1192 Wrong story chapter, Don“t buy
For the whole day, Mai"s senses had been on high alert. She was worried about who had been following her and what they were planning to do. However, after having an exhausting day at the kickboxing club, she found herself drained and tired, tired enough to let her guard down.
To the point where someone had approached her and now had laid a hand on her shoulder. Instinctively, her heart started to beat at a rapid pace, and even though she was exhausted, the fight or flight response had started in her body.
A strong grip was felt around her shoulder, and in a split second, she had decided that running away would have been pointless. Having practised nothing but punches for the last hour, tuning around, she threw out a punch, but she was so scared she had closed her eyes.
"I did it. I hit someone!" Was the first thought that came to mind, when she felt her fist make contact. "When opening them, she could see that her small fist was in the palm of another hand. The punch had hit no one.
"If that"s the case, then I can only scream!" Mai thought.
"Mai, what are you doing?"
Now, looking towards the man"s face that was after her, she could see that it was none other than Even.
"I got your text, asking me to come to meet you at this time? You said you wanted to ask me a few questions?"
——
The misunderstanding between them was cleared up as they went to a restaurant to have a meal. Nothing too fancy, just a simple burger place, that was on the high street. Mai had forgotten that she had sent a text to Even before entering the club.
There were a few reasons for her text, one of them being the fact that she felt she was being followed. She thought it might be good to make the detective aware of this. The other was to ask for more details on Chris"s death.
"I see. Well, it"s good that you took me up on my advice, but your skills are lacking. I think it"s going to be a while until anyone thinks you are some type of threat." Even replied, thinking about the punch he had easily caught.
He had gone through some physical training himself as a detective, but it was nothing to fancy. So he imagined at the moment, any man that was larger than her would easily be able to overpower her.
"I"ll be honest with you Mai, there will be some police looking over you for the next few days. They are meant to be skilled, so you can"t be followed. It might be them that are on your back. You have to remember you are still a suspect in all of this.
"Don"t take offence to it though, if they are watching over you, you can just think of them as actual bodyguards. If anyone tries something, then they will be there. Although they can"t look over you twenty-four-seven, as time goes by, they will look over you less and less, so it"s good that you can be cautious.
"Anyway, you should leave most of this stuff to future Mai to worry about. You should continue trying to find out what you can in the past. I"m surprised you didn"t go back yet." Even said, stuffing his face full of fries. He would pick more than one up at a time and eat as if he was in some type of compet.i.tion.
"So handsome." Mai joked. "Actually, I was thinking of staying for a while…." Mai went on to explain her reasoning behind staying. How no matter how long she stayed, when she went back, only one day would have pa.s.sed, and she could repeat the process again. This way, she could become a master fighter and find out as much as possible before heading back.
"You can really do that? Wow, you could literally live over multiple lifetimes. Although I wonder what would happen if you were to die while being in this world, would you be able to go back?" Even said out loud.
Hearing this being said was sending a s.h.i.+ver down Mai"s spine. She definitely didn"t want to think about that. For all she knew, there was someone after her and Chris in the future, but in the past, she was relatively safe, at least for ten years.
"I mean, that"s how it"s worked so far, so I"m a little worried. I might go back a little sooner the first time. So it looks like you"re stuck with the past me for a while." Mai said, smiling.
"Unfortunately, I have some bad news for you. The most you can stay or train for is around three months. That"s your set trial date. Still judging by the fact you have three months you would have…" At that moment, Even pulled out his phone and went to the calculator.
She knew what Even was trying to do. Three months would mean Mai would have ninety days to train and investigate. During that time, each time she went back to the past and then to the future again, her time until her trial date would lessen by one, and she could spend 89 days in the future until her trial date.
"Repeating the process would give me around 4095 days of training, which equals 11 years and 2 months." When Mai said these words, she realised how much of a time that was. Repeating the same three months and moving forward by a day didn"t seem to be something so…long-winded, but now she understood.
"I guess you will have plenty of time to become a kickboxing master then, but could you really live the same three months, eleven times? I don"t know if I could."
Thinking about this herself, She wasn"t so sure either, but perhaps if her life and someone else"s life were on the line. At least it wasn"t living the same day for 11 years. So there would be plenty of things for her to do during that time.
"I wanted to ask you while you"re here, you wouldn"t tell me when we first met, but how did Chris die, do you know?" Mai asked.
Even first looked to his left and right as if he was seeing if anyone was listening in. But he was trying to decide if he should tell her or not.
"Chris died of multiple stab wounds. Honestly, that"s all I can say, without giving up too much information. I don"t know if that"s how he died the times before, but I"m guessing this is the first time I"ve told you such information." Even said.
What he didn"t tell her was the fact that the weapon that had been used, had Mai"s fingerprints on it. It was one of the pieces of crucial evidence that they held. They were also, at the moment attempting to get a warrant to search her apartment before the trial date to see if they could find anything else.
The reason why Even didn"t say this was of course, due to future Mai.
"I see, well if that"s all you can tell me. I guess that"s all you can say. Thank you for helping me out." Mai said, as she headed back to her apartment to live her life in the future a little longer.
———
Inside a particular furniture store, a worker named Rita couldn"t get the interaction she had today out of her mind. So when her s.h.i.+ft finally came to an end, she had decided to head to the security room.
Asking the guards on duty, she watched the tape of when the girl had entered the store. As expected, she could see Mai acting extremely nervous and looking all over the place. Looking at the footage, she tried to see the people who followed in after her, and that"s when something had caught Rita"s eye.
There was not one, but two people, who seemed to be overdressed, and entered the store. At the same time, when another a.s.sistant came up to them, it looked like they refused help.
"Based on the clothes they were wearing, I can"t even see their faces. Maybe I should ask one of the other workers?"
Finally, when Mai had exited out of the store, the two of them had remained. Which made her think that perhaps she was now overthinking things as well, but just after a couple of minutes, they too had walked out from the shop, not having purchased a single item, while staying around the same vicinity.
"Hmm, that"s a little strange." The guard said.
"What, did you notice something?" Rita asked.
That"s when the guard started to pause the video at specific frames.
"They seem to know where all the spots are for the cameras in the store. Each time, this person has looked directly into all of them."
On four screens, the guard had pa.s.sed the person looking directly into the cameras wearing sungla.s.ses and a heavy black jacket, staring directly into the camera. Looking at the person, she was getting gooseb.u.mps because... the person was smiling.