RWWAI 18

Chapter 18: A Laughter, a Torrent, Rolling Waves on Both Shores

I sat inside the swaying carriage while outside was a lush expanse of greenery and grass, yet my mood was anything but pleasant.

I shot a chilling, icy glare at Luo Fan and demanded:

"How come you showed your face and we were able to get out here so fast?"

Luo Fan chuckled and replied:

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"Good, but I'm pissed! This violates the core motto of 'whatever makes you happiest, just do it your way'."

Luo Fan smiled without a word, rummaged around in his pocket, and fished out an oil-paper package.

The moment it opened, a rich, sweet aroma wafted directly into the air.

I exclaimed with starry-eyed delight:

"Jinhua ham?!"

Luo Fan frowned slightly and said:

"This is barbecued pork (char siu), alright?"

Ignoring his playful roast, I popped a piece straight into my mouth, only to find it tasted unexpectedly amazing.

"This slaps!"

I gasped.

Luo Fan offered a confident, self-satisfied smile and remarked:

"Well, duh! I was planning on opening a roast-meat shop in the future; delivering food right now is just to stack some savings."

I grabbed another piece and asked casually:

"Are you from Guangdong?"

Luo Fan paused for a second before throwing back a mysterious counter-question:

"Guess?"

I rolled my eyes at him and snapped irritably:

"If you're not going to say, forget it—I didn't want to know anyway!"

Chewing the piece of char siu in my mouth as the honeyed sweetness and savory pork juices exploded across my palate, I couldn't help asking:

"When did you even make this? I never saw you step foot in the kitchen..."

"While you were busy packing your luggage. Since I had time to burn, I figured I'd whip up some little snacks! After all, when you're traveling, you gotta have some good munchies on the road!"

Luo Fan laughed.

I said with pleasant surprise:

"You actually thought this through!"

Luo Fan thumped his chest proudly:

"Obviously! The tour bus for your graduation trip might have fallen through, but snacks are in unlimited supply!"

And he certainly wasn't just blowing hot air.

Aside from the char siu, he had also prepared dried fruits, roasted chestnuts, and rice balls wrapped in sesame and fermented black beans.

Once we boarded the painted cruise barge, since we no longer had to worry about prying eyes, I could finally strip off the fake pregnancy pillows stuffed inside my clothes.

Standing out on the bow's observation deck while the breeze brushed against my cheeks, I stretched my arms out freely and sighed:

"If we could jump down for a swim right now, that would be even better!"

Right at that moment, the cruise barge slowly lurched forward.

Losing my footing for a split second, I tumbled backward and crashed straight into Luo Fan, who was currently bent over lugging a low table out onto the deck.

"Keep standing like you've got no spine, and you'll be swimming in the water real soon."

he teased.

Ignoring his jab, I asked:

"What are you doing?"

"Moving the hotpot outside, the view's better out here."

he replied.

I eagerly pitched in to help, hauling out the seat cushions myself.

To avoid drawing attention and keep up the facade that I wasn't actually pregnant, we hadn't hired any maidservants; aside from a few random boatmen standing way off at the stern where they couldn't see us, all the heavy lifting had to be done by ourselves.

After finally getting everything set up, Luo Fan walked over to the edge of the boat and smiled softly:

"Even though I've ridden boats before, this kind of scenery is a first for me too."

After all, in this era, there were no airplanes and no towering skyscrapers.

Once the cruise barge pulled away from the dock, as far as the eye could see, there was only the vast open sky, rolling mountain ranges stretching to the horizon, and a few other painted boats drifting leisurely in the distance.

The lanterns flickering on and off across those distant vessels stirred within me a sudden, romantic sense of unbridled wanderlust—feeling like something straight out of an epic martial arts ballad about rivers, lakes, and rolling tides.

At that moment, Luo Fan suddenly turned his gaze toward me and asked:

"Why... have you never been on a trip before?"

I fell silent for a moment, then looked out over the silver-shimmering lake water illuminated by the moonlight, and slowly began:

"My grandmother's health wasn't good; when I was little, my mom never really had the time to take me anywhere."

Luo Fan nodded without speaking.

The silence, which had felt so comforting just moments before, suddenly grew heavy enough to suffocate me.

So I forced a smile and said:

"That's why the second I started working, I started saving every penny like crazy just to go out and see the world. I had finally bought my plane ticket to Japan, and then I got zapped right over here."

I played it off like it was nothing, but a sudden urge to cry welled up inside me.

My grandmother was a textbook proponent of favoring sons over daughters, dumping all her money onto my two good-for-nothing uncles.

Yet when she fell ill, she latched onto the one child who had never received a single cent—my mother—refusing to let go, purely because she couldn't bear the thought of her precious sons being dragged down by a senile, dependent old woman.

That was why my dad left my mom; they got divorced when I was very small.

Even though my dad sent child support every month and my childhood wasn't starved or freezing, my mom had to take care of my grandma, making any kind of family vacation completely impossible.

When graduation trip season rolled around, my grandma suddenly went off the deep end, pushed my mom down the stairs, and broke her leg—so I missed out on that too.

Right then and there, I swore to myself that I would never let these worthless family ties hijack my future, which was why the moment I started earning my own money, I insisted on renting a place of my own outside.

Because I never wanted to step foot back in that house again.

Ironically enough, Liang Jingjing was an exact carbon copy of my mom, wasting away her entire life over someone who didn't give a single damn about her.

Shouldn't it have been my mom who got transmigrated instead?

What did any of this have to do with me?

"When were you actually planning to go to Japan?"

Luo Fan suddenly asked, snapping me out of my spiraling thoughts.

Forcing my emotions down, I replied flatly:

"End of the year."

Luo Fan lowered his head and murmured:

"End of the year... Japan gets really cold..."

"Cold is great!"

I answered.

"I've never seen snow in my life, I was hoping to see it in Japan."

Luo Fan paused in surprise:

"You've never seen snow?"

I nodded.

Lifting his gaze to the moon hanging in the night sky, he quietly muttered:

"So that's how it is..."

I looked at him in confusion.

"Then you must not be scared of earthquakes and typhoons at all, right?"

he asked out of nowhere.

I could only blink at him stupidly.

Then, he piped up:

"My hometown... it definitely snows in the winter, can you hear that?"

Is he losing his mind?

It's not like I'm deaf.

--