Rebirth on the Doors to the Civil Affairs Bureau

***

When Yu Dong returned home, she felt a little thirsty. She went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and when she saw that it was full of water bottles, she couldn’t help but exclaim: “This is truly a a doctor’s refrigerator. There’s not even one flavored drink.”

Yu Dong took a bottle and drank a few mouthfuls. She habitually grabbed her mobile phone intending to order some takeaway, only to see its button keyboard. She then remembered that smart phones wouldn’t be common until a few years later.

Ring!

If Yu Dong didn’t have the phone in her hands, she definitely wouldn’t have thought that it was her phone that was ringing.

The electric display showed the name Xiang Xiaoyue. It her university roommate, who she had a pretty close relationship with. But then Xiaoyue got married, and everyday would be nothing but mass amounts of showy love which Yu Dong, a single dog, would consciously avoid lest incurring a critical hit. This caused them to slowly drift apart, and it had been 3 or 4 years since Yu Dong last saw her.

“Hey,” Yu Dong answered the phone.

“Dong Dong!” A shrill female voice frightened her so much she almost threw her phone. “Help, help!”

“What’s wrong?”

Xiang Xiaoyue was a typical city girl with an upper class background and was an only child. She has a high EQ and if speaking bluntly, had her road in life paved by other people. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but one of the most admirable things about her in Yu Dong’s mind was that in university, as long as she asked, whether it was a current boyfriend or ex-boyfriend, as long as they had the ability, they would rush to help her.

“Are you in Shanghai?”

“Yeah.” Yu Dong answered.

“Great, I received an offer to do the dubbing of an idol drama a while ago. But the original dubbing actress I hired suddenly quit. Come and help me.” Xiaoyue said.

“Am I getting paid?”

“Yes, of course.” Xiaoyue replied loudly.

“Alright, give me the address!”‘

“Then I’ll text it to you in a bit. Come straightaway on a taxi, I’ll reimburse you.”

It seems that she was really anxious, and Yu Dong figured she needed the money anyway. So she got ready and headed out again.

Yu Dong didn’t need to check her account balance, she knew exactly how much money was in it because 10 years ago, she needed to survive in a new city by herself with only 2,000 yuan.

But even for future Yu Dong, 2,000 yuan was nowhere near enough for her to buy clothes, not to mention younger Yu Dong, who had different tastes.

Yu Dong took a taxi and soon arrived at the address. She went and bought some watermelon juice nearby and after downing 2 mouthfuls, entered Xiaoyue’s studio.

The place wasn’t very big, but in a place like Shanghai, you would be considered lucky to even afford a 50-inch recording booth.

The decorations of the studio was very stylish, and wouldn’t be outdated even after a few years. It must have been decorated by a former ex-boyfriend who studied in a design school.

“Oh, thank my aunt and grandmother, you’re here.” Xiang Xiaoyue who was dressed up like a true professional, was looking at Yu Dong like she was her personal saviour.

“Wait!” After taking another sip of her watermelon juice, Yu Dong took out a taxi receipt and said, “50 yuan for the fare first!”

“You think I’d scam 50 yuan off you?” Xian Xiaoyue sighed and instead urged her: “Come and read the script first.”

When Yu Dong walked into the conference room, she saw 2 people already sitting. One was a young girl who was quite cute. She smiled sweetly when she saw Yu Dong. The other was a handsome sunny man, who for some reason, felt quite familiar. f𝐫ee𝘄ℯ𝚋no𝐯𝐞l.c𝘰m

“Okay, there are 2 women roles and 1 man, we’re finally ready.” Xiang Xioayue looked at Yu Dong and the man. “This drama has the most dialogue between the two of you. You should discuss the script together first.”

Yu Dong nodded, found a chair to sit down on, and started reading the script.

After a while, Yu Dong felt that someone was looking at her.

Raising her head, Yu Dong met the handsome man’s eyes across from her, who then looked down immediately.

Did he fall in love with me?

Yu Dong thought about it, fixed her hair, straightened her posture and continued to read through the script.

After reading 2 pages, she could see the man looking at her again from her peripheral vision. Yu Dong looked up again, and the other party looked down again.

After a few more times, Yu Dong finally had enough, but thinking that the other person might just be shy, asked him with a gentle voice: “Did you want anything?”

The handsome fellow saw Yu Dong ask him a question and opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated.

“Why is such a man like yourself hesitating?” Though if you confess, I’ll be gently refusing you.

The handsome man hesitated for a moment then asked, “Dong Dong, how have you been in these past 2 days?”

Dong Dong?

When I was young, my family was quite poor. In order to save money, my mom would always buy fish and chop it up to stretch into several meals. Later when I was born, there was a time when my dad who was drunk came home and repeatedly pointed at the frozen fish, then at me. From then on my name was set. Yu Dong, with the nickname Dong Dong.

(T/N: Yu Dong can be translated to “winter” or “frozen” and Dong Dong can be translated to frozen fish. I’ll keep her nickname as Dong Dong because she’s already so hilarious without me calling her a frozen fish)

But only my family and a few close friends in university knew about this nickname.

Who is this man?

“I didn’t dare say more to you when I you started crying that day, but seeing you now, you seem to be alright.” The man smiled at me.

The cute girl who was reading the script on the side seemed to smell potential gossip and suddenly stopped flipping through her script.

Yu Dong’s thoughts gradually came together: a man who looks handsome, who looks like he just graduated university, who knew her nickname and was someone she cried in front of the other day–

“The scum!” Yu Dong finally recognized who this person was and slammed her hands down the table, holy shit, was this not my first love who I haven’t seen for 10 years!

Ouch. I haven’t seen you for so long, I almost didn’t recognize you.

“Dong Dong, I know you’re sad, but how can you curse people!” Fang Hua told Yu Dong while uncomfortably glancing at the cute sister.

After the thorough breakup 10 years ago, Yu Dong never thought that she would ever see Fang Hua again. As soon as she saw him again, an unknown fire lit inside her and blazed. Yu Dong stood up and began to march towards Fang Hua, step by step.

“You, what are you doing?” Fang Hua was startled by Yu Dong’s momentum.

Yu Dong laughed and suddenly launched an attack. She raised her hand and slapped him soundly: “I’ve wanted to thrash you for a long time.”

Yu Dong’s only regret in this bad relationship was that she only cried when they were in front of the Civil Affairs Bureau. She didn’t even think to give the man a slap, but today she was finally successful.

“What are you doing!” Fang Hua was unexpectedly slapped.

The cute girl was shocked at this sudden development.

“Hmph!” After giving him a beating, Yu Dong went back to her seat, grabbed her watermelon juice and gulped it down. The she called out, “Xiaoyue, come here!”

“What’s the matter, what’s the matter?” as she was busy, Xiang Xiaoyue ran into the room disheveled. Noticing that the atmosphere seemed wrong in the room, she wondered, “What happened?”

Fang Hua kept silent with an angry face.

The cute sister tried to silently disappear into the background.

“Do you still consider yourself my friend Xiang Xiaoyue?” Yu Dong asked her coldly.

“Of course!”

“Do you believe that if you say you need my help, I’d come without question?”

“Yes, I believe!”

“Then how can you do this to me!” Yu Dong asked.

“I…do what to you?” Xiang Xiaoyue was really confused.

“You want me to work with the scum who just abandoned me? Are you deliberately hurting me?”

At Yu Dong’s words, Xiang Xiaoyue became totally confused. She looked at Fang Hua who had an ugly expression and asked, “You guys broke up?”

“Yu Dong, let’s talk about this outside.” Fang Hua didn’t want to discuss such matters in front of outsiders.

“Ha!” Yu Dong gave him a mocking glance.

Fang Hua’s face darkened even more.

Xiang Xiaoyue looked back and forth between the two of them. It looks like they really did have a falling out, but she still couldn’t believe it: “Have you two really broken up? I thought you were getting married?” 𝗳𝐫𝘦e𝘸𝗲𝚋𝓃𝚘v𝘦𝘭.𝑐𝒐m

“Yes, I had all my household papers with me. But when I got there, he broke up with me at the doors to the Civil Affairs Bureau and dumped 10,000 yuan at my hands as a break-up fee.” Yu Dong was acting like she was talking about someone else. There was no sadness in her expression but was instead full of mockery.

“Scum!”

“Scum!”

Two voices rang out, and the cute sister and Xiang Xiaoyue looked at each other.

“Yu Dong!” Fang Hua’s face twisted.

“What? Are you asking for your money back?” Yu Dong sneered.

“It’s not what it looks like.” Feng Hua rushed to explain to Xiang Xiaoyue.

“Then what does it look like?” Yu Dong taunted him. “What would your version of that event sound like?”

“You…” Fang Huan said angrily, “Look at how you’re being like now.”

“Does my appearance have anything to do with you?” Yu Dong sneered as she took another sip of her watermelon juice.

One sat calmly sipping juice while the other stood up in anger.

“I won’t lower myself for such a woman!” Fang Hua picked up his sunglasses and with a slam, left.

The meeting room became quiet.

Yu Dong tapped on her script on the table and said, “What now? I’ll never work with him, will you find a replacement?”

“Uh…” Xiaoyue was stunned for a moment, the quickly snapped out of it. “It’s alright, we can find a replacement. We don’t need such scummy men!”

“Good!” Yu Dong was satisfied.

Xiang Xiaoyue smiled and suddenly realized: “The last time we saw each other was only a month ago, how did you suddenly change from a silly and sweet girl into a woman with a poisonous tongue that rivals a mother-in-law?”

“I got jilted!” Yu Dong said indifferently.

Xiang Xiaoyue rolled her eyes at the vague answer but didn’t insist. She now had to find a new male lead on top of all her work, starting a business really isn’t easy, ah.

Yu Dong turned to look at the cute girl in the corner of the room. Thinking of how she called Feng Hua scum, she smiled at the girl and asked: “What’s your name?”

“Tao Tao!” The cute sister blinked her watery eyes and smiled.

Tao Tao? Isn’t this the Queen of idol dramas a few years later? Yu Dong rubbed her eyes, she looks even better before her face lift!

“Sister promise me you’ll never have cosmetic surgery!”

“Eh??”

……

Hospital

Xia Feng was finished with his last patient was intending to go home after writing this last medical record.

At this time, Shao Yifan came back from a surgery and asked Xia Feng: “Why are you still here? Aunt’s surgery is tomorrow, you should go home early and get a good night’s rest so you can accompany her.”

“It’s fine. I’ll be able to come back in time for her operation.” Xia Feng returns.

“Although tomorrow’s heart surgery only has a 50% success rate, Director Wang mentioned that Aunt’s mental state today was much more optimistic, which will definitely help her odds.”

Shao Yifan and Xia Feng were university friends. They both graduated at the same time and finished their practicum in the same hospital, so their relationship was naturally close.

“I hope so!” Xia Feng was still a little worried.

“By the way I heard An An went to America?” Shao Yifan knew about his relationship with An An and was confused that she still insisted on going abroad during such a critical time.

“We broke up!” Xia Feng felt that there was no need to hide this kind of thing so after little thought, he told Shao Yifan frankly.

“Broke up?” Shao Yifan was shocked. “You’ve been with her obediently for so many years. You just recently bought a house an renovated it for her. Why did you suddenly break up?”

“I asked her to marry me last week and she refused.” Xia Feng told him with a bitter smile. “I told her that if we didn’t get married, we’d break up. Her response was to fly to America.”

“No, that isn’t a proposal anymore, isn’t that a threat?” Shao Yifan was speechless. “But An An didn’t need to hide in America either.”

Xia Feng closed the medical report in front of him and didn’t say anything.

“You should calm down a little.” Shao Yifan advised him.

“You should know that I’m not the impulsive type.” Xia Feng stood up to remove his white coat and hung it on the back of his chair. “I’m going back first.”

“Oh!” Shao Yifan realized what Xia Feng was implying and was shocked.

Xia Feng had never been an impulsive person, so his words said to An An were definitely spoken aloud after careful consideration, despite the unsatisfactory outcome that followed.

Though if there was one thing in Xia Feng’s life that he impulsively did, it would be the day before yesterday, when he picked up a wife and brought her home.