Chapter 4

I was taken to the police station and placed in a cold interrogation room. It filled me with the same despair I had experienced in the psychiatric hospital in my past life.

The police officer typed away on the keyboard. "The household registration system lists Henry Johnson as Wanda Cooper's spouse. The business records also indicate that Henry is the legal representative of the company you claim is yours."

I suddenly realized something—the video I had recorded yesterday. I quickly pulled out my phone and opened the foreign cloud storage account, only to find it empty. I completely fell apart.

I seized on one last hope and shouted at the police officers. "I won 75 million dollars in the lottery three years ago! There must be a record of it! Go look it up!"

The police officer glanced at me and actually looked it up in the system. A few minutes later, he raised his head and looked at me with pity. "The records list Henry as the winner of the 75 million dollars lottery three years ago… Do you need us to assist you in contacting a doctor from the psychiatric department?"

Everything from my past life came rushing back.

When the police weren't watching, I took advantage of the moment, shoved the door open, and ran out of the station like a madman.

I hid in a poorly lit internet café, switched on a computer, and shakily searched for "75 million dollars lottery winner." The results were filled with news stories featuring Henry's smug, triumphant expression.

Next, I searched for Henry and Wanda's wedding. There were reports of their grand wedding, with photos of the two of them smiling lovingly among a crowd of guests.

I searched for my company next, then for my own name. Every article credited Henry as the founder, describing him as a business prodigy who had built his success from nothing and had an exceptional eye for investments.

I slumped in my chair, unable to make sense of anything. Who was I? Had it all been a dream, or had I somehow been reborn? I immediately pulled out my phone and checked the date—it was 2026. It meant that the year was right.

Why did Wanda seem more mature than I remembered if I had only gone back in time? Why had Henry replaced me? Everything I thought I knew about the world came crashing down in that moment.

Grandma was the only one I could think of, because her dreams had set everything in motion. She had to know why all this happened.

I bolted out of the internet café and drove to the family cemetery in the south of the city. I went around the hillside three times, searching for Grandma's grave, but it was nowhere to be found. There was nothing there but a stretch of barren patch of land covered in weeds.

A local man who was hoeing the ground nearby noticed me and asked, "What are you looking for, young man?"

"Could you tell me if there used to be a grave here for an elderly woman with the last name Lambert?"

The local man gave me a confused look. "You're looking for an elderly woman with the last name Lambert? There's only one Ms. Lambert around here, though. She's healthy as ever and plays chess by the village entrance every day. She's very much alive. What grave are you talking about?"

Grandma was still alive, then?

I felt my head throb as a loud ringing filled my ears, wiping out every thought.

I followed the man's directions and found the elderly woman under the oak tree by the village entrance. She was playing chess with someone and looked to be in excellent health. She was exactly the same as the Grandma in my memories.

I rushed over, fell to my knees in front of her, and burst out crying. "Grandma!"

Grandma was startled by my sudden approach and dropped the chess piece she was holding. She gave me a puzzled look and said, "You must be confusing me with someone else."

"It's me, Grandma! It's Christian Lister! Have you forgotten who I am? You visited me in my dreams and told me to buy lottery tickets and told me to deal with the talismans at the ancestral home, Grandma!"

Grandma looked at me even more strangely, as if I were out of my mind. "What dreams and talismans? Have you been reading too many fictions? What kind of nonsense are you talking about in the middle of the day?"

That word "rebirth" popped into my head for the first time in the most ridiculous way. What if I hadn't been reborn at all but had traveled to a different past where Grandma was still alive and everything had completely changed?

Just when I was about to give up all hope, a small figure cautiously poked their head out from behind the oak tree. That child looked at me and called out in a quiet but unmistakable voice, "D-Daddy?"