Chapter 382: Extra (6)

After Grandma Li’s birthday banquet, the old woman grew visibly weaker by the day. Li Xiu didn’t dare take her back to the Capital City, so he stayed in their hometown. However, everyone else had their own lives to lead—some had work, others had school—and couldn’t all remain in their hometown to keep her company.

Thinking of the care his grandmother had shown him across two lifetimes, Li Xiu decided to stay and be with her. Seeing his pain, Zhou Lian’s heart ached for him. She made a call to the Capital City to request leave from the university. With someone to look after things at the company, she had nothing to worry about. Besides, their two children were old enough to take care of themselves now.

If worst came to worst, her parents, master, and grandmaster were there to look after them. It was Li Xiu she was a little worried about. Zhou Lian knew her husband’s grandmother very well. No matter what little schemes the old woman had, her love for Li Xiu was genuine. In this life and the last, she was the one who doted on Li Xiu the most.

Now that it was clear she didn’t have many days left, it was only right for Li Xiu to want to spend this final period with her. Zhou Lian recalled their previous life. She and Li Xiu had fought to the point of no return, yet her grandmother-in-law had never complained about her. She had just kept muttering that the Li family had wronged her, that Li Xiu had done wrong, and she had pleaded with Zhou Lian not to hate Li Xiu for the sake of their two children.

Zhou Lian didn’t want to dwell on the grievances of the past. In this life, Li Xiu treated her like a precious treasure, and she rarely thought about their previous life anymore. After all, Li Xiu had changed, and so had many other things. Whether it was the first or third branch of the Li family, even the second branch had changed significantly. As for Li Xiu’s brothers... it was better not to mention them.

The days passed, one by one, with Li Xiu and Zhou Lian meticulously caring for Grandma Li. Her body visibly weakened with each passing day. Whether it was traditional Chinese or Western medicine, the diagnosis was the same: the old woman’s age had caught up with her, and her organs were naturally failing. It was something no one could do anything about.

The final conclusion was that Grandma Li had less than half a year left, at most. When Li Xiu found out, he fell into a funk. He knew that birth, aging, sickness, and death were the laws of nature that no one could resist, but he had always thought of his grandmother as hale and hearty, believing she might live for many more years.

After all, their circumstances in this life were much better than in the last, and Grandma Li hadn’t suffered as much. Li Xiu had shouldered many of her burdens. But who could have known? Even though Grandma Li had lived a few years longer than in her previous life, as long as one was human, they had to follow the laws of nature.

When Zhou Lian came out of the bathroom in her pajamas, she saw Li Xiu lying on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. She sighed softly, climbed into bed, and moved to lean against him. It was as if Li Xiu had a built-in radar; the moment she drew near, he reached out and pulled her into his arms, letting her nestle against him in the most comfortable position.

"Are you very sad?"

Hearing Zhou Lian’s question, Li Xiu paused for a moment before replying, "It’s not just sadness. I just feel... a little empty inside. Grandma is old, and I know this day would come sooner or later. Birth, aging, sickness, and death are beyond human control. Besides, Grandma’s life has been much better in this lifetime than in the last."

"And she’s lived several years longer than she did before. I can’t quite put my finger on it. I thought I was mentally prepared, but now that they’ve suddenly told me she has half a year at most, I still feel sad. But more than that, I just feel... lost. Bao’er, I don’t really know what’s wrong with me, I..."

Li Xiu’s words were jumbled and didn’t quite express what he meant, but Zhou Lian still understood him. This was something no one could help him with; he had to find his own way out. This kind of mental loop was something Zhou Lian herself had often experienced in the first six months or so after her rebirth. As for how she eventually came to terms with it... so much time had passed that she’d almost forgotten.

Actually, it wasn’t that Zhou Lian came to terms with it on her own, but rather that she simply had no time to think. When she had just come back, she was like a caged beast, unwilling to repeat her past life but unable to part with her two children. The feeling was simply indescribable.

Later, after she got engaged to Li Xiu again, he pulled one stunt after another. She had no time to dwell on such things. Thinking back now, the period from their engagement to their wedding had been a chaotic flurry. When would she have had time for overthinking? Recalling the past, Zhou Lian couldn’t help but chuckle softly.

Li Xiu gently stroked her long, silky hair, looking down at her as he asked softly, "What is it? Did you think of something happy?"

"Not really. I was just thinking about the time right after I came back. I wasn’t used to anything. I had grown accustomed to a decrepit old body, so my healthy one felt very unfamiliar. I did everything so slowly. My third and fourth sisters even made fun of me for it for a long time. And that was right around the time we were about to get engaged."

Zhou Lian said with a light laugh, "Really, I was so irritable back then. I didn’t want to repeat my past life, and I didn’t want to marry you. But my parents’ decision wasn’t one they would easily change, and I was a mess of contradictions myself. I didn’t want to marry you, but I was still thinking about our son and daughter."

"Honestly, I was like a lunatic during that time. I thought that if I didn’t marry you, I wouldn’t have to repeat my past life. But then I’d worry about the two kids. Deep down, I knew that even if I married you again, the children we’d have wouldn’t necessarily be the same two from our last life. But my heart was just in a complete tangle."

Li Xiu looked at the conflicted expression on Zhou Lian’s face and couldn’t help but smile. She was a woman in her forties, and if you added her previous life, she was over a hundred years old. Yet she was still as simple, pure, and radiant as ever. "That must have been a difficult time for you, wasn’t it?"

"It wasn’t so much difficult as... I just couldn’t get over that mental block. You know? It’s like, you look at a person, and you know what’s going to happen to them, but you can’t say a word about it. It’s a very stifling feeling. But at least my family was doing well, so there wasn’t much to be conflicted about. The main thing was just not being able to get past that block in my own mind."

Zhou Lian thought for a moment and said, "It really was like that back then. Thinking about it now, it seems a bit melodramatic. If I didn’t want to marry you, I just shouldn’t have. My parents dote on me, after all. It’s just that I was still hung up on the two kids. But we both know that even if you get pregnant at the same time, the child born won’t be the same one. Never mind the timing of the pregnancy; just being born and raised with a different upbringing would make the child’s personality and temperament completely different."

"But you just couldn’t get past that block back then?"

Li Xiu’s words made Zhou Lian pause before she replied, "Maybe, maybe not. You know my personality. I’m not the wishy-washy type. Logically, since we had practically no contact for the rest of our last lives, and even though we were both at fault—which is something I only figured out in this life—coming back for a second chance, I should have decisively stayed as far away from you as possible. But I was so conflicted then... Jin Chen, do you think I was... was I..."