Ch 110 (Extra 10): After My Mother Returned to the Rich Family

[Softening Up CP (6)]

The sky was bright blue, and the clouds were pure white.

A passenger plane took off from the Jing City airport and ascended into the sky.

Nan City and Jing City lay at opposite ends of the country, with the flight taking around two hours and fifty minutes. First class was already full, and Ruan Cha and Fu Chen were seated in the front row.

Having stayed up late for the past few days preparing the launch of the Planet Manager’s Handbook VR game, the two of them had both fallen asleep soon after takeoff.

“Ruan Cha, I’ve detected that Fu Chen is asleep, but it’s a light sleep. A little noise will probably wake him,” the soft, sticky electronic voice of 1128 sounded by her ear.

The next moment, Ruan Cha’s closed eyes snapped open. Her dark almond-shaped eyes showed not a trace of sleepiness.

She turned her head very slightly to look at Fu Chen. A light blanket covered him, his long lashes casting soft shadows beneath his eyes. The usual upward tilt at the corners of his eyes had relaxed slightly. His face had matured and become sharper since high school, but now it carried a trace of weariness.

With Spring Festival just a week away, the two had finished all the pre-launch work for Planet Manager’s Handbook at Three Whale Games and were now on a flight back to Nan City.

“You’re not going to sleep, Ruan Cha?” the system asked again.

The moment they boarded, Ruan Cha had instructed 1128 to immediately report once Fu Chen fell asleep. The system wasn’t sure why she wanted this.

Wait a minute——!!

The glutinous rice ball form of the 1128 system, sitting quietly on Ruan Cha’s knee, suddenly jumped up in a panic and practically lost its shape.

“Ruan Cha, you’re not planning to… do anything to Fu Chen while he’s asleep, are you?!”

Ruan Cha: “…”

1128, fess up. Just what kind of shady online novels have you been sneaking around reading? Come to think of it, you staying powered on in the middle of the night to read The Plum in the Golden Vase was already pretty suspicious!

Ruan Cha shook her head, too lazy to argue over what “do anything” meant. “1128, you’ve always been sensitive to human emotions. Haven’t you noticed that Fu Chen’s emotional state has been off recently?”

“Off? Fu Chen hasn’t been abnormal at all, other than sticking to you a bit more than usual.”

Originally, the system had no interest in anyone but Ruan Cha. But after fully integrating with the antivirus program, it no longer regarded Fu Chen as an outsider. After all, if Fu Chen hadn’t helped in the previous timeline, 1128 would’ve been destroyed, and there would have been no way to reverse the outcome, defeat Ren Qingqing and Yu Zheng, and atone for its own mistakes.

Now that 1128 also valued Fu Chen, it had naturally monitored his mental and physical health closely. It was certain that Fu Chen was perfectly healthy in both regards.

But Ruan Cha stared at Fu Chen, her expression dark and unreadable. “He’s been too clingy. I think… he’s uneasy.”

When her roommates had teased her about Fu Chen being clingy in the cafeteria, she had just laughed it off. After all, they spent plenty of time together and were openly affectionate.

But over time, she had gradually noticed that Fu Chen had indeed become noticeably more attached compared to when they had first started dating.

It wasn’t the suffocating kind of clinginess that demanded constant updates or made her feel pressured. On the contrary, Ruan Cha had always felt completely free and comfortable around Fu Chen; he never objected to anything she wanted to do.

Yet despite how calm and gentle he always seemed, Ruan Cha had caught a faint trace of unease in his subtle actions.

It was as if Fu Chen was afraid… that she might suddenly disappear one day.

She reached out and gently smoothed the frown between his brows, her voice soft. “Fu Chen…”

“Ruan Cha, I just thought of something,” 1128 suddenly interrupted, rolling back and forth nervously on the plane’s tray table. “In the other timeline, Ruan Cha had an accident in the second year of returning to the Liang family. From the timeline now, you’ve also been at the Liang family for two years.”

In this timeline, she had skipped a year of high school and spent one year in university—exactly two years total.

“Theoretically, two versions of the same person in different timelines can have slight emotional resonance.”

“If a Dreamweave Card is present, like for you, you can see things that the Ruan Cha of the other timeline wanted you to see. But if there isn’t one, at certain critical time points, a person may instinctively experience a kind of premonition.”

According to 1128’s data analysis, in the future human species of other timelines, a small percentage had predictive abilities—because the versions of themselves in alternate timelines had already experienced something once.

When timelines didn’t perfectly align, people could occasionally sense events from another version of their life.

In the internal database of the 1128 system, there were some memories left behind by the antivirus program from the previous life. Back then, after Ruan Cha’s accident, Fu Chen had been emotionally devastated for quite some time.

After hearing the system’s speculation and seeing Fu Chen frowning slightly even in his sleep, Ruan Cha couldn’t be sure if the system’s guess was right.

“1128, I remember the Dreamweave Cards in the store can also create custom dreamscapes, right?”

“Yes. The high-grade cards used on you before can travel across timelines and are permanent, but they cannot create unique dreams on their own.”

“If you want to use it for Fu Chen, a mid-grade card would do. It costs only a third of the price, can create dreams, but can’t travel across timelines and lasts for only one hour.”

Since starting college, Ruan Cha had saved up a huge amount of knowledge energy points. Plus, the system store had been running a 0.1x sale from January to March. Even high-grade cards could be bought in bulk without blinking, let alone mid-grade ones.

The moment she purchased it, a deep blue card appeared in her hand, about the size of a playing card, edged with intricate patterns resembling the magical cards from the anime she’d watched as a child.

“What kind of dream do you want to create for Fu Chen?” the system asked.

Ruan Cha lowered her gaze and toyed with the card between her fingers. “If Fu Chen is truly worried that something might happen to me, that I might suddenly vanish one day, then naturally, I want to create a dream where I’m always by his side.”

In truth, Ruan Cha was testing the theory.

If the system’s speculation was right, the card would work. If not, it would have no effect, and she would simply have to ask Fu Chen directly.

Three minutes later, the card in Ruan Cha’s hand dissolved into fine points of light that wrapped gently around Fu Chen. Whether it was just her imagination, Ruan Cha couldn’t say, but the moment the light faded, Fu Chen’s frown seemed to soften.

Ruan Cha had been right.

Ever since they had returned to school after getting engaged, Fu Chen had been quietly uneasy and fearful.

Yet even he couldn’t name what exactly he was afraid of. He feared that she would suddenly disappear right before his eyes, that when the time came for them to meet, she wouldn’t show up.

But what danger could Cha Cha possibly encounter?

Fu Chen had asked himself this repeatedly. The biggest threat to her, Yu Zheng, was dead. The two people once connected to Yu Zheng, Yu Zhiyan and Jiang Yuxing, had proven their integrity and were no longer even in the country.

In Nan City, at school, Ruan Cha hadn’t received any suspicious packages nor had she been followed.

So what was he so afraid of?

Since he couldn’t explain it, there was only one answer: possessiveness.

Fu Chen feared that his unexplainable, overwhelming need to always see Ruan Cha would scare her, so he buried that feeling deep inside himself.

But even though he could suppress it emotionally, he couldn’t control it in his actions. He wanted to see her every day, to confirm with his own eyes that she was safe.

For the first time in nearly twenty years of life, Fu Chen felt something spiraling out of control—and he felt powerless and cowardly for not being able to stop it.

Fu Chen remembered boarding the plane, with Ruan Cha seated right next to him. There was no danger, everything was safe. As he gazed at her peacefully sleeping profile, he had unconsciously fallen asleep too.

Suddenly, the world was engulfed in darkness.

The next moment, Fu Chen found himself standing in front of the Liang family’s villa gates. The maids and gardeners inside were rushing around with grim expressions.

They were murmuring that Old Master Liang’s health had taken a turn for the worse, that the recently acknowledged third young lady’s family had suffered too much, and that the young lady had taken her own life to leave this world.

Young lady?

Were they… talking about Cha Cha?

As the thought surfaced, Fu Chen felt as if a boulder had been slammed onto his chest, making it almost impossible to breathe. His head spun and the world blurred around him.

He clutched his chest tightly, his fingers digging into his clothes as a sharp, unbearable pain radiated through his heart. In that instant, Fu Chen had the terrifying sense that this was not the first time he had witnessed this scene.

Fu Chen had no idea he was dreaming. Even the impossible logic of this dream felt completely real to him. In his mind, the thing he had feared most all along—

was happening right in front of him.

He seemed to hear muffled sobs coming from inside the villa. Staggering and panicked, he pushed open the gate and rushed toward the house in a frenzy.

“Cha Cha, Cha Cha.”

“Fu Chen, where are you going?”

Just as he was running to the villa, someone suddenly grabbed his arm. Turning around in shock, Fu Chen was stunned to see Ruan Cha standing there, perfectly fine, contrary to what the housekeeper had said about her having taken her own life.

And she was—

wearing a wedding dress.

Ruan Cha waved the bouquet in her hand and helplessly pointed to the wedding hall behind her. “Fu Chen, didn’t we just finish our wedding and get ready to go on our honeymoon? Are you trying to run away from our marriage?”

Fu Chen stared in disbelief at her face, then glanced back. The somber villa and the crying had completely vanished, replaced by the bright wedding hall and green grass. It had all been a trick of his mind.

All he could hear now were the blessings and joyful laughter of the guests.

Before Fu Chen could step forward to embrace Ruan Cha, the scene shifted again. Now he found himself at home, playing chess with a lively little child in the garden.

Fu Chen looked at the child, then up toward Ruan Cha, who was relaxing on a rocking chair. She had white hair now and gentle wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.

But for the first time in so long, Fu Chen felt his turbulent heart, adrift like a tiny boat on stormy seas, suddenly calm and steady.

Ruan Cha had been watching Fu Chen closely, waiting to see if the card had worked. But before she could observe any changes, she noticed Fu Chen’s hand, resting on the chair arm, gently clench as he murmured unconsciously, “Cha Cha.”

Within seconds, sweat beaded on Fu Chen’s forehead, his brows tightly furrowed, and he kept softly whispering Cha Cha’s name over and over.

After two years of dating, this was the first time Ruan Cha had so clearly seen fear on Fu Chen’s face.

In that moment, she understood exactly what he was so afraid of. Her eyes stung faintly as she reached out and firmly clasped his hand. “I’m here.”

Soon after, Fu Chen’s expression gradually relaxed. The tense lines on his forehead disappeared, and his entire demeanor seemed calm and at ease once more.

“Cha Cha.”

Ruan Cha looked at Fu Chen as he gripped her hand tightly, and she couldn’t help but smile. A moment later, she leaned down and gently kissed the knuckles of his fingers, replying softly, “I’m here, now and always. I will always be here.”