"I know, Mom," Xia Xiaoxiao’s face blushed as she thought of the scene last night where Xu Qingfan had held her in his sleep.
Lin Jing fell silent for a moment, and Xia Xiaoxiao, who was waiting with the receiver to her ear, also didn’t speak.
"Mom, what is it?" Seeing her mother stop mid-sentence, Xia Xiaoxiao pressed for an answer.
"Cough cough... it’s nothing, take good care of yourself, listen to your Brother Qing Fan, Mom’s going to hang up now."
The receiver soon filled with the disconnected "beep beep" noise, and Xia Xiaoxiao sat motionless in the posture of holding the phone for several minutes. When Xu Qingfan noticed something was off and patted her shoulder, the girl finally put the receiver back in place.
"What’s wrong with you? You seem out of it," Xu Qingfan waved his hand in front of her and asked.
The next second, Xia Xiaoxiao’s tears fell. She clearly heard her mom cry at the end of the call, and although she didn’t know why her mom was crying, and even less why she herself was crying, she just cried.
"Xu Qingfan~" Xia Xiaoxiao held onto him with a helpless face.
Xu Qingfan was taken aback for two seconds and then gently embraced her, patting her back, and asked, "Why are you crying? Tell me what happened, I’m sure I can solve it!"
Xia Xiaoxiao shook her head, just crying incessantly. She didn’t know what had happened, but her intuition told her it was something very serious.
Even more serious than her parents’ quarrels!
"Alright, alright, don’t cry anymore. Did your mom say something to you? You still have me, why are you crying?" He soothed, stroking Xia Xiaoxiao’s head gently.
"My mom seemed to be crying," Xia Xiaoxiao said, sobbing.
"Er... maybe... maybe..." Xu Qingfan just couldn’t continue.
[Could it really be that what I guessed is true? That Xia Guofu turned bad after becoming wealthy, cheated in marriage, and even had a child?] He thought to himself.
For what purpose? Xu Qingfan found it incomprehensible.
After being reborn, although many people and many things had improved, why did it seem like the situation with Xia Xiaoxiao’s parents was getting worse and worse?
[In the past life, I never heard of Xia Guofu having an illegitimate child. And the affair should have happened in the second year of junior high, or is it just that I didn’t know?]
All of a sudden, Xu Qingfan felt guilty. From everyone else’s perspective, he shouldn’t feel guilty, but knowing the original trajectory, he felt genuinely remorseful.
Could it be that Xia Xiaoxiao’s family was falling apart because of his changes?
"No matter what happens with your dad and mom, you’ll always have me. I’ll always be your brother," Xu Qingfan said, hugging Xia Xiaoxiao tightly by her ear.
"Mmm..." Xia Xiaoxiao nodded, her sobs subsiding.
"Stop crying now. Let’s go take a bath and then play Bubble Bobble together, okay?"
After finally calming Xia Xiaoxiao’s emotions, Xu Qingfan sat at the bathroom door, keeping her company as she bathed inside.
Having lived a second life, he had never thought of continuing to pursue (woo) Xia Xiaoxiao and then reenacting a love story where star-crossed lovers end up together.
Xu Qingfan only treated this life’s Xia Xiaoxiao as his little sister, a slightly wilful and somewhat proud little sister.
He cared for her, looked after her, and was good to her simply because he considered her like a real younger sister.
Xu Qingfan had even pondered if, in the past life, the reason Xia Xiaoxiao kept him hanging and even went abroad in the end was possibly that she had only ever regarded him as a brother, which would explain why she dragged out her response to his advances.
Was she worried about hurting his self-esteem on one hand and, on the other hand, hoping that her good-for-nothing brother would improve, hence she, too, remained single for 26 years as a strategist playing a long game?
Thinking this way, it seemed many things started to make sense.
Damn, I can’t overthink this. What kind of bad woman is this? She’s clearly a saint!
Xu Qingfan shook his head with a smile as he sat outside the door, "Let me take care of you in this life."