You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 52 Part 3

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 52 Part 3

Xu Huaisong came out of the bathroom and asked: “What are you looking at?”

Ruan Yu: “Uh.”

Xu Huaisong walked over and saw the enlarged picture on the computer screen. He sighed: “I told you you would get scared and you still looked at it.”

Ruan Yu shook her head to indicate that she wasn’t scared.

She pointed at the screen and her index finger slightly quivered: “This man……”

“What about him?”

Ruan Yu widened her eyes in amazement: “He looks like Wei Jin!”

Xu Huaisong had never met Wei Jin and didn’t pay much attention to the other people when he studied the old pictures.

He asked: “Are you sure?”

Ruan Yu looked at the screen again and carefully studied the picture with her head tilted: “The resolution isn’t high enough. It’s hard to tell. But, he really looks like him, especially his eyes…… If it really is Wei Jin, why would he show up in this picture? You have any way to check his educational background?”

A person like Wei Jin must be very careful keeping his personal information confidential. In addition, the police were investigating him because of drug-related crimes. If Xu Huaisong started checking his background, it might alert him.

After giving it some thought, Xu Huaisong opened his contact list on his cell phone: “I can try using some of the connections that my father has.” He started making several phone calls.

Half an hour later, information of Wei Jin’s educational background was sent to Xu Huaisong’s email.

Ruan Yu sat next to him and watched without blinking as the file downloaded until the PDF showed up. She tightly grabbed Xu Huaisong’s sleeve.

Wei Jin was a graduate of Su City Business College and in the same department and same year as Jiang Yi.

Ruan Yu suddenly had goosebumps all over her. She grabbed onto Xu Huaisong’s arm: “What does this mean?”

Xu Huaisong frowned but shook his head: “It doesn’t mean anything.”

He knew what she was thinking of.

The real killer of the old case ten years ago had never been found. Wei Jin was present at the dinner that night and was the same age and had a similar figure as Jiang Yi.

However, would a person necessarily be a killer just because he had a history of taking drugs and raping women? One certainly couldn’t jump to conclusions.

Wei Jin wasn’t on the list of suspects at that time, which meant that the police had ruled out the possibility that he was involved.

Ruan Yu could understand the reasoning; it was impossible for the police to reopen the case just based upon her surmise which was colored by personal feelings.

If the police actually did that, then the country might need one hundred million police to be able to handle all the surmises.

But Ruan Yu wouldn’t give up so easily: “Isn’t Officer Fang investigating Wei Jin right now? Why not share this information with him, he might happen to discover some leads?”

Xu Huaisong shook his head: “Let’s not consider how realistic your accusation of Wei Jin is. The fact is that the Jiang Yi case occurred ten years ago in Su City. For the police to take on a case in a different province and to reopen an old case, it’ll have to meet certain requirements and it would be hard for him to “happen” to find something. Ten years ago, the police back then were the closest to all the clues and evidence and they didn’t find anything. How would Officer Fang find anything now? The only breakthrough we can hope for is the police's investigation into his drug usage.”

Ruan Yu nodded: “Then, how did that investigation go?”

Xu Huaisong wasn't a police officer and didn’t know too much about the details: “They probably suspect that there’s a drug organization behind Wei Jin and are secretly collecting information. I heard that Officer Fang went to Vietnam a couple days ago and has also scheduled a trip to Las Vegas in the US after that. It’s not easy to track across borders. Besides he has to do it covertly, it won’t progress that fast.”

Fortunately, Wei Jin was the kind of person who didn’t care about trivial things. He didn’t think the incident with Sun Miaohan or being seen by Ruan Yu was something worth being concerned about.

At the suggestion of the police, Sun Miaohan had already left Hang City, pretending not to make a fuss about the incident. What Ruan Yu needed to do now was to pretend nothing had happened like Sun Miaohan.

Only then, would she prevent arousing any suspicion from Wei Jin and the police could slowly push their investigation forward.

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

You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 52 Part 2

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 52 Part 2

Xu Huaisong took off his jacket as he was speaking to go to the bathroom. When he started to unbutton his shirt, Ruan Yu hurriedly turned her back to him: “I, I’ll just play around with your computer. Take your time……”

She picked up his laptop and sat down with her back to the bathroom, resting the laptop in her lap.

Ruan Yu’s heart skipped a beat when she heard the sound of Xu Huaisong’s belt buckle striking against the wooden barrel.

The bathroom wasn’t soundproof.

When she heard the sound of running water, she blinked her eyes and tried to concentrate on the computer screen. With a glance, she saw a folder named “Jiang Yi case.”

Ruan Yu knew that lately Xu Huaisong had revisited the ten years old case repeatedly because of Zhou Jun’s case. He was trying to learn his father’s defense strategies since the two cases were quite similar.

Ruan Yu double clicked on the folder.

She decided to read about the case to distract herself.

In the folder, there were many images and text documents. She skipped the ones that looked more technical, but opened a document which had a brief description of the case.

It was written from the lawyer’s perspective, therefore it was based on the client’s statement.

In the statement, it described the victim as a student of Su City Business College. She was Jiang Yi’s junior in the same department and Jiang Yi was about to graduate.

On the day of the incident, Jiang Yi, the victim, and several other students from the same department were having dinner together. After dinner, they went to a bar. They all had drinks at the bar, then Jiang Yi and the victim, who had just started dating, left the bar together, leaving their friends behind. Under the influence of alcohol, they had sex in the public restroom on the roadside.

Afterwards, Jiang Yi received a phone call from his family. He hastily left without taking the woman home. The next time he heard of her was that the woman’s body was discovered in a stall of the public restroom.

The autopsy report indicated that the cause of death was due to head trauma when she struck the back of her head against the water tank of the toilet. She was found dead at the scene.

Jiang Yi had a similar reaction as Zhou Jun at the time. He panicked and chose to run when faced with a police investigation.

But he couldn’t get away.

Criminal profiling indicated that the suspect should be a male about 23 years old and tall.

The other students also testified that the victim had left the bar together with Jiang Yi. 

The most damning evidence was that the semen stains on the victim matched Jiang Yi’s DNA. In addition, the timing of when he received the phone call was quite close to the time of the victim’s death and investigators couldn't conclusively determine which came first in order to clear him. The public restroom was also rather basic, with no surveillance nearby.

Under the pressure of public outcry and police interrogation, Jiang Yi had a mental breakdown. He even began to doubt whether he really was the killer of the victim and gave self-contradictory statements.

Jiang Yi’s family hired Xu Huaisong’s father to defend him and he was eventually acquitted.

It was finally clear to Ruan Yu why Tao Rong and Xu Huaishi couldn’t understand Xu Huaisong’s father. From the perspective of an onlooker, Jiang Yi did “look” like he was the killer.

No wonder Zhou Jun had said that Xu’s father had the ability to turn black into white.

Ruan Yu’s full attention was on the case and didn’t notice that the water had stopped running behind her in the bathroom.

She backed out of the document and went back to the folder. She moved the cursor and saw a picture taken the night of the incident of all the students at the dinner.

The good looking Jiang Yi was at the center of the picture. He was chatting happily with the others besides him, looking like he was in the prime of his life.

It was hard to imagine that the person in the picture would become someone who made a living by scavenging ten years later.

Ruan Yu sighed. Right before she was going to close the picture, she suddenly noticed that in the picture there was a person looking somewhat familiar at the corner of the dinner table.

She frowned and enlarged the picture.

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

You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 52 Part 1

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 52 Part 1

Xu Huaisong and Ruan Yu both froze at the door. They gave each other a look after 30 seconds.

Ruan Yu hesitantly asked: “Didn’t the front desk ask you what type of room you wanted?”

“Hum.” Xu Huaisong looked quite innocent: “I said whatever.”

So……

Ruan Yu surveyed the room once again and noticed that even the lighting was rather suggestive. If this was a randomly picked room then the problem didn’t rest upon Xu Huaisong.

Ruan Yu backed up a few steps to take a look at the logo of the hotel in the corridor. The logo had two very active little figures on it. It was quite obvious what kind of hotel this was.

They were probably blind before they came here.

What should they do now?

Xu Huaisong looked down at his wrist watch, probably mulling over whether to change hotels or not.

Noticing that Xu Huaisong planned to leave, Ruan Yu felt that she should make good use of this unique experience.

She said: “No rush, no rush. Let me go in for a tour first. I can use it in my novel in the future……”

Ruan Yu curiously walked in, Xu Huaisong had no choice but to follow her in.

Ruan Yu had totally forgotten the goose bumps she had earlier when she first laid eyes on the room. Now she was looking here and there as if she had walked into a new world.

She squatted down next to a S shaped lounger and pondered about the shape. Since it was beyond her comprehension, she was quiet for a moment before looking up and hesitantly asked Xu Huaisong: “What’s this for……”

Xu Huaisong paused, looked away, then said without much expression: “How would I know?”

Ruan Yu thoughtfully said “oh.” She then turned her eyes to the large wooden barrel, about half the height of an adult, in the bathroom. She walked in to pull the shower curtain and said in a low voice: “There’s a curtain……”

It didn’t seem as unacceptable as she had first thought.

“Are you done looking?” Xu Huaisong rushed her outside the door.

Ruan Yu told him to wait a little longer. She walked over to the bed and looked up at the large mirror on the ceiling. She tilted her head to look at herself in the mirror and said: “The design is quite nice. When the sun shines into the room in the morning, you open your eyes and can see the beauty……”

Xu Huaisong frustratedly walked over and tugged on her: “Are you going? If not, we’ll stay here for the night.”

Ruan Yu was attracted to the many never before seen furnishings in the room, even the lights could change to seven or eight different colors. She pushed different buttons here and there, looked around, and lingered.

Perhaps she had stayed in the same room with Xu Huaisong so many times, Ruan Yu wasn’t particularly nervous about staying put. She said after thinking about it: “A room is a room. Since we’re already here, let’s just make do……” She started playing with the lights again as she was speaking.

Xu Huaisong felt that she wasn’t just putting up with the room, she actually quite enjoyed the room.

So be it.

He closed the door and opened his briefcase to take out his laptop which was almost out of power. He plugged the laptop in the outlet but found that there was no desk in the room.

It made sense since the people who came to this hotel were not going to do any office work anyway. He looked around and finally put the laptop down on top of a somewhat normal looking flat chair. Then he turned to look at Ruan Yu: “I need to go over the case a bit. You go shower first.”

Ruan Yu was still adjusting the lighting. She paused and took a look at the bathroom.

While she was touring around the room, the clear glass bathroom seemed alright with the shower curtain. But when she was actually about to go in, she suddenly felt quite awkward about it.

Noticing Ruan Yu suddenly become stiff, Xu Huaisong thought that it might not be a good idea to have her go in first. He said: “Let me go in and check it out first.” He was afraid that there was something strange that might scare her.

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

You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 51 Part 3

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 51 Part 3

Xu Huaisong looked at Jiang Yi and asked after a long while: “How have you been these years?”

Jiang Yi picked up the plastic bag and said: “Fine, I’m fine. How’s your father?”

Xu Huaisong answered after a short pause: “He’s also fine.”

Someone outside the market threw an empty can into the trash bin with a clank. Jiang Yi heard the noise and turned his head. Then he hastily nodded to Xu Huaisong and ran out to pick up the can.

Xu Huaisong stood still with lips tightly pressed together and was silent for quite a while.

Ruan Yu and Chen Hui remained silent. They heard the voice of a middle aged woman at a fish stall across from them: “See that! The killer is doing fine and the lawyer who helped the killer is also doing fine. What has this world come to!”

As the woman was speaking, she picked up the plastic washbasin which she had just cleaned fish in and splashed the water inside towards the three.

Xu Huaisong hurriedly pulled Ruan Yu behind him.

The bloody water splashed onto the tip of his shoes. He didn’t say anything and told Chen Hui: “Let’s go. We’ll continue.”

When they were out of the market, it was already dark outside. Xu Huaisong and Chen Hui had completed their tasks but Zhang Ling was having some difficulties with the victim’s relatives. She was only able to contact one of the relatives the whole day and hadn’t come up with anything useful.

Chen Hui said: “I’ll take Song Ge and Ruan Jie back to Hang City and come back tomorrow to pick up Zhang Jie.”

Xu Huaisong took a look at Ruan Yu: “Want to spend the night at my home?”

“Will Auntie be at home?”

“Yes.”

Considering it would be too troublesome for Chen Hui to drive back and forth and equally awkward to go to Xu’s family house, Ruan Yu said after giving it some thought: “Let’s just find a hotel then?”

Xu Huaisong nodded and asked Chen Hui to go with Zhang Jie. He then, together with Ruan Yu, picked a place to have dinner. They started searching for a hotel after dinner and discovered one within a few hundred meters of the restaurant. They walked towards the hotel.

It was in a quiet neighborhood and no one was around them. Ruan Yu finally had the chance to ask him: “Was the person we met at the market the accused killer ten years ago?”

Xu Huaisong had been somewhat down ever since meeting Jiang Yi. He answered with a low voice: “En.” After a while, he continued: “He’s only 35 years old. When it happened, he just graduated from Su City Business College. He could have had a bright future.”

Ruan Yu was shocked.

Looking at the person, Ruan Yu would have believed that he was already 45.

How could a young man age to this extent in ten years?

Who would believe that he was doing fine?

Ruan Yu frowned and asked: “What exactly was that case about?”

“Rape and murder.”

Ruan Yu gasped.

Xu Huaisong patted her head: “Let’s not talk about it. I don’t want to scare you.”

They went to the nearby hotel to get a room.

They were both absent-minded as Ruan Yu followed Xu Huaisong up the stairs after he got the room.

It was only after they swiped open the room door that both of them discovered that the hotel seemed a little unusual. – –The wall of the bathroom was made of clear glass, there was a huge mirror hanging on the ceiling, and there were various furnishings that looked like exercise equipment in the room.

They seemed to have……walked into an intriguing place.

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

You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 51 Part 2

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 51 Part 2

Ruan Yu didn’t know the answer to Zhang Ling’s question. She was a romance novel writer and came up with the scenarios based upon her analysis of the mental states of two lovers. To look for evidence would be the specialties of the lawyers.

Xu Huaisong thought for a while before saying: “Did the victim have any close female friends?”

“There are her two college roommates.”

Xu Huaisong nodded: “After we arrive at Su City, Zhang Jie will go contact these two persons. Xiao Chen and I will go as planned to visit our client’s neighborhood.”

Ruan Yu followed Xu Huaisong to where Zhou Jun lived.

Originally, Zhou Jun lived in the same neighborhood as Ruan Yu’s family and Xu Huaisong’s grandma. After the neighborhood was demolished, Zhou Jun had relocated to the resettlement housing.

Since the resettlement housing was in the countryside, Ruan Yu and Xu Huaisong’s families decided to take the compensation money instead of moving to the new housing.

Chen Hui carried a briefcase and a list of schedules, leading the way in front of Ruan Yu and Xu Huaisong.

They interviewed five families in the neighborhood.

The sixth person they intended to visit was a mutual friend of both Zhou Jun and the victim. This person worked in the market. When they arrived at the person’s home, it was already evening. The person’s wife said that he was still at the market selling fish. They tried to call him but he didn’t pick up their calls, possibly because he didn’t hear the phone ringing since the market was noisy.

Xu Huaisong checked his watch.

Since this was the last one on their list, Ruan Yu guessed that Xu Huaisong probably didn’t want to drag on for too long. She suggested: “We can just go to the market then.”

Xu Huaisong and Chen Hui had no objections and they drove to the market.

The two men were dressed in suits and looked quite out of place in the market. After getting out of the car, both men stood at the entrance to the market and didn't know where to even begin their search.

Ruan Yu, who cooks and goes to market often, took a look inside and then pointed at the rows of seafood stalls to say: “He should be over there.” She led the two men past the meat section as she was speaking.

As they were passing through the meat section, an empty soda bottle rolled over on the ground towards them.

Xu Huaisong pulled Ruan Yu over and said “be careful.” Then they saw a middle aged man come over wearing only an undershirt. He bent over to pick up the bottle to put into a plastic bag.

There were quite a few empty bottles inside the plastic bag. It looked like the person was collecting empty bottles in exchange for money.

It was quite a common thing in the countryside. They were preparing to make way for this person but he happened to look up. He fixed his eyes on Xu Huaisong and was stunned. He squinted his eyes and stammered: “Xu….. Lawyer Xu?”

Xu Huaisong blinked as if he was trying to search for this person in his memory. But he couldn’t remember seeing this person before. He was quiet for a moment, then politely said: “How are you.”

The person got excited and let go of the plastic bag, dropping all the bottles and cans on the ground. He went forward to shake Xu Huaisong’s hand but stopped himself after noticing his own dirty hands.

Xu Huaisong was confused: “Do you know me?”

“Lawyer Xu, you don’t remember me? You handled my case ten years ago……”

Xu Huaisong was dumbfounded. How could it be possible for him to handle any case ten years ago?

Xu Huaisong soon realized: “Perhaps you’re talking about my father?” He frowned as he spoke and looked carefully at the person: “Mr. Jiang?”

Jiang Yi was taken aback: “Oh, you’re Lawyer Xu’s son. I’m confused……” He smiled embarrassedly: “Right, how could anyone get younger after so many years. However, you look so much like your father……”

Ruan Yu was baffled and looked at Xu Huaisong.

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

You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 51 Part 1

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 51 Part 1

Ruan Yu forced Xu Huaisong to memorize law articles for a whole week after he only scored 82 points on the practice test.

For seven consecutive days, every night before they went to bed, Xu Huaisong sat shoulder to shoulder with Ruan Yu on the bed with a heavy stack of books in his lap as she asked him to recite one article after another.

The drill usually ended with Ruan Yu falling asleep in his arms from the boring recitation of law articles.

The day after the week was over, Zhang Jie called to ask Xu Huaisong whether he would like to go with her to Su City to investigate Zhou Jun’s case.

The legal proceeding of the case had already begun about ten days ago. Zhang Ling and Chen Hui had interviewed several key witnesses in the past few days. The trip to Su City was for an in-depth background check.

Xu Huaisong, if he could participate as a classmate and neighbor of the accused, would help improve the willingness of those who were going to be interviewed to cooperate and provide more information favorable to the accused.

Xu Huaisong agreed and asked for the departure time.

Ruan Yu was sitting next to him editing the movie script. After Xu Huaisong hung up the phone, she leaned over to ask: “Could I go with you?”

Xu Huaisong gave her a glance: “You have to watch me memorize law articles even when I’m on a business trip?”

Ruan Yu had a disgusted expression on her face that seemed to be accusing him of “not appreciating her good will”: “I’m also quite familiar with Su City. I just want to help.”

Xu Huaisong smiled: “You don’t have any meetings for tomorrow and the day after?”

Ruan Yu checked the scheduled meetings at Global Filming: “I won’t have one till four days later.”

Lately, the meetings at Global Filming were held about every ten days. Even since she had met Wei Jin and Sun Miaohan in her apartment building, she hadn’t gone to the company yet. She had been editing the script remotely.

However, since she knew there was the possibility that her movie might go under, her enthusiasm towards the project had diminished a lot and her productivity had also slowed down quite a bit.

Seeing that Ruan Yu seemed lukewarm about editing the script, Xu Huaisong decided to take her with him to Su City the next day.

Chen Hui was driving the car and Zhang Ling sat in the passenger seat. She turned to report to Xu Huaisong in the back seat: “As we’ve mentioned before, the reason our client mistakenly believed that the victim had committed suicide to get back at him is because of the picture of her slitting her own wrist which she posted to her friends circle about a month before her death. I’ve investigated it and confirmed that that picture was downloaded by the victim from some online site. In other words, she didn’t really do anything to harm herself.”

“Regarding this finding, the prosecutor might question: First, our client and the victim had been in a relationship for one year and three months and that there was no reason why he couldn’t recognize whether it was her wrist or not. Second, if there was no scar on the victim’s wrist, how would she hide it from our client for a whole month?”

“But according to our client, he was quite panicked when he first saw the picture and didn’t check the image carefully. Furthermore, the picture was quickly removed and the victim had wrapped her wrist with gauze for quite a long time. She even started wearing a watch over it. Our client didn’t believe his girlfriend would deceive him and truly didn’t verify the whole incident.”

Ruan Yu hissed when she heard it.

“Hum?” Xu Huaisong looked sideways at her.

Ruan Yu said after giving it some thought: “I’ve tried to imagine the mental states of the victim and the client. But it’s just a wild guess.”

Xu Huaisong knew that Ruan Yu had a much wilder imagination than anyone else in the car and thought it was worth listening to. He said: “Let’s hear it. Investigations are a process of boldly hypothesizing, then proving it carefully.”

“Our client had a one night stand the night after he had a fight with the victim. The victim posted the wrist slitting picture the next morning after the client’s one night stand. Correct?”

“Correct.”

“Then, I think, perhaps the victim already knew about the one night stand before posting the picture. Or, to be more precise, perhaps she posted the picture because she knew about the one night stand and tried to guilt him into staying with her by faking the wrist slitting.”

“After the incident, the two of them were back together on good terms and she thought her trick had worked. But that day in the car, she saw the chat record between the client and the one night stand and totally lost it.”

“In addition, the client, because he felt guilty, might’ve subconsciously not wanted to face the scar on the victim’s wrist, so he never would have checked it on his own. Or, even if he had, the victim might have covered it up somehow.”

Zhang Ling was quiet for a moment before asking: “But, what sort of evidence can prove these inferences?” 

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

You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 50 Part 3

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 50 Chapter 3

Xu Huaisong said a little while later: “Didn’t you ask me before what I and Li Shican went to talk about that day in his agency’s office?”

Ruan Yun gave him a glance: “So you’re finally willing to talk about it?”

“I wasn’t sure about Global Filming’s overall strategy at the time, but I was quite dubious about the fact that they chose him as the male lead from the beginning: why it happened to be him.”

“He kept becoming a trending topic then and I suspected that Global Filming would disclose the relationship between you, him, and Cen Sisi right before the film came out to promote the film. So I developed a contingency plan with him that day.”

“What kind of plan?”

Xu Huaisong curled his lips upwards: “In light of what Wei Jin’s facing right now, there’s probably no need for the plan anymore.”

“So you still don’t plan to talk about it?”

“En.”

Ruan Yu took a deep breath and pouted to say: “Then it’ll be better off that you didn’t bring it up at all!”

The car stopped at the red light. Xu Huaisong used one of his hands to stroke Ruan Yu’s hair: “I can stay here for over a month this time. In addition to following up on the police investigation of Wei Jin’s background, I’ll mainly focus on Zhou Jun’s case. Besides these two things, I’ll spend the rest of my time with you.”

Ruan Yu harrumphed in a low voice: “Then what about your lawyer exam?[1] This is the first year of the new format. All the exam models have changed, what luck you have to happen to be the first group to take it.”

Xu Huaisong almost choked: “I’m studying.”

“Tsk, what a pity. You better spend less time with me and do more practice. If you don’t pass the exam, you can’t take any cases; if you don’t have any cases, then you’ll be unemployed and I’ll have to support you with my royalties.”

Xu Huaisong moved his hand down to her forehead and gestured to flick her.

Ruan Yu shrunk her neck: “Woa, the lawyer’s committing a crime!”

Xu Huaisong laughed out and used his thumb to rub her forehead instead.

Ruan Yu used both hands to grab onto his and put it in between hers: “You just said that you’ll leave after a month?”

“About a month.”

Ruan Yu released his hand and took out her cell phone to search on Baidu: [how to apply for a passport.]

She got a general idea after a quick search. Then, after they came back to her apartment, she pushed Xu Huaisong to study.

She dragged Xu Huaisong to sit on the coach. He speechlessly looked at all the books on the coffee table that included constitutional law, civil law, commercial law, criminal law, economic law, and international law.

Ruan Yu flipped through some of the book with interest and mumbled: “I almost can’t recognize the word ‘law’ now…… Why don’t we start with doing some practice tests?”

“Oh.”

Ruan Yu opened a book called <Lawyer Exam in 70 Days> and noticed that it was all blank inside. She asked him: “Choose a number from one to ten?”

“Seven.”

Ruan Yu flipped to the seventh set of questions and handed a pen over to him. She opened her cell phone to start a timer: “Come, volume 3 of the seventh set. Get ready, I’ll time it for you.”

Xu Huaisong sighed and started to work on the problems. Half an hour later, he frowned and reached over at the book for economic law.

Ruan Yu stopped him: “Wait? How can you check the book while doing the test, will they let you do that during the exam?”

Xu Huaisong was a little short of confidence: “This is quite different from the US law system. I haven’t memorized economic law yet.”

“The purpose of doing practice tests is to find out your current readiness. If you don’t know the answer, so be it. Don’t try to get away from it.”

Xu Huaisong had no choice but to retract his hand and continued with the questions.

Ruan Yu touched his head: “There's a reward if you get over 90 points.”

Xu Huaisong tilted his head: “What kind of reward?”

“I’ll let you know after you’re done.”

Xu Huaisong cast his eyes down and decided to guess through the rest of the questions.

He would choose the longest answer if the choices were three short answers and one long one. If there were three long ones and one short, he would choose the shortest. If two short and two long ones, he would choose B. If the choices were at different lengths, he would choose C.

When he was close to finishing the test, Ruan Yu heard him start coughing a lot.

“Your throat’s not feeling well?”

“Mhm.”

“Then I’ll get some water for you.”

Ruan Yu stood up and walked away.

Xu Huaisong quickly flipped to the answer keys section. As he was busy looking for volume 3 in the seventh set, suddenly he heard a call in a rather chilling voice –  – “Mr. Xu.”

He paused and looked up.

Ruan Yu was holding an empty glass while leaning against the kitchen door. She looked at him and said: “I knew you were faking it. By the way, I forgot to tell you that I got a teaching certificate after graduating from college. I know only too well people like you who try to cheat.”

[1]: The official name of the exam is: China's Unified Qualification Exam for Legal Professionals. It is a government issued license / exam to be a practicing lawyer in China.

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

You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 50 Part 2

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 50 Part 2

The two police men looked at each other.

Fang Zhen asked Sun Miaohan: “Was this a cigarette you smoked?”

Sun Miaohan shook her head in surprise: “No, I don’t smoke. It’s him……”

Xu Huaisong frowned and came up to say: “Ms. Sun had said that Mr. Wei had hastily left when the alarm sounded?”

Sun Miaohan nodded and lowered her head to look at the butt. She looked at Ruan Yu with a baffled expression, unable to see a connection between the two.

The three men in the room all looked rather serious. Ruan Yu didn’t dare say anything. After a short while, Fang Zhen picked up the butt to put into an evidence bag and said to his colleague: “Take it to the lab for a narcotics test.”

Sun Miaohan gasped.

Fang Zhen said: “Does Ms. Sun know anything about Mr. Wei in this regard?”

Sun Miaohan shook her head with widened eyes. After a short pause, she said in a low voice: “I only remember that last night he was smoking this cigarette while……” She couldn’t continue and looked over at Ruan Yu, the only other woman in the room, for help.

Ruan Yu took over the conversation: “I’ve heard from a friend that Mr. Wei has some unusual disposition in regard to ‘those’ things……”

“We can’t rule out the possibility that he uses narcotics to arouse himself when he seeks physical stimulation.” Xu Huaisong added to the conversation without any change in his expression: “Officer Fang, if possible, I hope the police will give due consideration to Ms. Sun’s personal safety. I don’t think it will be a good idea to summon Mr. Wei based on the case of ‘sexual assault.’”

Fang Zhen nodded: “If the lab result is what we are suspecting, we’ll apply for a confidential inquiry.”

After the talk with the police ended, Xu Huaisong let Ruan Yu contact the Cen family.

Cen Rongshen learned that they wanted to do some more investigation on the plagiarism issue and invited both of them to go to his office.

The Cen family made their fortune in the real estate business and had since expanded to various other fields, including gaming, tourism, and filming.

When Ruan Yu and Xu Huaisong arrived at Cen Rongshen’s office, he was in the meeting with his upper management team. He received them after the meeting was over. Xu Huaisong went straight to the point that they had come hoping to revisit the records about Cen Sisi paying for spammers and buying trending hashtags.

Cen Rongshen had always been very sorry about the incident and very cooperative to the request. He let his secretary forward all the related records over and said: “Mr. Xu, all the records I have are here. I think it's probably incomplete.”

Xu Huaisong looked everything over and answered after a short moment of silence: “Mr. Cen, this probably is the complete record.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Xu?”

“I’m terribly sorry, it’s my mistake.”

Actually, Cen Sisi had already explained it in the recording of her phone conversation with Ruan Yu before. She had said that she had only hired a small group of spammers to test the water and didn’t understand herself why the topic went viral all of a sudden.

At the time, Xu Huaisong and Liu Mao both thought that Cen Sisi was making an excuse and didn’t think too much about it since they were in a hurry to recover Ruan Yu’s reputation. They had overlooked the real driving force behind the scene.

Xu Huaisong had been very quiet while driving after they came out of Cen’s office.

Ruan Yu looked at him: “It’s alright. You said it yourself that lawyers aren’t gods. It’s not too late to find out about it now. The problem is what should we do afterwards……”

“The crimes Wei Jin has committed in the past few years must be quite a few. But he’s used to exploiting legal loopholes. Attempted rape or illegal possession of drugs are of no importance to him; buying people to make a hashtag virl even more so.”

Indeed, with the relationship between Ruan Yu and Global Filming, it wasn’t a proper move to make a big deal about this. Even if the case were brought to court, the compensation he would have to pay would be nothing to him.

“Then, we can only watch him get away from all these?”

Xu Huaisong shook his head: “We have to hit him where it hurts. I asked the police to apply for a confidential inquiry to find where it hurts for him. This kind of person usually has a shady background and there must be a source where he gets his drugs. If we can prove that he is not only illegally possessing narcotics, but also illegally transporting or even selling narcotics, then no matter how powerful his backing is, they won’t be able to cover for him anymore.”

Ruan Yu nodded.

“But if the investor of the movie got arrested, then your movie project would be delayed or even be canceled.”

“It’s nothing. Nothing is more important than to rid the people of an evil!” 

Xu Huaisong was amused by the heroic expression on her face. 

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

You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 50 Part 1

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 50 Part 1

Before Sun Miaohan left, Ruan Yu urged her to cut off all ties with Global Filming.

Sun Miaohan nodded and said she would. But she turned around after just walking out of the apartment: “Jiejie, actually I’m a little baffled……”

“Hrm?”

“Last night the alarm didn’t go on for long and management quickly made it clear that it was a false alarm. However, before that happened, he had already hastily driven away. Why would he leave me alone so easily?”

Ruan Yu shook her head to indicate that she had no clue either. She turned to take a look at Xu Huaisong just as Sun Miaohan’s cell phone started ringing.

Sun Miaohan picked up the call but soon tears started to well up in her eyes. She talked on the cell phone: “Auntie, I really don’t want to call the police…… Forget about it, it’s no use……”

There was a high pitch sound coming from the cell phone. It was a voice with an accent: “What has this world come to that we can’t even call the police when bullied? You just wait there, the police will be there very soon. You tell them everything so they can take that guy to jail!”

After hanging up the phone, Sun Miaohan took a deep breath and held back the tears as she spoke to Ruan Yu: “Jiejie, I have to go upstairs now. My aunt back home was very angry after learning all this and has called the police for me.”

Ruan Yu patted her shoulder and watched her go into the elevator. She turned to see Xu Huaisong sitting on the couch, pinching between his eyes. She walked over and asked: “Is the situation quite complicated?”

“According to what you told me last night, she didn’t resist at all, at least when they were under surveillance in the elevator. It would be quite difficult for the police to file a case simply based upon her statement about what happened after they entered her apartment. If the police were to investigate this matter and after summoning the other party to find that they can’t file a case against him, what do you think Wei Jin would do afterwards?”

Ruan Yu pressed her lips together and didn’t say anything.

Though what he said was cruel, the reality would be exactly like he said.

Sun Miaohan wouldn’t be the only case on Wei Jin’s hand. But most of the girls chose to compromise instead of hitting a rock with an egg.

A person like Wei Jin is used to doing whatever he wants and wouldn’t care about a particular girl. If this time Sun Miaohan left because she “couldn’t afford to play the game”, he probably would forget about her in no time.

But if she made a big deal about this incident, offended him, and the law wasn’t able to punish him, then the situation might wind up even more ugly.

Xu Huaisong shut his eyes before opening them to say: “You met Wei Jin last night. If the police get involved, you’ll inevitably get entangled in it. Even the smoke alarm incident will be exposed as well. Sun Miaohan could just leave, but you have a contract with Global Filming. What are you going to do then?”

All men are selfish.

As a lawyer, Xu Huaisong would provide legal support if Sun Miaohan wanted to pursue it. But as a boyfriend, he didn’t want Ruan Yu to get involved.

Xu Huaisong rubbed his temples: “I’ll go up to the 15th floor to see what’s going on.”

Ruan Yu followed Xu Huaisong to the 15th floor, Fang Zhen and another police officer were already asking Sun Miaohan questions. There was a police dog on a leash at the door.

Ruan Yu asked in a small voice: “Why is there a police dog here?”

Xu Huaisong didn’t know the answer either and shook his head.

Fang Zhen was surprised to see the two and the other police officer was dumbfounded: “Hm, Ms. Ruan, Mr. Xu, we’ve met again!”

Ruan Yu held onto her forehead and was wondering whether she had the same sort of luck as Mouri Kogoro.[1] 

Noticing that Ruan Yu kept looking at the police dog, the police officer explained: “It’s a misunderstanding. The person who called the police said that the suspect had run away from the crime scene, so we thought we needed to track the suspect down.”

Sun Miaohan apologetically said: “My bad, my aunt didn’t know the exact circumstances……”

She then continued to describe what had happened last night.

Fang Zhen then asked Ruan Yu for details again. In the end, he wanted to confirm all the items which Wei Jin had touched last night.

Sun Miaohan walked into the kitchen to take out the trash bag and said: “I’ve already swept up all the broken glasses and pillow stuffing. They are all here……” As she was talking, the police dog at the door suddenly started barking furiously and tried to break loose to charge at her.

Sun Miaohan jumped and threw down the trash bag.

The two policemen rushed over, one trying to calm the dog down and the other to check the trash bag.

Fang Zhen put on gloves and carefully flipped through the content inside the bag while asking: “Is there something with blood on it?”

Sun Miaohan was frightened and stammered: “No, nothing……!”

The police dog was still barking hard and the police officer couldn’t get it to calm down. Fang Zhen turned his head to say: “Let Xinxin come and smell it.”

The other police officer released the dog.

The dog, Xinxin, immediately pounced over and nosed through items in the bag. Finally it brought out a cigarette butt.

[1]: Mouri Kogoro is a character from Detective Conan. Normally Conan solves the case while Kogoro is asleep or knocked out. It’s not clear what the Author intended by the comparison. We interpret the original text to imply that Ruan Yu seems to run into crimes as frequently as Mouri Kogoro does.

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