January 15, 1990 — Hyderpur
Malik Riyaz Estate
The news came at midday.
Arslan was in the courtyard, the Qur'an open in his lap, when he heard the sound. Running feet. Labored breathing. The kind of urgency that belonged to emergencies, not errands.
He didn't look up.
Jamil the chaiwala appeared at the gate like a man who had run all the way from the village center, which he had. His chest heaved. Sweat darkened the collar of his kameez. In one hand he clutched a folded newspaper, in the other a cloth bag that clinked with the unmistakable music of currency.
"Malik Sahib—Malik Sahib, it happened. The numbers. They won."
Riyaz rose from his chair on the veranda with the unhurried grace of a man who had never in his life rushed toward anything. He took the newspaper. Read the lottery results. Looked at Jamil. Looked at the bag.
Then his gaze moved to Arslan.
Arslan turned a page of the Qur'an. Slowly. Deliberately. His face revealed nothing.
Riyaz said, "Drink some water. Sit in the guest room."
Jamil nodded, still breathless, and disappeared inside.
Riyaz walked over to Arslan. He lowered himself onto the charpai beside the boy—not directly across, not looming, but beside. The way you sat with someone you wanted to see clearly.
"How much?" he asked, though the question was for Jamil, who was already through the door.
Jamil's voice floated back, muffled by walls. "Seven hundred Seventy thousand, Malik Sahib. fifty thousand."
Riyaz absorbed this. Then he set the bag on the ground between them. It landed with a solid thump.
He said quietly, "In the dream. He gave you these numbers."
Arslan looked up from the Qur'an. Met his grandfather's eyes.
"Yes, Nana."
The silence that followed was not empty. It was dense with things neither of them would say. Riyaz's gaze moved over Arslan's face—the too-still expression, the eyes that watched instead of wandered, the small hands that held the holy book like a shield.
Arslan waited. He had learned, in the first life, that silence was a weapon. That the first person to speak lost. But this was different. This silence was not a contest. It was a door, and Riyaz was deciding whether to open it.
Finally, Riyaz said, " What will you do with it?"
Arslan closed the Qur'an. Set it aside. The gesture was careful, reverent—the kind of thing a pious child would do. But his mind was already elsewhere, moving through possibilities like a man counting coins.
What will I do with it.
The question was simple. The answer was not.
In the first life, he had never held this much money. Never held any money, really—just the few rupees that passed through his hands on the way to his uncles, his parents, the moneylenders who owned them. He had watched from the floor as they gambled, as they lost, as they borrowed more. He had learned early that money was not safety. Money was the thing they fought over, the thing that disappeared, the thing that bought the alcohol that bought the courage to hurt him.
But that was then. This was now. And now, money was something else entirely.
It's a tool, he thought. It's leverage. It's the first brick.
He looked at Riyaz. The old man was watching him with an expression Arslan couldn't quite read. Not suspicion—not yet. Curiosity, maybe. The same curiosity a general might feel toward a young soldier who had just done something unexpected on the battlefield.
"I don't know yet, Nana," Arslan said. His voice was soft. Uncertain. The voice of a child who had never had to make a decision in his life. "But I'll think of something."
Riyaz nodded slowly. Then he did something that made Arslan's breath catch, just for a moment.
He reached out and took Arslan's hand.
The small, unmarked hand. The hand that had poured alcohol on a roof. The hand that had struck matches in the dark. Riyaz held it in his own—rough, scarred, weathered by decades of service and silence—and he held it gently. Not gripping. Just... holding.
"Arslan," he said. "I will protect you. From anyone. From anything."
The words landed somewhere in Arslan's chest. A place he had thought was empty. A place he had sealed shut years ago, in the first life, when he realized that no one was coming. That no one would ever say those words to him.
He looked at their hands. The old and the young. The scarred and the smooth. Connected for a moment across decades and deaths and the ashes of a house.
"Thank you, Nana."
Riyaz released his hand. Stood.
"We'll talk more tomorrow."
He walked inside.
---
Arslan sat alone in the courtyard.
The bag of money sat beside him.rupees, after Jamil's cut. More than he had ever seen. More than his uncles had stolen in years of gambling and drinking and pretending to be holy.
He didn't touch it. He just looked at it.
This is the beginning, he thought. This is the first piece.
But the thought brought no satisfaction. Only a cold, calculating clarity.
He had thirty-five years of knowledge. He had a grandfather who was already beginning to suspect that something was different about him—and who, instead of fearing that difference, had just promised to protect him.
He knows something's wrong, Arslan thought. He doesn't know what. But he knows.
He should have felt alarm. Should have felt the need to retreat, to rebuild the mask, to be more careful. Every instinct from the first life screamed at him to hide, to disappear, to become invisible.
But instead, he felt something else. Something he couldn't name.
He looked up at the sky. The same sky that had answered him with silence on the night he woke up in Uch Sharif.
"I don't know what I'm doing," he whispered.
Silence answered. As always.
But for once, it didn't feel like rejection.
It felt like permission.
---
That night, Arslan lay awake long after the house had fallen silent.
The money was under his cot, wrapped in an oil-stained cloth. He could feel its weight through the mattress—not physically, but psychically. A presence. A promise.
His mind moved through options like a man walking through a bazaar, examining each possibility before moving to the next.
Land, he thought. That was the obvious answer. The 1993 canal extension that would triple the value of certain parcels. The 1998 nuclear tests that would make Balochistan land valuable overnight. The 2005 earthquake that would create opportunities in Kashmir. The 2010 floods that would reshape whole districts.
He knew where the water would go. He knew where the roads would be built. He knew where the cities would sprawl.
But he was five years old. He couldn't buy land himself. He couldn't sign papers, couldn't appear before the patwari, couldn't sit in jirgas and negotiate. Any land he bought would have to be bought through Riyaz.
Which means Riyaz has to believe it's his idea.
That was the challenge. Not just making the right moves, but making them look like someone else's moves. Planting seeds. Dropping hints. Letting Riyaz think he was the one seeing the opportunities.
He's smart, Arslan thought. He's observant. He's already noticing things about me. If I push too hard, he'll start asking questions I can't answer.
The mask had to stay in place. The quiet, pious, grieving child. The miracle survivor who occasionally had dreams. Nothing more.
Gold, he thought next. That was another option. In the first life, he had watched the rupee crumble again and again. 1998 sanctions. 2008 crash. 2020 COVID collapse. Gold held. Gold always held.
But gold was harder to buy quietly. It required connections, markets, people who didn't ask questions. And it required storage—a place to keep it where no one would find it.
Not yet, he decided. Maybe later. When I'm older. When I have people.
Factories. Businesses. That was the long game. The snack empire that would spread across Pakistan, carried by children's hands and blessed by mullahs. The mobile phones that would reach villages before the banks did. The schools that would teach children not to think.
But that was years away. Decades, even. For now, he needed something simpler. Something that would grow on its own, without him having to tend it every day.
Land, he came back to. Always land.
He thought about the field he had seen on the drive from Uch Sharif. The dry, cracked soil. The well that had gone dry. The owner who couldn't sell it because no one wanted it.
Three years, he thought. Three years until the canal extension is announced. Three years until that worthless field becomes worth more than anything in the district.
He could buy it now. Through Riyaz. For almost nothing. And then wait.
But how do I make Riyaz want to buy it?
He thought about the jirgas he had watched. The way men came to Riyaz with problems, and Riyaz solved them. The way Riyaz listened, and weighed, and decided.
He trusts his own judgment, Arslan thought. He doesn't take advice easily. But he notices things. He pays attention.
So the trick was not to give advice. The trick was to show him something. To let him see for himself.
Take him there, Arslan thought. Somehow. Make him look at that field. Make him think about it. And then... wait.
It would take time. Everything would take time. That was the hardest part—the waiting. The knowledge of what was coming, and the inability to make it happen faster.
Patience, he told himself. You have years. Decades. You have more time than you know what to do with.
But the knowledge burned in him like a fever. All those futures, all those opportunities, all that money waiting to be made—and he had to sit here, in this village, pretending to be a child.
It's not pretending, he reminded himself. You are a child. This body is five years old. It has limits. You have to respect them.
He thought about the butterfly effect. About all the things he knew that could go wrong if he moved too fast, pushed too hard, changed something he didn't understand.
What if I buy the land and something happens? What if the canal extension gets canceled? What if the government changes the route? What if—
He stopped himself. The paranoia was useful, but only in doses. He couldn't let it paralyze him.
The future I know is the future that happened. If I change something big—if I change something that matters—I might lose everything. I might wake up one day and realize that nothing I remember is true anymore.
That was the terror beneath all the calculation. The fear that his knowledge was a fragile thing, easily broken. That one wrong move could send ripples through time, erasing the very events he was counting on.
So move slowly, he told himself. Move carefully. Change only what you have to. Leave the rest alone.
He thought about the lottery win. That was safe. A few thousand rupees, won by a child's dream. No one would investigate. No one would care. It was exactly the kind of small miracle that people expected from a blessed orphan.
But if I win again—if I keep winning—people will notice. They'll ask questions. They'll start watching.
So the dreams had to be rare. Occasional. Just enough to build the legend, not enough to provoke investigation.
One more, he thought. Maybe two. Then stop for a while.
He thought about the cricket match. The test match in Karachi, three months away. He knew the scores. Knew exactly how many runs Javed Miandad would score in the second innings. Knew it because he had watched the highlights a hundred times in the first life, in the dark hours after the shops closed, when the television in the tea stall was the only light for miles.
That one's safe, he thought. It's far enough away. It'll feel like another miracle. And by the time it happens, the lottery win will be old news.
But after that, he would have to stop. Let the legend cool. Let people forget to wonder.
Unless, he thought, I can make them wonder in a different way. Unless I can make them believe that the dreams come from Allah, not from me. That I'm just a vessel. That questioning me is questioning God.
That was the long game. The myth. The legend.
He thought about the Reddington principle—the idea that the myth could be a weapon. That if people believed in you, you didn't have to do anything. They did it for you.
By the time I'm ten, he thought, I want people in this district to whisper my name. By the time I'm twenty, I want them to whisper it across Punjab. By thirty, across the country.
And by the time anyone realizes who I am, it will be too late. I'll be untouchable.
He lay in the darkness, listening to the sounds of the house. The creak of wood. The distant bark of a dog. The wind moving through the mulberry tree.
He closed his eyes.
---
The next morning, Arslan woke before Fajr.
He performed his ablutions carefully, deliberately. The cold water on his face, his hands, his feet. The ritual movements that meant nothing to him but everything to everyone else.
When he walked into the courtyard, Riyaz was already there. Sitting on the same low stool, cup of tea in hand, watching the eastern sky.
As-salamu-alaikum, Nana Abu."
"Wa alaikum as-salam." Riyaz gestured to the stool beside him. "Sit."
Arslan sat.
They watched the sun rise together. The sky turned from grey to gold to blue. Somewhere, a rooster crowed. A woman's voice called out to a child.
Finally, Riyaz spoke.
"I've been thinking," he said. "About the money."
Arslan waited.
"You're five years old. You can't do much with it yourself. But I can hold it for you. Invest it. Keep it safe until you're old enough to decide."
Arslan nodded. "Whatever Nana thinks is best."
Riyaz looked at him. That measuring look again.
"What do you think is best?"
The question was careful. It offered space. It invited Arslan to step into it.
Arslan considered his options. He could stay silent. He could defer. He could play the child.
But something in Riyaz's eyes told him that wasn't what the old man wanted.
"I don't know about money," Arslan said slowly. "But I remember something. From before."
"Before?"
"Before the fire. Grandma Lal used to talk about land. "
Riyaz's eyebrow twitched. "My sister said that?"
Arslan looked down. " a lot of things. " He trailed off, letting the sentence hang.
Riyaz was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Your father was not a wise man. Maybe you'll be different"
Arslan said nothing.
"But about that. Land stays."
They sat in silence for a while longer. Then Riyaz stood.
"Get dressed. We're going for a walk."
---
They walked out of the village, past the last houses, into the flat expanse of farmland that stretched toward the horizon. Winter wheat, low and green. Irrigation channels running between fields. Men working, bent over, invisible at a distance.
Arslan walked beside his grandfather, his short legs working to keep up. He said nothing. Just watched.
They walked for twenty minutes. Past fields that were thriving, past fields that were struggling, past fields that had been left fallow.
And then they reached it.
Or Arslan had stopped moving... And Riyaz thought the child was tired.
The dry, cracked soil. The dead well. The owner who couldn't sell it because no one wanted it.
Riyaz stopped at the edge. He stood there, looking at the land, his face unreadable.
"This field," he said. "It belongs to a man named Chaudhry Sahab. You met him. At the funeral."
Arslan nodded. He remembered. The old man with the stained turban and the quick eyes. The one who had offered thirty thousand for the house.
"He's been trying to sell it for three years," Riyaz continued. "No one will buy it. The canal doesn't reach it. The well is dry. It's worthless."
Arslan looked at the field. At the cracks in the soil. At the way the sun fell on it, harsh and indifferent.
In his mind, he was somewhere else. 1993. A government announcement about a new canal extension. Land values tripling overnight. This field, this worthless field, suddenly worth more than anything in the district.
He kept his face empty.
They stood there for a long time, the old man and the boy, looking at dirt.
---
That afternoon, Arslan sat in the courtyard with the Qur'an open in his lap. He wasn't reading it. He was thinking.
He showed me the field. He didn't say why. But he showed me.
That meant something. It meant Riyaz was paying attention. It meant he was looking for signs, for guidance, for whatever it was that made Arslan different.
He wants me to say something, Arslan thought. He wants me to tell him what to do.
But that was dangerous. If he spoke too clearly, Riyaz would wonder. Would ask questions. Would start to see the mask for what it was.
So don't speak. Just... suggest. Just point.
He thought about the dream. About the numbers. About the way Riyaz had listened, and acted, and said nothing.
He believes in the dreams. Or he wants to believe. Either way, it's a tool.
Another dream, then. Not about money this time. About land. About a field that would one day be worth something.
But not now, he thought. Too soon. The lottery win is too fresh. If I have another dream tomorrow, he'll know something's wrong.
He would wait. A week. Two weeks. Let the excitement fade. Let Riyaz stop thinking about miracles and start thinking about everyday things.
And then, when the time was right, he would dream again.
---
That night, Arslan knelt beside his bed. Not in prayer—in ritual.
He whispered to the darkness: "One field. One piece of worthless dirt. That's all I need to start."
He smiled.
"In three years, that dirt will be worth more than this village. And no one will know why."
He lay down. Pulled the blanket over his face.
For once, he didn't dream of screams.
He dreamed of water. Flowing through canals. Bringing life to dead soil.
And when he woke, he knew exactly what he would do.
---
January 20, 1990
A week passed.
Arslan spent it watching. Learning. Cataloguing.
He watched Riyaz hold jirga, settling disputes with the same quiet authority. He watched the men who came to the house—farmers, petitioners, the occasional visitor from the city who spoke in low tones and left envelopes. He watched the servants, the neighbors, the children who played in the dust.
He learned who owed whom. Who could be trusted. Who could be bought.
And he waited.
On the morning of January 20, he woke before Fajr and found Riyaz in the kitchen.
"Nana."
Riyaz looked up. "You're awake early."
"I had another dream."
The words hung in the air. Riyaz's face didn't change, but something behind his eyes shifted.
"Tell me."
Arslan described it carefully. Not numbers this time. A field. The dry field at the edge of the village. Water flowing through it. Green shoots rising from the cracks.
"I saw it clearly," he said. "The field. The one you showed me. It was... alive."
Riyaz was silent for a long time.
Then he said, "Go back to bed. We'll talk later."
Arslan went.
He didn't sleep. He lay in the darkness, listening, waiting.
At midday, Riyaz called for him.
They walked to the field together. The same walk. The same silence. The same cracked soil waiting for water.
Riyaz stood at the edge, looking at the land. Then he looked at Arslan.
"Your dream," he said. "You saw this field alive."
"Yes, Nana."
"With water."
"Yes."
Riyaz was silent for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly.
"I'm going to buy it," he said. "Not because of the dream. Because it's cheap. Because sometimes worthless things become valuable."
He looked at Arslan.
"And because you saw it. In your dream. Because it's cheap. Because sometimes worthless things become valuable."
He looked at Arslan.
"And because you saw it. In your dream. That means something."
Arslan said nothing.
They walked back to the house in silence.
---
That evening, Riyaz sat with Arslan on the porch. The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple.
"I bought the field," Riyaz said. "Twenty thousand rupees. The man was desperate."
Arslan nodded.
"It's yours," Riyaz continued. "The land. I registered it in your name. one will know. But it's yours."
Arslan looked at him. For a moment, the mask slipped. Just slightly. Just enough.
"Mine?"
"Yours." Riyaz reached out and placed his hand on Arslan's head. The same gesture. The same warmth. "Whatever you are, whatever you become—that land is yours. A place to start."
Arslan looked at the sky. At the last light fading over the fields.
"Thank you, Nana."
Riyaz nodded. They sat in silence as the stars came out.
And somewhere, in the back of Arslan's mind, a clock ticked forward.
Three years until the canal.
Three years until the dirt became gold.
Three years to build something that would last.
He looked at his small hands. The hands that had poured alcohol on a roof. The hands that had struck matches in the dark