Moonlight Variations

Translator: Xiaoxi
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On the other side she didn’t know what her good had done to her. In fact Chu Li was so happy that she rushed back to the editorial department, at that time it was about one so it was lunch time. All of the people were seated in the office eating take out. They occasionally got the laptop to leisurely chat or catch up on work. Chu Li stepped into the office and gave her greetings to every person….

In seemed that everyone looked very cute, even the little fish in the aquarium at the door were glowing cutely.

She walked quickly towards the head editor’s office table. Chu Li opened her purse and took out the contract with the intention to give it to Yu Yao and report that she had successfully gotten Zhou Chuan to sign the contract. Yu Yao was even faster and opened her mouth: “Why are you only here now ah?”

“Ah,” Chu Li paused for a bit, clenching the contract in her hand her hand pointed outside. “Still outside though, didn’t Head Editor Yu say that I had one week to take down the contract to stop? That’s why I went to visit Zhou Chuan until he signed the contract, I also went to Zhou Chuan’s house today. I came late today because–”

Zhou Chuan Laoshi agreed to meet me at eleven to sign the contract.

Chu Li’s words manage to come out.

From behind her, Lao Miao chuckled before saying: “So the result was a wasted trip right?”

When Lao Miao’s words finished the other new person Xiao Niao raised her head from her take out, in a small thin voice she said: “Running around everyday, you must be very miserable, Zhou Chuan Laoshi must be very had to take down right? However, it must be good to be in the field right. When I was in university council I liked going out into the field jobs the most, I didn’t need to go to meetings and occasionally could even sneakily go to bed….”

Chu Li: “….”

Chu Li was stunned, she kept on feeling that what she heard had something wrong with it, with a face full of question marks she turned around.

At this time the artistic editor Lao Li followed up on what was said: “If we can start work from the afternoon, in the morning I could even drop the children off to school first…my wife is constantly mad at me for leaving too early. By the time the kid is eating breakfast I have gone out the door already…nothing like a good father.”
Lao Miao: “Hahaha, how pitiful ah!”

Xiao Niao turned towards Chu Li with a smile: “After working I haven’t had anymore opportunities to go out into the field, I’m quite jealous of you Chu Li.”

She paused for a second and raised her head to clap over her hand and in the small voice say “Aiya” while apologising: “But I was only talking about when I was in my university days, I’m not trying to say that while you are out in the field you will sneakily catch up on sleep and purposely not go to work…everyone on is very busy, how could we dare to delay the time and not go to work…right ba?” While she was talking she smiled again.

The A Xiang who was seated beside Xiao Niao raised her head to look Xiao Niao in the eye, Xiao Niao raised her chin towards her: “Right A Xiang?”

A Xiang laughed awkwardly for a second without a reply.

Lao Miao glanced in Chu Li’s direction: “Where is the contract?”
At this time Chu Li was already bombarded by them to the extent that her mind had gone blank, within the blink of an eye she didn’t reply….at this time even Yu Yao was laughing along with everyone, she spoke before Chu Li and said in a teasing tone: “Lao Miao you should not pressure Chu Li too much, this contract was given to you so you and even after two weeks you didn’t take down Zhou Chuan, Chu Li is still a new how can you expect her to have taken him down in four days ah? …However Chu Li, you don’t have to go out for the whole morning, you still have work to do, you are not solely responsible for Zhou Chuan.”

Yu Yao spoke while glancing at Chu Li.

Chu Li actually wanted to say that was not the case Head Editor, I have already taken down Zhou Chuan. But from her eye she caught a glimpse of Lao Miao’s expression and suddenly stiffened, she was stunned for ten or so seconds– the hand that was taking out the contract let go and the contract fell back into her bag. The innate alertness of a prey when faced with threats caused her to swallow the words that she could not say back into her stomach.

Chu Li stood up straight, she placed her bag down onto her seat, and then rushed over to Yu Yao with an apologetic smile: “Sorry, Head Editor Yu, I will work hard to persuade Zhou Chuan, I won’t come to work late tomorrow too.”

While Chu Li was speaking the whole office became quiet, Lao Miao turned around on the chair which squeaked. All the other people went back to eating their lunch–when Chu Li turned around to face everyone, everyone’s facial expression was very  serious in enjoying their lunch.

It was almost like nothing happened.

“….”

Chu Li laughed and quietly said “I’m going to wash my hands” before leaving the office to arrive outside the door and into the corridor, far away. When she heard the echo of her heel’s hitting the ground Chu Li stopped and looked behind her.

She lowered her head to look at her feet, even at this moment they still shook.

Her mind was full of “why”, “what is this”, “what has just happened”. She used her trembling hand to take out her phone, swiped with her finger to find the chat app, she looked for the saved message, yes–the message that said “Tomorrow at eleven o’clock meet at my house, if late it doesn’t count”. She hesitated for a moment before selecting the other person’s phone number to make the call. The phone rang three times before it was quickly picked up.

[Wei.]

“Hello, Zhou Chuan dada, I am Chu Li, the um…person from this morning that came to your house to sign the contract for the Yuan Yue Publishing Department.”

The other side had the sound of heavy objects falling and dog barking, it seemed very chaotic, Chu Li waited patiently for a while, the man said in a low and indifferent voice: [What?]

Chu Li squeezed her phone slightly: “Hi Laoshi, sorry for the interruption, it’s like this, I just returned to the magazine department, I thought for a bit… Could you help me keep it a secret that we signed the contract today until next next Monday…”

[What do you want to do?]

“…..” Chu Li blinked, “It’s because on my side that it’s not a great time to start the follow up, I’m a little afraid…no, ah, I’m begging you can you do that for me?”
The person over the phone thought for a while.

In a place that Chu Li could not see, Zhou Chuan chose to raise his eyebrow and moved the phone away from his ear. It was like his eyes could see the person over the phone going crazy….

Speechless, she sounds so pitiful, what has happened?

Wasn’t she super excited that she was like a monkey just now?

Zhou Chuan thought deeply for another moment, at that time he thought about having a look at QQ, he then saw the avatar for Lao Miao pulsing and seemed to understand something.

On this side.

Chu Li waited for as long as a century in anxiety before the other party finally said [Whatever suits you, I don’t care what you guys are doing, just doing implicate me.] After he said this he proceeded to hang up the phone. Chu Li who just got hung up on set her phone down on her desk and stared at her computer for four to five minutes in a daze before coming back to her senses. She quickly ran to the bathroom and washed her hands before looking at her expression in the mirror, only after this did she quickly return to the office.

After.

After Yuan Yue Publishing made it clear that work started at half past nine in the morning and Yu Yao reminded her, Chu Li got ready to leave for work at ten to ten everyday. She wasn’t late but not too early either, it seemed as though she had gone to Zhou Chuan’s house to get an answer before quickly rushing back to the office. The contract that had already been signed was carried around in her purse with her safe and sound.

And then the first week of work had ended.

At the beginning of the weekend, Chu Li was sprawled out in her rental house letting herself go. She didn’t go find anyone to complain to– she was ready to say that she didn’t know who to complain to. When she tried to complain to L Jun about the small happenings within the office three nights ago she found that she couldn’t find him at all. It seemed that she had been black listed, when she asked around with all of the people she knew she only received a “Recently L Jun hasn’t been replying.”

Chu Li felt that when she was down on her luck nothing seemed to go her way.

The colleagues where targeting her for no reason, even her long time friend that she coexisted with for three years had blacklisted her.

There were so many baffling events that she felt that she had been let down by the entire world.

Ah.

Depression.

In big capital letters PITIFUL.

Chu Li didn’t know that she wasn’t the only person who had a bad start to the year.

From three nights ago, at the time that Zhou Chuan had finished typing, he felt bored and descided to read the news. He saw that there were a few odd news and subconsciously copied the sharing code and then logged into the chat logs of [Disappearing L Jun] and pulled up his chat log, in the first moment he didn’t find the certain profile for a certain monkey, he paused for a while.

Only then did he think of the afternoon when he black listed the other person.

….Deleted forever to eliminate the future.

Deleted is good.

He forcibly ignored the fact that his sharing code was to be copied nad sent to others, Zhou Chuan opened a heap of unread messages, then he found the messages from the people that were also good friends with him and Monkey.

[The Ghost behind you: Ah L, Monkey has been asking where you are…what have you been doing? Did you delete her? Had a fight? She said that you guys didn’t argue ah!]

[Little Wild Flower: What happened between you and Monkey?]

[Swaying in the Wind: Monkey has been finding you, what happened between you two? Have you been hacked?]

[Swaying in the Wind: Are you here?]

[Swaying in the Wind: Monkey has been crying it was too devastating, she is looking all over the world for her hubby.]

(Xixi:  HUBBY?!!! *squeals while fangirling*]

Zhou Chuan: “……”

Cry a fart?

The person who is hugging the contract probably cannot sleep soundly.

Staring at the word ‘hubby’ Zhou Chuan’s lips twiched feeling sour in his teeth.

For a long time he snorted and shook his legs while saying to himself: “You have quite a lot to say ah don’t you.”

He closed the QQ side account and opened his main account and opened up his contacts list. He found Jiang Yu Cheng’s profile and sent him his sharing code. After he received the “????” Zhou Chuan started chatting with his good friend–

Except when they started chatting it didn’t stop for three days, everyday after Jiang Yu Cheng finished typing, he could still hear the ten messages that Zhou Chuan left for him. Every moment was reported such as “getting out of bed”, “what should I eat for lunch”, “what should I eat for dinner”, “this piece of news is really interesting hahahaahah”, “Omg look at this strange author arguing with fan’s”, “long live the mother land hoping it would remain prosperous and strong” and other things like that.

Jiang Yu Cheng’s heart collapsed.

It was only until the eve of the weekend did he finally explode and sent–

[Zhou Chuan: I ate Curry Beef Brisket tonight, it was so hard to eat I could go see the buddha, how has this restaurant survived to this day without going bankrupt?]

(TN: Go see Buddha means that he is about to die.)

[Jiang Yu Cheng: ……Big Brother? Are you really bored? What you ate tonight and whether it tasted good has nothing to do with me, it’s not like you invited me to go with you!!!]

[Zhou Chuan: ….]

[Zhou Chuan: I was just saying.]

[Jiang Yu Cheng: If you’re bored go and write, how many readers are anticipating Zhou Chuan Dada’s updates, if you posted one they would all die of happiness. Why come and talk bullsh*t to me, its not like I will give you writer’s royalities.]

[Zhou Chuan: You are such a secular person, with the price of thousands of characters, what I have said to you is enough to buy another house in G City.]

(TN: When he says characters he is talking about how many words.)

[Jian Yu Cheng: Since Wednesday night until now, can at least cover the costs of the living room, bathroom and study.]

[Jiang Yu Cheng: What is wrong with you?]

[Jiang Yu Cheng: ….I hope you haven’t suddenly fallen in love with me, I’m shivering with fear, my try hard writer style shouldn’t be able to enter your eyes right?]

[Zhou Chuan: ? ? ? ]

[Zhou Chuan: My sexual orientation is normal, I’m just bored.]

[Jiang Yu Cheng: Then how did you keep as quiet as a chicken and not harass me in the three years, ten months and eleven days that we have known each other.]

When Jiang Yu Cheng’s question came out, the person on the other side didn’t answer for a long time.

Jiang Yu Cheng actually didn’t realise that at this time, in front of the computer, Zhou Chuan’s two hands had left the keyboard. He sat in front of the computeer screen in a daze….

He knew the answer that he should give to Zhang Yu Cheng’s question– since he knew Jiang Yu Cheng those three years, ten months and eleven days ago he had never harassed him, and they were as quiet as chickens, he actually went to go and harass another person.

Except the only other person who he could harass was the person that he blacklisted three days ago.

Zhou Chuan: …..

Ah.

Bored.

In capitals he wrote: Life is loveless.

Xixi’s lil Skit:

ZC: I need to vent and annoy people…aha found a target

JYC: Why is he texting me all of the sudden….*wails under the onslaught of ZC’s daily life*

Weibo ZC Fans: Oooooh dada’s personal life is SO interesting, JYC you ungrateful brat!!