![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnozomiSo at guardian_learning the phrase 打电话 came up and I quoted Zhao Yunlan’s teasing use of it in Old Haixing, and then I thought about it and this happened. I’m sorry for ongoing Shen Wei angst, but this is actually kind of happy-ish on the whole?
Shen Wei doesn’t figure it out until much, much later.
It’s the third week of his life in the guise of a modern-day Haixingren. The number of corrections that his assignment has come back with is so alarming that he goes to visit Professor Lin in her office hours (if he can’t keep up at the university, if he can’t manage to be the person he’s pretending to be, he’ll...he...). It turns out that he has still done significantly better than the two or three other students also visiting her office: they are asking him for advice, and Professor Lin is smiling in amusement and letting him talk, when there is a sharp ringing noise from her desk.
The telephone. Dianhua, he knows the word, one of the many he has learned since he emerged into the latter-day world. He understands its derivation, has seen them before...
Professor Lin rolls her eyes companionably at her students and picks up the receiver. “Wéi?” she says, and the room flashes into darkness as Shen Wei’s brain suddenly makes sense of that long-ago small mystery.
He says something to the other students, unable to hear his own voice, and slips out of the office. Two doors down there is an empty classroom. Shen Wei lets himself in quietly and stands with his back pressed to the wall next to the blackboard, where he will not be immediately visible from the door. There wouldn’t be much to see; only that his breath is coming too fast, his cheeks and forehead hot against his fingers. His eyes are watering, but not with grief.
People call me Wéi, he had said, ashamed at having nothing more than a use-name to offer, and Kunlun had spluttered with teasing laughter. Wéi? Da dianhua ne? Like you’re on the phone?
Shen Wei had not understood him, of course, had not thought of it again until the two words came together just now. He had known that Kunlun had looked at him and thought, you are more than this small name, you deserve better, you must be better, and that had been enough to drive the unfamiliar word out of his head.
He had known...guessed...understood through instinct that Kunlun came from the future. And now he is living in that future himself, complete with telephones. With a name that no one will take for a telephone hello. “My name is Shen Wēi,” he says aloud, hearing his voice break into laughter on the tone Kunlun gave him, in a moment of joy at Kunlun’s irreverence, his silliness, the joke Shen Wei has only now understood.
Maybe one day soon he will pick up the telephone and it will be Kunlun on the other end of the line. Shen Wei will not say wéi? to him. He will say “It’s me.”
*Tone markings used to distinguish the “Wei” pronunciations.
*Shen Wei does say “It’s me” on the phone to Zhao Yunlan near the end of episode 1, calling him on Li Qian’s phone.
Shen Wei doesn’t figure it out until much, much later.
It’s the third week of his life in the guise of a modern-day Haixingren. The number of corrections that his assignment has come back with is so alarming that he goes to visit Professor Lin in her office hours (if he can’t keep up at the university, if he can’t manage to be the person he’s pretending to be, he’ll...he...). It turns out that he has still done significantly better than the two or three other students also visiting her office: they are asking him for advice, and Professor Lin is smiling in amusement and letting him talk, when there is a sharp ringing noise from her desk.
The telephone. Dianhua, he knows the word, one of the many he has learned since he emerged into the latter-day world. He understands its derivation, has seen them before...
Professor Lin rolls her eyes companionably at her students and picks up the receiver. “Wéi?” she says, and the room flashes into darkness as Shen Wei’s brain suddenly makes sense of that long-ago small mystery.
He says something to the other students, unable to hear his own voice, and slips out of the office. Two doors down there is an empty classroom. Shen Wei lets himself in quietly and stands with his back pressed to the wall next to the blackboard, where he will not be immediately visible from the door. There wouldn’t be much to see; only that his breath is coming too fast, his cheeks and forehead hot against his fingers. His eyes are watering, but not with grief.
People call me Wéi, he had said, ashamed at having nothing more than a use-name to offer, and Kunlun had spluttered with teasing laughter. Wéi? Da dianhua ne? Like you’re on the phone?
Shen Wei had not understood him, of course, had not thought of it again until the two words came together just now. He had known that Kunlun had looked at him and thought, you are more than this small name, you deserve better, you must be better, and that had been enough to drive the unfamiliar word out of his head.
He had known...guessed...understood through instinct that Kunlun came from the future. And now he is living in that future himself, complete with telephones. With a name that no one will take for a telephone hello. “My name is Shen Wēi,” he says aloud, hearing his voice break into laughter on the tone Kunlun gave him, in a moment of joy at Kunlun’s irreverence, his silliness, the joke Shen Wei has only now understood.
Maybe one day soon he will pick up the telephone and it will be Kunlun on the other end of the line. Shen Wei will not say wéi? to him. He will say “It’s me.”
*Tone markings used to distinguish the “Wei” pronunciations.
*Shen Wei does say “It’s me” on the phone to Zhao Yunlan near the end of episode 1, calling him on Li Qian’s phone.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-12 09:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-16 07:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-12 10:08 am (UTC)He had known that Kunlun had looked at him and thought, you are more than this small name, you deserve better, you must be better
askdfjas;lkdfjas;dlfkjasd;flkjsadf;lkdj
(I love how he says, "It's me," on the phone in episode 1! They've only met twice, and he totally expects Zhao Yunlan to know who's calling, and Zhao Yunlan does.)
no subject
Date: 2022-04-16 07:39 am (UTC)(I love how he says, "It's me," on the phone in episode 1! They've only met twice, and he totally expects Zhao Yunlan to know who's calling, and Zhao Yunlan does.)
Yes! I love that moment so much.
(also, I love the flip-book effect of your icon and laire's!)
no subject
Date: 2022-04-22 10:21 am (UTC)(I made them for laire and adopted the one she didn't choose. :-)
no subject
Date: 2022-04-22 11:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-12 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-16 07:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-12 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-16 07:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-12 02:53 pm (UTC)He had known that Kunlun had looked at him and thought, you are more than this small name, you deserve better, you must be better, and that had been enough to drive the unfamiliar word out of his head.
;_; they are so, so good
Shen Wei will not say wéi? to him. He will say “It’s me.”
<33333
no subject
Date: 2022-04-16 07:45 am (UTC)Yes! and here I imagine him pretending to be a college freshman, so he's even closer in a way to his younger self in Old Haixing.
;_; they are so, so good
*sniff* they are.
<3
no subject
Date: 2022-04-12 05:48 pm (UTC)(of the best kind - somehow Shen Wei feelings always hurt and cleanse at the same time, he's interesting like that)
A wonderful little tidbit <3
no subject
Date: 2022-04-16 07:47 am (UTC)Yes, what a lovely point! He's so...I can't think of the English word, translator fail...ひたむき. Single-hearted?
<3 <3 <3
no subject
Date: 2022-04-12 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-16 07:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-12 09:57 pm (UTC)*Shen Wei does say “It’s me” on the phone to Zhao Yunlan near the end of episode 1, calling him on Li Qian’s phone. Ah!! It's so good to be let in on what seems likely to be an intentional joke, (at least from my mono-lingual perspective.) I wouldn't have made the connection without your writing about it, thank you!
no subject
Date: 2022-04-16 07:49 am (UTC)I'm glad! <3
It's so good to be let in on what seems likely to be an intentional joke, (at least from my mono-lingual perspective.)
You know, I actually don't know if that "It's me" moment was supposed to have anything to do with Kunlun's phone joke or not, but I like the idea anyway, and I love the way Shen Wei says that--not "this is Professor Shen from the university" or even "this is Shen Wei," just "it's me." So intimate.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-13 02:44 am (UTC)He had known that Kunlun had looked at him and thought, you are more than this small name, you deserve better, you must be better
Oh my heart! This is beautiful!
no subject
Date: 2022-04-16 07:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-17 11:03 am (UTC)This is amazing! <3<3<3
And I love how this picks up the original Chinese, because the joke gets lost in translation a little in the drama (although less than it would have if it were dubbed, subtitles do have their advantages).
no subject
Date: 2022-04-18 02:32 pm (UTC)And it's not like I can help myself putting bits of language-nerdery in everywhere, so I'm glad it seemed to work :)
no subject
Date: 2022-05-18 07:33 pm (UTC)*coughs* Anyway. This is such a lovely little snippet of fic! Thank you for sharing! :D
no subject
Date: 2022-05-19 10:02 am (UTC)THEY JUST LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER, TEASING EACH OTHER ABOUT THESE THINGS. RIGHT??
Absolutely :)
(Because it inspired this post, I'm also going to cheat a bit and draw your attention to https://guardian-learning.dreamwidth.org/, just in case you haven't come across it, where I post some Chinese study daily and throw in Guardian quotes...ignore if it's not your thing!)
no subject
Date: 2022-05-19 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-19 11:08 pm (UTC)