“Sister Rong!”

She had barely stepped out of the car when she heard someone calling her name. She turned, and a taxi pulled up — Zhang Hao’s head was sticking out of the window, waving at her.

“Sister Rong, how could you go off on your own like this? Don’t you know how dangerous it is for you right now?” Zhang Hao jumped out of the cab and immediately launched into a lecture.

Rong Qian glanced back at the nursing home. It seemed she wasn’t going to be able to get Shen Fenran to finish that conversation today.

Zhang Hao saw that she was ignoring him. He stepped in front of her, blocking her line of sight, hands on his hips, puffed up with indignation. “Sister Rong, I’m talking to you — do you hear me?”

“The person who attacked me has already been caught, hasn’t he? What danger am I still in?”

Rong Qian got back into the car. Zhang Hao, seeing this, scrambled into the passenger seat. As he buckled his seatbelt, he said to her, “Who told you your danger has been resolved? Don’t you know that the people who attacked you and the desperate criminals who were arrested are completely different groups?”

“What did you say?” Rong Qian’s expression shifted.

Zhang Hao, seeing that she genuinely didn’t know, gave her a thorough explanation. “There were two separate groups of people targeting you. The arrested criminals had originally planned to come after you in Beijing — but you seemed to anticipate them somehow, and their operation fell apart before it even started.”

“The people who rammed your car and tried to shoot you on the road earlier — those were not the same group.”

Rong Qian knitted her brows. She didn’t think of them as two entirely separate groups, per se — rather, whoever wanted to harm her had dispatched two different waves of people.

In other words, even though Lin Jie was already dead, her danger had not been eliminated, because the mastermind pulling the strings had yet to be found.

Zhang Hao continued, “Sister Rong, regarding the first group of people who attacked you — based on the clues you provided, we’ve made some progress.”

“They’ve been identified?” After all this time, this was finally some good news for Rong Qian.

Zhang Hao shook his head. “Not yet. But based on the leads, we’ve narrowed our suspicion down to a specific place.”

“What place?”

Zhang Hao took out his phone, opened the photo album, and handed it to her. “Right here — a casino in Macau called Hongxing Casino. Its founder was a man from Guangdong who emigrated to Hong Kong — a man by the name of Yao Zhengxing.”

“Yao Zhengxing?!”

Rong Qian had never expected to hear that name again. And that enormous casino in the photo — Yao Zhengxing had built it from the ground up?

Of course, it wasn’t that she doubted his capability. It was that, as far as she knew, Yao Zhengxing’s casino was in Hong Kong — how did he have one in Macau as well?

And even if he had opened one there later on, by that time he should have already been set up by He Jicheng and died in an accident, shouldn’t he?

“Right, it’s him — Yao Zhengxing contributed a great deal to national charity and public welfare. When he passed away from illness a few years ago, it caused quite a stir. People said the Yao family was going through a major transition.” Zhang Hao rattled on, speaking to himself, oblivious to the fact that Rong Qian’s expression had grown increasingly off.

Rong Qian was beginning to wonder whether the Yao Zhengxing Zhang Hao was describing was the same person she knew.

She cut in promptly. “Didn’t Yao Zhengxing die in an accident decades ago? Shortly after his daughter Yao Na was kidnapped and killed — and after Yao Zhengxing died, didn’t his casino fall into He Jicheng’s hands?”

“Sister Rong, what are you talking about?” Zhang Hao said with a bemused laugh. “Where are you getting all this? Yao Zhengxing never died in an accident. His daughter Yao Na wasn’t killed either — she’s alive and well, happily married with two daughters. Why are you saying such awful things about them?”

Rong Qian finally realized something was wrong. She quickly grabbed her phone and searched — and sure enough, everything matched what Zhang Hao had said.

That meant their past had been changed!

Rong Qian’s first instinct was to think of Shen Yi — because what she had told him about Yao Zhengxing and Yao Na’s fates, she had only ever shared with Shen Yi.

In other words, Shen Yi had intervened and stopped that kidnapping, preventing it at the root. And in doing so, just like that, he had changed their history.

Rong Qian was completely floored. Where exactly did Shen Yi get the audacity to go changing history on his own?

Wasn’t he afraid that altering history might lead to unforeseen consequences?

Wait!

Something else suddenly occurred to her. A look of sudden comprehension spread across her face. Could it be — because Shen Yi himself already existed on the historical timeline, his choices could at most alter outcomes, but couldn’t be considered truly changing fate?

Because whatever decisions he made while living in the present would, eventually, become part of history.

She, on the other hand — as an “outsider” who had traveled back in time, a person who did not belong to that era — could not intervene and make any changes!

The moment that clicked, Rong Qian couldn’t help the expression of elated joy that broke across her face. If that was how it worked, then Shen Yi’s future could be changed!

Not by her — but by himself!

“Sister Rong, what’s gotten into you all of a sudden? You’re crying and laughing at the same time?”

Zhang Hao had been watching her face the whole time. One moment she was frowning, the next her expression brightened with sudden clarity, and now she was laughing through tears. He was at a complete loss, frantic with worry.

Rong Qian wiped her eyes. She laughed and said, “I’m not crying — I’m happy!”

Deep in her heart, Rong Qian still saw Shen Yi as the victim — as someone she needed to go and save.

“Happy? What’s made you so happy?” Zhang Hao couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

Rong Qian said nothing more on the subject. Instead, she changed the topic and asked him, “You just said the people who attacked me might have ties to Hongxing Casino?”

“That’s right.”

With that confirmation, Rong Qian rubbed her chin in thought and realized there was still something that didn’t add up.

If Hongxing Casino belonged to the Yao family, there was no reason for the Yao side to go after her.

She started out wondering whether He Jicheng might be pulling strings from behind the scenes — but she had just checked, and He Jicheng had apparently been gone for many years. So it couldn’t be him.

The current head of the Yao family was Yao Na’s husband, a man called Zong Yutang.

Zong Yutang doted on Yao Na and managed the casino capably, earning Yao Zhengxing’s deep approval. It could be said that after Zong Yutang married into the Yao family, both his personal life and career had flourished in abundance.

“Sister Rong, does something feel off to you?”

Zhang Hao could see what she was thinking and said to her, “We find it odd as well. You have no grievance or grudge with Hongxing Casino — so why would they send people after you out of nowhere?”

“So? What else have you found?”

Zhang Hao’s expression turned serious as he told her, “Our suspicion isn’t without basis. We’ve confirmed that Thomas appeared at Hongxing Casino. What’s more, through photographs, we found that when Thomas went to the casino, he met with someone.”

“Met with who?” Rong Qian felt an inexplicable sense of foreboding.

Zhang Hao gestured for her to scroll down through the photo album. “Take a look yourself — it’s a bit blurry, but the facial features are still distinguishable.”

While Zhang Hao was saying this, Rong Qian had already scrolled to that photo.

The scene was set inside the casino. Thomas — dressed impeccably in a suit and carrying himself like a polished old gentleman — had taken hold of another elderly man’s hand.

That old man was dressed in a black traditional-style jacket trimmed with gold, with a dignified grandeur about it. He wore a pair of reading glasses, leaned on a cane, and pressed his thin lips together in a stern expression that gave this elderly gentleman a look of severe authority.

Seeing this photo, Rong Qian’s face was the picture of shock.

Because this elderly man — looked remarkably like Shen Yi…