You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 8 Part 2

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 8 Part 2

Ruan Yu bounced up from the couch.

Had she sent out a friend request? Had she clicked on it by accident? If so, then what did she write in her friend request?

She couldn’t figure it out. She jumped off the couch, paced for a few steps, then came back to the couch again while pulling at her bangs.

On the other end, Xu Huaisong looked at that line of “.....” Ruan Yu had sent over as the greeting and curved up his mouth.

What was she doing?

It was already early morning in San Francisco. Ruan Yu didn’t know that Xu Huaisong had returned to the US and therefore, sent the message at such an hour.

Xu Huaisong lifted up the coffee mug to take a sip, waiting for her to say something more. But nothing else appeared on his cell phone.

The silence was exactly like the “standoff” which lasted through the whole three years of high school. The two of them stood on the stage they had erected themselves. With backs to each other, they acted in the same play but couldn’t see each other’s parts and thought mistakenly that all the deep feelings were just in the scripts they had written in their minds.

Yet the curtain between them had been lifted after so many years.

Xu Huaisong took a look at the screen of his cell phone, it was showing Jinjiang website which he had been on numerous times. He got up to walk over to the huge French windows which overlooked the bright lights of the city even though it was deep into the night. The golden spots of light reflected on the broad surface of the water in the distance, flickering with the wind, like little fires burning under the calm sea.

After a little while, his cell phone began to vibrate again.

Soft Jade[1]: [Mr. Xu, how are you? I’m Ruan Yu, we met yesterday.]

She sounded like she was planning to continue pretending not to know him.

Xu Huaisong lightly blinked his eyes and decided to play along. He typed: [How are you?]

[Mr. Xu, if it’s convenient to you, I would like to ask you a question.]

[En.]

[Well…… what was the friend request message I just sent you?]

Xu Huaisong started laughing at his screen. He could see her struggling and the frustration in those ellipses. Ten seconds later, he simply sent over the screenshot of what she had sent.

Soft Jade: [......]

It was quiet for two minutes before Xu Huaisong’s cell phone vibrated again.

Soft Jade: [Sorry, I accidentally clicked send…… Mr. Xu, are you in the US now?]

Xu Huaisong took a look at the screenshot, he had exposed his location himself with the name of his cell phone carrier on the screenshot. He replied: [En.]

Soft Jade: [I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t know……]

Xu Huaisong was thinking of replying that it was fine since he always slept late. But after he finished typing all those words, he felt that it didn’t sound proper and deleted it.

In those moments of silence, Ruan Yu had sent another message: [Sorry to disturb you. Let’s talk when it’s more convenient for you.]

Xu Huaisong turned to look at the empty coffee mug and pinched between his eyebrows.

He had just drank the coffee to give himself a lift and now she was saying he could go back to sleep now?

Ruan Yu didn’t send any more messages. Xu Huaisong checked the Moments on her WeChat. There was nothing there. He looked at the line “only showing the moments of the last three days” for five minutes, then turned off the phone.

He was irritated by her aloofness, pretending not to know him at all. Xu Huaisong walked to the bathroom and took off his bathrobe.

He took another shower. Once he was done, he came out of the bathroom with his hair still wet. He took a look at the cell phone on the table and in the end, picked it up to reply to her: [Let’s talk 5 pm San Francisco time.]

Ruan Yu got another key piece of information, he was in San Francisco.

For the past eight years, he was probably living in a place which was over ten thousand kilometers away from her, with the entire Pacific Ocean between them.

Of course, the situation would stay the same in the future.

Ruan Yu was suddenly glad.

It looked like they wouldn’t have to communicate face to face. With the screens between them, she felt much safer with all her secrets.

Five minutes later, Xu Huaisong sent his email address and asked her to forward all the related documents regarding the case over to him. Ruan Yu was now feeling more relaxed and decided not to fuss over the situation. She sent over the documents without hesitation.

Despite all that, Ruan Yu still didn’t sleep well that night. Five o’clock afternoon San Francisco time meant it was eight o’clock in the morning Beijing time, which meant that she had to discuss the case with Xu Huaisong once she woke up the next morning.

To begin with, her biological clock had been disturbed by the incident lately. Now with the pressure of the appointment in the morning, she suffered from insomnia for most of the night. When the alarm clock sounded at 7:30 am, she couldn’t resist the drowsiness and instantly shut the alarm off.

When she woke up again, she missed the appointment time. Her cell phone showed that it was 08:27 already. Ruan Yu was now fully awake and sat up on the bed.

She turned on WeChat and didn’t see any messages. She was relieved. She figured that as a lawyer in California, Xu Huaisong should be quite a busy person and wouldn't just sit around waiting for her.

But she still needed to apologize.

She hastily sent a message over: [Mr. Xu, I’m terribly sorry, I got up late. Do you have time now?]

There was no reply from the other side.

Ruan Yu got off the bed to wash up. The cell phone was quiet even after she had finished cooking breakfast. She took her time to eat breakfast.

When she put down the empty milk carton, her cell phone vibrated, as if he knew she had just finished eating her breakfast. She clicked open WeChat and saw Xu Huaisong had sent over one simple “en.”

Ruan Yu never had to file a lawsuit before and didn’t know what was the proper way to communicate with a lawyer. Seeing that Xu Huaisong acting so aloof and never initiating a conversation, she could only type again: [Then, shall we discuss the case?]

[Let’s talk face to face.]

Ruan Yu was stunned; wasn’t he in San Francisco?

The next second, Xu Huaisong: [Video chat. If it’s convenient.]

[1]: Ruan Yu’s WeChat id is a pun. 软玉 (ruǎn yù) literally means “soft jade” or known in English as nephrite. It is pronounced exactly like her Chinese name: 阮喻 (ruǎn yù), but is spelled with different characters.

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