Imperfect Desires

When Xiu's eyes opened in the middle of the night, she found herself in that exact same position as she had been in before closing her eyes. Her legs were tangled with Darren's, her head on his shoulder while her hand was right above his heart. 

Xiu smiled at him seeing how even now his arm was around her back. With her finger, she brushed his hair away from his forehead and stared at his face for a long time. 

Finally, she slowly and carefully peeled herself away from his grasp and left the room. Coming to the living room, she looked around for her handbag. As she found it under the table, she opened the zip and took that 'mystery box' out.

On the coffee table, she placed Destiny's mystery box on the right side and the book she got from Xin Zimen's library on the left side. And now sitting on the sofa, she just stared at these two items with great interest. Her expressions didn't give away the tremble in her heart. 

The voice in her head told her that once she opened this pandora box, there was no turning back. And she honestly didn't know whether she was ready to face whatever secrets this box was holding in. While she was lost in her trance, she felt warmth on her shoulder and tilted her head to see Darren rubbing his eye while his other arm was wounded around her shoulder.

"Why did you wake up?" he asked groggily and yawned with his eyes half-closed. 

"You should go back to sleep," said Xiu softly.

Darren blinked his eyes to keep the drowsiness at bay. As he looked at that box on the table. he inquired, "Did you solve the riddle?"

Xiu pursed her lips and nodded her head. "I think I know the answer."

"Then why aren't you opening this?" Wasn't she eager to know the mystery behind this mystery box? Then why was she hesitating now? "What's wrong?"

Xiu leaned her head on his shoulder. "I don't know. I feel like my life won't be the same if I opened this thing."

"Life isn't gonna stay the same anyway," replied Darren while stroking her head like he always did to comfort her. Then he took her hand in his own and placed their intertwined hands on his thigh saying, "It's okay to have some change in life. Change is necessary to grow up and grow stronger. Do you really wanna live in darkness for life?" She shook her head in response. "Then you'll have to open this box."

Xiu pressed her lips together and nodded. She leaned over and took the box in her hand. Clicking the button that made the keypad appear, she looked at Darren again who smiled at her reassuringly. Sighing out, she pressed the code which she somehow knew was the answer to all this mystery, '0114'.

*CLICK!*

Xiu's heart almost stopped beating when the box opened with a click sound. See? She just knew this was the answer she had been looking for. It's just that she found this answer at a very unexpected place. And at the most unexpected time as well.

Darren stared at her as she didn't move. Her body was rigid now as she stared at the box. Her hand barely lifted to lift the lid of the box. 

Staring at the content inside the box, her mind went blank. 

Letters...

Yes, the box had a dozen or so letters in it. And the most bizarre part, each letter was addressed to only one person, Chen Xiu.

As Xiu held the letters in her hand and skimmed through to find even a single letter that wasn't addressed to her, she was disappointed to see that all these were indeed for her. Destiny had written all these letters to her but she never posted these. But if she wasn't gonna post these why did she write the letters?

"Are these fan letters?" inquired Darren as he also stared curiously. "I remember Dylan used to write fan letters to you. But he also never posted it."

"Why?" she asked with perplexion.

"I don't know honestly, he never answered me," replied Darren honestly. "You should ask him yourself."

Xiu looked down at the letters and hesitated.

"Don't you want to read what she had to say?"

Xiu shook her head immediately without even thinking. "It's a letter from the previous owner of this body. She used these hands to write these letters. But now, I'm the one in this body. It feels so strange. How can I read it without feeling guilty?"

"But why are you guilty? It's not like you stole this body. It's all about heaven's choices. If heaven chose this body for your soul, it must have something planned. You can't doubt heaven's big and complex plans." Darren patted her head. "Just read it. If nothing, it'll give the real owner of this body a closure."

 Saying that Darren didn't sit with her. He gave her the time and privacy to deal with this. He couldn't do anything for her in this matter. This was something she had to face herself. He could only urge her to try.

All the letters had a date on them probably the date the particular letter was written on. Xiu didn't choose a random letter. She took the one which had a date from about 9 years ago. She calculated and realized that Destiny must have been about 15 or so when she wrote this letter to her. That's such a long time ago, did Destiny knew her for that long?

Really? 

Well, all of her questions had only one answer...

These letters in her hands.

If she needed answers, she needed to read these letters. Perhaps, this was her only way of knowing what obsession Destiny had with her. What was the connection between Chen Xiu and Destiny Novell? Only these letters could tell her. 

She only took that one letter while she placed the others back in the box. She slowly opened the special letter paper and read...

'Dear Goddess Xiu,'