Reborn: The Return of the Villainous Mr. Liu

“Deserved?” Jin scoffed. “Yes, you deserved to be punished! Because for Shui’s sake, you threw each and every last one of us. You let Great-grandma die with regrets-“

“Jin, I told you I never came to know about her wish at all!” He shook his shoulder and pleaded. “Believe me, Jin. She is my great-grandma…” his eyes stung with tears, “How could I have not fulfilled her last wish? I really didn’t know she wanted to meet me.”

He chuckled as he leaned. “Why should I believe you, Bro? Did you believe me when I was screaming that I was innocent?”

His eyelashes trembled.

“Look at you all begging me to trust you. Why…why should I trust you now when you didn’t believe me in the past!? Where were you when I cried for you to trust me? Where were you when Grandma was dying? Where were you when Bro Jian and Sis Nuo’s relationship was falling apart!? You know what, Bro? Even when you had thrown us away, everybody still cared about you.”

He took a deep, tired breath. “Sis Nuo. You had harshly rejected her concern when she came to meet you. But you know? She still fought with Shui for your sake even though she always treated her as her sister. She was angry at her that she rejected you when you had devoted thirty years of your life to her, which eventually brought cracks into her relationship with Bro Siying.

Bro Jian, who always took her side over you to tease and annoy you, also…stood by your side in those five years when you were not there. He was torn apart to see his brother in pain. He still respected Shui, but he had stopped talking to her after her rejection. He cut off his relations with Shui which strained his relationship with sis Leina.”

From the last to this life, a whole lifetime had passed, but Jin felt as if the pain and tears of the wounds everybody got were still there, fresh and bleeding.

“Bro Siying and Sis Leina…They wanted to support you too. But when you refused to let go of Shui, they inevitably stood against you. See? Everybody got divided in the end. Did you ever get to see how miserable Bro Jian became when he broke up with Sis Leina? Did you ever witness how thin Sis Nuo had become when she simply refused to eat anything? Grandpa and Uncle lost their vigor. The ones who brought smiles on others’ faces with their annoying chatter had lost their own smiles. Nothing was the same anymore.”

Jun gasped, feeling the knot around his neck tighten. When he crashed Jin a d Shui’s wedding in the past life, he came to know how miserable his family had become. But listening to it in detail from Jin was like he was being dragged to hell.

“Jun…” Tears spilled from Ai’s eyes as she slowly held his hand.

Jin mocked. “Don’t show your sympathies to Bro, Zhou Ai. I cannot believe that you still refuse to hate him after how he cruelly discarded his family.”

Ai pressed her fingers and tightly intertwined them against Jun’s hand. “I already know the truth, Jin. Jun had confessed everything to me, and I know how much he regrets-“

“Who cares how much he regrets!?” He roared.

Jun froze with the sharpness of his voice cutting his heart.

“Is it going to change anything?” Jin gritted his teeth. “Can he undo all the pain he caused? Can he undo the fact how Mom’s health deteriorated seeing her whole family collapse? Bro Jun left the house and hated us, Bro Jian and Sis Nuo’s relationship had fallen apart, Great-grandma left us – the family had become like a funeral house! Nobody laughed anymore. Nobody even properly ate anymore. It was as if our entire happiness had disappeared without a trace and because of whom? Your boyfriend who is standing right next to you!”

Jun shut his eyes, letting the tear escape his eyelash.

Jin wiped his cheeks rigorously that were stained with tears, but more tears fell. “He wasn’t there. He didn’t see how everybody had become an empty shell. But I was there! I saw everything. I lived through the suffocation that you left by your decision! Dad…he just stayed by Mom’s side the entire time, praying hard that she would recover. The fearsome man had become so weak. But her health only sank more and more…” he broke down.

The stretch of silence prevailed for a long time.

Jun blankly raised his hand to touch Jin’s head but in the end, he couldn’t gather the courage. His fingers paused mid-air, feeling the void widen in his heart.

He had misunderstood Jin and his feelings and because of that one mistake coupled with his obsession for Shui, he had destroyed the happiness of his family with his own hands.

Jin never loved Shui. He never betrayed him by snatching Shui from him. Which meant…that something was wrong about Jin and Shui’s marriage too.

“Then…your and Shui’s wedding…”

The fateful day which made Jun kill his own brother. From the bottom of his heart, he didn’t wish to know the truth behind it because then he had no idea how he would ever be able to recover from that guilt.

The mention of the wedding flickered Jin’s eyes with a sinister bloodthirst. His body shook with anger.

“Wedding…oh that wedding which Shui forced upon me?”

Jun stared at him, bewildered. “What…?”

“The wedding which Shui forced upon me by threatening to end her life.”

Jun and Ai listened to this revelation in disbelief.

“What did you think, Bro? That Shui and I were getting happily married? No. The truth was far from it. I didn’t even want to see her face anymore and I would marry her by my own choice? No. That’s not how it happened. She came to me one day and said she wanted us to get married.”

He laughed. “Can you believe it? She wanted to marry me. I thought she had lost some screws on her head. Because why would she talk nonsense otherwise? But then it wasn’t suddenly nonsense anymore when she threatened to cut her wrist with a knife.”