You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 2 Part 1

Translated by Team DHH at http://dhh-workshop.blogspot.com.

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 2 Part 1

In April, the weather in Hang City was still unstable. The temperature had risen for the past few days, but once it was time for the Qingming Festival, it started drizzling again.[1]

On the last day of the festival, Ruan Yu went to meet Shen Mingying. Once she was out of her apartment, she shivered from the cold drizzle blowing into her face. She had to go back to put on a heavier overcoat before heading downstairs again. She went to a coffee shop and gathered her umbrella before going in.

The moisture lingering on her eyelashes gradually evaporated.

In the private room, Shen Mingying had already ordered coffee. Once she saw Ruan Yu’s attire, a cotton sweatshirt with a woolen coat, she frankly pointed out: “You’ve really become more and more informal now. You think you can do whatever you want just because you have a pretty face?”

“It’s already good enough that I was willing to wash my hair for you. I’m not here to walk the runway.”

“Being single, you have to have the awareness that you can have a romantic encounter at any moment.” Shen Mingying cast a sidelong glance at Ruan Yu, then pushed the laptop forward: “Anyway, give me the flash drive. Let me take a look at what a willful writer like you has come up with.”

Ruan Yu took out the white flash drive from her bag and handed it over. Then she picked up the latte and took a sip while checking Weibo on her cell phone. When she saw anything funny, she would share with Shen Mingying.

Shen Mingying would have a laugh with her in the beginning. But then she started to concentrate on the screen on her laptop and grew very quiet.

“What’s wrong?” Ruan Yu put down her phone and asked.

Shen Mingying slowly looked up from the screen: “This story looks like it’s going to be a hit……”

“Didn’t you say last time……”

Shen Mingying waved her hand, interrupting Ruan Yu. As if she had just found a gem, she was too excited to say anything for a while: “What I said before was about the kind of story that's divorced from reality. But this one is a real campus life close to most people’s personal experience. It’s easy for readers to empathize with it.”

Ruan Yu was writing about the First High School of Su City. It certainly would be close to reality.

She moved forward and asked as if she wanted more praise: “And?”

What’s more was that every time Ruan Yu got her thoughts straightened out, she wrote exquisitely. She had been writing for five years and among writers who had been writing for a similar amount of years, she was one of the top writers.

One senior writer had commented on her work-- --In a few words, she could tap the decadent from romance then in the end turn the decadence into splendor. This young lady’s writing is too crisp.

Shen Mingying would simply characterize her as a “proficient” writer. She rolled the mouse a few times and sighed: “Writing based on personal experience really tugs at one’s heartstrings. Very well, it’s a typical example of deep affection.”

“Don’t poke fun at me!”

“Who was the one who talked over and over about Xu Huaisong everyday next to my ear back then?”

Ruan Yu mumbled in a small voice: “Who hadn’t had a chuunibyou past?”

“That means” Shen Mingying glanced at her: “you don’t like him at all now?”

Ruan Yu nodded.

If it wasn’t for that diary, she actually wouldn’t have recalled much about Xu Huaisong nowadays. Even as she was writing in the past few days and reminisced about everything related to him, what was left was just a faint feeling of sadness.

It was almost like the feeling she had for the old house.

Affection? They hadn’t seen each other for eight years. Would there really be someone that sentimental?

Ruan Yu added: “If I hadn’t already gotten over it, would I torment myself by writing this book?”

“Make sense.” Shen Mingying: “Tsk, but you aren’t afraid that he’ll discover this book? That would be rather embarrassing.”

Ruan Yu said: “No, it won’t happen.” The novel would be written from the female lead’s perspective and would be fictionalized and adapted. So many years have passed, who could recognize the prototypes of the characters?

Besides, she felt that Xu Huaisong at the time had never matched her name with her appearance. In addition, would a person who didn’t seem to belong to this world read romance novels?

Ruan Yu’s phone rang.

Shen Mingying noticed that she had changed her ringtone to a piano piece. She suddenly remembered a plot she had just read where the female lead hid in the school flower bed eavesdropping on the male lead playing the piano.

She seemed to understand something: “So it’s that song <After the Rain>.”

Ruan Yu nodded while answering the phone: “Mom.” After a few exchanges, she said: “I’ll be over.”

“What’s up?” Shen Mingying asked.

“My mom has come to visit my apartment suddenly.”

“Then you go ahead.”

Ruan Yu stood up to gather her things. Before she left, she said: “I figure she’s here to persuade me to go for blind dates.”

“Then how do you plan to escape from it?”

Ruan Yu frowned: “She comes up from the suburb herself on such a cold and rainy day. I probably can’t get away from it this time.”

Ruan Yu picked up her umbrella and hurried away.

Shen Mingying laughed and gloated at the news towards Ruan Yu’s back: “Don’t forget to stream it then!”

[1]: Qingming Jie (清明节) can be literally translated to “Tomb Sweeping Day.” It’s a holiday where Chinese families visit the tombs of their ancestors to clean the gravesites, pray to their ancestors and make ritual offerings.

Translated by Team DHH at http://dhh-workshop.blogspot.com.