You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 9 Part 3

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 9 Part 3

In the first year of their high school days, life was still rather relaxed. There were several especially rowdy boys in room 10. They disliked the food in the school cafeteria and from time to time would climb over the school fence to buy fried chicken.

One time, Ruan Yu happened to run into Xu Huaisong walking with those boys. One of the boys put his arm around Xu Huaisong’s shoulder and said in a low voice: “Get a ladder after class and put it next to the fence near the school rear gate.”

Ruan Yu, at the time, was quite surprised that an aloof and suave person like Xu Huaisong would go along with those boys to get fried chicken this way? He looked like a person that didn’t belong to this world and grew up only drinking morning dew.

Just as she had expected, Xu Huaisong pushed that boy’s hand back and coldly said: “Not interested.”

The other boy was simply a bully; he put his arm back on Xu’s shoulder: “You aren’t getting it? Then I’ll give your cell phone to Old Ruan!”

“Old Ruan” was Ruan Yu’s father. She knew very well about her father’s quick temper and was worried for Xu Huaisong. She wanted to hear how Xu Huaisong was going to respond, but the boys had gone into their classroom.

Since there was no way for her to find out what happened afterwards, in order not to let Xu Huaisong get into any possible trouble, Ruan Yu managed to get a ladder after class from the school plant manager by using her connection to her father. Then she sneaked to place the ladder in the bushes next to the fence near the rear gate. She left afterwards without telling anyone.

Ruan Yu had written this whole incident into her story and she was afraid that Xu Huaisong might recognize it.

Seeing Ruan Yu spacing out, Xu Huaisong asked: “What’s wrong?” 

Ruan Yu instantly pulled herself back and continued: “This same incident is in the other story as well. But if you carefully read it over, what happened afterwards and the intention of writing the same incident are totally different in these two stories. My version is from the angle of the female lead. The section follows the female lead secretly placing the ladder for the male lead which is meant to show her mindset and indicate to the reader that she has a secret crush on him.”

“But the other story is told from the angle of the male lead. The section is describing the mindset of the male lead. It says that he actually likes to eat fried chicken too. But because he knows that the female lead’s nearby, he thinks it’ll look bad to let her know that he would climb over the school fence, so he purposely pretends that he’s not interested. Here, the other author’s intention is to show that the male lead thinks and acts differently.”

Xu Huaisong lightly coughed when hearing the last part of Ruan Yu’s analysis. He picked the cup next to him and drank some water, then said: “There’s no problem with this angle.”

Seeing that Xu Huaisong didn’t seem to have any peculiar reaction to this part of the story, Ruan Yu was relieved. She nodded and changed her analysis to another angle: “The third point is the placement of the characters. Though these two stories have many similar incidents, like we’ve mentioned above, in reality the character designs are quite different, especially in terms of the male lead. In my version, he’s the introverted type of person but in the other author’s version……”

Ruan Yu couldn’t find an exact adjective to describe it. When she was pondering, she heard a crisp sound. It was probably a WeChat message for Xu Huaisong.

Xu Huaisong ignored it and gave her a look to let her continue.

Before Ruan Yu could say anything, there was another notification sound which was followed by a series of more notifications.

Xu Huaisong frowned and had no choice but to check it.

Shijingbing: [Ge, I’ve reread Ruan Xuejie’s novel again.]

Shijingbing: [It’s so funny! How come you’re that kind of person in her story?]

Shijingbing: [Were you pretending to be cool in front of her?]

Shijingbing: [Ge, you’re ahead of your time. In those days, the term “play cool” didn’t exist yet and you already knew how to play cool!] 

Shijingbing: [Well, we can see that Ruan Xuejie likes that type of person. Be careful, don’t ruin that persona!]

Xu Huaisong: “......”

He had been very careful about that, who was she to remind him?

Shijingbing: [Ai, anyway, Ge, I really feel sympathetic to you. Nevermind that Ruan Xuejie may not like you anymore, even if she still does, the person in her heart isn’t the real you!]

Xu Huaisong was fed up with her and typed: [You don’t have enough homework?]

Ruan Yu seemed to see him gritting his teeth as if in a bad mood. She carefully asked: “If there’s urgent business you have to take care……”

“There’s none.” Xu Huaisong looked up and immediately assumed a nonchalant air: “Continue.”

As he was saying that, he also felt that his sister did make some sense. It was necessary to pay attention to Xu Huaishi’s reminder. He then clicked on a search engine while listening to Ruan Yu at the same time.

He used Baidu as he figured it fitted a more Chinese way of thinking. He entered: [How to be an aloof and nonchalant person.]

The first search result was “Baidu knows.”

It looked like someone had asked the same question.

As he was planning to click on it to see the details, he saw the first line of the reply: [You’re dreaming, brother. To ask such a question means that you’re destined not to be a cold and proud nobleman in this lifetime!]

“......”

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