Chapter 234.1

Chapter 234.1

“…!”

Lee Wooshin, who had no trouble breathing just a few meters ago, was now gasping for air, his chest heaving painfully.

The name “Daria”… how long had it been since he last heard it?

As the old name slipped from Seoryeong’s lips, his mind went blank.

After his grandparents’ deaths, he had almost completely forgotten about it.

Lee Wooshin, out of breath, looked down at his grandmother, who had grown frail with age, her once strong figure now bent and fragile.

The Daria in his memory had always been meek, quiet, and reserved. A person who, despite losing her children and hating her husband, still came to visit to see the glass.

‘Such a person…

Had led the children of the Winter Castle…

Had abandoned me…’

“….”

He dragged his hand across his face, as if trying to wipe away his emotions.

A mix of indescribable sorrow and nostalgia weighed down on him. Every time he felt like this, Lee Wooshin would recall the comforting hand that had supported his back, and he would take slow, deep breaths.

At that moment, his extremely thin grandmother reached out with trembling arms, like branches of a tree.

She had raised countless children, though none of them were her own. But the one child she couldn’t raise…

Daria trembled, unable to believe that the gray-eyed boy before her looked just like Maxim.

Her grandson, who seemed to carry the faces of everyone she loved, suddenly blurred before her eyes.

He had grown so tall, and his body was even larger. His cold-looking eyes and jaw resembled Maxim’s, while his soft lips were like Ivan’s.

If he had grown up with a mischievous but kind nature, it would surely be thanks to her daughter-in-law, Yani. Tears flowed endlessly from her eyes.

“Yuri…”

Daria’s face showed the guilt of longing for the past. Lee Wooshin, who had been silent for a while, his lips only twitching, finally choked out words.

“I thought I was the only one who survived… Everyone died, and I…”

In his dull, ash-colored eyes, the terrible ruins of that time flashed by in an instant. Among the countless corpses with severed limbs, he had been forced to shoulder everything alone.

Somehow, his voice, broken and defeated, trembled with sorrow.

“I couldn’t understand why I was the only one left alive.”

“Yuri…”

Lee Wooshin shook his head at the desperate tone.

‘No, it’s not that I want to hear an apology.’

Gradually, the guilt of being the sole survivor began to evaporate from his face.

The heavy weight that had rested on his shoulders for so long was slowly lifting.

“I never thought I’d live to see my grandmother again.”

Lee Wooshin, trembling, finally grasped her wrinkled hand. He bent down, resting his forehead against the hand that was covered in dark age spots. His eyelashes fluttered closed in a deep, quiet gesture.

“You’ve suffered, Grandma.”

“Ah…”

Daria couldn’t even breathe.

This wasn’t the young, awkward grandson she remembered. She could now feel the passage of time as she looked at this unfamiliar, matured figure.

Daria dared not even touch him, the grown-up boy. I don’t deserve to hear those words.

Her tongue stiffened, as if she had swallowed poison. She couldn’t bear to look at the child, her eyes unable to open.

“Resentment is not something I can do. I’m not capable of it.”

Lee Wooshin, lifting his head, spoke with red-rimmed eyes.

“My grandmother left my wife with a family.”

“…!”

“Look at that. At least my wife sees a paradise, not a wasteland. She left a tremendous inheritance for Seoryeong, who was lonely her entire life.”

Lee Wooshin, stepping aside, looked thirstily at something. Following his gaze, Daria saw a woman scuffling with Asha by the beach. Seeing the faint smile tugging at Yuri’s lips, Daria gently massaged her aching throat.

The shape of her eyes, curving with sweetness, reminded her of the men from the Solzhenitsyn family, who had always looked at her wife in the same way.

“Thanks to my grandmother, I became a man who can stand before the woman I love with a little dignity. If I only had the sins of Solzhenitsyn, that terrifying woman would probably have run away to the ends of the earth.”

“…”

“Thank you, sincerely. The misery of that time saved my future. If I could just get rid of my rejection of my own blood, I’d be willing to be abandoned again and again. My grandmother was right.”

“Child…”

“My grandmother’s suffering turned into a great reward for me. So, if time were to turn back, don’t hesitate, leave me again.”