Vol 2 Chapter 16: Love Me Again
An Gulai didn’t die. He only fainted. After all, he was the adoptive father who had raised An Baili for over ten years. Lu Li couldn’t bring himself to do anything too extreme. An Baili told him that although An Gulai didn’t like her, he still provided her with basic living expenses and never interfered too much in her life.
There was a knock on the door. An Baili, still shaken from the earlier events, clung tightly to Lu Li and looked at him with bewilderment. Lu Li comforted her: “It’s okay, it’s someone I called.” He wasn’t a true teenager after all, and wouldn’t act recklessly in the heat of the moment. Before coming here, he had sent a message to Secretary Long, saying that he had a conflict with An Gulai – although Lu Li didn’t know at the time whether An Gulai was An Baili’s father, he still did so. He dared to venture into the enemy camp only because he was prepared.
His deliberate provocation of An Gulai was to leave evidence of the latter’s criminal offense, to ensure this scum spent the rest of his life in prison. However, seeing the bruises on An Baili’s body, it was he who lost control first, which was quite unexpected.
He opened the door and saw Secretary Long himself, followed by several plainclothes police officers.
Seeing the bloodstains on Lu Li’s hands, Secretary Long was startled: “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. An Gulai tried to attack me, but I subdued him.”
Secretary Long explained to the police officers behind him: “This is my nephew, he’s a student at Chuanhai No. 1 High School.”
“Oh, oh. Are you alright, young man?” Was this the privilege of the upper class? The police were expressing concern before even investigating the facts. The plainclothes officers entered An’s residence and looked at the unconscious An Gulai with surprise, but they didn’t say anything. They just called an ambulance and sent An Gulai to the hospital. Then, a slightly older, chubby policeman briefly questioned Lu Li and An Baili before leaving, not even needing to take him to the police station.
Secretary Long had been watching with his hands clasped behind his back. After the police left, he nodded approvingly at Lu Li: “You’ve got guts, coming to see An Gulai alone.” Secretary Long was the liaison for Lu Li and Chu Xiaodong’s work, so he also knew about the grudge between Lu Li and An Gulai.
Lu Li didn’t expect Secretary Long to come in person and was quite flattered. Perhaps because he was still on duty, Secretary Long hadn’t taken off his name tag: “Secretary General of Chuanhai Political Department, Long Di.” A Secretary General in his thirties or forties was quite young and must have a significant background. Lu Li’s tone became even more respectful: “I was too reckless, I acted on impulse.”
“It’s good for young people to have spirit.” Secretary Long nodded and looked at An Baili, his gaze somewhat complicated. “Xiao Lu, is this your classmate or your girlfriend?”
Before Lu Li could answer, An Baili quickly replied: “Just an ordinary classmate.”
Lu Li’s heart was slightly touched, but he didn’t say anything. Secretary Long didn’t doubt her and smiled: “Xiao Lu, if you’re free, send me a message. Then I’ll be going?”
“Thank you so much for taking the time to help me personally!” He had to show the proper attitude since someone had gone out of their way for him. He saw Secretary Long off to his car before letting out a sigh of relief and slowly returning to An Baili’s home.
Finally, the matter with An Gulai was resolved, although in an unexpected way. With his and An Baili’s testimonies, An Gulai’s intentional assault charge was a certainty. Coupled with the evidence of tax evasion, An Gulai wouldn’t be leaving prison for the rest of his life.
However, with An Gulai gone, what about An Baili?
Lu Li looked at An Baili with a complicated gaze. He thought he had completely let go of her, but it didn’t seem to be the case. He couldn’t understand himself anymore, couldn’t understand if he still had feelings for An Baili. He said yes, but he wished he could stay as far away from her as possible. He said no, but seeing her suffering made his heart ache.
No wonder some people said that ex-wives were the most special people in the world. The love and hate, the complicated emotions were truly difficult to explain.
An Baili was unusually quiet today, not as lively as usual. There were still tear stains on her delicate face, and she looked at Lu Li with tenderness. Her eyes were the same as the woman who had laughed and cried in her wedding dress in the church years ago. But strangely, Lu Li suddenly couldn’t remember that woman’s face. It seemed to be An Baili, but it also seemed to be… Wen Hupo?
“Have you forgiven me?”
“Not yet, I’m waiting for your explanation.” He now understood why An Baili had such a personality. Growing up in An Gulai’s dysfunctional family, it would be strange if her mental health was normal. But this couldn’t be an excuse for An Baili to absolve herself. People always had to pay the price for their mistakes.
An Baili wasn’t surprised by Lu Li’s answer. She let out a sigh of relief: “As long as you’re willing to listen to my explanation, that’s enough. Li, no matter how absurd or fantastical what I’m about to say is, you have to listen to the end, okay?”
Lu Li frowned slightly and sat up straighter: “Go ahead.”
“Follow me.”
An Baili led Lu Li upstairs to her room. The girl’s bedroom wasn’t as he had imagined. It was simple and ordinary, without pink wallpaper, a bed full of stuffed animals, or a pendant-decorated ceiling lamp. An Baili carefully retrieved a square box from under the bed, the kind used to hold cheap plastic jewelry on the street.
She opened the box and took out a heart-shaped pendant, the kind of flamboyant street jewelry from the 1970s and 1980s, not something valuable.
“Li, you know about rebirth, right?”
Wasn’t that obvious?
“Of course I do, you and I were reborn, weren’t we?”
“…” An Baili took a deep breath, as if she had made a major decision. “This isn’t my first rebirth.”
Lu Li stiffened: “What did you say?”
After making up her mind, An Baili spoke more fluently: “This isn’t my first rebirth. Before this, I was reborn once. It’s all thanks to this.” She raised the heart-shaped pendant in her hand. Inside the cheap plastic shell were four broken pieces of crystal-like objects. No matter how you looked at it, this was a toy manufactured in coastal areas and sold inland. Lu Li couldn’t help but wonder if An Baili was deliberately teasing him.
Lu Li patiently listened: “Okay, go on.”
“Did you notice that I placed this pendant on the table when I lit the lighter that day?”
Did he? Lu Li’s head was heavy that day, and the room was dimly lit. He didn’t notice at all. But with An Baili’s reminder, he vaguely remembered the heart-shaped pendant. In his previous life, after An Baili married him, she had shown him this pendant while organizing her belongings, saying it was… her mother’s relic?
Thinking about it this way, the origin of this pendant became strange. Mei Jinliu, An Baili’s mother, died in childbirth, leaving only this pendant for her daughter before she died? He suddenly realized: “You mean, you didn’t want to drag me to suicide that day, but just wanted to… be reborn?”
Memories flashed through his mind, stopping at the last scene of his previous life:
Lack of oxygen and fatigue had numbed his brain. His reaction wasn’t as sharp as usual, and he didn’t notice the lighter in An Baili’s hand immediately. An Baili looked at Lu Li with affection: “I want you to love me again.”
Leave a Reply