You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 10 Part 4

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 10 Part 4

Ruan Yu was preoccupied with Cen Sisi. At the start of her video chat with Xu Huaisong, she was feeling rather down and absent-mindedly said towards the camera: “Mr. Xu, good morning.”

Xu Huaisong was still in the same room as last time. He took a glance outside the window: “It’s not morning anymore.”

Ruan Yu realized her mistake and wrily laughed.

Xu Huaisong looked at her as he picked up the documents on the desk and said flatly: “I’ve read the file.”

Ruan Yu had sent him the file yesterday before she went out with Shen Mingying. She asked: “Is there any problem with it?”

Xu Huaisong was about to say something but suddenly he noticed that the WeChat icon flashed. It was from Xu Huaishi again. He was planning to ignore it, but the first line of her message caught his attention: [Ge, that Su Cheng even dared……]

It looked like it wasn’t just a random chat. Xu Huaisong told Ruan Yu to wait a bit and clicked open the message.

Ruan Yu was bored as she listened to the notification sounds that kept popping up from the other side of the video chat. About 15 minutes later, she noticed that her own phone was making notification sounds.

When she opened WeChat, she found that Liu Mao had created a chat group for all three of them.

Liu Mao was posting pictures in the group chat, three in a row. The pictures looked like screen shots of Weibo private messages. Liu Mao added: [Please look at these, both of you.]

Ruan Yu enlarged the pictures and started smirking from irritation.

The pictures were showing the screenshots of the chat history of “Poem Writer.” The first picture showed a person claiming to be “Su Cheng'', using her Weibo’s alternate id, to contact Poem Writer and suggested that Poem Writer should file a lawsuit against “Wenxiang” for plagiarizing. Su Cheng even listed a whole bunch of advantages for doing so.

“Poem Writer” hinted that she didn’t believe this was the real “Su Cheng”. In order to convince her, “Su Cheng” was forced to send a message under her real id to prove herself.

Ruan Yu was too angry to care about her lady-like image and pointed at the screen to say: “Such a lu cha!”[1]

Xu Huaisong was obviously taken aback.

Ruan Yu realized that she had forgotten her manners and self-consciously smoothed out her bangs: “Sorry, I overreacted.”

But Xu Huaisong only blinked his eyes and asked: “What’s lu cha?”

Ruan Yu figured that he probably wasn’t familiar with internet slang back in China. She lightly coughed and seriously replied: “It’s the green tea we drink. My friend just sent me a link to an online store, hehe……”

Xu Huaisong opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but didn’t. Instead, he went on Baidu.

Ruan Yu continued to check the other two pictures.

It was more chat records between “Su Cheng” and “Poem Writer” further discussing the idea of filing a lawsuit. In the end, Poem Writer said she would contact a lawyer and give serious consideration about Su Cheng’s suggestion.

Since the chat history was in Liu Mao’s hands, Ruan Yu figured that “Poem Writer” should be on her side and she was only bluffing that she would consider it seriously.

Ruan Yu asked Xu Huaisong: “Did Mr. Liu instruct her to say that?”

Xu Huaisong wanted to say it was him actually but he couldn’t. So he nodded: “Probably.”

As the lawyer of the case, it wasn’t odd for Liu Mao to have contact with the key person in this case, “Poem Writer.” Ruan Yu didn’t think too much into it and asked again: “Then what should I do after this?”

“Ask Liu Mao.” Xu Huaisong was busy typing something and didn’t even give her a look.

Ruan Yu didn’t mind it at all and sent a message to Liu Mao in their group chat.

After two full minutes, Liu Mao replied: [If you’re really angry, simply block Cen Sisi’s WeChat.]

“......,” What a childish way of doing things, Ruan Yu felt that it wouldn’t do anything to relieve her anger.

She was about to tactfully suggest that doing so would be acting on impulse when she saw Xu Huaisong say in their group chat: [You’re in grade school?]

Zhikun Liu Mao: [......Then what would you suggest?]

Xu Huaisong: [You go help her preserve the online evidence.]

Zhikun Liu Mao: [......Alright, then what?]

Xu Huaisong: [Nothing else you need to do.]

Ruan Yu once again sensed that Xu Huaisong and Liu Mao weren’t on very good terms.

To smooth out what seemed to be tension between the two lawyers, Ruan Yu typed: [Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Liu!]

Liu Mao didn’t even bother to reply.

Xu Huaisong knocked on the desk on the other side to get Ruan Yu’s attention: “Do you have the defendant’s cell phone number?”

Ruan Yu nodded: “Yes.”

“Do you know how to record things as evidence?”

Ruan Yu was surprised but quickly understood what he meant.

If she followed Liu Mao’s suggestion and had a falling out with Cen Sisi right away, it wouldn’t be wise. She should pretend that she didn’t know anything about Cen’s exchanges with Poem Writer and try to get more words out of her. If Ruan Yu could do that, then in addition to the chat history with “Poem Writer”, she would have another piece of evidence in her favor in court.

Thinking through Xu Huaisong’s question, Ruan Yu couldn’t help but admire Xu Huaisong’s quick wit and intelligence. It seemed that he was more reliable than Liu Mao. Ruan Yu sat up straight and said: “I don’t really know how, could you teach me?”

“En.”

Liu Mao, sitting in his office, lazily leaned against a swivel chair and sighed while looking at the private chat between him and Xu Huaisong just a few minutes ago.

Xu Huaisong: [She would ask you what to do later on, tell her to block the defendant to get even.]

Zhikun Liu Mao: [Why? Can you be more professional like a lawyer? We should try to get her own words as evidence at a time like this.]

Xu Huaisong: [I know. Just tell her like I’ve told you.]

[1]: She is saying 绿茶, lǜchá, which literally means “green tea.” We struggled with translating the overall context of the sentence and settled on just transliterating the word rather than it’s normal meaning. In this case, she’s using the slang form of the word which basically means “bitch.”

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