Every Lifetime I Fall {COMPLETED but undergoing revisions}

Chapter 43: Third Life - Regretful Moments

I made a mistake.

I asked Lu Kai to marry me, and he panicked. Perhaps looking up to me as an older sister or some sort of old, wise mentor was what he intended to do for the rest of his life. It was a dumb thing to ask of him. In the moment, I thought it would solve our problem of living a life without marriage.

But as I thought more about it... thought about it every day and night to the point where I wanted to smother myself with a pillow, I realized we could just live as we had been, like siblings and look out for one another. However, if he married Xiao Feng, I would have to leave, right? I was comfortable living with Lu Kai. I had to stop him from marrying someone else.

Watching Liu Xiao Feng walked down a dirt path, I blocked her as she came near. Her eyes turned into half crescent moons, her small lips displaying her joyful grin.

"Xin Jiejie, what are you doing here?" She ran toward me excitedly.

"Where are you off to today?"

"Oh, I'm just on my way to harvest some bamboo shoots in the forest."

"Can I walk with you?"

"Of course!"

Within seconds of walking alongside one another, Xiao Feng was already talking my ear off about Lu Kai.

"He's so nice, don't you think so? He's as tall as the sugar canes my dad grows on the fields."

"Well--"

That's an exaggeration.

"Whenever he smiles, I just... It makes me happy."

Turning to her, I asked, "Can I ask you something?"

"Oh? Yes? What is it?"

"Let's say I know a woman who asked a man to marry her--"

Bashfully covering her mouth, she shouted, "Ah Xin Jiejie did you propose to someone?!"

"No! Look, it's this other person, all right? I'm asking you because I don't have any other female friends who knows about this marriage stuff."

"Okay, please continue. What happened to this woman?"

"So she asked this man to marry her, but it didn't work out. He started to ignore her and would avoid her all the time..."

"Yeah?"

"So I'm asking... what did she do wrong?"

"She was wrong to ask him in the first place."

Furrowing my eyebrows, I asked, "Why?"

"If the man liked her then he would have asked her first, but he doesn't like her that's why he didn't ask. Now that he's avoiding her, he probably is afraid that she will become obsessed with him."

"Obsessed?" I laughed. As if.

"The man probably doesn't love her enough to want to get married," she continued.

"Love? There needs to be love?"

Creepily staring at me with large eyes, Xiao Feng said, "Of course, there needs to be love! How can you not know this, Ah Xin Jiejie? The woman must recognize the man as a man and the man must see the woman as a woman, so that they could come together and start a family."

See Lu Kai as a man? I guess I never thought of him as a man. He was always that dirty faced child I rescued from slave traders, and that silly child who couldn't lit a fire.

Turning to her, I asked, "So how do I do that? How do I make a man see me as a woman?"

She slyly side-eyed me up and down, "Oh? Ah Xin Jie, is this about you now? Not some woman you know?"

"It's-- Forget it." I started to walked away, but she reached out and grabbed me.

"Wait! Wait! I can help you, but you must put in a good word for me with Kai Gege," she offered.

Rolling my eyes, I agreed, "Fine."

Smiling wide, she said, "Great! Now, the first thing is to get to his heart through food. What my mother has always said was to become a great wife, one must know how to cook in order to win her man. Number two! Seeeduuuuce him."

"Seeeduuuce him?"

"Precisely," she walked in front of me, holding her hands behind her back like a wise mage, "Appear sexy and alluring! Wear revealing clothing in the hot lonely summer nights to entice him!"

I glared at her sultry expression and pouted lips. Shaking my head, I knew that I did not want to do that to Lu Kai.

"Number three! Be wife material."

"What is wife material?"

"Not only should one be good at cooking but child rearing, stitching, and be patient, nice, graceful and a good listener as well."

"That's... enough lessons for today."