The old monk, having nearly caused a disaster, didn’t dare push his luck and sheepishly gave up the driver’s seat to Cheng Chang.

The SUV sped off. Back at the roadside, Liao Zhuo had finished settling the repayment, gotten back the property deed and loan contract, and left together with her mother.

The burly men watched the SUV pull away and asked Liao Zhuo’s uncle, “Hey, old man Liao, was that guy driving the G-Wagon your niece’s boyfriend?”

“Seems like it,” the old man said.

He no longer had the cowed, apologetic look of a man in debt. After a moment’s thought, he added, “I heard from Xiao Zhuo’s mom before—Xiao Zhuo dated a pretty rich guy a few years back, bought her all sorts of designer bags. Had some kind of health problem though, not sure if it’s the same guy.”

“Rich, all right. Just casually forked over three hundred thousand.”

“So what,” old man Liao raised an eyebrow, “planning to squeeze one more payout before you back off?”

The burly men laughed and cursed, “Damn you, always picking on the people closest to you—first you squeeze your niece, now you’re after her boyfriend too. We’ll have you locked up sooner or later.”

Yet even as they said this, their actions were swift enough—they yanked open the van door, climbed in, and set off after Cheng Chang’s SUV toward the highway.

The drive from Hangzhou to Huangshan took about four hours. With his health condition, Cheng Chang didn’t dare drive while fatigued, so he took an exit partway and found a hotel to stay the night, setting off again early the next morning. He entered Zhangxiang County and, following the navigation, found his way to Wutong Town.

Liutong Village’s Hope Elementary School sat up in the mountains, though fortunately the mountain wasn’t too high and the road was well paved. The old monk, worried Cheng Chang might have an episode with no one around to reimburse his travel expenses back to Hangzhou, reminded him partway up the mountain, “You should look up the nearby hospitals. If something happens to you later, I can rush you there for emergency treatment.”

Cheng Chang glanced at him. “Already checked. Won’t help much, though. For cardiology and cardiac surgery, small local hospitals just aren’t equal to major ones. Given my condition, I need at least a top-tier hospital, if not an outright specialist center.”

The monk sighed. “Heaven really is fair sometimes, isn’t it? Take you, for instance—rich, educated, ridiculously handsome—and yet you get saddled with such a miserable illness.”

From a distance, the sound of children playing and laughing drifted over, and a school came into view.

Calling it a school was generous—it was really just a run-down two-story building with a small playground attached.

The students were gathered on the playground for a P.E. class, led in a jog by a chubby young man wearing glasses. The old monk squinted, then pointed. “See that? That chubby guy jogging with all his flesh jiggling—that’s my master.”

Cheng Chang: “…”

Wasn’t this supposed to be some world-transcending recluse of great skill?

The monk went on, “My master here, he gains weight just drinking water. Hates handsome men the most. I already texted him earlier but didn’t tell him the specifics of your situation. Hold on, let me go smooth things over with him first.”

The chubby man had spotted the monk too. He waved to the students and walked over.

Before he’d even gotten close, he asked, “Why’re you the only one who came? Where’s my grand-disciple, Douzi?”

“Douzi’s watching the temple.”

The chubby man grew furious. “There are so many human traffickers these days—you left him there all alone?”

“What’s there to worry about? That temple’s deep in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere—not a soul around most days, let alone ghosts. Even if someone did come to buy a talisman, Douzi’s got better aptitude than either of us. He’s more likely to trick someone than get tricked himself.”

The monk soothed him, then added, “Anyway, we’ve run into an emergency, someone who needs saving.”

“Where’s the person who needs saving? Let me have a look.” He started toward the school gate.

“No rush, no rush.” The monk hurried to stop him.

But it was too late—the chubby man had already spotted Cheng Chang. He froze in his tracks, looking him up and down—

That build…

That height…

His gaze finally settled on Cheng Chang’s face. He adjusted his glasses, looking again.

Damn, this was too good-looking to be real!

The chubby man burst out cursing. “How the hell is a person like this allowed to exist in this world?”

He pointed at Cheng Chang and asked the monk, “Is he the one you want me to save?”

He turned around and started walking back toward the school. “Sorry, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to save him anymore.”

The monk chased after him, pleading, “Master, think about it—he’s got a congenital heart condition. Hospital stays are like business trips for him, taking pills is like eating porridge, he’s in and out of surgery every few days. The hospital’s basically his second home.”

Cheng Chang: “…”

The chubby man paused. “That miserable?”

The monk asked, “Balanced out yet?”

The chubby man nodded. “Balanced out.”

“Exactly. The man’s nearly died several times over already.”

Hearing this, the chubby man froze for a moment, the flippant expression on his face vanishing at once. “Is he the one you told me about before—the ill-starred one, the man with two fates running in parallel?”

The monk said, “Yeah, that’s him.”

The chubby man fell silent for a moment, glanced at Cheng Chang from a distance, then turned back to the playground, clapped his hands, and dismissed the students. He walked back over and extended a hand to Cheng Chang. “Hello there, Mr. Cheng. My surname’s He—He Yuenan. My disciple’s told me about your situation. Just call me Xiao He.”

Cheng Chang shook his hand, then, after a moment’s thought, addressed him instead as, “Teacher He.”

It was just past noon, and the students at Hope Elementary had all returned to their classrooms for lunch. He Yuenan led Cheng Chang to the office and said to the monk, “I bought groceries this morning. There’s a kitchen out back—go make something. Keep it light.”

The monk waved this off. “Why not just grab three boxed lunches from the restaurant at the bottom of the mountain?”

He Yuenan pointed at Cheng Chang. “The man has a heart condition.”

Once the monk had left, He Yuenan poured Cheng Chang a glass of water and said, “This school only has two classes and two teachers on placement. The other teacher went home for the week, and the principal, who’s also the village head, usually isn’t around either. Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Cheng.”

Cheng Chang took the glass. “Thank you.”

Though He Yuenan was only twenty-five, he seemed remarkably composed and mature once he turned serious.

He sat down across from Cheng Chang and said, “If I’m not mistaken, Mr. Cheng, you find yourself crossing back and forth between two worlds each time you come close to death, though I don’t know the specifics. If you don’t mind, would you tell me a bit about it?”

Cheng Chang nodded. “The first time I went over there was from a cardiac arrest, a month ago…”

He recounted both crossings in full, then fell silent for a moment before adding, “The monk told me your lineage seems to know about this kind of fate. I’m not sure what to do going forward, so I’ve come to ask for your guidance, Teacher He.”

“Lineage is putting it a bit grandly,” He Yuenan said. “We’re really just like most ordinary people—we believe in heaven’s way, in cause and consequence. It’s just that our ancestors left behind a few texts never meant to be shared outside the family, passed down through generations. The higher one’s aptitude and understanding, the more of their mysteries one can grasp.”

“A case like yours, Mr. Cheng—something that might not come along once in a hundred years. According to those texts, there have only been three cases total, though there’s no telling if any were missed. It’s genuinely rare.”

“Those three people before—could they also travel to another time and place through some object, like I have?”

“An object?” He Yuenan blinked. “You mean the talisman last time, and the bronze hairpin this time?”

He shook his head. “Your ability to travel between the two times has nothing to do with those objects. In my humble opinion, the reason those items accompany you back and forth is because of your own intention—they’re simply the most precious thing in your heart, each time you’re at death’s door.”

Cheng Chang made a sound of acknowledgment.

Seeing the cold, hardened look on his face, He Yuenan couldn’t help but ask, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but does Mr. Cheng carry some hatred in his heart, this time you’ve returned?”

Cheng Chang lowered his eyes and said nothing.

He himself didn’t know whether the roiling emotion churning deep in his chest could rightly be called hatred.

He’d never wished harm on anyone in his life, yet he’d been driven into a raging inferno to die.

“To be born into this world is to know love and hatred both—that’s only natural. But good and evil often come down to a single thought. Your path has been fraught with hardship, benefactor, yet across three lifetimes you’ve managed to hold onto goodness—that marks you as one blessed by the Buddha. You likely understand this truth better than any of us,” He Yuenan offered gently.

“As for this matter of the butterfly omen you mentioned,” He Yuenan continued, “it’s actually recorded in those texts.”

“There’s the old tale of Zhuangzi dreaming he was a butterfly, and the butterfly dreaming it was Zhuangzi. Life in this world is ultimately nothing but a grand dream. Your two lives are like a bird flying over water—reflected in the water, it becomes a fish. But a fish dies out of water, and a bird dies in it; fish and bird can never coexist. You belong to this world, in the end. If you choose to live in this life, then that other world will eventually become nothing more than a dream to you.”

Cheng Chang froze. “A dream?”

He Yuenan said, “Yes. The Buddha is merciful—he won’t let you suffer endlessly from the pain of separation. In time, it will gradually fade.”

Cheng Chang lowered his eyes, looking at the bronze hairpin in his hand.

Whether it was his imagination or not, the hairpin suddenly seemed to have aged a thousand years, grown terribly worn.

“But,” Cheng Chang said, “there are people over there I still care deeply about.”

“The owner of this hairpin?” He Yuenan asked.

He continued, “If there truly is an unfinished bond, unfinished business, then everything will be arranged by fate in its own quiet way.”

“There’s one thing, though, I feel I must warn you about. Even though you carry the fate of two parallel lives, that fate isn’t inexhaustible. In the end, you can only choose one of the two lives. According to the texts, among your three predecessors, one returned twice and then departed—presumably passing on to yet another life, never to return again. The other two, after their second return, remained in this world until their natural deaths. You, Mr. Cheng, have now returned for the second time. You need to think carefully about what you want.”

Cheng Chang said, “So you’re saying, if I go back this time, I can never return here again? Even if I die, I’ll die over there?”

He Yuenan nodded. “Even with the Buddha’s protection, fate has its limits—it can’t be drawn upon endlessly. Mr. Cheng, when you returned this time, did you experience coughing blood, or intense pain?”

Cheng Chang nodded.

“That confirms it.”

Cheng Chang fell silent for a moment.

He’d assumed that the intense pain and blood he’d coughed up when the fire broke out at the Imperial City Guard were some kind of response from his modern body. It turned out, instead, that his dual-track fate was running out.

“Though what I’ve said isn’t absolute. In this vast world, all impermanence is itself a kind of permanence—much like the hatred still unresolved in your heart now, or the troubles you face in that other world. None of it escapes the web of cause and consequence. Remember: plant good seeds, reap good fruit; plant evil seeds, reap evil fruit. If you’ve planted good seeds already, then perhaps when you return, a turning point will be waiting for you, closer than you think.”

Cheng Chang asked, “If I want to go back, what should I do now? Wait for another near-death experience?”

“Hard to say,” He Yuenan said. “Doing good deeds certainly can’t hurt—chanting some sutras, reciting some prayers, that sort of thing. Oh, right—I hear you’re quite well educated. Do you know English?”

Cheng Chang nodded. “I did my master’s degree abroad.”

“What level? Do you have any certifications?”

Cheng Chang thought about it. “I only took the CET-6 in college, but I got a perfect score on the SAT, and 800 on the GRE verbal.”

He asked, “Why do you ask? Is it easier for the Buddha to hear if the sutras are chanted in English?”

“Oh, that’s not it,” He Yuenan said, adjusting his glasses. “Didn’t I just mention the other placement teacher went home this week? Since you’re here anyway, would you mind teaching the students an English class? Elementary school English these days is honestly way too difficult.”