771 Consequences

"No!" Iris cried. "Please don't leave. I'll talk! Just don't leave me alone tonight."

Jin Liwei stopped and sighed once again. "As much as I want to know the big secret that you share with Lu Zihao, I don't want to force you if you don't want to tell me. And it's clear to me that you're second-guessing yourself on whether to talk or not."

She opened her mouth but he raised a hand to stop her from speaking. "Let me finish."

Her mouth closed and she nodded.

He ran his fingers through his damp hair. "I feel terrible that I'm upsetting you by wanting to know about the secret, whatever it is. You know that if I could, I would never want to upset you, especially right now that you're pregnant. But baby…" His jaw tightened and his nostrils flared as he tried controlling his temper. "Baby, I'm upset too!"

She hugged herself as she fought another wave of tears from falling down her reddened eyes. She wanted to run to him and throw herself in his arms but she tamped down on the urge. What if he rejected her again?

"I'm not forcing you to tell me all your secrets," he said. "That's not my intention at all. If there's something that you don't want to tell me, I can respect that. It won't diminish my love and loyalty to you. It's just that this particular secret that you and Lu Zihao have is bothering me so much that I want to punch another set of furniture just to ease my frustration. He provoked me with it earlier and now you're reacting so extremely like this as if something bad is going to happen if you tell me. How do you expect me to feel with the two of you doing this to me?"

"Liwei…" Her voice trembled and so did her body. [This novel is a contracted work with W e b n o v e l . c o m (remove spaces). If you're not reading this chapter on W e b n o v e l, it has been stolen. It's very discouraging to see thieves profitting from my hard work. Please read this novel on W e b n o v e l. Thank you! -Arria Cross]

"I never want to doubt you. I love you so much. But right now, I can't help but feel suspicious. You share what seems like a big secret with another man who is—was a close sworn brother of mine. Tell me. If our situations were reversed, would you feel comfortable with that? Would you be happy if I share a big secret with another woman and I don't want to tell you?"

Without even thinking, she automatically replied, "Of course not!"

He threw her a hard look full of meaning. There was no need for him to say it out loud. She knew what he meant by that single look. It worsened her guilt as if it was a live creature gnawing at her insides and making her want to vomit.

She closed her eyes and focused on taking deep breaths to regain as much clarity in her mind as possible because she was now feeling lightheaded from all the turbulent emotions.

To be honest, she still felt undecided whether to tell Jin Liwei the truth or not. She really wanted to tell him, especially right now that they reached this boiling point and both of them were hurting because of her not telling him.

There was just so much riding on this. It wasn't just about the danger associated in revealing her past identity as a Vetrov. It was also about the consequences of revealing that the former Long Xiulan and Lu Zihao had been long dead, that they were no longer their original selves but were now completely different people .

It might not affect Jin Liwei that much if she revealed that she wasn't the real Long Xiulan because he really didn't know or cared about that person anyway. In fact, he looked down on the original Long Xiulan, a.k.a. Iris Long, because he thought that she was a shameless girl chasing after his younger brother, Jin Chonglin, and bent on destroying his brother's relationship with his then fiancée, Fan Luo.

Jin Liwei was even instrumental in concealing the truth of the original Long Xiulan's deadly car accident to protect Jin Chonglin and Fan Luo, and of course, the reputation of the Jin family. It was obvious by his cold and ruthless actions that he didn't give a damn about what happened to the original Long Xiulan. His impression and feelings only changed once he met her in person, only that she wasn't Long Xiulan anymore but the transmigrated Evelina instead.

Long Xiulan's death might not be that big of an issue to Jin Liwei but the original Lu Zihao's death would surely affect him in an excruciating way. The five sworn brothers' bond was the strongest friendship that she had ever encountered in her two lives. It was a true bond of brotherhood. In fact, Jin Liwei was closer to his sworn brothers than to his own younger brother, Jin Chonglin.

He would be utterly devastated if he learned that his Fifth Brother was already dead and the one living now as Lu Zihao was a dangerous man who caused countless terrors all over the international criminal underworld. And that man was her big brother in their past lives.

Also, even without adding their dangerous identities as the Vetrovs into the mix, would Jin Liwei even believe and accept the idea of transmigration? If it didn't happen to her and her big brother, she would never in a million years believe that such an absurd thing could happen in the real world. There was no legitimate research and concrete data backing it up.

Just the idea of transmigration or rebirth alone was already ridiculous. She wouldn't be surprised if Jin Liwei would think of her as crazy. Heck, if she were in his shoes and somebody told her that transmigration was real, she would also think that person was crazy.

"Well? Are you going to tell me or not?" Jin Liwei's voice interrupted her chaotic thoughts. "If not, I'll have to leave and sleep in another room. I'm sorry but I'm too upset right now to be with you tonight. We've had a long day. Both of us are tired and upset. We can talk about this another day when you're ready."

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