Chapter 2

It wasn't until four in the morning that I heard the front door click open and light, hesitant footsteps creep inside.

After washing up, Xinxin softly kissed my forehead before slipping under the duvet, wrapping her arms around me to sleep.

Right on cue, the child's voice piped up again:

[Daddy, Mommy literally just got back from sleeping with her true love! How can you even sleep right now?!]

[If you ask me, you should divorce her right this second! Don't worry, once I grow up, I'll definitely repay you.]

Hearing the exact carbon-copy lines from my past life, I kept my breathing steady and refused to show any reaction.

I silently replayed everything that had happened before.

When I had demanded a divorce, Xinxin was devastated and completely baffled. She begged me on her knees to reconsider.

Yet, blinded by rage, I had stubbornly forced it through.

After signing the papers, I walked away with nothing, leaving every single asset and dollar to her name.

After all, she was carrying my flesh and blood.

After all, she was the woman I had cherished for years.

I never imagined that the next time she saw me, I would already be a stiff, lifeless corpse.

They told me she completely lost her mind with grief after that day.

Looking back at her genuine devastation in my past life, I began to reevaluate everything.

Had she really never cheated on me?

I decided that once we woke up, I would sit down and have an open, honest conversation with her.

However, by the time I opened my eyes, Xinxin had already left for work.

A note was left on the kitchen counter, accompanied by a text message on my phone:

[Good morning, honey! Breakfast is on the table, and I made fresh soy milk for you in the kitchen. Heading to the office now, see you tonight!]

A wave of warmth barely had time to spread through my chest before the voice sneered in my ear again:

[Daddy, did you see the sweet little note Mommy left for you? Truth is, she’s out on a date with another man right now!]

[Hurry up and divorce her, Daddy! Is a woman like that really worth it?!]

Xinxin was miles away at her office, yet this child's voice could still reach me anywhere, anytime.

There was no time to hesitate. The more frantic and desperate this entity was to tear us apart, the more certain I was that a sinister scheme was at play.

What was it trying to achieve by pushing so hard for a divorce?

No matter what it took, I was determined to rewrite my destiny this time around.

On my way to work, an elderly man dressed in a traditional Taoist robe suddenly grabbed my wrist. His face was pale with panic.

"Things that do not belong to you... you should never have touched them!"

Startled, I jerked my arm back, having no idea what he was talking about.

Assuming it was just some elaborate street scam, I turned to walk away.

To my shock, he lunged forward, gripping my hand with abnormal strength, and screamed directly in my face:

"A dying man walking! Cease your futile struggles!"

A wave of goosebumps erupted across my skin from his manic outburst. I stumbled back several paces.

I initially wrote him off as a lunatic, but the dead-serious, terrifying clarity in his gaze told me he wasn't joking.

I froze in place, his words echoing in my skull like thunder.

*A life that doesn't belong to me?*

Did this old man somehow know I had been reborn?

Was he saying that even with a second chance at life, I was still merely struggling in vain against an inevitable death?

Suffocating dread closed around my throat.

Just as I opened my mouth to press him for answers, the old man pivoted and vanished around the street corner.

Before my racing thoughts could settle, the voice surfaced inside my head once more:

[Daddy, who were you just talking to?]