The three of them clearly all had their own little schemes in mind.
Their expressions had already given them away, especially ever since Jiang Ran had started smiling.
The three narrowed their eyes, looking at one another. In the end, they reached the same unspoken conclusion at the same time:
“Lottery!” “Lottery!” “Lottery!”
A burst of laughter followed.
“As expected, great minds think alike.”
Qin Feng laughed and said,
“Based on what I know about you two, I knew you’d definitely thought of doing this ages ago.”
“You didn’t?”
“Of course I did. I wanted to do this during the very first test.”
Jiang Ran spread his hands.
“It’s only normal to have this idea. Before looking up at the starry sky, you still have to keep your feet on the ground. Let me see… Perfect. Today is the drawing day for Double Color Ball.”
Double Color Ball was one of the most common lotteries.
There were a total of 6+1 numbers. Guessing them all correctly meant a first prize of five million. Guessing the first six numbers meant a second prize, with the amount varying, generally around two hundred thousand.
The lottery drew once every two days. On the night of the drawing day at 9:15 p.m., the draw would be broadcast live on television.
“Pretty lucky.”
Jiang Ran opened his laptop and found the lottery broadcast.
“We’ll wait ten-some minutes. Once the winning numbers are announced, we’ll send a spacetime text message to our past selves.”
“Whether this message gets sent to three days ago, two days ago, one day ago, or even just a few hours ago, we’ll still have time to buy tickets.”
……
It had to be said, the lottery plan really was invigorating.
The atmosphere in the activity room was extremely cheerful.
Ten-some minutes later, the winning numbers were announced. Jiang Ran wrote them down on a sheet of white paper and handed it to Qin Feng.
“What for?” The other party was confused.
“Your turn to send the text this time.”
Jiang Ran said,
“Let’s switch people and see if you retain the all-spacetime memory this time.”
“No can do… I have to operate this.”
Qin Feng pointed at the positron cannon.
“I just adjusted the buncher intensity down to one-fifth of before. I want to see if we can send the text to yesterday.”
“There are also some detailed operations involved. You two won’t be able to handle them, and I don’t feel comfortable letting you do it either.”
“Makes sense.”
Jiang Ran turned and handed the white paper to Cheng Mengxue.
“Then you send the text. Use your own phone and send the lottery numbers to mine.”
Cheng Mengxue nodded.
“Do we need to remind our past selves not to buy the first prize? That would be too conspicuous.”
“Heh, our past selves aren’t idiots.”
Jiang Ran was very confident.
“Our past selves are us too. Their IQs are still online.”
“Buying the second prize is definitely more appropriate. I just checked. Every Double Color Ball draw has several hundred second-prize winners nationwide. We can completely hide a tree in the forest.”
With the arrangements complete, the three took their positions.
Cheng Mengxue held her phone and stood right up against the transformer distribution box.
“You don’t have to stick that close…”
Jiang Ran reminded her.
“It won’t be fun if there’s a current leak.”
Qin Feng remained in charge of the positron cannon, while Jiang Ran took over sitting astride the windowsill to count down.
“5! 4! 3! 2! 1!”
His eyes were fixed on Cheng Mengxue’s finger…
“0!”
The positron cannon roared! Cheng Mengxue pressed the send button—
Buzz!
Buzz!
Buzz!
The familiar dizziness came, the world turning upside down.
Jiang Ran felt himself falling from the windowsill, as if he had been stuffed into the drum of a washing machine. The entire world was spinning.
The worldline had changed!
It seemed that no matter who sent the text, or whose phone was used, as long as those prerequisites were met, the spacetime text message could be sent successfully.
Sender, recipient, phone, message content… none of those were important.
Only the positron cannon and the transformer distribution box were necessary.
Roughly speaking, there were plenty of transformer distribution boxes of the same specifications around the school. Perhaps they could serve as substitutes in the same position.
But only the positron cannon was unique.
It was an accidental product cobbled together from odds and ends, its principles unclear. No one could replicate a second one.
Two seconds later.
The dizziness vanished.
Gravity and the sensation of the floor returned.
He opened his eyes.
And discovered…
He was not sitting astride the windowsill. The window was not even open. His position was not that of someone who had fallen from the windowsill either; instead, he was standing in the middle of the activity room.
After experiencing waking up in the hospital last time, Jiang Ran was already no longer surprised by this kind of change in location.
Under the theory of worldline transitions, this was completely reasonable.
Since the spacetime butterfly effect had caused history to change, then his life trajectory would naturally change as well.
Unless there was an extreme coincidence, it would be very difficult to still be standing in the exact same place after the worldline changed.
“Tomorrow I’m going to buy a massive amount of Rhine cats!”
Cheng Mengxue’s voice was excited as she scattered flowers around the activity room.
“I can’t spend it all~ There’s no way I can spend it all!”
Judging from this…
“We won?”
Jiang Ran was more or less asking despite already knowing the answer.
“How much did we win?”
This was what he was mainly curious about.
“A full 1.3 million!”
……
The three of them sat down first and helped Jiang Ran sync up his memories, meaning what had happened from yesterday to today after the worldline changed.
“The text was received yesterday afternoon.”
Cheng Mengxue pointed at Jiang Ran’s phone.
“This time, your phone received it. I was the sender.”
“Very good.”
Qin Feng was worthy of being called a genius. His guess had hit the mark in one shot—
By adjusting the buncher intensity of the positron cannon, they really could control the point in time to which the spacetime text message was delivered!
This time, reducing it to one-fifth of the initial value had changed three days ago into yesterday.
Then, conversely…
As long as they increased the buncher intensity, they could send texts to the even more distant past… one month ago, one year ago, or even ten years ago.
It could be said that this was definitely the greatest gain from this experiment.
As for the second gain, that was also within expectations:
The all-spacetime memory really was unique to him, and had nothing to do with who sent the text.
This time, Cheng Mengxue had personally sent the text, but Jiang Ran’s dizziness had still arrived right on schedule. Moreover, Cheng Mengxue still did not have the memories from before the worldline changed, while Jiang Ran, as always, remembered everything clearly.
“Oh, right, right.”
Jiang Ran immediately took out his phone.
He needed to confirm how many text messages he had received this time.
“Still one.”
He smacked his lips.
He could not quite describe the feeling.
He both hoped to receive that mysterious text message again, and was worried that he would receive it.
It was very contradictory.
But at least, judging from the current situation… not receiving it again actually made him feel more at ease.
Cheng Mengxue told Jiang Ran that this was what had happened with the lottery.
After receiving the text yesterday afternoon, the three of them had immediately met up and made it clear that they could not buy the first prize. It would be too conspicuous and too attention-grabbing. Their target was directly set on the second prize.
They went to different lottery shops separately and bought many tickets. Most of the numbers were chosen at random, doing their best to create the illusion of “winning by chance.”
Just ten-some minutes ago, the winning numbers had been announced, and sure enough, they were exactly the same as the numbers in the spacetime text message.
So in total, they had won five second-prize Double Color Ball tickets, with a total prize of 1.3 million!
“We’re rich…”
Qin Feng looked at the lottery tickets in his hand.
“We’re millionaires now.”
“This… this was way too easy…”
After cheering, Cheng Mengxue, who had calmed down, felt a little guilty.
“Seriously, nothing bad will happen, right? We… uh, this counts as legal, right?”
Jiang Ran smiled.
“What exists is reasonable. This is a gift from physics.”
“Shouldn’t it be a gift from the Film Club, from those seniors who cobbled together the positron cannon?” Cheng Mengxue corrected him.
“That’s true too.”
Jiang Ran nodded.
“So, to repay them, let’s keep the Film Club going. That way, their spirits in heaven can see—”
“Hey, hey, hey, the seniors only graduated! They didn’t die!”
……
The next day.
Outside the Donghai Welfare Lottery Center.
The three of them stood on the sidewalk, looking at the busy traffic before them…
Lost.
After redeeming their prizes, each of their bank cards had gained several hundred thousand.
My god.
How were they supposed to spend this?
Usually, everyone only had two thousand in living expenses per month. Their pockets were cleaner than their faces. When had they ever seen this much money?
For a moment, they could not even find a direction in which to squander it.
“Uh…”
Jiang Ran scratched his head.
“How about we go back to school for class first?”
“Mm-hm.” X2
The two followed him.
……
After taking two steps, Jiang Ran suggested again,
“After class, let’s use spacetime texts to make some more money?”
“Mm-hm!!” X2