EFB Chapter 62 Almost Exposed
Chapter 62 Almost Exposed
Yoona narrowed her eyes slightly, a sharp glint flashing in her doe-like eyes, which was then replaced by a gentle smile.
"Are you really from China, transported from another time?"
"Hey, Nuna, we're the same kind of people, except here you hold the script for the future, while I have nothing."
Lin Xiaolu floated in mid-air, spinning around anxiously, muttering to herself, "Liar! Big liar! You're clearly not from another time! You're clearly a local! You've never even been to China!"
Jiang Yan pretended not to hear and continued to turn the meat on the grill with the serving chopsticks, his expression so sincere that he almost believed it himself.
Yoona didn't reply immediately, but instead picked up her water glass and took a sip.
Using the rim of the cup as cover, she peered out of the corner of her eye to scrutinize every expression on the young man's face across from her.
From the moment they first met at the barbecue restaurant last night, she felt that something was off about this person.
He appeared polite and courteous on the surface, but there was much more hidden in his eyes than he showed.
"Okay." Yoona still had some doubts and continued to probe, "What did you do when you were in China? Were you also in the music industry? Can you answer me in Chinese? I understand."
Chinese.
Damn, this woman isn't so easy to fool. She said okay, but then she hit a straight shot.
Jiang Yan mentally complained.
Then he flashed a flawless smile. "Of course, Noona."
As he spoke, he paused for a moment, drawing upon the familiar accent of his previous life when speaking Mandarin, and said slowly, "I've been here for many years, and my Korean is so fluent that sometimes I even forget I came from there. You ask me what I did over there? In my previous life, I was an independent musician, writing soundtracks for web dramas and occasionally taking on gigs. I wasn't doing particularly well, but I wasn't doing badly either. One night, I stayed up all night revising a song, fell asleep on the table, and woke up on a hard bed in a welfare home in Busan."
He paused, picked up the water glass on the table, took a sip, and continued in Chinese, "And you? When did you realize you were wearing this?"
The entire answer flowed smoothly, without a single pause or hesitation.
Lin Xiaolu floated beside the chandelier, her mouth agape in a small "O".
How come this guy speaks Chinese so well? Could he really be a time traveler? But there's clearly no other Jiang Yan in him, is there?
On the other side, Lin Yoona remained expressionless, but Jiang Yan noticed that her fingers tightened slightly as she held the water glass.
"2012."
Lim Yoona also answered in Chinese, with equally standard pronunciation, but her rhythm of enunciation was slightly different from Kang Yeon's, carrying a slight accent characteristic of native Korean speakers speaking Chinese. "When I opened my eyes, I found myself back in 2012, practicing until two or three in the morning every day, my whole body ached so much that I couldn't even go down the stairs."
She gave a wry smile and switched back to Korean: "I was almost driven crazy during that time. I had already gone through it once, but I had to go through it all over again."
Jiang Yan also switched back to Korean, a hint of shared sorrow in his eyes: "It seems we're all the same, thrown here without really knowing what's going on. But Nuna is luckier than me, at least you know what you're facing. Me? I opened my eyes to find myself in an orphanage, surrounded by Korean-speaking kids, and I can't even find a toilet."
That last sentence was so true that Lin Xiaolu burst out laughing in mid-air.
Yoona stared at him for a while, then smiled with her eyes crinkling.
This smile was more relaxed than ever before, as if she had finally let down her guard.
"Actually, it was the same for me. It took me almost a year to fully adapt to the rhythm of practicing again."
After saying that, her gaze lingered on Jiang Yan's face for a long time, so long that Jiang Yan wondered if he hadn't controlled his expression properly.
Then she continued, "Jiang Yanxi, do you know? You are the first kind of person I've met since I came here."
When she said those words, Jiang Yan caught a fleeting glimpse of vulnerability in her doe-like eyes.
This was an emotion he had never seen in Lim Yoona since he first met her; it contained a loneliness that had been hidden for many years.
Jiang Yan fell silent; for a moment, he felt like he couldn't continue acting.
He lowered his eyes, used the serving chopsticks to stir the sizzling garlic slices on the baking tray, and silently called out to Lin Xiaolu in his heart.
"Hey, Lin Xiaolu, don't you think I look like a total jerk right now?"
"You just realized that?" Lin Xiaolu's voice drifted over from the chandelier, cold and gloomy. "Deceiving a woman who has been lonely for many years is practically the standard for a scumbag."
"Hey, watch your words, you're on my side."
"Tch, I only promised to help you see if she was lying or not. That doesn't mean I support you lying to her. Please make sure you understand these two things clearly."
Jiang Yan rolled his eyes inwardly, but steadily wrapped a vegetable bun for himself.
At this moment, Lim Yoona spoke softly, her tone suddenly shifting: "Jiang Yan, everything you've changed has never backfired, right?"
Jiang Yan opened his mouth, almost blurting out that he had never suffered any backlash.
Fortunately, he reacted in time. Since he had never experienced any backlash before, he should now be skeptical of the word "backlash" instead of directly acknowledging it.
Thinking of this, a cold sweat instantly broke out on his back. Luckily, he almost gave himself away. He really couldn't let his guard down at all when facing this woman.
His expression instantly turned to confusion. "Nuna, what is backlash? I've lived like this my whole life, and I've never experienced anything like what you're describing."
Upon hearing this, Lim Yoona's doe eyes flickered slightly. "That's true. You've never experienced a backlash before, so how would you know this?"
She shook her head, picked up her water glass, took a sip, and slowly said, "This story begins after I came here. When I first transmigrated, I was very excited and thought that with my prophetic abilities, I could live a wonderful life. But reality is so different from my imagination."
"I've tried to change a lot of things, some small and some big, but these all come at a price, and the result is still the same; it will just be fixed in another way."
"But I didn't believe in superstitions until that night in 2013, when I finally gave up on the idea because I felt that if things continued like this, I would disappear."
Jiang Yan was silent for a moment, then spoke: "...So you've never tried it again since then?"
"No." Lim Yoona shook her head, her doe eyes fixed on Jiang Yan. "So you should understand why I'm so curious about you, right?"
Jiang Yan nodded slowly, his expression changing from confusion to thoughtfulness, and then from thoughtfulness to sudden realization.
"So, the reason Noona tested me at the barbecue restaurant yesterday was because you discovered I changed Pani Noona's title track. You think I'm a transmigrator who can ignore the backlash?"