You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 2 Part 2

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 2 Part 2

The spring chill was finally over after the Qingming Festival. Ruan Yu’s new novel <Really Want to Whisper in Your Ear> also started to be published on Jinjiang in installments.

Shen Mingying used to be an editor at Jinjiang and her assessment of the new novel had been quite accurate. Just as she had predicted, the pen name “Wenxiang” became a popular name once again after being silent for a year.

By the end of April, the new novel had leapt onto the most popular list on the site.

Soon after, a movie company contacted the site about the novel.

On a Thursday night in the beginning of May, Ruan Yu went to a restaurant downtown on a blind date after she had posted the chapter for the day.

She was forced to go, but she could understand her parents’ concerns. They weren’t necessarily in a hurry to marry her off, but were simply worried about her current condition.

She had graduated from college four years ago and hadn’t fallen in love a single time. Especially after she started writing, she didn’t even have a social life. Her parents were worried about her mental state.

Nowadays, social anxiety disorder is quite a common condition afterall.

Therefore, though they had arranged a blind date for her, their purpose was to have her go out to make some friends. If the two happened to click, then it would be even better if they became a couple.

Ruan Yu couldn’t get away from it and just thought of it as getting some personal experience in going on a blind date.

Considering it would be too awkward to meet for the first time in a small private room, both sides had chosen to meet in the main dining hall.

Her blind date, Mr. Liu, was three years older than Ruan Yu. He had a very clean face, had a gentle look and was pleasing to the eyes under the brilliant ceiling top lights. However, he didn’t seem used to doing this either and he acted rather uneasily the whole time. He seemed very nervous.

Before the dishes were served, they drank tea and chatted awkwardly. Once the dishes were served, both of them seemed to breath out a sigh of relief and started to concentrate on eating. Once they started eating, the atmosphere between the two relaxed somewhat.

The restaurant’s style was “big plate small bites”. All the food was quite delicate so one has to eat them elegantly. Ruan Yu ate a few bites of the main course, then lowered her head to drink the minced chicken soup when she heard Liu Mao ask her about her hobby or interests.

She put down the spoon and raised her head. Her shoulder length hair swang in an arc. She answered and being polite, also asked him about his profession: “I heard that Mr. Liu is a partner in a law firm, really it's as they say “young and promising”.”

Liu Mao became more relaxed as he spoke about his profession and modestly said: “I’m far from that. We have four partners in the firm, I’m the most junior one who’s doing all the actual work. Our most senior partner lives abroad most of the time. He’s really the awesome one.”

Ruan Yu didn’t know too much about the law profession and didn’t know what else to say. To avoid letting it become too awkward, she braced herself and continued the subject: “Living abroad and not doing the real work, then what does he do?”

Liu Mao shyly smiled: “Financial support.”

Ruan Yu also laughed.

Liu Mao glanced over the pair of crescent shaped eyes on Ruan Yu’s face and the pair of deep set dimples on her cheeks and was suddenly transfixed.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

He hastily shook his head. He couldn’t tell her that he was captured by her looks. His phone rang right at that moment to save him from further embarrassment.

He said: “Sorry.” and took the phone with him as he got up. He walked all the way to a quiet corner in the restaurant: “Huaisong?”

There was a male voice from the other end: “En.”

Liu Mao checked his watch: “It’s almost 4 am over there, anything wrong?”

“I need a file and you haven’t replied.”

“Ah, sorry. I’m out of office on a blind date now. I’ll get someone to take care of it now.”

Liu Mao was ready to hang up the phone but heard the other end hesitatingly said: “......Blind date?”

“Yes, what about it?”

“Is it popular back home?”

Liu Mao laughed: “Yeah. You don’t have this kind of trouble in California, right?”

The other side also gave a short laugh: “It has nothing to do with location; it’s mainly because of your age.”

“......”

After poking fun at Liu Mao, the man on the other side told him to continue with his blind date and quickly hung up the phone.

The corner of Liu Mao twitched and called his staff to take care of the work. He put down his phone and walked back to the table. He was going to apologize to Ruan Yu again, but noticed that Ruan Yu was also on the phone and it looked like something wasn’t quite right.

Seeing Liu Mao had come back to the table, Ruan Yu gestured to apologize and lowered her voice to ask on the phone: “Is that so?” After a short while, she said: “I’ll be right back.”

When she put down the phone, Liu Mao hurriedly asked: “Is there anything wrong, Miss Ruan?”

“I’m sorry, something seems to have gone wrong with my work. I have to go back now.”

“It’s quite alright. Work comes first. Let me take you back.”

Ruan Yu declined but Liu Mao insisted. Ruan Yu decided to accept the offer.

The traffic in the city was quite congested at this hour in the evening. Ruan Yu turned on her cell phone to check Jinjiang while she was still in the car.

Shen Mingying had frantically informed her earlier on the phone that someone had posted on the Jinjiang anonymous forum “Bishui Jiangting” saying that <Really Want to Whisper in Your Ear> and another short story in progress on the site <Her Eyes Can Smile> had a strong feeling of deja vu. Just based on the chapters being published so far from both stories, there were eleven identical events in the story.

The poster had listed the similar events in columns, highlighted in different colors. The result was quite startling. The conclusion was that Wenxiang’s <Really Want to Whisper in Your Ear> was now being suspected of plagiarism.

In less than one hour, there were over two thousand replies to this post.

To have a similar plot wasn’t terrible. What’s terrible was that there were multiple similar events. What was even worse was that the other story had been published earlier than Ruan Yu’s. From the look of it, there seemed to be no way she could clear her name.

In addition, this poster seemed to have come prepared. The poster had reported to the site before he/she posted the comparison and only posted half of the comparison columns, the rest would come later.

Ruan Yu wasn’t too worried at first since she didn’t think it was possible. She was planning to wait till the blind date was over then go home to get to the bottom of it. 

Yet Shen Mingying told her: “You better take care of it as soon as possible. I’ve looked over it, all eleven events are the same even in detail. Even the background campus is the same. Quite a few conversations are similar too.”

“The most obvious difference is that yours is from the female perspective while the other one…… is from the male perspective.”

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