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.

front of his desk. He was depicted as wearing

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

knew when she drew this

back in the cupboard. A

picked it up. It was “The Twilight of Florence”. In the

back into the book, he peeped a few lines

focused on them and suddenly, he

was the distance between

about the culture and sceneries in Florence, and the memos had Tongrui’s handwriting… Did that mean that she was in Florence right

memos,

come to Florence

up. He turned around and marched out of

his march, he called Xu Kun, “Book

Mrs. Fu

Kun, “We got

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

…

and it sped along the highway in

mood or because of his fast-paced lifestyle, but

teeth hard as cold sweat began to permeate his

the steering wheel with only one hand. Lingye glanced at the signboard along the highway and found

even harder, and the Black Ryker was speeding

…

three in the morning. Zhengyuan was woken up by a call

“Hello?”

has met with an accident. He’s in the emergency unit now. Please come to the hospital

…

the emergency

did the accident

Lingye banged into the railing along the highway, but there were no 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

frowned hard. His hand which was holding onto the walking stick tight began

finally understood. Lingye purposely fabricated a lie regarding his divorce from Tongrui because he

must have found out

for the car accident. Lingye was simply…