If I Don’t Earn 1 Trillion Won, My Regression Ends - Chapter 53

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 53

 

“Uncle Shin-hyeon. I won’t be coming in tomorrow.”

 

“Huh? Why?!”

 

“It’s been quite a while since I started rehabilitation. They said there’s a lot to do at the hospital for progress monitoring. Since it’s bothersome to go back and forth, I’m just going to sleep there.”

 

Seo Shin-hyeon was convinced, and they finished the rest of their meal with friendly and harmonious conversation.

 

Even with Seosing-a absent, Rampa Lim didn’t treat this family carelessly.

 

It was a simple matter.

 

Rampa Lim could get along well with anyone if he put his mind to it.

 

This was partly due to the unique environment of Formula 1 drivers who frequently met with sponsors and external contacts, but fundamentally, intelligent people don’t create unnecessary friction with others.

 

Communication and interaction are matters of intelligence, not personality.

 

Rampa Lim was smart enough to know how to package himself attractively, and his insight and political acumen were not inferior to other racers.

 

Moreover, Seosing-a’s family was good enough that he didn’t need to make any special effort.

 

It had been a long time since Rampa Lim had felt this kind of family warmth.

 

Really, a very long time.

 

♧

 

December 24th, 1999.

 

Carols echoed from everywhere.

 

Even though it was late at night with Christmas tomorrow, the church doors were wide open.

 

Holy voices beginning the midnight mass could be heard faintly from afar.

 

Unlike the main hall packed with people for mass, the outdoor Shrine of the Virgin Mary where votive candles gathered was quiet as if settled in stillness.

 

Light and shadow flickered over the languid and handsome face of the young boy lighting candles with a familiar posture.

 

“May you find your peace, Chris.”

 

(May you find your peace, Chris.)

 

Today was his stepbrother’s death anniversary.

 

Rampa Lim was born on Christmas, and his brother died on Christmas Eve.

 

The person who had made him feel family warmth for the first time in his life, and who had pushed young Rampa Lim into a fierce battlefield before leaving abruptly.

 

Rampa Lim had genuinely liked that stepbrother who came with his new father, despite their considerable age difference.

 

Although he had made him shoulder the burden instead and left behind a shadow he could never escape for life, he still often missed him.

 

So it had always been a question.

 

Why must he always wake up again right after his brother’s death?

 

Why couldn’t he go back to before that?

 

Even after dying and waking up hundreds of times on the same day, at the same time, Rampa Lim continued to wonder.

 

Only after becoming numb enough to accept that this was his predetermined fate, that he couldn’t escape it, and that there wasn’t particularly any need to, did he realize.

 

His brother’s death was also of a similar nature to his own death.

 

Something unavoidable.

 

Something that had to happen.

 

Therefore, a fate that couldn’t be prevented or resisted.

 

Human destiny.

 

Rampa Lim thought with relief.

 

‘Then I just need to live like a mere flame.’

 

If he was going to die on a predetermined day anyway, there was nothing to fear or be afraid of.

 

Until that day came, he could just live freely, however he pleased.

 

Fortunately, he was a Formula 1 driver.

 

A man who rode machines that ran at the fastest speed on earth, constantly awakening his sense of life with thrilling intensity.

 

There couldn’t be a more suitable life for living short and fast.

 

No reason to regret. Lingering attachments were also worthless.

 

Rather, this was a blessed life even if trapped in a hamster wheel.

 

December 25th, 1999.

 

After seeing him come and go from the church for the past two days, a priest who had been watching him carefully asked for his name and subtly recommended religious instruction, saying they should meet often.

 

Rampa Lim declined with a smile.

 

“Thank you, Father. But I was raised in a Church of England family and have already been baptized.”

 

The priest saw him off with mixed feelings of joy and regret.

 

It was late at night.

 

The day was almost over and Christmas was ending too.

 

It wasn’t time for a young boy to be wandering around alone, but did it matter?

 

Though he had died several times at a young age, he had enough adult sensibilities.

 

Rampa Lim wandered aimlessly through streets colored with Christmas tree lights and carols before returning late to the familiar neighborhood.

 

And once again, habitually, he thought of Seosing-a.

 

‘Why did she suddenly appear?’

 

Seosing-a was the first disturbance in his tediously repetitive life.

 

Rampa Lim rummaged through his jumbled and accumulated memories for a long time, but couldn’t find a child named Seosing-a anywhere.

 

Seosing-a who had burst in like an assault.

 

Uncle Park Min-su often came and went unpredictably.

 

In some lives, he lived like a stranger and disappeared, while in other lives, he appeared like a repentant person and acted kindly.

 

Sometimes a failed con artist.

 

Sometimes a successful genius.

 

Rampa Lim had grown accustomed to his uncle’s capricious and eccentric life, so even when he heard that he had bought the apartment below Jeong Hyeon-gyo’s, he wasn’t particularly interested.

 

But.

 

‘There was a girl like this in Kyo’s downstairs apartment?’

 

At first, Rampa Lim was simply refreshed.

 

That was until that pretty little child worked some magic to guess his profession and collapsed in front of him, spouting a nosebleed.

 

The fresh shock gradually spread into curiosity without him realizing.

 

In his flame-like short life, Rampa Lim had been busy navigating only limited human relationships and fierce competition.

 

His head was filled only with racing thoughts, so his interests differed from ordinary people, and he had never had ordinary hobbies.

 

The only things that could stimulate a young athlete with a predetermined death date had been machines or sex until now.

 

Seosing-a was like a pebble carelessly thrown into the lava of a dormant volcano that was boiling but would never erupt.

 

Because of that little thing, Rampa Lim was kidnapped by Jeon An-min, trapped in the mountains, and nearly ruined his hands melting snow to feed her in an attempt to save her.

 

All things he was experiencing for the first time.

 

His solid hamster wheel was creaking.

 

So for the first time in his life, Rampa Lim began to properly learn Korean.

 

Simply because he didn’t want to feel frustrated the next time he talked with that child.

 

One day during a race, when his car flipped in an accident, he even felt thrilled.

 

‘Wow, I’m dying early~.’

 

So meeting Seosing-a even changed the day of death. How amazing.

 

But it wasn’t the case after all.

 

His monster-like fate was still sturdy and very much alive, but even so, his interest didn’t fade.

 

Rather, it grew stronger.

 

Because he realized for certain that if he didn’t catch Seosing-a, he wouldn’t be able to taste anything more interesting than his predetermined limits until the day he died.

 

In the end, it was an expansion of the world due to variables.

 

The young boy didn’t hesitate and flew to Korea with a limp.

 

Only because he was curious about Seosing-a. Because he wanted to see her.

 

And Seosing-a didn’t disappoint his expectations.

 

Rampa Lim, who didn’t enjoy watching television, didn’t even know that Seosing-a had gained fame.

 

He just thought she became cuter as she grew older.

 

Having lived his entire life among diamonds and gold, never counting money and having no particular economic sense, Rampa Lim didn’t know how bizarre what Seosing-a was doing was.

 

He just thought she was resourceful.

 

Having lived only beside his aristocratic stepfather and a mother intoxicated with self-pity, he didn’t even know that the Seosing-a Family was not ordinary.

 

He just thought they were warm.

 

Rampa Lim was simply happy.

 

He didn’t dig deep or think seriously about it.

 

In his vision, with not many days left to live, Seosing-a was just a peculiar and special child. Because she lacked normalcy, she made him laugh.

 

A fairy who burst into his life like an assault, like a gift.

 

And just as great as the joy Seosing-a gave him, the opposite case came to him just as greatly…

 

Rampa Lim’s breath scatters white through the winter night air.

 

He doesn’t like birthdays.

 

His older brother, who had been just one step away from his F1 debut, was the pride and hope of his stepfather, a former “tragic champion.”

 

Rampa Lim was forced to inherit that duty through his brother’s death.

 

Those who remembered his brother and his stepfather wore expressions as if Rampa Lim had stolen that glory from his brother every time he lifted a trophy.

 

“Chris should have been here instead…”

 

Christopher Pierce, who was white, British, from a prestigious family, and even talented—utterly noble and perfect.

 

Since his brilliant brother’s death anniversary was the day right before, Rampa Lim’s birthday was always an extension of a funeral.

 

Even his birth mother, busy reading his stepfather’s mood, never once said happy birthday. She was busy wearing black clothes, covering herself with a prayer veil, and wiping away tears.

 

Was it bitter?

 

No. Rather, he had grown numb to it.

 

Rampa Lim walked along, lost in deep thought.

 

I heard that in Gangwon-do, snow piles up to your knees—I wonder if Seosing-a is okay.

 

No, wait. She’s someone who’s been trapped in snow before, yet gets excited to death whenever she sees snow, so she’s probably having a snowball fight with Jeong Hyeon-gyo.

 

‘Would she even think of me?’

 

With Jeong Hyeon-gyo right there? Like hell she would.

 

She’d be busy flirting around.

 

Does she like Jeong Hyeon-gyo that much? That guy’s burn scar. She acts like her heart breaks whenever she sees that burn, so it must be serious.

 

Why don’t frostbite scars remain? It’s unfair. I couldn’t hold a steering wheel for a whole year either. She has no conscience.

 

But still.

 

But still, she’d think of me a little, right? Just a little…

 

“Rampa oppa! Rampa Lim!”

 

Crunch…

 

The footsteps that had been treading on the accumulated snow stop.

 

Rampa Lim quickly raised his head.

 

On this holy and silent Christmas night, misty snow fluttered down like a baptism. Under the streetlight, it looked like fragments of light as it scattered. And.

 

Seosing-a was there.

 

Her cheeks, whiter than sleet, were red from the cold, her face buried in a fur hat and scarf. As if…

 

Like a Christmas present wrapped perfectly for him.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————