478 It's impossible
The door to the office opened with a sense of urgency when Jun rushed in followed by Ai.
“Jin?”
A look of surprise flashed in Jin’s eyes. He glanced at Jinhai, who didn’t display any particular emotion.
Jun’s worried gaze watched Jin from head to toe as he sat beside him on the couch. “What went wrong? Why are you sick again? We got so worried.”
He touched his forehead and released a sigh of relief to feel that the temperature was already coming back to normal. “Thank God you are okay. Take good rest.”
Ai interrupted their conversation and flicked on Jin’s forehead.
“…”
Jin glared at her. “Zhou Ai! Back off!”
Ai gave him back an acute look. “Da-” she slightly cleared her throat. It was her first time addressing Jinhai as Dad. “Dad revealed everything to us about your secret trip. Jin, how could you go to church alone after knowing what happened to you the last time? You cannot be careless, especially with this strange phenomenon happening to us. We still don’t know any details of it. It’s best to exercise caution.”
Jin was irked more because Ai had a valid point. It was the same as Jinhai had pointed it out too.
She then gave Jun a judgemental stare. “When was the part supposed to come of you scolding him?”
His brow twitched. “…What? I was about to scold him when you came in. I got so panicked when Dad called.”
“No, you had no intention of scolding him at all.”
“That’s not true.”
“Say that while looking into my eyes.”
Jinhai chimed in. “It’s useless talking to him. Jun has always doted on Jin since the beginning. His behavior with the twins and with Jin has a stark contrast.”
Jun – “…”
Ai wondered what would happen when they would have kids in the future. Until now, she thought that Jun would be the stricter parent, and she would have to diffuse the tension with some fun.
It seems like I would have to take the stricter parent role instead…
Jinhai gave a light nod. “Whatever you might be thinking is right.”
Jun didn’t want them to dwell on that topic any longer so he asked Jin about what happened in the church. But before he got to ask the question, he felt something furry wriggling in the space between the couch and Jin.
Surprise and shock together made his eyes widen when the cat hopped onto Jun’s lap. She meowed at him and looked into his eyes with her light brown eyes.
“You!”
The trio blinked and tilted their heads.
Jun picked up the cat and watched her closely. “You are the same little one I left at the animal shelter. How are you here?”
Jin couldn’t believe his ears. “You know this cat?”
“Of course. It was on the day I met Mom – Ai’s Mom when she arrived in Beijing. We saw her getting bullied by a bunch of pesky teenagers. After dealing with that stuff, we took her to the shelter.”
Ai’s expression lit with recognition. “I see. It’s that cat…”
Jun chuckled, petting her head. The joy of seeing the cat again was as clear as day. “Where did you find her?”
“At the church…She was with an elderly woman. She was her cat. Then she left but forgot to take the cat with her! I didn’t know what to do, so I brought her here…”
Jun blinked twice. “She forgot to take her back? Strange…”
“This isn’t half as strange as the stuff she was talking about to me. I was there in the church alone when she suddenly appeared. Then she started talking about weird things…”
“What things?”
“Fortune and cards.”
He explained the church encounter to Jinhai and the couple. Jinhai had a puzzled look on his face while Jun’s expression matched with Ai’s who knew exactly what happened.
“Jun, she must be that same woman.”
He gravely nodded.
Jinhai narrowed his eyes. He sensed Jun and Ai knew more. “What is going on?”
p AndD nOve1.cO,m It was then Jun’s turn to explain their own fortune-telling experiences with a mystical elderly woman at the carnival.
“Her cards were so frighteningly accurate. Shui also said that she saw a strange woman in the church when Jin was getting sick. She seemed to talk cryptically which Shui couldn’t understand. I am pretty sure she is that same woman.”
“So there is someone else who knows about your rebirth? A completely strange woman at that?”
“I guess…” Jun touched his chin thoughtfully. “At the carnival, I thought it was a coincidence that we met her. But she was also present at both times when Jin was at the church. She showed him his fortune too. I don’t feel it’s a coincidence anymore.”
Ai said, “She doesn’t give bad vibes though. I feel she wants to help us too.”
Jinhai said, “Then why isn’t she being straightforward about it instead of giving cryptic clues like that? Jun, you tried to search for her?”
He sighed. “I did. But I never found her.”
Jinhai tapped his finger on the arm rest. “Let me do something about it.”
“You can try, but…I have a feeling that she isn’t the kind of person we can find just because we want it. It’s like the opposite. She will find us. There is really something…mystical about her. At first, her cards didn’t make any sense to us. But now they do, especially after coming to know that Cai Guiying is suffering from a split personality disorder. That shadow in the card was her alter ego. For a long time, we couldn’t understand what it meant.”
Jin gave him a grave look. “There is another thing I don’t understand either.”
“What?”
“It’s a vision of the past life I saw…when I happened to touch Shui today.”
He told them everything in detail about Shui’s meeting with Guiying in a lone, abandoned house.
After he was done, Jun’s body trembled with shock and aghast while Jinhai, who had been calmly listening to Jin’s story, slightly widened his eyes too.
“What!?” Jun sharply questioned. “Cai Guiying said to Shui that I betrayed her? That’s impossible. When did I betray her? For what did I betray her? I never even met Cai Guiying in my last life at all.”