Zixin heard her question crystal clear and took a pause to understand her point. He felt like he did but also like he didn't.
Sometimes gentle and sometimes distant…
He slowly walked through his memories from the first time he met at the hospital, at the get-together party, at Shui's banquet and then his subsequent meetings with her.
When Ai put that question before him, it was then he felt as if he could finally point out the indiscrepancies that would bug him from time to time.
The Guiying who he talked to outside the hospital or at the party or at Shui's banquet seemed warm and amiable. But after that, he definitely did feel a change in her attitude and mannerisms. Even last night, he did feel a difference between the woman with whom he had dinner and the woman who later snatched the note from him. The way she talked before and after dinner was indeed something worth pondering over.
Ai went on, emphasizing her point. "For example, Guiying doesn't smoke. But one day at Dream High, I saw her smoking even though she cannot even stand a cigarette's smell. She looked like an expert, but she is actually not."
Zixin slowly widened his eyes. At the get-together party too, he had seen her smoke but then she suddenly started coughing as if she was extremely uncomfortable. Even at her house last night, he saw a few cigarettes burned in the ashtray.
"She also called me Zhou Ai which she never had before. We call each other by first names."
He had heard Guiying calling Ai as Ai but not as Zhou Ai.
Ai lowered her gaze. "When I thought back to all these incidents in general, I seriously felt something was wrong. That's why I met Uncle Jack today."
Zixin gave her a deep, questioning look. "But he is a neurosurgeon."
"Yes. He is knowledgeable about brain and mental conditions."
She gave him a brief summary of how she reached the point of talking to Jack Si. "I discussed this with him and he surmised that sometimes, stress could cause change in habits too. But even if that is so, I cannot really connect simply stress to her change in behavior. That's when he said about split personality disorder."
Zixin froze.
Once again, she summarized her conversation with Jack Si to him. Ai said with a hint of worry and uncertainty stabbing her heart, "This disorder is attributed mainly to any trauma or stress usually faced in childhood which makes the person create another alter ego inside them. But…I realized I don't know anything about Guiying," her eyes reddened. "Is it true that she faced something so severe that made her like this today? I don't know. The only way to confirm this is if we have a proper medical examination of Guiying."
Zixin's eyes were fixed at Ai but at the same time, he wasn't really looking at her.
Past trauma…
That day was still fresh in his mind when he had helped Guiying from Cai Lingyun's rampage. His face was livid with rage and he had completely lost his mind, turning violent towards his own sister. At that time, Guiying was extremely hostile towards Cai Lingyun as well.
Then he also thought of the times they met to chat about her novel.
Now that I think about it…she didn't really seem much interested in talking about ideas and her story when we met.
But when he danced with Guiying at Shui's banquet, there was a certain amount of love for writing and her work that he definitely felt from her gaze.
He trembled.
Ai might be clueless right now about Guiying's past. But seeing Cai Lingyun's rampage with his own eyes that day, he could connect the dots and come to a conclusion that…
Suddenly Ai felt the air turning icy, making her shiver. As she glanced at Zixin, she was taken aback to notice his expression looking extremely dangerous and cold.
"Zixin?"
Upon her call, he forced the threat in his eyes to tone down. "Yes."
"You seemed angry."
"No, it's nothing," he then asked, "What are you going to do?"
"I need to talk to Jun about this, but the only person who could help me is Cai Lingyun. If it's about Guiying's past, then he will definitely know something."
He said nothing and looked outside the window at the passing scenery.
"I see."
—
With a grim expression, Jun heard everything Ai had to say after which he had immediately set out to find Cai Lingyun's current whereabouts. But his brows crinkled slightly and his dark brown squinted as he came across a certain news.
Ai asked, "What is it?"
"Cai Lingyun was in jail sometime ago."
"Jail? For what?" Her lips parted in shock.
"Wait a sec."
He immediately called his friend and cop Yijun's number and asked, "Yijun, why was Cai Lingyun put in jail?"
"Bro Jun. Cai Lingyun…Yes, I remember I heard about him when I came back from my posting in Shanghai. Somebody had given an anonymous call and said that he was being violent and beating up a woman in an apartment. That woman was his sister, Cai Guiying."
Ai froze. Even Jun hadn't really expected to learn this outcome.
"Wait…what? He was beating Cai Guiying? His own sister?"
"Yes. Though her neighbors were hesitant, some of them came forward and said that he was shouting and making a scene like crazy. Then thankfully, somebody dragged him out, and he was put in jail. But not long ago, he was released because Cai Guiying took back her report."
They hung up not long after that, and Ai said in bewilderment, "Cai Lingyun and beating up Guiying? How is this possible, Jun? He is her brother, and I never heard of being violent towards Guiying."
"Never heard…Yes, you will never hear that unless Cai Guiying herself willingly talks to you."
She stiffened.
"S-such a thing happened to her and I knew nothing…"
Jun squished her cheeks and brought her face closer to his. "It's not your fault. This is something very personal to her, and you cannot know unless she chooses to tell you this herself. Our past life circumstances and her involvement in it too made you distant from her. So stop with that negative trail of thoughts. What we should be focusing now is Cai Lingyun."
He smiled with a threatening ring to it. "He needs to give us a lot of answers."
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺