You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 65 Part 1

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

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 65 Part 1

Ruan Yu’s afternoon meeting didn’t finish until dusk.

It was close to the winter solstice and daytime was especially short. She waited at the front of Global Filming for about five minutes and the sky had already turned a shade darker.

Xu Huaisong was running late because he was caught in traffic. By the time Ruan Yu got in his car, both of her hands were reddish from the cold breeze.

After closing the car door, Ruan Yu rubbed her hands against the warm air coming from the heater. She asked at the same time: “How did the trial go today?”

“Pretty good.” Xu Huaisong didn’t start the car, instead he adjusted the direction of the flow of the warm air. He turned to lift Ruan Yu’s hands and rubbed them lightly. After a while, he lowered his head to blow air into her palms and noticed that the scabs on her hand were almost gone. He then asked: “I have to go to the US after the winter solstice. When shall I go visit your parents?”

“How about your parents, aren’t you going home for the winter solstice?[1]”

“Su City at noon and Hang City at night.”

“That would be too tiring for you to drive. It would be fine for you to go visit after you come back from the US. What’s the hurry?”

Xu Huaisong laughed: “How can I not go visit on such an important day? Don’t let me give your parents bad impressions.”

Ruan Yu: “Oh.” She looked away and smiled. Suddenly she recalled what Li Shican had told her after lunch.

It meant that earlier, Xu Huaisong had considered marrying her. Or to put it in another way, from the very start, marriage was his final goal.

Then she figured that she knew why he wanted to hide the contingency plan from her.

Marriage is something that should be decided by the two persons involved. There shouldn’t be any external interference or influence. He didn’t want to leave the impression in her mind that their marriage carried some other connotation.

Just because he was very prudent about this matter, though they both implicitly knew they were heading towards that direction, Ruan Yu knew that Xu Huaisong wouldn’t bring up marriage before he completely finished his work in the US.

With that understanding in mind, Ruan Yu decided that it was not something she should worry about now. After all, it wouldn’t be until next year when Xu Huaisong’s career in this country stabilized.

Ruan Yu then asked: “When will you be back from the US this time?”

“I won’t be back before New Year's Day.”

Ruan Yu instantly had a long face: “Then we can’t spend New Year’s Eve together……”

Xu Huaisong laughed as he looked at her: “There’s nothing special about New Year’s Eve. Let’s be more patriotic. It’ll be good as long as we’re together for Lunar New Year.”

Ruan Yu opened her mouth and wanted to say that she wasn’t just being “into foreign cultures”, it was because New Year’s Eve had special meaning to them. But she swallowed what she wanted to say when she saw Xu Huaisong not seem to think too much into it.

Forget it, she thought, she shouldn’t expect a man to understand the romantic meaning of it.

Three days later, it was the winter solstice.

Xu Huaisong had tightly planned everything for the day. First thing in the morning, he drove with Ruan Yu back home in Su City. After the ceremony giving offerings to his ancestors, the whole family had lunch together. Then they had afternoon tea with his family before driving back to Hang City.

When they reached the suburbs, the setting sun painted a faint yellow halo over the road ahead..

Ruan Yu suddenly thought about Zhou Jun. He and his girlfriend had their accident right on this road when they were on their way from Su City to the suburbs of Hang City.

She sighed. Before she said anything, Xu Huaisong had already guessed what she was thinking. He brought up a different topic to distract her: “What are we going to eat tonight?”

“My mom heard that we had a feast at lunch and she’s going to prepare hot pot for us.” She tilted her head to look at him: “Mr. Xu, you’re going to see your homeroom teacher soon, are you nervous? Are you scared?”

Xu Huaisong laughed: “I’m scared.”

Ruan Yu was about to comfort him when she heard him say: “I’ll have to keep cooking food for you as we eat. I’m scared that I won’t have enough to eat.”

“......”

Ruan Yu looked outside the window and bleakly thought about how passions could really deteriorate.

[1]: Chinese people traditionally celebrate winter solstice 冬至 (dōngzhì) with their families. During this time they’ll give offerings to their ancestors and eat special food, dumplings in the north and glutinous rice balls in the south.

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