Was this phenomenon a coincidence? Or could it be reproduced?
Jiang Ran immediately picked up his phone and sent five texts to Cheng Mengxue, then another five to Qin Feng.
Beep beep beep beep beep—five notification sounds.
Qin Feng picked up his phone and looked at Jiang Ran, who was only half a step away.
“Are you sick or something?”
At the same time, Cheng Mengxue also sent him a question on WeChat, asking why Jiang Ran had sent her five texts, the contents of which were the numbers 1 through 5, in perfect sequence.
Looks like… it failed.
Jiang Ran frowned.
Or perhaps, being able to receive the texts as expected was, on the contrary, normal and reasonable.
“Could it be that only the contents of that text just now can travel through time?”
He tried again, re-editing the sentence “Hello, if you find this phone, please contact XXXXXXX. Thank you very much!” and sending it to both of them via text, not missing a single character.
Beep.
Qin Feng’s phone rang again, and Xiaoxue sent over a speechless meme.
At this point,
Jiang Ran was out of ideas.
He had thought he had gained some superpower like [sending text messages to the past], that wealth and glory were within easy reach…
But judging from the current situation,
this was entirely an unreproducible accident, and it made him begin to doubt himself.
Could there really be something wrong with his memory?
Heatstroke?
A daydream?
Still not awake?
But all of this had happened so realistically…
“Hey, hey, hey!”
Qin Feng could not hold back anymore and elbowed him.
“If something’s going on, then say it! Sitting here sending texts without making a sound like a mute is seriously creepy.”
“If you’ve run into some kind of trouble, just tell us. We can all think of a solution together!”
Jiang Ran sighed.
“Let’s meet up with Xiaoxue first.”
“I want to take a good look at her phone.”
……
Half an hour later, on the second floor of a milk tea shop, in a corner.
Qin Feng looked at Cheng Mengxue.
“Do you believe it?”
“I don’t.” Cheng Mengxue shook her head.
Jiang Ran spread his hands.
“I don’t believe it either. Forget you two—even I don’t believe this is real.”
“No matter how you look at it, [a text message from today was sent to three days ago] is way too absurd, way too sci-fi.”
“We also tried all sorts of variations just now, many times, and not a single one succeeded. Not a single text disappeared or was sent to the past… all the texts behaved normally.”
“I also wondered whether I’d fainted from the heat, or whether something had gone wrong with my memory.”
“But! There’s one thing that can’t be explained.”
He picked up Cheng Mengxue’s phone and pinched the Rhine Cat charm hanging from the bottom.
“Qin Feng, do you know where this Rhine Cat comes from?”
Qin Feng shook his head.
“Looks like some astronaut cat.”
Jiang Ran looked at Cheng Mengxue again.
“Xiaoxue, have you ever introduced this Rhine Cat to us?”
“No.”
Cheng Mengxue also shook her head.
“You two have no interest in Rhine Cat whatsoever. Talking to you about it would be like chickens talking to ducks, or playing the lute to a cow. Totally buzz-killing.”
Suddenly, she blinked.
“You don’t mean…”
“Yes, I know.”
Jiang Ran looked at the number on the belly of the Rhine Cat charm.
“This is a collaboration model between Rhine Cat and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Only 4,200 were released in total. It’s very precious.”
“Wow!”
Stars appeared in Cheng Mengxue’s eyes.
“You specifically did your homework!”
“How could that be…”
Jiang Ran waved his hand.
“You told me this yourself. Of course, you definitely don’t remember that now.”
“Although this doesn’t count as ironclad proof, the two of you know me. There’s no way I looked this up online. Because I have no interest in Rhine Cat at all, and I don’t think Rhine Cat is that cute either.”
“That’s why I said this matter might not be so simple… It may not be that I had a daydream, but that some spacetime butterfly effect really may have occurred, and that text message really was sent to the past!”
Qin Feng pondered for two seconds.
Then he nodded.
“True. You wouldn’t be that bored.”
“But compared to this text message that crossed time and space, and the [spacetime alteration] triggered by it, I’m even more curious about something else.”
He raised his head and stared into Jiang Ran’s eyes.
“[Why are you the only one who has memories from before the spacetime alteration?]”
“Logically speaking, the two of us were standing together at the time… No, according to you, the three of us were standing together. But the two of us have absolutely no memory of that.”
……
Jiang Ran fell silent.
For some reason, he recalled those arrogant lines from the movie shoot that afternoon:
“As long as I return to the past and change all of this… everything will begin again.”
“Being omnipotent does not make one a god. Only those who control history, who manipulate history, can be considered gods!”
“You will never be able to defeat me within history. Because in this game played upon the long river of time…”
“I am history!”
Thud.
Jiang Ran put down his milk tea, leaned back, and rested against the back of his chair.
“I don’t know.”
He shook his head lightly.
“I want to know the answer even more than you do.”
That was the truth, and also the thing he cared about most.
Whether Qin Feng or Cheng Mengxue, neither of them had memories from before the spacetime alteration.
Jiang Ran was the exact opposite. He possessed memories from before the spacetime alteration, yet had no memories of the new history after the spacetime alteration… Many changes that differed from the original history had to be told to him by others.
That feeling was extremely unsteady, and gave him no sense of security.
“Still, you really did change history, just like what you wrote in your script.”
After so many years of tacit understanding, Qin Feng saw through Jiang Ran’s thoughts at a glance and smiled faintly.
“Three days ago, after Xiaoxue received that text, although she only treated it as a prank, it made her very concerned about losing her phone.”
“So she kept touching her pocket and checking her phone whenever she had a moment. That’s why, when we went shopping this afternoon, her phone wasn’t lost.”
Phew…
Cheng Mengxue let out a long breath and giggled.
“No matter what, because of that inexplicable text, my phone and Rhine Cat didn’t get lost! I’ll credit you with a major achievement!”
“If something this good happens next time, remember to send me a few lottery numbers, okay~ Then we can get rich overnight!”
“I’d like to.”
Jiang Ran did not know whether to laugh or cry.
If he really had a superpower that let him send texts to the past, who wouldn’t want to make up for regrets, seize opportunities, and achieve a perfect life?
But judging from the current situation, he had no clue at all.
However…
It was still too early to give up now.
From a physics perspective, an experiment that could succeed once would definitely be able to succeed a second time, as long as the principle behind it was figured out.
“Tomorrow afternoon, at the same time, let’s try again.”
He looked at his phone screen.
“In my memory, the text was sent at six-oh-five.”
“It’s very possible that only texts sent at that exact moment can travel through time and be delivered to the past.”
“You’re clutching at straws.” Cheng Mengxue complained.
“You can’t put it that way.”
Qin Feng took a sip of milk tea.
“A lot of scientific experiments are empirical. Before you understand why an experiment succeeded… strictly replicating every movement, every step, even every gesture of praying to the gods and Buddhas, is precisely the most effective approach.”
……
The next day, six o’clock in the afternoon.
The three of them arrived at the place where the text had been sent before.
This was the road one had to take from the library to the cafeteria. Beside it stood an enormous [transformer distribution box], a full three meters tall. When one drew near, one could even hear the buzzing hum of electric current.
Behind the distribution box was the club activities building, where faint sounds of noisy laughter could be heard.
“Yesterday, this is where I was standing when I sent the text.”
Jiang Ran stood in the exact position, then directed the other two.
“Xiaoxue, come closer and stand beside me. Qin Feng, stand here, turn your body a little to the side. The direction my phone was facing at the time… was this way.”
That was right.
It truly was clutching at straws.
But they were doing their best to perfectly replicate every aspect.
The text message had already been edited in advance, identical down to the last character.
They had even downloaded a mass-texting app. Once the button was pressed, it would bombard Cheng Mengxue’s phone with texts at a speed of one per second.
Qin Feng raised his wrist and watched his watch as he counted down.
“Ten seconds left. Five seconds. Three, two, one—send!”
Jiang Ran looked at the sunset that seemed just like yesterday’s and slammed his finger down on the send button—