Chapter 47 The Unlucky Guy "He was indeed a bit vicious."...

Zhou Yaren ignored her sarcasm: "I had a dream."

The nightmare was so real, so real, that it penetrated to his very core, that he believed it to be real. Even now, he feels as if he's still immersed in the dream. Zhou Yaren said, "I dreamt that you came to deliver my death message..."

Zhou Yaren recalled being locked in a cage-like death cell, a prison like a beast's den, its inmates like demons. He was subjected to endless torture and torment. He refused to confess, so the yamen runners forced him to confess under torture. That despair gripped him tightly, making him shudder uncontrollably whenever he thought about it.

Even though it was a dream, he stubbornly believed it wasn't; he thought it was his own experience, which he had repeated time and time again.

“You said I bear the burden of punishment, so I guess that I might have been—a person who died unjustly. That’s why I came to ask you yesterday to verify it.”

Bai Yuan, utterly devoid of any conscience, asked, "It's been verified, so what?"

“If that’s the case, then I’m experiencing the same thing in this life and the last, being imprisoned twice. That’s unusual. It’s like I’m repeating the same mistakes.” Zhou Yaren said, “And you never ask me what crimes I’m carrying.”

Bai Yuan stared into his eyes: "The crime is not important, and you have not been imprisoned twice."

"What do you mean?" He had always thought that Bai Yuan didn't ask questions because he was indifferent to him and didn't care, but that wasn't the case.

"Just as you said, you'll repeat the same mistakes. No matter how many times you live, you'll be unjustly imprisoned in every lifetime." Bai Yuan's words carried an almost numb calmness. "I've seen you many, many, many times. During this time, you've committed all sorts of capital crimes. Later, I became too lazy to care what crimes you were carrying. Anyway, the end result is always the same: a terrible death."

Zhou Yaren was so shocked that she didn't know what to do with her face. She stared blankly at her and murmured to herself, "Life after life?"

"Yes, you're probably the unluckiest person in the world besides me."

"Why?"

"Because you are destined for misfortune, which is what people call fate."

"A calamity?" Zhou Yaren's mind was in complete chaos. "What do you mean by destiny? And why would I be destined to suffer a calamity?"

At this point, he suddenly recalled a recurring dream that filled him with extreme pain and indignation: his body, like a weathered skeleton, was nailed to the prison wall by instruments of torture. A chilling wind swept by, carrying with it a judgmental whisper: "You are a sinner!"

You are guilty!

"Your sins are unforgivable, and you deserve to die a thousand deaths!"

The four words, "I could die ten thousand times over," felt like the pressure of thunder and the weight of a thousand pounds.

He had always thought that these dreams were just a reflection of his real-life experiences, because he had been thinking about them all day.

It wasn't until this moment that Zhou Ya suddenly realized, as if he had just woken up, that perhaps it was never just a mysterious dream. He felt as if he were in the midst of a raging storm: "Could it be that I committed some heinous crime, one that is unforgivable and unforgivable, and that I was condemned to this tribulation in my destiny? Is this punishment from heaven, a trial that I must endure for countless lifetimes?"

"Hmm, perhaps so."

"But what heinous crime have I committed that warrants my endless cycle of wrongful imprisonment and unjust death, repeating the same mistakes in every lifetime? Is there such an incomprehensible punishment in the cycle of karma?"

Bai Yuan was taken aback for a moment, then commented, "It is indeed a bit vicious."

The word "malicious" hit the nail on the head. Zhou Yaren pondered for a moment, lamenting the injustice of fate, but then thought of another most appropriate possibility: "In my opinion, it's more like a curse."

Zhou Yaren analyzed with immense depression: "It's a curse that even life and death cannot escape. If it's not lifted, it will follow me through life and death."

Bai Yuan listened intently, then replied ambiguously, "Is that so?"

"So no matter what, I must get rid of this fate."

"If it's a curse, how can you get rid of it?"

“If this thing is no different from a curse, then naturally we need to find a way to break the curse, or find the person who cast the curse. However, so much time has passed, it is absolutely impossible to find the person, so I can only look for a way to break the curse.”

How do I find it?

Zhou Yaren forced himself to remain rational and calm. Only when his mind was clear could he have good thinking ability. He thought: I should start with the wrongful convictions I had been wronged for.

“Many things don’t need to be overcomplicated. Perhaps finding out the truth and clearing my name is the way to break this curse.” After the initial shock, Zhou Yaren finally calmed down. “Since you’ve seen me and know me, why have you never told me?”

"If I told you, would you believe me?" People don't have memories of their past lives; most only believe what's within their understanding. Besides, Zhou Yaren isn't blindly superstitious; she's suspicious and has at least eight hundred schemes running through her mind, constantly scheming against him. She's too lazy to waste her energy on him and will be blunt: "Not only will you not believe me, but you'll also accuse me of spreading rumors. Is it worth it? If you don't realize it yourself, whatever I say will be considered spreading rumors. For example, if I said you were a stubborn mule in your past life, would you believe me?"

Zhou Yaren: "..."

I definitely don't believe it.

"Or [a centipede or a rat spirit]."

Zhou Yaren: "..."

At least let me be a decent human being, don't go too far.

“Besides,” Bai Yuan continued, not finding it absurd at all, “even if I’ve met you, I’m not familiar with you. To me, you’re just a pitiful wretch who died unjustly in prison.”

Zhou Yaren: "..."

Okay, now you've become a pitiful creature again.

Zhou Yaren sighed helplessly in her heart, and her tense thoughts relaxed: "You've seen me at different times before, what were the charges and experiences you had?"

“The past is all a history of suffering, let it go and it’s better not to know it,” Bai Yuan kindly advised him. “Why do you have to come looking for trouble? Isn’t it better to live in the present?”

"The current situation is not good."

"I think you're doing great, so much better than before. Knowing how to be content is the key to happiness." At least you look presentable now, but in your previous lives you were truly a pitiful sight.

"I'll just listen as an observer."

Seeing that he couldn't persuade him, Bai Yuan asked, "Are you sure you want to listen?"

"I'm sure." He thought, "Knowing more might be helpful to me."

Bai Yuan smirked: "What help can it be besides adding to your troubles? Don't be too upset to hear it."

Zhou Yaren pursed her lips: "The past is like smoke and clouds, let alone a past life that has nothing to do with me."

He spoke with such magnanimity that Bai Yuan relented: "Alright, let me tell you. You've committed several of the ten unforgivable crimes: treason, rebellion, filial impiety, and immorality. You had an affair with your adoptive father's wife and concubines, and after being exposed, you killed your brother and father, disrupting human relations and defying the will of Heaven; you committed arson, murder, robbery, and murder for money, burning down more than ten people in your landlord's house, leaving no chickens or dogs alive; and you also created animal poison, murdered and dismembered people, gouged out eyes and pulled out tongues; your crimes are truly numerous, enough to fill an endless book of sins."

Bai Yuan listed out his crimes from one lifetime to the next, making Zhou Yaren's temples throb and pound.

Of course, these are all grievances he has carried for generations, not that he has actually committed such heinous crimes.

Zhou Yaren tried his best to distance himself from these evil deeds, and only then did he feel a little better. He was really afraid that he was an utterly wicked person.

Because he cared, he interrupted at this crucial moment to ask, "Was I a good person back then?"

"What defines a good person?" Bai Yuan asked. "Everyone has a different definition of good and bad."

"Yes, let me rephrase the question: Have I ever harmed anyone?"

“How would I know?” Bai Yuan could only say, “At least they weren’t killed by you, otherwise you wouldn’t have seen the Death Umbrella.”

"The Death Umbrella?"

Bai Yuan lowered his eyes and continued, "As for your fate, all the crimes you committed in your previous life were capital offenses, so naturally you did not die a good death. However, the way you died in each life was different: being cut in half at the waist, being beheaded, or not being able to withstand severe torture, your wounds festering and worsening, the foul air accumulating into a plague, and dying from the disease, or dying in prison."

"But often they were left to rot in the wilderness, first subjected to tattooing, with words tattooed on their faces, marking them as sinners, and then dragged to the desolate mountains and wilderness to perform forced labor. You built bridges, repaired roads, and constructed the Great Wall on the border, and finally died under the iron hooves of foreign barbarians."

"Well, they were all forced laborers, with heavy shackles on their hands and feet. They worked in mines and felled trees, and were eventually killed by falling rocks in a quarry."

"Yes, she was also castrated and worked on the imperial mausoleum. Of course, the end result was that she was buried next to the emperor as a funerary offering."

"As for your previous life, it was about a hundred years ago. You were pulling a boat along the Sanmen Gorge in Shanzhou when the boat hit a reef, and you and several other boatmen who were going to serve fell into the river and drowned."

This fate is absolutely incredible.

Zhou Yaren felt extremely heavy-hearted upon hearing this.

Was he really this miserable in every lifetime?

If you were to add up the misery of each lifetime, it would be utterly tragic...

No wonder Bai Yuan said earlier: "Besides me, you are probably the unluckiest person in the world."

That's absolutely right!

Zhou Ya was extremely heartbroken. He felt that he was much more miserable than Bai Yuan. At least Bai Yuan didn't have to go through hardships and die tragically time and time again. He was the unluckiest guy in the world.

If the unjust deaths in the underworld are the shackles that imprison the innocent, then Zhou Yaren's fate was a series of torments for him.

"No wonder when I broke into the Taiyin Dao Body, you immediately said I was a sinner. It turns out that you had already seen my fate in every lifetime, so you said I was burdened with punishment, right?"

Bai Yuan frowned slightly and mumbled an "um," not expecting him to suddenly bring up their first meeting.

Can this person stop thinking so fast? How can he connect everything to something, making himself seem smart?

Bai Yuan chose to remain silent.

Zhou Yaren wouldn't let her off the hook: "Because I'm burdened with punishment, I've been wronged for countless lifetimes, and I can never clear my name. You say you can save me, is that true or false?"

Bai Yuan seemed to be captivated by the hopeful look in his eyes, and his hands and feet became somewhat unsteady.

“Is this a false accusation?” he asked persistently.

Bai Yuan couldn't help but sneer: "If I trusted him, would I have gotten myself into this mess?"

“That’s right.” Zhou Yaren gave an ambiguous smile. “From the Qin Dynasty to the present, you have been imprisoned in the Taiyin/Dao Body, and all you have seen are the unjust deaths of the Northern Qu. How could you know that I died unjustly in Shanzhou a hundred years ago?”

Bai Yuan's eyelids twitched. Caught completely off guard, she was struck by the other party's sharp insight and nearly bit off her own tongue. What nonsense had she just uttered?!

Is it too late to deny it now? "Did I say that?"

Zhou Yaren reiterated: "In my previous life, a hundred years ago, when we were pulling boats to the Sanmen Gorge in Shanzhou, I and several other boatmen who went to perform the service fell into the river and drowned."

You know how to focus on the important points.

Bai Yuan blurted out, "Oh right, your body was washed ashore by the river to Beiqu, where it entered the Taiyin/Dao body..."

"Bai Yuan, do you think I'm a fool? The terrain of the Great Duan Kingdom is high in the west and low in the east, and the Yellow River flows from west to east into the sea. Bei Qu is located in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, which is high in the west. The Sanmen Pass of Shanzhou is already in the lower reaches of the Yellow River. Do you think my corpse can swim on its own, going upstream from east to west through the valleys of Shanzhou, all the way to the Taiyin Dao Body in Bei Qu?"

She had completely forgotten about the river's course, and Bai Yuan, barely managing not to bite off her own tongue, forced herself to say, "Because there are river mounds here..."

Zhou Yaren interrupted her mercilessly, “The distance from Sanmen Tianxian to this place is more than six or seven hundred li. Even if the river mound were to collect the corpses, it wouldn’t be more than six hundred li away, let alone going upstream. Don’t make your stories too outrageous.”

Bai Yuan: "..."

She finally lost her patience and couldn't be bothered to keep up the nonsense: "Fine, I was just making it up."

"But I don't think you're talking nonsense."

Bai Yuan: "...Do you want to hear what you're saying?"

“Of course I know, I both doubt and believe, but that’s not contradictory,” Zhou Yaren said clearly. “Because you didn’t tell me everything, you only told half and hid half, which is why there are so many loopholes. I think either this Taiyin/Dao body didn’t completely imprison you, or there’s some other reason that you just don’t want to reveal.”

"Since you know I don't want to reveal it, then you'd better not ask around."