Jiang Yang abruptly sat up in bed, gasping heavily.
The air conditioner had kept the room at a comfortable 26 degrees, yet Jiang Yang was already drenched in cold sweat.
He could not stop himself from trembling faintly, his mind still trapped in the terror and despair from before, unable to break free.
After panting for a long while, he finally regained a little calm and was able to look around at his surroundings.
It was a small room with very simple furnishings, containing only a few necessary pieces of furniture and appliances.
Jiang Yang was very familiar with this little room.
He had been renting it for more than a year.
“Wasn’t I outside eating barbecue? How did I end up back here in the blink of an eye…”
Wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, he picked up the phone beside him.
The date was August 9, 2036, seven o’clock in the morning.
Hm?
Jiang Yang rubbed his eyes in confusion and looked again, but the time had not changed.
Yet he clearly remembered that the current time should have been the night of August 18, 2036!
Jiang Yang scrambled out of bed and turned on his computer, only to see that the time displayed on the computer was also August 9, 2036, seven o’clock in the morning.
Still unable to believe it, he opened a webpage and searched for the National Time Service Center, only to see the same time once more.
Then there was absolutely no mistake.
But…
It was clearly only August 9 right now, so why did he think it should be August 18?
Sitting stiffly in his chair, Jiang Yang tried hard to recall. In that instant, it was as if some sluice gate had been opened, and memories surged in like a tide.
He remembered.
He had experienced this moment before. Only, unlike this time, when he had previously lived through this day, he had gotten up and washed as usual, then gone to work at the company and passed this ordinary day. Then the days repeated one after another, until after he got off work on August 18.
Because there was an important football match that night, he had specifically gone to a football bar, ordered barbecue and beer, and watched the match with many fellow fans.
But he had never expected that when the match was only halfway through, just as the time reached midnight, a violent pain would sweep through his entire body.
His first instinct had been food poisoning, because he had clearly seen the other fans in the football bar collapse one after another, wailing in agony just like him.
But when he saw the live broadcast of the football match on television—saw the players who had been full of life just a moment ago, as well as the tens of thousands of spectators in the stands, all collapse in pain at the same time—Jiang Yang immediately realized that this was absolutely not food poisoning.
That football match was being held on the other side of the Earth!
Not only that, he also saw, on the street outside the bar, pedestrians enjoying the night collapse in pain at the same time. Countless cars on the road simultaneously lost control and crashed, and even raging fires broke out.
Jiang Yang clearly remembered that at the time, he had truly felt the process of life draining away.
Amid that indescribable, immense agony, life had left his body bit by bit, and his consciousness had sunk into a void.
Then in the next instant, he had awakened again, right here in the apartment building he rented.
These memories were so real that almost instantly, Jiang Yang was certain this was absolutely not a dream, nor an illusion, but something he had genuinely experienced.
Since this was not a dream, and the current time was genuinely August 9, then there was only one explanation.
After dying, he had been reborn ten days in the past!
“Then… how did I die?”
Barely suppressing the fear in his heart, Jiang Yang tried hard to think.
“This, this definitely wasn’t an isolated incident. Me, the fans in the bar, the pedestrians outside the bar, the drivers on the road, and the players and spectators in the stadium…
Right, and the match commentators! Although I didn’t see their images, I heard their screams!
So many places, so many people, all feeling that pain at the same time, regardless of region, regardless of day or night, regardless of gender, age… This, this…”
A word that filled Jiang Yang with horror surfaced in his mind.
The end of the world!
Perhaps… while everyone remained utterly unaware, the apocalypse had quietly descended. In just a few short minutes, through some indescribable agony of unknown cause, it had taken his life and the lives of everyone within sight—more likely, the lives of everyone on the entire Earth—and then, for some inexplicable reason, he had been reborn to this moment ten days before the apocalypse.
After figuring all this out, Jiang Yang suddenly felt a slight change occur in his mind.
It was as though he could sense the flow of time. At the same time, he could also clearly sense that within this long river of time, there was an “anchor point” belonging to him nailed to eight o’clock this morning.
A flash of understanding arose in his heart.
“As long as I die, time will rewind to eight o’clock this morning.
This is a loop, a loop that begins at eight o’clock this morning and ends ten days later at midnight, when the apocalypse arrives and I encounter death.
Only by defeating the apocalypse and surviving through it can the time loop be broken, and the long river of time continue flowing forward.
If I can’t break the loop, I—no, all of human civilization—will remain trapped forever in this segment of time, endlessly enduring the torment of death descending again and again.
Of course, no one else will know this torment. Because with every loop, everyone else’s memories will be wiped clean. I’m the only one who can retain my memories.”
Recalling the extreme pain before his death, a pain that seemed to originate from every inch of his body, every organ, every nerve, every cell, Jiang Yang shuddered.
He stood up and pulled open the curtains to look outside.
At eight o’clock on a summer morning, the streets were already quite lively.
People bustled to and fro, and traffic flowed endlessly.
Lifting his head, Jiang Yang saw the azure sky. At the same time, he also seemed to see the brilliant starry expanse and the vast universe hidden beyond the sky, concealed by it.
“I wonder which miraculous existence in the boundless universe granted me the ability to loop through time…”
But for the moment, that was not important.
What mattered was that since he possessed this ability, he ought to do something.
Whether it was to avoid suffering the torment of death over and over again, or to save all of civilization, he ought to do something.
“Save the world…”
A bitter smile appeared at the corner of Jiang Yang’s mouth.
“I’m just an ordinary person. I can’t even afford a house and have to rent a place to live. Asking me to save the world is thinking far too highly of me.
Forget one loop—even ten thousand loops wouldn’t make it possible.
Since that’s the case, there’s only one choice.
Report it to the state!”