Brief Message

"You know, the ideas you came up with in middle school were actually pretty interesting."

Qin Feng flipped through the script.

"What exactly does Genius Playground refer to?"

After filming wrapped up, the Film Club hurried back to edit, while Jiang Ran and Qin Feng headed toward the cafeteria.

"I forgot a long time ago."

Jiang Ran kicked away a pebble.

"They were just the baseless fantasies of adolescence. So many years have passed—how could I possibly still remember?"

"I only vaguely remember a few fragments, so I used them to write a script for the Film Club."

"What a shame."

Qin Feng closed the script booklet.

"I'm actually quite interested in this story."

Jiang Ran chuckled.

"Then when summer break starts, I'll look around the basement at home. If I'm lucky, I might find the old draft notebook where I wrote down those settings."

Qin Feng was Jiang Ran's best friend.

They had met in high school and were as close as brothers.

"Jiang Ran! This is bad!"

A short-haired girl ran toward them in a panic, beads of sweat glistening on her forehead.

She grabbed Jiang Ran's arm.

"Oh no, oh no! I lost my phone! I've been looking everywhere, but I can't find it!"

Jiang Ran blinked.

This girl was his childhood friend, Cheng Mengxue. They had grown up together.

Along with Qin Feng, the three of them had been classmates in high school and the closest trio of friends. Their friendship had continued to this day.

Although they were in different majors at university, they always got together after class.

"Where did you lose it?" Jiang Ran asked.

"I don't know!"

Cheng Mengxue was frantic.

"Weren't you guys filming just now? I was wandering around the graduate market by myself, and by the time I realized... my phone was gone."

"Actually, losing the phone itself isn't too bad. I'm mainly worried about that Rhine Cat pendant! It's a limited-edition Astronaut Rhine Cat! A collaboration with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with only 4,200 made. It's really precious!"

Rhine Cat was currently the most popular plush toy, selling all over the world.

When it was first created, it had merely been the mascot of a cosmetics brand. Who could have expected it to become so cute and wildly popular that it was now an independent IP on the level of Doraemon and Hello Kitty?

And Cheng Mengxue was an avid Rhine Cat fanatic.

"People generally don't steal phones on campus. I'll call it for you."

Jiang Ran took out his phone and dialed Cheng Mengxue's number. A prompt sounded.

"The number you have dialed is powered off, sorry..."

"It's probably out of battery."

Jiang Ran thought for a moment.

"How about this? I'll send your phone a text message."

"You haven't enabled privacy mode, so once whoever picked up your phone charges it, they'll be able to see the text even without knowing the unlock password, then contact me."

"That's a good idea." Qin Feng nodded.

Jiang Ran began composing a message—

[Hello, if you found this phone, please contact XXXXXXX. Thank you very much!]

"Ah."

Cheng Mengxue sighed.

"I hope they'll return my Rhine Cat..."

Jiang Ran smiled.

"Who would recognize a limited edition? I wouldn't have known that pendant was so expensive if you hadn't told me. Otherwise, I'd have sold it to Zhuanzhuan's secondhand recycling service long ago."

"You wouldn't dare!"

"I'm just teasing."

Jiang Ran checked that he had entered the contact information correctly.

"Don't worry. We'll find it soon."

With that, he pressed send—

Bzz!

Bzz!

Bzz!

The instant the message was sent, the world spun and his vision blurred!

A violent ringing filled Jiang Ran's ears, making him lose his balance. He nearly fell over.

He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and pressed a hand to his temple...

Two seconds later, the discomfort vanished.

"What's wrong?"

Qin Feng looked at him.

"Feeling unwell?"

"I don't know. I suddenly got a little dizzy."

Jiang Ran let out a long breath, opened his eyes, and straightened up.

Huh?

He looked left, then right.

"Where's Little Xue?"

"What Little Xue?" Qin Feng asked, confused.

"Cheng Mengxue. Who else would I mean by Little Xue?"

Jiang Ran turned in a circle, but Cheng Mengxue was still nowhere in sight.

Strange.

She had clearly been standing right beside them. How had she disappeared in the blink of an eye?

"Hey."

Qin Feng patted him on the shoulder.

"What are you looking for? Little Xue hasn't been with us all afternoon. We were filming, and she went off to do her own thing."

"No..."

Jiang Ran was completely dumbfounded. He gestured with both hands.

"Little Xue was standing right here just now! She was here a few seconds ago!"

"Hehe, how could that be?"

Qin Feng laughed helplessly.

"What's gotten into you? Are you messing with me?"

In an instant.

A chill ran down Jiang Ran's spine.

What was going on?

Why had Cheng Mengxue vanished after he felt dizzy for a moment?

And why was Qin Feng acting as if he had never met Little Xue? The three of them had been talking just seconds ago!

"Who's messing with whom? I just sent her a text—"

Jiang Ran opened his text messages and was rendered speechless.

It wasn't there.

He couldn't find it anywhere.

He was certain that, right before the dizziness struck, the message had been successfully sent.

But now, whether in the sent folder or the trash, there was no trace of that text message!

Where had it gone?

Why had that text message disappeared along with Little Xue?

He hurriedly dialed Cheng Mengxue's number.

"Hello? Jiang Ran, are you guys done filming?"

There was a noisy crowd on Cheng Mengxue's end.

"Where are you?" Jiang Ran asked directly.

"I'm at the graduate market... What's wrong with you? You sound strange. Did something happen?"

Jiang Ran frowned tightly, unsure how to explain.

This feeling...

It was like sleepwalking through a waking dream.

Cheng Mengxue hadn't lost her phone.

She hadn't run over to him in a panic.

And he hadn't sent a text message.

Could everything that had just happened have been nothing more than an unreal hallucination?

"Jiang Ran?" Cheng Mengxue asked from the other end of the call.

Qin Feng also leaned closer in concern, looking at him.

"What's wrong? If something's happened, just say it. Don't stand there mute."

Jiang Ran calmed down.

"I don't know how to explain it, but in my memory, Little Xue lost her phone just now. Then she came to find us, and I sent a text to her phone saying—"

"Ha!"

"Hahaha, so that's what this is about."

Jiang Ran was tense, yet the other two were smiling as though it was nothing.

"You finally admit it." Qin Feng snorted.

"Admit what?" Jiang Ran looked at him.

"[Three days ago, you sent a completely bizarre text message to Little Xue's phone.]"

Qin Feng chuckled.

"You said that whoever found the phone should contact you. It made no sense."

"Little Xue sent you a screenshot and asked what was going on, but you played dumb and said you hadn't sent it. I saw it too—the sender was clearly you—but you insisted it wasn't and refused to admit it no matter what."

"You refused to admit it, so what could we do? We just stopped bothering with you about it."

Jiang Ran's arms fell to his sides.

He stood upright.

The setting sun stretched his shadow long, like the hands of a clock turning backward.

Three days ago?

He had clearly sent that text just now, one minute ago. How could it have been sent three days earlier?

He opened WeChat, tapped into his chat history with Cheng Mengxue, and scrolled upward.

Sure enough.

Three days ago, on March 14, Cheng Mengxue had sent him a screenshot of the text and asked what was going on.

He enlarged it.

The sender really was him.

The text's contents matched word for word. The evidence was irrefutable.

"Look."

Qin Feng pointed at the date in the upper-left corner of his phone: March 17.

"You obviously sent Little Xue that message three days ago. It wasn't even a big deal. Did you really have to be so stubborn?"

"No, I wasn't being stubborn."

Jiang Ran shook his head.

"The me from three days ago wasn't lying."

The red sun sank completely below the horizon, and a waning moon rose on the other side of the sky.

He was beginning to understand.

The him from three days ago, on March 14, really had not sent Little Xue a text.

Because...

The one who had sent that message was the current him, from March 17.

But what he could not understand at all was this.

He had clearly sent the message today, so why had it been received three days earlier? And why did neither Qin Feng nor Cheng Mengxue remember any of this?

Could this be... a text message that traveled through time and space? he muttered.

Though he did not know the principle behind it or how it had happened.

Judging from the result alone.

That text message had truly crossed through time and space, returning to the past—

It had been sent three days earlier!