Chapter 8 Duan Yu

  After finishing dinner and returning to their dormitories, Qiao Feng suddenly said to Linghu Chong: "Why don't we make a bet? If you can help Duan Yu catch Wang Yuyan, I'll treat you to three meals at McDonald's. If you lose, just one meal is fine."

  Linghu Chong hesitated for a moment and said: "The odds of one to three are still a bit small, how about one to five? If you lose, please treat me to five meals."

  "You little scoundrel, if you're not Huang Shiren, then there's no one else in the world who is." Qiao Feng spat out a mouthful of saliva, "Five moves are just five moves, if we're going to gamble, let's gamble big."

  Linghu Cong went to McDonald's with high expectations.

  About a week later, Qiao Feng met Yang Kang in the cafeteria.

  Yang Kang said: "You're really good at gambling. Even with the help of ten old Lao Hu, our fifth brother can't catch up with Wang Yuyan, right? What's the difference between this and buying a turtle to win in a horse race?"

  Qiao Feng chuckled: "Actually, even if he lost and didn't invite me, it's no big deal. If Duan Yu really can catch up with Wang Yuyan, I'll treat Linghu Chong to five Big Macs at McDonald's - after all, I'm not someone who can't afford it."

  Yang Kang was stunned for a moment. His brain was still quite agile, but he couldn't react in time at the moment.

  "Even if it's one in eight thousand, it's hard to guarantee that your Eldest Brother won't get lucky," Qiao Feng sneered, winking his left eye, "Let Linghu Chong try and see."

  Yang Kang slightly raised his eyelids and glanced at Qiao Feng, both of them smiled at each other and didn't say anything else.

  It's easy to express ideas, but it's a bit difficult to really plan them out.

  Linghu Cong scratched his head, really didn't know how to make Duan Yu and Wang Yuyan go from acquaintances to friends to holding hands and going to the banks of Youming Lake under the moonlight. The only methods Linghu Cong could think of were still those he used to teach Guo Jing back then, such as heroically rescuing a beauty, or having Duan Yu sneak into Wang Yuyan's dormitory through the water pipes at midnight.

  He had no choice but to go find Huang Rong for a solution.

  Linghu Chong struck a big brotherly pose, putting his arm around Duan Yu's shoulder to prevent him from running away. Then he asked Huang Rong with a smile: "What are Wang Yuyan's hobbies after all?"

  "Hmm..." Huang Rong raised her small head and looked at the ceiling, "I like cleaning..."

  "This hobby is too creative," said Linghu Chong with a wry smile. "Can't we have something more useful, like soccer, basketball or badminton? Let Duan Yu go learn some of those."

  "Let's play basketball, I guess..."

  "Can you play basketball, Duan Yu?" asked Linghu Chong.

  Duan Yu forced a smile.

  "Is there anything else? Lao Wu is only about 1.7 meters tall, playing basketball is too short, exposing his own shortcomings."

  "You're also one meter seven yourself?" Duan Yu retorted.

  "Oh... Raksha likes poetry, she seems to like Pushkin, Raksha is okay too. Last time I saw her holding a copy of Dostoevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov'."

  Duan Yu's face turned slightly pale.

  "Ah——" Linghu Cong suddenly enlightened, "Actually, I also have some understanding of that book, especially one sentence that I can never forget."

  "I just flipped through the first few chapters," Huang Rong admitted frankly, "what's so good about it?"

  "Aleksey Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of my county's landlord, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov," said Linghu Chong in his extremely emotional voice.

  "Isn't this the first sentence?"

  "After reading the first sentence, I lost the courage to continue reading."

  "No way! Let's get going!" Finally, Linghu Chong said resolutely, "If Ren Yingyuan likes it, you have to like it too!"

  Linghu Chong really borrowed a book of Pushkin's poetry from the library the next day and threw it at Duan Yu: " 'The Karamazov Brothers' is not something people read, you'd better take a look at Pushkin, otherwise you won't have any common language later."

  Duan Yu made a wry face: "Pursuing a girl shouldn't be so ridiculous, should it?"

  "Ah!" Linghu Chong shouted, "Show some manliness! If you're going to chase after her, do it openly and aboveboard. I've placed such a big bet on you, don't make me go bankrupt."

  Duan Yu started reading Pushkin, but soon Linghu Chong was criticized for this unlucky plan. Duan Yu's family learning and Wang Yuyan are really different, from his reading of Buddhist scriptures, we can clearly see that Duan Yu's cultural education is based on localization, while Wang Yuyan is a Western literature enthusiast. Duan Yu had to make up for it by studying Western literature.

  Fortunately, there were no classes in the history department for sophomores, and Duan Yu didn't need to study every day. He would hold a book of Pushkin's works and mutter to himself in his room:

  "Farewell, element of freedom!"

  For the last time, in front of me

  Your blue waves surge and roll...

  Yang Kang was really fed up with him, so he said that if you recite poetry, you should do it loudly and clearly. If you don't make a sound, you can't feel the rhythm of the poem. Whispering is like a mouse gnawing on corn. Duan Yu really believed Yang Kang. Under his mother's influence, Yang Kang was the only one in the dormitory who had some understanding of Russian poetry. So Duan Yu let out his voice:

  "Ha! Empty world! You don't even..."

  "Can't come up with something interestingly stupid!"

  Even the neighbors could hear his energetic voice. Originally, half of the corridor was filled with lazy people, but those days completely became an "empty world". As soon as it was time for dinner, everyone would hurry away, warning each other: "Hey, quick, quick, Duan Yu is about to start again."

  Yang Kang was originally known for being able to sleep through a landmine explosion, but in the end he also tasted the bitter fruit of his own making. Duan Yu not only loudly read poetry, but often came to ask him: "Yang Kang, when he wrote 'Monument', what did this Alexandrian stone pillar represent?"

  Yang Kang was taken aback. He himself didn't like Luo's poetry at all, and was only forced to read it by Bao Xiuzhi. There was someone who discussed the connotation of poetry with him every day, which immediately reminded him of when he used to copy "Eugene Onegin" every day. Yang Kang also started packing his bag to go study on his own. But he really didn't have any interest in studying.

  One day, Guo Jing and Huang Rong walked past the front of a store, where they saw Yang Kang standing in front of the store, drinking from a bottle of yogurt with a dazed look on his face.

  Guo Jing said: "Yang Kang, what are you doing?" Yang Kang said: "There's nothing to do, so I'm just standing here drinking a bottle of milk and thinking." Huang Rong said: "If there's nothing to do, why don't you go back to sleep?"

  Yang Kang let out a long sigh and glanced at his watch: "It's only 10 o'clock, Old Five hasn't finished yet, how can I dare to go back?"

  Duan Yu's bold and meticulous performance in the Rakshasa Song did not attract Wang Yuyan, but instead earned him a perfect score in this elective course.

  The teacher of Russian poetry was Su Feixia, a foreign teacher from Russia who had been hired by Bin University at great expense. It is said that Miss Su Feixia came from an extraordinary background, and her ancestors were still members of the Russian aristocracy, so the students all called her "Princess". Su Feixia also taught Russian poetry at Bin University for four years, and her classes were always strict. Many of the talented students in literature, history, and philosophy thought they were very capable, and several who had read a bit of Gorky and Yesenin wanted to take some elective credits under Miss Su Feixia's guidance while also getting close to the beautiful foreign woman. However, half of those who didn't study hard were cut down by the Russian beauty.

  Su Feixia also sighed and said that the students of this university are too superficial, Luo Sha's poetry is beautiful in sound and tone, and it's not even difficult, so why can't anyone learn it well? As a result, she felt disappointed and unhappy, thinking that this university was no longer suitable for her to continue teaching.

  At this time, Duan Yu suddenly appeared out of nowhere!

  Duan Yu's exam was originally a mess, with half of the quotes and their authors' connections wrong. However, when Su Fei Xia saw his thesis, she was truly amazed. She couldn't believe that in the Song Dynasty there existed such a genius who was so familiar with foreign culture, especially since this student was from the History Department rather than the Western Language and Literature Department. Duan Yu's thesis on Pushkin was indeed a work of academic research, with three pages of A4 paper listing references, discussing the aesthetic significance and ideological realm of Pushkin's poetry, and even mentioning several key points to note when reciting Pushkin's poems in Chinese translation.

  Su Fei Xia was convinced that Duan Yu's work was not plagiarized and was overjoyed, immediately helping Duan Yu publish the article in the "Western Regions Language and Culture Journal", which became Duan Yu's first published work.

  Duan Yu's story was later widely spread, with the final version saying that there was a legendary figure in the history department named Duan Yu, who was a double champion of physics and biology competitions. He then abandoned science to study literature, and was personally admitted to the history department by Dean Du Gu Seek Defeat. Not only was he academically excellent, but his love letters were also incredibly well-written. During his four years in university, he read all 24 histories, mastered Russian, and wrote poetry in a style similar to Pushkin's. He was later accepted with full scholarship by both Oxford and Cambridge universities, but Duan Yu dropped out of Cambridge after two years to pursue a life of natural simplicity in the jungles of South America.