“Don’t touch me!”
Jiang Ran hurriedly dodged aside, swiftly putting distance between himself and the girl.
He looked this colorful girl up and down.
She was about 165 centimeters tall, neither tall nor short; her features were delicate, her figure lovely, and her brows and eyes were full of impish cleverness… But what made it hardest to look away was still her exaggerated waterfall of long pink hair.
The color was probably dyed. It was glossy and smooth, permed into big waves. For Jiang Ran’s tastes, this hairstyle was far too trendy—he really couldn’t accept it.
If it were cosplay, he could still understand. But who would wear pajamas to cosplay in the middle of the night?
But under the current circumstances, Jiang Ran had no time to consider such extraneous questions.
A thought suddenly struck him.
Could it be… that this girl was the “Xiuxiu” Wang Hao had mentioned?
From what the girl had just said, she was even his girlfriend?
Utter nonsense!
Jiang Ran had never been in a relationship in his entire life. The type he had always liked was gentle, quiet, bookish girls… This pink-haired girl was completely not his type.
The girl watched Jiang Ran jump away like a rabbit.
She tilted her head.
Blinked her big eyes.
She looked utterly puzzled.
Then she stood on tiptoe and moved closer again.
“What’s wrong? Did you drink too much? Or do you have a fever?”
As she spoke, she was about to press her palm to Jiang Ran’s forehead.
Jiang Ran nimbly dodged again.
Though he didn’t understand the situation, this was not a place to linger.
He swept his gaze left and right, found his shoes and clothes, put them on briskly, opened the door, and left.
“Hey! Jiang Ran!”
The pink-haired girl quickly chased after him.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?”
Jiang Ran ignored her and went straight out the door.
Sure enough.
This wasn’t a hotel, just a bedroom on the second floor of a villa.
Outside the bedroom was an enormous living room. Empty bottles and cans sat on the bar counter, and all kinds of snack bags were scattered across the floor.
He glanced at the layout, then headed for the stairs leading down.
Creak.
A nearby door was pushed open.
A girl wearing a white camisole and white pajama pants, with short golden-yellow dyed hair, walked out.
She was also slender, and also exceptionally pretty.
What was this? A model gathering?
Oh, no.
Jiang Ran recalled what Wang Hao had said over the phone. This seemed to be a birthday party, held in a villa rented by “Xiuxiu’s” close friend.
“Jiang Ran, where are you going?”
The yellow-haired girl’s tone was casual, as if she were very familiar with Jiang Ran.
“Where’s Xiuxiu?”
Jiang Ran glanced at her, but his footsteps did not pause in the slightest as he walked past.
“Huh? Ignoring people?”
The girl leaned against the doorframe and pressed him.
“I was taking a shower just now. Xiuxiu said she was going to your room to borrow the bathroom. Why are you getting dressed and leaving now?”
Still receiving no response, Jiang Ran had already stepped onto the stairs and headed down.
“Psycho!”
The girl cursed under her breath, then walked toward another bedroom.
“Xiuxiu! What’s wrong with Jiang Ran? His face looked awful. Did you two have a fight?”
…
Opening the villa’s front door and walking out through the courtyard, all Jiang Ran could see were detached villas.
It seemed this really was some villa resort area—and a very high-end one at that.
Jiang Ran ran straight to the entrance and got into a taxi.
“Sir, to Donghai University.”
Right now, he had no room for distractions.
He only wanted to quickly figure out what exactly had happened to him, Qin Feng, and Cheng Mengxue.
Ring ring ring, ring ring ring, ring ring ring—
The taxi had just started moving when his phone rang.
He picked it up and saw that it was a WeChat video call from “Nan Xiuxiu.”
Jiang Ran enlarged the profile picture.
The pink was blinding.
No mistake. It was the pink-haired girl who had just given him a midnight fright in that room.
From the looks of it…
That girl’s name was Nan Xiuxiu.
He couldn’t understand why, on this brand-new world line, he would be mixed up with a girl like that—and even be in a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship with her.
But right now, he couldn’t worry about that. He had something more important to do.
“Xiao Xue… is she really dead?”
His mind was filled with Cheng Mengxue.
Even though Wang Hao had said it so clearly, he still didn’t dare believe it.
Ring ring ring, ring ring ring, ring ring ring—
The phone was still ringing.
Jiang Ran hung up directly, switched his phone to Do Not Disturb mode, and rejected all calls and notifications.
Then he opened his phone’s photo album and rapidly scrolled through it from top to bottom.
He was trying to find traces of Cheng Mengxue among the countless photos…
But reality was cruel.
There wasn’t a single one.
Not one photo related to Cheng Mengxue.
Only when he reached the very bottom of the album did a high school graduation class photo appear.
Clinging to his final sliver of hope, he hurriedly tapped open the photo, enlarged it, and looked toward the familiar spot—
Nothing.
Nothing.
He found where he himself was standing with a single glance, but beside him there was no Qin Feng, and no Cheng Mengxue either. He searched every corner of the photo, yet he did not see those two familiar faces.
And…
Judging from his own expression in the photo.
His head was lowered, his bangs covering his eyes, without the slightest smile. He looked very sad.
At this moment.
The sorrow spanning time and space seemed to merge into one, dense and heavy, like a flood and a savage beast swallowing Jiang Ran whole.
He panted for breath.
Clutching at his heart, which was throbbing so hard it hurt.
After leaving that troublesome villa and briefly calming down enough to think, he finally accepted this fact—
Cheng Mengxue truly had already passed away, dying two years ago.
Jiang Ran’s palm was ice-cold.
First of all.
One thing could be confirmed.
All these unforeseen changes originated from that spacetime text message Qin Feng had sent.
That text message triggered a shift in the world line, and the intense butterfly effect changed history beyond recognition.
There was absolutely no mistake about that.
Then, continuing to reason from that premise.
A spacetime text message sent to ten days ago could not possibly affect history from two years ago, or even earlier, no matter what.
He suddenly recalled the conversation he had with Qin Feng before eating barbecue that day.
“What have you been tinkering with all this time?”
At the time, Qin Feng had been modifying the positron cannon at the lab bench, and Jiang Ran had been very curious.
“The positron cannon is already perfect now. What are you still busy with?”
“Perfect?”
Qin Feng chuckled.
“Far from it.”
“Have you forgotten? Right now, the positron cannon can only run for 0.7 seconds. I want to try solving that problem.”
…
Right.
The suspicious point was right there.
The positron cannon could only run for 0.7 seconds. That was a design flaw that had long since been established and could not be overcome. Qin Feng had no need to waste effort on it.
He was lying.
Then, that night, what exactly had Qin Feng been modifying?
It seemed he had taken apart the knob control panel.
It seemed he had resoldered the circuits.
“So… that’s how it is.”
He opened his eyes, having understood everything.
That knob control panel could digitally adjust the time point to which the text message would be sent.
The first knob adjusted the year.
The second knob adjusted the month.
The third knob adjusted the day.
The fourth knob adjusted the hour.
Then…
If Qin Feng had modified and swapped the internal wiring, reversing the circuits for the first knob and the third knob…
That meant.
Although the first knob was labeled as controlling “years,” it actually controlled “days”!
And although the third knob was labeled as controlling “days,” it actually controlled “years”!
The ten days displayed on that control panel actually represented ten years!
So.
The text message Qin Feng composed had not been sent to ten days ago.
Instead, unprecedentedly, it had crossed the distant river of time…
And been sent…
“To ten years ago.”