The One Who Changed Fate (Part 1)

Fang Xiu shoved Wang Hao into a Gunny Sack, dragged him around on an electric scooter, and dumped him back into that dark little alley.

By the time Wang Hao wriggled free from the unsealed Gunny Sack, Fang Xiu had long since vanished without a trace.

Wang Hao fled home in terror and hid in his room, trembling all over. But he did not dare call the police. He feared that strange masked man, and he feared that gloomy, terrifying underground parking garage even more.

"Why am I so damn unlucky? I actually ran into a lunatic on the road." Wang Hao hid beneath his blanket and wiped away his tears. The marks the belt had lashed across his body still ached.

Meanwhile, the merciless Fang Xiu, whose hand crushed flowers without mercy, returned to the gates of No. 2 High School. It was already late at night, and the school had long turned off its lights and entered its nightly routine.

The main gate was tightly locked. Fang Xiu pulled up the hood of his hoodie.

It was summer, so Fang Xiu's outfit looked unbearably hot. Although he could use the powers of the Deceitful Clown's Face, the number of times he could use it was limited. Fang Xiu could not possibly use it for every trivial matter. That would be far too wasteful.

He climbed over the side wall, avoided the surveillance cameras, then smashed open the lock on the guardroom and swaggered inside.

"The time travel should have happened three nights ago, near the start of evening self-study. I just need to pull up the surveillance from that period and focus on it."

Fang Xiu turned on the guardroom computer. From here, he could access and view footage from every surveillance camera on campus. The clues he wanted were surely somewhere within. Since most of the footage was blank, Fang Xiu constantly fast-forwarded, slowed down, paused, and searched for the scenes he needed.

"Something's wrong. Why are ten minutes missing here?"

Fang Xiu was the first to spot a problem in one segment of footage. It came from the surveillance camera behind the dormitory building, likely installed by the school to prevent students from climbing over the rear wall and sneaking out. Behind it were the boiler room and a large vegetable plot.

The discovery made Fang Xiu's expression harden. He had a bad feeling. Next, in footage from the teaching building and Maple Tree Road, he found more instances of time skipping.

"Did someone delete the footage? Did he know in advance that someone would come check the surveillance?"

Fang Xiu felt as though the other party knew every one of his actions like the back of his hand. It was an awful feeling, one that put him at a tremendous disadvantage.

Was this what a time traveler was? Someone who knew everything he might face, foresaw the future, and planned every step with care?

At that moment, Fang Xiu felt that he had been too optimistic before. Sure enough, anyone capable of troubling the Dominator of Time and Space was no simple opponent.

Bzzzt!

Bzzzt!

As Fang Xiu lowered his head in thought, the images on the computer and several surveillance screen splits blurred simultaneously, showing signs of being cut off.

Fang Xiu immediately tensed up and watched his surroundings. He had encountered too many strange incidents; even when walking alone at night, he guarded against little ghosts.

At last, images appeared on the fuzzy screens. Then a man's voice came from several screens at once. The computer and the surveillance monitors all displayed the same face.

He was a man around thirty. His pale skin made him look unhealthy, and his lifeless eyes stared straight at Fang Xiu. He was Wang Hao—but not eighteen-year-old Wang Hao. This was Wang Hao from more than a decade in the future.

Sure enough, the other party had not merely sent his consciousness and soul back to this era. His actual body had traveled through time. It was even more miraculous than Fang Xiu's life-saving skill, the Silver Clock, exactly matching one of Fang Xiu's earlier guesses.

Fang Xiu looked at the camera on the desk and immediately understood that the other party had taken control of the computer. He was watching him.

As if he had finally adjusted himself, thirty-year-old Wang Hao finally began to speak.

"Sure enough, you finally noticed me, though you were a few days late." His face held a familiar smile, without the slightest panic at having his greatest secret exposed.

"Oh, right. This is our first meeting here, isn't it? You look much younger in temperament, and you actually seem more approachable. You're not as frightening anymore." Wang Hao spoke as though he were extremely familiar with Fang Xiu.

"What's going on? He knows me? Or has he met the future me?" In an instant, Fang Xiu formed a preliminary judgment. Those few fragmented words even led him to think of much more.

On the monitor, thirty-year-old Wang Hao sat upright and bowed deeply to Fang Xiu, his expression incomparably solemn. "Please give me one week to finish what I need to do. When the time comes, you may punish me however you wish. I will come to your door myself and accept your punishment. Even if I die, or my soul is exiled and imprisoned, I will have no complaints."

Fang Xiu could not understand this man. Compared to his eighteen-year-old self—that timid, cowardly-looking high school student—he seemed like an entirely different person. More than ten years of change were enough to leave a person utterly unrecognizable.

"It seems you didn't flee to this era to enjoy life. You had plans and preparations long ago. You even knew what era you would travel to."

"Then does that mean you traveled through time voluntarily? Do you possess the ability to travel through time?"

Wang Hao said, "As for that, I will tell you in person in a few days. Do not try to find me. The current you cannot find me. You currently possess four extraordinary items, I believe: the Giant Force Hand, the Deceitful Clown's Face, the Saint's Ring, and the Deep One's Blood. I've seen all the previous news reports."

Fang Xiu felt that this was truly becoming troublesome. "I cannot allow you to continue like this. As a time traveler, your interference with time and space is too great. I do not know whether the consequences of any casual action you take will be good or bad. It is very possible that one unintentional act of yours will send the future plunging into an abyss that cannot be grasped or predicted."

Wang Hao smiled. "Please rest assured. I have made comprehensive preparations. Everything will develop in a better direction, while changing the course of fate as little as possible."

Fang Xiu immediately slammed his hand on the desk and roared, "How can you be so sure?"

Wang Hao fell silent for a moment. "I'm sorry! But I really... want to change fate. Someone high above like you cannot understand the suffering of us ordinary people. We do not ask for much, but... I'm truly... sorry!"

After Wang Hao said that, the screen went dark.

Fang Xiu's face was grave. This opponent was more troublesome than the previous three monster Killers. The imbalance in intelligence and information left Fang Xiu feeling as though he had nowhere to begin.

There was no need to keep watching the surveillance footage. Continuing would likely yield nothing. Fang Xiu stood, left the guardroom, and pulled up his hood. He began habitually organizing the other party's information, judging how his next move should proceed.

"The other party possesses hacking skills."

"The other party has information from the future and knows the future's direction and development."

"The other party knows me, and knows me very well. He knew I would come to No. 2 High School to investigate him. He knows every detail about the extraordinary items currently in my possession and their functions. He can even predict my future actions."

At that thought, Fang Xiu could not help kicking the tree beside him. "Damn! This is practically cheating. How am I supposed to play?"

Taking a deep breath, Fang Xiu rubbed his temples and forced himself to calm down.

"Don't think so much. First, check the places where the footage's time was cut out. Since he deliberately removed them, there must be something he does not want me to see. Even if there are clues inside the teaching building, students come and go constantly, so they must have already been rubbed away. That means I can only..."

"Also, investigate whether anything strange has happened at No. 2 High School recently. Tieba, the Weibo posts and WeChat Moments of students and teachers, things like that. In such a small circle, if something abnormal happened, it should be easy to uncover every detail."

"And since he traveled back, he must want to change his own future and fate. So as long as I keep an eye on high school student Wang Hao, I'll definitely find him."

Fang Xiu closed his eyes and thought as he walked. He followed the school's main road inward, passed beside the basketball court, and went down the slope to a T-junction. Giant Maple Trees lined the place. One could imagine that when boys and girls walked down this road, it was quite a romantic sight.

Fang Xiu first went behind the dormitory. The students were already asleep, but Fang Xiu did not dare turn on a flashlight. Fortunately, the moonlight was bright enough for him to see his surroundings clearly.

The traces on the ground were chaotic: footprints, bicycle tracks, tricycle tracks.

Fang Xiu stood beneath the camera and looked up. He immediately saw that an asbestos-tile water pipe above had been smashed open. The marks were fresh; it had clearly not been broken long ago. In the vegetable plot below, he also saw that a patch of densely growing vegetables was missing.

In an instant, Fang Xiu could imagine it: something had fallen from above, smashed through the asbestos-tile water pipe, and then landed in the vegetable plot.

"Did he travel through time from here?"

Fang Xiu looked up at the sky, then lowered his head, recalling that the tricycle tracks he had just seen had felt wrong.

Fang Xiu measured the width of those tricycle tracks and found that they were less than a meter wide. This definitely was not some tricycle.

"Not a tricycle? Then what was it?"

"A wheelchair?"