You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 48 Part 1

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 48 Part 1

Seven minutes later, the alarms in the hallways sounded in Ruan Yu’s building. The piercing noise was accompanied by the sound of doors opening and closing. The whole building was roused from its previous quiet.

The residents were shouting in the hallways: “Is there a fire? Where’s the fire?”

“Run down the stairs, quick. Don’t take the elevator!”

“Take the emergency exit. Come here!”

A chaotic jumble of footsteps began heading towards the exits.

In the whole building, Ruan Yu was the only one staying still. She stood on top of the table in the living room, with a smoking pot in hand aimed directly at the smoke detector. She used the other hand to cover her mouth, coughing and tearing up at the same time.

A minute later, the intercom of her apartment 1201 started ringing.

Ruan Yu’s heart was racing. She took a look at the direction of the intercom and quietly counted in her mind.

She couldn’t let the alarm go on for too long. If it went on for too long, the fire engine might come. It would not only cause havoc for her neighbors, but also be a waste of fire fighting resources.

She quietly counted to 30 and was just about to cover the pot with the lid to stop the smoke from coming out when the sprinklers above her head suddenly turned on automatically. Water began pouring down on her.

Ruan Yu was stunned as the water drenched her. She jumped down from the table after a few seconds and ran to answer the intercom.

A male voice began rapidly speaking from the intercom: “This is the fire control room! Is there a fire in your place?”

Ruan Yu was coughing hard and could barely speak. She said in a faint and hoarse voice: “I burned my food while cooking……”

The man on the other side seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and turned to tell other people in the room: “Turn off the alarm! Notify the residents! The sprinkler system at 1201 has turned on, turn it off manually, quick!”

The whole building quieted down instantly. The sprinkler system in Ruan Yu’s living room was still on and had flooded the room despite being on for less than a minute.

It took some time for them to manually shut down the sprinkler system. Ruan Yu managed to salvage her laptop in time. She was soaked when she heard someone knocking on her door.

To be more exact, someone was pounding on her door.

Ruan Yu waded through the water on the ground to open the door. She assumed it was someone from property management at the door. She hurriedly said as she was pressing down on the door knob: “Sorry, sorr……”

She saw Xu Huaisong standing at the door.

Two buttons on his shirt were unbuttoned, strands of hair stuck to his forehead. Noticing that Ruan Yu was safe and sound, Xu Huaisong closed his eyes, put his hands on the door frame, and started to pant.

Ruan Yu was shocked to see him and momentarily lost the ability to speak.

Before the two of them could say anything to each other, two people from property management also arrived at the door. One of them went inside the apartment to fix the sprinkler system and the other stayed at the doorway to ask for details.

Ruan Yu anxiously asked: “Have all the residents in the building been evacuated downstairs?”

The property management guy seriously nodded: “Ms. Ruan, please explain in detail what happened. We have to give all the residents downstairs a reasonable explanation.”

Ruan Yu was a bit nervous and stammered: “Sorry, I was cooking at home, the pot caught fire……”

The guy took a look inside and doubtfully asked: “Smoke from the kitchen could indeed trigger the smoke alarm but the sprinkler system would only activate by high heat. Are you sure you were just cooking?”

Ruan Yu wiped away the sweat on her face: “I took the pot to the living room, therefore……” She bowed to the guy: “I’m truly sorry about that. I’m willing to take full responsibility for it, go down to apologize to everyone, and if it’s necessary, pay compensation to everyone.”

Xu Huaisong frowned and moved right in front of her to say to her: “You go wipe yourself dry and put on some dry clothes. Stay here, I’ll go handle this.” As he was talking, he turned to go downstairs with the guy.

Ten minutes later, the man from property management fixed the sprinkler system and left after setting up a time for follow-up maintenance.

Xu Huaisong hadn’t come back yet. Ruan Yu took her cell phone which had already automatically shut down into the dry bedroom to charge. As the phone was charging, she made a phone call to Xu Huaisong but found that his cell phone was also off. She changed her clothes and went out of her apartment to go downstairs.

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