The Shattered Stopwatch

"Old Goldhead, don't hang up, don't hang up, it's important!"

The guy on the other end of the phone was incredibly noisy.

It was even accompanied by a burst of angry shouts like, "One, two, one! Has no one eaten?!"

Logan's voice was laced with impatience as he urged, "Speak quickly, I'll give you ten seconds!"

"I'm bringing someone to your place later! The stadium, right?"

"No, no!" Logan replied curtly. "We'll talk about it tomorrow. I'm busy taking care of the kids! I'm swamped!"

Sing Sing tucked his phone over his shoulder, squatted down to tie his shoelaces, and said, "Really not going? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! You might regret it for a hundred years!"

"Hey! I've lived for over a hundred years, and I've had countless regrets. One more won't make a difference!"

"This one's number one, by a wide margin, a precipitous lead. Are you sure you won't regret it?"

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone, then he said through gritted teeth, "If you dare mess with me, I'll give you a full bald patch!"

After hanging up the phone, Wolverine stared blankly at the playground.

After his family visit leave was approved, he felt restless and bored all day long.

Watching your kid go to class all day isn't a good idea!

So Old Goldhead took the initiative to ask the bureau for a job: to give these new recruits physical training, euphemistically calling it military-style special training.

On the track, Daken was running his tenth lap, cursing as he ran.

From criticizing the material of the runway to the coordinates of the sun, the vocabulary is quite extensive.

"That guy surnamed Zhou brought my dad here, and my dad brought me here! We just got to meet our relatives and then I was dragged into military training!"

In the stands, Logan, a France cigar dangling from his lips, his weathered face etched with the stern authority of an instructor, roared, "One more word and you get five more laps! If you don't finish, you won't get any braised pork today!"

On the other track, the Longneck runner stretched its neck five or six meters out, trying to reach the finish line ahead of time.

But this is no small matter; it's tantamount to blatant cheating.

"Pull your neck back! Do you think this is Longneck eating leaves? No cutting corners or using shortcuts on the track!"

The Longneck snapped back, nearly hitting its own chin.

The most outrageous one was Jiafeite, who put his two little babies on the iron railings not far away.

He would run a few steps, and his two little ones would take a bite out of the iron railing.

Now that I've run this far, the railing is much shorter.

Logan's forehead veins throbbed. "Jiafeite! That's public property! If you keep chewing on it, I'll deduct it from your allowance!!"

"Coach, I'm hungry..."

Jiafeite's mouth was automatically chewing along with the two maggots, still savoring the taste.

"This railing tastes sweet, and when you chew it, it even tastes like braised pork intestines..."

Ichirai Hisako secretly condensed armor on her legs to provide a physical boost.

Exhausted, Petra collapsed on the lawn, weakly saying, "I can't go on! He's even harsher than Teacher Tang!"

Daken ran past her, adding insult to injury, "Be grateful! At least Teacher Tang won't poke your butt with her claws."

Petra grabbed a handful of turf and threw it in his face.

At the same time, Sing Sing and Silver Fox stood face to face.

"Let's go, I'll take you to open a blind box and meet your old flame."

Silver Fox stared at him for a few moments, then nodded without refusing, tightening her grip on the dagger at her waist.

Sing Sing glanced at it. "Bringing a knife to meet a fellow villager? Planning to cut off his kidney as a greeting gift?"

"Habit."

The two walked through the residential area, and Silver Fox's head never stopped moving, looking left and right, like a human scanner.

This stark contrast made her even wonder if this was some kind of advanced illusion.

A row of hospital gowns and shorts hung on the clothesline, rustling in the wind.

Two old men were playing chess by the flower bed. They argued fiercely over a move they were about to take back, and almost came to blows.

"Here..." the Silver Fox asked cautiously, "Are there really no cages to keep us here?"

Sing Sing, hands in his pockets, said matter-of-factly, "Yeah, that Scatter up right now. He's living a much better life than me. I'd like to spend a couple of days in jail to save myself forty years of wasted time."

The two arrived at Wolverine's side, one after the other.

This guy was still yelling at the children on the playground, acting like a heartless, stern judge.

Sensing the movement behind him, Logan took a drag of his cigarette and inhaled deeply.

Turning around, he was just about to greet Old Zhou when his gaze was involuntarily drawn to the woman standing against the light beside him.

She had long, bright blue hair, a wine-red cloth headband tied around her forehead, a knife at her waist, and stood ramrod straight.

For all the pain of clinging to love!

For all the pain caused by clinging to hatred!

I can no longer distinguish between love and hate. Is this how it is?

???

Sing Sing scratched his head, looking left and right.

Why is that familiar, powerful background music playing again?

And this song has been used before, hasn't it?

While singing, the stopwatch slipped from Logan's hand, hit the concrete steps, and broke in two.

Logan nearly dropped the tobacco from his mouth, his eyes swirling with disbelief and ecstasy, mixed with heart-wrenching pain...

Sing Sing felt a chill run down his spine when he saw that look in his eyes.

The entire stadium was eerily quiet; even Jiafeite forgot to chew on the metal railings.

Logan remained motionless, struggling to utter a name.

Sif...

The Silver Fox stood there blankly, its eyes vacant.

She had never seen this unshaven man before; she had no memory of his face or his voice.

"It matches! It matches the script!"

Sing Sing seeds from somewhere and cracking them open.

"One thought the other had been dead for decades, while the other didn't remember the other at all—isn't this an old-fashioned, melodramatic love story?"

On the field, Daken watched his father walk towards that woman, and his expression became complicated.

"That's my dad?"

Daken turned to Petra and asked, "Would my dad make that kind of face?"

Ichirai Hisako leaned closer and whispered, "Your dad's current situation is exactly like when my grandma saw a picture of my grandpa when he was young. It's like seeing a thousand years in a single glance, you understand?"

Longneck stretched his neck out three meters, trying to hear more clearly, but Jiafeite pulled it back.

Three meters, not too far, not too close, Logan dared not go any further.

The woman before him had been buried deep in his memory for decades, completely buried.

"Old Blue..." Logan's throat was dry, "That dog, do you remember it?"

Snow-capped mountains, wooden cabins, and the firelight in the fireplace.

An old dog lay by the door, its tail swishing listlessly across the floor; these images swirled in her mind.

She couldn't tell if this was a real memory or another fake one forcibly inserted by someone else.

The pain from those memories made it hard for her to breathe.

Thump!

With her hands covering her head, Silver Fox knelt stiffly on the ground, the hairband on her forehead soaked with cold sweat.

Logan's hand reached into the air and then stopped.

Those hands that had once torn apart countless enemies now dared not even touch a woman's shoulder, remaining frozen in place.