Marriage Concerto (Small Thing Called Love) Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Chuan Chuan

For the sake of proving she still had a rebellious side, Ding Meng resolutely sent Qiao Yichen a text message, saying that she would immediately return after eating chuan chuan. Then she quickly turned off her phone.

After taking public transportation and arriving at 10 Li of Floating Fragrance, she found that Jiang Nanqing had already ordered a whole table of food and was just waiting for her. Ding Meng looked around and saw there were a lot of foods she liked to eat. She couldn’t help but be moved. “Nanqing, only you treat me the best.”

T/N: 10 Li of Floating Fragrance is Ding Meng’s favorite chuan chuan store.

Jiang Nanqing rolled her eyes, clearly not falling for her trick, “We’re splitting.”

Ding Meng, “….”

Sure enough, everything is fragile in the face of money.

Pouting, she sat down on the chair and sipped a mouthful of barley tea. From across the table, Jiang Nanqing sized her up and began chatting, “Didn’t your family’s Great Producer Qiao forbid you from coming? With you being so rebellious, aren’t you scared of getting punished when you get home?”

Ding Meng choked on her drink. “I’ve just suddenly returned to being myself. You spoke the truth. Why do I have to listen to him?” If they were actually husband and wife then fine, but they were just a fake husband and wife. Why did he get to order her around like this? The contract clearly stated that neither party could interfere with the other’s lifestyle.

Thus, Ding Meng, with a clear conscience, picked up a thoroughly cooked stick of food. Using her G.o.dly chopstick skills, she began to stuff herself like no other.

However, good things don’t last forever. After only finis.h.i.+ng the first round, a black car parked in front of 10 Li of Floating Fragrance. Jiang Nanqing casually took a glance and sighed, “This person really has a sense of style, driving such a high end car to eat chuan chuan.”

Ding Meng also looked over. The more she stared, the more she felt like the car was somewhat familiar…. The person inside the car looked even more familiar = =.

Qiao Yichen closed the car door and took a step with his long legs, heading straight in the direction where Ding Meng was sitting.

This scene shocked Ding Meng so much that the quail egg in her chopsticks almost fell back into the pot.

“Are you done eating yet?” Qiao Yichen stood before her and questioned good-naturedly.

Ding Meng swallowed her saliva and then smiled to make amends. Her upcoming special training might have just become more difficult. Ignoring the awkward tension, Jiang Nanqing interjected unfazed, “Meng Meng, you’re not going introduce us?”

Ding Meng dryly laughed, “Qiao, Great Producer Qiao.”

“Ah.” Jiang Nanqing sized him up and took the initiative to introduce herself, “My name is Jiang Nanqing. I’m Meng Meng’s good friend.”

Qiao Yichen nodded his head. “Nice to meet you, but I had heard from her mom that her chuan chuan friend was someone called Xiao Zhuo zi?”

Ding Meng, “….”

Got it. She finally knew how Qiao Yichen knew to find her here.

How could her mom sell her out like this? Even divulging information about Xiao Zhuo zi, she was simply too evil!

“So you’ve eaten your chuan chuan. Are you ready to come back home now? It won’t be good to be recognized if you stay here any longer.”

Ding Meng paused and felt like Qiao Yichen’s worries made sense. After all, she was now a person who had been on TV before.

Therefore, she picked up her bag, threw down ten dollars, and left with Qiao Yichen.

Jiang Nanqing’s mouth couldn’t help but twitch as she watched their backs. Only after several days of not seeing each other, while she was still struggling to make ends meet, her good friend was already worried about getting recognized by people while going out.

But……ten dollars is clearly not enough!

After Ding Meng got on the car with Qiao Yichen, she cautiously observed him for a bit and then “haha” laughed twice. “You’re not mad right?”

“Why?”

“….. because I ran off to eat chuan chuan.”

Qiao Yichen glanced at her and quickly retracted his gaze. “No, but now I kind of understand your feelings when you used to pull me out of the internet cafe and force me to go back to cla.s.s.”

Ding Meng, “…..”

She also kind of understood his feelings when skipping cla.s.s to go to the internet cafe…. It was almost like, the older she got, the more she backwards she was becoming.

She sighed and tried to explain herself. “That downstairs chuan chuan restaurant is something I’ve grown up eating. The store is really clean and even though I’ve eaten it for so many years, my throat is still fine.”

Qiao Yichen responded, “That’s because you didn’t sing before. If you frequently used your throat like a professional singer and still ate like this, your throat would have been damaged sooner or later.

“Ah…..then occasionally eating it is okay, right?” She couldn’t help but put in some more effort to stand up for herself, even though this sort of matter really didn’t seem to need Qiao Yichen’s approval.

It was good that Qiao Yichen wasn’t too unreasonable and faintly said “en” in agreement.

Ding Meng relaxed and started to think about the consequences of becoming a “professional singer”. “Do you think I need to wear a hat when I go outside tomorrow?”

“To block the sun?”

“Not that, I’m worried about other people recognizing me.”

“……You’re overthinking things.”

Ding Meng became gloomy. “Didn’t you just say that you were worried about people recognizing me?”

Qiao Yichen paused for a bit before responding, “I was worried about people recognizing the two of us together. Just you by yourself and with your current level of fame, the only people who would recognize you are your friends and family.”

Ding Meng, “…..”

Couldn’t he even lie a little……

After arriving home, Ding Meng finally saw the dinner Qiao Yichen had spoken of on the phone. She was just about to cheerfully throw herself upon it when Qiao Yichen interrupted her. “Come up to the second floor and start training.”

Ding Meng’s eyes teared up, “But I haven’t even eaten dinner.”

Qiao Yichen looked at her strangely. “Didn’t you just finish eating chuan chuan?”

Ding Meng, “…..”

I didn’t even have a chance to eat 10% before getting taken away by you, okay!

Qiao Yichen completely ignored her accusing expression and his head didn’t even turn back to look at the first floor.

Ding Meng, “……”

Didn’t his att.i.tude right now prove that he was angry? He even pretended to be so magnanimous in front of her…..

Surely enough, during the vocal training and guitar lessons, he endlessly nitpicked. At the end he even said, “Since you ate such high calorie food today, you should run an extra thirty minutes.”

Ding Meng, “……”

She pursed her lips and looked at him. “Can you say that you aren’t angry one more time?”

Qiao Yichen didn’t say anything, but the corners of his mouth imperceptibly rose a little.

Ding Meng decided there was no escaping this running today. She was just about to accept her fate when her cell phone began to ring. Today she had specifically remembered to keep her phone near her person.

“Hold on, I need to take this call.” She ran over and picked up the phone. The caller ID was an express delivery service. “h.e.l.lo! That’s right. Okay. Thanks.”

Ding Meng laid down her phone and looked at Qiao Yichen as she spoke, “A package of mine came so I’m going to go pick it up. I’ll be right back.”

Qiao Yichen nodded his head and didn’t say anything. Ding Meng retrieved her package from the downstairs security guard and studied it for a bit. She discovered it was the bottle she had bought yesterday. She hadn’t expected it to arrive so quickly.

When she returned to the living room, she grabbed a pair of scissors to open the cardboard box. Surely enough, placed neatly inside were two bottles, one blue and one pink.

Qiao Yichen also came down from the second floor and asked while pa.s.sing by, “Why did you buy bottles?”

Ding Meng immediately put on an appearance of suffering, “You don’t know how hard it is to get any water at the training camp! Yesterday I spent a while looking to see if I had any large bottles, but in the end I had to purchase one.

At first, Qiao Yichen wanted to say that he had some too, but ultimately decided not to. Ding Meng tore open the plastic cus.h.i.+on around the bottles. She thought for a while before handing Qiao Yichen the blue colored bottle. “I’ll just give this one to you. Buying two came with a discount and a small gift, so I bought an extra.”

She didn’t say it, but these were actually a pair of couple’s bottles. She had just particularly liked the pink one, so she ended up buying them both.

But even if she didn’t say it, Qiao Yichen could tell. There was one pink and one blue bottle, and there was even a heart in the middle.

“Thanks, I just happened to need a water bottle.” He received it without a change in expression.

The bottle Ding Meng bought was a large volume water bottle with a straw. Although the design was a bit cute and wasn’t really suited for men, luckily, the quality was pretty good. While Qiao Yichen went to put the bottle away in his room, Ding Meng had already taken the initiative to go back upstairs and finish running. She reasoned that since she hadn’t eaten dinner yet, the faster she finished running, the faster she could eat……

Qiao Yichen also came back up not long after. Just like yesterday, he played some music and monitored her from the side. However, after only half an hour had pa.s.sed, he called her to a halt. “Just stop here for today.”

Ding Meng blinked her eyes in disbelief. Qiao Yichen calmly continued, “Physical training can’t be suddenly too intense. The body won’t be able to endure so it’s better to take things step by step.”

Ding Meng sank into deep thought. Earlier on, he had absolutely intended on making her run an extra half hour. What made him change his mind? One second, two seconds, three seconds pa.s.sed, and then a light bulb went off in Ding Meng’s mind. She realized she might have finally understood the reason.

Was it because she gave him that water bottle? If so, in the future she must give him more gifts.

The next day, Ding Meng brought her large water bottle to the training camp. The first thing she did was to fill it to the brim. Qiao Yichen also brought his bottle along to work. At the recording studio, a staff member happened to see him drinking water and became startled. “Great Qiao, you’re using such a cute looking water bottle?”

Qiao Yichen gave him a slight glance. “Do you have a problem with it?”

“…..I wouldn’t dare.” The staff member silently retracted his line of sight.

That night during their private lesson, Qiao Yichen asked Ding Meng what she had learned during the day as he always did.

Ding Meng spoke, “Today we’ve already stopped vocal and music theory lessons. The instructors asked us to sing our next compet.i.tion song and began directing us through the song. However, the physical training drills continued as usual.”

Qiao Yichen nodded his head. “That training’s main goal is to prepare for the compet.i.tion. I will continue to train you on the basic skills.”

“Okay.”

“Also, what will you be singing next time?”

Ding Meng replied, “Over the Rainbow.”

Qiao Yichen didn’t say anything. He simply lifted his hands onto the piano and began to play a familiar tune which echoed throughout the room.
“Sing a verse for me to hear.”

Ding Meng already sang a couple times during the afternoon for the instructor, but now that she was facing Qiao Yichen, she felt a little nervous. She sang the song once in the way that the instructor had directed her that afternoon. Then she nervously waited for Qiao Yichen’s evaluation.

“The past few days of training have had some results. At least you’re not singing karaoke anymore. You’re starting to consciously control the position of your vocal cords as you sing, as well as your mouth shape and breathing. Even your vocal and nasal resonance have improved.” He saw a happy expression faintly appearing on Ding Meng’s face. Then he calmly continued, “However, to a singer, these are all the most basic of basics.”

Ding Meng, “……”

Okay, so she still had another ten hundred and eight thousand miles to go before she reached Great Producer Qiao’s standards.

“We’ll continue with half an hour of vocal training.” After speaking, Qiao Yichen’s wrist flicked with force and he pressed down on a piano key.