Arc 1 Chapter 2

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Soon, a very beautiful woman in her mid-twenties or maybe less, entered through the door, or more like she barged in. The still standing Li Miao got her hands pull and her whole body turned in a semi tornado. She should certainly be surprised or something along that line but the goofing grin on the other’s face was way too much contagious as was her cheerfulness and soon, Li Miao found herself smiling with this stranger who in this very moment didn’t really feel that much of a stranger. After turning her childishly in a semi-circle, the woman stopped to exclaimed,

“I had the time of my life!”

She had a big smile on her lips, her face flushed red expressing a great sense of happiness and giddiness she made no efforts to contain. Li Miao who was caught quite unprepared didn’t really know how to reply to this person whose name she didn’t even know. Fortunately, the other didn’t even let her the time to talk anyway, as she hugged herself and said in bliss,

“I think I can actually give some credits to all those crappy love stories on the TV, your heart does really pound on the first date sometimes,”

Seeing the other person’s antics, Li Miao said in good humor, the smile still on her lips, “Is that so?”

The sister pulled her hand to have them sit on the cushions’ by the bed’s feet where she proceeded to be long-winded about her date. She was doing the talking all by herself. It still felt very natural though, to sit there and listened. Li Miao couldn’t say she wasn’t genuinely happy for her and even though somewhere in her mind she was still preoccupied with the other’s identity, she diligently paid attention to what was being said and even found herself feeling happy alongside her.

Back at home, Li Miao was a single child. She couldn’t really say that she was lonely all the time but this feeling of having a sister was new to her and quite not bad at all. Being with this person just felt so right as though she belonged there. Said sister was quite cute too, in both her face and gestures and obviously, listening to her one easily understands that until recently she didn’t care much about depth in a relationship.

After listening from where they met earlier to where they dined, not forgetting where they went to buy some separating gifts after; Li Miao still had to hear the man’s identity, so pleasantly she reminded,

“You talked so much yet I still don’t know who he is!”

“You!” the other exclaimed, “didn’t I talk to you about him last night? How can you not remember?” Then as though used to such things, she didn’t argue too much and provided the information which somewhat froze the smile on Li Miao’s face. “Ah Yuan, his name is Ah Yuan, you’ll do well to remember this time!”

Li Miao’s first thought was, was this the same Ah Yuan as in Si Yue’s Ah Yuan?

“He invited me again tomorrow,” she paused and her face just had the right amount of tenderness to plead, “but his free time just happens to coincide with my shooting time…And so, I can’t be at the company tomorrow, please forgive me?”

Li Miao looked at the other’s pleading eyes who was irresponsibly asking something so unprofessional. She couldn’t, though, find it in her to say no to this face. Ah, forget it, if she was really who she thought she was then this small request wasn’t all that difficult.

“Just this once”

“You’re the best!” was her reply hugging her tight, letting Li Miao feel that somehow if she wasn’t careful this person would end up getting all her ridiculous requests accepted as easily as that!

Her heart lighted from this, the woman leaped to her feet saying something about how it was her turn to arrange tomorrow’s itinerary date. She left just as energetically as she came, letting a dazed Li Miao sitting on the cushion still.

Li Miao’s smile faded as she began to organize her thoughts. The records in her mind weren’t detailed but she still knew the overall story and some key people who featured in the love story which settings she entered in. If she really got it right then this beautiful woman who just went out should be Chao Mei. The clingy ex-girlfriend who will become desperate and not in the right way. When Ah Yuan and Si Yue’s engagement would be known, in a fit of anger, Chao Mei would try to run over Si Yue with her car. That ended quite in a gruesome way as Ah Yuan's bodyguards' guns shot her tires and the vehicle knocked on a tree and later exploded, killing her on the spot.

Now, if Li Miao’s body was really this person’s elder sister, then she should be President Chao Fen, the older sister who spoiled her sole ‘worthy’ living relative rotten. Hearing her sister’s death she sent people to murder the couple, Si Yue and the wretched Ah Yuan who left her cute baby sister. In the end, these people failed and Chao Fen ended in jail where a couple of weeks later, she killed herself, suffocating to death by papers she ate.

Thinking until there, Li Miao felt an oncoming headache. She really couldn’t understand it at all, if she was to look up to that couple love’s story why was she now someone who would become their enemy? Or was it that there was no one to know you better than your enemy kind of logic was applied here? 

Aah, such a cute sister, must she really let her go down the path of evil?

Cute could certainly be applied to Chao Mei. She had a lovely baby face and talking with her, Li Miao forgot, for a brief instance all about ‘Longevity’ as she listened to the other poured her heart out. A simple date in her mouth turned into something more fabulous and Li Miao was swept by her contagious enthusiasm. But thinking that it was the same harmless looking person who would later try to commit murder... ah, jealousy was really terrible!

Before deciding on what to do, Li Miao felt that she needed to know a bit more and since she now had a starting point and a hunch about her identity, she might as well check if it was right. So, she got up from the pouf and went back to the chair she woke up to, turning the computer on.

Li Miao was someone from the twenty-first century of earth, yes, but the latter part of that while in this timeframe it was still the early century of Ming; so the machine in front of her wasn’t really like the one she was used to and she was a bit clumsy with it at the beginning. Nonetheless, she got the guess of how it worked quite fast, as it was comparable to her childhood’s toys and models similar to these were available on how to assemble and disassemble your favorite toys kind of magazines that her parents liked to buy for her. 

When she sat, it was still early in the evening, just eight p.m given the machine's clock but by the time she ended, dawn couldn't be far away. For the best part of the night, she browsed the Internet.

Curiosity won and she first started by researching the couple instead of herself. However, just Ah Yuan was readily available. The youngest son of his family, twenty-nine this year; he co-founded enterprises Rin with his brother. Well, his face wasn’t ugly to look at; one had to give him that. 

Si Yue for her part wasn’t known to the world for the moment and Li Miao had to search for a long time to actually find a blog the woman was writing in her teen days that she didn’t update for years now and her social media where she had shared some photos, a couple of them with her twin. They weren’t all that much different and Li Miao had honestly no idea who was who… But was one of them dead already? After all, it was the year following that strange death that Si Yue would come to this country in her sister's memory. But before that event…

Li Miao went to Ah Yuan’s page again and clicked on his brother’s name. The man and his wife were still alive it seemed. So nothing had started yet for, after all, it was following these two people’s jet’s crash that their infant would go to uncle Ah Yuan whose enemy would kidnap the child. That fact ultimately led the two fated lovers to meet.

She sighed not sure if she should feel grateful or not that the story had yet to pick up.

Putting her chin on her palm, slightly grazing her shirt's long sleeve, she researched the name Chao Fen. The results were without surprise. Li Miao may still need to check with a mirror but the person on the pics that appeared resembled her reflection on the computer’s previously black screen. Needing to know the in and out of the one she was supposed to be, she clicked on the biography before checking some articles and videos. She read diligently and watched with  acute attention.

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