Normal Distribution Selection Method

Normal Distribution Selection Method

Zhang Heng ran seven laps around the track, 2,800 meters.

Afterward, he showered in the public bathhouse, changed into a clean white T-shirt and jeans, ate breakfast at a leisurely pace in the cafeteria, then tucked the Kaleidoscope of Mount Xiao he had just finished under his arm and headed to the library.

Like morning runs, reading was one of Zhang Heng's habits. He kept up a pace of one book a week.

But unlike the morning runs Grandpa had forced on him, reading brought him plenty of enjoyment. It was a pastime, and he had always enjoyed it.

In fact, if time had not been limited, he would have liked to read several more books each week.

After returning his book at the service desk, Zhang Heng pulled out his phone.

He opened a mini-program called Random Number Generator, set it to eight digits, and then... eagerly rolled the dice.

It had to be said, there was a reason people always thought this guy was practically a god.

After all, no normal person could pull off something as ridiculous as choosing library books by rolling numbers.

But Zhang Heng had one advantage when it came to reading, or perhaps one bizarre quirk. Maybe because he had read so much since childhood, he could stomach anything and had maxed-out resistance to bad writing. From world classics to brainless power-fantasy webnovels, even Jinjiang-style CEO romances, he could read them all with relish. And his condition kept worsening. By now, even Compendium of Materia Medica and Scientific Pig-Raising Manual could hold his attention. He was basically beyond saving.

To avoid the trouble of picking books while still enjoying the simple delight of stumbling across a good one, he had invented this Normal Distribution Selection Method.

Unfortunately, when he applied for the campus research award, he had failed to make the cut and received no funding for further promotion.

It just went to show that the capital market had no eye for talent.

Based on the last two digits of the number he had rolled, Zhang Heng went to the corresponding bookshelf.

His luck this time was not bad. Though he had not drawn the best possible category, literature, business and management were pretty interesting too. At least it was much better than the book he had rolled last month, Bill of Quantities Valuation for Water Supply, Drainage, Heating, and Gas Engineering.

He reached out and pulled his target from the shelf.

—Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations.

It looked like he was in for a pleasant morning.

Zhang Heng found a seat by the window and settled into a leisurely reading session.

Some people might have felt the urge to complain at this point. Seriously? He was just going to ignore that sentient watch of his?

Zhang Heng's answer was that he really could not do much about it.

It was right to respond actively after something happened, but only when it was something within your ability to handle. With supernatural phenomena like this, when there were too few clues, perhaps doing nothing was the best choice. Hadn't all those mentors in classic horror films who eagerly turned around after someone patted them on the back in a pitch-black old house ended up dead without exception?

On the other hand, if you acted as though it did not exist and calmly kept walking, it might turn out to be nothing more than a scary but harmless haunted-house trip.

So, in many situations, staying calm was the most important thing.

Zhang Heng was very calm right now. From the outside, no one could possibly tell that he was in the middle of a paranormal incident. He used the time he had skipped class to make up for his morning run, spent the entire morning reading The Wealth of Nations in the library, attended his Critical Thinking elective properly in the afternoon, and in the evening made good on his promise by treating his roommates to grilled skewers at Gourmet Alley across the street by Min University. After returning to the dorm, he even had the mood to binge a few episodes of an American TV show.

Then, at eleven thirty, the dormitory power went out on schedule.

Although Zhang Heng's laptop had its own battery and could last another three or four hours, he did not want to disturb his roommates' rest, so he decisively shut it down.

There were still thirty minutes before the day ended. Other people's watches had already completed two full revolutions, while the hour hand of the familiar yet unfamiliar Starfish on his wrist had only just finished one.

Would something happen? Zhang Heng did not know. All he could do now was wait.

Zhang Heng put on his headphones, turned on his MP3 player, lay down on his bed, and quietly spent the remaining half hour of the day.

00:00

The three hands overlapped precisely at the top of the dial. They seemed to pause for the blink of an eye before the second hand continued moving.

During that time, Zhang Heng did not notice anything unusual.

Had his guess been wrong? He took off his headphones.

But immediately afterward, he sensed that something was off.

It was too quiet around him.

Summer nights were always especially lively. The little electric fan on the door creaked as it shook its head, mosquitoes buzzed annoyingly by his ears, droplets from the loose faucet in the washroom next door plinked into the sink, stray cats rustled through the flowerbeds downstairs, and of course, there was the snoring from the bed diagonally across from his...

Tonight, all of it had vanished.

The entire world seemed to have suddenly lost every sound, becoming quieter than ever before.

If not for the faint music still coming from the headphones resting against his chest, Zhang Heng might even have suspected that he had lost his hearing.

Using the faint glow of the MP3 screen, he looked at the time on his watch again.

It was now 00:01.

Normally, the dorm room across the hall would still be playing League of Legends online at this hour, and he could hear them cheering after spectacular kills or narrow escapes.

Besides that, Zhang Heng noticed something else unusual. There was a date display on the right side of Starfish's dial. Logically, once midnight passed, the date should have changed along with it. But this time, it was still stuck on yesterday.

Something stirred in Zhang Heng's mind. It seemed he had thought of something.

He had not taken off his clothes when he went to bed that night, and he jumped straight down from the upper bunk.

He started his computer. The boot-up went smoothly and took less than seven seconds, with QQ's login screen popping up along the way. But Zhang Heng was not paying attention to that. His gaze shifted down to the taskbar, where the date and time were glaringly conspicuous.

00:00

2017/9/20

So this really was the final moment of "yesterday"?

Zhang Heng waited a while longer. He did not look at the time on Starfish. Instead, he felt his own pulse and counted two hundred beats. At his usual rate of seventy-two beats per minute, more than two minutes should have passed, yet the time on the desktop remained at 00:00.

Zhang Heng raised an eyebrow, but did not rush to draw any conclusions.

He walked to the opposite bed and shook Chen Huadong, who was still sound asleep. Chen Huadong was the lightest sleeper in the dorm. Normally, even someone getting out of bed for a drink in the middle of the night would wake him. Yet this time, no matter how Zhang Heng shook him, he did not react at all.

"Sorry, bro. I may not have a girlfriend, but I'm not the kind of person you think I am."

As he placed a finger beneath the other man's nostrils, Zhang Heng still found time to crack a joke in the midst of this eerie atmosphere.

All that could be said was that this guy's nerves were incredibly strong.

After five minutes, Zhang Heng could not feel the slightest trace of breath.

If this was also part of some prank, then Chen Huadong's breath-holding skills were absurdly good. He could go compete for Guinness World Records.

Since he had done it once, doing it a second and third time made no difference.

Zhang Heng then repeated the process, checking beneath the noses of his other two roommates.

The result was the same as with Chen Huadong.

Zhang Heng could now basically confirm that he had indeed encountered a supernatural phenomenon that science could not explain.

He was currently inside a stretch of time that should not have existed.

To put it another way, it was as if the river of time had split off a tributary specifically for him.