Belated Romance (Mu Tongrui)

When Tongrui received Mr. Fu’s fax, it was eight o'clock at night in Florence.

When Tongrui received Mr. Fu’s fax, it was eight o'clock at night in Florence.

Ever since receiving his phone call in the morning, Tongrui had been in a dazed state, sitting by the window. She did not even have a drop of water or a mouthful of food.

The fax machine made a whirring sound and two copies of the divorce agreement came out of the machine.

She caressed the part of the papers where Lingye had put down his signature, and her tears quickly came. They fell on the papers and botched the ink.

Tongrui put down the divorce agreement by her legs, but she had no intention to sign them.

When she first found out that she was related to Lingye by blood, she was bracing herself for the possibility of a divorce, but when the time finally came and Lingye was able to sign the papers so casually, she found it close to impossible to even put her pen to paper.

Their marriage only lasted a few months, yet she had experienced a wide spectrum of things with Lingye. It felt like a very long time had elapsed.

It began to snow in the Florence night sky.

She watched the falling snowflakes and thought about the winter in North City. She imagined Lingye carrying her in the snow until they grew old.

It felt like their happy times just ended yesterday. How did they come to a divorce so quickly and so suddenly?

…

It was two at dawn in North City.

“Have you found the address that Mr. Fu has sent the fax to?”

“Not yet, but I should find out very soon.”

Xu Kun was staring at the computer screens as his underlings were scrambling to pinpoint the destination address of the fax.

Lingye stood by the sweeping huge window and gazed into the distance. It was snowing out there.

The weather was cool and unforgiving. He wondered if Rui was experiencing the same coldness.

After sipping on some brandy, the alcohol slowly diffused into his system. Only then he did feel a little better.

He found some drawings from the cupboard that were drawn by Tongrui. One of them was his portrait.

his desk. He was depicted

too. She was sprawled on the desk, and she was seen holding a pen. She was gazing intently at him. The picture was warm and

knew when she

and put them back in the cupboard. A book fell to the

up. It was “The Twilight of Florence”. In the pages of that

them back into the book, he peeped a few lines of words, and a formula for calculating

on them

was the distance between North City and

the memos had Tongrui’s handwriting… Did that mean that she was in Florence

hastily read the other memos,

will you come to Florence to

eyes lit up. He turned around and marched

march, he called Xu Kun, “Book me the shortest

Could Mrs.

his underlings managed to crack the code and locate the destination. He shouted at Xu Kun, “We got it.

sigh of relief, “Boss, it seems that Mrs. Fu is really in Florence. I

…

was gunning the Black Spyker, and it sped along the highway in

did not know whether it was because of his foul mood or because of his fast-paced lifestyle, but his stomach was

cold sweat began to permeate his back. However, he had no intention of stopping the car at

steering wheel with only one hand. Lingye glanced at the

Black Ryker was speeding so fast that its wheels almost left the

…

was woken up by a call from the

“Hello?”

Fu? Your son, Lingye, has met with an accident. He’s in

…

were gathered outside the emergency unit of the People’s

did the accident

other cars which collided with the back of Mr. Fu’s car. It must be a mistake in handling the car. When we discovered him, he was grimacing while clutching his stomach. Perhaps, he had stomach pain, and coupled with the

onto the

his divorce from Tongrui

must have found out where Tongrui was

very well the real reason for the car