Opening

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Gunshots.

"Still haven't found it?!"

Jiang Ran frantically searched the bookshelves, his face pale.

"Not yet! This library is too big!"

In the distance, bookshelves kept crashing down, and the gunfire was drawing ever closer.

"Found it!"

Jiang Ran shouted, pulling a diary from a pile of old books. Its cover was mottled, its pages yellowed.

He was just about to open it—

Thud!

His companion's body arched backward before collapsing to the ground. A blossom of blood rapidly spread across his chest.

"Qin Feng!"

Jiang Ran rushed forward, only to be forced back by the barrage of gunfire.

"Run..."

Qin Feng's face twisted in pain as he clutched the blood pouring from his chest.

"[As long as you go back to the past and change all this... everything can start over... Run!]"

Jiang Ran gritted his teeth.

There was no time to think. He turned and sprinted for the stairs at the back, heading straight to the rooftop.

Panting heavily, he ran to the edge of the roof.

He placed the diary on the ledge and rapidly flipped through it.

"Not this entry... not this one... This is it!"

Jiang Ran's eyes burned as he swiftly read the handwritten words.

"March 27, 2009. Weather: sunny. I thought today's experiment would fail again, but in the middle of the afternoon, a strange young man arrived—"

Click.

Something touched him.

A scorching gun barrel pressed against the back of his head.

"Don't move."

Jiang Ran's heartbeat skipped.

What frightened him was not the gun, but that unbearably familiar voice.

His eyes were filled with shock and disbelief.

"Qin... Feng?"

Behind him, Qin Feng gave a soft snort and pulled a prop blood pack from inside his shirt.

"Fake."

He squeezed it hard. Blood splattered everywhere, staining both of them.

Jiang Ran did not turn around. He slowly rose to his feet.

Only then did he realize that the chaotic gunfire had stopped at some point. Cicadas chirped deafeningly in the distance. The setting sun stretched their shadows out parallel to each other, never to intersect again.

"So this was the trap you designed."

"Yes."

"We've known each other since high school..."

"Yes."

Qin Feng's voice remained calm.

"But you never considered me a friend. Otherwise, you wouldn't have discovered my secret only today."

He lowered his head and looked at the open diary.

"I considered many possibilities, but I never imagined you could travel through time using a diary."

"Seeing how anxious you were just now... what would happen if I let you finish reading this entry?"

"Would you vanish with a whoosh and travel back to 2009? Or would only your consciousness travel back, while your body remained here?"

"You can try it," Jiang Ran said flatly.

"No need."

Keeping the gun steady, Qin Feng pulled out his phone with his left hand and held it to his ear.

"[Lilith.]"

After a pause, he said,

"I caught him. I won this game."

With that, he hung up.

"Lilith is your boss?" Jiang Ran watched the sunset.

"Lilith is the god of this world," Qin Feng replied.

Jiang Ran laughed.

"The top scorer on the college entrance exam saying something like that—didn't your physics teacher die of anger?"

"Lilith is omnipotent."

"Being omnipotent doesn't make her a god."

A brief silence followed as sparrows leaped from the power lines.

"Fine, then."

Qin Feng raised his phone again.

"Consider it fireworks to celebrate the end of the game. Let me show you."

"Lilith."

He said softly,

"[Let the sky grow dark.]"

In an instant, the red sun vanished and dark clouds churned overhead.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. The entire world darkened, as though a layer of black gauze had been draped over the camera lens.

Only seconds passed between basking in the sunset and the downpour beginning.

Qin Feng lowered his phone.

"Well?"

"Truly spectacular."

Jiang Ran tilted his head back, letting the raindrops strike his face.

"So... this is your secret. But I still have to say, you set off your fireworks too early."

Qin Feng shoved forward with the gun, forcing Jiang Ran onto the roof ledge.

One more half-step, and he would fall to his death.

"Your trump card has already been exposed, so stop bluffing. Are you going to make this easy on yourself, or should I send you on your way?"

Heh heh heh heh.

Jiang Ran laughed and spread his arms.

"You're wrong. The one whose trump card has been exposed... is you."

"Oh?"

Qin Feng was unconcerned.

"Show me how you plan to turn this around."

"I already said it. Omnipotence does not make one a god. Only someone who controls history and manipulates history can be called a god."

Jiang Ran shifted his feet and turned around, his forehead facing the gun barrel.

"Keeping a diary really is a good habit, Qin Feng. These days, very few people can persist in writing one every day like you do."

Qin Feng's pupils contracted.

"What do you mean?"

Jiang Ran looked into his eyes with keen interest.

"[Is it possible... that we're inside your diary right now?]"

BOOM!!

Lightning struck. The fleeting flash made Qin Feng's face look deathly pale.

"No matter how I die, I'll leave the diary. When that happens, take a guess—who will this gun be pointed at?"

Qin Feng's fingers clenched tightly around the trigger, veins trembling beneath his skin!

Jiang Ran closed his eyes, arms still spread wide, and leaned backward.

"You can never defeat me in history. Because in this game played across the river of time..."

He leaped, earth and sky flipping upside down.

"[I am history!]"

Pfft.

The sound of an air cushion being struck.

"Cut!!!!!!!"

The director excitedly leaped out from behind the camera, yanking the black gauze off the lens. The world instantly returned to full brightness.

"That was incredible! Perfect! Such a difficult long take, and you got it in one shot! You two are natural-born best actors!"

Thunderous applause erupted all around them.

The boy holding the sprinkler for rain, the junior using a flash to create lightning, and the junior girl draping black gauze over the camera all tossed aside their props and applauded until their hands turned red.

"The scene between you two seniors was amazing!"

"We're definitely winning an award at this year's College Student Film Festival!"

"Being able to perform with such control under the pressure of a single continuous take..."

"Senior Qin Feng was the top scorer on the college entrance exam to begin with—he was basically playing himself! A genius is a genius wherever he goes!"

Amid the cheers and celebration, Qin Feng grabbed the roof ledge and jumped down.

There was another rooftop below. The air cushion placed there in advance caught Jiang Ran perfectly, leaving him unharmed.

Qin Feng reached out and pulled Jiang Ran to his feet, then punched him lightly.

"Your acting's pretty good."

Jiang Ran smiled and returned the punch.

"You're not bad either."

The juniors crowded around them, chattering excitedly, their eyes full of admiration for the two of them.

"Jiang Ran, there's one more thing I need your help with."

The director, who was also the president of the Film Club, walked over.

She handed the script booklet to Jiang Ran.

"This short film still doesn't have a title. Since you wrote the script, you should name it."

Jiang Ran accepted the script.

"To be honest, this story was just a setting I casually wrote in middle school when I was bored in class."

"A phone that could grant any wish, a diary that could travel through time... it was all the cringey fantasy of my younger days. I was practically blushing when I read those lines just now."

"You looked like you were having a great time acting it out," Qin Feng teased.

The director handed Jiang Ran a pen.

"No matter what, this is your work. You should still be the one to name it."

"All right."

Jiang Ran did not refuse. He took the pen, thought for a moment, and began to write.

"The setting I wrote back then was about eleven geniuses taking part in a game that would determine the fate of the world."

"It's been so long that I can't remember many of the details, but I still remember the title."

"If you don't mind how cringey it sounds... how about we keep the original name?"

He smiled faintly, turned the script around, and showed everyone the name he had just written on the cover—

"Genius Playground!"

[Genius Playground]