"Don't touch me!"
Jiang Ran hurriedly dodged, quickly putting distance between himself and the girl.
He looked the colorful girl up and down.
She was about 165 centimeters tall—not too tall, not too short. She had delicate features and a lovely figure, with a mischievous glint in her eyes... But what really made it hard to look away was her ridiculously long, waterfall-like pink hair.
It was probably dyed. It was shiny and smooth, styled in big waves. The hairstyle was far too trendy for Jiang Ran's taste; he could barely accept it.
If it were cosplay, he could understand. But who cosplayed in their pajamas in the middle of the night?
Still, with things as they were, Jiang Ran didn't have time to worry about that.
A sudden thought struck him.
Could this girl... be the "Xiuxiu" Wang Hao had mentioned?
Judging by what she'd just said, was she his girlfriend, too?
That was ridiculous!
Jiang Ran had never dated anyone in his life. He'd always liked quiet, gentle girls who were well-read... This pink-haired girl was nothing like his type.
The girl watched Jiang Ran hop away like a rabbit.
She tilted her head.
Blinking her big eyes.
Looking completely baffled.
Then she rose onto her tiptoes and edged closer:
"What's wrong? Did you drink too much? Or do you have a fever?"
As she spoke, she reached out to place her palm against Jiang Ran's forehead.
Jiang Ran nimbly dodged again.
He still didn't understand what was going on, but this wasn't a place he should stay.
He glanced around, spotted his shoes and clothes, hurriedly put them on, and headed for the door.
"Hey! Jiang Ran!"
The pink-haired girl hurried after him:
"What are you doing? Where are you going?"
Jiang Ran ignored her and strode out the door.
Sure enough.
This wasn't a hotel. It was just a bedroom on the second floor of a villa.
Outside the bedroom was a huge living room. Empty bottles and cans sat on the bar, and snack wrappers littered the floor.
He took in the layout, then headed down the stairs.
Creak.
The door beside him opened.
A girl with short dyed-blond hair stepped out, wearing a white camisole and white pajama pants.
She was slender, too, and just as pretty.
What was this, a model convention?
Oh, no.
Jiang Ran recalled what Wang Hao had said on the phone. It seemed this was a birthday party, hosted in a rented villa by Xiuxiu's best friend.
"Jiang Ran, where are you going?"
The blond girl sounded casual, as if she knew him well:
"Where's Xiuxiu?"
Jiang Ran glanced at her but didn't slow down as he walked past.
"Huh? Ignoring me?"
The girl leaned around the doorframe and called after him:
"I was just taking a shower. Xiuxiu said she was going to your room to use the bathroom. Why are you getting dressed now?"
He still didn't reply. Jiang Ran was already heading down the stairs.
"Creep!"
The girl muttered under her breath, then walked toward another bedroom:
"Xiuxiu! What's wrong with Jiang Ran? He looked so upset. Did you two fight?"
He opened the villa's front door and walked out into the courtyard. As far as the eye could see, there were detached villas.
It really was a villa resort—and a high-end one, at that.
Jiang Ran ran straight to the entrance, got into a taxi, and said:
"Driver, take me to Donghai University."
His mind was focused on only one thing.
He just wanted to find out what had happened to him, Qin Feng, and Cheng Mengxue.
Ring, ring, ring—
The taxi had just started moving when his phone rang.
He picked it up. It was a WeChat video call from "Nan Xiuxiu."
Jiang Ran enlarged the profile picture.
Pink. Impossible to miss.
There was no mistake. It was the same pink-haired girl who'd given him the fright of his life in the middle of the night.
So...
That girl's name was Nan Xiuxiu.
He couldn't understand why, on this brand-new Worldline, he'd ended up hanging out with a girl like her—let alone becoming her boyfriend.
But he couldn't worry about that right now. He had more important things to do.
"Little Xue... are you really dead?"
His mind was full of Cheng Mengxue.
Even though Wang Hao had been perfectly clear, he still couldn't believe it.
Ring, ring, ring—
His phone kept ringing.
Jiang Ran hung up and switched his phone to Do Not Disturb, rejecting all calls and notifications.
Then he opened his photo gallery and quickly scrolled through it from top to bottom.
He hoped he might find some trace of Cheng Mengxue among all those photos...
But the truth was cruel.
There wasn't a single one.
Not one photo had anything to do with Cheng Mengxue.
At the very bottom of the gallery, he came across a class photo from his high school graduation.
Clinging to his last shred of hope, he hurriedly opened the photo and zoomed in on the familiar spot—
No.
No.
He immediately found where he was standing, but Qin Feng and Cheng Mengxue weren't beside him. He searched every corner of the photo but couldn't find either of those familiar faces.
And what's more...
Look at the expression on his face in the photo.
His head was lowered, his bangs covering his eyes, and he wasn't smiling at all. He looked heartbroken.
At that moment.
It was as if the grief from across time had fused together, dense and heavy, a raging flood that swallowed Jiang Ran whole.
He gasped for breath.
He clutched his heart as it throbbed with pain.
After leaving the villa and taking a moment to calm down, he'd finally been able to accept the truth—
[Cheng Mengxue really had died. She had died two years ago.]
Jiang Ran's palms felt ice-cold.
First of all.
One thing was clear.
[All these unexpected changes stemmed from the Spacetime Bulletin Qin Feng had sent.]
That message had caused the Worldline to shift, and a powerful Butterfly Effect had turned history upside down.
There was absolutely no doubt about that.
So, keeping that in mind, he continued to reason it through.
There was no way a Spacetime Bulletin sent ten days into the past could affect history from two years ago, let alone even earlier.
He suddenly remembered the conversation he'd had with Qin Feng before they went out for barbecue that day:
"What have you been tinkering with all this time?"
Back then, Qin Feng had been modifying the Positron Cannon at the workbench. Curious, Jiang Ran had asked:
"The Positron Cannon is already perfect. What are you still working on?"
"Perfect?"
Qin Feng had chuckled.
"It's far from it."
"Did you forget? The Positron Cannon can only run for 0.7 seconds. I'm trying to figure out how to fix that."
Right.
That was where the inconsistency lay.
The Positron Cannon's 0.7-second runtime was a known design flaw that couldn't be overcome. Qin Feng had no reason to waste his time on it.
[He was lying.]
So what had Qin Feng actually been modifying that night?
It seemed he'd taken apart the rotary control panel.
It seemed he'd rewired it.
"So... that's it."
He opened his eyes, finally understanding everything.
That rotary control panel could digitally adjust the point in time when the message was sent.
The first dial adjusted the year,
the second dial adjusted the month,
the third dial adjusted the day,
and the fourth dial adjusted the hour.
So...
What if Qin Feng had modified the internal wiring, switching it around so that the first and third dials... had their connections reversed?
That would mean—
The first dial was labeled "year," but actually controlled the "day"!
And the third dial was labeled "day," but actually controlled the "year"!
[The ten days displayed on the control panel actually meant ten years!]
So.
The message Qin Feng had composed hadn't been sent ten days into the past.
Instead, it had traveled across a distant stretch of time...
and been sent to...
"Ten years ago."
Before you continue