Note: The opening portion of this You’re My Belated Happiness – Chapter is a recap to ensure narrative continuity for readers who missed the detailed version last night — please refer to the author’s note in the previous chapter.

Xu Huaisong raised his hand, and as his kiss landed, his burning palm moved to rest against the small of her back.

Combined with the warm, deep kiss, that single gesture alone sent a shiver through Ruan Yu’s entire body.

Xu Huaisong kept his eyes closed as he kindled a fire in her world.

She let out a soft, reproachful sound — nearly losing herself entirely — and thought in a daze that this sort of thing must simply be second nature to men.

She received him, and brought her hand up to rest against his head.

The sensation roused Xu Huaisong to a halt. Catching his breath, he asked: “…Where are your bubble gums?”

“Third drawer of the TV cabinet…”

He turned and got out of bed.

The sheets had been kicked to a corner. Ruan Yu, her clothes in disarray, buried her face in the pillow, her heart leaping wildly.

Longing, and terrified at the same time.

When she heard the soft rustle of sounds beside the bed, she buried her face even deeper and didn’t dare look up.

Then she heard a low, hoarse voice detonate just above her head: “An arrow once loosed cannot be called back. It’s too late for second thoughts now.”

She startled: “W-wait, wait a moment…”

Xu Huaisong drew a deep breath and continued coaxing her with patience — all tenderness and all abandon, both at once.

And she was like a solitary boat adrift on the open sea, surrounded on all sides by fierce, surging waves, rocking without any ground to stand on and nowhere to escape.

Ruan Yu went rigid as a shrimp curled tight: “You — how do you know how to—”

Xu Huaisong propped himself up and touched the tip of his nose to hers. “Because I’ve rehearsed it in my head many, many times.”

Seeing her hiccupping and sniffling — genuinely moved to tears — he pressed his hand to her forehead, damp with fine perspiration: “Are you ready now?”

Ruan Yu bit her lip and said nothing. He took her silence for agreement.

In the moment of finally breaching those walls, two muffled sounds rose simultaneously.

Xu Huaisong stilled, and asked: “Does it hurt?”

Ruan Yu shook her head: “It’s… it’s alright… but I…”

He held himself in patient restraint and asked: “But what?”

“But I really want to cry…”

Xu Huaisong pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Silly.”

Yet she truly began to cry — eyes brimming over, tears spilling hot and grateful.

She sobbed between breaths and said: “Xu Huaisong, I—”

“I love you.” He interrupted her. “That line — I should be the one to say it first.”

She wrapped her arms tightly around his back, nodding, and then nodding again: “I love you too. Maybe more than you can imagine.”

Xu Huaisong felt something shudder deep in his chest. He began to move — with a force that suggested he wanted to press her into himself entirely.

Ruan Yu bore the full storm of him, feeling as though the night stretched on and on — so endlessly long it seemed to reach all the way to the very end of a lifetime.

In that first morning charged with the weight of ceremony, Ruan Yu did not wake in Xu Huaisong’s arms the way a perfect story would have it.

She was woken by the sound of running water.

She opened her eyes and found the space beside her empty, though the sheets were still warm.

Xu Huaisong was washing up in the bathroom — he must have only just gotten up.

She blinked, still half in a daze, watching the light filter through the gap in the curtains. Gradually she came fully awake, and the events of the previous night sharpened in her mind, growing vivid and real.

She and Xu Huaisong had taken that step together.

From sixteen to eighteen, they had held hands once. From May to September of their twenty-sixth year, they had taken that step.

Both fast and slow.

The first time the previous night hadn’t lasted very long, but they had both been spent before even reaching it, and ended up drenched with perspiration by the end. Afterward, he had tried to carry her to the bathroom, and she had sent him off with a chorus of protests.

Because she had suddenly understood what that mirror in the boutique hotel had been for.

Xu Huaisong had been left with no choice but to bring a basin of water to the bed and help her clean up there.

But even in the dimness, the intimate warmth between them was no less than it would have been in full light — and somewhere in the middle of it all, something was rekindled, and they gave in to it together and let the current carry them a second time.

The second time was something else entirely.

By the end she was truly spent. When Xu Huaisong once again moved to carry her to the bathroom, she had gone as limp as a dead fish — no more struggling, and none of the earlier bashfulness either.

Only now, thinking back on it, her face went red all over again — and she couldn’t help a secret smile.

The corners of Ruan Yu’s mouth had barely curved up when the bathroom door slid open with a whoosh.

Like a guilty thief, she wiped the smile off her face and instinctively squeezed her eyes shut, feigning sleep.

Xu Huaisong smiled silently. He crouched down beside the bed, leaned in slowly, and pressed a brief kiss to her lips: “It’s almost ten.”

Ruan Yu forgot to keep pretending to sleep, and her eyes flew open. “That late already?” she asked in surprise. Then, realizing she had been neglecting her self-assigned duty of making sure he had his meals, she propped herself up on her elbows. “Have you eaten breakfast?”

Xu Huaisong wasn’t wearing his glasses, and his lashes still held a trace of moisture. He looked particularly gentle as he shook his head: “Didn’t have the heart to eat without you.”

“…”

An ordinary man saying something suggestive wasn’t frightening — because you could fire a withering look right back at him on the spot. But what made Xu Huaisong dangerous was that his version of saying something suggestive required a moment of processing before the meaning even landed — by which point the window for the perfect comeback had already closed.

And then he would act as though you had accepted it entirely and move on, smiling, to the next topic: “Get up — I’ve made breakfast.”

Ruan Yu touched her nose and made a sound of acknowledgment, pushed back the covers, set her feet on the floor — and immediately felt a deep, bone-deep ache shoot up her legs.

Noticing her pause, Xu Huaisong reached out to steady her. “Shall I bring a basin here so you can wash up in bed?”

She nearly choked: “I just—” Two rounds of exertion hardly called for the treatment of someone in confinement after childbirth.

“After the physical fitness tests in university I was even worse than this — the whole dormitory was howling and moaning when we got out of bed the next day.” She muttered under her breath, indicating this was a minor matter, and turned to walk toward the bathroom.

Xu Huaisong made a mild sound of acknowledgment, then after a moment followed her in: “So I rank below your university physical fitness tests?”

Ruan Yu’s hand paused mid-reach for the toothpaste.

Was there… really any comparison to be made there?

She sidestepped the point entirely: “The frog jumps were just really rough on the legs.”

Xu Huaisong took the toothbrush from her hand, squeezed the toothpaste for her, poured her a cup of water and handed it over, then fell quiet for a moment before saying: “That also has something in common with frog jumps, in terms of how it strains things.”

So something had been switched on in him last night, and now there was simply no end to it.

Ruan Yu froze with the toothbrush halfway to her mouth, slowly raised her eyes, and foam began trickling from the corner of her lips.

Xu Huaisong glanced at her reflection in the mirror with a smile, looped one arm around her from behind, and reached out the other to take back her toothbrush. “Open up.”

She blinked, parted her lips slightly, and found him brushing her teeth for her.

The soft bristles passed carefully over every tooth in turn. Then a cup of water was brought to her lips.

She stole a glance at Xu Huaisong’s reflection in the mirror.

He was looking down at her with quiet concentration, eyes full of a softness so deep it seemed on the verge of spilling over like starlight. Seeing her motionless, he prompted her gently: “Rinse.”

An unprecedented intimacy spread between the two of them.

She was beginning to believe what people said — that whether or not a man and a woman had been together in that way, a perceptive observer could tell at a single glance.

She lowered her head and drank a mouthful of water from his cupped hand, swished it around, and spat.

Xu Huaisong went on to help her brush a second round.

She stood there with his toothbrush in her mouth, cheeks puffed with foam, and said in a muffled voice with a smile: “Are you raising a daughter?”

He looked down with a smile: “Don’t let your teacher hear you say that — it sounds like I’ve run off with his daughter.”

Ruan Yu rinsed her mouth clean and tilted her head at him: “Haven’t you?”

At those words, Xu Huaisong seemed to think of something. He set down the cup and said: “It’s not as if I’m running off to America with her.”

At the mention of this, Ruan Yu paused slightly, and her smile faded.

Xu Huaisong sighed quietly and reached out to cup her face. “Do you know why I’ve never taken American citizenship?”

She shook her head, a small frown of puzzlement forming.

Thinking it over — he had been in America for eight years. Given his accomplishments, he would have easily met the requirements long ago.

“Because before my father fell ill, he never once brought it up. At first I assumed he might have had other plans for his career, but after he became ill, when I was going through some of his papers, I found that he had always maintained investments back in China. Even though we had put down roots in America, he didn’t seem to have any intention of completely giving up his Chinese citizenship — of cutting himself off entirely from everything here. So I never made that decision on his behalf.”

“I already had my mother and younger sister hoping I would come home, and a father who perhaps still felt a lingering attachment to this place. And then there was you, who gave me a reason to choose. I can practice law in America, and I can do it in China too. Eight years sounds like a long time, but compared to the decades ahead — doesn’t it seem like nothing much at all?”

Ruan Yu didn’t know how much of what Xu Huaisong said was true and how much was simply kind.

But as she had thought — there was no way he would take her away with him.

He smiled gently. “I’m truly glad you were willing to consider it for my sake. But considering it is enough.”

She lowered her eyes and nodded. After a moment she asked: “What about your father?”

“Once his condition is more stable, I’ll consult with his doctors in America — see when he might be well enough to fly again, and whether it might be possible for him to adjust to living somewhere new.”

She nodded. “So when do we go to America this time?”

He reached out and flicked the tip of her nose. “Same as I said yesterday — I’ll go alone. Your bar exam is not far off, and this trip of mine won’t take many days. You’d be exhausted from the jet lag going back and forth.”

Ruan Yu let out a dissenting noise and tried to use her charms to persuade him otherwise, poking him in the side as a hint: “And you can stand to leave just like that…”

Xu Huaisong paused very briefly, then the realization settled over him and he looked down at her. “Isn’t your period due tomorrow? I’ll only be gone just over a week.”

“…”

All the tenderness she had poured into that moment had been fed to the dogs. Xu Huaishi’s words of warning rang in her ears from memory: Have you seen that shrewd, calculating face of my brother? Someone like him — you can date him, but under no circumstances should you ever marry him!

Ruan Yu gave him a shove: “Go on, then! Get out!”

Xu Huaisong took an evening flight and, just over a week later, returned as expected.

With the scriptwriting work suspended due to her investor’s detention, Ruan Yu had been idle for quite a while, sitting at home growing restless waiting for him — when Fang Zhen’s call came in out of nowhere.

He had used his personal number, so it probably wasn’t anything official.

She picked up and heard him ask: “Ms. Ruan, are you able to reach Attorney Xu? I can’t get through to him — I’ve tried both his domestic and overseas numbers.”

She paused. “He’s on a plane right now. You should be able to reach his domestic number in about an hour.” She asked, frowning slightly as a thought began to take shape. “What did you need him for? Is there news about Wei Jin’s case?”

Fang Zhen made a sound of confirmation: “Attorney Xu mentioned something to me in private earlier — regarding a case his father handled ten years ago.”

Ruan Yu’s heart began to beat faster. “Has there been a development?”

“There’s been a significant discovery. It’s already been passed on to the Su Shi police.”

“What kind of discovery?”

“I’m not at liberty to say. If Attorney Xu is following up on this, he can contact Su Shi directly. I just called to pass along the message.”

Author’s Note: Fang Zhen: When I first appeared in this story, I never imagined I’d end up as a supporting character from beginning to end.