Seeing Through Him

The activity room fell silent.

Tick-tock, tick-tock. The clock's hands clicked sharply, like a headsman's sweat dripping onto the execution platform.

Cheng Mengxue lowered her head.

She knew, of course, why the cheerful atmosphere had suddenly turned like this.

Because...

That was ten years ago.

Every Spacetime Bulletin they'd sent so far had changed something that had happened just a few days earlier.

They'd never even dared to try sending one back a few months, let alone ten years.

The reason was simple.

[The Spacetime Butterfly Effect is uncontrollable. The greater the time span, the more uncontrollable the Spacetime Butterfly Effect.]

That had been an established fact from the very beginning.

Ten years ago.

If they saved someone who had already died, going back to a point that far in the past, how violent a Butterfly Effect would it trigger?

Nobody knew.

Nobody could predict it.

And nobody dared imagine it.

Many people's fates would inevitably change because of it. Many lives would veer off course. Even worse, even less predictable things might happen.

Of course, perhaps they were just worrying over nothing.

Or maybe Qin Feng's father coming back from the dead would have very little impact on the world.

But...

Who would dare take that gamble?

She stole a glance at Jiang Ran.

He was just like her.

Head bowed, silent.

Jiang Ran squeezed his eyes shut, his thoughts in turmoil.

All this time...

Ever since they'd received that mysterious bulletin, that mysterious string of numbers...

Why had he been so anxious?

Why had he kept hesitating?

Because...

He'd had a premonition about this for a long time. He'd known Qin Feng would bring it up.

Whenever the thought surfaced, he'd quickly push it away and refuse to dwell on it.

It was impossible to think about something like this.

He knew, of course, that Qin Feng's father had died ten years ago in an accident.

Qin Feng had told them about it back when they first met in high school.

And Jiang Ran and Cheng Mengxue also knew that, because he'd lost his father, Qin Feng had had a very difficult childhood.

His mother had to work several jobs just to make ends meet and raise him. At school, he'd also been bullied by troublemakers because he didn't have a father.

From elementary school to middle school to high school, those brats had always called him "a fatherless kid." Jiang Ran and Cheng Mengxue had seen it with their own eyes.

After the three of them became close friends, Qin Feng was never bullied again. Jiang Ran and Cheng Mengxue were his strongest allies, and they wouldn't let anything like that happen.

But what about all those years before?

To spare his overworked mother any more trouble, Qin Feng had gritted his teeth, swallowed his grievances, and silently endured the abuse.

And all of it...

Was because he'd lost his father when he was young. He'd lost the pillar of his family, his greatest protector, the broadest shoulders, the strongest back.

So...

Getting back to the wish itself.

Qin Feng was his best friend, and his wish was to bring his own father back to life...

Once Qin Feng voiced that wish, what reason could he possibly have to refuse?

But every instinct and every bit of reason warned Jiang Ran—

[No.]

[Absolutely not.]

Changing the fate of an adult who had died ten years ago, rewriting a decade of history—he couldn't risk it.

Jiang Ran slowly lifted his head.

He looked at the Positron Cannon they'd just modified.

The knobs on its control panel could precisely set the point in time for sending a Spacetime Bulletin: year, month, day, hour...

Year.

Under normal circumstances, was there really any need to set the date that far back?

In an instant...

All kinds of questions pieced together, and countless things Qin Feng had said came back to him—

"Now that the Positron Cannon's fixed, why don't we run another [verification] experiment and find out whether that mysterious bulletin was a coincidence or inevitable?"

"I don't [agree]. If it was a warning from a future version of us, why speak in riddles? Why not make it clearer? Sending us a string of numbers just makes things difficult for us."

"I'm in favor of using the time machine we built to send a bulletin to ourselves three days in the past... [save] Xu Yan."

"I feel like Spacetime Bulletins can't be limited to three days in the past. There must be some variable that controls the 'depth' of the Spacetime Black Hole, letting the bulletin reach an [earlier] point in time."

"That's why I keep saying that mysterious bulletin was probably just a [malfunction]. A string of meaningless scrambled numbers like that looks so much like some kind of machine error. It could even have been a glitch with the telecom provider, completely unrelated to us."

"Hey, hey. Aren't you just scaring yourself now? Caution's good, but there's no need to go overboard. If you're afraid to take a step after every step, then nothing can ever [move forward]."

"I think those last two pinyin letters aren't [complete]. There must be more information after them."

"Increasing the electron beam density means [increasing the power]. We can wait until ten or eleven at night, or even after midnight. The club building will be empty by then, and the electrical load will be low. Even if we use more power, it'll be fine."

"Operating the Positron Cannon will be [simple] from now on. We just aim it at the power distribution box outside, then use the knobs to set the point in time for the Spacetime Bulletin—say, nine days ago, a month ago, a year ago, and so on... Then we press the start button. Easy."

Jiang Ran braced his hands on his knees and slowly stood up.

Now...

The puzzle was complete.

Whenever he'd felt uneasy, Qin Feng had urged him to continue the Spacetime Bulletin experiments.

Whenever he'd been afraid of that mysterious bulletin, Qin Feng had dismissed it as a malfunction or accident.

When he'd thought Spacetime Bulletins could only reach three days into the past, Qin Feng had worked tirelessly to modify the Positron Cannon, determined to send them further back.

Most of all, when he and Cheng Mengxue had argued about whether to save Xu Yan, Qin Feng, who had always been cautious and rational, had unexpectedly sided with Cheng Mengxue and supported bringing her back to life.

So he'd had a clear goal from the start.

So he'd been laying the groundwork all along.

"Qin Feng."

Jiang Ran stood ramrod straight, facing Qin Feng, who was silhouetted against the light by the window.

"Tell me the truth."

He narrowed his eyes at his best friend.

"[Were you planning from the very beginning to use a Spacetime Bulletin to save your father?]"

The silence stretched between them.

Cheng Mengxue stood too, holding the rice cooker Rhine Cat, and looked from one man to the other.

The branches swayed, and sunlight fell across the floor in scattered flecks, shimmering with a brilliance too dazzling to look at directly.

"Heh."

Qin Feng lowered his head and gave a dry laugh, shrugging helplessly.

"You saw through me after all."

He drew a deep breath.

Then raised his head.

He met Jiang Ran's eyes.

"I admit it. Ever since we successfully verified that Spacetime Bulletins worked, I've been thinking about this."

"But your concerns and misgivings kept me from saying it out loud."

"I really have been studying how to modify the Positron Cannon so it can send bulletins further into the past... As you said, I want to bring my father back to life."

"But I never intended to keep it from you two, Jiang Ran, Little Xue."

His gaze was firm.

"[If either of you disagrees, I'll give up on the idea.]"

Jiang Ran's phone rang and rang.

He picked it up. It was his father calling.

He answered.

"Hello?"

"Hello! Son! Get back here right now!"

His father shouted anxiously from the other end of the line.

"Something's happened to your mom! She needs brain surgery!"