Reborn To Avoid Being Your Substitute

The main hall, draped with wedding silk, was crowded with people. I suddenly opened my eyes, my fingertips still burning from the scorching embers. This is not the realm of the netherworld. This is the ancestral residence of the Houston family, on the very day Queenie Houston and I were to choose a child bridegroom. Memories of a past life surged like a tide; to repay my debt of life, I tended to the vegetative Wayne Gordon for five years. Yet on the night of the fire, he awoke abruptly to save Queenie, and without a moment's hesitation, cast me into the flames. The suffocating sting of thick smoke assailed me once more; I clenched my fists tightly. "I choose Hermes Lewis." Queenie's fragile voice rang out, identical to that of my past life. She chose Hermes Lewis, from a powerful and prosperous family, one who had long pursued her. The clan elder regarded me with eyes brimming with natural expectation; they wished for me to willingly select the vegetative Wayne. Though Wayne was indeed comatose, the resources and advantages of the Gordon family more than made amends for this. In my former life, it was at this very moment that I nodded, thereby descending forever into an abyss of irredeemable ruin. "I won't choose." These three words fell like stones, and silence engulfed the entire hall. Every gaze fixed upon me, a tangled mesh of astonishment, disdain, and suspicion. Dad's face darkened: "Gia Houston, what folly is this you spout!" I straightened my back and met his eyes: "I do not wish to marry." At that very moment, Wayne Gordon, who had lain motionless upon the stretcher, suddenly opened his eyes. His gaze was sharp and unwavering as he looked directly at Queenie Houston, his voice rough from awakening: "I choose her." Queenie displayed an expression of surprise, yet a subtle, barely perceptible pride gleamed in her eyes. If Wayne were to awaken, marrying into the Gordon family would undoubtedly be far preferable to joining the Lewis family. Wayne supported himself as he sat up, his gaze sweeping over me with complete unfamiliarity: "It was Queenie who gave me water during the earthquake years ago and saved my life. This debt of gratitude I must surely repay." With a thunderous roar, I felt as though struck by lightning. Yet the one who found him amidst the ruins during the earthquake, who fed him the sole half bottle of water and stayed by his side all through the night, was undeniably I! Queenie has long exploited my kindness to make me her substitute! Dad stepped forward, gripping my wrist with fierce resolve: "This is not a negotiation. You are choosing a husband today." A searing pain shot through my wrist as I wrenched free from his grasp: "I will choose no one—no one at all!" "How dare you!" Dad's face darkened with fury, and the assembled relatives likewise rebuked me for my ingratitude. I looked upon the familiar scene before me, beheld Wayne's tender care for Queenie, witnessed Dad's blatant favoritism, and felt the last flicker of my love for this family utterly extinguished.