Rebirth: Once Again With You

In the end, Lin Xiang brought her back to the staff room and let her change back to her previous clothes. After she was done changing, Lin Xiang took out her necklace from his pocket and gave it to her.

"I have to apologize to you. Something happened in the way, and I dropped your necklace to the ground. So it's a bit dirty now. I hope you don't mind."

Li Caiyi inspected her necklace closely, and although there was some dirt on it, nothing seemed to be broken.

"It's okay, Uncle Lin. I should be the one to say sorry to you. I was walking alone and didn't realize I had entered the forbidden ground. If it weren't for your help, Zhiqiang probably would have found me out."

"That was a dangerous one for sure. Out of all the people, why do you have to encounter that one? Your luck is terrible, young lady." Lin Xiang put his palm on his forehead with a tired expression.

Li Caiyi bit her lips. If she told him she had met the Young Master of this place, she wondered if he would pass out on the spot. After some thought, she decided she shouldn't tell anyone about that.

"Where have you been? I looked away from you for a minute, and you weren't there anymore."

To be fair, Lin Xiang was the one who got so busy with his own matters that he didn't notice her leaving. She called him out a few times in vain.

Nevertheless, Li Caiyi felt it wasn't right to complain about that, so she just told him about how a cleaning lady dragged her into helping in the kitchen. She got lost and ended up in the main building somehow.

"That was quite an adventure. Although it would be better if you didn't meet Zhiqiang, I guess it could have turned worse."

"But Uncle Lin, do you think Zhiqiang sees through my disguise?" Li Caiyi asked while fiddling with her fingers.

"He is suspecting you for sure. But it was more like he suspected you as a potential threat, not because of you in person. He knew something was off with you, but I don't think he saw through your disguise. His reaction was too flat for that."

"I hope so too." Li Caiyi sighed before wearing her necklace again. It was dirty, but she felt empty without it.

"Let's just call this a blessing in disguise. I bet you have gathered a lot of information up until now, haven't you?"

"Well, rather than answers, I have a lot more questions now." Li Caiyi scratched her cheeks awkwardly.

"Uncle Lin, I know now that this place treated Dai Zhiqiang properly after what I saw today. No one seemed to force him to do something he didn't want. And I think I understand why the big boss treated him very well. Even went as far as to pay for his father's medical costs and his family debt."

Lin Xiang nodded. "Zhiqiang has a lot of burdens to carry at a young age. He knew he could never get so much money even if he stopped going to school and working full-time. I won't say his current job is easy, but this is the best he can do in his situation."

Li Caiyi: "...."

When he put it like that, there was no way Li Caiyi could reason with that. She knew how important a family was to Dai Zhiqiang. Telling him to give up on this job was basically the same as killing him slowly.

Li Caiyi felt powerless. She wished she had talked and got to know Shen Qiang better before ending her life. That way, at least, she would know what happened to him, so she could pick the best course of action to take right now.

But the things she knew about him were minuscule, and some of her memories were also missing.

Lin Xiang noticed her gloomy look and patted her on the shoulder.

"I don't know if it can serve as a consolation, but I will make sure nothing would happen to that kid when I'm around. The big boss thought highly of him, so I doubted he would mistreat him, and you have seen how he fought against the men of this place. Did he look like a person who is easy to bully and push around?"

"No. Zhiqiang is the strongest and smartest man I have ever met."

"Yeah, so don't worry too much. Though, you shouldn't completely hold back on your feelings either. You can scold him or ask him to spoil you a lot when he is free. He'll like that very much."

Trying to walk toward the unknown future was scary, but walking while knowing one possibility of the future felt scarier. Every change that happened after she returned back in time, she wondered how much of it had affected Dai Zhiqiang's life.

Everything was uncertain, yet when she heard Lin Xiang's words of encouragement, she felt lighter. Deep inside her, she had accepted this person as someone she could trust. Knowing someone like that would be there beside Dai Zhiqiang gave her a sense of comfort.

"En. Thank you, Uncle Lin. I feel much better now."

"You are a good girl. I wish the best for you two. Then, shall I take you home now?"

Li Caiyi nodded firmly. Her steps felt much lighter than when she first entered this place.

There were still a lot of unanswered questions, but she would observe the situation for now. And hopefully, she could become stronger and more capable of helping Dai Zhiqiang when push comes to shove.

Li Caiyi wouldn't stand still and let the same tragedy befell him again.

***

"Hmm, don't you think the character setting for the protagonist is too bland? I could barely feel any emotion from her at all."

"Yeah, but considering what happened to her in the past, it would only make sense that she had lost some aspect which made her 'normal'."

"Even so, this is just too much. How do you expect the readers to sympathize with her when you barely hinted at her emotion? And the description of her past lacks some depth. It feels like you are just throwing whatever tragic story you can come up there.

Also, you must be careful about where you put punctuation and how you split the paragraph. Don't just do it randomly; it will disrupt your flow."

Li Caiyi pursed her lips while listening closely to Shao Jingfei's critics about the rough draft of her new novel.

It barely had three chapters, but the list she had to fix was already so long. She could only sit silently while Shao Jingfei laid down everything to her bluntly.