No Hero Side Stories 4: Good Child, Bad Child, Part One

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No Hero Side Story: Good Child, Bad Child

Original novel in Chinese by: 御我(Yu Wo)


Good Child, Bad Child, Part One—translated by Doza (proofread by Arcedemius & Trespasserby; C/E edited by lucathia)

No matter how exhausted he was or how late he had slept the previous night, he could always wake up punctually at five the next morning. To most people, this would be quite difficult. However, to Ri Xiang Ye, this wasn’t difficult in the least. Rather, sleeping in was impossible for him—Ri Xiang Ye was a cyborg.

He got out of bed, opened his wardrobe, and then felt a bit troubled.

In the past, there were only a few types of clothes in the wardrobe: the dress shirt and jeans he wore to school, the sportswear for exercising, and his pajamas. There was no need to choose at all. He only had to wear something according to what he was going to do. There was entirely no need to agonize over it!

However, ever since he became a model and X-Killer’s spokesperson, the number of clothes he had had accumulated. If Charles did not regularly donate the clothes to charities, he probably wouldn’t be able to stuff any more clothes into his wardrobe.

Ri Xiang Ye truly did not know how he should feel about his life getting more and more complicated. He took out a set of sportswear that he had never worn before and quickly slipped into it. Following that, he walked out of his room.

“Good morning, Young Master.”

As usual, Charles smiled as he passed him a white sports towel. Most of Ri Xiang Ye’s frustrations disappeared instantly. Every time he saw Charles smiling as he approached him, he would feel that the days were “just like usual” and would always remain that simple, seemingly never changing.

“Young Master, is something the matter?” The butler’s expression perfectly conveyed his puzzlement.

Ri Xiang Ye smiled as he shook his head and asked, “What’s for breakfast today… Ah! I better not ask. If not, I’ll keep thinking of breakfast the entire time and I’ll get hungry!”

“Understood.”

Charles smiled. Whenever anyone enjoyed the food he made, he would always look so delighted… No, the butler’s expression never changes, Dell and May always said so.

Charles clearly has many different expressions, though. He’s smiling now. The corners of his mouth lifted up by 2 mm! Why does everyone say that Charles always has on the same faint smile?

“Young Master, may I ask if you still need anything else?”

My mind wandered off again. Ri Xiang Ye shook his head and said, “I’m going out to exercise now.”

“Yes, Young Master. Please take care.”

The moment he stepped out of the apartment’s front door, Ri Xiang Ye realized that the sun was already shining brightly, even though it was only just past 5 am.

Temperature: 26°C. Humidity: 40%. Weather: Hot and dry. Recommended to drink more water.

His body was doing warm up exercises, but Ri Xiang Ye’s mind was practically empty. Because of the computer chip in his brain, he could “multitask” very well. While exercising, he could also connect to the internet and watch the surveillance camera footage, process documents… Even doing ten tasks at the same time was no problem at all. However, the problem was that he didn’t have anything to handle.

Handling the company’s documents was Gēge and Kyle-gē’s job; everything related to the house was done by Charles; his job as a model was managed by Melody and Ji Luo Chu; as for matters concerning the heroes, no incidents had been reported yet…

Am I actually an idle person? But my schedule is clearly packed every day! Ri Xiang Ye was a little unsure as to whether he was busy or idling.

After he finished warming up, Ri Xiang Ye raised his head to see the cold and vacant morning streets. Where should I head today? Hm… All right, I’ll run that way!

As he ran along the streets, Ri Xiang Ye intentionally ran past a car and greeted the person inside, “Good morning!”

The person smiled in response, though he looked rather sleepy.

At first when he had discovered someone following him, Ri Xiang Ye had thought that it was an enemy. His immediate response was to break the car window and haul out the person sitting in the driver’s seat. However, before he could do that, the other party held out a business card which clarified that he was a “paparazzi.” He begged him to think of how XX television station’s wide publicity would make him famous, and to please stop the Sun Emperor from sinking them into the XX gulf with that in consideration.

Ri Xiang Ye had agreed to it and earnestly made a call to Kyle, asking him to stop his gēge from sinking them into the gulf.

“… If you did not tell me this, we would not have known about it. After all, nowadays the Sun Emperor does not monitor you. But since you told me, I will have to report it to the Sun Emperor, and then do everything I can to stop him from sinking the paparazzi into the gulf.”

Kyle-gē had replied with this, sighing that his workload had increased again.

It doesn’t seem right to have told him. Ri Xiang Ye had been a little distressed and regretful.

He continued running in a straight line. Ri Xiang Ye disregarded all the obstacles in his path, which included railings, flower pots, fences, and even cars parked along the roadside. If it wasn’t that he had to follow traffic laws, he would even come up with a way to pass through the moving cars. Even though his movements were not at the same level of when he was Dark Sun, where he would even scale walls and buildings, it was still largely different from the way average people “jogged.”

“Hi!”

A group of six to seven people ran beside Ri Xiang Ye.

“Lately, you’ve been getting more and more famous. I even thought you wouldn’t come out anymore. But in the end you’re still running as usual?”

The person leading them wore a newsboy cap that had been splashed with various paints. He always wore this cap and was very recognizable!

This group of people called themselves “traceurs.” According to them, parkour was an extreme sport, also known as “l’art du déplacement.” You only had to decide on a direction, and then move in that direction the entire way. Regardless of whatever obstacles were ahead, you had to imagine the potential routes for navigating it, be it through rolling, jumping, climbing, or any other possible means.

They also treated Ri Xiang Ye as a traceur, a traceur that liked to run solo. Also, when Ri Xiang Ye finished listening to their explanation of parkour, he felt that it was quite similar to the way he “ran,” and so he didn’t deny it.

“If I don’t run, my body’s agility will decline.”

Colorful Cap laughed. “That’s right! Sigh, if I didn’t have to work, I would really like to run every day… Ah! That doesn’t sound right. You’re so famous now, so you must be very busy, but you’re still running as usual. It’s more like I’m too lazy.”

Ri Xiang Ye burst out laughing, but couldn’t explain to him that “I only need to sleep a minimum of two hours every day because I’m a cyborg.” These words obviously couldn’t be spoken out loud.

“Speaking of this… Could I get your autograph?” For a rare moment, Colorful Cap got a little embarrassed.

“Sure!” Ri Xiang Ye agreed unhesitatingly. He liked them and so would certainly not reject a small request like signing an autograph.

Even though they were speaking just now, their legs had not stopped moving. And although Ri Xiang Ye agreed to give him an autograph, he didn’t stop running either. He only waved to the other person, indicating that he wanted him to throw it over.

Just when Colorful Cap was wondering if they should stop, he saw this action and without a second thought, took out the pen and photograph from his clothes and tossed them over. The pen followed the trajectory he wanted and landed by Ri Xiang Ye’s side. However, the photograph that was as light as a feather was different. It just so happened that at that moment a gust of wind blew it up high, and it looked like it was going to fly toward the road…

In an instant, Ri Xiang Ye stepped onto the railing by the sidewalk and leaped out. He gently caught the photograph, and then used the pen that he had already caught to rapidly sign on it. When he landed, he simultaneously returned the photograph and pen to him, and all this time his feet had never stopped moving.

Colorful Cap gave a long whistle, while the few people beside them gawked in astonishment.

They ran together for a while, but the traceurs gradually fell behind. Ri Xiang Ye had no intention of slowing down either. Even though he liked them, he did not intend to spend the entire time exercising with them.

After that, when he was crossing the road, he pulled a woman aside to save her from getting run over by a car that ran a red light. Then without any extra effort, he threw two stones at that car, smashing both of its taillights as punishment.

Then as usual, he helped an uncle who was missing a hand to push a recycling bin to the collection point. Then, he watched as he haggled over the price with the person at the recycling center, in case the uncle got underpaid because of his weakness. Only after that did he leave.

At last, he arrived at the park where he sparred with an old man using tai chi.

Originally, Ri Xiang Ye had no interest in the slow movements of tai chi. However, in the rare chance that he caught sight of two old men fighting using tai chi, he couldn’t help but stop to watch as he could never let go any opportunity to learn more fighting techniques.

At first, he had thought that he would only watch for a few seconds before continuing his run. To his surprise, the longer he watched, the more apprehensive and interested he became. The slow movements aside, tai chi greatly utilized the principle of turning the opponent’s strength against them, such that a small amount of strength could deflect a far greater opposing force. Ri Xiang Ye watched eagerly and recorded the entire scene, storing it in the computer chip in his brain.

Without realizing it, he ended up standing there and watching them for an hour. If those two elderly men had not stopped their match, he probably would not have gotten back in time for breakfast.

Those two old men sparred twice every week. A month passed with Ri Xiang Ye watching them like this, before those two old men finally could not help but approach him to get acquainted with this young man who woke up early to watch them do some light sparring. When they noticed his interest in tai chi, those two old men couldn’t resist their love for teaching and started instructing him.

Ri Xiang Ye was extremely happy. Aside from Stone-yéye, he had gained another two grandfathers–Lin-yéye and Xu-yéye. However, recently Xu-yéye’s children had taken him overseas to live with them. So in the end, only Lin-yéye was left.

As Lin-yéye slowly exchanged strikes with Ri Xiang Ye to teach him tai chi, he chuckled and said, “I bought your, that something album, and gave it to my grandson.”

When he heard this, Ri Xiang Ye was a little embarrassed, but anxiously asked, “How was it?”

Lin-yéye shook his head as he replied, “I really can’t appreciate the current tastes in music, but my grandson was very happy. It’s been a while since he hugged me and yelled, ‘Yéye, you’re the best!’ Hehe, this is really all thanks to you. To show my gratitude, I will teach you a few more tai chi techniques to striking quickly.”

Ri Xiang Ye’s eyes immediately shone upon hearing this.

Lin-yéye quickly explained, “Don’t look at your Lin-yéye so expectantly. Even though I want to teach you, I’m not taking you on as my disciple, so I can’t teach you all that much.”

Even after he said this, Ri Xiang Ye did not respond in any way. Lin-yéye sighed to himself. “I feel like you should be a child who is quick to comprehend, but it’s such a pity that…” He mumbled thoughtfully to himself, “You’re probably too talented and too strong. That’s why you haven’t been able to fully grasp the notions of tai chi, of using a small amount of strength to deflect a much larger force, of placing more importance in your awareness than your form.”

Ri Xiang Ye also knew that he had not learned it well. Other than being too strong, there was something else that was even more significant—his combat style was mostly determined by the computer chip’s analysis. The computer chip obviously would not have something like “awareness.” It only engineered perfect and precise combat movements. This was taking the “importance of forms” to the extreme, so how could he move away from putting more importance on forms?

Despite it being so, Ri Xiang Ye still intended to try because of the fundamental rule of his existence ingrained in his brain—he had to get stronger. There would never come a day when he could stop!

8 Responses

  1. Couldn't think of a name

    As one would expect, This chapter was pretty different from the usual ones. No hero never disappoints. It’s totally worth waiting for
    Also RIP poor paparazzi guy.
    Thanks for your hardwork PR!

  2. Blub the Blub

    Where’s the bad child? I’m confused. Y’know, I even love the side characters in this story. I should learn some parkour. Seems like good exercise, and much more fun than simply running.

    • Kamui

      Before you try it, practice crawling on hands and feet up and down a staircase, always faceing the bottom of the stair case and moving backwards to climb the staircase. If you can do a few reps, you are good to start working on parkour. It is intense and really physically demanding, but fun.

    • Blub the Blub

      Thanks for the tip! I’ve watched some beginner videos and they say to go on all fours and practice, but the staircase thing is new. I’ve got to try it! Good thing my house has stairs.

      Besides, I know my body, and it is not ready to jump off railings, climb/leap over objects, and flip around, so I’ll definitely have to practice before doing anything physically demanding.

  3. Jasae Bushae

    It never occurred to me that he would be really popular with the pakour community. XD

  4. Minty

    I love Ah Ye’s POV, it is really different from Charles’, though I enjoy his too. This story is answering all the questions I never knew I had, like about what happens on these jogs. Thank you for the chapter!

  5. 15B

    Yes! I’ve always wondered what Ah Ye did on morning jogs.
    I’m really glad to see that despite his unpopularity after being revealed as Ri Xiang Yan’s younger brother, there are still lots of people friendly to him and not shunning him like I was worried they might… I guess they can see his good heart too.

  6. Moony

    Ri Xiang Ye was a little unsure as to whether he was busy or idling. – Gosh, Ah Ye is so adorable! ♡
    And I really like the relaxed tone of this side story, I really love slice of life stories and this one came in just perfectly! Thank you so much for the translation!

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