You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 6 Part 1

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 6 Part 1

When Ruan Yu declared that she wasn’t going to file the suit, she didn’t even look at Xu Huaisong. Instead, she fixed her eyes on Liu Mao as if he was her life-saving straw. -- --As long as she could get a look of approval, then she could take to her heels.

Xu Huaisong, who was sitting across from Ruan Yu, seemed unconcerned. He lowered his head after hearing Ruan Yu and started to send some messages on his phone.

Ruan Yu assumed that he meant “you two chat, don’t mind me.”

Liu Mao became even more perplexed about the pressure being put on him. He hadn’t even made sense of what exactly was happening in this room, but Ruan Yu seemed to have given him the discretion to make the decision. He was confused and could only ask: “Miss Ruan, have you thought this through?”

Before Ruan Yu could reply, she was interrupted by a ringtone from her cell phone: “Ah, romance in the rain, the world is only in your eyes……” 

“......”

Liu Mao coughed lightly: “Sorry, I have a phone call.” He turned to leave the room right afterwards.

He had left the room and closed the door behind him. Ruan Yu became even more uneasy. She stood in front of the sofa, awkwardly chuckled and said: “Mr. Liu has a good taste.”

Xu Huaisong was quiet, then glanced up at her: “En.”

Time seemed to go much slower now. Every second was a torture to her. She could only find some random things to continue the conversation: “Last time I met him, it wasn’t this ringtone.”

Xu Huaisong looked up again. This time he lightly pushed his glasses: “Last time?”

Ruan Yu hesitatingly nodded. But he seemed to quickly lose interest in the topic. He stretched out his hand to gesture for her to sit down, then lowered his head again to flip through a stack of papers regarding the law firm’s public relation issues.

Ruan Yu’s legs failed her following his gesture and bent down to sit on the sofa.

Xu Huaisong pointed at the side table, indicating that she could put her file folder there. Then he continued to look through the documents without looking at her again.

Ruan Yu felt a little at ease and put the file on the table as if it was a “hot potato” which weighed a ton.

Liu Mao hadn’t come back for quite a long time. There was no one trying to lighten the atmosphere in the room. The consultation room seemed to become too uncomfortable for any consultation at all.

Ruan Yu looked around the room for a while. Her eyes unintentionally landed back at the man across from her. She had calmed down by now and gradually accepted the fact that she had met Xu Huaisong eight years after graduating from high school.

However, the man in front seemed to look like Xu Huaisong, yet in some respects, he didn’t look like him.

Except for his facial features remaining pretty much the same, he had changed a lot in other areas. He had grown a few centimeters taller and had a stronger physique unlike in their high school days when he was as skinny as a bamboo stick. Time had made him more mature looking than back then.

He looked familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time to her.

In any case, time had treated Xu Huaisong quite well.

Some people at his age might already have balding heads and beer bellies.

She became sentimental from reminiscing about the old days, she took a breath and was about to sigh. But before she could, she heard the man across from her suddenly ask: “Miss Ruan has something against me?”

Ruan Yu almost choked.

Back when they were in school, Ruan Yu would take sneak peeks at him while the whole school was doing their morning exercise on the sports field. Every time she looked at him then, he was totally unaware of it. After a few years of being a lawyer, he had developed a much keener sense of perception.

However, Ruan Yu felt that he wasn’t in a good mood.

She hurriedly shook her hand: “Oh, no, no. Certainly not…… I’m just being sentimental about my bad luck.” She pointed at the file on the table to show that she was just worrying about her case.

Xu Huaisong moved his eyes over to look at the file.

Ruan Yu immediately sensed the danger; she used her hand to cover it and moved the file folder towards herself.

Xu Huaisong moved his eyes away and continued to look through the papers in his hands. Then through the corner of his eyes, he noticed that Ruan Yu had moved the file again about one centimeter. Seeing that he didn’t have any reaction to it, she moved it carefully another time about two to three centimeters.

Xu Huaisong wondered whether he could describe her action as pushing her luck?

He thought about it and right as she was going to move the file the third time, he abruptly looked up.

Ruan Yu jumped and her whole body tensed up. She gave him a dry smile: “What’s wrong, Mr. Xu?”

She called him Mr. Xu rather awkwardly and Mr. Xu was also feeling quite awkward being addressed that way.

The atmosphere inside the room had dropped to the freezing point.

Liu Mao happened to come back at this juncture. He apologized to the two who had been left in the room and said that something had gone wrong downstairs.

Ruan Yu was relieved to see him back. She picked up the file folder and stood up to say: “Mr. Liu, I’ve thought it over.”

Liu Mao had an apologetic look: “I respect Miss Ruan’s decision. I’ve met many clients who were hesitating just like you. However, in the end, many of them chose to take legal action after further consideration. You can take your time to think it over.”

“The clients you’re referring to were probably looking to get a divorce.” Xu Huaisong suddenly spoke while still looking downwards, surprising Liu Mao.

Ruan Yu blinked in confusion. Were these two lawyers not on good terms? Why would Xu Huaisong be so mean? Based on her impression of Xu Huaisong, he did seem to have a sharp tongue in the past.

In her memory, he was the kind of person who was aloof and wouldn’t utter a word unless it was absolutely necessary.

Ruan Yu cleared her throat to smooth out the awkwardness in the room. She said to Liu Mao: “Thank you. I’ll think it over.”

Liu Mao said: “You’re welcome.” He took a look at the sun outside the window: “It’s quite hot outside. Let me take you home.”

Ruan Yu hurriedly shook her head: “I don’t want to trouble you. You’ll miss your lunch hour if you make the trip back and forth.”

“It’s alright.” Liu Mao smiled warmly: “Aren’t there restaurants near your apartment?”

Ruan Yu got the hint and said out of politeness: “Then let me buy you lunch. Yesterday you took the trouble to help me prepare all these documents.”

As soon as she finished, Xu Huaisong stood up: “Western food?”

Liu Mao was startled: “There’s Western food restaurants over there.”

“That works.” Xu Huaisong picked up his suit jacket from the back of the sofa, pulled the door open, and walked out of the room.

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