Your Distance Chapter 2

On Monday at 9.45am in the morning, Bai Changyi finished Robotik's first class on time and flew to Leipzig for an academic exchange.

After having dinner with his academic colleagues, he waited for Meng Yurong in the hotel garden.

“Hey.” Meng Yurong walked over from behind him, turning around and sitting opposite him, "Long time no see."

Bai Changyi raised a hand to signal the waiter and ordered two cups of Cuba Libre.

Meng Yurong interrupted him, getting the waiter to change a cup of Cuba Libre into black tea.

Bai Changyi thus did not want Cuba Libre as well, changing it to a low-caffeine coffee.

When the waiter left, Bai Changyi said, "Your tastes have changed.”

Meng Yurong said, "I'm pregnant, it's not suitable for me to drink alcoholic beverages.”

Bai Changyi glanced at Meng Yurong's pointed stilettos through rimless thin metal glasses, but did not speak.

Meng Yurong said, “Changyi, your tastes have also changed.”

Bai Changyi said, "I've never liked beer or sugary drinks."

Meng Yurong was stunned for a moment, but she very quickly laughed understandably, saying, “It's your style. You can drink something you don't like for a lifetime.”

"Liking it isn't that important."

“I know, responsibility is the most important, right. You're still so stubborn.” Meng Yurong subconsciously touched the new wedding ring on her ring finger, the position once belonging to another ring. If she hadn't found out that the pictures printed in the erotic magazines Bai Changyi had bought were those of men, maybe he could still have been her perfect husband now.

"Do you have a boyfriend yet?" Meng Yurong asked.

Bai Changyi furrowed his eyebrows slightly, seeming like he was not used to with the word. When the waiter brought coffee and black tea over, he took the cup and took a sip of coffee before saying, “No.”

"You know," Meng Yurong picked up the small milk jug on the tray and let the fresh milk slosh in the black tea. “His appearance can't compare to yours, he isn't as smart as you are, or even as considerate as you are, and doesn't take as much responsibility towards his family. But, only with him do I feel like everything's in the right place. It's weird, you're great in every way possible, but I always feel like there's a little something missing, something that isn't right. “

Bai Changyi tipped up a corner of his lips, but just for a while before he quickly put it down again, "As long as you feel it's right."

Meng Yurong said, “What about you?”

Bai Changyi said, “What about me?"

Meng Yurong said, “What do you plan to do in the future?”

Bai Changyi said, “I'm not in a rush."

Meng Yurong said, “If you'd found out that you liked men more before the marriage, will you still have married me?”

Bai Changyi didn't speak. It was a polite silence.

Meng Yurong didn't speak anymore, just raised the teacup and took a sip of black tea. Milk and tea stained her lips, but she didn't realize it.

Bai Changyi took a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and handed it to her.

Meng Yurong took the handkerchief, and upon seeing the white “Bai” embroidered on the dark blue handkerchief, tears suddenly dropped from her eyes. Bai Changyi was just such a person: he arrives early for dates, always has a handkerchief on himself, maintains an appropriate level of silence, but you know that he is paying attention to you at the same time. As she thought so, tears fell down like beads, and then became a stream of water, quickly trickling down her face.

"I—" Meng Yurong choked and couldn't go on, and could only continuously rub her eyes with a handkerchief, causing her eyes to turn red.

Bai Changyi lowered his gaze, not looking at her slightly disarrayed face. He also didn't ask what happened, only saying, "An effect of the hormones. I understand.”

“… No.” Meng Yurong shook her head, her voice low. Even if there were no other Chinese nearby, she subconsciously didn't want anyone to overhear, because this couldn't be said nicely. “He cheated… After I became pregnant, he cheated."

Bai Changyi did not speak, only leaned forward slightly, so that Meng Yurong could talk even softer.

Meng Yurong teared up while describing what happened in a low voice.

A breeze swept through the garden. Meng Yurong sneezed and sniffed a bit. Bai Changyi took off his suit jacket and placed it over her shoulders. 

Meng Yurong couldn't help but grab the hand that had placed the jacket over her, turning to look into Bai Changyi's eyes, "Everything's right about him, and nothing's missing… But… why can't he… why can't he be like you? Even when you realised that you liked men, you didn't cheat… Why can't he do the same?"

Bai Changyi was silent for a while before he said, "Everyone's different. Other than that, there isn't anything special about me."

"No, you're not… You're great. Really. I-" Meng Yurong wiped her tears dry with some difficulty, "I have to go. If I don't, I might say something I'm not supposed to. If so, I'd have no morals."

Bai Changyi realised what she wanted to say. She was afraid that if she wasn't careful, she'd say she wanted to start over with him. 

Meng Yurong held the armrest of the rattan chair and stood up. Bai Changyi supported her, and made sure that she wouldn't sprain her ankle in the stilettos she was wearing before letting go. 

"I'll drive you back." Bai Changyi said.

Meng Yurong smiled with reddened eyes, gave the car keys to Bai Changyi and said, "You're as considerate as ever."

Bai Changyi said, "It's just what I should do."

In the car, Meng Yurong said, "How about finding a boyfriend."

Maybe it was because it was the second time he'd heard that word in a day, Bai Changyi was more used to it than the previous time, and only said, "If there's someone suitable."

Meng Yurong said, "Find one quickly. Don't give me a chance."

Bai Changyi drove the car, appearing to be thinking of something, until he reached a red light. He stopped the car, and finally said, "Okay."

Meng Yurong turned her head to look outside the window, and tears dripped silently from her face.

"Changyi, do you think that people will regret their decisions no matter what they choose?"

Bai Changyi replied, "Most probably."

He didn't really think that, but he could only tell her that.

Meng Yurong asked, "Then, have you regretted anything?"

Bai Changyi thought about it for three seconds, a rare thing for him to do, before answering, "Yeah, I regret buying the erotic magazines that day. Actually, the men in there didn't look very good."

Meng Yurong laughed through her tears. She knew Bai Changyi was trying to cheer her up.

"Find a boyfriend quickly." She rubbed the wedding ring on her ring finger again, "Social networks are so developed now, so it'll be easy."

"I know it's easy." Another red light. Bai Changyi felt a little stuffy, so he stretched out his hand to loosen his tie a little.

Meng Yurong held up Bai Changyi's phone and took a picture. She was a little surprised that Bai Changyi hadn't changed his password. 

Bai Changyi didn't notice what Meng Yurong was doing with his phone either. He was focused on the road. He'd send her home first, then call a taxi to drive him back to his hotel.

By the time he returned to the hotel, it was already quite late, so he took a shower, changed into a bathrobe, wore his glasses, and started sorting out his unread mail. School mail, mail from academic publishings, mail from academic support organisations, mail from students…

How was it possible for students nowadays to have grammatical errors even when writing emails of absence?

Bai Changyi clicked on and opened the attachment that contained a scanned image of the medical certificate and glanced over it. Fever and dizziness, typical reasons for absence that family doctors love to give the most. He took a look at the student's name, TING Shuang. It was a Chinese student, the only one absent this morning.

Bai Changyi was a student before, so of course he knew what students liked to play at. Hence, he replied with a polite email, saying that a student who didn't attend the first lesson wouldn't understand the next, so he should take the course again next April. At the end, he wished the other a speedy recovery. 

After settling all his mail, his hair still hadn't dried, so Bai Changyi prepared to blow it dry before sleeping. 

At this moment, his phone suddenly vibrated, and on the screen appeared a notification —

【Distance】9 people have just 'like'd you, come see who they are! 

Bai Changyi frowned slightly and tapped on the notification. Distance's interface popped up on the screen. 

When was this app downloaded? Bai Changyi checked the app details, and it turned out that it was only downloaded and installed today. He then spent two minutes studying the app. It appeared to be a dating app for homosexuals. Entering the profile page, his account had already been created. His profile picture should be the picture the Meng Yurong had taken in the car earlier. His name was Cycle. Why Cycle?

He recalled that in the past, Meng Yurong had showed him her phone, and coquettishly said, "Look Changyi, I've typed your name too many times, so now I only have to type cy for my phone to know that it's Changyi.(1)"

Thinking about it, Bai Changyi tried to do just that, typing cy on his phone's keyboard. Perhaps it was because he very rarely input his Chinese name, his phone only suggested Cycle to him. 

Bai Changyi found it a little funny.

He then remembered that he'd promised Meng Yurong in the car today to socialise, so he halfheartedly browsed the app, and discovered the Speed Dating interface.

Browsing through one photo after another, he felt that they were all monsters in weird clothing.

Just when he decided to exit the app, he saw a very normal picture. The face of the person in the picture in question wasn't very clear, and he only wore a simple white T-shirt and jeans. He couldn't see whether the person was good looking or not, but the way he sat was just that little bit attractive.

The ankles peering out from the bottom of those jeans were also just the right thickness.

Bai Changyi looked at this person's details. 

Name: F****

Type: 0.5

Age: 24

Height: 182cm

Weight: 70kg

Relationship status: Single

Current Distance apart: 287km

24 years old. Their ages seemed to be too far apart.

Bai Changyi didn't intend to tap 'indifferent', but he didn't want to tap 'like' either. He wanted to exit the app right away, then blow his hair dry and sleep. 

He didn't expect that just when he was about to exit, a drop of water dripped down from his still-wet hair.

With a plonk, that drop of water just happened to drop on the position of the 'love' button on the screen.

Bai Changyi wasn't able to do anything else when Distance's interface changed, and two huge pink words appeared alongside numerous hearts — 

Perfect Match

Following which, a sentence popped onto the screen: Cycle, congratulations, you and Frost have matched perfectly!

Translator Notes:

(1) In Chinese, you can type the first alphabet of each chinese character that makes up a certain phrase and the keyboard would automatically suggest/type the full characters for you. In this case, typing cy would suggest 昌意 (chāng yì), which is, well, his name.

Okay so, let me talk about this novel for a while. I, love, it, so, much. It's a super cute story, and the cp has such a healthy and ideal relationship i- urgh. I love mature MLs. Anyways, the reason why I wanted to translate this was so that it can reach more people in the English community as well, and I really hope you stick around to read and enjoy the rest of the story.

Subsequently, I aim to put out one chapter every weekend (either Saturday or Sunday), so yes, my current translation schedule will be one chapter weekly.

Thank you for reading! Feel free to leave comments, discuss about the story and stuff, I love reading comments hehe.

~Dee

Chapter end