183 The discrepancy between the past and present
In the kitchen, Jun was cooking a piping hot breakfast with lots of meat and lots of veggies to fill Ai’s tummy. Last night would have left her extremely hungry by now, so he decided to prepare a breakfast feast for her.
He sneered. “You are too thin. Now that I am your boyfriend, I will feed you till you become fat.”
More fat translated to more energy for their future love making rounds. Jun had his own hidden agenda.
As he cooked, he simultaneously checked the news feed too. He smirked seeing the applause Ai was getting after last night’s Summit. She was praised in all communities, and she gained a huge fan following overnight. Her short story was also uploaded as a digital copy for making it available for the readers community to read.
Jun was pleased seeing everybody’s reactions. It was an impactful, powerful short story. Since Ai confessed her feelings through this story, it was all the more special for Jun.
He hummed and his thoughts wandered off to her story and as he recalled what she had written and spoken last night, he felt a little odd as he contemplated it. It was something that bothered him last night too but after Ai’s confession, he forgot all the doubts that arose in his mind.
Ai said about the man confessing to her on Christmas night under a Christmas tree, he thought.
The air turned chilly.
It was Gu Yating, right? She was talking about him…
Thinking about that man only made anger erupt in his chest.
But what Jun didn’t understand was the discrepancy in the events that had transpired.
Didn’t he confess to her on New Year’s Eve like I heard last night? And Ai had rejected him.
But why did she write in the story that it was Christmas night and that she had also accepted his confession? This doesn’t match with what actually happened.
She was with me on Christmas. Obviously, that bastard didn’t confess, so Ai never accepted any confession either. Instead, he confessed on New Year’s, and she rejected him.
How is it different from what she wrote in the story?
Then he also didn’t understand the implication of Yating and Guiying betraying her later on.
This hasn’t happened either. Not yet. It was supposed to happen five years later-
Jun abruptly paused. He rapidly blinked his eyes and tilted his head. He slowed down the gas flame.
Now that I think about it…
There were a whole lot of things that weren’t supposed to happen either according to the knowledge that he had of his past life.
In the book signing event, he surely turned the fate for Ai by making Yinyin confess. But there were extra copies of Guiying’s books in which he had no hand. Till date, Jun still wasn’t sure how those extra copies got there. The lack of copies should still have been a problem, causing chaos among the fans.
Instead, 300 extra copies were ordered. It was exactly 300 copies needed, and there were 300 copies indeed.
Jun loved perfection, but he wondered if the perfect 300 number was a coincidence?
Then there was the biggest incident which Jun didn’t realize then, but now he did after hearing Ai’s story.
Ai had never joined Sky in my past life. She worked at Dream High the whole time. Then why did this time, Ai said that she wanted to come to Sky?
The whole plagiarism issue never happened in Jun’s past life, and it wouldn’t have happened this time either if Ai was still working at Dream High.
Instead, she wanted to come to Sky this time. Why? What changed?
Jun remembered the few sentences from Ai’s story.
‘She kept falling and falling in that cold, chilling night until that despair mercilessly killed her.’
‘Her heart felt empty, but her eyes were clouded with tears.’
‘Life gave her another chance to stand up on her feet and fix her life. Their betrayal had killed her.’
‘Yet she felt she was reborn.’
Jun shook hard. He remembered when he was rushing to chase after Ai, he had heard bits and pieces of people discussing Ai’s story. One part they highlighted was her rebirth.
Was it a metaphor? Or was she really reborn?
The part about falling in the cold, chilling night was too familiar with how she had actually died in the past life. She had fallen from a building, and it was a cold night. Her eyes were filled with tears.
Jun felt his heart strangely beat hard for some reason. It was true that Jun was reborn, but his rebirth had nothing to do with Ai’s life. Even though they did meet in this life which didn’t happen last time, it shouldn’t have changed Ai’s trajectory of life unless he interfered, and he hadn’t apart from the book signing event.
My actions did protect Ai from getting accused, but would they have affected her decision to change the company? It had nothing to do with the 300 extra copies either.
It also fit that Ai introduced Jun’s entry in her life after the betrayal and the rebirth happened.
It cannot be possible that Ai is also…
He felt stupid for thinking that. But the more things didn’t make sense to him from how Ai’s life should have been, the more he strongly felt the incidents weren’t coincidences.
He was about to rush back to Ai’s side when his phone rang with a call. He would have ignored it if it wasn’t for his mother’s name flashing on his phone.
Mom?
He slid through the green button and smiled. “Mom.”
“Jun…”
He blinked, sensing distress from her voice. “Mom, are you okay?”
“I am fine, Jun. But…are you okay?”
“Huh? I am just fine. What would have happened to me?”
“It’s just that…I wanted to ask if everything is fine between you and Shui?”
Jun widened his eyes. “What do you mean?”
He heard a sigh from the other end. “I mean I got to know from Xinyi that you and Shui had no plans last night. It was Valentine’s Day. I thought you would have definitely planned a date with her. You two were not together on Christmas or New Years either. This is not like you, Jun. That’s why I was worried if there was something wrong.”
Jun understood where Nana was coming from. There was not a single event in his past life where Jun hadn’t organized something special for Shui right from childhood till he became an adult.
He had already decided to come out with his breakup after he and Ai got together last night.
Jun took a deep breath and said, “I am coming home, Mom. There is something important that I need to tell the whole family.”