Chapter 18.1: Best Friends
“Twenty-nine! Twenty-nine! I was only twenty-nine in my last life, okay?”
“No wait! I’m a bona fide twenty-year-old now! A youthful, beautiful, and unbeatable young girl!”
“So don’t call me Auntie! We’re the same age!”
Jian Sichun grabbed Shi Hai by the collar, shaking him back and forth, emphasizing her age rapidly.
Shi Hai realized he had hit a nerve and immediately raised his hands in surrender.
“Got it, got it, I was just joking…”
“This joke isn’t funny at all!”
In fact, Jian Sichun never used to care about her age and could even casually mention it.
Sometimes, she even felt a bit happy when people complimented her for looking much younger than her age.
But now, being treated as a woman nine years older by Shi Hai was completely unacceptable to her.
“Alright, my bad…”
Indeed, girls are sensitive about their age.
Shi Hai made a mental note of this and quickly tried to divert Jian Sichun’s attention.
“Anyway, I’ve asked all the questions I wanted to ask.”
Jian Sichun, being simple-minded, immediately released Shi Hai’s collar and asked.
“Really? You’re done asking?”
She had thought Shi Hai would ask her a lot of questions.
But he only asked a few things, and she hadn’t even answered properly.
“Aren’t you curious about what happens in the future?”
“Don’t you have things you don’t want to tell me? So I decided not to ask anything at all.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“Curious, yes, but I hate spoilers even more.”
“Ah…”
This was indeed very much like Shi Hai.
Jian Sichun remembered that when they used to go to movies together, he would never watch any trailers or read reviews in advance.
No matter how difficult the game was, he wouldn’t look up guides and preferred to explore everything himself.
“As expected… you are you.”
Shi Hai shrugged and continued.
“That’s why I said there’s no need for you to tell me what happens in the future. If anything, I’m more interested in whether the future will change because of your reincarnation.”
“Because of me?”
“Yes, have you seen the movie The Butterfly Effect… or maybe it’s better to use an anime example? Steins;Gate, you must have seen it, right?”
“—!”
Jian Sichun’s eyes slowly widened.
Of course, she had seen Steins;Gate. She had even played the original game and was familiar with the plot.
And the most heart-wrenching part of the story was the unavoidable ‘death of the heroine.’
Would the same thing happen to Shi Hai?
“If the future changes, to what extent will it change? If it doesn’t change, will certain events be forcibly reenacted…”
Shi Hai raised two index fingers, touching the tips together.
“Or, is it somewhere in between?”
These were all unsolved mysteries.
“Actually, if you think about it, the future should have already changed.”
Jian Sichun tilted her head in question.
“The future… has already changed?”
“Yeah, in your memory, our first meeting wasn’t like this, right?”
“Ah… yes, it wasn’t…”