Chapter 438: Three Lives of Cause and Effect

This dream was long and chaotic; I spent a very long time in a vague, dark space. When a wave of dizziness hit, as if the space had suddenly shifted, I realized I had arrived at a place I had never seen before.

By a clear, beautiful stream, white clouds drifted, the setting sun slanted, and the grass was lush green and lovely. There, several shapely girls were washing clothes.

But… what are those girls using in their hands?

I looked closely and saw they were holding washboards. Moreover, the girls' clothing looked ancient; besides that, they wore long braids—an outdated hairstyle no one today would pursue.

At that moment my head felt as if struck by lightning, leaving me dazed for a long time. Could it be that I really got hit by lightning, then stepped on a pile of luck and time‑traveled?

Thinking that, I instinctively tried to grab a girl by the river to ask. Who knew, the scene would flow like a moving picture. I ran, and it kept pace with me. It was like a huge movie screen playing constantly before me; no matter how I tried to touch it, I couldn't even reach a corner.

At the same time, the scene shifted: the girls laughed and chatted, then all at once grabbed wooden basins and left one after another. Only a girl in hemp clothing remained sitting by the stream.

I couldn't see her face clearly, but from her back I could tell she had a slender, curvaceous figure—a perfect model's shape.

She held a bronze hairpin, lost in thought, a faint smile playing at the corner of her mouth. As the sunset fell, a golden glow gilded her, making the scene look very beautiful.

After a few minutes, the woman kept looking back, anxiously stamping her feet and continually turning to wait. Her hurried, tense expression told me she was waiting for someone.

As expected, about ten minutes later a stout man appeared, but he still only showed me his side and back.

He felt like a big clumsy bear—even the way he scratched his head was awkward.

After the man appeared, the girl became shy, lowering her head and turning her back to him without speaking. Then the man awkwardly scratched his head, as if he wanted to leave.

No need to look—he's a clueless fool, so dense he doesn't even understand a girl's thoughts.

Fortunately, the girl wasn't a stick‑in‑the‑mud. Annoyed, she turned, tapped his forehead, and shoved an object into his hand.

In a casual glance, I finally saw clearly what the object was.

The object was a small red sachet. Of course, this sachet was not just an ordinary one; in ancient times, items like earrings, hairpins, and such held special meaning for a girl.

「I went out Dongmen to roam, and chanced upon bearing pure dust. Thinking of you, I enter the quiet chamber, attending to bed and holding the kerchief. Without the mulberry‑field pledge, I am forced to be this roadside person. Since I flatter your form, you also delight in my face. How to show my earnestness? Double gold bands around the arms. How to express my diligence? A pair of silver rings on the fingers. How to show my trifling devotion? Double clear pearls in the ears. How to show my repeated knocks? The sachet tied at the elbow. 」

In ancient times, if a girl entrusts you with her sachet, hairpin, or earrings, it clearly means they are love tokens.

So, after watching for so long, I finally discovered a laughable yet helpless fact! Damn, I spent half a day just watching a little couple on a date…

The scene shifted amid my bemused stare, and next I saw the supposedly honest boy sneak into the girl's room in the middle of the night.

This left me astonished, my worldview shattered, yet I secretly gave the guy a thumbs‑up. Hell, if you'd done this earlier, the kid would already be on the sauce. But it's not too late now.

Not long after that scene passed, the image shifted to a dim study, where a white‑haired, pot‑bellied old man, drunk, forcibly dragged the nearby girl onto the bed. She initially resisted with mild anger, but after the old man slapped her, she had no choice but to submit.

Immediately after, the girl and boy met under a tree, sobbing as they poured out their hearts for a while. They exchanged some things, seemingly making a pact.

After returning, the honest‑looking man actually stole the master's belongings and packed them into a bundle.

At that moment, another scene appeared in the vision: an old man wearing a velvet cap and silk robes fiercely slapped the girl several times, knocking her to the ground. Then the angry old Pangzi pointed at her and shouted. Amid his yelling, a faint apparition of an old woman and an old man appeared on her left and right.

Next appeared a skull and a bright‑red wedding robe, but like the phantoms they vanished after only a moment.

Immediately after, the girl, tears in her eyes, seemed to grit her teeth and agree to old Pangzi.

If nothing unexpected…… this is explaining that old Pangzi is forcing marriage on the little girl.

Damn it, you put on a movie and still expect the audience to deduce everything…… Do you still want to make money? Even without sound, you could at least throw in some subtitles! With parents and a bright‑red wedding robe, what are you playing at—do you think I'm Sherlock Holmes with an IQ of two hundred? Do you really have to be this aggravating?

Faced with this sentient movie screen, I can only feel utterly powerless, venting my frustration.

As the images shifted, I had worked out the whole context. In a wealthy household, the maid and the manservant loved each other and pledged lifelong union. Then the greasy, fat male master seized the maid's body. As they prepared to elope, who would have thought that the master himself, old Pangzi, actually intended to take the maid as a concubine…

This is a corny, tooth‑loosing story! Yet the plot does have a few points of suspense—for instance, as a spectator I'm curious where the male lead, the manservant, will end up.

The movie screen seemed to sense my impatience, and soon this scene appeared before my eyes.

On a pitch‑black, wind‑raging night, the manservant protagonist returned to the rendezvous point with the maid. Waiting for him was a gang of lackeys who rained down blows with clubs. The manservant clung to his head and was beaten to death right there.

As the viewer, I couldn't help but widen my eyes, stepping back again and again.

I finally got a clear look at the manservant under the barrage of sticks… he looked exactly like Pangzi—same eyes, nose, and facial contours, as if cast from the same mold.

The maid who had privately pledged lifelong union with the manservant, on her wedding day, had her headgear blown off by the wind as she stepped out, revealing a face streaked with tears.

…Although dressed in ancient attire, I still recognized her…… this maid was actually Chen Mo.

Suddenly I seemed to understand something? If nothing unexpected, I appear to have arrived in the past lives of Chen Mo and Pangzi.

As it turns out, they really had a past life. Chen Mo wasn't lying; everything she said was true. She had this bizarre dream because in her previous life she owed Pangzi a debt—even if she was forced, Chen Mo truly betrayed Pangzi in that former existence.

Just then, another wave of dizziness struck, and the scene before me shifted involuntarily once again.

This time, what appeared was everything from our arrival in Aomen onward—Pangzi's encounters with Chen Mo: the two times he threw himself to save her, to the moment outside the secret passage when Pangzi sacrificed himself to save Silijing, and the complex, anguished look Chen Mo showed.

All of this unfolded like a movie, playing back scene by scene.

Three lifetimes of cause and effect—I've already seen the past life, the present is just beginning; I stare fixedly at the scene ahead, urgently wanting to know what will happen next.

However, time froze at the moment Chen Mo and I were conferring in the small restaurant; all that remained for me was her desolate, forlorn silhouette as she turned and left.

At that very moment I suddenly felt a wave of weakness overwhelming my body—this weakness was a hundred times worse than when I bit my tongue and overdrained true yang fluid, to the point that even my head ached and I had no energy to think.

In that dizzying, disorienting nameless space where I couldn't tell east from west, I collapsed.