Reborn: The Return of the Villainous Mr. Liu

Jin tried to look away but somehow, his gaze was fixed at the woman in white. He felt an oddly familiar feeling, and his hand reached out to touch the card. His fingers hovered over the figure.

'Jin!'

He heard a melodious laughter ring in his ears who called out his name. It belonged to the woman whom he had given his heart to years back. He envisioned Shui looking at him with her lips curved into a beautiful smile.

"She is your path," the elderly woman spoke in a quiet voice. "If you want to know your answers, you must bridge that cliff between you and her."

"...I don't know who she is," he held his breath.

She smiled. "I think you do. The answers you seek lie in her. If you stretch your hand towards her, you might be able to see what you cannot right now. The present between you and the woman in white is strenuous. The cliff appeared because you held your ground for too long. The distance just kept on widening."

He stiffened. He averted his gaze and remembered the past where he had looked up his feelings for Shui.

This grandma is really strange. How does she seem to know so much about my life?

"But..." her eyes kindly looked at him, "if you take the first step this time and try to heal this crack between you two, then you wouldn't be far from the truth."

He trembled and remained quiet for a long time.

My answers...

The woman urged Jin to pick the third card. He did so which turned out to be a man standing at a crossroads. There were two paths in front of him, and he stood at the center. One path opened to the light while the other ended into a dark tunnel.

"This is the future you hold. You will need to make a choice. That choice will define your path and your life."

"But one path ends in the dark. Why would I choose that way?"

Her beautiful eyes held a tinge of sadness in them. "Because one's heart is complicated. You might choose to head into that tunnel despite knowing what your fate has in store for you. You will embrace grief despite knowing that it will hurt you a lot."

He pressed his lips hard. His phone buzzed with a call with Jinhai's number flashing on it.

"Excuse me."

He quickly went over to the other side and received it. "Jin. Where are you?"

"I...am in the church."

That made Jinhai's tone change. "Why?"

Jin could feel the faint sense of worry from his tone. It was definitely due to how Jin had gotten so sick after his last visit to the church.

"Don't worry, Dad. I am fine. I just thought..."

"That you will find your answers?"

He said nothing.

"That's fine, but you cannot be reckless," he sternly scolded him. "I cannot let what happened to you in the past because of..." he left it unsaid. "You should have taken Jun with you too."

"I am really fine, Dad."

"Come back to the office and then we'll talk about it."

"En. I am almost done here."

They hung up and as he turned, he couldn't see the elderly woman anywhere. His eyes widened and he hastily walked towards their seat, but it was empty.

"Huh? Where is she?" He muttered to himself.

He stared at the cat he held in his arms and was even more dumbfounded. "Why did she leave you?"

Jin searched around the church, but there was no sign of the fortune-telling elderly woman. "What am I supposed to do with you?"

He looked at the cat for an answer, but she simply meowed.

"..."

The cat didn't seem to be particularly disturbed. She only made herself more comfortable.

"No, really? What am I supposed to do with you?"

--

So, Jin brought the cat back with him to the Liu Corps because he really didn't know what else to do with her. Which sent a shockwave among the employees as they saw him entering.

"A...cat?"

"Sir Liu Jin brought a cat?"

For one employee, even his coffee mug slipped from his hands as he witnessed this strange phenomenon.

When did our Bosses ever bring a cat to the office!?

Jin ignored everybody's scrutiny and hushed whispers that were urgently spreading around like wildfire. He seemed calm on the outside, but his expression had been flushing inwardly the whole time.

This is so embarrassing! He shut his eyes in defeat.

He adjusted the collar of his shirt, feeling hot. Even after that vision of him burning in fire was long gone, he still felt as if the heat on his skin remained.

"I cannot believe she cruelly abandoned you...She looked so kind," he dryly said to the cat, lowering his head. "Turned out that she was heartless! Hah. She was definitely a scammer," he muttered. "I am sure I shouldn't take her 'fortune' seriously anymore-"

The cat suddenly jumped out from his arms and ran away from him.

"What? Hey, wait! Where are you going?"

Jin rushed behind the cat to catch her. "Hey, stop. You will hurt yourself."

Chasing after the cat, he didn't realize when he arrived at the balcony of the corridor. He abruptly froze in his steps, his eyes widening upon seeing a certain woman in white.

The woman in white was none other than Shui who wore a white knee-length dress gently fluttering in the wind's direction at her knees. She was bent on them, surprised to see a cat running towards her. As she scooped the cat in her arms and stood back, she stiffened seeing Jin in front of her.

Jin stared at her hard, his heart pounding loudly in his chest. Not just because it was Shui but also because she looked really similar to the woman in his fortune card. The card of his present seemed to imitate what was happening now.

Jin and Shui were facing each other, though there wasn't any real cliff between them. He clenched his fist, unable to speak.

It was his first time properly seeing Shui ever since he woke up from his coma, which made his heart thump faster, knowing how he had acknowledged his feelings for her.