RWWAI 35

Chapter 35: The Dawn of Hope

When dawn broke, I was rescued by a family living by the lakeside.

A few days later, I was safely escorted back to the commandant's estate.

An estate that no longer had a commandant.

It wasn't just Luo Fan; on that fateful night, the majority of the officials on the barge had perished, including the Supervising Imperial Censor.

Only the Minister of Revenue, who happened to know how to swim, survived after jumping into the lake just like I did.

Word had it that the massacre stemmed from court factionalism and had absolutely nothing to do with Luo Fan; the assassins' true targets were the higher-ranking officials seated at the banquet.

Since official authorities escorted me home and too many eyewitnesses had seen me, I could no longer keep up the pretense of being pregnant.

Fortunately, nobody questioned my story, simply assuming that my child had unfortunately been lost to the trauma of that terrifying night.

In the aftermath, I did experience a period of total apathy, locking myself away in my room without eating or drinking.

Yet I also knew I couldn't just give up, because Luo Fan had told me to stay alive, and he had told me to go home.

If I allowed myself to rot away in self-pity, there was zero chance my mission would ever get cleared.

So when Qin Miaomiao finally lost her patience and smashed her way through my door with a group of servants trailing behind her, I knew I couldn't run away from reality anymore.

Luo Fan's absence hurt more than words could say, but deep down in my heart, I harbored a vague, unshakeable intuition that dying after transmigration didn't necessarily mean true death.

I stubbornly clung to the belief that as long as I could help Luo Fan complete his mission, even if he died here, he'd still find a way home.

My first ray of hope lay entirely within myself.

Having already shared an intimate marital bed with Luo Fan, if I wound up pregnant, Qi Lu's most coveted legitimate heir would materialize automatically.

Alas, that flickering spark of hope was mercilessly smashed to pieces by a few drops of blood that arrived right on schedule every single month.

That was alright.

Because what Qi Lu ultimately wanted was the flourishing continuation of his lineage; me giving birth to a direct legitimate son was simply the fastest speedrun strategy, not the absolute only path.

My second ray of hope rested in the child growing inside Qin Miaomiao's belly.

Although the shortcut of "pretending I gave birth to it" had been firmly blocked off, we still had a slightly more roundabout method: registering the baby under my name so the child would hold legitimate status on paper.

It might not have been the optimal solution, but it was a gamble worth taking.

Because what Qi Lu demanded was the propagation of his descendants; even if the child wasn't biologically mine, a registered legitimate heir still held a vastly different standing in the family genealogy compared to a concubine-born offspring.

More importantly, the primary reason Qi Lu had ended up completely heirless in the previous timeline was because collateral branches had swept him out on his ear just to plunder his estate.

That was something I had zero fear of facing now.

Not only because Liang Jingjing's father was destined to rise to the position of Minister of Finance one day, but also because, long before all this happened, Luo Fan had been forced into legally transferring every single plot of farmland over into my name.

There was no way any collateral relative of the Qi family could ever snatch away property bearing Liang Jingjing's name.

This explained why, even though I knew Qin Miaomiao and I would eventually have to pack up and leave the commandant's estate, I never felt an ounce of anxiety.

At present, my financial standing was actually significantly healthier than it had been while Luo Fan was still alive, because alongside the lands, the money under Qi Lu's name now belonged to me as well.

Qin Miaomiao—who had originally planned to renounce worldly ties and become a nun the moment she delivered the baby—willingly chose to stay put after the upheaval.

Half of that decision stemmed from my irresistible personal charm, and the other half because I promised her that wherever I went, whatever I owned, she would receive an equal share.

To be completely honest, Qin Miaomiao had always treated me with absolute loyalty and genuine affection.

When I discovered my period had arrived down in the outhouse and realized I wasn't pregnant, she was the one who braved her heavy pregnancy without a shred of squeamishness, hauling me—weeping to the point of passing out—straight back out of the latrine.

For that alone, I was more than happy to support and protect her for the rest of our lives.

As for the matter of vacating the commandant's estate, Yangshan obviously couldn't remain without a commandant forever; once the new official assumed office, we were supposed to clear out as swiftly as possible.

Given Qi Lu's tragic end, out of lingering sympathy for two helpless women—coupled with the fact that Qin Miaomiao was nearing her due date—the authorities made a special exception, allowing us to stay until after she gave birth before moving out, which truly felt like a blessing amidst all the misfortune.

I used that grace period to purchase another residential courtyard elsewhere in Yangshan, preparing a place to move into the moment the baby arrived.

Even so, the day Qin Miaomiao went into labor, I still felt as though my heart had been stabbed by a sharp blade.

Not because I was incapable of bearing children myself, but because Qin Miaomiao—who was only supposed to deliver a single baby girl—ended up giving birth to twins.

A boy and a girl.

In the previous life, Qi Lu and Qin Miaomiao had welcomed a son and a daughter, proving that fate had always intended for him to father a pair.

Just like how he was destined to remain nothing more than a regional commandant until the day he died.

Even though he had died far earlier in this timeline, he still ended up siring a son and a daughter with Qin Miaomiao all the same.

It was only at that exact moment that the reality of Luo Fan's death pierced deeper into my chest than any funeral ever could.

The heavens had officially tallied up his ledger.

The ledger belonging to "Qi Lu" for this lifetime had been firmly snapped shut, boxed up, and sealed away in dust.

From this point on, Luo Fan would never leave a single fresh trace upon this world again.

After consulting with Qin Miaomiao, we ultimately registered only the infant son under my name.

As for their names, I kept the exact ones from the previous lifetime.

The boy was named Qi Sile, and the girl was named Qi Sien.

And then, we finally packed up and left the commandant's estate behind.

I didn't shed a single tear the day we moved out, because I firmly believed that as long as I kept pushing forward step by step, I would eventually get to see Luo Fan again.

So long as I helped him clear his mission first, and then knocked out my own, the final outcome would remain unchanged.

I stopped agonizing over what "living for oneself" was supposed to mean; I'd worry about my own mission after finishing his first!

Besides, I needed to leave him plenty of time to track me down, didn't I?

If I rushed through and cleared the game too fast, knowing what an utterly useless idiot he was, how many centuries would I end up waiting for him?!

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