Making Money

The three of them clearly had their own little schemes in mind.

Their expressions had already given them away, especially once Jiang Ran started smiling.

The three exchanged glances, and in the end, without a word, they all said in unison:

"Lottery!" "Lottery!" "Lottery!"

They burst into laughter.

"Great minds think alike."

Qin Feng grinned.

"Knowing you two, I knew you'd both been thinking about this for ages."

"Didn't you want to do it too?"

"Of course I did. I thought of it the first time I tested it."

Jiang Ran spread his hands.

"It's only natural to think that way. You have to keep your feet on the ground before you can look up at the stars. Let's see... Perfect, today's the Double Color Ball drawing."

Double Color Ball was one of the most common lotteries.

It had six plus one numbers. Guess them all, and you won the first prize of five million yuan. Guess the first six numbers, and you won second prize, whose amount varied but was generally around 200,000 yuan.

The lottery was drawn every two days. At 9:15 p.m. on drawing day, the results were broadcast live on television.

"Pretty lucky."

Jiang Ran opened his laptop and found the live broadcast.

"We'll wait ten minutes or so. Once the winning numbers are announced, we'll send a Spacetime Bulletin to our past selves."

"Whether the message reaches us three days ago, two days ago, yesterday, or even just a few hours ago, we'll still have time to buy tickets."

There was no denying it: the lottery plan was exhilarating.

The atmosphere in the club room was jubilant.

A little over ten minutes later, the winning numbers were announced. Jiang Ran wrote them down on a sheet of paper and handed it to Qin Feng.

"What for?" Qin Feng asked, confused.

"Your turn to send the message this time."

Jiang Ran said:

"Let's switch things up and see whether you'll retain [Omni-Spacetime Memory] this time."

"I can't... I need to operate this."

Qin Feng pointed at the Positron Cannon.

"I adjusted the focusing device to one-fifth of its previous strength. Let's see if we can send the message to yesterday."

"There are some other details, too. Neither of you could handle them, and I wouldn't feel comfortable letting you operate it."

"Good point."

Jiang Ran turned and handed the paper to Cheng Mengxue.

"Then you send the message. Use your own phone and send the lottery numbers to mine."

Cheng Mengxue nodded.

"Should we tell our past selves not to buy first-prize tickets? That would be too conspicuous."

"Heh, our past selves aren't idiots."

Jiang Ran was confident.

"Our past selves are still us. We're not exactly stupid."

"Second prize is definitely the better choice. I just checked: every Double Color Ball drawing has several hundred second-prize winners nationwide. We'll blend right in."

Once they had their plan, the three took their positions.

Cheng Mengxue held her phone, standing right up against the transformer's power distribution box.

"You don't have to stand quite that close..."

Jiang Ran warned her:

"Getting electrocuted wouldn't be fun."

Qin Feng stayed in charge of the Positron Cannon, while Jiang Ran climbed onto the windowsill to count down.

"Five! Four! Three! Two! One!"

His eyes fixed on Cheng Mengxue's finger...

"Zero!"

The Positron Cannon roared! Cheng Mengxue hit send—

Buzz!

Buzz!

Buzz!

The familiar dizziness washed over them, and the world turned upside down.

Jiang Ran felt himself fall from the windowsill, as if he'd been shoved into a washing machine. The whole world spun around him.

[The Worldline has changed!]

It seemed that no matter who sent the message or whose phone they used, as long as the necessary conditions were met, the Spacetime Bulletin would go through.

The sender, recipient, phone, and message content... None of those mattered.

Only the Positron Cannon and the transformer's power distribution box were essential.

At a glance, there were plenty of transformer boxes of the same specifications around the school. Perhaps one could be substituted for another in the same location.

But the Positron Cannon was the only one of its kind.

It was an accidental creation, cobbled together from odds and ends, its principles a mystery. No one could replicate it.

Two seconds later.

The dizziness faded.

Gravity and the feeling of the ground beneath him returned.

He opened his eyes.

And discovered...

He wasn't perched on the windowsill. In fact, the window wasn't even open. He hadn't fallen from the windowsill, either—he was standing in the middle of the club room.

After waking up in the hospital last time, Jiang Ran had gotten used to these changes in location.

Under the Worldline Jump theory, this was perfectly reasonable.

Since the Spacetime Butterfly Effect had altered history, his life's trajectory would naturally change as well.

Short of an extraordinary coincidence, it would be difficult for him to remain in the same place after the Worldline changed.

"Tomorrow, I'm buying a ton of Rhine Cat!"

Cheng Mengxue cried excitedly, scattering imaginary flowers around the club room.

"I'll never be able to spend it all~ There's just too much!"

Judging by her reaction...

"You won?"

Jiang Ran asked, though he already knew the answer.

"How much did you win?!"

That was what he was curious about.

A full 1.3 million yuan!

The three of them sat down first, so they could bring Jiang Ran up to speed on what had happened between yesterday and today after the Worldline changed.

"We got the message yesterday afternoon."

Cheng Mengxue pointed at Jiang Ran's phone.

"This time it was your phone that received it, and I was the sender."

"Good."

Jiang Ran nodded.

Qin Feng was a genius. His guess had hit the mark—

[Adjusting the Positron Cannon's focusing device really can control when the Spacetime Bulletin is delivered!]

Reducing it to one-fifth of the initial setting had changed "three days ago" to "yesterday."

Conversely...

If they increased the focusing device's strength, they could send messages further into the past... a month ago, a year ago, or even ten years ago.

This was undoubtedly the biggest gain from the experiment.

The second gain was also more or less expected:

[Omni-Spacetime Memory really is unique to him and has nothing to do with who sends the message.]

This time, Cheng Mengxue had sent the message herself, but Jiang Ran had still experienced the dizziness right on schedule. Cheng Mengxue still had no memories from before the Worldline changed, while Jiang Ran's memories remained as clear as ever.

"Oh, right."

Jiang Ran immediately took out his phone.

He checked to see how many messages he'd received this time.

"Just one again."

He clicked his tongue.

He wasn't sure how he felt about that.

He both hoped he'd receive another mysterious message and worried that he might.

It was a contradiction.

But at least, given the situation so far... not receiving another one was more reassuring.

Cheng Mengxue explained what had happened with the lottery.

After receiving the message yesterday afternoon, the three of them had met right away. They agreed that buying first-prize tickets would be too conspicuous, so they'd aim for second prize instead.

They went to different lottery shops and bought a lot of tickets. Most of the numbers were chosen at random, to make their win look as accidental as possible.

Just over ten minutes ago, the winning numbers had been announced, and they matched the ones in the Spacetime Bulletin exactly.

In the end, they had won five second-prize Double Color Ball tickets, for a total of 1.3 million yuan!

"We're rich..."

Qin Feng looked at the few lottery tickets in his hand.

"We're millionaires."

"This... This was way too easy..."

After cheering, Cheng Mengxue calmed down and began to feel uneasy.

"Seriously, nothing bad is going to happen, right? We... um, this is legal, isn't it?"

Jiang Ran smiled.

"If it exists, it must be reasonable. This is physics' gift to us."

"Shouldn't it be a gift from the Film Club seniors who cobbled the Positron Cannon together?" Cheng Mengxue corrected him.

"That's true."

Jiang Ran nodded.

"So, to repay them, let's keep the Film Club going. Then their spirits can see that—"

"Hey, hey, hey! The seniors just graduated. They're not dead!"

The next day.

Outside the Donghai Welfare Lottery Center.

The three stood on the sidewalk, watching the busy traffic...

Lost.

After claiming their prizes, each of them had gained several hundred thousand yuan in their bank accounts.

Good grief.

How were they supposed to spend it?

They usually lived on a monthly allowance of just 2,000 yuan and were always broke. When had they ever seen this much money?

For a moment, they couldn't even think of anything to splurge on.

"Uh..."

Jiang Ran scratched his head.

"How about we go back to school and attend class first?"

"Mm-hmm." x2

The other two followed him.

After taking a couple of steps, Jiang Ran made another suggestion:

"After class, how about we use the Spacetime Bulletin to make some more money?"

"Mm-hmm!!" x2