Are You Addicted?

Translator: Nancy

Editor: Sae

Across the road from Haiyin Technology Company was a pretty well-known Cha Canting.[1] Yan Ya Jing was sitting there now, waiting for Gu Hai.

"How is your mother"s condition?"

From just one glance, it was all too obvious that Yan Ya Jing was a lot thinner than before, and the usually brilliant glow that emitted from her eyes has disappeared.

"She"s not doing well. The cancer has spread to her entire abdominal cavity. The doctor said there"s no hope that any of the current treatment can cure her. The only thing that can be done is to ease her agony as much as possible by improving her living qualities. With the short amount of time that she has left, everyone in the family have been staying by her side. Every day, we would always act cheerful while maintaining a positive point of view, afraid she would see something is up. But I think she is fully aware of her own condition. The only thing is, she"s very strong-minded so even if she knows, she won"t show any signs of sadness in front of us."

Gu Hai spoke in a sunken tone, "Since it has come to this, there"s no need to be upset. Just spend more time with her so that you won"t have any lingering regrets."

Yan Ya Jing forcefully squeezed out a smile, "Yesterday, my mom was grumbling about how she doesn"t know if she"s going to be able to meet her son-in-law in this lifetime or not."

"Then you need to stop wasting time and seize the moment." Gu Hai carelessly responded.

Yan Ya Jing fixed her gaze on Gu Hai. As she stared at the side of this mature and handsome face, she reminisced about the days that they had been through together. She witnessed as his company transformed from a small enterprise to what it is now. And she, a girl who had numerous pursuers, has now turned into what others called a Sheng Nu.[2] In the blink of an eye, three to four years has quickly pa.s.sed by without much hindrance. But, once the honour and pride that lived in her parents" eyes, she has now become a knot that weighed deeply in their hearts just as they were fast approaching death.

Yet, he was still completely unaware of what all this represented.

Once in a while, a few ambiguous yet somewhat flirtatious words would spring out of his mouth, however, those were nothing more than ridicules.

"I heard you promoted Di Shuang to Vice President? And also let her move into your office?" Ya Yan Jing asked.

Gu Hai shifted his gaze back from the window before he faintly responded, "Yes."

"You……." Yan Ya Jing halted the words she had desired to say.

Once again, Gu Hai"s gazes moved towards the window.

Bai Luo Yin"s car was parked outside the company entrance on the other side, and he was on his cellphone making a call. At that moment, Gu Hai hoped with all his might that his own cell phone that would ring. Unfortunately, that cellphone lie exceptionally peaceful and soundless in his pocket.

Less than a second later, Di Shuang walked out of the company.

"How come you have so much free time today? You came out as soon as I called you." Di Shuang asked Bai Luo Yin with half of her face hidden inside her collar to protect her from the chilly cold winter.

Although Bai Luo Yin smiled to the point that the line of his eyes seemed to curve, he responded rather indifferently, "Well, it"s rare for you to have some free time and I just happened to visit my comrade. There"s only a few more days left before he"ll be discharged from the hospital."

"Let"s find a place to eat," said Di Shuang, beaming with happiness.

Bai Luo Yin seemed a bit reluctant at her suggestion, "I have to head back soon since I still have a lot of work left to do at the military base."

Di Shuang rubbed her hands together, "But it"s too cold here."

Having said that, she turned around and spotted the Cha Canting across the road. Her eyes lit up with excitement, "How about we go in there and sit for a while?”

In reality, Di Shuang did this on purpose since she knew from the beginning that Gu Hai had gone to that Cha Canting.

Bai Luo Yin merely nodded and said "okay".

As soon as the two sat down, Bai Luo Yin casually shot a glance to the side only to see Gu Hai and Yan Ya Jing. Their eyes immediately crossed, and after a few seconds of holding their gaze, Bai Luo Yin was the first to wave his hand. The corner of Gu Hai"s lips slightly rose in acknowledgment. Then, as if nothing happened, they shifted their gaze away from each other and began a cheerful conversation with the person sitting at the same table as them.

Yan Ya Jing was somewhat flabbergasted as she turned toward Gu Hai and asked, "Is Di Shuang dating your brother?"

Gu Hai nodded with a cold and withdrawn expression.

Suddenly, Di Shuang picked up her handbag, pulled out a pair of gloves and solemnly hand it over to Bai Luo Yin.

"I knitted this myself. You already know that I don"t have a lot of spare time so being able to knit this pair of gloves was not easy! You have to try it on and let me tell you now, you"re not allowed to dislike it!"

When Di Shuang said those words, she intentionally amplified her voice as if she was purposely saying it so that someone could hear it.

For some inexplicable reason, Bai Luo Yin suddenly spoke, "I have a pair of gloves that I"ve been wearing for nine years now. It"s about time I change it."

"G.o.d! Aren"t you too thrifty? You wore the same pair for nine years?" Di Shuang nearly shouted as she made a fuss over nothing.

Beside them, a certain someone"s heart skipped a beat.

"Try it on quickly. Let"s see if it fits or not," urged Di Shuang with a slightly blushing face.

Under someone"s fierce and attentive gaze, Bai Luo Yin picked up one glove and slowly pulled it up his hand bit by bit. The glove was a bit too small and was very thick, making it very awkward to wear. As a result, when Bai Luo Yin tried to put the other glove on, it was completely impossible to move the hand with the glove on. He tried to put it on for ages and still couldn"t get it on, so Di Shuang willingly reached to help him.

"Hahaha…." Di Shuang laughed until her cheeks reddened, "One is big and the other is small, what should we do now?"

Seeing her expression, Bai Luo Yin smiled sympathetically, "It"s fine, it will become the same size after a few more wears."

"Then you"re not allowed to take it off!" Di Shuang said extra loud.

Bai Luo Yin responded with silence.

When Di Shuang did not hear Bai Luo Yin"s response, her face became white with anxiety as she moved to sit next to him. Then she quietly urged, "Can you just agree to it in front of my president?"

"Why do I have to agree in front of him?" Bai Luo Yin ask, puzzled by her request.

 Did I prompt you to do something like this?

Di Shuang pressed close to Bai Luo Yin"s ear, "I want him to give up."

As Bai Luo Yin slightly turned to give Gu Hai a quick glance, his heart suddenly tightened when his eyes coincidentally collided with Gu Hai"s icy cold pupils.

 It is possible Gu Hai might have told Di Shuang something?

However, the next thing Di Shuang said was, "Your brother has dirty thoughts of me."[3]

At those words, Bai Luo Yin was truly frightened. Why would Gu Hai have dirty thoughts of her?

Once Bai Luo Yin was able to properly collect his emotional turmoil, traces of smiles emerged on his handsome face, "Aren"t you just overthinking? Isn"t he sitting with his girlfriend?"

"How am I overthinking?" Di Shuang pouted her lips, "Of course he has that type of motive. You"re making it sound like I"m imagining that he"s showering affection on an uninterested person here. Even though the two are always together at work, none of us has ever heard either one of them admit it! Besides, they don"t even look like lovers at all. Please! No one in the company believes they are lovers."

As if suddenly becoming aware of something, Bai Luo Yin turned his head fiercely to the side and stared straight at Gu Hai.

At that moment, Yan Ya Jing had just turned back to Gu Hai and faintly smiled, "I"m really envious of Di Shuang."

"Why would you be envious of her?" Gu Hai firmly asked while a layer of frost took solace on his face.

Yan Ya Jing glanced at Gu Hai with an intense and profound meaning, "I"m envious that she is brave enough to express her love."

Gu Hai smiled coldly, "You don"t need to be envious of her. You are more blessed than her! Isn"t she merely giving someone a present? Today, I"ll give you something."

That being said, Gu Hai carefully took out a ring from his pocket, "I"ve also worn this ring for nine years. Today, I give this to you."

Yan Ya Jing looked at Gu Hai with astonishment.

Gu Hai was not joking around even the slightest as he directly reached out and placed that ring onto Yan Ya Jing"s finger.

The fighter jet that silently dwelled within Bai Luo Yin"s heart was charging gracefully into the sky at a forty-five was now suddenly taking a miserable dive down at a ninety-degree angle before crashing severely onto the ground until there was nothing left.

He threw his gaze back on Di Shuang then spoke with a voice that concealed his emotion.

"Are you able to have a peace of mind this time?"

After returning to the base in the evening, Bai Luo Yin was not in the mood to do anymore research. Instead, he went to each of the unit and inspected their sleeping quarter. Nowadays, many of the new recruits were born in the 90s and are highly educated. Sadly, the majority of them had been pampered and spoiled since childhood, and taking into consideration that the military prohibited corporal punishment, it has been more difficult to manage them than ever before. Although, there were a few new recruits with great potentials, they have been recruited for a while now and still could not get used to the environment. As a result, Bai Luo Yin has always been rather troubled.

Not far into the distance stood two shadows that rapidly spurted towards the west after hearing the sound of footsteps.

Taking large strides over, Bai Luo Yin was able to quickly catch up to them. Then, a few seconds later, he skillfully seized them with one hand by the elbow and rigorously dragged them to his office.

"Which unit, which platoon and which squad?"[4]

Once the two saw Bai Luo Yin"s cold piercing glare, they were so frightened that both their legs trembled immensely as they stammered to report the situation.

"What were you doing?"

One of them even had the guts to fish a packet of cigarette out from his pocket and shove it into Bai Luo Yin"s hand, "Major, please have a smoke."[5]

Bai Luo Yin utterly despised people without principles. After making a mistake, the first thing they thought of was not to apologize but instead it was how to avoid punishments. The truth was, Bai Luo Yin already knew exactly what they were doing the moment he caught them, so interrogating them was just a form of impose this authority and reprimanding their att.i.tudes.

"You two hid there to have a smoke, right?" Bai Luo Yin asked again.

This young fellow started to quibble again, "I didn"t. The cigarettes were given to me by somebody else. I didn"t smoke any and keep it in my pockets the entire time."

Without saying a word, Bai Luo Yin calmly stood up, and in front of their fearful gazes, he poured the ashes and b.u.t.ts from the ashtray into a gla.s.s of water. Then, he simply stirred it for a moment before pa.s.sing it over to them.

"Drink it."

The other soldier"s eye widened with trepidation, "This is cla.s.sified as corporal punishment."

"You can file a report against me," said Bai Luo Yin, his voice was deep and perspicacious.

The soldier who quibbled began to piteously implore, ", we really didn"t smoke. We just thought it was really boring in the dormitory so we went out for a breath of fresh air and chat. Can you please not make us drink this? I feel sick just looking at it."

"It"s either you drink it or be expelled, think about it yourself."

After this encounter, the two had quitted smoking completely.

Bai Luo Yin kept himself busy again until two o"clock in the morning. By the time he picked up his cellphone for a glance, he finally realized that today was actually Christmas Eve. Seeing that it has been such a long time since he had insomnia, and he wasn"t sure if it was because was it already too late, but Bai Luo Yin tossed and turned in bed relentlessly. While his body was very worn out, his mind however was reluctant to relax.

All of a sudden, his cellphone rang and out of habit, Bai Luo Yin turned over and got off the bed. He truly thought that it was an urgent mission but in the end, the caller was unexpectedly Gu Hai.

His heart suddenly sank, yet he still answered.

"Bai Luo Yin, did you not miss me at all during the past eight years?"

Bai Luo Yin"s deformed fingers twisted into the corner of the blanket as an indescribable sorrow[6] penetrated into the depth of his heart. Perhaps the night was too quiet, so quiet that it makes a person unable to lie.

"I did miss you."

Silence prolonged on the other end of the line, and before long, Gu Hai suddenly spoke again, "On this day eight years ago, I really regret fighting with you over a stick of tanghulu. If I knew that it was going to be the last time you got to eat it, I would have never scolded you."

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Translator"s Notes:

[1] 茶餐廳 Cha Canting - literally: ‘tea restaurant or cafe’ is a type of restaurant commonly found in Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong. They are known for eclectic and affordable menus, which include dishes from Hong Kong cuisine and Hong Kong-style western cuisine. We stuck with Cha Canting in the translation because using "Tea restaurant or café" was a bit weird.

[2] 剩女 - Sheng Nu. Literal translation, "leftover female". "The leftover" female became one of the 171 new Chinese words. It refers to women who are considered to be marriageable age, but still not married. Broadly, refers to a single woman over the age of 27. In general, age is an important criterion for females in China. China has a lot of women who are well-educated with great careers. In theory, it should not be a problem for the Chinese women to find the other half, but in reality, there are more and more Chinese women who said it is difficult to find the other half that fit their criteria. In the case of Yan Ya Jing, she is beautiful, smart and successful, it"s very hard for her to find a good match. Unfortunately, the man she is in love with - our Gu Hai - is in love with our Bai Luo Yin.

-> Sheng Nu is actually Sheng Nv, the two double dots on the u of nu becomes a v when you type out the character)

I am a Sheng Nv…… – Sae

[3] 心懷不軌 Literal translation: To have evil plans in one"s heart. In this case, it can be used as to have dirty thoughts about someone. Di Shuang believed Gu Hai was interested in her - You surely think too much Xiao Di. >,< –="">

[4] 連 – A company is a military unit, typically consisting of 80-250 soldiers and usually commanded by a major or a captain. Most companies are formed of three to six platoons, although the exact number may vary by country, unit type, and structure. In this case we used "Unit" since the company might sound weird.

排 – Platoons

班 – Squad

[5] Major – Shouzhang; we"re going to keep using Major for now, we might change it back the Chinese version later, what do you?

[6] 心里澀澀: Meaning 心酸, 难受。就是不开心,心里不舒服. Translate to: Bitter, unbearable. Just not happy whatsoever. Heart not at ease. So, I thought it would be appropriate to use the t.i.tle name as translation. When I read this chapter for xx amount of times, I thought it was only Gu Hai who felt the sorrows based on the t.i.tle and when he rang BLY. But after researching for the meaning "澀", I realized, BLY was feeling the sorrows too! – Nancy

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Are you Addicted?