"Close your eyes! How can you fall asleep with your eyes wide open?" Lan Yu said helplessly.

Ai Wenxing retorted somewhat indignantly, "When I was a child, I heard storytellers say that those Taoist priests with high magical powers could make the people standing in front of them fall asleep with just a wave of their hand. Why can't you do that?"

Lan Yu said, "Sincerity is the key to success. If you are not sincere, no matter how I set up the altar, it won't work!"

"Just kidding, I was just so nervous, you didn't even try to comfort me!"

"Go to sleep, okay? Close your eyes! Now close your eyes and count from one to 100!" Lan Yu instructed.

Aiven closed his eyes tightly and remained motionless.

Lan Yuzhen waved her hand across his forehead.

Some very light, almost transparent powder landed on Aiven's face.

Immediately, Aivenxing's furrowed brows relaxed.

A dozen seconds later, he actually started snoring softly.

Lan Yu said softly, "Alright. Little Divine Doctor, please bring out your thumb ring."

Su Ruyi took out a thumb ring from her pocket.

Following Lan Yu's instructions, the thumb ring has been wrapped in red cloth these days.

"Put it on his thumb, on his left hand!"

Su Ruyi put the thumb ring on Ai Wenxing's left thumb.

Aivenxing did not wake up; his snoring was even and smooth.

"Didn't you want to turn around? Go ahead and turn around." Lan Yu urged Su Ruyi when she didn't move.

Su Ruyi took out the red cloth.

Lan Yu then said, "Red cloth won't do, use your handkerchief!"

Su Ruyi put away the red cloth, then took out a handkerchief and rubbed it on the thumb ring a few times.

Suddenly, Aivenxing shuddered, and his snoring stopped abruptly!

However, he did not wake up. Through his tightly closed eyelids, you could see his eyeballs moving slightly and rapidly.

"Alright, you're starting to dream. Let's just wait and see." Lan Yu breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed the talisman she was holding in her hand.

Aiven felt as if he was pushed by an inexplicable, enormous force into an endless expanse of white mist.

He shouted frantically, "Help! Help! Lan Yu, what are you doing?!"

Soon, he sensed someone approaching him from within the white mist, and instinctively he took a few steps back.

But the person got closer and closer!

Just as Aiven was about to take off running, a voice suddenly spoke from behind: "Little Xing, is that you?"

Aiven remained in a posture as if trying to escape, his entire body stiff.

Did he mishear?

That voice... it really was his father Ai Ganbei's voice!

Ai Wenxing turned his head stiffly and saw the face of his father from his memory—still a middle-aged man, even younger than himself now.

Ai Wenxing was still frozen in place when Ai Ganbei pounced on him and pulled him into a tight embrace.

My father's body... had no temperature, neither cold nor hot.

Ai Wenxing raised his hand, hesitated, and then hugged his father back.

"Father—" he cried out.

"Xiaoxing, are you alright? Child, you've suffered so much!" Ai Ganbei cried, tears streaming down his face.

Ai Wenxing choked up as she asked, "Father, how about you? Are you alright?"

“There’s nothing wrong with Father. He knew it was a life-or-death situation when he chose to send that rich girl back,” Ai Ganbei said. “Was that ring the girl gave me really valuable?”

He didn't distrust Su Ruyi, but he didn't completely trust her either.

After all, anyone who has spent forty-five years in this boundless white fog would harbor resentment.

Ai Wenxing nodded emphatically: "That thumb ring is strange—when Mother wiped it, a gold ingot fell out, weighing more than thirty pounds, and it broke Mother's foot."

"What?" Ai Ganbei's eyes widened. "Your mother..."

"Father, thanks to that gold ingot, Mother let me rent a house in town, and Xiao Dou and I both went to school..." Ai Wenxing began to recount his story.

When talking about his mother's refusal to leave the little wooden house in the old pig forest, Ai Wenxing choked up and could barely continue speaking:

"Mother has been waiting for you, Father!"

I've been waiting...

Every time I go back, I see my mother standing on tiptoe against the door frame, craning her neck...

Later, when I went back home, my mother wasn't there.

I whistled, but my mother still didn't come out.

I knew it...

Something happened to my mother.

really……"

When talking about his younger brother Ai Wendou's death, he cried so hard he almost fainted: "Xiao Dou was shot right between the eyebrows—people say that way there's no pain, and the body is intact..."

Ai Ganbei covered his face, suppressing sobs that escaped through his fingers: "I'm sorry to your mother, I'm sorry to Xiao Dou, and I'm sorry to you..."

After Ai Wenxing and Ai Ganbei calmed down for a while, they asked, "Father, where have you been all these years?"

Ai Ganbei's expression turned strange for a moment.

He didn't want his son to resent the girl, but he also didn't want to lie to him, so he finally told the truth:

"I have been in this white fog all along."

The girl told me that I had been here for forty-five years.

Little Xing, I think about you, your mother, and Xiao Dou every day.

I thought I would be trapped here forever.

However, that won't happen now. I know my wish has been fulfilled.

"Little Star, Daddy's going to be reincarnated!"

"Why have you been trapped here for so long? Who locked you up?" Aivenxing asked.

"I think it might have been by chance, unintentionally on the girl's part."

Little Star, don't resent her.

It's understandable that a young girl like her, who had just witnessed her parents being beheaded, would forget about me, a hunter she had only met by chance, the one who had accepted her valuable ring and escorted her.

Xiaoxing, remember, you must never resent her!

That girl is strange; she's probably not an ordinary person!

Xiaoxing, you must remember this: never think about seeking justice for your father!

Father no longer values ​​justice in this world!

Ai Ganbei gave some serious instructions.

The father and son chatted for a while longer.

Aivenxing asked, "Father, when are you going to be reincarnated?"

Ai Ganbei smiled and said:

"Xiao Xing, actually I should have been reincarnated a long time ago."

There are two reasons why I haven't left: first, I can't bear to leave you and your two children; second, the concern you have for me also binds me.

"Little Star, as long as you let go, Daddy will leave this place within the next few hours and enter the cycle of reincarnation again."

Aivenxing cried, tears streaming down his face: "Father, I'm letting go. Please go in peace..."

Ai Ganbei said, "It's been three incense sticks already. Xiaoxing, you have to go. Your father has a lot of yin energy. If you stay any longer, you'll get sick!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Aiven felt a tremendous force push him away from the endless white mist.

Ai Wenxing jolted awake and snapped his eyes open.

He was still lying on the sofa, with Su Ruyi, Lan Yu, and Qi Yasheng watching him quietly.