Rebirth: Once Again With You

Li Junjie's tongue stiffened. No matter how much he had witnessed the same scene, he couldn't seem to get used to it.

Li Chunhua's hand was so light and small. Compared to his wide one, hers seemed like it could perish anytime.

"No, Xiaoyi isn't here." Li Junjie answered grimly. He barely said a few words, but his throat felt blocked by a huge rock. It was so hard to let out those words.

Li Chunhua's bright eyes dimmed, and only a gloominess remained. She smiled weakly before saying, "Then, perhaps tomorrow."

"No, she won't be coming tomorrow too."

"Then, perhaps the day after tomorrow?"

"...No."

"Then, perhaps the day after that?"

Li Junjie took a deep breath before saying stiffly, "Xiaoyi is dead. She will not return any more. Xiaohua, stop asking the same question."

Li Chunhua said nothing and only stared at her brother with an expressionless face before slipping her hand out of his grip. "I see."

The same question, the same answer, and the same response every day.

Li Chunhua would repeat the same question like a parrot. Despite Li Junjie telling her that Li Caiyi would never come back anymore, she would nod her head but still ask the same question on the morrow.

As if her memory was restarted after she woke up. Like she desperately convinced herself that everything was just a nightmare.

Their mother couldn't bear to see her like that, so Li Junjie told her to stop coming for a while. An unstable person like Li Chunhua didn't need another unstable person to care for her.

Frankly speaking, the Li family fell apart after Li Caiyi's death.

'No, there is another person who is on the verge of breaking,' Li Junjie thought inwardly as his best friend's face appeared in his mind.

Li Chunhua sat silently while looking outside the window again. Usually, this was supposed to signify that she would speak no more.

Li Junjie prepared to leave after checking on her, but today was different from any normal day.

Because before he could walk away, Li Chunhua spoke without turning her head to him. "Xiaoyi is not dead. I can feel her nearby. Always."

Li Junjie was surprised. For the first time after that heart-wrenching day, Li Chunhua argued with someone else about something. This should be a good progression if only she talked about something more reasonable.

Li Caiyi is dead. He saw her corpse and confirmed her DNA himself. Only God knew how devastated he was then. He desperately wished the result would be negative, and that everything was just a false alarm.

Li Junjie hoped that he was wrong for once.

Alas, he was forced to wake up from his daydreaming with a ruthless reality slap.

However, when he stared at Li Chunhua's figure, whose hair swayed slightly by the breeze, he found himself lost for words. He knew no words of encouragement, nor did he understand what she was thinking right then, but he strangely didn't want to refute her.

In the end, he said nothing and walked out of the room. After the door was closed, tears trickled down Li Chunhua's eyes uncontrollably.

There was no sob or wail. Only silence accompanied her as she waited for her sister to visit her again.

***

Meng Renshu's body was in tatters. He was painfully aware of his body's condition, but that pain was nothing compared to the pain in his heart.

Everything he saw or listened to reminded him of her. Everything he tasted and smelled made him long for her.

She hovered around him, yet he couldn't see or touch her. That feeling was enough to drive him crazy.

Meng Renshu glanced at the clock on the wall of his office. It was already 2.15 AM, yet he remained seated in his chair. He had long since lost the sense of time and only realized how much time had passed when he reached out but found no documents left to be examined.

Meng Renshu leaned his back against the backrest as the buzzing in his head returned. When he was in work mode, those buzzing sounds got muffled. But now, there was nothing left to do; it assaulted him again.

There was no reason for him to remain there any longer, so he took his bag and walked out of the office. His assistant, who seemed haggard, quickly stood up when he exited the room.

"President, are you going to leave now?"

Meng Renshu briefly nodded before he walked past him. His head was throbbing, and he didn't want to waste his time talking leisurely. He wanted to go home and rest.

As soon as he arrived at his house, the coldness hit him. This house used to be a place where he could find respite, no matter how busy his life was. No matter how late he was to go home, his wife would always be there to greet him and prepare a warm meal for him.

Now, there was no one to greet him. The place was empty, especially when he had fired every servant. There was an eerie silence and weird mood surrounding the area, especially after the tragic death of the Madam of the house.

The house was dark, but he made no move to turn on the light and walked straight to a room.

Not his room, but his wife's room.

Meng Renshu threw his bag and let it fall on the floor as he tossed himself onto the bed. After the owner left the world three months ago, not even her trace of warmth or smell remained in this bed.

Nevertheless, Meng Renshu would still return to this place every night. He would imagine his wife sleeping face beside him before he fell asleep and her smiling face when he opened his eyes in the morning.

People would call him crazy if he told anyone about this, but only by doing this, he could sleep at night.

Meng Renshu was about to drift to dreamland when he heard his stomach rumbling. He only ate a little during breakfast and skipped his lunch and dinner, so it was no wonder if his body rebelled against his wish now.

Suppressing the irk inside him, he went to the kitchen to find something to eat. There was some frozen food and ready-made food packed into containers stuffed in the fridge. He bet his mother did this sneakily again. Even though he had told her repeatedly that she didn't need to care for him.

Meng Renshu didn't touch the food Qin Xiangjun prepared and cooked instant cup noodles instead. This one was something he bought from the supermarket.

He had seen his wife occasionally eat it in the middle of the night, so he was curious. Unexpectedly, it tasted better than he expected.

After he finished eating, he was about to throw the cup into the trash bin when he recalled that his wife always cleaned the cup before throwing it. He once asked her why she did that; she grimaced and told him that the trash bin would attract fleas and insects if she didn't do that.

Unbeknownst to her, what Meng Renshu meant at that time was why did she have to do that when she could ask the servant to do her every whim? However, because he really couldn't care less, he didn't correct her and brushed the topic off quickly.

He regretted it. So much it tore his heart apart.