From Villain to Virtual Sweetheart: The Fake Heir's Grand Scheme(BL)-Chapter 590: Memory Carried by the Wind (part one)

Micah’s mind began to drift, weightless, as if someone had plucked him off reality and released him like a lone dandelion seed. He floated through memories and scenes, carried by a wind he couldn’t control. Everything blurred together, faces, voices, pain, humiliation, warmth, and then separated again like shifting sand.

At first, the visions were ones he recognised. The brightly lit hall of their twentieth birthday banquet appeared before him. The crystal chandeliers sparkled above, the tables overflowed with food he had never tasted, and the room buzzed with whispers he wished he had never heard. The banquet was the infamous start of the novel’s storyline. The moment where the fake young master, Micah Ramsy, publicly humiliated himself and kicked off the plot like a scripted clown.

He watched his past self standing there, overdressed, arrogant, and desperate for attention. The sight made Micah’s stomach twist. He wanted to grab that version of himself by the shoulders and shake him.

Micah realised he, too, had lived countless times, just like Clyde. Just like that damn system said with its detached mechanical voice.

From there, the scenes moved quickly.

The four male leads appeared one by one, the four scumbags as he always called them. Their smiles were bright and polished like an expensive knife, yet their hearts were darker than the abyss. They treated Darcy like he was nothing more than an accessory to their amusement. Toying with him. Pushing him. Testing his limits. Using him whenever the story demanded it.

And Micah .... The Micah in all those earlier lives.. competed with Darcy in everything with a vicious, brainless intensity. Bruising him with words, tripping him up with schemes, jumping up and down like a fool whenever Darcy stumbled. Trouble after trouble, all while being played by those same male leads. They used him, once or twice, gaining Darcy’s trust, then tossed him aside when he stopped being useful. He watched himself fall for the same traps repeatedly and felt sick.

Then the scene changed to the moment the Ramsy family threw him out. Micah saw himself standing on the mansion steps, rain pouring on his shaking shoulders, pleading, yelling he was innocent. That he had never given the core data to Aidan Wilson or the enemy. The response he got was the gates closing behind him as if sealing the fate of a worthless character. He drifted next into a dim bar filled with neon lights and cheap laughter, where he worked nights scrubbing tables and forcing smiles. The so-called friends he had helped countless times mocked him openly, kicking him while he was already lying face-down in his own misery.

Then he saw the night he met that tall, handsome blond man at the bar, Clyde Du Pont, not that he knew his name in all those worlds. Each version of Clyde in those visions leaned over the counter with the same gentle eyes, speaking to him with kindness when no one else bothered. They spoke casually, laughed quietly, and connected almost naturally.

And then Micah saw himself being kidnapped.

He watched his body tied to a chair in that rundown apartment, forced to endure pain so intense it blurred his vision. Their hands dug needles into him, extracting stem cells like he was livestock. He watched himself die...alone, shivering, discarded like medical waste.

It hurt. Even knowing it wasn’t his current life, it hurt. Everything matched what he had dreamt of before, like exactly what was written in that book... except for one thing.

Clyde was never mentioned in the story.

Micah’s drifting consciousness trembled. His head felt foggy and light, almost fragile.

Scene after scene, he saw himself again in different lives. Each version of him was... slightly more stupid. Less impulsive. Less loud and reckless. He still made mistakes, but they weren’t as destructive. Yet the storyline remained the same. Darcy suffered. The male leads manipulated. Micah died. Reset.

But after each death, Micah could never see what happened next. The visions simply ended.

Until, suddenly, something changed.

A slightly different timeline appeared before him, like a curtain lifting.

He saw the twentieth birthday banquet again, but this time, he didn’t rush in screeching and causing a scene. He stood quietly off to the side, leaning against the wall, observing the room. His face wasn’t twisted with jealousy or petty rage. No. This Micah looked calm. Almost... fond? Happy?

For the first time, the four scumbags appeared at that birthday banquet. All of them at the same time. Strange.

He watched the four male leads surround Darcy with their predatory smiles, competing for his attention. But instead of being jealous, this Micah looked oddly amused, as if watching something familiar unfold.

Too different... Micah thought.

This Darcy was not like the past. He didn’t blush shyly or act polite and cheerful like in the earliest loops. He ignored the four men completely. Even cursed at them, telling them to get lost. He looked tougher, rougher around the edges, more like the Darcy Micah knew from the current world.

The earlier Darcys, the ones from past loops, were cheerful, bright, sunny, and eventually forced into meek obedience. But this Darcy was stubborn, fierce, and unyielding. The real Darcy.

Micah’s floating vision shifted again. Suddenly, he saw something that made his whole being jolt violently.

The scene turned dark. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

He watched, forced to watch, those four men corner Darcy. Push him. Grab him. Micah saw the horror play out as they forced themselves on him. Darcy’s voice broke, his nails scratched at the floor, his cries echoed through a monitor screen....

Micah recoiled so violently that he felt as though he was ripping out of his own skin.

If he had a real body at that moment, he would have vomited until nothing was left inside him.

Then, the angle of the scene shifted. He realised he wasn’t watching from reality. He was watching from behind a laptop screen.

Leo’s laptop.

The disgusting videos were all in Leo’s files, an entire folder of them. The recordings were evidence. Blackmail material. A sick collection documenting Darcy’s suffering.

The version of Micah in that timeline stared at the videos with eyes wide and horrified. He slammed the laptop shut, shaking uncontrollably. Then he ran, he actually ran, to confront the four men. Fought them. Shouted at them. Demanded to know how they could do this to Darcy.

Micah watching the memory felt a deep, stabbing ache, like someone had driven a knife right into his heart. It wasn’t only sorrow for Darcy.

No...the pain was personal. Like something was tearing inside him.

His head throbbed suddenly, violently. A ripping, burning sensation tore through him.

Then the scene changed again.

Micah found himself in another life. But this time, everything was strange. Unnatural.

The world adored him.

His family doted on him. His friends praised him. Even those snobbish heirs he’d hated in every life now treated him like a treasure. And when the truth of the swapped heirs was revealed, everyone still sided with him. They mocked Darcy instead.

Something in Micah twisted at that. It felt wrong. Wrong in his bones.

And then...something even more twisted happened.

In this world, the four male leads weren’t chasing Darcy. They were chasing him.

One conflict after another arose between Micah and Darcy, the usual rivalry, the usual misunderstandings, but in this world, each male lead stepped in for Micah, defending him, ignoring Darcy entirely. Micah felt a chill creep up his spine watching it. It was like the world itself had rotated around him unnaturally.

Leo McKay appeared first. He was supposed to be Darcy’s childhood neighbour and protective big brother, yet in this version, he was glued to Micah instead. Even when someone framed Darcy, Leo backed Micah without hesitation, turning on his own childhood friend.

Next came Archie Norris. Darcy’s esports teammate. In the other past lives, he admired Darcy deeply. But here, Archie’s eyes lit up the moment he saw Micah. He dragged Micah into gaming, saying he’d "carry him to victory," ignoring Darcy entirely who was his sworn teammate.

Then Silas Durant entered. Darcy’s mother’s doctor. Someone Darcy trusted. Yet Silas bent down to pick Micah up when he tripped. He didn’t fuss over Micah like others. But...his eyes followed Micah with clear obsession.

And lastly, Aidan Wilson. The financial backer of Darcy’s gaming company. The one Darcy depended on professionally. But the moment he walked into the banquet, his attention locked on Micah. He flirted shamelessly, ignoring Darcy completely.

The world twisted, bending toward Micah.

Micah watched all of it with a sinking feeling. The more he saw, the colder he felt. Something was wrong. Terribly, awfully, unnaturally wrong.

And a dreadful feeling began to rise in him...