Ultimately, his gamble paid off as the coin went up about one hundred times in value after he had bought it, by which time he sold it near the peak of its value, and then saw it crash to be basically worthless just like it had done back in his life.
And with that, he had netted himself a nice profit, but there were still some questions lingering in his mind regarding the other world and how things had played out.
...
Above all, even if he had confirmed that he had somehow gone back in time and all of his wacky adventures back in that old world were real, what was he going to do about it?
Right now, Tang Ze and his family were attending a cousin's wedding function.
He remembered being here in his past life as well, though the details were a bit hazy. Once again, he hadn't been in a right state of mind at the time, and had had no real interest in attending a wedding of all things.
Back then, he had even asked if he could be excused from going. He had told his parents to go alone, though they had coaxed him into coming along, hoping that it would do him some good. It hadn't, but now, Tang Ze could appreciate their line of reasoning at the time.
He took in a deep breath. Times were different now, and he could appreciate the festivities for what they were.
Tang Jun was dancing with some of the other kids his age- they weren't good at it mind you, and Tang Ze wanted to take a video if only to make fun of him later on, but they did look like they were having fun. His mother was gossiping with the other women her age, while his father was fetching drinks for the two of them.
And here Tang Ze was, sitting on this sidelines like he was some sort of spectator. He was looking at his phone, checking to see how much profit the cryptocurrency he had put money in had made while wondering about a world he had long since been disconnected from.
While it wasn't clear who was having the most fun out of his family right now, it was rather obvious who was having the least.
Tang Ze sighed.
'Why are you sitting here like you bought tickets to a baseball game or something?'- he thought to himself.
This image of his family- he had gone through quite a lot to make it happen. He had been reborn, worked his way up through the sect, and then had fought an asura so powerful he still couldn't wrap his mind around it.
He had died fighting that asura, mind you.
All of that, and taking a knife to the gut, to make all of this possible.
Hadn't he told himself that he wanted to live on without any regrets before?
So why was his mind still anchored back to that old world?
Somewhere deep down, he thought it might've been nice, now that he had saved Tang Jun, if his friends from that world had popped up one day to ask him to go back. Would he say 'yes' to that? Probably not, but it would've been nicer still to have some way to go between the two worlds, as impractical as he knew that was. On the flip side, he had no idea how he would even try to find a way back there, aside from the... obvious method, though he had promised himself he would never go down that route ever again.
It wasn't as if he truly wanted to return, he just would've loved to have one last moment to say 'farewell' to them all properly.
If his squad members were here though, they'd probably tell him to stop dwelling on old things and to go be with his family. And not just in a physical sense.
'Hmm... what should I do with the profits I got though?'- he thought to himself as he got up.
There were several things he could do- reinvesting them was a choice, but the thing was that he no longer had the benefit of hindsight to work on anymore. And it seemed to be a shame to not at least spend a little.
Maybe he should buy something for Tang Jun? The newest gaming console was about to come out in a few months, and although he would be leaving for college soon, he would still be around from time to time for them to use it together.
Or maybe instead of that he should buy something for his parents? It would make sense given all they had done for the two of them. Perhaps he could replace his mother's watch that Tang Jun had accidentally broken a while back, or get his father a new pair of shoes (he had been wearing the same one for far too long, always saying that he would replace them later).
"Hey, mind if I join in?" Tang Ze asked Tang Jun after tapping him on his shoulder.
"Of course not!" Tang Jun said as he and several of his relatives dragged him into the weird, amorphous blob of people they had formed on the dance floor.
While life did move on, despite his best efforts, Tang Ze couldn't help but think back to that world from time to time.
Sure, he was happy here - this was where his family was.
But friends? While he met people during college, the acquaintances he made could not compare with Zhang Long, Yin Tiang, and Chen Yu.
What were they doing right now in that world? Whatever it was, he wished his friends in the other life good fortune. They had probably gotten a new member to the squad now to replace him, just like he had replaced Xu Feng. Only Tang Ze didn't intend to haunt the new member who walked in and then later trick them into getting beaten to a pulp.
Come to think about it, even though cultivators did have a higher rate of mortality than mortals, even by the standards of that world, it was a bit odd for their squad to lose two members so close to each other. Maybe their squad had just been really unlucky?
As it was, even if Tang Ze did find a way back - he had no interest in doing so.
Because leaving Earth would mean leaving his family behind - and while he certainly valued his friends, while living in that world had been amazing in various aspects despite him dying at the end, he did not value anything that was there more than what was here.
How could he leave his family alone again?
The reason why he had even begun to think about returning to that world so much lately was because today was a rather special day - in some sense of the word, at least.
Today had been the day during his last life when he had died and gone to that world.
All throughout the day, he had been worried that something might happen - something that might whisk him away from this world and plop him back there.
His reasoning was that he didn't understand one thing regarding all that had happened. He had regressed when it came to Earth's timeline yes, but what about that world's timeline?
If he never died, did that mean a version of him was never transported to that world? Did that mean that right now, Jin Zhen was being kidnapped by those Diamond Dust sect thugs and Zhang Long would soon be chasing after them, with no hope of being able to catch up with them?
And eventually, did that mean that that asura would destroy the Raswatian Empire? No wait - if he was never transported to that world, that meant that he would never move that rock at Elder He Xuan's behest, so that meant that that asura would never be freed… at least, not soon that is. That secret realm would eventually unravel over time and possibly release it into the world eventually anyway - who would save the world then?
And Xian Yue - she had predicted that he would finish her dress and then she would ascend to the Hinayana realm, though if he never showed up she would just end up waiting forever.
Unless, that is, the timelines in both worlds were different and he had already done whatever he had done in that other world, and had only come back in time in this world?
He had thought for some time that the entire reason he had been transmigrated to that world in the first place was just to deal with that asura - at least, in a way, that made sense to him. He had somehow stumbled into fighting it through chance (but was it really just chance, or ordained in some way?) and did not have to return to that world after it was dead. But this whole deal with how time worked blew a massive hole in that theory.
The more he thought about it, the more his head hurt as he felt like he would never reach an answer no matter how much he struggled.
As it was, that day in question came and went without anything of note happening.
He thought that meant that he was done with the other world. He went back to focusing on his coursework- his experience as a regressor wouldn't help him with this given he had changed his branch and college as well. While he couldn't say that it was overwhelmingly difficult, he couldn't exactly slack off either now that he had gotten to this level.
But, as it turned out, just because he thought that he was done with that world, it didn't mean that the other world was done with him.
He was sitting in a café one day about a week later after classes were done, minding his own business, when a voice asked, "Do you mind if I sit here?"
"Sure, no problem," he said, only intending to glance up at the owner of that voice for a moment before agreeing.
But even that was enough to make his heart skip a beat.
The girl he was looking at was drop-dead gorgeous. And not in the way that the women in Zhang Long's world were often described as beautiful, this girl's beauty was quite real and down-to-earth with the slightest touch of an ethereal beauty added on like sprinkles on ice cream.
Essentially, she had the best of both his world and Zhang Long's world when it came to feminine beauty and combined the two in a way that was seamless.
Not a single thing about her was out of place, from her hair to her nails, as if she was a model who had just walked out of photoshoot. She had an air of absolute confidence about her, and yet, there was an air of ease about her, as if she would be the easiest person in the world to talk to. Her hair was a lovely color of brown which embraced the small oval of her face and complimented the soft hue of her eyes.
Tang Ze found that he couldn't get take his eyes off of her for some reason.
"Hmm? Is there something on my face?" she asked, noticing Tang Ze staring at her.
"No, I'm sorry - I didn't mean to stare but... have we met before?" Tang Ze asked. She looked very familiar somehow, yet at the same time Tang Ze would've also sworn that he had never met her before.
Because, he felt, he would have absolutely remembered a girl as stunning as her!
She laughed gently, a sound that was music to his ears. "That's such an old-fashioned way of flirting, you know. If you want to ask a girl out, you need to think of something better."
"No... that's not what I meant..." Tang Ze said. He really did think that she looked rather familiar somehow.
And as for flirting with her... well one thing that hadn't changed in this alternate timeline was that he still didn't have a girlfriend.
Then again, things had been like that back in Zhang Long's world as well. It looked like he very well might have been doomed to be perpetually single.
Basically, he didn't think he had a chance with this kind of girl so he wouldn't have even bothered trying to flirt with her.
"Oh? So you don't want to ask me out?" she asked coquettishly.
Tang Ze's voice was lost in his throat. She was definitely playing games with him. But why?
"Fine," she said, sighing. "You really won't let me have any fun - now then will you? Alright, I'll give you a hint - you have met me before. You promised to finish a dress for me, but never got around to it despite all the help you gave me. Don't tell me that you forgot that?"