Wei Chao continued, "At the very beginning, I thought that after Linlin went back to her parents' house, with no one to watch me, I would be freer and live better. However, after a period of what I considered to be a carefree life, I realized that this home simply could not do without Linlin. I recognized that I had made a serious mistake."

"So, I started shamelessly going to Linlin's parents' house again and again, trying to bring her back. Perhaps Linlin was still angry at the time and hadn't forgiven me for my infidelity and betrayal; she refused to return with me. After the final attempt to bring Linlin back failed, I had no choice but to go home alone once more. On the way home, I spotted a very ancient Taoist temple by the side of the road. It was called the Sanqing Temple, and many people inside were burning incense. On a whim, I decided to go in and burn a stick of incense myself, hoping that the Three Pure Ones could bless me and ultimately make Linlin change her mind and choose to come home with me."

"For the first time, I sincerely burned a stick of incense at the Sanqing Temple. But just as I was about to leave, several Taoist priests inside stopped me. They forcefully demanded that I pay a ten-thousand-yuan fee for the incense. At the time, I was unaware of the tricks played in these temples, and on top of that, I was already in a terrible mood. I was unwilling to pay this unjust amount of money, and I even called the police."

"Unexpectedly, when the police arrived, they claimed the temple hadn't done anything wrong and subsequently left. Now I understand the deceit involved. Those Taoist priests at the Sanqing Temple were not real Taoists at all; they were just impostors. Furthermore, this Sanqing Temple had been contracted out by the government, and these fake priests were the contractors. They were entirely driven by financial gain, solely focused on swindling money. Their backing was the local government, so how could the police possibly accept my complaint?"

"Because I insisted on refusing to pay the ten thousand yuan incense fee and my call to the police angered the fake Taoists, they rushed forward and severely beat me. Then, they forcibly made me swipe my card on their temple's machine for ten thousand yuan. Finally, they dragged me out and dumped me into the foul ditch behind the Sanqing Temple."

Liu Hui was aware of the shady dealings surrounding the contracting of temples within scenic areas in China. What he hadn't anticipated was that even by 2015, this absurd situation hadn't diminished but had instead become increasingly rampant.

The more agitated Wei Chao became, the redder his face grew, as if all the blood in his body had rushed to his face, startling Liu Hui profoundly.

Wei Chao himself, oblivious to the change in his complexion, continued, "My wife was angry and returned to her parents' home, my son hated me for disgracing the family and refused to speak to me, I couldn't hold my head up at the company, constantly being scolded and criticized, and even burning a stick of incense ended with me being brutally extorted by those fake priests. Reflecting on these tragic experiences, I, a grown man, finally couldn't hold back my tears. The more I cried, the more disheartened I felt, and somehow, thoughts of ending my life surfaced. So, I went to the Yangtze River and stood on a levee. Watching the rolling river below, I kept contemplating my situation, thinking more and more that life held no meaning, and I resolved to jump in and commit suicide."

"But just as I was about to jump into the river, I suddenly thought of my son, who was still a minor, and my wife, who once loved me so dearly. I still had ties that bound me; I couldn't die yet. I had to go back and mend the mistakes I had made. With that realization, I forcibly pulled back the foot that was already extended. I resolved to summon my courage, completely change my ways, face the difficulties, and continue living."

"But at that very moment, the void above my head suddenly writhed, and then a woman appeared from this void. I don't know how this woman appeared, but she simply dropped down, landing squarely on my back. My footing was already unstable, and with this impact from the woman, my entire body began to fall towards the Yangtze River."

"Caught completely off guard and with nothing nearby to grab onto, my hands instinctively flailed backward, and it seemed I grabbed hold of the woman's body, even tearing something away from her. But even so, it couldn't stop my body from continuing to fall. As I tumbled down toward the Yangtze, I realized that the woman who had appeared from nowhere and knocked me down was falling with me, emitting terrified shrieks. In that instant, I was filled with immense regret—why had I entertained the thought of self-destruction and come to such a dangerous place? Otherwise, I wouldn't have been knocked into the Yangtze by this mysteriously appearing woman. In that moment, my heart was filled with longing for Linlin and my son, and my will to survive reached its zenith."

Liu Hui listened, marveling internally. He hadn't expected such a dramatic turn of events right when Wei Chao had retracted his step to commit suicide—to be knocked into the Yangtze by a suddenly appearing mysterious woman. He wanted to die when he shouldn't have, and yet he couldn't escape that fate when he didn't want it anymore.

Wei Chao sighed and said, "Sadly, even though I prayed to every deity and immortal in the world in that instant, not a single one manifested to save me. I ultimately couldn't escape that tragic fate and fell into the Yangtze. Being a complete landlubber who couldn't swim, I sank quickly to the bottom and fell into a deep coma. When I woke up again and opened my eyes, I found myself back in the body of my fifteen-year-old self—the year was exactly 2001."

Liu Hui asked curiously, "What about the woman who knocked you down? Did you ever see her again?"

Wei Chao replied, "The instant I fell into the river water, I saw that woman falling too. But the void beneath her writhed again, a hole suddenly appeared in the air, and her entire body dropped into that hole in the void, vanishing completely. The way this mysterious woman appeared and disappeared was exactly the same, just one was a forward motion, and the other was a backward one."

Liu Hui inquired, "Could the woman you mentioned be a hallucination from when you were falling into the Yangtze? After all, you were already somewhat disoriented."

Wei Chao responded, "In the beginning, I also thought the appearance of that mysterious woman was a hallucination. But when I returned to the present, I found that I was still tightly clutching a mysterious white jade disc in my hand. I immediately remembered that this white jade disc was the very thing I had grabbed from that woman in my panic.

"Upon seeing this white jade disc, I instantly knew that the reason I could return to the present was because of it. My intense desire to live must have somehow activated the mysterious power within this white jade disc, causing me to return to the present. This magical feeling was extremely strange; somehow, I just knew this was why I could traverse time and space. But later, no matter what I tried, I could never activate the jade disc again. So, I completely gave up on the thought of returning to the future and began to apply my talents in this era brimming with infinite possibilities. I must succeed; I will make everyone who looked down on me look up to me."

Liu Hui said, "So you used your foreknowledge to quickly establish the Dream Group?"

Wei Chao gave a wry smile, "Brother Liu, at the very beginning, I also thought that relying on my foreknowledge, I could immediately succeed in starting a business. But in the actual process of entrepreneurship, I discovered that achieving entrepreneurial success is far from easy. Although I possessed twenty years of foresight, I lacked the initial seed money. As the saying goes, everything is difficult at the start; even a single coin can stop a hero. So, I started desperately trying to recall things, and finally remembered a lottery draw in 2001 that had a grand prize of twenty million. And I happened to remember the winning numbers, so I decided to use purchasing a lottery ticket as the means to acquire my first pot of gold."

Liu Hui sighed, "With the advantage of foresight, earning that first pot of gold must have been quite swift and easy!"

Who knew that Wei Chao would grimace again and say, "Even with the advantage of foresight, my first pot of gold plan failed."

Liu Hui was startled and asked, "Why? Did you remember the numbers wrong back then?"

Wei Chao replied, "I absolutely would not misremember the lottery numbers. But after that lottery draw, I found that none of the numbers I bought had won. The grand prize of twenty million was won that day, but the winning numbers were no longer the set I remembered."

Liu Hui was shocked, "You mean, that lottery had..."

Wei Chao nodded, "Exactly. That lottery was problematic; it wasn't something ordinary people like me could afford to play. And since that anomaly in the winning numbers, all subsequent winning lottery numbers changed. The lottery numbers I knew from the future became completely useless, so my dream of making a fortune through the lottery shattered."

Wei Chao sank into reminiscence and said, "Although the path to wealth via the lottery was completely blocked, fortunately, the stock market trends hadn't changed much; they were still developing along the original trajectory. So, I resorted to deceit and trickery, borrowing funds from everywhere, and investing them in the stock market. Relying on some of the data I had recorded back then, I finally managed to earn the first pot of gold in my life in a short period. Then I used this initial capital to open internet cafes everywhere, mortgaged those cafes to banks and loan sharks, and used the money obtained to open more internet cafes, then mortgage them again. I repeated this cycle and, in less than a year, accumulated twenty million yuan through these financial maneuvering tactics. My real rise to fortune, however, began with the Korea-Japan World Cup. In that World Cup, strong teams performed poorly, and upsets were common across the matches. I used my foreknowledge to engage in World Cup betting. I remembered the results of those matches clearly, so I correctly guessed the outcome of every game. By the end of the Korea-Japan World Cup, I had my first hundred million US dollars."

Liu Hui was deeply moved. Some people only earned a few hundred thousand yuan in a lifetime, yet Wei Chao, who was only fifteen at the time, amassed his first hundred million US dollars in less than a year. No wonder people called him the "Financial Prodigy."

A smile began to surface on Wei Chao's face, "Once I had my first one hundred million US dollars, I had sufficient startup capital. Coupled with my foresight, money in this world became extraordinarily easy to earn. Later, I started internet companies, developed software, created online games, established film companies, traded stocks, traded futures, and dealt in real estate. I participated in virtually every industry that could generate wealth in the world. Relying on my advanced vision, I built the colossal Dream Group in less than ten years, becoming the world's covert number one richest man."

"After achieving such a great reputation, invitations from within Huaxia to return and invest started pouring in. However, I remained unmoved because I knew the domestic environment wasn't ideal. But when the leaders of Bashan City invited me to invest in my hometown, Bashan, I suddenly recalled the incident where I was humiliated at the Sanqing Temple in the future. An idea struck me: I would return to Bashan City to engage in real estate development. I wanted to demolish that arrogant Sanqing Temple, leaving those future fake priests nowhere to be arrogant and swindle money, finally airing the grievance bottled up in my heart."

Liu Hui was startled upon hearing this because he suddenly remembered that his Plane Trading Device was found on the ruins of the Sanqing Temple. He asked, "In the future, the Sanqing Temple was never repaired or anything, right?"

Wei Chao said, "It shouldn't have been repaired. The Sanqing Temple looked ancient. According to the fake priests inside, it was over a thousand years old, though I didn't believe them; I thought they were bragging."

Liu Hui hummed in acknowledgement and fell silent.

Wei Chao continued, "When I returned to Bashan, I initiated my plan to destroy the Sanqing Temple. Under the pressure of my wealth, I finally obtained permission from the local government to forcibly requisition the land where the Sanqing Temple stood for real estate development. When I personally drove the excavator and knocked down the main hall of the Sanqing Temple, and saw the fake priests trembling beside it, I felt an immense satisfaction. I had finally taken revenge for that old slight."

"Later, I developed the land where the Sanqing Temple stood into a commercial property. Because of the allure of the Sanqing Temple gimmick, this development earned my company a huge profit. However, there was a small hitch when construction first began; there was apparently a shootout involving gangsters there, and it was rumored that some things were buried inside. Unfortunately, the police never found those items, which also caused my development to halt for a month for inspection. But later, with my monetary influence, construction on that property quickly resumed."

Liu Hui's heart shook violently. Now he finally understood why there was no record of him or 'Star City' existing in the future he remembered. In that future, Liu Hui was just an insignificant, unsuccessful person; he never obtained the Plane Trading Device and naturally couldn't create 'Star City.'

The reason Liu Hui in the present possessed such great achievements now was entirely due to obtaining the Plane Trading Device. He obtained the Plane Trading Device because Wei Chao demolished the Sanqing Temple that had once humiliated him to build apartments. Liu Hui, passing by the construction site late at night, fell into a deep pit, hit his head, and his blood flowed into the ground beneath the Sanqing Temple, binding his identity with the Plane Trading Device buried there. And Wei Chao was able to return to the present to take revenge on the Sanqing Temple because he was accidentally knocked into the river by the woman who fell from the void, and he obtained the mysterious jade disc from her person while flailing around.

But since things had already turned out this way, the future Wei Chao remembered no longer existed. The present was the foundation of the new future, and the future would not be the one etched in Wei Chao's memory. The reason the world had changed so completely from Wei Chao's recollection was less about Wei Chao forcibly intervening and more about that woman who fell from the void. But who was that woman, how did she appear from the void, and why did she possess a jade disc capable of time travel?

Liu Hui instantly understood the butterfly effect at play. As he was speculating about the identity of the woman who caused this fundamental shift in history, he heard Wei Chao say, "In this current lifetime, I have experienced extreme splendor and wealth, possessed countless beautiful women, and believed myself to be many times happier than my future self. But when I discovered all my women collectively betraying me, I realized that the one I truly loved most was still my wife, Linlin."

Liu Hui asked, "Since you loved Liu Lin so much, why didn't you look for her immediately upon rebirth? Liu Lin should still have been in school then, right?"

Wei Chao said with deep regret, "When I was first reborn, I still harbored some resentment towards Linlin, so I didn't immediately decide whether to seek her out. As a result of this hesitation, other women appeared in my life, and I immediately became indecisive. I knew Linlin was extremely devoted in love; she absolutely would not tolerate other women around me. And at that time, my philandering nature took over. I thought I had fallen in love with these new women, and they loved me deeply too; I didn't want to separate from them because of Linlin."

Liu Hui now felt Wei Chao entirely deserved his fate. To seek out other women right after rebirth and then create a huge scene at Linlin's wedding was utterly beneath his stature.

Wei Chao continued, "When I finally woke up from the gentle embrace of those women and decided to find Linlin again, I discovered that she had already moved due to the butterfly effect I caused. Given my influence back then, tracing the relocated Linlin family would have been very easy, but I hesitated again, and then I fell deeper into the gentle embrace of even more women, losing the desire to look for Linlin."

Liu Hui asked, "So, it was at Mei Peng's wedding ceremony that the current you saw the current Liu Lin for the first time, correct?"

Wei Chao confirmed, "Yes, that was the first time I saw Liu Lin. The moment I saw the current Linlin, I was immediately captivated. The current Linlin had long shed the rustic air she held in my eyes back then; she exuded the unique charm of a beautiful woman. My sense of balance faltered, and jealousy flared, leading me to try and stop her wedding to Mei Peng."

Wei Chao then added, "It was only later that I finally understood something: Linlin was actually a very beautiful woman. The reason she appeared so dowdy in the future was simply because I had no money to allow her to dress up and groom herself, yet even so, Linlin never resented me back then. The current Linlin, having followed Mei Peng early on—and Mei Peng not lacking in funds—had fully displayed her most beautiful side. Only then did I recognize Linlin's true allure and understand how precious it was that Linlin had chosen me back then."

Liu Hui sighed, "Little Wei, after hearing what you just said, I think it truly is Linlin's good fortune that she is not with you now."

The flush on Wei Chao's face began to fade, and he said dejectedly, "I don't need you to tell me that; seeing the smile she has now when she's with Mei Peng is enough proof. Even when we were on good terms in the future, I never saw that many smiles on her face. I have to admit, Mei Peng is a better fit for Linlin than I am. So, after I caused that major scene at her wedding, I never sought her out again, only secretly collecting information about her life. I later realized that Mei Peng is just a smooth-talking man, but he treats Linlin very well—something I could never achieve. Linlin is living very happily."

Liu Hui asked, "If that is the case, why are you here now? What do you wish to gain?"

Wei Chao replied, "Because of the collective betrayal of those women, my heart failed, severely damaging my vital core. I know my time is short. I only wished to see Linlin one last time before I die. Now that I see how happy she is, my heart is finally at peace."

Liu Hui looked at Wei Chao's rapidly paling face and knew the situation was exactly as Wei Chao described; his life was nearly over. A person who voluntarily abandoned the hope of survival could not be saved by anyone.

Wei Chao looked at Liu Hui and smiled, "Brother Liu, I’ve returned from the future, so I know everything about the big shots who dominate this world. That’s how I can navigate among them so smoothly. But it’s a pity that I’ve never been able to figure you out—what’s truly on your mind, or where all this technology of yours comes from. Take this latest oil sell-off, for instance; it didn't just wipe out all our state speculators, it fundamentally altered the world. I even noticed that the technology in 2025 wasn't as advanced as our current 'Starry Sky City' is now."

Liu Hui said, "Little Wei, you really never heard my name in the future?"

Wei Chao replied, "I genuinely never heard your name. I thought about it later: we’re both from Bashan. I did a lot of outrageous things back in Bashan, and maybe one of my actions created a chain reaction that caused a massive turning point in your destiny, resulting in the you and this 'Starry Sky City' that exist now!"

Although Liu Hui still didn't know the full story about the woman who fell out of the void, he had a rough idea of how this butterfly, Wei Chao, had changed his fate. Unfortunately, his acquisition of the Planar Trading Device was his ultimate secret, one he couldn't possibly reveal to anyone. So, facing Wei Chao’s probing questions, he could only offer a vague reply: "Perhaps that's how it happened!"

Wei Chao understood Liu Hui's reluctance to share the specifics of how his destiny had changed, recognizing that he himself wouldn't have revealed the secret of his time travel back to the present unless he was on the verge of death.

As the flush drained completely from Wei Chao’s face, leaving it stark white, his energy began to rapidly dissipate. Wei Chao struggled to pull a thread from his neck. Liu Hui noticed and stepped forward to help, drawing the thread out, only to discover a small, exquisite white jade disk hanging from the bottom.

Wei Chao strained to hand the white jade disk to Liu Hui, murmuring, "Brother Liu, I really don’t have much time left. I’m giving you this disk—the one that changed my destiny. I hope someday you can uncover the secret held within it."

Liu Hui took the disk from Wei Chao's grasp, and Wei Chao smiled, saying, "Thinking back now, I truly regret it. After being reborn, aside from making money, I haven't made any truly useful contribution to society. If there is a next life, I sincerely hope to be someone like you, Brother Liu, someone who can drive the overall progress of society forward."

Liu Hui gripped Wei Chao’s hand, unsure of what to say. Wei Chao gave a slight smile, then turned his head, trying to cast one last glance toward Mei Peng’s window. Regrettably, before his head had fully turned, he stopped breathing. Wei Chao’s eyes remained wide open, and two streams of murky tears were rolling out from them—he had died with grievances unaddressed.

Liu Hui felt a pang of sorrow. He couldn't tell if Wei Chao died unfulfilled because he hadn't seen Liu Lin one last time, or because he realized he had completely misjudged all of his women. But now that the man was dead, everything was past; more words were useless.

Liu Hui carefully laid Wei Chao flat on the ground and gently wiped his open eyes. He then tidied the ragged clothes on his body, striving to grant Wei Chao a dignified passing.

"Desheng..." Liu Hui called out.

Desheng immediately emerged from the nearby darkness and replied, "Boss, what is it?"

Liu Hui instructed, "Immediately cleanse Wei Chao’s body, and then have him interred in the highest-tier cemetery in 'Starry Sky City.' Wei Chao’s tomb and honors must be worthy of his status."

Although Desheng didn't understand why his boss was treating Wei Chao with such profound respect, he nodded and said, "Boss, I understand. I will see to this matter personally."

Just then, the window of Mei Peng's house suddenly opened, and Liu Lin appeared, holding a hand over her chest, looking in the direction of Liu Hui with clear surprise.

"Wife, what’s wrong?" Mei Peng asked, wrapping his arms around her from behind.

"Oh, nothing, just a sudden moment of palpitations, as if something intimately connected to me had been lost," Liu Lin replied.

Mei Peng laughed, "Everything intimately connected to you is right here in this house. Take a good look; not a single thing is missing!"

Liu Lin smiled back, "That’s true. You are all my greatest loves; how could I ever lose you..."