"The day the progress bar reached one hundred, the system told me I could go home. At the same time, Arthur proposed to me. I didn't know whether to stay for him or return to the world I had lived in for nineteen years. I hesitated for a long time, and Arthur pleaded with me for just as long. In the end, my heart softened; I stayed in that world and married him. As soon as we got the marriage certificate, I got pregnant and gave birth to you. Life after marriage was plain and warm; slowly, I even forgot I was a transmigrator and prepared to stay there for the rest of my life."

"It wasn't until you were six that your father’s first love returned to the country. While he promised me that they were just friends, he was sleeping with her behind my back. That woman even got pregnant. In order to squeeze me out legitimately, she didn't even hesitate to fake a miscarriage, framing me for the death of their child."

"Such clumsy means of framing—it was clear that simply checking the surveillance would have cleared my name, but your father only believed the woman's side of the story. In that moment, I lost heart completely and decided to return to my own world. Before leaving, I asked if you wanted to go with me, but you liked the brother next door too much and refused to leave with me, so I could only use my remaining points to exchange for a space-time necklace to leave for you."

"Only after I returned to the real world did I learn that in the nine years I had been gone, my father had never given up searching for me. A week before I returned, he passed away. I didn't get to see him one last time; I could only weep inconsolably at his grave. I regretted it so much then; I kept thinking that if I hadn't been greedy for that little bit of romantic love and returned to my family sooner, he wouldn't have been sad for so long and wouldn't have overworked himself to an early grave."

"Those were the darkest three months of my life. Your grandmother kept me company and enlightened me. I told her what I had experienced and spoke of your existence. Your grandmother didn't doubt me; she told me you would come to find me one day and told me to pull myself together, so I slowly pulled myself out of the agony."

"Two years ago, your grandmother also passed away. The last sentence she said before she left was still muttering about you, saying it was a pity she couldn't see her granddaughter. I was actually very anxious then because it had already been twenty years, and I thought you might have started a family of your own and wouldn't come looking for me anymore. No one expected that just as I was about to give up hope, you arrived by my side. Even when you were lying in my arms, I still thought it was just a dream."

Chapter 18

Back when the incident occurred, Luna was still very young and had no idea what was actually happening.

All she knew was that one sunny morning, after her mother dropped her off at kindergarten, she never appeared again.

Everyone said her mother had harmed someone and had run off after abandoning her husband and child for fear of going to jail.

Even her father believed this at first.

But only Luna knew that her mother was the best mother in the world—she wouldn't harm anyone, nor would she ever abandon her.

Her mother had simply lost hope in her father, which was why she left.

That was why she had never mentioned the necklace to anyone.

Even when the truth finally came to light and the false accusations against her mother were cleared, only for her father to fall into despair and madness before being committed to a psychiatric ward, she still hadn't told him that she had a way to reach her mother's world.

Those who betray a sincere heart deserve the punishment they are dealt.

Luna had always firmly believed this.

At the same time, she had wondered countless times: Was her mother, having returned to her own world, happy? Did she still hate Arthur? Would she remember her daughter?

She had no way of knowing the answers.

Until today, when she heard her mother mention these things with her own ears and saw the calm, composed expression on her face.

Only then was Luna finally certain that her mother had truly let go.

The heavy stone in her heart had finally been laid to rest.

She took Elara’s hand and finally opened her heart, telling her mother everything that had happened before she came to this world.

Twenty years had passed in the blink of an eye.

Yet, it took Luna five hours to get it all out.

From dusk until dark, the smile on Elara’s face gradually faded, replaced in the end by endless heartache.

She had never imagined that the exact same story would be repeated in her daughter’s life.

And the person who had caused her daughter the most pain happened to be the very person who, back then, had caused her daughter to remain in that time and space.

For a moment, she felt a trace of regret.

If she had taken her daughter with her when she left back then, would she have been spared this kind of hurt?

But life has no "ifs."

So, in the present, where nothing could be undone, she could only pull her daughter into her arms, neither of them speaking a word.

Actually, there was no need to speak; many emotions can be conveyed through a single embrace.

They were both people who had waded through the blood and tears of betrayal.

No one could empathize with the other better than they could.

Those wounds that had once caused Xu Ashang agonizing pain were slowly healing under her mother’s care.

Looking back on the past now, she felt neither pain nor shame.

She had given her heart, but she had simply given it to the wrong person.

The one at fault was the person who trampled on that sincerity, not her.

Before leaving, she had already made those filthy things public; karma would naturally follow.

That distant, unpredictable world had already become a thing of the past.

She had already stepped out of the quagmire and embarked on a new journey.

Although she didn't know what the road ahead looked like, as long as she was by her mother's side, Luna felt that everything was bright.

She took her mother’s hand, locked pinkies with her, and made a pact.

"Let’s just consider everything that happened in that world a dream. Now that the dream is over, let’s never mention it again."

Chapter 19

Thirty days after Luna disappeared, there was still no trace of her.

Just as she had promised back then, she had vanished completely.

Caleb had nearly turned Riverside City upside down, yet there was still no news.

Every time he fell asleep, he would be plunged into terrifying nightmares.

In his dreams, he could still see Luna, but the look in her eyes as she gazed at him was colder than ice.

No matter how he cried out, knelt to apologize, or repented and begged, she remained completely indifferent.

No matter how he chased after her footsteps, she was always just a short distance away, forever in front of him, yet forever untouchable.

It was as if a massive maze had trapped him in place.

He could only wait for the moment he woke up.

But the moment he opened his eyes and returned to the real world, seeing his empty home, a different kind of pain would strike his heart.

For Caleb, the night and the day were two different kinds of torture.

He could not resist and could only let himself sink into them.

He locked himself in his room. As time wore on, he gradually began to struggle to distinguish between dreams and reality, rarely having moments of clarity.

It wasn't until one morning when the doorbell, which had not been rung for a long time, let out a crisp sound that startled him awake.

He stumbled down the stairs to open the door, his eyes filled with eager anticipation that turned to despondency the moment he saw his parents.

They hadn't seen each other in nearly a month. Looking at his頹丧, homeless-like appearance, the long-repressed anger of Mr. He finally exploded.

"Two women have reduced you to this state! Caleb, how could I have raised someone as useless as you!"

Mrs. He, who was on the side, looked at the wound on her son's forehead and quickly offered a few words of advice.

"That's enough! Things have already reached this point, what’s the use of scolding him now? He’s our own flesh and blood, after all; say a little less."