The night wind rose, willow branches swaying.
In the deserted depths before dawn, outside the window of the Film Club, the air was drawn taut as a bowstring.
Jiang Ran’s palm was held open in midair, his eyes fixed hard on Qin Feng’s phone.
Qin Feng pinched the phone in his right hand, his pupils staring at Jiang Ran in disbelief.
“You don’t believe me?” Qin Feng’s voice was very soft.
Jiang Ran neither confirmed nor denied it.
He did not move in the slightest.
“Can I take a look at the phone?”
He knew his expression at that moment must have looked awful, and that it must have hurt Qin Feng deeply.
But...
He couldn’t feel at ease.
That unprecedented, terrifying hallucination just now had driven his panic to its peak.
Qin Feng took a deep breath and handed the phone over.
“Here.”
Jiang Ran took the phone and looked at the screen.
It was the text message sending page. The recipient was indeed Qin Feng’s phone number, and the content of the message was not long, only four short lines:
[This is a spacetime text message from ten days in the future. Please go to Old Qi Appliance Repair Shop on Old Appliance Street as soon as possible. There is a knob control board there that is very suitable for the positron cannon.]
That was all.
Jiang Ran read it twice.
There was no hidden information anywhere.
And he knew that the shop that sold circuit boards was indeed called Old Qi Appliance Repair Shop.
This text message... had no problem at all.
The one who was being excessively suspicious and overthinking things was himself.
Qin Feng smiled and looked at Jiang Ran.
“You thought I might pull some trick and find a way to save my father, didn’t you?”
As always.
He still saw through Jiang Ran so easily, just as Jiang Ran could always see through him.
Years of tacit understanding and familiarity meant there were no secrets between the two of them. Everything was transparent.
“Sorry.”
Jiang Ran said in a low voice.
A thousand words condensed into one.
For this act of distrusting a friend, he did not know how to explain himself, nor how to make excuses.
“It’s all right.”
Qin Feng was still as magnanimous as ever.
“It’s normal for you to have concerns like this. Besides, it’s not as if you’ve only been suspicious and prone to overthinking for a day or two. I got used to it long ago.”
With that, he stretched out his hand.
“You’ve confirmed the text message. Then how about giving the phone back to me so we can start the countdown for the positron cannon again?”
Unexpectedly.
Jiang Ran did not move at all.
He thought for a few seconds, lowered the phone, and looked at Qin Feng.
“Can I be the one to send this text message?”
?
“Jiang Ran, you...”
Cheng Mengxue, lying by the window, had heard their entire conversation.
To be honest.
In this situation, even she felt that Jiang Ran was going a little too far.
If he truly didn’t trust Qin Feng, then they might as well not send this spacetime text message at all;
But now, after having rejected Qin Feng once and then agreeing to compensate him once, he was still suspecting his friend like this...
How could he do that?
“It’s fine.”
Qin Feng put his hands in his pockets, took a few steps back, and leaned against the distribution box.
“Then you send it.”
Cheng Mengxue’s lips parted slightly as she looked at the two of them.
In the end.
She bit her red lips tightly and retreated back inside.
“Fine. Do whatever you want.”
She pushed the window completely open.
“It’s the dead of night now, and there’s nothing to interfere with us. I can be in charge of the countdown from inside.”
“The rhythm will be the same as before. When the countdown reaches zero, I’ll activate the positron cannon, and then Jiang Ran will send the text message.”
“Qin Feng... then, you just stand outside.”
Shaking her head, Cheng Mengxue walked back to the experimental table.
...
The leaves rustled, and the cicadas’ cries rose and fell in fragments.
Jiang Ran looked at the edited text message on the phone, his thumb suspended in midair.
It was awkward.
He had no face to speak to Qin Feng, and no courage to look at him.
“Jiang Ran.”
Ah, truly, whatever one feared would come. Qin Feng called his name.
Jiang Ran moved his gaze away from the phone screen and looked at Qin Feng beside the distribution box.
“Actually, when I first suggested using a spacetime text message to save my father, I hesitated too. I hesitated just like you.”
Qin Feng said softly,
“Do you know what I was hesitating about?”
Jiang Ran paused for two seconds.
“You were worried about being separated from us, right?”
The spacetime butterfly effect was uncontrollable. No one could predict how history would change after being altered.
The fact that Qin Feng had met Jiang Ran and Cheng Mengxue, and that the three of them had become the closest trio, was all because Qin Feng had come to Hang City No. 1 High School, and then, after his father passed away, had been bullied by others. Only then had this friendship come about.
Thinking about it from another angle.
If Qin Feng’s father had not died ten years ago...
Would Qin Feng still have come to Hang City No. 1 High School?
Maybe he would. Maybe he wouldn’t.
Either possibility existed.
If Qin Feng’s father moved away because of work or some other reason, then Qin Feng would not come to Hang City No. 1 High School, and naturally would never meet Jiang Ran and Cheng Mengxue. This friendship would then vanish into nothing.
Taking a step back.
Even if Qin Feng did come to Hang City No. 1 High School, because his father had not died, those bad kids would never have bullied him. In that case, he would likewise lose the opportunity to encounter Jiang Ran and Cheng Mengxue.
There was an old saying: on the road of life, one wrong step leads to every step going wrong.
Was the shifting of world lines not the same?
Every person’s life, though it seemed accidental, was in truth an inevitability pushed forward by countless accidents...
A miss by a hair, and the result differs by a thousand li.
“Heh.”
Qin Feng laughed, just as expected.
“You can always see right through me. You can guess everything I’m thinking.”
“That’s right. At the time, the thing I hesitated over the most, the thing I was most reluctant to part with, was the two of you.”
He raised his head and looked at the moonlit, starry sky.
“I’m different from you. I don’t have that special constitution. I won’t retain memories from before the world line changes.”
“So, once I send a spacetime text message to myself ten years ago and save my father, the entire course of history over these ten years will change. Without even realizing it, I’ll walk into another kind of life.”
“It’s very possible that I won’t go to Hang City No. 1 High School, and that I won’t come to Donghai University together with you. We might not even become friends at all...”
“After the world line changes, on the brand-new world line, we’ll be strangers who know nothing about each other.”
He paused.
Then he continued,
“I said before that I miss my father very much, but I also can’t bear to part with you. To me, both sides of the scale weigh the same.”
“So when Xiaoxue suggested voting back then, I chose to give up because I didn’t want to face this kind of outcome.”
“Jiang Ran, don’t you think this feeling is cruel?”
He turned back. Their eyes met, and Qin Feng’s voice was clear.
“[After the world line changes, we, who are so close, will instantly become strangers.]”
“[All feelings and experiences will cease to exist. Each of us will live our own life... No one will remember the iron triangle we are now.]”
“I will remember.”
Jiang Ran reminded him,
“I have the special constitution of full spacetime memory. So no matter how the world line changes, I will remember everything we’ve been through, remember how close we were, remember that we are the best friends in the world.”
Qin Feng smiled faintly.
“Yes, you will remember. But only you will remember.”
“But feelings and friendship go both ways... If only you remember, then it’s no use.”
“The feelings in a person’s heart come from a series of shared experiences. Without those experiences, all adjectives are empty talk.”
“You and Xiaoxue are childhood friends. No matter how the world line changes, it won’t affect your relationship.”
“But I only met you in high school. Any tiny spacetime butterfly effect at all could make me drift far away from your lives.”
“So there’s a question, Jiang Ran, that I’ve always wanted to ask you.”
He put away his smile, and his voice became heavy.
“If the world line changes and causes me to be separated from you, turning us into strangers on the new world line... what will you do?”
The night wind turned slightly cool. Qin Feng looked into Jiang Ran’s eyes.
“[On the new world line, will you find me again?]”