The shackle’s name is “NanYang”.
----------------------------
At 2:30 in the morning, the streets were completely empty, the sky was full of snow, and not a sound could be heard.
Qi Yi finally finished her last task, stretched out comfortably, turned off the computer, plugged her phone into the charger, turned off the light, and crept into her warm blankets. She was just about to drift off to sleep when there was a knock on the door.
Thump, thump, thump.
Qi Yi woke up immediately, since the knocks on the door seemed to be urgent. She promptly crawled out of her comfortable blankets and went to the door to see what was going on.
When the door opened, she saw a snow-covered woman with red, swollen eyes standing there. Most of the snow had already melted, and her originally long, curly hair that was permed into elegant crescents was now miserably stuck to the sides of her deathly pale face. She held a snow-drenched coat in one hand and a pair of large sunglasses in the other. Her dripping wet shirt clung to her body, with a sense of difficult beauty.
“ZhuZhu, how did you become soaking wet like this?” Qi Yi became concerned after she saw her like this, and, afraid that squatting paparazzi would take pictures of her current appearance, let Zhu QingHuan come into the room first, saying, “Come in, quickly.”
Zhu Qinguan pressed her lips together rightly and followed Qi Yi into the room.
“What’s the matter? Why did you come looking for me in the middle of the night?” Qi Yi helped take the sunglasses and wet coat off of Zhu QingHuan’s hands and asked, “Did you...cry?”
Zhu QingHuan has a very gentle personality, and normal people weren’t willing to bully her when they looked at her soft eyes. If she really was bullied, she would only smile vaguely and not kick up a fuss. Qi Yi went to university with her for four years; in those four years, she’d never seen her become jealous of others. Afterwards, Zhu QingHuan entered the entertainment circle, and had a smooth road to becoming a Little Flower in the industry. During this time, there were a good amount of anti-fans who couldn’t get used to seeing her, and sent her private messages that cursed filthy words at her. But Zhu QingHuan would only finish reading them one by one, with her gaze lowered, without saying anything and without even getting angry. She would even add an extra sentence, “Thank you for following me”, to the automatic reply. Qi Yi rarely saw her, someone with a slow temper, made to cry.
“Xiao Yi.” Zhu QingHuan’s lips were slightly trembling. “She’s back.”
“Who?” Qi Yi was confused.
Zhu QingHuan raised her gaze as her eyelashes flittered. “NanYang. She’s back.”
Qi Yi paused, and understood Zhu QingHuan’s fears.
From the beginning of Zhu QingHuan’s memories, she knew that the person she was going to marry in the future was named NanYang.
More than 20 years ago, the Zhu family started a small company. When Zhu Jun married Yu FengLi, the business was still doing well; although it didn’t make that much money, at least there was still profit. But after Yu Fengli got pregnant, the whole country went through an unusually devastating financial crisis. A small company like the one the Zhu family owned was nothing but cannon fodder in the face of the financial crisis; only one project encountered a problem before all the company’s fund chains were broken. At that time, Zhu Jun stood at the top of the building every day, wondering if he should jump, but if he jumped, his debt still wouldn’t be cleared with his death.
At this time, the richest man in the city, from the Mei Group, found Zhu Jun. Chairman Mei Zhongli said, I can save your company and your life. I only have one condition: betroth your daughter to mine, and let them get married when they grow up.
The desperate Zhu Jun didn’t dare to ask Mei Zhongli his reason for doing this and agreed to this compromise. He promised to betroth his unborn daughter to the Mei family in exchange for benefits. Mei Zhongli also said, I’ll name her. Call her QingHuan.
Zhu Jun glanced at the worn-out dictionary that he’d flipped through and the names that were already written on the notebook next to him; he humbly nodded towards Mei Zhongli. Alright, we’ll go with what you decide and name her QingHuan.
Since then, the relationship between the Mei family and the Zhu family had become more intimate. Mei Zhongli would visit frequently, and was more concerned with the Zhu family’s circumstances than their own relatives. He saw Zhu QingHuan grow up from a baby to a little girl, from a little girl to a young woman, and from a young woman to a woman with his own eyes. During this time, he kept telling Zhu QingHuan, When you grow up, you’ll marry my daughter NanYang. Remember, you can’t like others. Your only choice is NanYang.
But all this time, from childhood to adulthood, Zhu QingHuan had never seen this NanYang that Mei Zhongli kept mentioning. All she knew was that NanYang was older than her by 11 years, was sent to Australia to study since she was a child, and had never been back since. Mei Zhongli said, When she comes back, it’ll be when you two get married.
She didn’t even know what NanYang looked like.
“Did your dad tell you? That she’s coming back?” Qi Yi worriedly looked at the red-eyed Zhu QingHuan.
“Mhm.” Zhu QingHuan furrowed her brows quickly, and her voice carried a leftover tone of emotion, “I had an argument with my dad. I said I didn’t want to marry someone I don’t know, and he didn’t agree.”
“ZhuZhu…”
“Xiao Yi,” Zhu QingYuan’s eyes teared up again, “I don’t want it like this, I don’t want my marriage...to be a rich person’s toy, you know?”
Love and marriage should be the freest things in existence. It’s not easy for someone to live alone in the world, so being able to choose a person she adores to spend the rest of her life with is the most important thing in a woman’s life. But she doesn’t have a choice. Her marriage was already given a sentence when she was born, and the shackle’s name is “NanYang”.
Who would be willing?
Qi Yi sighed and said, “Take a shower first.”
Zhu QingHuan only stood there, her gaze a little clouded, “I want to struggle against this for once.”
Qi Yi looked at her, opened her mouth, and started to talk but stopped, her gaze full of cherish.
“From childhood to adulthood, every step of my life was thoroughly arranged by Uncle Mei. I went to the school he chose, made friends with the people he chose, he sent me into the entertainment circle, and he even signed the agency for me.” Zhu QingHuan’s pale face slowly looked down, “But I want to make my own decisions for this marriage.”
“I’ll take you to Mr. Mei tomorrow.” Qi Yi smiled, relieved. “To look for Chairman Mei, and you can tell him everything you want to say.”
Zhu QingHuan made a sound in response, and looked at Qi Yi gratefully. “Thank you, Xiao Yi. I’m sorry for disturbing you in the middle of the night.”
“What are you being so polite for? How many years have we been friends for?” Qi Yi smiled, and touched Zhu QingHua’s soaking wet head. “Take a shower, quickly, or you’ll really catch a cold. How would you record for the variety show you have in a couple of days then?”
Zhu QingHuan obediently nodded her head.
They only slept for four hours. Early the next morning, Qi Yi sported two large dark circles under her eyes while she took the bleary-eyed Zhu QingHuan to slowly take a detour to the Mei Group’s Science and Technology Park. There was no other way, since Qi Yi is a teacher and had to go to the school earlier to watch over the students as they self-studied. Any later and she’d be late herself.
It continued to snow heavily. After they arrived at their destination, Qi Yi took an umbrella from the car and gave it to Zhu QingHuan, urging her to be careful and to block the snow.
Zhu QingHuan got out of the car and was immediately awoken by the cold air. She put on her sunglasses, confirmed that no one around noticed her, and bent over to say a quick goodbye to Qi Yi. She covered her sunglasses with her hands and walked towards the entrance of the park.
The new security guard at the entrance hurriedly put down his half-eaten meat bun and stopped her. “Miss, who are you looking for? Do you have an appointment?”
Zhu QingHuan buried the lower half of her face into her collar, and replied softly, “I’m looking for Chairman Mei.”
“Chairman Mei hasn’t gotten to work yet, and there’s probably no one in the office either. Would you like to wait first, and later when his secretary comes, I’ll let you in after confirming with them?”
“You…” Zhu QingHuan seemed to want to say something else, but after some thought, she realized she didn’t want the security guard to recognize her and pursed her lips instead, asking, “Where do I wait?”
“Over there.” The security guard pointed to the corner of the street and said, “When you turn over there, you’ll see a bus stop. There’s seats and tables there, and it’s not windy. It’s very comfortable.”
“Okay.” Zhu QingHuan very politely nodded towards the security guard. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, you’re welcome.” The security guard happily waved his hand.
Zhu QingHuan moved towards the bus stop, the one the security guard described like a VIP room, step by step, trying to stay inconspicuous. She raised her hand to take off her sunglasses and used her collar to wipe off the mist on it.
When she turned the corner, the stop was very close.
The heavy snow covered everything the eye could see with a layer of white, and the wind stirred up the snow to fill the surrounding air, blurring everything.
Some snow was blown under her umbrella. She squinted and vaguely saw, through the snowflakes that were on her eyelashes, someone sitting under the bus stop.
A vague, vague outline.
She blinked, and the snow on her eyelashes melted.
That person’s appearance suddenly turned clear.
It was a young woman, wearing a warm and elegant white down jacket, and her long, black hair lying on top of the white cloth, as beautiful as satin. She was busy lowering her head to eat an almost-melted candied haws, her puffed out mouth slowly chewing, and the yellow syrup of the snack stained her snow-white fingertips, giving off an aura of being a sticky beauty. Her lowered eyes had an aura of coldness, but it didn’t take away from her good looks. She was so good-looking that people would have immediately gone to learn how to sketch and find an artistic method that could contain her aura.
Extremely black hair, extremely white clothes. Extremely red candy, extremely cold person.
If winter as a season could be personified as a human, then it would be like her. Crystal-clear, coldly unique. The ends of her hair were endlessly moving, and just by looking at her, one could feel the snow that emanated from her personality.
It didn’t seem like she was supposed to belong to this chaotic and restless era.
The woman suddenly stopped chewing and slowly raised her head to look over.
Zhu QingHuan stared at her caramel eyes that resembled clear tea, and her heart suddenly felt empty.
The woman paused then lowered her head, and using the hand that wasn’t holding candied haws, fumbled in her down jacket’s pocket. She took out a pack of tissues and from a distance, raised it towards Zhu QingHuan and said, “Here.”
Zhu QingHuan, absentmindedly, said, “...Ah?”
“Wipe it.”
The woman raised her hand again, and didn’t seem like she wanted to speak more.
Zhu QingHuan blinked rapidly a few times, hurriedly recovered her senses, and touched her face to find that the snow at the corner of her eye had melted into a streak of water sometime.
“Yes, it’s snow and it melted…” Zhu QingHuan explained in a panic, afraid that this woman would misunderstand and think she was crying. Although she wasn’t ashamed to cry, it wasn’t very good to be misunderstood by others.
“Mmn.”
Still just one word, cold and distant.
Zhu QingHuan rapidly sorted out her emotions, walked to the bus stop, and took the tissues. She quietly sat next to the woman and carefully kept a distance between them.
Was there that much snow that melted into her eye?
Weird.
The woman began to eat the candied haws again without saying a word, slightly frowning, as if she was debating how to finish it before the icing melted.
“Here are your tissues, th-thank you.” Zhu QingHuan returned the remaining tissues to the woman beside her.
“You can keep it.”
“Then, thank you.”
“Mmn.”
Zhu QingHuan rocked back and forth like she was sitting on pins and needles. The air was silent for a long while, and she thought it was a little awkward so she tried to find something to talk about. “Are...are you waiting for the bus?”
“No.”
Still two simple words.
“Then...what are you waiting for?”
“Waiting for Mei Zhongli.”
“Mei…” Zhu QingHuan reacted and realized that she directly said Mei Zhongli’s name. “Are you an employee from the Mei family?”
“Employee?” The woman hesitated and furrowed her brows. “...I could be considered one.” She was silent for a while, and in turn asked Zhu QingHuan, “What about you? Are you waiting for the bus?”
Zhu QingHuan, seeing how she said so many words in one breath and voluntarily asked about her, couldn’t help but slightly smile. “I’m the same as you, waiting for your chairman.”
The woman bit into another candied haw, and softly responded, “Mmn.”
“Actually, it’s nothing important.” Zhu QingHuan originally wasn’t someone who liked to expose private things, but she wanted to find something to talk about with this woman since she liked to hear her speak. “You might not know me, my name is Zhu QingHuan. Have you heard of me before? You probably have, right? I’m...I’m a celebrity, and I’ve been on hot search often recently."
The woman’s eating movements stopped, and after a moment, she let out a soft sigh from her nose.
“Of course I know. Your name is Qing Huan.”
“Really?” Zhu QingHuan, hearing that she knew her, was very happy in her heart. “Then it might be that my name only seems familiar and you haven’t clicked into the topics to look which is why you didn’t recognize me just now.”
“...” She didn’t say anything.
Zhu QingHuan lowered her head and looked at her own feet, not knowing what to say next.
After a while, the woman spoke. “Why are you looking for Mei Zhongli?”
Zhu QingHuan smiled bitterly for a moment. Logically, she shouldn’t speak of this matter too much to strangers. Who knew if this person was good or bad, or if she’d sell her information to a marketing and gossip account when she turned her face? But...her relationship with the Mei family had already been deliberately leaked by Mei Zhongli in the past, and was a well-known fact in the circle. What’s the difference if she said it or not?
“It’s nothing. You probably already saw it from the Douban Gossip Group or somewhere else that the Mei family and I…” Zhu QingHuan furrowed her brows, and her eyes filled with a look of bitterness. “I...I don’t want to…”
“Don’t want to marry into the Mei family?”
The woman lowered her head, bit the toothpick that was still covered with iced sugar, and asked vaguely.
Zhu QingHuan didn’t say anything.
The woman was quiet for a long time, then suddenly turned around and flipped through her handbag for a little. After a while, she took out some candied strawberries and said, “If you really don’t want to marry, just tell her. She won’t force you,” all the while looking at the candy.
Zhu QingHuan looked towards her, unconvinced. “Him? Which him? Uncle Mei?”
The woman didn’t reply. She glanced at the watch on her wrist and suddenly stood up, holding up the candied strawberries that she’d only eaten one of. She softened her voice and replied, “I’ll be going first. The snow is heavy outside, so be careful.”
“Then, you…” Zhu QingHuan wanted to say, you don’t have an umbrella, so stay a little longer.
But the woman didn’t give her a chance to persuade her to stay and very quickly left. Zhu QingHuan stared in her direction dazedly, looking at the back of her thin figure blending in with the heavy snow outside and without the pains of being snowed on. It was almost harmonious, so harmonious that it looked like a finished ink painting.
A strange thought flashed across Zhu QingHuan’s heart:
It’d be nice if that woman had an extra umbrella in her hand.
And it must be an ancient, plainly oiled paper umbrella.
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The author has something to say:
Welcome to the pit! The modern chapter can be read without prior knowledge, so don't worry and read. I guarantee the ending is HEHEHEHE {T/N: Happy ending}
{T/N: No longer applicable} Updates every day at 8pm, remember to come and read~
Translator's Notes:
Little Flower - debated between using xiao hua or little flower, but i prefer this one as its almost a title of sorts; basically a title for young actresses, but is one of the beginner titles and is only the first step for an actress.
hot search - trending hashtags/topics on weibo, usually indicative of popularity
her - zhu qinghuan's confusion in the next line is because "her" and "him" are pronounced the same way in chinese but written differently in text!
Twitter: @jiyangtrans
hey everyone! i know i'm still working on "after my ex-boyfriend's white moonlight proposed to me", but i've had my eye on this baihe novel since the beginning of this year, and since i've been working on the other one at a good pace, i figured now would be a good time to pick this one up!
releases will be (tentatively) weekly at first, to make sure i can finish zhuangning properly, and then i'll consider releasing more frequently if my schedule allows :)
grab your tissues and get ready to cry! it's a happy ending, but it's emotional!