After Rebirth, I Became My Ex's "White Moonlight" - Chapter 36

“Speaking of which, Siyu, you’re getting so close to those famous stars. Could you help us get some signed photos or something when you have time?”

Roommate A leapt up from the bed, only to unfortunately slam into the bed frame with a loud “clatter,” followed immediately by a cry of pain.

“I’m not very close with them,” Cheng Siyu deflected, changing the subject. “By the way, there are so many dating posts on the school gossip wall lately. Do you guys have significant others yet?”

The roommates then began discussing the couples on the gossip wall, and Cheng Siyu managed to escape further questioning.

Around dusk, Cheng Siyu’s WeChat rang. It was Ji Yun, saying she had arrived downstairs at Cheng Siyu’s dormitory.

But when Cheng Siyu reached the ground floor, she saw a familiar figure standing beside Ji Yun: Ji Yan.

Cheng Siyu froze in place. She could only tighten her grip on her bag in secret, stepping forward to greet them without showing any outward displeasure.

“Siyu, this is my cousin. You probably recognize her,” Ji Yun introduced with a smile.

“I’m sorry. This was supposed to be your date, but I just happened to return to City A today and thought about visiting my alma mater, so I joined in,” Ji Yan said.

Cheng Siyu felt her body grow cold, a chill seeping into her limbs. However, she still maintained a smile. “It’s fine. Hotpot is more fun when more people eat together.”

“Let’s go then,” Ji Yun said. Cheng Siyu watched silently as the two walked ahead of her hand-in-hand, while she followed behind them.

Cheng Siyu recalled that in her previous life, Ji Yun didn’t like hotpot. Yet, every time she saw Ji Yun and Ji Yan together, it was always at a hotpot restaurant.

She extended her foot and kicked a pebble by the roadside, watching it roll into the gap of a drainage ditch and fall into the water with a “plop.”

The three walked to the parking lot and arrived at Ji Yun’s car. Cheng Siyu instinctively opened the back door to sit down, but Ji Yun stopped her.

“You sit next to me.”

With those simple words, she pulled Cheng Siyu into the passenger seat. Cheng Siyu felt no joy sitting there; she only stared out the window with indifferent eyes.

She remembered a time in her previous life when she had rarely gotten drunk. Through tears, she had questioned Ji Yun:

“Since you like her, why did you have to provoke me?”

At that time, Ji Yun had only looked into her eyes. After hesitating for a few seconds, she wiped the tears from the corner of Cheng Siyu’s eye and said in her usual narrative tone:

“Because you look like her.”

Is it only because I look like her?

Back then, Cheng Siyu had desperately tried to find a spark of love in Ji Yun’s eyes, only to realize there was an invisible sheet of thin paper between them. Ji Yun looked through that paper and saw her as Ji Yan, while Cheng Siyu looked through it and couldn’t see Ji Yun clearly at all.

“I used to come to this hotpot restaurant often with my classmates from the same major,” Ji Yan’s voice pulled Cheng Siyu back to the present. She shifted her gaze back to the front.

“Is that so?” Ji Yun’s voice carried a hint of surprise. “Then you can reminisce about the past tonight. Right, Siyu?”

Suddenly being called upon, Cheng Siyu didn’t react immediately, responding half a beat late, “Yes.”

“Why do you seem unhappy today?”

Cheng Siyu replied, “Maybe I’m just tired from filming these past few days.”

“Then you should get some good rest over the next few days,” Ji Yun instructed. Cheng Siyu gave a short affirmative reply, but her thoughts had already drifted thousands of miles away.

“Mhm.”

After the car reached its destination, Cheng Siyu looked at the familiar sign. It was the exact same place Ji Yun and Ji Yan had visited countless times in her previous life—even the reserved table had not changed.

Indeed, a person remains the same person. Ji Yun’s attitude toward her during this period had been so different that it gave her the illusion of facing a different person.

Now, everything around her seemed to be a reminder that the course of events would not change just because she was reborn. Ji Yun would not fall in love with her just because she had a second life the way she loved Ji Yan.

“Siyu, you order too. I don’t know what you like to eat,” Ji Yun said, handing the menu to Cheng Siyu.

“You order. I’ll eat whatever you eat.” Cheng Siyu didn’t take it, leaving Ji Yun’s hand hovering in mid-air until Ji Yan took it.

“I’ll order then. You guys can add more later if it’s not enough.”

“Okay,” Ji Yun replied. She then took Cheng Siyu’s hand and held it firmly against her chest, warming it with her own body heat. “Your hands are so cold.”

Cheng Siyu dazed for a moment. She remembered that when she was a child, her mother would also take her cold, red hands into her own. However, she hadn’t felt that kind of warmth since she was ten years old.

“You two have had enough. I feel like a massive third wheel.”

Ji Yan, who had just finished handing the order to the waiter, turned around to see the two being intimate. Cheng Siyu instinctively tried to pull her hand back, but Ji Yun held it very tightly.

“What’s wrong? Jealous? Go find someone yourself then. Our behavior is legal.”

“Fine, fine, I won’t argue with you,” Ji Yan said helplessly.

At that moment, the phone Cheng Siyu had placed to the side buzzed. She finally withdrew her hand and opened the message; it was from Zhao Xixi.

She was saying that to promote “True or False,” there would be a live stream tomorrow that Cheng Siyu needed to attend. The stream would use a bullet-comment PK method to decide which lead actor would answer questions.

After reading it, Cheng Siyu was about to show it to Ji Yun, but Ji Yun had already finished reading it through the phone screen.

“Is there a venue requirement?” she asked.

“It seems so. We have to go to a convention center in the neighboring city,” Cheng Siyu replied, looking at the announcement details.

“I was going to say if you didn’t have a good place for the stream, you could go to my house.”

The “house” Ji Yun mentioned was not the Ji residence; it was the house she had bought for herself after Yi Xuan passed away, where she lived alone. In the previous life, after the two had confirmed their relationship, Ji Yun had let the post-graduation Cheng Siyu move in.

Cheng Siyu had no beautiful memories of that house. The only light in it had been a golden retriever named “Little Rascal,” but even he had died in her arms later due to illness.

Thinking of this, Cheng Siyu’s eyes gradually dimmed.

“How are you getting there tomorrow? Do you want me to drive you?” Ji Yun’s words interrupted Cheng Siyu’s thoughts.

“No need. The company will send a car to pick me up. Besides, if we get caught by paparazzi, it’ll just be more gossip,” Cheng Siyu refused instinctively.

Ji Yun’s expression turned noticeably displeased. “Let them photograph us. We are the real couple.”

“If I get accused of two-timing by then, Sister Xixi will kill me,” Cheng Siyu replied.

As the two talked, the dishes they ordered were served one after another. Looking at the boiling hotpot, Cheng Siyu felt an indescribable sense of melancholy.

“Siyu, when was the last time you had hotpot?”

Inevitably, as Ji Yun and Ji Yan chatted, the topic was steered toward her.

“I forgot.” Cheng Siyu had very few memories of eating hotpot. The few instances were during Chinese New Year when her family would have it, but back then, her stepmother would always give her the cold shoulder. Plus, most of the relatives who came were from her stepmother’s side, and their judgmental stares made Cheng Siyu feel uncomfortable.

Over time, she stopped going home even for the New Year.

“Is your relationship with your family not good, Siyu?” Ji Yan suddenly asked. Cheng Siyu’s chopsticks stopped in mid-air. Her eyes flickered as she replied, “It’s okay.”

“I saw you mention on a program that your family relationship seemed a bit strained,” Ji Yan added. After saying this, she looked at Cheng Siyu, but Cheng Siyu avoided her gaze.

Cheng Siyu was unwilling to mention her most vulnerable memories in front of an outsider, so she simply replied, “It’s just average.”

Seeing this, Ji Yan did not press further. Instead, she turned to Ji Yun to discuss another topic.

“Are you not planning to move back home?”

The “home” Ji Yan referred to was the Ji residence. She was aware of Ji Yun’s move.

“My mother is dead; why would I go back?” Ji Yun’s tone instantly turned cold.

It seemed that after Ji Wanli fell ill last time, the relationship between father and daughter had not improved; if anything, it seemed more severe, Cheng Siyu thought.

“Xiao Yun, your father did wrong by your mother, but he truly dotes on you,” Ji Yan spoke up to defend Ji Wanli.

Regarding the fact that Ji Wanli doted on Ji Yun, Cheng Siyu’s view coincidentally aligned with Ji Yan’s. After all, she was the “eyes and ears” he had hired to ensure Ji Yun didn’t go astray. However, she was sensible enough not to bring up something that would make Ji Yun angry.

Only Ji Yan would dare to mention such a thing.

“He dotes on me by not treating my mother well? And by going to a hotel with a man less than a month after my mother passed away?” Ji Yun’s voice rose several decibels, her tone filled with obvious displeasure.

However, this also allowed Cheng Siyu to witness Ji Yun’s tolerance for Ji Yan. If she had been the one to say those words, Ji Yun would have certainly dropped her chopsticks and walked away long ago.

“Forget it, let’s not talk about that. Let’s eat.”

Ji Yan saw that Ji Yun was unhappy and did not pursue the subject.

After finishing the meal, Cheng Siyu had already prepared herself for Ji Yun to let her walk back alone. Not for any particular reason, but because it had always been that way in her previous life.

After finishing a date with Ji Yun, Ji Yun would be busy rushing to her next schedule or event, especially when Ji Yan was present. Cheng Siyu never felt like she could take Ji Yun’s car back.

As they walked out to the shop entrance, the weather that had been fine in the afternoon had turned into a drizzling rain. It was winter now, and the rain brought a bone-chilling cold.

“Xiao Yun, you have to take me back to wherever you picked me up from,” Ji Yan said half-jokingly, shivering slightly.

Meanwhile, Cheng Siyu practicedly pulled an umbrella from her bag. Putting on a smile, she said to Ji Yun, “You take her back. I have something to do, I’ll just take the bus.”

She didn’t want to experience being an outsider while listening to Ji Yun and Ji Yan talk and laugh anymore.

With that, she opened her umbrella and disappeared step by step into the mist brought by the rain.

Actually, Cheng Siyu didn’t like the rain because she had died on a rainy day in her previous life. But she disliked listening to Ji Yun and Ji Yan’s laughter even more.

Cheng Siyu held her umbrella and boarded the familiar No. 18 bus. After inserting the coin, she found a window seat.

The rain cast several layers of mysterious shadows over the city she knew so well. While she was staring out the window in a daze, she heard the notification sound of a message on her phone.

Cheng Siyu opened her phone. It was from Cheng Hanyi.

“Sis, when are you coming back? Mom and Dad saw you on TV, and they miss you very much.”