You Are My Late Blooming Joy
(Formerly titled Soft Jade and Warm Fragrance )
By Gu Liaozhi
01
March in Hangzhou was fickle—spring, summer, autumn, and winter all in a single day.
Ruan Yu chose a sunny day to return to her hometown.
She had recently received news that the old family house there was about to be demolished. Nostalgic souls couldn’t bear such things, and since she had nothing better to do, she decided to go back for a visit.
The Ruan family’s old house was located in the suburban outskirts of Suzhou, surrounded by similar private residences. Its mint-green exterior stood three stories tall, topped with a triangular attic.
Ruan Yu had moved away right after graduating high school, so it had been nearly eight years since she last returned.
The empty house had been cleaned not long ago, so there wasn’t much dust—just a lingering musty scent. She unlocked the door, walked inside, and headed straight for the attic.
That was where she had stored some old belongings from her school days.
The wooden stairs creaked under her feet as she climbed. When she pulled open the curtains, golden sunlight spilled in, illuminating tiny motes of dust floating in the air.
After a quick tidy-up, Ruan Yu dragged out an old wooden chest and sat cross-legged on the floor. Just as she lifted the lid, her phone rang.
She plugged in her earphones and answered, still rummaging through the chest.
A woman’s voice came through the earpiece: “Miss Ruan, receiving this call means that as of 1:00 PM on March 19th, you still have not submitted a new manuscript outline to your former editor. And today marks exactly eleven months since your last book was completed.”
Ruan Yu chuckled. “Even as my former editor, you’re still ruthless with the debt collection, huh?”
“The debtor is requested to maintain a proper attitude.”
She sighed dramatically at the ceiling. “Madam Shen, Miss Ruan assures you she’ll deliver by the end of March.”
“Then may I ask if she has settled on a theme?”
Ruan Yu deflated, sniffling slightly. “No.”
The voice on the other end turned exasperated. “Eleven months, Ruan Yu—that’s enough time to birth a child and finish postpartum recovery! You’re a full-time writer. Do you want to fade into obscurity?”
She absentmindedly flipped open a diary from the chest, skimming its contents as she replied half-heartedly, “When inspiration’s lacking, writing a book might really be harder than having a baby.”
“You hole up at home all day—who do you expect to inspire you? Writing is—”
Shen Mingying was still lecturing when Ruan Yu suddenly fell silent. Her gaze fixed on the diary, her entire body freezing in place.
The aged pages had yellowed slightly under the sunlight, bearing a passage that read:
May 11th, sunny. Today, I ran into Xu Huaisong three times.
First, I was carrying English test papers to the faculty office when I saw him and a few boys from his class being scolded in the hallway. The dean was so fierce…
Second, I passed by the school’s art gallery and found him crouched in the grass, feeding a stray cat from a can. So he likes cats too—that’s nice.
Third, I spotted him running laps alone on the sports field during P.E. He looks so good without his glasses, no wonder girls keep bringing him water. I bought some too, but I didn’t dare give it to him. If my dad found out I had a crush on one of his students, Xu Huaisong would be in big trouble! Then again, he might not even want to be my teenage sweetheart…
Ruan Yu had been quiet for so long that Shen Mingying grew worried and asked where she was.
“At my old home,” she answered, her eyes gradually brightening as they remained fixed on the diary. “Mingying, I’ve got it.”
“Got what? An idea?”
“Yeah. A campus setting, with unrequited love as the theme—how’s that?”The phone line fell silent for a moment before exploding with: "Ballballyou, snap out of it! That kind of melodramatic teenage angst literature went out of style eight hundred years ago—there's no money in that!"
Ruan Yu glanced at her diary. "But... do you remember Xu Huaisong?"
Shen Mingying ignored the odd segue. "Who?"
"That guy from Class 10 in high school."
"Oh... the tall, quiet one you had a crush on back then? Did you run into him in Suzhou?"
Xu Huaisong was indeed from Suzhou, with his grandmother's home nearby, but as far as Ruan Yu knew, he'd left the area even earlier than she had. None of their old friends had heard from him in years.
She laughed and closed the diary. "As if. You think this is some novel?" After a pause, she added, "I'll send you an outline in a few days. Talk later."
Returning to Hangzhou, Ruan Yu started brainstorming her new story that very night. Three days later, she finalized the outline—her first creative breakthrough after an eleven-month dry spell.
After emailing the outline to Shen Mingying, she received a WeChat message: Isn't this just you and Xu Huaisong's story?
Pretty much.
You're attempting a tragic tale of unrequited love where the female lead pines for the male lead?
Ouch.
Ruan Yu called her. "Do I look stupid enough to dig my own grave? This isn't a documentary. If the male lead doesn't like the female lead, can you even call it a romance novel?"
Sure, Xu Huaisong hadn't liked her, but art imitates life while surpassing it. Couldn't she rewrite her miserable one-sided crush as a mutual secret love?
Shen Mingying chuckled. "Got it. So this is just the author's self-indulgent fantasy."
Ruan Yu choked. Well, she wasn't wrong.
"Fine. But heads up—the aloof, cold male lead archetype isn't as popular these days. Combined with slow-burn elements like high school and secret crushes, I doubt this story will perform well."
Ruan Yu sounded unfazed. "Let's try it. If it flops, at least I had fun writing it. Like you said—it's a fantasy."
After hanging up, she grabbed a milk tea and sat at her computer, flipping through her diary for inspiration. Having not written in so long, she needed to regain her rhythm.
A few pages in, she paused at an unusually lengthy entry.
The page was crammed with frenzied handwriting, every stroke radiating turbulent emotion. The date read New Year's Day during their senior year.
After a moment's recollection, Ruan Yu remembered.
That day marked the closest she'd ever gotten to Xu Huaisong during her entire one-sided high school crush.
At midnight, the school's athletic field had been packed for the New Year's fireworks. Pretending nonchalance, she'd edged toward his right side—only for him to suddenly grab her hand as the first fireworks exploded.
Startled, she'd turned to find his apologetic expression flickering in the pyrotechnic light.
Releasing her hand, he adjusted his thin-framed glasses awkwardly. "Sorry, wrong person."
Ruan Yu typed this scene into her draft.
But she knew readers would react the same way she had back then: If the male lead said "wrong person," there must have been a "right person." And clearly, that wasn't the female lead.
Boring! Dropped!
Propping her chin, she pondered before adding a new line, followed by an extra paragraph: As he spoke these words, his heart pounded like thunder, its frantic rhythm eclipsing even the fireworks overhead.—Implying that the so-called "wrong hand" was just the male lead's excuse.
After writing, Ruan Yu took a sip of the milk tea by her side.
Why did it suddenly feel a bit like self-amusement?
At the same moment, in a private attic in a soon-to-be-demolished area of Su City over a hundred kilometers away, a girl in a school uniform ran downstairs carrying a box. "Mom, is any of this junk still useful?"
Tao Rong glanced at what she was holding. "Those are all your brother's things from high school. Pack them up properly."
Xu Huaishi gave an "Oh" and set down the dusty box, casually picking up an old phone inside. "Brother used such a crappy flip phone back in high school? Talk about vintage."
"We bought him that kind specifically to avoid distractions from studying," Tao Rong said, giving her a look before adding, "Don’t mess with your brother’s things."
"It’s just a broken phone, and it doesn’t even have power to turn on…" She muttered while randomly pressing the power button, only to be startled when the screen suddenly lit up.
Still working after all these years—was this a phone or a tank?
Xu Huaishi froze for a moment. Seeing Tao Rong glance over, she quickly hid the phone, crouched down to pretend to organize things, then turned her back to fiddle with it secretly.
An old-style non-smartphone—no password after booting. Just hold down the asterisk key and press "Confirm" to unlock. She randomly pressed a few buttons and entered the main menu, then tapped twice to open the "Contacts" section.
Not a single contact listed.
Returning to the "Messages" interface, there wasn’t a single sent or received text either.
Classic Xu Huaisong.
Finding nothing, she was about to turn it off when she noticed the number next to "Drafts" at the bottom of the screen: 327.
Three hundred and twenty-seven drafts? Was her brother doing math problems on this flip phone?
After a brief internal struggle, Xu Huaishi tapped in and randomly opened one.
The recipient field was empty. Editing time: January 1, 2010, 00:10. Content: "Just kidding, it wasn’t the wrong hand. Happy New Year."
Xu Huaishi’s hand trembled. Through the screen, she caught the unmistakable scent of puppy love.
Puppy love? Her brother?
Suddenly, the way she held the phone became reverent.
Because this might not be just an ordinary flip phone—but rather… an undiscovered new continent.
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