Reborn: The Return of the Villainous Mr. Liu

It all started when Ai had returned from Dream High. The day when she had experienced seeing the golden clock and later on met Guiying. The sight of her smoking a cigarette was engraved in her mind so deeply that she couldn’t shake it off.

Something was wrong.

Guiying would never smoke. She would never call her full name. So, Ai couldn’t dismiss it as simple coincidences. Somewhere or the other, she got reminded of the fortune telling mystical woman and her cards.

Guiying and the presence of a shadow.

She and Jun could really never understand the meaning of that card. What did a shadow mean?

‘There is something else inside her.’

What did the elderly woman mean by that?

But after that day, Ai felt like she could connect the dots. Or at least she felt like she might be coming to understand something more about that mysterious card and the shadow.

But what to search? Where to begin?

Ai had no idea. To get things started, Jun asked Chyou for a background checkup of Guiying, which they had already done before. But they repeated it just to confirm it once again if they had missed something.

They hadn’t. Guiying had no parents. She lived with Cai Lingyun, and he raised her ever since they were young. Life was a struggle because of their financial problems, but the brother-sister pair had prevailed somehow. Still, there was nothing that could point out Guiying’s changed behavior.

One day as Ai worked in the library, Mrs. Quan had asked her, noticing her lost gaze. “You seem to be in deep thought, my dear.”

“I don’t know how to find an answer I am looking for,” she sighed.

“Hit Baidu then.”

“Huh?”

She laughed. “Ah, don’t mind me dear. These young kids nowadays. I often hear them saying to search on Baidu if they are stuck with a question. Baidu knows the answer to everything.”

Ai laughed with Mrs. Quan but later on, she thought that it wasn’t a bad idea. The search engine wouldn’t return anything new about Guiying that they already didn’t know after the thorough background check.

But if I could explain how I feel…

So she hit the keyboard.

‘My friend is acting differently. She is doing things that she never did before like smoking cigarettes.’

She felt a little embarrassed by the question she had typed.

This is silly…

The search results gave her a myriad of results of friendship and tips like what to do when your friend has changed or how to deal with a biased friend and general advice on handling friendships. But she didn’t find any connection with these answers and the mysterious card with the shadow.

There is something else I am missing…

Which she finally found a hint of in a certain forum link after much searching and combing through various sites.

Somebody went a bit further than friendship advice and tried to explain this situation medically. They mentioned split personality disorder. Curious, Ai read through that forum and learned that split personality or dissociative identity disorder was a condition when a person had a presence of two or more distinct personalities within them. Their thoughts, actions, and behaviors of each personality may be completely different.

Ai widened her eyes and felt the eureka moment hitting her. Guiying who didn’t smoke and the Guiying who did indeed felt like two completely different people.

“No, no. That’s impossible. Guiying and split personality disorder? It cannot be…Guiying is healthy and perfectly fine.”

But that was limited to her physical state.

Can I really know what goes on in her mind? Can I really be sure of her mental condition?

Considering her last confrontation with Guiying in her past life, Ai knew she couldn’t be so sure anymore.

We could know if a person was physically fit by just having a look at them. But was this possible on a mental level? There was nobody in this world who could read minds or see others’ true thoughts. So it was impossible to tell if a person was really suffering from depression or other conditions, especially when people tend to hide them and act normal on the outside.

Ai tapped her finger on the desk, contemplating on what to do.

‘There is something else inside her.’

She felt that the split personality theory was fitting more and more with the card and the shadow. If it was true that she still had her doubts, the shadow would mean Guiying’s other personality hiding within her.

Ai found this believable and completely unbelievable at the same time.

That same evening, Ai asked Jun, “If I want to know more about something related to brain and mental condition, who can I talk to?”

Jun gave her a suspicious look. He thought about all her weirdness and eccentric behavior which was frustrating at times and made his fuse short-circuit but which was also lovable.

He kissed the back of her hand. “I love you the way you are.”

“…”

Ai smacked Jun’s head with a roll of newspaper.

He chuckled and said, “Well if you want to know more in medical terms, then you can ask Uncle Liang or Uncle Jack Si.”

“Jack Si?”

“You know Aunt Caihong, right? He is her sister Si Shuang’s husband, Jack Si. He is a very capable neurosurgeon and knows a lot about the human brain. He is knowledgeable about mental illnesses too, and he knows many great doctors in that field. I heard he had treated Uncle Xiaosi when he had lost his memories and is currently helping Bro Zixin too. If he cannot help with your questions, then he can hit up an expert in that field for you.”

Ai beamed. “Can I talk to him?”

“Sure. I will text him.”

Coming to the present, it was Jack Si’s response to Ai’s question of a possible split personality disorder. But it needed the patient’s full medical checkup and behavioral analysis to confirm.

Which was when Ai realized why this never came in Guiying’s background check. There were no official medical records related to Guiying that highlighted any serious medical condition.

She narrowed her eyes, thinking of a way to confirm her theory.

Cai Lingyun.