235: Chapter 230 Returning to the Past Life World?

This tremendous sense of disparity, falling from the clouds to the Mortal world, caused his Dao Heart to involuntarily waver slightly.

He could be one hundred percent certain that he was currently in an illusion.

Because he was incomparably clear about where he came from and where he was going.

The eeriness of the black mist, the instructions from Wang Ming and Ao Yuan, the apocalyptic catastrophe of the Desolate Province... all of this was clearly branded deep within his Soul.

But the realism of this illusion was simply too strong, strong enough to pass for the real thing,

strong enough that even he, a Taboo powerhouse whose will had long been firm as rock, experienced a momentary loss of self.

It did not fabricate a false world out of thin air, but precisely and perfectly replicated the deepest part of his heart,

that long-sealed memory of his past life.

This was the most terrifying part.

It did not attack your physical body, but your heart, your past, the softest and most undefended place in your Soul.

Just as Chen Zhiwen was rapidly adjusting his state of mind, calmly contemplating how to walk out of this eerie illusion.

"Buzz... buzz..."

A familiar vibration, accompanied by a classic mobile phone ringtone, rang out from his trouser pocket without any warning.

Chen Zhiwen's body jolted violently, as if struck by an electric current.

With stiff movements, he slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out that long-absent, old, yet incomparably familiar smartphone.

The screen was lit up.

On the caller ID, two characters were pulsing—"Mom".

And the phone number below, which he knew by heart, was like a red-hot branding iron, fiercely branded deep into Chen Zhiwen's pupils.

In that instant, his heart, which had long been as still as an ancient well and could remain absolutely calm even in the face of a world-ending catastrophe,

uncontrollably twitched violently.

An indescribable bitterness, like a bursting flood, surged violently from the deepest part of his Soul and rushed up into his nasal cavity.

In his past life, for the sake of work, for the sake of a so-called "future," he left his hometown and struggled alone in this cold city.

He poured all his time and energy into endless overtime and involution,

and his connection with his family gradually turned into those few perfunctory greetings over the phone.

Not until the moment he died suddenly at his workstation did he realize how much he had missed.

He missed his parents' increasingly gray hair, missed the ever-deepening wrinkles at the corners of their eyes,

and even more, he missed those countless days and nights he should have spent by their side.

The child wishes to support, but the parents are no longer there—this was his greatest regret and deepest pain in his two lifetimes of existence.

He knew this was just an illusion.

On the other end of the phone, it could not possibly really be his mother.

This was just a despicable trick used by the thing that set up the illusion to attack his mental defenses.

Reason screamed at him frantically, warning him to hang up the phone and not to sink into it.

But...

His fingers, however, seemed to have a consciousness of their own as they gently, trembling, slid across the green answer button on the screen.

"Hello? Son, still not asleep?"

From the other end of the phone came a voice that was incomparably familiar, incomparably warm, and had haunted his dreams.

Just this one sentence instantly crushed all the psychological defenses Chen Zhiwen had just built up.

His eyes turned red uncontrollably at this moment.

"...Mom."

A simple word was spat out from his mouth, yet it carried endless longing and guilt that spanned two lifetimes, his voice rasping uncontrollably.

"Hey, what's wrong? Your voice sounds so tired. Did you work overtime again?"

The mother on the other end of the line had a tone full of worry and heartache, "I've told you so many times, don't push yourself so hard at work. You can never earn all the money in the world; your health is the most important thing..."

His mother's familiar voice, like a trickle of warm water, kept chattering in his ear.

She asked if his work had been going smoothly lately, if he had been eating on time;

she cared about whether he remembered to add clothes since the weather was turning cold; she complained about the neighbor's dog barking in the middle of the night again, and shared that the price of pork at the market had gone up by a few cents...

It was all trivialities of life, mundane, yet so real that it was heartbreaking.

Chen Zhiwen just listened quietly, without the slightest impatience; instead, he gripped the phone even tighter,

as if afraid of missing a single word.

On his face, unknowingly, a smile of incomparable happiness and satisfaction, which he himself hadn't even noticed, had appeared.

He was intoxicated by this false warmth, and for a moment, he even hoped that this illusion would never wake up.

At the end of the call, his mother's tone became lighthearted: "Oh right, son, tomorrow is Sunday, you don't have to work, right? Come home for a visit. I went to the supermarket today and bought a bunch of your favorite braised pork ribs and cola chicken wings to help you build up your strength."

"...Okay."

Hearing this, Chen Zhiwen felt a warmth in his heart and nodded without hesitation, agreeing to it.

"Alright then, come back early tomorrow, and be safe on the road. I'm hanging up."

"Yeah, Mom, you get some rest early too."

Hanging up the phone and listening to the busy signal, Chen Zhiwen stood still for a long time, the smile on his face not yet faded,

but deep in his eyes, there was an added trace of indescribable, complex emotion.

He put away his phone, turned off the computer, and left the cold office building.

Returning to that small rental apartment that carried all his exhaustion and dreams, he did not Cultivate, nor did he think about how to break the situation,

he just, like the most ordinary office worker, finished washing up, then threw himself heavily onto that soft and familiar bed, slowly closed his eyes, and fell into a deep sleep.

He slept soundly, with a sweetness he had never experienced in his two lifetimes of existence, feeling a peace he had never known before.

The next day, sunlight shone through the gaps in the curtains, dappling the floor of the room.

Chen Zhiwen slowly opened his eyes, missing the refreshed feeling after his usual Cultivation; in its place was a long-lost, Mortal laziness and drowsiness.

He tidied himself up, put on a clean set of casual clothes, left the rental apartment, and stepped onto the familiar yet strange road home.

Squeezing onto the noisy subway, passing through the crowded throngs of people, he finally arrived at the old residential compound that held his entire childhood and teenage years.

He walked up the stairs step by step, and finally, stopped in front of that familiar security door with its somewhat mottled paint.

His heart became nervous as never before.

He raised his hand, only to lower it several times, his mind filled with a thousand thoughts.

Finally, he took a deep breath and gently knocked on the door.

"Knock, knock, knock."

Before long, a familiar sound of footsteps came from inside, and the door was opened with a "click."

A middle-aged woman with somewhat graying hair and a kind smile on her face appeared behind the door.

When she saw Chen Zhiwen, her eyes instantly lit up, and her face blossomed into a smile.

"Son, you're back! Come in, come in, it's cold outside."