You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 42 Part 1

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 42 Part 1

Li Shican had asked to meet Ruan Yu and Xu Huaisong at the Hang City branch office of his agency, Huarui Entertainment Management Agency.

When Xu Huaisong and Ruan Yu were led to the reception room, they could faintly hear a male voice inside: “How long has it been since you took it upon yourself to expose your relationship dispute? You should behave yourself after causing such negative media coverage. You could inherit your family business if you quit this business, but this company has to go on to make money!”

Right after those words, the door to the reception room opened. A chubby man with glasses angrily stormed out. He was somewhat startled when he saw two people outside the door.

Xu Huaisong nodded to him.

Both sides passed each other by without saying anything.

Inside the reception room, Li Shican stood up from the armchair and asked Xu Huaisong and Ruan Yu to sit down.

Since there were only armchairs inside the room, Xu Huaisong and Ruan Yu sat down on either side of Li Shican. Li asked his assistant to pour two cups of tea for them.

The one offered to Ruan Yu came with an extra glass of milk.

Xu Huaisong took a glance at the glass of milk and felt the whiteness of the milk almost stinged his eyes. He and Ruan Yu then thanked the assistant.

Li Shican opened his laptop and logged onto Weibo. He turned the screen towards Xu Huaisong: “Our agency adopted your suggestion when we composed the reply. Now public opinion has mostly turned to support me. The original poster is deliberately creating a false story with the implied timeline of the pictures, the visual illusions based on the angle and timing of the photos, and the suggestive wording.”

The first two pictures were taken in the brightly lit lobby implying that the two had entered the hotel during the daytime. However, the two pictures that followed were taken in the dimly lit underground parking lot, suggesting that it was now late at night.

The two sets of pictures created a false impression that the two had stayed in the hotel for a long time and misled the public.

Especially the third picture, because the way the picture had been taken, it looked like Li Shican was reaching over to hug Xu Huaishi’s waist.

“For these two issues, we can clarify by releasing the surveillance videos.” Li Shican, as he was talking, clicked to enlarge the four pictures: “Besides, we can’t clearly see the faces in the pictures even when you enlarge them to the max. It looks like it’s not going to cause too big a problem.”

Xu Huaisong responded with an en, then looked down at his wrist watch.

Li Shican understood what he was thinking and asked the assistant: “When can we get the surveillance tape?”

The assistant went out of the room to check and came back after 5 minutes: “Shican Ge, we’ve got it.”

Ruan Yu and Xu Huaisong followed Li Shican to the conference room. They could see quite a few people inside the room through the blinds from outside. When they opened the door, the ringing of phones mixed with voices of the people talking.

The people inside didn’t have time to look up at them at all.

Li Shican went over to pat a technician in front of a computer.

The young man who was busy typing on the keyboard turned around and heard Li Shican say: “Show the surveillance tape to her family to confirm it.”

“Oh, ok.” The young man clicked open the video and turned to explain to Xu Huaisong: “The surveillance video will be released only after we’ve blurred it. Please don’t worry about it.”

Xu Huaisong answered an en, then squinted his eyes to watch the video.

There were several segments with a clear timeline visible on the screen: Li Shican and Xu Huaishi entering the hotel elevator; upstairs, Li Shican waited afar in front of the elevator; Xu Huaishi came out the room with her luggage and followed Li Shican to go down to the underground parking lot to wait for Liu Mao to pick her up.

Xu Huaisong and Ruan Yu suddenly spoke at the same time when reviewing up to this segment.

“No.”

“Wait.”

Li Shican took a look at Xu Huaisong, but asked Ruan Yu first: “What’s wrong?”

Ruan Yu pointed at the screen to point out the backpack on Xu Huaishi’s back: “You can’t show this backpack. It will expose her identity.”

At a corner of the video, the distinctive blue backpack of Su City First High School was shown. Though the school logo was quite blurry and might not be recognized by the public, there was still a possibility that Xu Huaishi’s classmates might be able to make out enough to identify it.

A public figure could stand the pressure from public opinion better than any ordinary person. But, for a student like Xu Huaishi, the pressure from gossip on campus could be enough to crush her.

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