After Lu Xi left, Liao Zhuo didn’t stay long either. She was learning to let go these days—she helped see Lu Xi and her mother off, and didn’t come back afterward.

Cheng Chang was, after all, someone He Yuenan had gone to great trouble to call back from another world. Even though he knew the upcoming surgery was very likely to go fine, He Yuenan still couldn’t quite relax. He and the old monk booked a hotel near the hospital, planning to come by first thing the next morning and stay until after Cheng Chang’s surgery, before heading off to Shaoxing.

Once the nurse had hooked up Cheng Chang’s IV and left, only Duan Mingcheng remained in the room to eat with him.

Cheng Chang said, “Hospital food’s too bland. Feel free to order something if it doesn’t suit you.”

“It’s fine. Everyone ends up hospitalized eventually over the course of a life—might as well get a feel for it early.”

Cheng Chang asked, “Where’s my brother?”

“His law firm’s been busy lately, but he did say he’d come over from Shanghai today.” Duan Mingcheng checked his phone. “Oh right, he said he had to pick up a poster for you after work, so he’ll be a bit late.”

“A poster?”

Duan Mingcheng made a sound of acknowledgment. “He didn’t say what kind.”

He Xian was a lawyer, a senior partner at a firm in Shanghai, and legal counsel to a publicly listed company. That he’d carved out time from his packed schedule to come see Cheng Chang was no small thing.

Cheng Chang asked, “Do you have anything to do later? If not, stay until he gets here before you leave.”

Duan Mingcheng said, “Sure thing.”

Before long, He Xian arrived. He carried a paper bag, inside which was indeed a rolled-up poster. Entering the room, he first asked Cheng Chang, “How are you? Feeling better?” His gaze then landed on Duan Mingcheng. “Why aren’t you back in Shanghai?”

“Took time off work. Wasn’t quite at ease—figured I’d wait until after his surgery tomorrow before heading back.”

He Xian said, “You’ve been a huge help these past weeks.” Though he and Cheng Chang shared no blood relation, he was, in name at least, Cheng Chang’s older brother.

“Right.” Duan Mingcheng didn’t stand on ceremony between them either. “My girlfriend and my coworkers all think I’ve got a secret mistress somewhere, disappearing every few days. Once Third Brother’s better, you’d better help clear my name.”

That got all three of them laughing.

The caretaker came in to clear away the meal trays, and seeing that the three of them looked like they had something to discuss, quietly stepped out and closed the door behind her. Only then did Cheng Chang speak. “The reason I asked you to stay a bit longer is that I’m planning to draw up a will, and I need a witness.”

Duan Mingcheng was momentarily stunned, then, recalling Cheng Chang’s psychiatric evaluation results, couldn’t help but try to talk him out of it. “Don’t overthink this. I already asked the doctor—the success rate for this surgery is quite high.”

Cheng Chang said, “I know. That’s not what I’m worried about.”

He Xian, being a lawyer, dealt with people drawing up wills in advance often enough that he wasn’t especially surprised. “Planning ahead is a good thing to do.”

He opened his laptop. “How do you want your assets distributed?”

“Liquidate half of it,” Cheng Chang said, thinking it over. “Teacher He and the old monk spent over a month running around on my behalf—strangers to me, really, and it wasn’t easy for them. The old monk’s temple is deep in the mountains; I’ve been there, it’s fairly run-down. Set aside a third to help renovate it, get an air conditioner installed or something. The remainder can go as a donation to the temple.”

“As for Anhui—a lot of the kids at the Hope Elementary Schools there have it rough, wanting to read but with nothing decent to read. Give the remaining two-thirds to fund libraries at Hope Elementary Schools in Anhui and Zhejiang. I did the math—a library doesn’t cost that much, a few thousand to twenty thousand for a full-school-scale one, and if there are book donations from elsewhere, the cost drops further and we could fund even more.”

“That little girl, Lu Xi—she loves reading, and Teacher He says her grades are excellent. A good kid, shouldn’t be held back. Set aside part of my savings to sponsor her education, whether she wants to go to a domestic university or study abroad—support her until she’s able to stand on her own.”

“Sell the apartment in Hangzhou. The place in Xujiahui, Shanghai, the car, and a few valuables can go to the two of you. You’ve helped me all these years—I’ve kept it in mind, all of it.”

Duan Mingcheng was taken aback hearing this. “Hey, don’t—we help you because we’re brothers. And besides, don’t you help me plenty too?”

Right after graduation, Cheng Chang had even helped write his job application resume for him.

He Xian said, “If you want, I can help liquidate all of it and donate it to the Hope Elementary Schools, or sponsor more students in need.”

“Exactly,” Duan Mingcheng added, half-joking. “Don’t act like we’re not willing to help others too—if we had the means, we’d want to contribute to society just like you.”

Cheng Chang smiled. “I never married, never had children, no elderly parents to support. Money’s not something you’re born with or can take with you when you go—might as well take it from society and give it back.”

His tone had been flat throughout, but He Xian caught a note of loneliness in it and said, “You’re alone right now, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be alone your whole life. Once you’re better, there’s still a long road ahead—someone will come along who wants to be by your side. I’ll hold onto this will for now. Once you’re married someday, I’ll void it on the spot.”

As he spoke, he took his laptop to the nurses’ station, printed out the will, reviewed it once more, and the three of them signed together.

The inpatient ward’s latest visiting hours ended at nine at night. Once the will was signed, the nurse came to hurry them along. He Xian didn’t have time to show Cheng Chang the poster he’d brought—on his way out, he pointed toward the paper bag on the sofa and gestured toward his phone, signaling that he’d sent something over WeChat.

Since Dr. Zhang couldn’t rearrange her schedule, Cheng Chang’s surgery was set for five the next morning. The doctor making rounds told Cheng Chang to get some sleep early and switched off the light for him. Cheng Chang closed his eyes accordingly.

Eyes closed, but sleep wouldn’t come.

The room was too dark. For a while, Cheng Chang felt as though he were adrift on some vast, desolate wasteland. A north wind blew straight into his heart; there was no ground beneath his feet, and his chest felt hollow, letting in a draft—he was overwhelmingly anxious.

He held off drinking water, tried to force himself into sleep, and didn’t know how much time had passed before he finally admitted to himself that he really was thirsty and switched on the bedside lamp.

After drinking the water, he checked the time and found it was already two-thirty in the morning. He hadn’t been fully aware whether he’d actually slept at all during that stretch.

The bedside lamp cast a quiet halo on the wall, like an ink-wash painting. Cheng Chang looked at it for a while, his gaze eventually drifting to the poster resting on the sofa. With a couple of hours still before surgery and nothing else to do, he picked it up to take a look.

The moment he unrolled the poster, Cheng Chang froze.

The image showed a woman in red seen from behind, sword in hand, standing before a stretch of bamboo forest, only a sliver of her face turned toward the viewer.

Wind rustled through, the bamboo sea rolling like waves, dark hair flying loose.

The woman in red seemed to carry some sorrow, her eyes lowered, a single tear sliding down.

The poster instantly pulled Cheng Chang’s thoughts back to Da Sui. In a daze, he thought he heard her voice: “Load him onto the cart and send him back to the yamen for the coroner.”

That had been the day he first arrived in Jinling—fished out of the water, groggily opening his eyes to see her standing there in red, sword in hand, back turned to him.

But the woman in the poster wasn’t quite like Yun Xi.

Yun Xi’s nose was a touch higher, with the faintest bridge to it; her brows and eyes were bright and striking, with an edge to them.

Cheng Chang recognized the person in the poster—it was the actress he’d seen on TV the first time he came back from Da Sui, playing a red-clad swordswoman. At the time he’d thought she resembled Yun Xi somewhat, had gone through her Weibo for stills from the show, and saved a few on his phone, one even set as his wallpaper.

Cheng Chang took out his phone; He Xian had already sent the WeChat message: “Noticed your phone wallpaper was this actress before—turns out our firm handles business for her studio. Got you a signed poster from her. If you’re up for it, once you’re better, I can introduce you two.”

Cheng Chang paused, only now realizing that He Xian had likely misunderstood something.

He looked back at the poster. The actress’s teary, pear-blossom expression, all soft and melancholic—that too was nothing like Yun Xi.

His girl had been born into a military family, her nature exceptionally resilient. Even amid the ruins and rubble of Mingyin Temple, spear in hand, ready to die for him, she’d faced it without a flicker of fear.

The most heartbroken he’d ever seen her was the day he left—when she realized he might never be able to return, she’d finally let go of the strength she’d fought so hard to maintain, and cried without restraint, like a girl who hadn’t yet grown up.

Her tears had fallen one after another, like a string of beads snapped loose, salty and cool.

It had ached him terribly. He’d wanted to wipe her tears away, but the last one had landed in his palm just as the light of dusk burst forth, and in an instant it had carried him away from that other world.

Cheng Chang looked at his phone again and deleted the stills of the actress he’d saved before.

She just resembled Yun Xi a little, that was all. No one in this world could ever replace his A’Ting.

Cheng Chang went to roll up the poster again, but partway through, his hand suddenly stopped. His gaze had landed on the not-yet-fallen teardrop at her chin—the light in the bamboo forest was faint, like early dawn, and it caught in the teardrop, glinting brilliantly.

Cheng Chang froze.

The senior classmate at Zhejiang University had said—this bead of yours, composition-wise, is mostly water molecules, with some inorganic salts mixed in. Kind of like ice, but harder than ice.

Cheng Chang strode quickly back to his bed and dug the anti-radiation box out from under his pillow, taking out the bead inside.

He suddenly understood what this bead was.

Salty and cool. Shimmering with light.

It was the tear that had fallen into his palm in his final moment leaving Da Sui—Yun Xi’s tear.

Perhaps because it had fallen at the most vivid hour of dusk, it had gathered that same dazzling, shifting light within it, and now, in the darkness of night, it shone all the more brilliantly.

Cheng Chang sat at the edge of the bed, looking at the teardrop in his palm, feeling both comforted and defeated all at once. Comforted, because in this lifetime he finally had something of her with him. Defeated, because he suddenly realized that ever since waking up, ignoring medical advice to check himself out, going to Xuancheng to trace the benevolent Chen’s story, rushing to the airport to meet the old professor—all of it had been, in the end, nothing but a search for a way back to Da Sui.

He wanted to see her once more.

If he had to spend the rest of this life stranded alone at one end of two separate worlds, the thought of it left him utterly without hope.

Cheng Chang knew exactly why his psychiatric evaluation had come back showing moderate-to-severe depressive tendencies—because on the question of whether he frequently thought about ending his life, he had checked “yes.”

But he hadn’t checked “yes” because he intended to give up on life. Living one life on two tracks, crossing over at the brink of death—he wanted to try once more, to see, at the very edge of death, whether he could return to Da Sui again, even though his body in that other world no longer existed.

Just then, his phone screen suddenly lit up with an incoming message.

It was from Professor Li.

“Hello, Cheng Chang. I’ve deciphered the passage you sent me. I hope it helps. The translation is as follows.”

“‘In this life I have been mired in cause and effect, contending with good and evil. Fortunately, heaven did not fail me, and I obtained all that I sought—save for one regret: that I could not spend a hundred years by my wife’s side. All my life I sought a way to travel between the two worlds, and in the end I found it. Alas, war and chaos struck at the wrong hour, the nation’s fate faltering, and to protect my fellow villagers I was forced to remain alone in this world for a hundred solitary years. I record here the method of passage, in the hope that once the chaos of war has settled and the nation finds peace, those who come after need not repeat my failure—that good and evil each receive their due, and cause and effect find their fulfillment—'”

“‘Heaven and earth follow their own order; life and death stand at two ends. One life upon two tracks: through death comes life.'”

“‘A further note: in the world above, ten days there equal one year here. Time slips by swiftly—do not let it pass in vain.'”

Cheng Chang stared at that final line. In the world above, ten days equal one year.

That was it. The first time he’d returned to the present, only three days had passed here, yet by the time he went back to Da Sui, nearly four months had gone by there. The second time, ten days had passed here, and over a year had passed there upon his return.

This time, he’d already been back nearly a month.

The hospital room door opened, and two nurses came in. Seeing Cheng Chang sitting up on the bed with his phone, they looked a little surprised. “Already up?”

Cheng Chang, somewhat dazed, checked the time and realized it was four-thirty—time to prepare for surgery.

Only then did it strike him that Professor Li had likely stayed up all night to decipher the ancient script for him. He sent a message of thanks, stared off for a moment more with his phone still in hand, and then, when the nurse came to prep the surgical site, found himself asking, almost involuntarily, “Is this surgery’s mortality rate high?”

The nurse, assuming it was pre-surgery nerves, laughed. “Dr. Zhang is a specialist from Zhongshan Hospital. Don’t you trust her skill? Relax, it’ll be fine.”

Cheng Chang was silent for a moment, then took his phone and drafted two more messages. After some thought, he set them to send later, then personally locked the phone away in a storage locker, changed into a surgical gown, and, once sterilized, lay down on the operating table.

He Yuenan, the old monk, Duan Mingcheng, and He Xian had all come by then. Together they walked him to the corridor outside the surgical area, offered a few words of encouragement, and watched him go into the operating room.

The overhead surgical lights were bright but not harsh. As the anesthesiologist prepared to administer the anesthetic, he made conversation with Cheng Chang. “Brought something in with you?”

“Yes. A bead. I’ve had it on me the whole time—it can’t leave my body.”

Beside him, Dr. Zhang said with a smile, “It’ll have to be away from you for a little while now. We’ll keep it safe in the cabinet, and you can have it back once the surgery’s done.”

The anesthetic entered his vein, bringing with it a heavy, swelling sensation. Cheng Chang lost consciousness and soon closed his eyes.

…

“Third Young Master, where are you?”

Mist drifted all around, and through the haze came a voice calling out. Cheng Chang opened his eyes and looked around, finding himself, strangely, in a fishing village by the East Sea.

The sensation was odd—he knew, somehow, that this was only a dream, yet it felt as real as if it were truly happening.

The mist thinned somewhat, and the surroundings gradually came into focus. People moved to and fro nearby, cooking smoke rising gently over the village.

But while he could see everyone else, no one could see him.

“Ma’am, might you have seen this man?”

A crisp voice suddenly rang out. Cheng Chang turned, startled, and saw Yun Xi dressed in a constable’s uniform, holding up a portrait, asking after him at the door of a household, with Sun Haiping standing beside her.

This was… the missing months after his fall from the cliff at Baiyun Temple?

Back then, Yun Xi had just been promoted to constable, and had gone out with Zhang Dahu, Sun Haiping, and several other yamen runners to search for him everywhere.

“Never seen him.”

“Please look again, carefully. He’s about this tall, might be injured.”

“This portrait of yours… it’s drawn after a bodhisattva, isn’t it? In our little village, we’ve never seen anyone who looks like this.”

…

The mist around them thickened gradually, until it blocked out Cheng Chang’s vision entirely. He groped forward a few steps in the fog, unable to tell direction, and the mist deepened further still, dissolving into the blurred darkness of night.

In the darkness, Cheng Chang saw Yun Xi’s silhouette.

She walked toward the government office, a bamboo painting tube slung across her back, her expression downcast.

This was… the Yangzhou government office?

Yun Xi walked into the inner courtyard of the government office and was just about to push open the courtyard door when, in the darkness, a small flame flared, and Tian Si’s voice called out, “A’Ting, you—you’re back?”

The night was deep, and Yun Xi’s voice was faint. “I’m back.”

“How did it go?” Tian Si asked.

Yun Xi didn’t answer. She stood alone in the darkness—seen this way, she was little more than a thin, hazy silhouette.

“It’s… it’s fine, A’Ting.” Tian Si comforted her.

After a long pause, Yun Xi made a soft sound. “Right. It’s fine. We’re staying in Yangzhou two more days anyway. In two days it’s the Awakening of Insects festival, and Yangzhou will hold a ceremony for the mountain gods—lots of people that day. I’ll ask around again then.”

The mountains stretched far, the waters ran long, but she would always find him in the end.

Thinking this, Yun Xi went back inside and closed the door.

The night was shut outside the door, and along with it, the government office, its pavilions and towers, gradually dissolved into blurred shadow beneath the deepening dark.

…

The sound of celebratory firecrackers drifted in nearby—someone’s wedding, it seemed.

“General, the fourth young master of the Yin family in Lin’an is taking a wife. Magistrate Liu has asked that you stay in Lin’an a few more days—what do you think…”

Yun Xi thought it over. “Fine. There are a few towns near Lin’an I still haven’t been to. I’ll go take a look these next few days.”

And perhaps… ask around there too.

Once the smoke from the firecrackers had finally cleared, Cheng Chang saw Yun Xi standing at the mouth of an alley. Inside the alley, a wedding procession was underway—the bridal sedan had stopped in front of the household, the groom beaming as he helped the bride down from the sedan, while the master of ceremonies chanted loudly nearby, “Three years into the Wangan era, peace reigns across the land, and today the fourth young master of the Yin family in Lin’an takes a bride—”

Three years into the Wangan era?

When he’d left, Tian Ze hadn’t yet ascended the throne—which meant it was now already the third year since his departure.

The sunlight was warm and gentle, a breeze picking up now and then. This was surely a happy union—everyone before the gates wore sincere smiles, the whole world seemed to be celebrating. Yun Xi stood alone at the mouth of the alley watching. Seeing others smile, her own lips curved to match, but the smile faded quickly, sinking back into the deep stillness of her eyes.

These worldly joys, for her now, had become something she could only watch from afar, forever out of reach.

He had once said he would marry her. He hadn’t gotten the chance.

Yun Xi stood at the mouth of the alley, watching the groom carry his bride through the gate amid the cheerful noise, then turned and walked toward her horse waiting at the end of the alley.

Were there four towns near Lin’an, or six? Never mind, it didn’t matter—the days were long yet. She’d go through them one by one, and if she didn’t find him, she’d move to another region. The world was vast and there was still so much ground left to cover—what did it matter if the search took a lifetime?

She carried her bamboo painting tube on her back, sword in hand, walking alone—only her expression remained unchanged, downcast, yet unwavering.

Cheng Chang suddenly remembered something Yun Xi had once said, at the very end: “I’ve searched for you so many times, and every single time, it’s been so painful. I don’t want to lose you again.”

It ached him terribly. Back in Da Sui, Yun Xi always used to say, with me here, Third Young Master isn’t alone in this world.

Now he wanted the same for her—he didn’t want her to keep searching, alone, forever.

Mist encroached from every direction, the wind through the deep alley sharpening, turning to flakes of frost like fine blades, pushing Cheng Chang back the way he’d come. But in that moment, his dream-bound body suddenly found a burst of strength from nowhere. He pushed against the frost blades and ran toward Yun Xi, calling out, “A’Ting!”

But Yun Xi didn’t hear him. She kept walking toward the end of the alley.

The frost cut like blades against bone, agony spreading through him, but Cheng Chang chased after her with everything he had, until his outstretched hand was almost brushing the hem of her robe. He called out again, “A’Ting—”

Yun Xi’s steps faltered. She turned around abruptly.

The clouds suddenly parted, sunlight pouring down, lighting up the alley—moments ago sunk in deep shadow—until it was blindingly bright.

The alley was empty. Wind swirled and tore through it, carrying away whatever had been there, leaving only scattered fragments of shadow on the ground.

…

“How did the surgery go?”

“Quite smoothly. As long as the patient makes it through the critical recovery window, he should be fine.”

A sharp, stinging sensation ran through his body—likely the nurse inserting the tubes to monitor his vital signs.

The post-surgical anesthesia hadn’t worn off yet; by rights, Cheng Chang shouldn’t have been conscious. And yet, miraculously, awareness returned to him.

Once the nurse finished recording his readings and stepped out of the room, Cheng Chang opened his eyes and looked around. For a moment, his vision was still hazy, filled entirely with Yun Xi’s silhouette.

He saw her turn back abruptly at the mouth of the alley, then stare blankly at the empty street, raising her sleeve to wipe away a tear about to spill over.

She was, as always, holding it back—not letting the tear fall.

He heard her say, voice choked, “Third Young Master?”

She shouldn’t have been able to see him, to hear him at all.

And yet she asked again, “Third Young Master, is that you?”

Sometimes, a decision comes together in a single instant. Cheng Chang smiled, and the warmth of his breath fogged against the oxygen mask, forming a thin mist.

He felt that he ought to go find his girl.

It was, in hindsight, an entirely irrational thing to do—a few lines of ancient script from a diary of unknown provenance, a dream born of post-surgical anesthesia—and yet it was enough to make him commit to something this monumental, without hesitation.

But he had told her, before leaving Da Sui, that he was only going away for a while—that if he could, he would absolutely come back for her.

Even though, at the time, those words had only been meant to comfort her, to ease her worry.

He didn’t want her to be sad.

He still remembered, to this day, that chaos of battle at Mingyin Temple, when she had blocked him from the fire on the other side, spear in hand, ready to die in his place.

He wanted to prove that he loved her just as deeply.

So this time, even if it cost him his life, he was willing to try.

Try, then—he’d died so many times already, what difference would one more make?

Even if his body no longer existed, even if he could never spend his life beside her, if by dying he could become a gust of wind, a wisp of cloud, and see her once more—say a proper goodbye, so she wouldn’t keep searching so relentlessly—that alone would be enough.

Cheng Chang closed his eyes, lifted his hand, and slowly pulled the oxygen mask away from his nose and mouth, then pulled out the tubes monitoring his vital signs.

Perhaps because he had already resigned himself to death, this time the agony arrived with startling speed—a vast wave of piercing pain surged through his chest, seizing his breath.

His already fragile heart, having just endured such trauma from surgery, weakened rapidly. Cheng Chang could even feel his own heartbeat slowing.

The heart monitor’s rhythm, after a brief burst of chaos, gradually flattened.

Death came so quickly that Cheng Chang could almost watch the world dissolving before his eyes, piece by piece.

It wasn’t so bad, really—compared to the other times, this suffering was minimal.

The twenty-first century, my hometown, truly a good place, Cheng Chang thought, as his final thought, eyes closing.

But there’s no girl of mine here.

My girl—kind, sincere, the best girl in my heart.

I can’t let her go.

So, farewell, my home.

I’m going to find my girl.

The morning breeze drifted gently outside the window, the heart monitor’s line nearly flat now. The phone locked away in the cabinet lit up briefly, sending out two scheduled messages.

“All consequences are mine alone to bear. No one else is to be blamed.”

“Farewell, my friends.”

Yet whether by coincidence or some strange occurrence, at that very moment, the monitors in both the surveillance room and the nurses’ station malfunctioned simultaneously. Staff rushed to fix them; the doctors and nurses were busy speaking with the patient’s family and friends. Everyone missed that moment entirely.

So it was that not until the monitor let out a long, drawn-out beep, its line going flat as the heartbeat finally stopped, did the pale-faced man on the bed breathe his last—with no one having entered the room at all.

And yet, the strangeness didn’t end there.

Outside the window, the light of dawn faded, replaced by a brilliant, dazzling sunlight. This light seemed to carry substance, pouring in through the window, laying a frost-like sheen across the floor.

The teardrop resting on the cabinet seemed disturbed by this light—it rolled slowly along the cabinet’s edge, and just as it fell, was caught and lifted by the frost-pale sunlight rising from the floor, rising steadily until it reached the front of the bed, before the silent, motionless figure lying there.

Heaven and earth follow their order; life and death stand at two ends.

One life upon two tracks: through death comes life.

Sunlight, sharp as a blade, pierced through the teardrop, and it shattered at once—the dusk-light hidden within it, with nowhere left to hide, collided with the sunlight, only to be drawn in and gradually merged together by the shattered fragments.

This dusk-light had, across several brushes with death, protected Cheng Chang, accompanied him back and forth between worlds, and helped shield his ravaged body. It had grown worn and faint by now, but in this instant, bolstered by the sunlight, it blazed back to vividness as though renewed.

The cycle of cause and effect in this world; good and evil each meeting their due reward.

The rosy light, like butterflies, clung to Cheng Chang’s body, seeping inch by inch into his flesh and bone—just as it once had, shielding his broken body beneath the cliff, amid the flames—slowly mending the vessels of his heart, dispelling the congenital affliction he’d carried since birth, as though soothing him, smoothing away every hardship and injustice he had suffered across these two lives.

The dusk-light did not fade—it grew brighter still, dazzling in its shifting colors, impossible to look away from, carrying within it a gentleness, a compassion that inspired reverence.

The lotus blossomed; life and death converged like a stupa; cause and effect closed the loop; the two tracks became one.

The rosy glow wrapped around Cheng Chang, layer upon layer, until his body could no longer be seen at all—then, all at once, it burst open and vanished into the void.

And with the light, the figure lying on the bed vanished too.

The creases remained on the bed, as though he had merely gotten up and left—never to return.

He had finally gone to find his girl.