Old Otaku-1

Summary:

Song Fuzhi is a teacher. This man is in his early thirties, steady and talented, so handsome like a work of art, yet students hid when they saw him

No one would have thought that the strict Teacher Song is actually an old otaku. He liked to look at foreign characters’ figurine assembly¹The thing here means something like Gundam that you piece together yourself., and liked an old-timer cosplayer called “Octopus” the best.

Teacher Octopus himself exudes the aura of a powerful Gong, and therefore was acclaimed as the Ultimate Gong Daren by the cosplayer circle. Song Fuzhi loves this point of his the most.

What saddens Teacher Song is that recently, Teacher Octopus announced that he will withdraw from the circle and return to his real three-dimensional life.

Song Fuzhi looked at the ring in his hand and lowered his gaze silently. Marriage gave him no choice but to hide his hobbies. Teacher Octopus’s withdrawal from the circle further exacerbated his impoverished spiritual life.

–

Shi Zhang and Song Fuzhi got married through a blind date. Their family and colleagues said they were a perfect match. The professor of botany is gentle and elegant, while the math teacher is graceful and charming, both of them together made a pleasing sight.

But only Shi Zhang himself knows of his possessiveness towards Song Fuzhi during his adolescence, one that he couldn’t tell no matter what. In this calm as water marriage, he had to force himself to restrain those dark instincts.

–

Later, the calm as water marriage of mutual respect was ruthlessly broken.

Shi Zhang discovered that the one locked cabinet at home was actually filled with his own cosplay photobooks from when he first started to his retirement.

Song Fuzhi discovered that his gentle-as-plants husband had suddenly changed since that night, exercising had never been this fierce. So Alpha-like his legs went soft, bringing him back to his countless dreams about Teacher Octopus.

–

Later on, Octopus made a comeback, bringing along a mature and indifferent man.

Fans: Is this Teacher Octopus’ new gay friend?²基友 can be gay partner or a bff of the same gender How handsome!

Shi Zhang: This is my husband. (Proud face)

–

Marriage before love, 1V1, sweet

The background is where same-sex marriage is legal

Gong’s friends are in heterosexual relationships, the topic is covered in Chapter 36, take a note of it if you want to avoid it!!

There might be many plots with the Teacher as the Shou in campus settings.

The specific content of the car overturning can be read in the main text!

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The classroom was very noisy between the lesson shifts³As in the interval between lessons (like from math to biology).

On the left was a group of students laughing heartily, their wild laughters had yet to subside when on the right, loud shouts erupted, drowning the other voices. They were chatting in groups, sticking their tables together, gone wild and in chaos.

“Wow, Tong ge, did you buy the latest release ah?”

A boy’s eyes widened, reaching out to touch the Manga in Fan Tong’s hand.

Fan Tong eyed the envious hand and quickly dodged, flaunting, “I haven’t finished reading it yet, don’t snatch it.”

The boy then moved closer to his side, crowding him, “Then let’s read it together.”

“You still—dare bring Manga here ah?”

The girl dragged out the word “still” and struck Fan Tong’s table, “Last week, Axe⁴Our MC’s name is Song Fuzhi, the kids are giving him a nickname Fuzi (斧子 or Axe), they sound similar. The reason will be revealed in the extras Ge has just confiscated Qing Jie‘s romance novel. It’s still the talk of the town, you know. You sure have guts ah.”

“What are you afraid of? The next class is Florence’s English lesson. The beauty doesn’t care about these kinda things, she would even discuss the plot line with us.”

Another onlooker came over and stretched his neck to peek at the book. When he saw a character covered in blood, his pupils shrunk and exclaimed, “Aaahhh, he wouldn’t die, right?”

Fan Tong smiled confidently, “How could he possibly die! He is an overpowered character ah, moreover his popularity is so high.”

Finishing speaking, he flicked his finger and flipped a page.

Before they knew it, a circle of people crowded around Fan Tong’s seat, all of whom came to look at the Manga.

There are both boys and girls, each of them bending down their backs and heads, looking very fascinated at the Manga, similar to a group of elderly men watching a Xiang qi⁵象棋 is a chinese chess, like this. It’s different from Wei qi (koreans call this one Go) match in the park. Their corner had now become the quietest area in the classroom.

This manga has been very popular recently. The plot has just reached an intense and crucial plot point in the series, making people itching to know how the plot would develop.

Their class was strictly managed, phones were firmly forbidden to be brought to the teaching-learning area. Fan Tong ran out at noon and secretly bought the newest book, then smuggled them back between the reference books⁶Refers to books published to match the textbooks the students used, including exercise questions publications, exam papers publication, etc., becoming the hero of the class’ otaku.

Everyone read a few pages in silence. Then suddenly a girl put her hand in front of her mouth and exclaimed, “So handsome,” several boys also cursed one after another, “Too damn handsome.”

The overpowered character was desperately striking back, fighting bravely in his lonesome, then splitting open the enemy’s lair in one big move.

The knife left marks on his brows’ peak, exuding heavy charm of the battle-worn aura. So so handsome people could faint in infatuation.

They were so engrossed in reading, emotions instantly ignited, they swatted at the table with their palms while shouting. Fan Tong kept ‘wow’-ing loudly, itching to go outside and run two laps crazily, unable to express the surging emotions in his heart.

When someone is too immersed in their own world, their perception of the outside world would become very insensitive.

Thus they didn’t realize that right now, the classroom was similar to a city with power outage. Deathly silence spread rapidly from the front door to the window at the back

When the classroom suddenly became deathly silent, this group of otakus in the corner noticed nothing, still crying out in excitement. 

Fan Tong was still muttering, “keep going keep going” and prepared to turn a page. 

The girl next to him was still asking, “Have you guys seen Teacher Octopus’ overpowered character cosplay? It’s really fucking awesome! So handsome! This one was posed in a battle-injury scene, we must recreate one for Mr. Octo, he wouldn’t disdain-”

Before she could even finish speaking, their eyes opened wide as they watched a hand appear and press down on the page Fan Tong was about to flip.

It was an adult man’s large hand. His palm covered the entire Manga book, and the slender index finger spanning across three panels just so happened to press onto that overpowered character’s handsome face.

Because the hand was exerting some force, the light blue veins on the back of the hand were protruding.

The last noisy corner in the classroom seemed to cease to exist at this moment. The whole class sunk into complete and utter silence.

Song Fuzhi glanced indifferently at the black and white lines of the Manga, his expression didn’t change the slightest bit. With a flick of his finger, he closed the book and took it in his hands, then turned around and went away.

No one made a sound from the beginning to the end.

Song Fuzhi walked up to the teacher’s desk⁷Some teacher’s desks in China are slightly elevated like podium, or they are located on a platform that put the teacher on higher ground to assist them in pointing out or writing on the white boards (though some aren’t, depending on the school), so you might later see the teacher walking up or going up or the students “down there” and turned around, just in time as the school bell rang.

Teacher Song stood ramrod straight. His black woolly sweater pressed onto his body, outlining his masculine figure. The small section of his exposed arms were firm and well toned, exuding power and strength. Just one look and anyone could tell he regularly works out. 

The golden sunlight fell on him from the side, giving him an indescribable tenderness.

Even if the students didn’t really like him, they have to admit that Teacher Song is a very handsome man.

When Song Fuzhi was dug up by the affiliated high school⁸High schools with some affiliation to university. Not that you get to uni automatically from there, one still have to pass the gaokao, but there may be some priority consideration for their admission, he was just 25 years old. He was young, handsome, and promising, with a beautiful face, wide shoulders and long legs. No matter which teaching supervisors⁹There is a kind of program where the teachers take on other (management) roles aside from teaching, basically they are experts or experienced enough to be given authority to make decisions in things like the curriculum or other stuff that basically affect the education practices. saw him, their eyes would twinkle and smile as they praised him, “What a handsome and talented¹⁰The word they used here was 俊, which basically refers to a handsome and competent-looking person man”

In the blink of an eye, 6 or 7 years have passed, he had been teaching 2 or 3 cycles of students. The new teachers who entered the school along with him had all been aggravated by the bear children and turned into cunning and sly old foxes, but Song Fuzhi miraculously was unaffected. On the contrary, he had now exuded maturity in addition to his handsomeness, making him even more handsome and masculine.

Hypothetically speaking, handsome teachers usually get along easier with students and are quite welcomed. And even if they don’t, there would still be a few young girls in puppy love secretly admiring the handsome guy’s face.

But at this moment, the class was suffocatingly silent, each of the students were lowering their heads.

Whether they were pretending to seriously do their homework or busily taking out their homework from their bags, no matter which of them, none had dared to lift their head and look at Song Fuzhi. All of them were avoiding meeting his eyes.

Comparing them with the previously bustling and lively class, it was as if they were two different classes.

“Teacher Zhao has something urgent, the subject now is maths. English will be taught tomorrow morning in the third class period.”

Song Fuzhi put the manga down on the desk and placed his phone on top of it, then picked up his cup and drank some water.

“Take out your monthly exam papers.”

After the rustle of flipping paper subsided, Song Fuzhi directly began to teach.

Song Fuzhi didn’t speak a word regarding the manga he confiscated. It was as if nothing of such had happened.

He explained the questions one by one from the top. No matter how easy or hard the question was, none of them were skipped. In Teacher Song’s class, even the most unruly students would be as obedient as little chicks, earnestly taking notes.

When they were just halfway through the trigonometric function, the phone screen on top of the manga suddenly lit up.

Song Fuzhi’s phone has always been on silent during class time, not even vibrating when it received a call. When Song Fuzhi took notice of it, the caller ID had been flashing for quite some time.

And although no one had picked it up for so long, the person on the other end also never hung up.

The caller ID displayed was a male name——Qiao Xuyang.

Song Fuzhi did see it, but he chose to ignore it. He turned around and continued to write on the blackboard.

The phone flickered for a while before it went black.

After two questions, Qiao Xuyang called again.

This time the students were solving the questions, Song Fuzhi lightly swiped the screen, declining the call.

In just a few seconds, the other followed up with several text messages: Is Fuzhi ge still in class? I hope I’m not disturbing you. My friend gave me two tickets for a special exhibition in the museum, it’s really hard to get those. Fuzhi ge, would you like to go together?

There was a cute smiling emoji at the end.

Song Fuzhi’s eyes swept over the message, locked the screen, then pointed a chalk onto the blackboard, “Are you all done?”

The bell for the end of the class rang, a test paper was just finished and the students obviously breathed a sigh of relief.

Song Fuzhi walked out with his stuff, his steps stopped when reaching the door, and light as a feather, he called out a name, “Fan Tong, come here for a moment.”

The atmosphere that was just relaxed tensed again.

Footsteps and voices of other students echoed in the corridor, making their class seem especially quiet.

Fan Tong was on edge throughout the class, the slightest bit of movement or expression from Song Fuzhi made him tremble all over. So he anxiously passed the class yet didn’t even manage to listen to half of the questions. 

The knife that hung over his head for forty five minutes finally fell. Fan Tong walked to the door under the silent gazes of the whole class. It was only a journey of few meters, yet a layer of cold sweat has covered his back.

Song Fuzhi called him outside the door, only saying two whole sentences in total.

The first sentence was “Although your book has been confiscated, you should still study attentively in class, there are questions you shouldn’t have gotten wrong in this test paper.”

The second one was, “Come to my office to pick up the book before leaving school this Friday.”

His voice was full of tranquil, not a hint of blame or condemnation, but Fan Tong kept nervously sweating, not even daring to lift his head.

Song Fuzhi didn’t have time to talk much to him, after saying “You can go now” he went to the next class. He still has a class to teach.

Song Fuzhi was extremely busy this semester. The teacher in the next door class had taken a maternity leave. The school has limited faculty members, so he had to deal with teaching mathematics for two classes and also being a homeroom teacher for one. He was often busy from the morning till the late of night, not having the time for rest. 

Fortunately it’s still the first year of high school, so he could still handle it.

After finishing the lesson for the class next door, Song Fuzhi ate his lunch quickly before attending the grade teacher meeting. After meeting with the mathematics teachers he still had to attend the homeroom teachers meeting. In the afternoon he had to prepare lessons, correct homeworks, and receive calls from several students’ guardians for quite some time. He also had to supervise the cubs in the class finish cleaning the class. 

The night had fallen by the time he could catch his breath.

Song Fuzhi picked up his meal from the cafeteria and brought it back to the office to eat. The teachers next to him prepared to leave one after the other, chatting as they packed their belongings, relaxed and pleasant. 

The physics teacher, Lao Zhou, the easygoing bald man, was tightening his thermos lid shut when he ‘Ai’-ed and said, “Teacher Song isn’t going back yet ah?”

Song Fuzhi put down his chopsticks and smiled, “I will watch the evening self-study session a little bit and leave.”

“You should go back earlier.” A beautiful female teacher said with a smile, “Your family at home would be worried waiting for you if it’s too late.”

She even emphasized on the words “family at home” heavily. 

For quite some time the office was filled with the echoes of ‘Ooohhhh’. Even the footsteps of people outside the room seemed to halt, gossipy gazes fell onto Song Fuzhi unrestrainedly.

The female teacher had a pretty straightforward personality, directly asking, “Flower Immortal Song, how are you doing with that child? Is there any progress?”

Song Fuzhi only reacted a few seconds later after realizing that she was asking about Qiao Xuyang. He smilingly shook his head and said, “Nothing of the sorts.”

Everyone clearly didn’t believe him, scoffing, “Teacher Song, don’t deceive us ah!”

Song Fuzhi lightly said, “It’s really nothing.”

His voice now evidently sounds a little cold.

The office fell into silence in an instant, the teachers didn’t continue pursuing the gossip and dispersed after chats and smiles.

This nickname “Flower Immortal Song”¹¹Flower in chinese can not only refers to beauty but sometimes also refers to seductive or lecherousness 🙂 was gained because some day not too long ago, Song Fuzhi received a very large bouquet of impassioned and vibrant red roses. The kind that can cover people up when it was held.

The flowers were sent by Qiao Xuyang, Song Fuzhi’s most recent blind date partner. 

Aged 26, he was a young handsome and sunny man with a refreshing crew cut and slender and tall build. When he smiled, dimples appeared on his cheeks, like the currently popular dog on its leash.

Qiao Xuyang was actually also being forced to attend the blind date by his family, he went to the meeting without any feeling or expectation. But who would expect that he would be so crazily infatuated with Teacher Song once he saw him. Everyday he would call and send some texts, not unlike a high school student pursuing their love. He has so many romantic tricks up his sleeve.

However, after Song Fuzhi had a meal with him, he knew that both of them had no chance together.

Qiao Xuyang was too exuberant, clingy, lively, and demanding of companionship. Song Fuzhi was busy with work and couldn’t fulfil the emotional requirements of the other.

Song Fuzhi had already made it clear to him at the time, both of them weren’t suitable for each other.

But the young man refused to give up. It was clear that he was keen on pursuing Song Fuzhi until they became a couple.

Unable to make appointment for meals with him, Qiao Xuyang went to Song Fuzhi’s office to give him flowers.

At that time, Song Fuzhi was in the middle of talking about something with the other teachers when an express delivery guy suddenly came. On his hands was a big eye-catching romantic and impassioned red roses, as he then shouted, “Which one is Teacher Fuzhi? Your flowers please.”

It immediately caused an earthshaking uproar in the office. The teachers gathered together to watch the scene, like high school students, just watching gave everyone excitement.

Song Fuzhi’s brows creased lightly as he signed his name on the receipt, not saying anything throughout the ordeal.

He actually didn’t want to accept these flowers, but he also couldn’t ask the express delivery guy to send them back.

The delivery guy smiled and handed the roses to him, but Song Fuzhi didn’t want to touch it. So he pointed to the side and asked the delivery guy to put them on his table.

The next day, there were no flowers on Teacher Song’s table.

The other teachers thought that Song Fuzhi had taken the flowers home to be kept properly, but it actually wasn’t.

On the evening that day, Song Fuzhi took those flowers and returned them, untouched, back to Qiao Xuyang.

He put the flowers on the ground and said directly, “Don’t play around and waste your time¹²The chinese was 折腾 or tossing around, refers to doing something meaningless repeatedly aka wasting time, can also refer to torment someone or being “crazy” or unreasonable, it’s useless.”

Everytime Song Fuzhi used this kind of tone when talking, it always gave others the impression of coldness and distance, hurting others.

He was usually very polite and would also smile and laugh, but when one wanted to be closer to him, they would find that the distance between him and themself had always been far away all along. 

After that, Qiao Xuyang seemed to restrain himself and vanished, not appearing for two weeks. Just when Song Fuzhi was about to forget about this person, his calls and texts came again.

This time he was inviting him to visit an exhibition.

Unfortunately for him, sending this invitation was no different from not sending it. Song Fuzhi was extremely busy the whole day, he has already forgotten the text he received that morning. 

He did indeed forget about the text, but not other stuff.

The manga he confiscated in the morning was still lying on his office desk.

Song Fuzhi calmly looked at the cover for a few seconds, then lowered his head and smiled. He put the book in a small drawer, there it stored the spoils of war. 

Song Fuzhi immediately recognized the plot and panels when he casually took a glance at it in the morning. He had already finished reading it early, it was too familiar. 

The overpowered god blocked the god of death, this scene was so incredibly cool and blew one’s mind. Song Fuzhi had looked back at it four or five times.

He had also overheard the girl in the class  saying ‘Teacher Octopus’ cosplaying the overpowered character’. He had also seen those collections early, had even seen them many times.

Teacher Octopus was Song Fuzhi’s favorite cosplayer at present. If he wasn’t a homeroom teacher, if he was ten years younger, it’s likely that he would have chatted with that little girl for a whole night.

Today’s evening self-study session wasn’t on maths, but he was used to go see the class before leaving work.

Right at this moment, after the first session of evening self-study class, the open-type teaching building was shrouded in the dim light of the night. The students were in twos or threes, their blurry figures faintly discernible in the night.

A few students were chatting  and clinging to the railing near the class door, backs facing the corridor. Coincidentally it was the students who were reading manga this morning.

Song Fuzhi was just passing by them, not intending to eavesdrop on them on purpose, it was just them whose voices were too loud and too absorbed in their conversation. Such that every single word they said was clearly heard by Song Fuzhi.

“Hey, Fan Tong. Axe Ge won’t return the manga he confiscated, won’t he?”

“He said he would return it on Friday, but he wants me to go to his office myself to pick it up…. I might as well just give it to him, I don’t want to go to his office!”

“I just saw half of it and the book was gone! I want to go back and read the rest aaaahhhhh.”

A girl coldly chuckled, “Speaking of which, ladies and gentlemen, I suddenly have a really daring and bold idea——I think Axe Ge is quite suitable to cosplay that overpowered character. His figure is suitable, his gaze is also similar, cold and arrogant you know. Don’t you think so?”

“I think it’s bullshit!” Fong Tong immediately rolled his eyes.

“Does Song Axe even know what “Cos”¹³In chinese cosplay is often just called “cos” or cosplayer “coser”, I always TL-ed it as cosplay tho is? At best he would only know cos^2 + sin^2 = 1!”

Song Fuzhi passing by behind them, not even faltering in his steps. Only the corner of his lips raised lightly.

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The Author has something to say:

I’m pretty sure those of you who clicked on this story must have known what “cos” is. “cos” is short for “cosplay”, refers to playing with cosine (math) [doge]

Thank you for the bosses’ gifts in advance, you have waited a long time!

Please give me lots lots lots of guidance and comments

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Translator’s note:

Octopus is 章鱼 (Zhang yu) in Chinese, the same Zhang with the ML’s name Shi Zhang (时章). The Zhang can also refer to a surname and that would be how some people refers to him, I will translate it as either Octo or Zhang (on formal occasions) depending on the circumstances.

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Hi!!! So I decided to pick up this novel haha, my chinese is still lacking so apologies if the translation is lacking. My summary and even title is slightly different than the other translation (seem like it’s from ChatGPT) so please pardon the difference.

I also TL-ed the prequel of this novel (2D Otaku with Social Anxiety Also Wants to Date!). it’s two separate stories though so you don’t have to read that one first, but there are cameos or slight intersection with the main couple in the prequel. Although I still like this one better, the prequel is also good!

Also, the author had a summary for her story promo, the novel title is “Master Immortal Is Carrying A Machine Gun” (仙尊扛起了机关枪), but I didn’t translate it.

Hope you enjoy the chapter!