“I don’t agree.”
Qin Feng immediately rejected it.
“Two things don’t add up.”
“First, if it was our selves from even farther in the future sending a warning text, why speak in riddles? Why couldn’t they say it more clearly? Sending a string of numbers—isn’t that just making things difficult for us?”
“Second, if they have more advanced technology, and can send texts to an even earlier point in spacetime, then why did they have to choose this exact moment and overlap with your test message?”
“No matter how you look at it, our future selves clearly have safer, more efficient, more reliable ways to warn us, instead of being this vague.”
…
Jiang Ran said nothing.
Because he didn’t know how to explain it either.
In the end, it was still because the second text message, and those mysterious numbers, had appeared far too strangely, forcing him to be cautious.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
The sound of running suddenly came from the corridor outside. There were many people, noisy and chaotic.
“What’s going on?”
Jiang Ran looked toward the wooden door of the clubroom.
“Why are so many people running? Is there an earthquake?”
Curious, the three of them opened the door and found the members of the Movie Club chasing after one another, sprinting in panic.
“What happened?”
Jiang Ran stopped a girl.
Why was everyone in the Movie Club so agitated? Had they won an award at a film festival?
But the timing didn’t match… The preliminaries hadn’t even begun yet.
“Senior Xu Yan is in trouble!”
Tears burst from the girl’s eyes.
“Senior… Senior jumped into the river to save two children who fell in, but she… she didn’t make it after they took her to the hospital…”
“What!?”
The three of them shouted in shock and immediately rushed out with the others.
…
Donghai City People’s Hospital was packed with people.
Aside from the patients who had come for routine treatment, over a hundred students from Donghai University had gathered outside the emergency room.
Xu Yan was usually warmhearted and kind, always happy to help others, and very well-liked. When they heard something had happened to her, many students rushed over upon receiving the news, each of them worried and grief-stricken.
Cheng Mengxue was so frightened her face had gone pale. Standing in front of Jiang Ran and Qin Feng, she trembled nonstop, her nails digging into her fingers until they turned bluish.
A few minutes later, the emergency room doors opened, and a doctor wearing a mask walked out with his head lowered.
Cheng Mengxue’s uncle and aunt hurriedly rushed over, but after a brief exchange… the woman let out a wail and fainted on the spot, while the man dropped to his knees with a thud, his eyes vacant.
An immense grief spread through the crowd. The girls’ sobs came in scattered fragments.
A few more minutes passed, and a gurney covered in a white sheet was pushed out… The crowd slowly, thickly parted to form a path, allowing the gurney through.
“Sis…”
Cheng Mengxue’s legs went weak, and she collapsed against Jiang Ran.
Her tear ducts broke down, and she wept until she could no longer form words.
The gurney rattled past before his eyes. Jiang Ran looked at the outline beneath the white sheet, his lips pressed tight, unable to speak.
This was a girl he had watched grow up year after year in his youth.
And just like that…
She was dead.
It was said that Xu Yan had already been beyond saving at the scene.
She knew how to swim, but the current in the river had been fierce. After saving the two children who had fallen in, she exhausted her strength, and her foot was caught by trash in the river channel. In the end, she drowned.
The ambulance arrived at the first possible moment to resuscitate her, put her on equipment, and rushed her back to the hospital. But in the end… they still could not save that vibrant life.
…
By the Huangpu River.
Jiang Ran and the other two sat side by side on the steps, watching the glittering river water.
“She was only twenty…”
Tears welled at the corners of Cheng Mengxue’s eyes.
“Sister Xu Yan was such a good person. She never did anything bad… And she died to save two children. This world is so unfair.”
Jiang Ran lowered his head.
Xu Yan’s sudden death made him deeply miserable as well.
Especially since Xu Yan had just helped them solve such a huge problem.
Without Xu Yan’s help, not only would they have failed to protect the Film Society, they would not have gotten the positron cannon back either.
Twenty years old.
At their age, youth was free and unrestrained, the world endlessly vast. They had thought something like death was very, very far away from them.
But they had never imagined… that it would be the young woman right beside them who would so hastily bring her brief life to an end.
Death.
So it had always been this sudden, and this close.
“Jiang Ran…”
Cheng Mengxue’s voice was choked with tears. She tugged at the corner of Jiang Ran’s shirt and raised her head to look into his eyes.
“Do you think…”
He knew what Cheng Mengxue wanted to say.
“If we use that positron cannon to send a text message to our past selves…”
In his heart, how could he not be struggling with the same thought?
“If we tell ourselves in advance that Senior Xu Yan would die today…”
But that mysterious text message of unknown meaning kept standing athwart his heart like a blade, haunting him.
“Can we change history and save Senior Xu Yan?”
…
…
Cheng Mengxue’s small hand tightened around the corner of his shirt.
Qin Feng turned his head, glanced at Jiang Ran, then looked away.
The river wind blew past.
It stirred Cheng Mengxue’s fine hair, brushed across Jiang Ran’s face, and blocked his sight.
Strands of hair danced before his eyes. The Huangpu River seemed to flow backward, carrying ships great and small back to the starting point, to sail once more.
“Maybe we can.”
He said softly.
Maybe… it’ll be even worse.
He thought in his heart.
…
Evening.
The three of them returned to the clubroom.
They had not eaten, nor were they in the mood to eat. They sat apart in three corners of the room.
Though no one spoke.
They all knew what they were waiting for.
Jiang Ran raised his head and looked at the small blackboard.
289269426494642—this string of numbers he could already recite backward—flickered under the incandescent light.
Password.
Warning.
Code.
Malfunction.
It was the greatest source of unease in this clubroom, the greatest dispute, the greatest culprit.
“Let’s vote.”
Finally, it was Qin Feng who spoke.
He stood up, leaned against the bookshelf, and folded his arms.
“Ever since we met in high school, hasn’t that always been how the three of us solved problems?”
He looked left and right at the other two.
“Whenever the three of us disagreed, or our opinions didn’t align, or we couldn’t persuade one another, we’d raise our hands and vote. The minority obeys the majority.”
“Speaking of it, we’ve been inseparable for five years now. There have been plenty of times we didn’t see eye to eye, and even times we argued so badly we nearly split up… But in the end, didn’t we always solve it by voting?”
Jiang Ran raised his head and glanced at Cheng Mengxue.
She was holding a blue Rhine cat in her arms, and she looked straight at him in the same way.
Just as Qin Feng had said.
Their iron triangle of three had had no shortage of conflicts and arguments. In high school, they had even disbanded several times.
That was why they later set a rule: if there was a disagreement or dispute over anything, they would raise their hands and vote. The minority obeys the majority.
When in doubt, vote.
Especially faced with the current situation—so tangled and complex, with no path forward—perhaps voting really was the most effective way to solve the problem.
“Then, let’s begin.”
Qin Feng straightened up and walked to the lab table, patting the shell of the positron cannon.
“Facts have proven that we can indeed rewrite history by sending a spacetime text message.”
“Which means we can send a text to our past selves, warn them in advance, and prevent this drowning accident from happening, thereby saving Xu Yan.”
“That’s the situation. Now let’s vote. Regarding the use of a spacetime text message to save Xu Yan…”
“Who is in favor, and who is opposed?”