Page 5

Huo Jiu had only drunk a cup of hot cocoa, and his stomach felt empty. Before returning to his seat, he leisurely finished his breakfast. Then he ordered another set meal to fill himself up before getting to his feet and walking out of the café.

The next second, time reset.

Huo Jiu looked at the chattering Chairman Su before him and laughed. "No one knew I skipped out on the bill."

"What?" Chairman Su only vaguely caught the words "skipped out on the bill." "Are you hungry?"

He beckoned a waiter over and ordered breakfast for Huo Jiu. "These past few days—"

"Enough!" Huo Jiu impatiently cut Chairman Su off. He had heard this exchange several times already.

How could he end this scene?

Huo Jiu crossed one leg over the other. In that instant, countless films flashed through his mind. Groundhog Day, Source Code, Triangle, Happy Death Day, Edge of Tomorrow...

Huo Jiu slouched against the back of his chair, tipped his head back, and whistled. He wasn't going to be trapped in this café forever, was he?

Chairman Su coldly observed Huo Jiu's bizarre behavior. After pondering it carefully for a moment, he came to a realization. Was this kid trying to avoid the matter by playing crazy?

"You don't need to resist so strongly." After a moment of contemplation, Chairman Su patiently reassured him, "Donating bone marrow will not have any effect on your body. Perhaps right after the operation, you may experience slight pain, dizziness, and weakness, but I swear that I will take good care of you. I won't let you suffer any aftereffects."

Listening to Chairman Su's nonsense, Huo Jiu suddenly felt a wave of drowsiness. The exhaustion seemed to spread from the depths of his soul, sweeping through his entire body in an instant.

As though he had gone days and nights without sleep, Huo Jiu's eyes slowly closed. Everything before him grew increasingly hazy, and the sounds by his ears drifted farther and farther away. His head tilted to one side, and he fell asleep.

When he woke again, Huo Jiu discovered that he was no longer in the café. He was lying in a clean, tidy room furnished with luxurious tables, chairs, and furniture. The bed beneath him was soft and comfortable, with thin, light bedding. A photo frame sat on the bedside table, holding half a photograph of a woman cradling a child. The woman looked to be in her twenties, beautiful and delicately featured, while the child in her arms appeared to be only five or six.

The photo had been cut in half, leaving only the woman and child. It looked very old, its edges yellowed and curled. The child's face had even become worn and fuzzy, clearly from being repeatedly touched by someone's fingertips.

The door creaked open, and a slender woman with exquisite makeup entered carrying a tray. She looked strikingly similar to the woman in the photograph, only older. Her bearing was more graceful and aristocratic as well. The faint wrinkles at the corners of her eyes became more pronounced when she smiled.

"You're awake." The woman set the tray on the bedside table, poured Huo Jiu a cup of warm water, and held it out to him. "Your fever reached 38.9 degrees. The doctor has already given you a fever-reducing injection. Have some milk to settle your stomach first, then take your medicine."

Without waiting for Huo Jiu to respond, she gently scolded him, "You're not a child anymore. How could you not know to take care of yourself? Why did you insist on holding on when your fever was so severe? Luckily, your Uncle Su sent someone to find you. Otherwise—"

"Otherwise, where would you find a second bone marrow donor compatible with Su Zhuo?" Huo Jiu interrupted her after taking a sip of warm milk.

A flicker of astonishment crossed the woman's face. "How could you think that? It's true that I brought you to the Su family with that intention, because you happen to have Rh-negative blood too. But I'm still your biological mother. If anything happened to you, I would worry too—"

"You knew your ex-husband drank and abused his family, didn't you?" Huo Jiu interrupted her again.

The woman fell silent. Guilt and unease flickered across her previously aggrieved, emotional face. Of course she knew what kind of man Huo Jiu's father was. It was precisely because she could no longer endure that man's domestic violence that she had decided to run away from home.

"After you left, whenever that man got drunk, I was the only one he could beat. He never knew his own strength. Whenever his temper flared, he smashed everything. Pots, bowls, ladles, the television—even a broken-legged stool, he'd swing it around and throw it at me." Expressionless, Huo Jiu recounted everything he had experienced during the seven nights of recurring nightmares. "When you were being beaten, I could still run out and knock on the neighbors' doors, crying and begging someone to save you. But when there was only me and that man left at home, no matter how hard I cried, no one came to save me."

Before dying, Huo Jiu had only lived his own life once. Yet over those seven nights, feverish and trapped in nightmares, he had relived the original owner's experiences seven times over. Every ounce of despair and resentment had seeped into his bones, impossible to forget.

The woman's eyes suddenly reddened. Huo Jiu's words made her remember the part of her life she least wanted to recall. A drunken man beating his wife, while a four- or five-year-old child ran to the neighbors begging for help—the frantic knocking and the child's shrill, miserable cries filled every night, echoing endlessly through the streets and alleys.

Even after so many years, she would still jolt awake from nightmares.

"Y-you blame me?" the woman asked through a choked voice. There was no need to ask, really. Huo Jiu certainly blamed her. He must have resented and hated her deeply, which was why he—

"Not really." Huo Jiu closed his eyes and carefully recalled the original owner's emotions from the dreams.

Strangely enough, the original owner hated everything and everyone. He even hated Lu Manzhen, who had only thought to bring him back so he could be matched with Su Zhuo and forced to donate bone marrow in order to secure her position in the Su family. Yet he had never hated the pitiful woman who had abandoned him with his father to escape domestic abuse.

The original owner had waited for more than a decade, convinced that one day his mother would come back to save him. So he gritted his teeth and endured the beatings. Even when he had the ability to leave, he remained in that remote, backward little town, stubbornly waiting for his mother.

But what he got was the mistress of the Su family, Su Zhuo's stepmother.

She had returned not to save Huo Jiu's life, but to preserve Su Zhuo's future.