"When I woke up as…this," Iris swept her hands over herself. "As the new me, I was very excited to live this new chance in life. I had many goals and ambitions and also plans to accomplish them. During that time, I envisioned myself reaching everything on my own. But when Liwei barged into my life and I fell in love with him, I realized that although I still have the same goals and ambitions, they slightly changed to include him as well.
"Now, whenever I envision my future, he's always there beside me as a constant part of my life. Big Brother, ever since I fell in love with Liwei, I now can't imagine living the rest of my life without him. I love him so much that I almost can't believe how I'm capable of loving someone so much that isn't you, my brother, my family. If something bad ever happens to him, I…I'll probably lose control and hunt down the people who harmed him."
Lu Zihao was silent for a few seconds before asking, "Even me? If I harm him, you'll hunt even me, your own brother?"
She couldn't answer right away, looking at him instead with a complicated expression. "I love Liwei, Big Brother. I love you, too. I don't want to choose between the two of you. Both of you are the most important men in my life right now. I refuse to choose between the two of you. But…I won't be able to sit still if you hurt Liwei, so please don't. I don't want our relationship to be ruined by something like that."
He took a deep breath after hearing her honest words. His hands clenched and unclenched, the veins popping out to the surface of his skin.
Iris braced herself and faced the stormy aura her brother was currently emitting. It made her heart shake, yet she stood her ground to show him that she was serious. Although she understood that her brother was fiercely protective of her, she couldn't tolerate his subtle threats against Jin Liwei any longer. He needed to understand that Jin Liwei was here to stay in her life as her future husband whether he liked it or not.
She sensed that her brother was experiencing an internal struggle between his past identity as Nikolai Vetrov and his new life as Lu Zihao who was sworn brothers with her man, Jin Liwei. However, it was his own battle to fight with himself. She couldn't solve it for him, especially after going through the same thing herself. It was difficult and dangerous, but he still needed to overcome it on his own.
"I understand," he finally said after managing to calm himself. "As long as he doesn't hurt you and make you suffer, I won't interfere. Both of us didn't have it easy in our past lives. We were always trudging the boundary between life and death, not knowing when we'd make a deadly mistake or when our enemies would successfully kill us. They eventually succeeded," he hissed through gritted teeth. His eyes flashed with murderous intent before controlling it.
"I know that you hated that life, how caged you felt, and suffered because of it," he continued. "I couldn't do anything for you back then because it was too dangerous to let you go free in the outside world. But everything is different now. The Vetrovs are no more. The people we were before are no more. We had fallen and were reduced to ashes."
Desolation filled his eyes, making Iris tremble and her eyes moist as she watched him. A small desire of revenge also stirred within her at the thought of the fallen Vetrovs, but it got quickly buried into the deepest recesses of herself before she could even notice. Her new life as Long Xiulan, a.k.a. Iris Long, and the endless possibilities of achieving all of her dreams that she wasn't able to do in her past life had overpowered almost everything for her. Not to mention that she was able to find the love of her life in this new life, making her view her past life as Evelina Vetrova as something almost illusory now.
In a sense, she was grateful that she met her reborn brother before Evelina's memories started fading away. He was a link to their past lives. Although she hated that life, she didn't want to forget it because it was a big part of who she was even now as Iris Long.
Lu Zihao's eyes looked like he was somewhere far away and not standing right in front of her. She remained silent and allowed her brother to reminisce the memories of their past lives—both the glorious and tragic alike—as the crown prince and sheltered princess of the former reigning criminal family of the international underworld.
Finally, his eyes became clear once again. They looked at her with their usual sharpness but also with gentleness. "I don't want you to suffer anymore. You are now Long Xiulan who I'm sure will be known in the future as the genius superstar. You'll take the world by storm and live your life freely just like how you always wanted. I'm looking forward to watching you reach all of your dreams."
"Big Brother…"
"I wish you a happy life, little sister. And if you think that you'll be happy with Jin Liwei by your side—"
"I do," Iris replied before he could finish his sentence. "Jin Liwei gives me happiness. I know that I'll be happy with him by my side."
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