Chapter 344: Tomb stone of the past

— Meanwhile - China —

At Chairman Wang’s estate, inside the operating room, Chairman Wang was still holding the phone, stunned by the fierce reply from this "old agent." He looked at the young confidante in deep confusion, as if he wanted to clarify something.

"Who the hell is this?" Chairman Wang asked, his face showing a mixture of unpleasantness and frustration.

The confidante took out the file and read from it.

"Her name is Liu Siyu. The file says she’s still active, so I thought..."

The confidante said this, trying to downplay the situation.

"Liu Siyu? Seriously? Is that her name?" the Chairman said, mocking the name.

(Author Note: 丝语 (Sī Yǔ) in Chinese means "Silken Words" or "Soft-Spoken."

丝 (sī): Silk, fine thread. It evokes softness, delicacy, and elegance.

语 (yǔ): Speech, words.

Together: "Silken speech" or "soft-spoken words." This name conveys the meaning of a person who is gentle, soothing, and refined, like silk itself. It suggests someone who speaks in a way that comforts and soothes the listener.)

"Wait..."

He paused.

"Did you get her file from that room?" Chairman Wang pointed toward the room deep inside the estate that was marked as the secret file room.

"Yes, Chairman. I got her file from that room."

After getting confirmation, realization dawned on the Chairman’s face.

That room was indeed a secret room, but half of the files stored there were old records that were too insignificant to update, yet too valuable to destroy or declassify.

"No wonder she was like that."

The Chairman massaged the bridge of his nose.

"Wait... Liu Siyu? Where have I heard that name before? Surname Liu?"

The Chairman thought for a moment, trying to uncover a memory buried deep within his mind.

The old memory... the one he thought he remembered from when he was still a young assistant accompanying his deceased father, who had been an old Chairman.

"Ah! I remember! Liu Siyu!"

He suddenly recalled it.

"She was the ex-wife of Elder Liu!"

Back then, Elder Liu’s promiscuous way of life had finally become too much for her. She was fine with four or five lovers, but Elder Liu had more than a hundred lovers and more than a thousand sexual partners, and the number was still growing.

The woman had finally had enough. She broke up with Elder Liu, who at the time didn’t care a dime about her leaving, and she ran away to a foreign land.

Back then, Chairman Wang remembered that Elder Liu thought the woman was merely throwing a tantrum, as she usually did. It wasn’t the first time she had done so, and she had always come back on her own without Elder Liu even needing to coax her.

But this time... this time, it was different.

Then one week turned into months... months turned into years... and years became decades.

And even after more than thirty years, she never came back.

It was an old story that even Chairman Wang didn’t dare mention to Elder Liu. The few times anyone had brought it up, Elder Liu had become so furious that it took weeks before he finally calmed down.

He looked at the young confidante.

"You said this is the last living veteran sleeper agent we have on hand?" Chairman Wang asked.

"Yes, Chairman. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have searched that place."

The confidante said this solemnly.

He knew that sending a fresh or inexperienced agent would definitely botch the job. They might even leave behind some trail that the Yankees could use to pin the blame on them, and that would become a diplomatic disaster.

"Haaaa....."

Chairman Wang let out a long sigh.

At this rate, helping Elder Liu escape from those Yankees would be impossible.

Would he really need to swallow his pride, go to those Yankees himself, and ask them to hand over Elder Liu?

No!

Impossible!

Their country had always held its head high, especially when dealing with those Yankees!

But... Elder Liu was a national treasure.

He was the only real cultivator the country had left!

He couldn’t advance, but he couldn’t retreat either.

What should he do?

Chairman Wang thought with frustration.

— New York - Greenwood Cemetery —

Spread across hundreds of acres in Brooklyn, the historic and peaceful cemetery looked more like a vast park than an eternal resting place for the deceased and their loved ones.

Rolling green hills, winding paths, ancient trees, ponds, and countless weathered tombstones stretched across the landscape, while grand mausoleums and elaborate monuments stood among the greenery.

Wei Chen walked along one of the quiet paths, his footsteps slowly carrying him deeper into the cemetery.

Eventually, he stopped, standing in front of a single tombstone with a name that was familiar yet strangely foreign to him...

’William Carter’

He stood in silence, staring at the name with a mixture of regret, nostalgia, and... hidden in the corner of his heart, amusement.

Or perhaps it was a darkly amusing thought about someone finally seeing a man get what he deserved.

The tombstone read:

"A beloved son and husband."

"Beloved."

Heh!

Wei Chen snorted.

Who would have thought that this word would be associated with him after "William Carter" had died, and now he was standing in front of that man’s tombstone under a new name, "Wei Chen"?

It was as if life and fate had mocked him for who he was...

He had come here to see for himself and to confirm what he actually felt when he stood in front of his own tombstone.

No...

It should be his last life’s tombstone.

An idiot who got himself shot to death because he went too far, doubling down on something that the person he loved had been trying to stop him from doing...

A death...

Well deserved for a fool.

"Haaaa....."

Wei Chen let out a long sigh.

He didn’t know what to feel anymore.

Seriously... in his last life, he had pranked many people. Never once had the thought crossed his mind that he would one day stand here, looking at his own tombstone.

It looked like a pretty bad prank, huh?

Karma really did love to bite someone in the ass when they least expected it.

Wei Chen had asked two things from Edmund.

First, the DNA test. He wanted to know if that little girl was actually his daughter...

That was because the timeline was a bit out of order. He had died, spent more than a year being reborn in the cultivation world, and then returned here about two years later.

Human pregnancy lasted about nine months, perhaps up to twelve in some special cases.

But he had seen Cindy giving birth to his daughter. It was clear that she had just been born, not even a week old.

Yet the DNA test had made it clear that she was William Carter’s daughter.

His daughter from his last life.

And now, standing here, he felt like a jerk for not trusting Cindy.

Yeah, he had thought that she had moved on.

But honestly, even if that little infant had not been his daughter, would he still have looked kindly upon her?

He didn’t know.

Maybe he wouldn’t.

Maybe he would...

Perhaps only for Cindy’s sake.

After all, he had died. If she had moved on, it would have been completely normal.

And he knew his parents well. They loved Cindy and treated her as if she were their own daughter.

If Cindy were to meet some jerk and accidentally have a child, they would definitely help her.

His parents... were that kind of people.

As for the second request...

He had asked Edmund to use his power and influence to look after them and protect them in case the infant truly was William Carter’s daughter.

Wei Chen looked at his wristwatch.

It was time for him to return to the other side.

He had wasted enough time here.

Wei Chen looked around the cemetery, finding a secluded spot with no one around, before riding his flying sword back to the safehouse.

— White House —

At the same time, at the White House, President Jonah Crump had received a new piece of intelligence.

It was intelligence about their honored guests, whom they had secretly hosted: the denizens of the other world, a place they called the cultivation world.

The President looked at his National Security Advisor while holding the report from the air base that had detected the fast-moving flying object.

"Are you saying that their flying swords can fly at Mach 3?" the President asked for confirmation.

"Yes, Mr. President," the National Security Advisor replied. "This is the intelligence we obtained by cross-referencing the object our radar detected with the accounts given by our honored guests. We have confirmed that the small unidentified flying object we detected the other day was a vehicle identified as a flying sword, the artifact that is popularly portrayed in Chinese xianxia works."

The President nodded, then asked,

"Then... what about the other thing? Mr. Rothenberg told me that Young Master Wei is especially interested in a man named William Carter and his family, including that man’s wife, Cindy Liu. What do we have on them?"