RWWAI 29

Chapter 29: What If It Were You?

The second before, Luo Fan had been shouting and ranting at the top of his lungs, but the next second, he cut out like a drained battery and collapsed headfirst onto the mattress.

I let out a heavy sigh and muttered to myself:

"If I'd known this would happen, I should've just dumped him over at Qin Miaomiao's place! Great, now I'm stuck sleeping on the floor again!"

I slowly stepped forward to tuck the quilt around him, but right as I started to turn away, I felt a sudden tightness around my wrist.

Glancing down, I realized this jerk had grabbed hold of me.

Likely due to the alcohol, he completely lost all sense of proportion, and no matter how hard I struggled, I couldn't pry his fingers loose.

I gave my wrist an irritable tug and scolded:

"Hey! Cut it out with the drunken act, let go!"

With his eyes squeezed shut, Luo Fan murmured in a low, slurred drone:

"What if it were you?"

I blinked:

"Huh?"

He cracked his eyes open just a tiny slit and asked hazily:

"If it were you, when would you want to go back to?"

I gave it some serious thought, only to find myself utterly speechless.

Though my twenty-five years of life couldn't exactly be called smooth sailing, none of the major roadblocks I faced had ever been tied to my own choices.

Grandma's deep-rooted preference for sons over daughters, my mom's submissive endurance, my dad's self-preserving detachment—those were all choices made by other people, while I was simply too young to do anything but bear the consequences.

No matter what point in time I traveled back to, the outcome would probably end up exactly the same.

I offered a bitter, self-deprecating laugh and said:

"My life is just what it is; even time travel couldn't save me."

Luo Fan chuckled softly, closed his eyes again, and muttered:

"Isn't that for the best?"

I let out an incredulous laugh:

"Huh?"

"Not everyone gets the ability to rewind and start over just because they have regrets..." he mumbled.

"Someone like you... is honestly so enviable..."

Right as he finished speaking, he suddenly rolled over!

Unfortunately, because he was still maintaining a death grip on my wrist, half of my body was forcefully yanked right up onto the mattress along with him.

Finding myself stuck with one knee awkwardly forced onto the bed while my other foot dangled miserably off the edge, my temper instantly flared.

"Fine! You're the one who dragged me up here, so don't expect me to be polite anymore!" I threatened.

I didn't want to sleep on the hard floor anyway!

Scrambling all the way over to the wall-side of the bed, I stretched out and made myself comfortable.

"The carriage..." Luo Fan muttered, his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he lapsed into total drunken gibberish.

"...I can't find the carriage... Zhang Yue... take me home..."

I let out an amused snort:

"Look, I get being blackout drunk, but what's this time-travel nonsense? You're already home!"

Because he was still clutching my hand, I couldn't roll over to face away from him, leaving me no choice but to lie on my side facing him directly.

Watching his cheeks and the tip of his nose flushed red from the alcohol, I playfully poked his cheek with my other, still-free hand and teased:

"Did you forget you're wearing Qi Lu's face right now? You didn't know, did you? Even pretty boys have to protect their virtue."

Even though I had never laid eyes on Luo Fan's actual real-world face, I stubbornly insisted on believing Qi Lu looked better than him.

With that, I burrowed deep under the covers and shut my eyes.

Outside, the rowdy noise of the Minister of Revenue's concubine-welcoming banquet had faded away long ago.

Inside, only Luo Fan's steady, rhythmic breathing filled the room.

Right before drifting off to sleep, his words from earlier flashed back across my mind.

"Not everyone gets the ability to rewind and start over just because they have regrets."

Having always made it a point to avoid mental rumination, I genuinely hadn't spent much time dwelling on things I regretted.

Root and branch, my entire personality had been forged simply because I was utterly sick and tired of watching my mom suffer through every unfairness the world threw at her while silently swallowing her misery without ever fighting back.

Yet deep down, I knew I hadn't been entirely fair to my mom either, because growing up, she was the person I blamed the most.

I always felt that if she had just found the spine to look my grandmother in the eye and say, "Your precious son doesn't give a damn about you anymore, why should I?", my entire life would have turned out completely different.

Little did I realize, if my grandmother hadn't been so obsessed with male heirs, or if my dad had been willing to take me along when they divorced, the outcome would have changed just as much.

Instead, I chose to lay all the blame squarely on my mother.

I even cultivated this sharp-tongued persona I had now, purely because I refused to end up living like her.

"What on earth is there to envy about someone like me?" I whispered to myself.

Unconsciously, Luo Fan pulled me a fraction closer in his sleep, and I naturally rested my forehead right against his stolen, chiseled chest.

Before I knew it, I drifted off to sleep and slipped into a dream.

In the dream, I was back in middle school.

The moment I unlocked the front door after coming home from school, I heard my mom calling out:

"Yueyue! I'm giving your grandma a bath, there's beef noodle soup on the table—heat it up if you're hungry."

Resentfully slamming the door shut, I yelled back at her:

"Couldn't you wait until you finished heating my food first? You know damn well this is the exact time I get home every single day!"

Even though I knew perfectly well that my grandmother, who was suffering from senile dementia by then, must have soiled her pants, which was why my mom was in such a frantic rush to clean her up.

It wasn't that I didn't understand how hard my mom's life was; I just couldn't comprehend why she insisted on carrying the entire burden alone.

When I woke up, my face was already soaked in tears.

Worse still, I didn't wake up peacefully—I was jolted awake by a blood-curdling shriek from Luo Fan.

"Ahhhhhhh!"

I snapped my eyes wide open to find Luo Fan cowering against the edge of the bed, looking utterly panicked and at a complete loss.

"Y-you... you have the nerve to sit there crying?!" he pointed at me and roared in absolute shock.

"I should be the one crying here! Why the hell are you in my bed?!"

I impatiently wiped away the tear tracks on my face and snapped back:

"You're the one who dragged me up here! Besides, this is my bed!"

Clutching the collar of his shirt tightly to his chest, he panicked:

"Don't think a few tears are going to make me soft! I didn't do anything!"

I crawled out of bed with a frozen expression and retorted:

"I didn't say you did anything either!"

"Then... then what are you crying for?" he asked defensively.

I glanced at the damp traces of tears still lingering on my fingertips and said:

"It has nothing to do with you, I just had a nightmare."

Luo Fan blinked, then asked tentatively:

"Did... did I say something wrong yesterday?"

I shook my head.

For the very first time in my life, I didn't feel like shifting the blame onto someone else.

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