Chapter 4.4 The Jealous Man: He Kissed Me Better Than Me, Did He? ...
Hsu Ai-ta lay inside the MRI machine, the noise from the MRI giving her a headache again.
She took deep breaths and kept encouraging herself, "I can do it, just hang in there, it only takes ten minutes."
She got the result she wanted; the MRI showed that she had a pre-existing glenohumeral joint injury in her shoulder.
"You can even read joint X-rays?" Professor Nelson asked her in surprise, his admiration for her growing.
She smiled and said, "I only consult doctors who are my own doctors when I get injured."
Actually, it was Liang Siyu. When she was injured, Liang Siyu quickly reviewed orthopedic X-ray reading and even taught her a few simple tricks.
Nelson asked her to go for coffee, but she smiled and declined, saying that her shoulder was still a little sore and she wanted to go back and rest first.
She knew he would succeed in starting his own business in the future, and that they would collaborate on papers and become friends, but that would be all.
Stepping out of the computer room, she felt a little relieved. At least, she had been reborn, and they were still in the same time and space.
She washed her face briefly in the bathroom to calm herself down.
But the question is, is this a world where the future can be changed? In what ways will the timeline converge? Can she avoid her own death?
Strictly speaking, without that death, there would be no time travel. Her death should be an anchor point event where two timelines overlap [Note 1].
She stared blankly at her reflection in the mirror. If, no matter what happened, she was destined to die ten years later, perhaps it wouldn't be a plane crash, but some other accident. Did she have any regrets from her past life?
Professionally, she did her best. Although neuroprosthetics still have many shortcomings and have not yet been widely used in clinical practice, this project does not rely on the magic touch of any one person; it is an engineering project jointly promoted by countless professors and students, so she has nothing to worry about.
It was inevitable that her parents would be heartbroken for her. However, by then, her brother already had children, so her parents were able to shift their attention somewhat.
What about Liang Siyu? Is it true that he won't forget her? Is it really true that there won't be anyone else?
Before her, there was no one else; they were each other's first.
Actually, on the day he confessed his feelings, when he said it was his first time in love, she assumed that he might have dated other girls and spent the night with them, but they had never confirmed a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship [Note 2].
But he was really clumsy and flustered the first time. She didn't even realize what was happening. Seeing his helpless and embarrassed look, she quickly comforted him.
Of course, she soon regretted it—the one who needed comforting was clearly herself, the pitiful one.
He was tall and muscular, yet remarkably childish, obsessed with average times, saying that rowers' statistics couldn't be low.
That's insane. Who would care about this at a time like this?
How did my thoughts wander to this place? She cleared those scenes from her mind.
It's so annoying, this young body is so easily tempted by him.
Their physical attraction was too strong, and they were somewhat crazy during the early stages of their relationship.
Liang Siyu, who chased after the car yesterday; Liang Siyu, who looked at her sadly during the divorce...
She knew what would happen to him if she died in a plane crash; she knew.
He will be sad, heartbroken, and perhaps even think it's his fault for signing the divorce papers so easily and letting her get on that plane.
Perhaps breaking up is a good choice; why make him suffer?
But wait, not now, we can wait until next year. She advised him not to change careers and pulled him back to the lab.
No, that's not right. He actually quite liked acting at first. Maybe we should advise him against taking that so-called transformative film, a masterpiece by a great director?
But that was several years later, after she had gone to Hangzhou with him. It was too late, not appropriate.
Should she stop him, or let him go? In her past life, she respected his freedom of choice, but he wasn't happier. This time, would stopping him make his life happier? She wasn't sure.
She couldn't figure it out, and washed her face several more times, feeling a bit of a headache.
It's all God's fault for being unfair. Why did she come back instead of him? Shouldn't he be responsible for his own life?
She bit her lip in frustration. Forget about all that. Forget about that despicable Liang Siyu. First, she needed to figure out how to get home. She couldn't afford to take a plane right now.
Liang Siyu waited for a long time before she finally came out of the experimental center. Her face was damp, her bangs were a little wet, her eyes were watery, and her lips were red and full, as if they had been bitten once or twice.
She looked like she had just washed her face after kissing someone.
Enraged, he followed her back to the hotel, keeping a few steps behind, and they easily caught the same elevator.
He entered the elevator and approached; she looked up in surprise.
He stared intently at her: "When you said you'd wait for me, did you mean you'd wait for me to kiss someone else?"
She frowned, puzzled. What was he talking about?
"What, still won't admit it?" He was breathing rapidly, as if he had just run ten kilometers. "Your face is so red, and your lips are—"
He suddenly chuckled, but his eyes grew even colder: "He kisses better than me, doesn't he?"
She glared at him, about to scold him, but before she could utter a single word, he was already close to her, picked her up, lifted her in front of him, and kissed her fiercely.
Filled with anger and resentment, as if trying to cover something up, or perhaps afraid to hear the answer.
The elevator doors opened with a "ding," and she was once again carried through the corridor in one arm by him.
Back in the room, before she could even speak, he "threw" her onto the sofa.
"What are you doing?!" Xu Aida was also angry. He rushed into the elevator like a madman, kidnapped her, and yelled at her.
"What makes that old man better than me? Is he more experienced than me?" he gritted his teeth, like an enraged lion.
He knew it was vulgar of him to ask such a question, but he just couldn't swallow his pride.
What Nelson has, he will have in the future as well. She's neither as handsome nor as morally upright as him—is she blind?
She rolled her eyes: "Which old man? Is your brain full of straw?"
He was so angry he paused for a moment: "How many more do you want? Didn't you just go see Nelson?"
"You followed me?!" She sat up abruptly, furious. He did something so low, and even guessed that she went to see Nelson just to... kiss him?
Ha, she was too soft-hearted in the bathroom, even worrying that he would be sad.
So childish, so unreasonable, let's break up, let's break up right now.
“That’s not the point!” he yelled. “You got away from me, you went to see him, and you came back like this… I thought we just needed to cool off for a while, not that you were going to date other people at the same time.”
"You know you need to calm down, look at the state you're in!" she couldn't help but yell at him, then immediately regretted it.
It's so strange, they never argued like this in their past lives, never yelled at each other like this.
They were always sweet and gentle, and any disagreements they had were always handled with dignity and reason.
She had no idea that Liang Siyu would be so inexplicably jealous.
She even began to doubt her earlier conclusion—this wasn't her original timeline, but a parallel universe where they all had violent tempers.
His face flushed red and then paled as he tried to suppress his intense emotions. His chest heaved violently, and he slammed his fist on the sofa cushion before turning and heading to the bathroom.
She pressed her forehead; her headache was back. How had she gotten so easily swayed by him? He was only 25; was she too? Why bother arguing with him?
Liang Siyu went to wash her face to calm down, and when she came back, she saw her pressing her head and half-closing her eyes.
His heart suddenly skipped a beat. She had a fever last night. What had he been doing just now?
He touched her face: "What's wrong? Does your head hurt?"
"I just borrowed the MRI machine; there wasn't any of the dramatic stuff you're thinking of." She opened her eyes, her tone calm.
His heart returned to its place, then suddenly jumped again: why did she have to get an MRI?
"My shoulder suddenly hurts. I had injured it while skiing before, and I thought it had gotten worse," she made up an excuse.
"Why didn't you tell me?" He gently touched her left shoulder. "Is it here? Where's the film? Show it to me."
"It's nothing, it hasn't gotten worse, it's probably just a side effect of the high fever." She quickly ended the conversation.
"You still haven't answered me, why won't you tell me?" he stubbornly repeated.
She closed her eyes briefly: "Ned, not everything will help if I tell you, okay?"
She was reborn and experienced the future, but if she told him, would he be able to avoid those so-called "incorrect" choices?
In countless movies and novels, the protagonists, in their attempts to change the future, inadvertently cause even greater tragedies, thus bringing about events that were prophesied.
He couldn't help but get angry again: "But I'm the MD!"
I can let other things go, but why didn't you tell him you were sick and feeling unwell?
She got annoyed: "Not yet."
That self-important guy knows nothing; he's not a doctor at all.
Liang Siyu had just managed to suppress his anger, but now she's making him so angry he's about to explode.
He is a fourth-year doctoral student in the MD/PhD joint program, having completed two years of basic medical courses in MD and is currently conducting research in the PhD stage.
Even the most successful joint medical project takes eight years, making it one of the longest and most grueling doctoral programs.
In their lab, there's a taboo: that MD/PhD students "are not doctors."
That was almost the most vicious curse, implying that the other person would not be able to graduate smoothly.
If the other person is in a bad mood, it could trigger a storm.
Of course, he wasn't that fragile; he knew he could hold on. What angered him most was that she knew all along, yet she deliberately said those things to provoke him.
He sneered and retorted without any politeness: "Fine, I'm not. When you get back to the lab, go to the animal room and install an electrode yourself."
"Just below the dura mater of the skull, don't get it wrong, it should be especially easy for you, my full-stack genius engineer."
Xu Aida stared at him in disbelief. Liang Siyu was a gentleman, and he had never said such harsh words to her in his past life.
He knew perfectly well that she didn't choose experimental physics because she was terrible at it and couldn't even connect wires properly, so she studied computer science and mathematics instead. But physics was her eternal ideal.
Aside from her parents, she had never admitted this to anyone else, only to him.
When she first arrived at JHU and got to know them, she actually envied him and Cohen.
His hands, needless to say, are of an MD who wants to get into neurosurgery. Their dexterity and stability are superhuman. They have to control the error of their operation under the microscope to within 0.1 millimeters. They are not even in the same species as ordinary people.
Cohen wasn't as freakish as him, but he could handle all the tedious material experiments and the making and installation of various models with ease, which was something she could only envy.
"I'm being too soft-hearted. Get out of here! I'm telling you, there's no point in talking after the holiday. We're breaking up!"
Xu Aida roared back angrily.
"Fine, let's break up. I don't need to beg you!"
Liang Siyu stood there for two seconds, then slammed the door and left. He was also a chosen one, with a smooth and successful life ahead of him, and he would never allow her to humiliate him again and again.
She inexplicably wanted to break up, preferring to seek help from that older man and secretly get an MRI rather than tell him, completely distrusting her boyfriend.
He was filled with frustration and confusion. How could the girl he had always liked have become so unfamiliar in just a few days?
In his heart, she was rational and intelligent, occasionally stubborn, and demanding of herself, but never stingy with kindness towards others. She even wrote a few small tools to help research assistants (RAs) clear data.
She was poised and generous in her dealings with others. She didn't talk much when chatting, but her occasional dry humor would always make him laugh.
He believed that even without the attraction between a man and a woman, they would still get along well and become good friends.
But in the last two days, she seems to have suddenly become a different person, acting illogically, inexplicably, and with a sharp tongue.
Why should he act like a pathetic bookworm, sacrificing his self-respect to please a pretty girl? He's not the kind of man who needs to throw himself at a girl.
His mind was in chaos, his heart was pounding, and he tried to calm himself down by taking a bath, but the hot water in the bathroom could not wash away his anger and bitterness.
When he came out wrapped in a bathrobe, he realized that this was Ada's room. The room he had run out of was the one he had changed to that morning, where he had moved all his suitcases.
As for why he went to the wrong place? Because he still had room cards from both sides.
They were arguing so much that they got even such a basic thing wrong; it was absurd.
Hasn't she noticed yet? Or is she waiting for him to take the initiative, hoping he'll apologize first?
Hmph, dream on. Let's see who can't hold back first. He's not afraid. Anyway, he's not as troublesome as girls.
He lay comfortably on the bed, looking at his paper on his phone for a while. He just couldn't believe she could put up with him.
He waited for her to knock on the door. What should he say then? He couldn't forgive her right away; he had to wait for her to say a few kind words first.
At first, Liang Siyu waited with the mindset that he "couldn't lose." But as time dragged on, he became restless when dinner time arrived.
Almost two hours have passed, and she... still hasn't noticed? A sudden flashback to the image of her pressing her forehead during the argument suddenly appeared in his mind—she had a headache again.
She just fainted from a fever last night, and she's so emotionally agitated today. Could she have another fever? Could she have fainted alone in her room?
Moreover, she went to get an MRI today. Could it really be just a simple old shoulder injury?
Why would Ada bother someone during her vacation if it weren't for an urgent and serious problem?
The moment this thought popped into his head, he panicked, and all the anger he had felt earlier vanished instantly.
He jumped up abruptly, not even having time to put on his slippers, and rushed to another room, frantically ringing the doorbell.
A note from the author:
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[Note 1] In the same time travel story, traditional science fiction would consider the "grandmother paradox". As a non-science fiction writer, the story mainly focuses on the emotional entanglement between the two people. The main story has a happy ending.
[Note 2] Both are American-born Chinese, and there are significant differences in American dating culture.
Dating: A very broad period of ambiguity, during which one can date multiple people, spending the night together doesn't mean anything, and it doesn't involve commitment.
Romantic relationship: Confirming a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship is a relatively serious matter, implying a certain level of social commitment and future relationship commitment.
Ned and Ada had never met anyone they were attracted to before, and coincidentally, they were each other's first time, whether it was dating or a romantic relationship.
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