Chapter 222.1

Chapter 222.1

Yuri… Just thinking about the weight that boy had to bear alone, trapped in the tangled greed of adults, made Seoryeong’s chest tighten.

If he had been forced to drift through that shadowed world, playing the role of everyone’s blindfold.

Seoryeong swallowed against the ache rising in her throat. The mature voice that had once calmly recounted the past echoed in her ears, the same voice that had filled a bedroom with its low warmth. Her heart felt as if it were shrinking.

“I already chose these children.”

Tears had left streaks across Daria’s eyes, and the scars of that choice were still raw. Seoryeong watched her, motionless, as Daria wheezed and struggled to breathe, her chest crushed by guilt. There was only one thing Seoryeong could say to her.

“I will never let go of him.”

From now on, her desires would revolve around one person alone: Lee Wooshin.

Even if the world collapsed, she would save him. Because that one man was her entire world.

“I’m going to live selfishly to the very end.”

The moment she spoke those words, Seoryeong felt as if she were embracing the darkest depths of Wooshin’s soul, pulling into herself the misery he might not even recognize.

Her eyelids trembled, and it felt as if the thin layer of frost inside her had begun to melt. No, more than that, it felt as though the boy’s life had seeped into her and taken root like a single tree. Her gaze hardened with resolve.

To protect something desperately often meant letting go of something else.

Carrying a dilemma, accepting responsibility for one’s choice, that was what it meant. Rigay went mad to protect what he loved.

Joo Seolheon rejected her own motherhood. Maxim burned everything he cherished.

And Wooshin… he lied to her and left, all to protect her.

Right.

Now, maybe she could face that man’s contradictions and touch them gently. After all, she was born and raised from the warp and weft of what they had all done.

So she would take the child they had always pushed aside. She would return to that shattered Winter Castle herself and pull the ash-covered boy from its ruins.

“I still have a lot I want to hear from you, Grandma.”

***

“Ugh!”

As soon as she clawed her way up through the ruins of the Winter Castle, someone unseen reached out a hand.

A face hidden behind white light drew closer, brushing the dirt from her eyes. Each careful touch sent clumps of soot and ash falling away, her eyelashes trembling faintly.

‘Ha… who…’

The woman cupped the boy’s frozen cheeks and blew softly over the soot that had gotten into his eyes. Warm breath brushed his skin.

Yuri stiffened, wary of her touch, but then soft lips pressed against one corner of his eye and pulled away. In that brief moment, his vision flipped upside down like a lie.

Lee Wooshin was brought back to the present.

“…!”

He gasped and pressed a hand to his eye. A strange ceiling came into view. Lee Wooshin’s pupils were dilated to their limits.

His bare torso was tightly bound with expertly wrapped bandages, and his condition was terrible.

It was no surprise. The portable parachute in his bulletproof vest had never been meant to carry the weight of two grown men. As soon as his consciousness returned, he could feel the burn across his back, hot as if seared by coals.

‘Damn it… stay still!’

Even while falling down the valley, his body had tumbled over and over. He’d known that letting go of Kia might stop their descent, but in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to release him.

Even if someone had to clean up the mess, that wasn’t his job. It should be Seoryeong’s. The thought that she was his pain-in-the-ass yet only sibling clung stubbornly to Lee Wooshin’s mind, refusing to let go.

Grinding his teeth, he had thrown his arms around that useless brat and fallen with him. He used his limbs to pin down the Kia’s flailing body and neck, forcing him still.

The flimsy parachute barely slowed their descent, and the two of them still plunged straight down under gravity’s pull before crashing helplessly into the icy river.

‘You idiot, straighten your body! Listen to me!’

As they neared the water, Wooshin pointed his toes and let himself plunge in with a loud splash. His sleek body shot straight down, and a shard of wreckage from the train struck him on the side of the head.

Seoryeong’s face flashed before his eyes, sharp and clear as if it were only yesterday. There were no words in the world to describe the feeling of leaving her behind in the cold wind and falling away.

“Damn it!”

His head throbbed heavily. When he tried to lift himself up, pain ripped through his body so sharply that his mouth fell open. All that came out was a groan.

His whole body was bruised and mottled blue, as if beaten all over. Nothing seemed broken, but his limbs twitched in small, erratic spasms as if they no longer worked right.