Chapter 212: Wishing You Happiness and Freedom
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
It was only a few steps back upstairs, but Lu An couldn’t bear to be separated from her for too long, so he chose to carry Jin Nian.
It was already very late when the New Year celebration ended, and it was time to sleep.
But Jin Nian didn’t feel like sleeping yet.
Sadness filled her heart. She put her hands around Lu An’s neck and hung herself on him. Her eyes were red again.
Lu An roughly knew why Jin Nian was so upset. He placed her on the bed and hugged her. “What are you thinking about?”
“I remember that you used to send me a message every year at midnight on New Year’s Eve.”
Lu An smiled wantonly. “You didn’t get it this year, so you’re not happy?”
Lu An immediately took out his phone and sent a message to Jin Nian.
A few seconds later, Jin Nian’s phone rang. It was indeed a message from Lu An. “Happy New Year, my wife. I wish you more happiness every day than yesterday and more freedom than last year.”
After Lu An sent the message, he threw his phone to the side of the bed. “Are you happy now?”
“Not enough.” Jin Nian sniffed sadly. “I just realized that you sent me messages every year, but 1 never replied to you.”
“Not really.” Lu An always had a good memory of Jin Nian. “You did in the first two years, but after that, you were too generous so you didn’t reply.”
“I wanted to hear your voice, but I couldn’t. So 1 could only settle for the words you had sent.”
Jin Nian realized that Lu An had let it slip, so she insisted on asking, “Lu An, what else are you hiding from me?”
Lu An had no choice. He rummaged through the cabinets and found a few old phones. He logged in and showed Jin Nian their chat records.
As the phone was upgraded, some chat records could only be saved on the old phone, but the records were intact.
January 24, 2023; 00:00
Lu An, ‘Happy New Year. I wish you more happiness every day than yesterday and more freedom than last year.’
January 1, 2023; 00:00
Lu An, ‘Happy New Year. I wish you more happiness every day than yesterday and more freedom than last year.’
February 1, 2022; 00:00
Lu An, ‘Happy New Year. I wish you more happiness every day than yesterday and more freedom than last year.’
Jin Nian kept scrolling forward and realized that they were all messages sent to her by Lu An.
In the four years from 2023 to 2019, there was almost no contact between them.
During this period, Lu An had even changed his phone, but there were very few chat records with Jin Nian.
It wasn’t until New Year’s Eve in 2018 that Jin Nian saw the message she sent to him.
February 5, 2018; 0:00
Jin Nian, ‘Happy New Year to you.’
Jin Nian felt that it was a pity. If she had known what Lu An was thinking, she would have replied to him every year.
“Lu An, look at so many blank chat records. How can 1 make up for the past few years? What should I do?”
Compared to Jin Nian’s regret, Lu An was especially calm. He opened the Instagram app and showed Jin Nian another chat record.
When Jin Nian saw that Lu An’s Instagram account was Whale, she immediately understood.
“So you’re Whale!”
“My little fool, did you just realize?”
“But how did 1 become friends with you on Instagram?”
“Think again.”
To be honest, when Lu An used Whale’s account to chat with Jin Nian, he deliberately hid his identity.
He knew that Jin Nian didn’t remember what happened back then.
Instagram had been launched in 2010. Lu An had registered an account when he was in high school. At that time Jin Nian asked Lu An to register one for her, so he had secretly added Jin Nian’s Instagram account as his friend.
However, due to studying and other reasons, Jin Nian didn’t play Instagram at all.
When Jin Nian went to Instagram out of curiosity, she realized that she already had an account. She didn’t think much about it and used this account to browse photos.
A whale was a giant mammal.
Lu An didn’t randomly come up with this online name. He more or less implied the pretentious thoughts he had when he was young.
Whales were huge. Although they were not fish, they could swim freely in the ocean.
At that time Jin Nian always said that he was a salted fish who would not have any great prospects, so he wanted to be a whale.
No matter where Jin Nian swam, he would protect her, even if it was a freshwater area that was not suitable for a whale to live in.
Originally, Lu An wanted to explain the meaning of Whale to Jin Nian, but he chose to give up after hesitating for a moment.
After all, it was a cliche online name that he had come up with when he was in his most Chunibyo years. It was difficult for him to explain it now.
However, in the eyes of the anime world, Whale was the representative of innovation.
Jin Nian’s reaction wasn’t slow. When she found out that Whale was Lu An’s company, she had indeed thought of the Whale online.
However, she had been living too blissfully recently. She did not log into Instagram, so she did not pursue this small ‘coincidence’..