Reborn: The Return of the Villainous Mr. Liu

The days after Zhan Yahui's death.

Guiying woke up with a start, gasping heavily for air one morning. A dull headache uncomfortably visited her temples. She poured herself a glass of water, gulping it while taking shallow breaths. She got off the bed and stood near the window, shifting the curtain aside.

The sun was just beginning to rise with the sky gradually becoming brighter and brighter. The fresh scent of the grass outside invaded her nostrils and with the cool wind fluttering her hair backwards, she felt her numbing headache calming down.

"It feels nice, right? Waking up so early once in a while?"

'Guiying' responded after a long time. "This soft and gentle breeze is not for me. I want more action. Like a storm."

Her mouth twitched. "We have weathered so many storms already. Why do you want more?"

A sardonic chuckle rang. "I was born amidst a storm. It has become my favorite thing now."

Guiying's gaze lowered in sorrow.

"You still think of that bastard rotting in jail? Seems like my brainwashing has been fruitless."

"He is still my brother…"

"How many times do I tell you that abusive shit is never anybody's brother, husband, father, lover bla bla. Why are you such an idiot over a blood relation?"

Guiying softly whispered. "I don't know why I still keep feeling bad for Bro. I always want to think that the loss of our parents messed him up so badly that…even I became his enemy. The constant shifting of homes, the bullying, the comparison and pressure…It never hit me as badly as it did to Bro, and it makes me wonder if he stood up in his own way to protect me. But when everything became harder to bear, that inflating balloon burst in the form of violence towards me."

'She' grimaced after a long pause. "You still say that when he repeatedly chose Zhou Ai over you? So much that you began to hate her and become jealous of her."

"Ai…"

Her eyelashes mildly trembled. Her gaze at the distant horizon ahead looked glassy and far away as if she stepped into a trance.

"You know how Ai is?"

"I know your heart even if you don't say it."

Guiying let out a soft smile. "I thought very long and hard about it. After everything that happened between us, after our differences were bridged, I began to think in retrospect."

Lifting her tranquil gaze that looked at the rising sun with its gentle golden rays invading her bedroom, she said, "Ai was like the sun to us. She came into my life and with just her presence alone, I felt as if the dark clouds from my life seemed so tiny and defeatable. With her by my side, I felt confident that none of my problems weren't so difficult to face. It was and still is so easy for her to spread that cheer and positivity. Her smile, her eyes, her kindness, her strength…just makes her that kind of a person. So I wonder if Bro was just like me too."

She clasped her hands together, smiling at the beautiful sight of the sunrise. "Maybe he was also looking for a sun to shed away the nightmares from his life. Just like me, he found that sun in Ai. Amidst that long and tiring stretch of darkness, he might have wanted to cling to that light by any means possible. Everybody…wants to smile, right? Everybody wants to be happy. But you know what happened?"

'Guiying' remained silent.

"That sun began to rise higher and higher in the sky and its light became brighter and brighter until that same light blinds you when you look at it. She became such an indispensable part of Bro and my life that her increasing glittering radiance began to blind us. Neither he could see where he was going with his obsession nor I was able to look at the sun anymore. I was still down on the ground who was only able to see her go farther and farther away in the sky. That sun's light began to hurt my eyes, and I…started wanting to run away from it, loathe it. I blamed it for our blindness."

A peaceful sense of an understanding glinted the light in her eyes. "We were saved by that gentle dawn in her form that broke a slit through our ever so dark and gloomy days. But from that dawn, we burned ourselves with the emergence of that bright morning that was too blazing to look at. We tried to fiercely hold onto the sun, but we cannot do that, right? It would only incinerate us. It was us who failed to understand where to draw the line. And you know what?"

"Hm?"

Guiying lowered her gaze from the sun whose rays were starting to make her blink her eyelids. She simply basked in the glow and the warmth of the sunlight as if she had come to terms to an acceptance. It settled peace in her heart like never before.

"It's perfect that Ai works at Sky now. A sun like her is meant to shimmer in the vast, endless sky. Her light will reach more people through her who look at the same sky from their window. Her stories, her radiance might break through the darkness of many others too just like it did for Bro and me."

'Guiying' let her enjoy the warm breeze that curled her lips into a placid smile. After a few minutes, 'she' asked, "Will you say the same thing for Zhan Yahui too? The one who used you and your brother for your brother for her own gains?"

Unknowingly, tears rimmed in her eyes as Zhan Yahui's death invaded her mind. Her last painful smile squeezed her heart with agony.

"I don't want to hate her. I don't want to hate anybody anymore. Not after so much hateful emotions I had towards Ai. She used me, she hurt Zixin and she plotted against Liu Jun…She has done many unforgivable things, but I don't wish to loathe her for them any longer. I have already lost both my brother and the woman I treated as my sister. They will never be back in my life. But I want to hold onto those memories without any bitterness at the very least. It's strange, right?"

"What is?"

Guiying fully opened the window, letting the sunlight seep into it.

"Darkness blinds you as much as brightness. In a way then, Zhan Yahui and I were the same. We both went astray in our life because we both clung hard onto something which only makes us lose our sight."