Various questions swirled in Finn’s mind, like fragile soap bubbles rising to his brain, memories and images crowding in, filling his mind in an instant.
Why did Hamish suddenly take an interest in a substitute?
Why were she and Louis so intimate?
Why was she holding the same cat Elisa used to hold in the past?
How could a person change so drastically in such a short time, as if becoming a different person?
Why did she claim that the old “Aoife” was dead and now she was Elisa?
Various questions slowly unraveled, leaving only one explanation. This “Elisa” is the Elisa who died in a fire three years ago. This absurd idea sent shivers down Finn’s spine, a chilling sensation despite the breeze.
Apart from “reincarnation,” Finn could not find any other explanation. Moreover, Elisa had made it clear from the start that she was no longer Aoife.
Finn couldn’t describe how he felt at that moment; a mixture of emptiness and swelling. All he had ever wanted was the Elisa who died in the fire, not the timid, fragile Aoife. Elisa lived with confidence, arrogance, and pride. Only such a person could ignite his desire to conquer.
Elisa and Aoife, their images collided and merged in his mind. For the first time, he felt lost and confused, not knowing what he truly wanted. It felt as if a cat had clawed its way into his chest, scratching at his heart.
Covering his vigorously pounding left chest, Finn leaned back, perplexed. Elisa had returned, but where did Aoife go? Would she never return? Would there be no one to cook and wash for him? No one to massage his headache or tell him jokes when he was upset? Would there be no one whose eyes were filled only with him?
As he covered his left chest, his hand instinctively reached up to his cheek, feeling warmth in his palm.
Finn tilted his head back, resting it against the back of the chair. Even he didn’t understand why he was crying. The sudden surge of sorrow almost shattered the walls he had always put up.
The sudden silence in the surroundings led to overthinking. It felt as if everything became clear when the space was too quiet.
He had always treated “Aoife” as a pawn, but in the end, he became the one being played. He was the one who threw her away, yet he couldn’t forget her for more than three hundred days.
In truth, he never wanted Aoife to leave him. Perhaps he was initially interested in Elisa, grooming Aoife to resemble her to satisfy his own curiosity and to provoke Hamish.
To Finn, Aoife was nothing more than a tool. When he gave Aoife to Hamish, it wasn’t because he was tired of her. On the contrary, he became increasingly attached to this substitute. He feared that he had become most deeply entangled with her.
Growing up by Old Burns’ side, he often heard one phrase from the old man: “Emotions will become your weakness. Only by being heartless can one become strong. Women will only become stumbling blocks in your life.”
Although he looked down on Old Burns, he had to admit that there was some truth in his words. Didn’t Elisa become a stumbling block for Hamish in the end?
He had witnessed Hamish’s agonizing state, seemingly radiant but internally shattered over the past three years. Finn had secretly vowed never to follow in Hamish’s footsteps and become like him.
So, when he realized his feelings for Aoife, he unhesitatingly gave up this “habit,” abandoning it like worn-out shoes. It took him a long time to slowly forget that peculiar feeling.
However, upon seeing Aoife’s face, all his efforts went in vain.
He couldn’t bear to see Hamish getting close to her, or anyone else holding her hand. He decided to keep her by his side, not as a substitute, just like in the past.
Suddenly, fate played a huge joke on him, telling him that the person he had once abandoned like worn-out shoes had undergone a change, and she would not return.
Finn prided himself on his good memory. When he was young, he could remember who had lent him a dollar. How come he only now remembered the words Aoife said when she left? “Finn, I’m leaving and I won’t come back.”
It turns out that things given away really won’t come back. Finn didn’t believe in superstitions. How could someone come back to life in another person’s body? He would rather believe that the village girl had fallen ill, suffering from a severe mental illness resulting in a split personality.
…
Elisa sneezed several times one morning, her eyes, deprived of rest for a night, became even redder, tears staining the corners of her eyes. She rubbed herswollen eyes.
When she opened them again, she saw a steaming cup of warm water in front of her.
“You won’t rest even if I tell you to,” Louis said, placing cold medicine next to the cup. “Take it to prevent the cold from getting worse.”
“I’m not catching a cold,” Elisa replied, her voice hoarse.
“You’ve been sneezing non-stop, and you say you’re not catching a cold. This medicine won’t harm you. It’s easy to catch a cold in the autumn. It’s good to take precautions,” Louis reasoned.
Elisa couldn’t argue with him. She held the water cup in her hands, testing the temperature. She didn’t like the bitterness of medicine. For a mild cold, she preferred to rely on her immune system to fight it off. Only when it became severe enough to affect her sleep would she take medicine.
Elisa wasn’t pretentious. Everyone had their weaknesses. She disliked bitterness and pain, yet she could endure a lot. A person who feared pain had taken cancer medication for three years, and a person who disliked pain chose to die in a fire.
To Elisa, those two hours in the fire were nothing compared to the seven years by Hamish’s side. Even someone who could bear pain would reach a breaking point someday.
But just like how one could acquire a taste for bitterness, she swallowed the small white pill without complaint. It wasn’t bitter, and she washed it down with a sip of water.
As soon as she swallowed the pill, she saw a hand extending a candy to her. She put down the cup and looked at the candy in Louis’s hand.
“Eating a candy after taking medicine will make it less bitter,” he explained.
Elisa took the candy from him. It was an orange-flavored soft candy, sweet and sour. Her mouth wasn’t bitter to begin with, and now, as she chewed the candy, the sweetness filled her mouth. She couldn’t help but notice Louis’s slightly visible canine teeth and remembered the candy apple he had given her years ago.
“Very sweet. Thank you, Louis,” she involuntarily smiled.
“As long as it’s sweet. I have more candy here,” Louis said, showing the colorful fruit-flavored soft candies in his pocket.
“Want more?” he asked.
“No, I’m good. I don’t want to get addicted to candy,” Elisa declined.
“Why quit something you like? Liking something makes people happy,” Louis didn’t understand. He placed another candy in Elisa’s hand, this time a hawthorn-flavored one. “Liking something is what makes people happy.”
Indeed, liking something was something that made people happy.
Elisa held the soft candy, not tearing it open but placing it on the table where she could see it anytime.
X Entertainment
Mr. Whitlock was still waiting for Elisa’s response. No matter how strong his arm was, he couldn’t twist the thigh. If Elisa obediently did as he said, he would generously overlook everything. However, if she dared to be disobedient and neglectful… Mr. Whitlock grunted twice, showing no regard for Elisa.
Considering Elisa’s appearance, Mr. Whitlock stroked his chin, contemplating whether to teach Elisa a lesson, such as getting her drunk and sending her to his bed. Her figure would undoubtedly be enchanting in bed, and that face of hers seemed designed to seduce men.
The reason Mr. Whitlock had not made a move on Elisa for so long was largely due to Elisa’s former benefactor-Finn. Men like Finn, who valued power above all else, had a strong desire for control. Even if they discarded something, it was not something others could pick up. Therefore, Mr. Whitlock had been coveting and contemplating numerous ideas for a long time, but at most, he had only dared to think about it.
However, recently he noticed that Elisa was becoming increasingly attractive. Her looks outshone Lorelei by miles, and this was causing an irresistible itch in him. Finn had been neglecting Elisa for so long, clearly showing disinterest in her. Even that Louis was probably just playing around with her.
Mr. Whitlock indulged in his fantasies as he lit a cigarette and closed his eyes, as if Elisa was already lying on his bed, until an impatient knocking at the door brought him back to reality.
Startled, Mr. Whitlock regained his composure, his expression displeased. “Come in.”
The office door opened, revealing the public relations manager, the vice president, the agent, heads of other departments, the secretary, the assistant… A quick glance revealed a crowd of people standing at the door.
“Mr. Whitlock, something has happened.”
“What’s happened? Why aren’t you all at work instead of crowding here?” The vice president, who held a significant portion of the company’s shares, although not as much as Mr. Whitlock, had a somber and heavy expression. “Have a look at the trending topics online.”
Mr. Whitlock felt a sense of unease creeping up within him. Normally, if there were any issues, someone would call him, or his secretary would inform him. This kind of situation had never occurred before.
The atmosphere in the room was tense, and Mr. Whitlock took out his phone. Accidentally set to silent, his screen was flooded with messages and missed calls. At present, he had no time to consider who had been calling him. He opened Twitter, muttering to himself, “What could possibly be the matter? Is it just about Elisa’s affairs? Is it her own fault for publicly exposing some cat abuse incident?”
At this point, he was still deluding himself. It wasn’t until he clicked into his mentions and saw an uncountable number of notifications, all marked with red dots, that he felt a chill run down his spine.
Trembling, he randomly opened one of the posts, which turned out to be a tweet from Elisa. There were three new tweets in total. The first was an audio recording. The second contained various pieces of evidence of X Entertainment’s crimes, any one of which could land the company’s CEO in jail for several years. The third tweet included a cancellation contract.
Mr. Whitlock glanced at the time of posting-twenty minutes ago.
“Is the PR team worthless? Why wasn’t the trending topic managed immediately?” The public relations manager lowered his head, allowing Mr. Whitlock to scold him. After he was done, the manager spoke, “We couldn’t suppress it.”
“What do you mean you couldn’t suppress it? Spend money on it!”
“Mr. Whitlock, there’s no money.”
“Are you trying to scare me? How can a company this big be out of money?”
The vice president said, “Not only are we out of money, the company is in debt. The shares have been continuously dropping since this morning. A month ago, someone maliciously acquired shares, driving the price up, waiting to short them today. Now, due to Lorelei, the company’s stock has plummeted, resulting in losses of over a hundred million. We can’t hold on.”
The phone slipped from Mr. Whitlock’s hand and clattered to the ground.
“Who maliciously acquired the shares? Why is this only coming to light now?”
“A. W. Group, a newly emerged company, a group we’ve never heard of.”
Mr. Whitlock’s face turned deathly pale. When had Elisa become involved with these people? And how did she obtain the cancellation contract?
Many questions remained unanswered, but one thing was certain-Elisa had orchestrated all of this a long time ago.
“Mr. Whitlock, what dowe do now?”
What could they do now? All they could do was wait for the inevitable: the company’s bankruptcy and acquisition by A. W. Group. Besides that, they also faced the looming threat of legal repercussions. This was not something that just anyone could take the fall for.