Chapter 60
Upon hearing the name, the other person visibly tensed up for a moment, but Chen Yan didn't ask anything, and Xiang Wan didn't explain anything either.
"Then have fun."
"good."
*
9:50 AM, Shanshui Manor.
As soon as Xiang Wan got on the golf cart, she saw Zhou Chengze standing on the lawn, waving at her.
"Xiang Wan! Over here—"
She didn't respond to his wave, but simply walked towards him without saying a word.
When it came time to play ball, perhaps because of the more than ten years they had spent together in their previous life, she didn't feel awkward being alone with him again, even though neither of them spoke.
To Xiang Wan's surprise, Zhou Chengze's swing in this life, while not as skillful as in his previous life, was still quite standard.
She found it a bit strange; in her memory, he shouldn't have even been exposed to golf yet.
The ball traced a perfect parabola in the air. Xiang Wan looked up at the direction the ball had flown and said calmly, "Well played."
Zhou Chengze smiled at her, and the atmosphere between them was unusually relaxed: "In my dream, someone taught me, imparted knowledge, and answered my questions."
She thought he was joking, so she smiled and didn't say whether she believed him or not.
Half an hour later, although neither of them was very tired, Zhou Chengze suggested that they rest for a while under the parasol, considering Xiang Wan's heart condition.
On the way from the lawn to the sunshade, Zhou Chengze looked at Xiang Wan beside him and asked, half tentatively and half seriously, "Xiang Wan, do you believe in fate?"
She vaguely remembered that Zhou Chengze was an atheist. She was a little surprised to hear him bring up fate. Although she didn't say anything, she kept looking at him, as if she wanted to hear what he wanted to say.
She waited for his next words, but Zhou Chengze hesitated for several seconds.
"What I told you in Northern Europe on New Year's Eve was true. I dreamt that in a past life you were my fiancée. In the dream, we were childhood sweethearts, and we were even going to get married in a few years..."
Even Zhou Chengze himself felt that what he said was somewhat absurd. Because he was afraid that Xiang Wan would not believe him or think that he was pretending to be a ghost, he looked a little embarrassed.
Seeing that the other party remained unmoved, he couldn't help but gently poke the soft grass with his golf club.
He was embarrassed, but Xiang Wan across from him knew he was telling the truth. However, looking at the golf club in Zhou Chengze's hand, she only felt a sense of irony.
In her previous life, she suffered a heart attack in this very mountain and water manor. She was on the verge of death and had entered a state of shock, while Zhou Chengze was comforting Zhou Xinyi.
In this life, in the same place, he stood on the lawn and told her about his previous life.
Xiang Wan still remembers the exact words he used to comfort her sister-in-law: "It's okay, Xinyi, don't be afraid."
She was the one who was about to die, but he was comforting his beloved sister, telling her not to be afraid.
Xiang Wan had hated him for this, but Zhou Chengze had saved her twice in this life, and she had decided not to hold it against him anymore. Therefore, she remained silent in the face of his words.
But Xiang Wan knew in her heart that she needed to respond to Zhou Chengze's probing. This time, she didn't remain silent, but instead expressed her attitude in one sentence:
"It's just a dream; dreams are all illusions."
"..."
Seeing that Xiang Wan seemed unconvinced, or perhaps unwilling to admit it, Zhou Chengze had no choice but to give up. However, he wasn't one to give up so easily and wanted to try one last time:
“A-Wan, that’s what I called you in my dream too.”
—Awan.
Xiang Wan hadn't heard that title for a very, very long time.
But when she heard Zhou Chengze call her Awan again, she couldn't help but feel a surge of emotions, and her body was also affected by her emotions, even experiencing some physical nausea.
Her fists clenched at her sides, but she tried to control her emotions and remain calm. However, she lost control of her emotions when Zhou Chengze spoke the next sentence.
"A-Wan, can I call you A-Wan from now on?"
The humiliation of discovering her betrayal in her previous life was still vivid in her mind. The shame she had swallowed back then was stirred up again by his words, "A-Wan."
[The text messages he exchanged with Zhou Xinyi while trying on wedding dresses at the bridal shop.]
Not long after her death, Xiang's mother, unable to accept her daughter's passing, collapsed as well.
[His mother, Li Taohua, instigated him to have a child with Zhou Xinyi in exchange for text messages about her child.]
Recalling the humiliation she had swallowed back then, and the events that would unfold in the book, Xiang Wan couldn't help but slap him across the face.
Her eyes were red-rimmed, filled with disgust and contempt for him: "No."
Her slap was extremely powerful, and Zhou Chengze, caught off guard, was slapped across the face and turned slightly to the side.
But Xiang Wan offered no explanation. After slapping him, she simply walked away, leaving Zhou Chengze standing there dumbfounded...
*
On his way back to school in a taxi, Zhou Chengze still couldn't understand why Xiang Wan had hit him.
Just because he asked if he could call her A-Wan?
Putting aside the fact that it's just a matter of address, he knew that Xiang Wan wasn't such an emotional person; he had never even seen her fall out with anyone.
What puzzled him even more was the source of Xiang Wan's deep aversion to him.
The disgust in her eyes when she slapped him was as if she were looking at a traitor, even though he had never done anything to wrong her.
He stared out the car window at the rapidly changing street scene, still lost in thought about what had just happened, until the taxi drove from the villa area into the suburbs. He then said to the driver in front, "Just stop at the subway station ahead."
The driver was a little surprised when he heard this. He had seen him get on the bus at the golf course in the villa area and thought that someone big had arrived. He didn't expect that he would stop at the subway station.
But he wasn't unhappy about it. After all, he had earned enough from the golf course to the nearest subway station, and he could go home and rest after a few more deliveries today.
When they arrived at the subway station, the driver stopped at the intersection and said to Zhou Chengze in the back seat, "We're here. Would you like to pay in cash or by scanning a QR code?"
After paying, Zhou Chengze got off the bus and took the subway back. However, instead of returning to school, he headed towards the restaurant where he worked.
Although he was a bit out of sorts today, he still had to work part-time to support himself, otherwise he wouldn't have any money for living expenses next month.
By the time he finished his part-time job and returned to his dorm, it was already dark. Zhou Chengze took a shower and lay in bed. He had to get up at 8 a.m. the next day, so he needed to sleep now, but he tossed and turned and couldn't fall asleep.
Whenever he closes his eyes, all he remembers is the look of disgust in Xiang Wan's eyes when she slapped him.
Perhaps because he had something on his mind, he couldn't fall asleep until late at night when he finally felt a little sleepy.
Zhou Chengze closed his eyes, thinking he could finally fall asleep, but then he felt the same distorted images reappear before his eyes, just like last time.
He couldn't describe the scene using images he'd seen in the three-dimensional world; it was somewhat like the sight of waves crashing against the coastline as the tide rose.
He had a vague feeling that he was going to have that dream again. Sure enough, the next second, he found himself in a space that was both strange and somewhat familiar...
*
Rows and rows of wedding dresses stretched before me, each one extremely luxurious, clearly expensive luxury items.
He knew he could never have been to this place before, but he also felt a vague sense of familiarity with it.
Just as Zhou Chengze was pondering why he felt a sense of familiarity, he heard conversation coming from behind the curtain of the fitting room display behind him. He was certain that one of the voices was Xiang Wan's.
"Miss Xiang has a great figure. This custom-made dress truly shows its splendor when worn by Miss Xiang."
"And dear, you have a very slim waist. We can ask the designer to cut the waist area a bit more so that it will fit your waist even better."
"Yes, I also think this one suits me better than the previous one."
Zhou Chengze was still a bit confused until the curtain was pulled open the next second. He looked at Xiang Wan in a wedding dress on the stage and was immediately amazed by her beauty.
He was so lost in thought that he couldn't say a word, when he heard the sales assistant who was trying on wedding dresses ask him from behind, "Mr. Zhou, what do you think of this one?"
“A-Wan looks good in everything, but this one is even more stunning than the last one.”
Even though Zhou Chengze hadn't said anything, he heard his own voice. Somewhat surprised, he turned around to look at the source of the voice and saw himself in his dream, smiling at Xiang Wan on the exhibition stand.
"What do you think, A-Wan?"
"I think it's fine, let's take this one." Xiang Wan looked at herself in the mirror, her expression satisfied.
The sales assistant beamed with delight: "After Miss Xiang takes it off, we'll take a look at the dress she can wear as a replacement."
"Um."
It wasn't until the curtain was pulled back up that Zhou Chengze snapped out of his daze.
He belatedly realized that this must be the two people in his dream choosing a wedding dress. After all, Wang Yidong in the last dream said that their engagement party was only six months away.
The dream was continuous; I really couldn't think of any other explanation besides Zhou Chengze from his past life.
He looked at himself in his dream, sitting on the sofa next to him. He seemed to have just returned from trying on a groom's suit, with light makeup on his face, looking at his phone, replying to some message.
Looking at the man in his dream who looked exactly like him, Zhou Chengze couldn't help but feel genuinely happy for him.
But he also felt a hidden envy, envying that the other person could marry the one he loved, while in reality he was disliked by the person he loved.
Although Zhou Chengze was smiling, there was a bitter taste in his smile.
He sat at the other end of the sofa, gazing at himself in his dream, a feeling even more magical than looking in a mirror.
As his gaze gradually shifted downwards and landed on the screen where he was replying to messages, he became somewhat curious about who he was messaging.
However, when Zhou Chengze saw the conversation on the screen, his face turned pale instantly.
As if struck by lightning, he suddenly realized why Xiang Wan's eyes were filled with disgust and resistance when she slapped him...
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