You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 17 Part 2

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 17 Part 2

Xu Huaisong slept till 11pm at the hotel. When he woke up, he opened Ruan Yu’s Weibo out of habit.

Her Weibo account has reenabled comments and private messages two days ago but she hadn’t updated it yet. But now, to his surprise, he saw a new message, posted an hour ago.

Wenxiang: [I come here to say sorry, <Really Want to Whisper in Your Ear> probably will not be continued. Jinjiang coins will be refunded. This decision has nothing to do with the online bullying incident earlier. Good night, everyone.]

Xu Huaisong blinked and pulled up to see comments underneath.

The comments were crammed with exclamation marks and cryouts like “Don’t”. There were others who asked “Why”.

Ruan Yu didn’t give anyone an answer. But the comment on the very top showed that it had been “liked” by the blogger. It seemed that this comment was approved by Ruan Yu.

Xu Huaisong read that particular comment, then put down his cell phone and opened the window to let the breeze come in. Finally, he made a phone call: “Come out for a drink?”

It was 1 am in a bar and Liu Mao could barely keep his eyes open. He looked around his empty surroundings and grabbed the glass from Xu Huaisong’s hand: “You don’t talk while drinking? Have you considered that I might get very sleepy this way since I don’t have jet lag?”

Xu Huaisong took another glass. He was already a bit tipsy but still in his right mind.

He shook the liquor inside the glass and gave Liu Mao a glance, then said: “What to talk about? Your blind date?”

Liu Mao was speechless.

Last time when Xu Huaisong was at Hang City, Liu Mao had already told him how he got to know Ruan Yu. The result was that he was now constantly being taunted by Xu Huaisong.

Xu Huaisong, on the other hand, had never mentioned his relationship to Ruan Yu.

Liu Mao sighed: “Nevermind if you don’t want to talk.”

“If I told you, make sure you won’t drop your chin on the table.”

Liu Mao: “Geez, what earth-shattering story can it be to let an almost 30 years old man drop my chin on the table?”

Three minutes later, a loud bang could be heard in the quiet bar.

Liu Mao covered his chin and said: “Even <Romance in the Rain>[1] doesn’t have a story like yours.”

Xu Huaisong turned his head away and smiled, but didn’t say anything.

Liu Mao was dumbfounded for a long while before asking: “Even if you didn’t know how she felt at the time, why didn’t you try to confess to her? Why didn’t you say something? Were you really trying to be a merit student?”

Xu Huaisong was quiet for a moment, then smiled again: “You should know very well what my family was going through then.”

Liu Mao didn’t know what to say. After a while, he asked: “Then, what do you think now?”

“Don’t know.”

Xu Huaisong was telling the truth.

Too many years had passed. Reality wasn’t a tv drama which could just use a caption that said “eight years later” to brush off what had happened in between then and now.

In fact, from the moment he found out the truth till the moment right now, he hadn’t really clearly thought it all through.

Returning back home or playing tricks, every time he seemed to have been pushed by a certain unknown force to do those things.

He was only following his heart and had given up on resisting it.

A long while later, after downing a glass of vodka, Xu Huaisong said something he would never have said while he was sober: “Liu Mao, this kind of feeling is pretty lousy.”

He wouldn’t have been bothered if she never had any feelings for him. What bothered him was that she had.

It didn’t bother him that he had a one-sided crush on her. He had long gotten over it after so many years. What troubled him was that after all those years, suddenly when he looked back, someone told him-- --You two could be together.

However, Ruan Yu gave the male lead in her novel the name “He Shiqian”,[2] which meant celebrating circumstances change with the passage of time. She could already write about it as if it was something that no longer had anything to do with her.

[1]: a popular tv drama aired in 2001 in China that was based on a novel by a famous Taiwanese romance author. The drama was a collaboration between China and Taiwan.

[2]: 贺时迁 (Hè Shíqiān). “He,” the family name, means “congratulate/celebrate”. “Shi” means “time” and “qian” means “change/move/shift.” So the name sort of roughly means “celebrate the changing times” or something to that effect.

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