You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 38 Part 1

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 38 Part 1

The obsolete cell phone was in a style that was popular over a decade ago.

It was the kind of dumbphones that people that scrounge around neighborhoods collect as scrap phones for recycling.

Ruan Yu almost thought she had been transported back in time.

Then she took a picture of the old phone and attached it to the WeChat chat box: [Did you send me the wrong thing?]

Xu Huaishi: [No. Jiejie, turn on the phone and check the draft box.]

Ruan Yu thought why the draft box; young people today really know how to overcomplicate things. Was this a new way to write love letters to her?

Ruan Yu didn’t turn on the phone right away. She left the package on the coffee table and went to take a shower first instead because she had broken out in a cold sweat from her nightmares the previous night. When she came out of shower, she found a new message from Xu Huaishi in her cell phone.

It was a long message.

[Jiejie, you’ve seen it. I’m sorry. I was the one who accidentally found this old cell phone and took the liberty of reading it without permission, then rewrote the story from the draft box. It was also I who chickened out and didn’t admit it, even lying to cover up the truth when you were accused of plagiarism. I was also the one who secretly doxed your name and personal information.

What I did really sucks. After spending a day and a night with you in Hang City, I realized that you’re still trying hard to find out what had happened. I thought to myself that if I still didn’t tell you the truth, then I'll forever be an awful person.

Jiejie, it’s alright if you don’t forgive me or feel disgusted with me, but my brother didn’t know about this until the fourth day of the incident. He rushed back even though he still had an impending court day for a case. He was planning to explain everything frankly to you but didn’t do so after seeing that you were pretending to not know him at all.

Therefore, if it’s possible, you must forgive him, please. He really, truly likes you a lot.]

Ruan Yu was dumbfounded after reading the message and stood in the same spot with the cell phone in hand, unsure of what to do.

She recognized all those words in the message, word by word. But when those words were put together, she seemed to have a hard time deciphering what all those words meant.

Above the message, there was a screenshot attached showing a Weibo account: @ A Person Writes Poems.

Ruan Yu stood there for two minutes before slowly and sluggishly turning to pick up that old cell phone on the coffee table. She turned it on and opened the draft box.

There were 327 undelivered drafts.

She flipped through them and then randomly clicked open one to read.

[The model essay sample for the exam Mr. Zheng showed us was written by you.]

What sample essay for the exam? Ruan Yu frowned and wondered. She continued to read on.

[Your father asked me why I always like to play piano in room 301. I couldn’t say that it’s because I happen to be able to see you when I look out from the window of that room.]

Her knotted eyebrows relaxed a little. Her finger paused on top of the arrow key of the phone. She seemed to understand now who had written these drafts and whom he was writing to.

[You changed seats to the one next to the window. To get a time out so I could stand in the hallway to watch you, I was tardy to class today.]

[Are you coming to the sports field for PE? I’ve already run five circles already.]

[Hanazawa Rui doesn’t eat fried chicken.]

[You said that you like to watch the first sunlight right after a rain. Then I’ll play <After the Rain> during our school anniversary celebration.]

[That boy in your class who likes to pull on your braid came to ask me for my English homework. I didn’t let him copy mine.]

[The cat near the Arts building kept meowing. I fed it some canned food. But I don’t like cats, I like you.]

[I’m going to America soon. Is there any way to let you remember me, even if it’s just a little bit.]

[Then, let me hold your hand once.]

The somewhat unpleasant clicking sound of the old phone keypad kept going. Ruan Yu’s eyelashes kept quivering. Supporting herself with the couch, Ruan Yu slowly sat down. All her strength seemed to have been drained from reading these short messages, one after another.

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