Axolotl Translations

“Brother Yu, hurry up!” Zuo Zhou stood by the dining table, waving Shangguan Yu over while wearing his beloved sausage-print apron. “Come taste the egg pancakes I made!”

Shangguan Yu ate in silence, his mind weighed down by thoughts. He was unable to shake the image of the flawed architectural blueprints he had seen on Zuo Zhou’s old laptop. Even the crispy, fragrant egg pancakes couldn’t fully capture his attention.

“What’s wrong, Brother Yu?” Zuo Zhou asked. “You seem distracted. Is my cooking not to your liking?”

“No.” Shangguan Yu hesitated for a moment before finally setting down his chopsticks. “No, the pancakes are delicious. It’s just that…”

“Just what?” Zuo Zhou with “concern.”

“When your laptop was on the coffee table earlier, I happened to glance at it… There were some mistakes in the blueprints.”

“Huh?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Shangguan Yu regretted it. He thought Zuo Zhou would question why he was snooping through his laptop. But instead, Zuo Zhou simply blinked and said in a clueless tone, “That’s my coursework for my architecture class. I spent a long time working on it. How could there be mistakes? And several of them, at that?”

“You labeled an elevator as a cabinet, the room depth wasn’t at least twice the width, and a single room over 100 square meters only had one emergency exit,” Shangguan Yu casually listed off a few examples. “These are all common beginner mistakes.”

Although those mistakes had been intentionally placed by Zuo Zhou, he still put on an impeccable act, his expression a perfect mix of shock and disbelief— Oh no, how could I have made so many mistakes?

Shangguan Yu didn’t realize this was all part of a scheme and continued playing right into Zuo Zhou’s hands.

“Hmm,” Shangguan Yu explained, “I also studied architecture and worked in the field for a few years, so I have some experience. When I glanced at your blueprints, I noticed a few issues right away.”

Zuo Zhou nodded, his expression humble and eager to learn. “Brother Yu, could you help me go over my assignment later? It’s due next week, and the grade will be part of my final score. It’s really important to me.”

“…”

Shangguan Yu had only pointed out the mistakes out of professional instinct, but he never intended to personally guide Zuo Zhou through correcting them.

But now, faced with Zuo Zhou’s earnest, expectant gaze, he found himself unable to refuse. With a resigned sigh, he nodded.

“Awesome! Thanks, Brother Yu!” Zuo Zhou beamed, grinning as he placed a fragrant, golden-brown egg pancake onto Shangguan Yu’s small porcelain plate. “Eat more, Brother Yu! Hehe…”

Amused by Zuo Zhou’s blatant attempt at buttering him up, Shangguan Yu couldn’t help but smile as well.

After dinner, Zuo Zhou swiftly cleaned up the kitchen before excitedly plopping onto the sofa, clutching his laptop, eyes sparkling with anticipation as he looked at Shangguan Yu, ready for the lesson to begin.

Though somewhat reluctant, Shangguan Yu still maneuvered his wheelchair a little closer to Zuo Zhou so he could get a better view of the laptop screen. Then, he started going through the blueprints, explaining each point in detail.

Once he was in his element, the discomfort of sitting so close to Zuo Zhou gradually faded. At first, he had felt a little uneasy about their proximity, but as the lesson progressed, he forgot all about it, his mind fully engaged in the discussion.

“These are the most common mistakes. They’re not difficult to avoid as long as you pay attention.”

“Got it, I wrote everything down!” Zuo Zhou nodded earnestly, holding up a notebook filled with dense, handwritten notes.

“Thank you, Brother Yu! I’ll make sure to correct everything properly and never make these mistakes again.” His voice was filled with conviction, his expression so exaggeratedly studious that it was almost comical. He stared at Shangguan Yu with the intensity of a student hanging onto their mentor’s every word.

Amused by his exaggeratedly serious expression, Shangguan Yu let a faint smile slip onto his lips.

Though it was just a fleeting, barely noticeable smile, Zuo Zhou caught it instantly. His eyes widened in delight as he exclaimed, “Brother Yu, you smiled!”

Shangguan Yu froze for a moment. Ever since the accident, he had almost forgotten what it felt like to smile.

Coming back to his senses, Shangguan Yu realized that the corners of his mouth had indeed lifted slightly. In Zuo Zhou’s words, he had… smiled.

The realization felt unfamiliar and left him a little flustered. His smile quickly faded as he sat up straight, and subtly moved his wheelchair back, putting some distance between them.

“Y-you should focus on your assignment. I’m going back to my room.”

“Alright, I’ll push you back.”

Zuo Zhou got up, set his laptop on the coffee table, and was just about to move behind Shangguan Yu’s wheelchair when—

BZZZZZZZZT!

Before Shangguan Yu could even voice his refusal, both of them were startled by a sudden, ear-splitting noise from the laptop on the coffee table. It sounded like a dying tractor screeching in agony.

“……”

“………………”

Their gazes instinctively locked onto the source of the noise.

As if it had a mind of its own, the laptop seemed to sense their attention. The more they stared, the louder it groaned, until finally, with a sputtering whine, wisps of white smoke began curling out from the vents—like a CPU burning itself alive.

Shangguan Yu sat in stunned silence. This was the first time he had ever witnessed a laptop literally die of old age before his eyes.

Zuo Zhou, on the other hand, reacted in an instant. After a brief moment of heartbreak, he bolted forward and yanked the power cord out in one swift motion.

“Sorry.”

Zuo Zhou still had the power cord in his hand, looking at Shangguan Yu with a guilty expression. “I… I didn’t expect this to happen. But I unplugged it in time, so the circuits should be fine.”

Shangguan Yu was surprised that Zuo Zhou would even apologize for something like this. It was just a broken laptop—his own laptop—there was no reason for him to say sorry.

“That’s not what I meant…”

He wanted to offer some words of comfort, but for a moment, he wasn’t sure what to say. Instead, he asked, “So… what about your assignment?”

“Hmm…” Zuo Zhou thought for a second before replying, “I’ll just go to an internet café after you fall asleep and finish them there. I have backups on my cloud drive, so it’s all good. This laptop was a second-hand one I bought when I started college—only cost a few hundred yuan. To be honest, the fact that it survived a whole year already exceeded my expectations. Pretty solid investment, if you ask me.”

As he finished, he even flashed Shangguan Yu a genuine smile.

For some reason, that made Shangguan Yu feel… off.

Zuo Zhou was the one who just lost his laptop, yet here he was, trying to comfort him instead.

And that old, beat-up second-hand laptop—something that Shangguan Yu had always considered just a basic necessity for university—was something Zuo Zhou hadn’t even been able to afford before.

His financial situation must have been really rough. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have ended up working as a caretaker for a disabled person in his second year of college.

Thinking about this, Shangguan Yu suddenly felt a wave of sympathy and concern for Zuo Zhou. Without giving it much thought, he said directly, “Don’t go to the internet café. I have a spare laptop in my room. You can use it.”

“Huh?”

Zuo Zhou looked at Shangguan Yu in surprise, hesitating as he said, “That… doesn’t seem right, does it?”

“It’s fine. I don’t use it anyway.”

And that was true. Back when Shangguan Yu was still working, he often carried his laptop everywhere. But now, he barely even left the house. On the rare occasions he needed to go online, he just used his desktop. His laptop had been sitting untouched in its bag for a long, long time.

“Then… thanks, Brother Yu.”

Zuo Zhou’s voice was both excited and cautious. “I’ll take good care of it—I promise I won’t break it.”

“Mm.”

Shangguan Yu simply nodded and went to his room to fetch the laptop.

That night, while Shangguan Yu rested in his room, Zuo Zhou sat on the couch in the living room, carefully proofreading his assignment on the borrowed laptop.

In reality, Zuo Zhou didn’t need to correct anything. The messy, error-filled assignment he had “accidentally” shown Shangguan Yu was actually a practice sheet specifically designed for error corrections. Every single mistake had been carefully researched and intentionally added to mimic common beginner errors. His actual assignment? That had been safely stored in his cloud drive all along.

Why go through all this trouble? Simple. Zuo Zhou wanted Shangguan Yu to reconnect with the field he once loved. He hoped that, through this, Shangguan Yu could reignite a passion for life, or at the very least, find something to distract him from his monotonous and painful routine.

Looking at the situation now, not only had Zuo Zhou’s plan succeeded, but it had also brought an unexpected benefit—he had gotten his hands on Shangguan Yu’s laptop.

For someone like Zuo Zhou, who was inching his way into Shangguan Yu’s world, this was like hitting the jackpot. The laptop offered him the opportunity to understand Shangguan Yu on a deeper level, and perhaps, a better way to help him open up.

So, wasting no time, Zuo Zhou eagerly delved into Shangguan Yu—well, into his laptop—searching for glimpses of a side of him he had yet to fully understand.

Opening “My Computer,” Zuo Zhou scrolled through the files. The folders were packed with materials from Shangguan Yu’s old job—real estate projects, architectural blueprints, contracts, and various professional documents.

These were stories Shangguan Yu would never share on his own, so Zuo Zhou carefully opened each document one by one, reading them with full attention.

He couldn’t help but admire him. This was, after all, the man he liked. As he browsed through the files, Zuo Zhou couldn’t help but be impressed.Every document Shangguan Yu had worked on was neatly organized, structured with precision. It was obvious that he not only loved his job but was exceptionally good at it.

Working with someone like Shangguan Yu must have been an incredible experience. The thought made Zuo Zhou even more determined—he needed to get closer to Wang Hao. If he could gain Wang Hao’s trust, he’d be able to uncover even more about Shangguan Yu’s past work life.

But just as he was getting deeper into his research, something odd caught his attention—there wasn’t a single photo album on the laptop.

That didn’t seem right.

Most people with a computer would have at least a few personal photos saved somewhere. Even if he stored everything on his phone, having absolutely nothing here was unusual.

Zuo Zhou searched through the drives several times, but no matter how thoroughly he looked, he couldn’t find a single folder containing photos. A faint frown crept onto his face.

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