At Yue Lao's words, Hui Yin's expression brightened.
Seeds of hope wormed its way into her heart, and as a gusty breeze blew her hair, the smile that curved her lips became so radiant that it flooded the world with a soft golden light. Doves flew out of ivory towers, angels descended from the heavens with their trumpets, and Yue Lao fell backwards as he shielded his eyes with his hands.
"Girl, stop! Your radiance is blinding me!"
But Hui Yin did not hear him. She seized his hands, and after clasping them in prayer, she said excitedly, "Senior, you could help me? How?"
Yue Lao's white beard twitched, and his face turned solemn. "You really want to know?"
"I want to know!"
"I don't think you want to know."
"Senior, I want to know, I want to know!"
Glancing at the excited bunny wiggling her fluffy tail in front of him, Yue Lao could finally not resist her and said, "Like I told you, to forge a new one, you need to break the old one."
Hui Yin blinked at him owlishly. It was obvious that she didn't understand what he meant by that.
Yue Lao pinched the bridge of his nose. Slowly, he explained, "You and that boy are bound by a red thread that I casted on you in your previous life. That is your 'old' gift. To replace it with a new thread binding you to another, you need to break the old one first."
"Senior, I don't need a new one, just break the old one!"
Hui Yin gave a hard shake of her head. Red strings were too scary, she didn't want to entangle herself with another one in this lifetime, ah!
"Regardless of whether you want a new one or not, you need to break the old thread first, correct? I could help you, but there will be a high price."
"A high price?"
Somehow, Hui Yin didn't think Yue Lao was talking about money.
"You need to catch the culprit."
He said it blandly, like he was talking about an insignificant thing, but a shiver of apprehension crisped Hui Yin's skin. He couldn't possibly mean...
"You need to find the culprit threatening that boy."
Like a balloon being poked by a sharp pin, Hui Yin's whole body deflated. How could she, with her meager resources and connections, find a person that Lu Shen himself was having some trouble to find? It was definitely mission impossible!
"Senior..."
Yue Lao shot her a look of disapproval, and Hui Yin swallowed back the rest of her words.
"It's that person who brought you and that boy together, and he was also the one who brought the two of you apart. It is imperative that you find him. Either in this lifetime or the previous one, that boy will never succeed on capturing him..."
Yue Lao felt deep pity in his heart. That boy in the future must have been still grieving. He thought he would be able to catch the culprit quick enough to go back to her, but that boy had truly overestimated himself. In the end, everything he did had came for naught...
"Lu Shen will never catch him?" Hui Yin was surprised. He was the Great Dragon King! Only a few people could escape him, and even fewer could threaten his life and get away with it. "Why?"
"What do you mean, why? It's because I said so! Girl, you're the only one who can find him. After all, you know the culprit well. But you won't be able to find him at this point in time..."
Hui Yin interrupted his rambling and said in an incredulous tone, "I know the culprit?"
Yue Lao poked her forehead with his finger. "I don't have the leisure to explain everything to you! Find the answer yourself. I'm already helping you enough as it is, so don't ask for more."
Hui Yin quieted down. That's right, she was talking to a deity. It was already a fortuitous encounter that he was helping her.
"As I was saying, you won't be able to find the culprit at this point in time. He's a turtle that only pokes his head out when the time is ripe. For you to even catch a glimpse of him, you need to go back to the two major incidents when the turtle walked out of his shell and exposed himself."
"Two major incidents? What do you mean, senior?"
"What do you think I meant? Girl, use your brain! Ah, I talked so much that I'm getting thirsty. It would be good to have a bottle of beer...ah, what was I saying again? Right, the two major incidents. That boy's accident, and your accident."
"Lu Shen's accident and my accident?" Hui Yin froze, her mind shifting through her memories.
She was both familiar with these two 'incidents'. The first one was when Lu Shen lost his memories, and the second one was when she...lost her life. Could the culprit have a hand in her death? But how could that be? It was Nian Zhen who clearly pushed her into that highway...
But Hui Yin suddenly grasped a flaw in the old man's thinking process.
"But senior, how could I go back to those two major incidents? One's in the past, another is in the future...and I already changed that."
"That's why I will give you a reward. I will let you travel back in time, and go back to the scene of that boy's accident. Since his soul is your anchor, it would be terribly easy for you to find him. As for the future, well, everything will be clear to you after I tell you of the price you needed to pay."
Hui Yin furrowed her eyebrows and stared at him. "A price...I needed to pay?"
"Yes. Time-traveling is not an easy matter to do, girl. Even your rebirth has already strained the limits of time and space. Even if you and I hadn't met again, you would still have gradually forgotten the memories of your previous life, and all the evidence hinting to it would slowly disappear. And then everything will align to make you follow your original fate..."
She would have once again married Lu Shen.
Hui Yin knew that if her memories of her past life disappeared, she would happily go back to his arms and fall in love with him all over again. Everything will be as it had been, with her daily life as an abandoned legal wife, Nian Zhen humiliating her in Weibo, her baby being killed by that car and her blood soaking the pavement like a red chrysanthemum...along with that terrible scream.
Hui Yin blinked. Huh? What terrible scream?
"For you to time-travel, a price is needed to be paid. Furthermore, if you can't capture the culprit in that boy's accident, then you need to time-travel back to the future. Not many people has been granted this chance."
Hui Yin shook off her daze and asked quickly, "Senior, what price do I need to pay?"
"The price...is for you to kill yourself and reset everything in the present!"
Hui Yin nearly bowled over, the shock robbing her of speech.
The price...isn't it a bit too high?!