Only after a long while did it happen.
Pang Juan sighed. "Don't laugh at me, but my childhood dream was actually to become a teacher, with students everywhere, spreading a teacher's nurturing care far and wide.
"But reality was cruel. Because of money, I was forced to be 'sold' to Qi Zihong. Back then, I thought about killing myself many times. I thought my married life would be miserable, but heaven played another joke on me. He loved me and treated me incredibly well, and somehow, I fell in love with him. Then, without my even knowing when, my dream changed from becoming a teacher to becoming a good wife. Now it's become being a good mother."
Reality was both cruel and full of surprises. Occasionally, it even offered things more wonderful than fairy tales.
"Oh, right!" Pang Juan seemed to remember something suddenly. "Master Xiao, can you divine what happened when I was just born?"
"Of course. Why?"
"While I was remembering the past just now, something suddenly occurred to me. When I was very little, I remember once overhearing my mother confessing before a statue of Buddha, all by herself. She said I had an older sister, but she'd been abandoned because we were poor.
"I was supposed to be abandoned too, but my mother softened in the end...
"It happened so long ago that even I'd forgotten. It only just came back to me. Could you please divine whether my sister is still alive, and whether she's doing well?"
"No problem. Let me take a look."
Heavenly Mechanism Canon, activate!
Time seemed to begin flowing backward, and Pang Juan grew younger and younger.
Twenty, in the prime of her youth; ten, innocent and carefree; five, lively and naive...
And then her infancy, when she first came crying