions, but she chose not to warn them. It was better to let the new desk mates cultivate a good relationship.
During morning exercises, everyone went outside to lineup. MiaoMiao was worried that Qin Yu would run into a situation where he would be bullied by Class 2’s students again, so she let Qin Yu stand in front of her.
When Qin Yu was doing the exercises, because he knew that MiaoMiao was looking at him, he worked particularly hard to do all the actions.
After the exercises ended, everyone lined up to leave the field. MiaoMiao asked: “Let’s go to the little kiosk and buy something to drink?”
“Okay.” The two held hands and headed to the little kiosk. At the little kiosk, they each picked their favourite drinks. After returning to the classroom, MiaoMiao broke apart the chocolate and they each ate half.
At this time, the system interface popped open in front of MiaoMiao. “MiaoMIao, look at your brother’s page.”
MiaoMiao was stunned for a moment, and when Qin Yu wasn’t paying attention, she clicked on “Big Brother”. She noticed that Big Brother’s charm value had turned red and had became 89.
MiaoMiao remembered what Sister System said last time and asked: “Sister System, will Big Brother and Sister in Law fight?”
“Big Brother’s Charm Value suddenly rose very sharply. There might be an affair. MiaoMiao needs to tell Sister in Law and you also need to warn Big Brother.”
MiaoMiao didn’t understand what she needed to warn about, but she still agreed. Just as she was about to exit the system interface, she noticed something unusual. In the left table of contents, the original order should be Grandpa, Grandma, Mom, Dad, Big Brother, Sister in Law, Eldest Nephew, Second Nephew.
But now, underneath Second Nephew, there was another person — Qin Yu?
How strange? Why would Yu Tou suddenly show up on the same page as her family?
[1] “Xiao” (Little), its fairly common to attach “Xiao” as part of a name to show endearment. Qin Yu = Yu Tou = PangZi = Xiao Yu. I wonder what name Qin Yu will be called most often. At this point we already have 4 names for him. He can just start collecting nicknames at this point.
Joey’s Corner:
When MiaoMiao uses her nickname for Qin Yu, Yu Tou, should I leave it as Taro? or as Yu Tou? I worry that it won’t be clear if I use Yu Tou, but I think if I use Taro, we lose the wordplay on Qin Yu’s name. For now, I think I will use Yu Tou, but what are your guys’ thoughts?