Lily

"Again. Let's do it two more times." Lilian Mo suggested.

Lu Jingren nodded and walked away for the second time. Maybe he felt that she was still in denial and was full of doubt so he agreed without hesitation.

Either way, Lilian Mo wanted to verify this information through a few more tests.

Of all the people... why did it had to be him?

"This makes you tied to me, Lilian."

His words made the hairs on her arms rise, cold sweat rolling down her neck. Her body felt cold all of a sudden and breathing seemed burdensome at the moment.

Lilian Mo shook her head.

"I don't want to be tied to you..."

When she closed her eyes, she entered her space and saw the clear blue sky without the sun or clouds.

Again, she waited for a few minutes before leaving, only to appear at another time and location, in front of the same person.

"Again?" He asked her.

Lilian Mo nodded.

"Again."

Lu Jingren left. Lilian Mo waited before entering her space.

There was a clear blue sky as usual. Once more when she left, she appeared before him as if he was her anchor point.

"Do you want to-"

"Again."

"..."

"Let's do it again."

Lu Jingren frowned but he still ended up walking out. The same experiment was repeated three more times, in varying places within the hotel while avoiding the military.

Lu Jingren was silent as he patiently waited for Lilian Mo. She was sitting on the bed, seemingly unable to accept what had become of the experiment.

Lilian Mo's eyes became blank. In the end, she still ended up beside Lu Jingren.

In the end, she still chose to be beside him whether it was because she wanted to protect Mu Qingqing or because she wanted to kill him.

And in the end, she still couldn't avoid him.

"Tell me the truth. Have you done something inside the space?" Lilian Mo's whole body was completely tensed as she spoke. She slowly looked at Lu Jingren, wanting to know whether he would lie or hide the truth from her.

"I did. I weeded the ground and ate a few fruits... Read a few books and also tinkered with the generator because of some loose crews. I also inspected some items..." Lu Jingren answered in a rather blatant yet indifferent tone as of he was casually talking about the weather.

"There's more." Lilian Mo said shrewdly.

Lu Jingren thought for one quick second whether to tell her the honest truth. His fiancee was not a simple person. She knew too much and was too experienced and battle-ready for the apocalypse for a sixteen-year-old high schooler.

But then again, he had already started suspecting her long before the apocalypse began. When he began dreaming of her, he thought that the Lilian Mo of the present was not the same person from his dreams.

Their temperament and personalities were a little too different. The dream girl was kind, gentle, and softspoken while his fiancee was also kind but a bit violent and blunt when it came to many things.

Lu Jingren sighed. He didn't want to assume much but at the end of the day, the clues and cues he found lead only to one single thing.

This was not her first time in the apocalypse.

"I have dreams." He began.

Lu Jingren placed his hands on his pockets as he leaned on the wall, his eyes looking at the floor as if it was the most interesting thing in the room. But in reality, he didn't want her to see the deep look of contemplation in his eyes.

"It started two months before the end of the world..... It was May 5th, fifteen minutes past seven when I woke up from a bizarre dream about a girl."

Lilian Mo didn't interrupt him.

"She was cute.....Her smile was quite friendly and she loves to cook a lot. Every night, I would fall asleep only to see her....."

"There was also another me in the dream... We share the same face but our personalities are different. He doesn't like spicy foods but I like them a lot. He has extreme paranoia and fear of abandonment but I don't. He is like Lily...." Lu Jingren paused. His indifferent gaze began to reminisce.

"Lily suffered from BPD or more commonly known as Borderline Personality Disorder. People with this condition struggle with their emotions and this often affects their relationships with other people...That other me must have inherited the condition from Lily because he was as paranoid and insecure as she did."

Lily...

That was Lu Jingren's mother.

Lilian Mo heard her name many times in the past.

At first, she felt a bit of confusion why he called her mother using her first name, only to be told that he grew up in the States most of his childhood years before going to China.

Calling people using their first names was not uncommon but in China, it was considered a bit rude unless two people are close or are close relatives.

At first, Lilian Mo was a bit uncomfortable back then because she got used to addressing the elderly and older people with honorifics so she had to adjust when it came to Lu Jingren since he often called his mother, Lily, using her name only.

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