Black Hole

Tap, tap, tap, tap...

Only after the playful click of her little heels vanished around the corner did the three of them recover from their shock.

"Older Sister Xu Yan..."

Cheng Mengxue's eyes were full of envy.

"She's so cool."

"Hasn't she always been like that?" In Jiang Ran's memory, this girl, only a year older than them, had always been mature and dependable.

He lowered his head to look at the petition.

The signatures of club presidents on it were almost all from influential major clubs at the university, enough to show its weight.

"Anyway, one big problem is solved. Let's go to the Film Club first."

The three hurried to the Film Club without stopping, where Senior Yan Rui happened to be.

Yan Rui was delighted for them and ran around helping them handle the paperwork.

And so.

The Film Club, which had been barely hanging on for years, could continue barely hanging on for another year. Jiang Ran became the new president, while Cheng Mengxue and Qin Feng were its only two members.

"Now I can finally graduate and leave the university with peace of mind."

After explaining a few club matters, Senior Yan Rui said goodbye to the three of them and left with his last personal belongings.

"Yay! This will be our secret base from now on!"

Cheng Mengxue was about to throw herself onto the sofa, but the thick layer of dust left her frozen in midair. She tiptoed backward.

"Should we clean it first?"

After an exhausting afternoon.

The activity room, which had been sealed away for a long time, was finally more or less cleaned up.

The old Film Club had plenty of ancient junk, most of it of unknown use and unknown condition. Jiang Ran and Qin Feng did not dare touch any of it, so they piled everything into a corner.

"Can I bring my Rhine Cat plushie from the dorm?" Cheng Mengxue asked.

"Is that really necessary?"

Jiang Ran looked around the cramped activity room.

"There's barely any room to move as it is."

"Aww, my dorm bed can't even fit it anymore~"

"Fine, do whatever you want."

Having never been a club president before, Jiang Ran had no idea what they were supposed to do in the activity room. Since they had no plans to actually hold club activities anyway, he let Cheng Mengxue decorate as she pleased.

Qin Feng, meanwhile, was seriously organizing the bookshelf, clearly in a good mood.

"Actually, ever since I was little, I've dreamed of having a secret base like this, where I could do crazy things with my friends."

"Every guy has that dream."

Jiang Ran smiled faintly.

"As for crazy things... isn't what we're doing already crazy enough?"

If they could truly master the ability of [Messaging the Past], it would practically mean being able to alter the past and control history. It would practically mean becoming... gods above all else.

"Next, it's time to bring our good buddy, the Positron Cannon, home."

After another pile of complicated procedures and a written guarantee, they finally saw the legendary [Positron Cannon] in the university warehouse.

It was a boxy device roughly the size of a microwave, with a cylindrical "barrel" the size of a volleyball on its front.

The "barrel" was solid, and its internal structure was unknown.

According to Senior Yan Rui, it was a modified CRT tube capable of firing a Positron Beam.

But he had only read that from the label, so there was no way to know whether it was true.

And now, the label attached to the machine had already burned away, leaving nothing to verify.

"Why does it smell burnt?"

Jiang Ran leaned closer and sniffed.

"It really is coming from this machine."

Qin Feng sniffed as well.

"The capacitor blew."

"So professional. Can you fix it?"

"We'll need to carry it back and inspect it. Hopefully the core components aren't burnt out. Those would be impossible to repair."

After a pause, Qin Feng shook his head.

"Forget repairing it. I don't even believe this thing can fire a Positron Beam. That's absolutely impossible in physics."

"If you're bad at it, practice more."

"What a joke. Do you even understand the basic principle of an electron gun?"

"Every electron gun has a different constitution."

"..."

Qin Feng held the Positron Cannon in both hands, unable to fight him barehanded.

"Fine, you win."

After carrying it back to the Film Club activity room, Cheng Mengxue saw the legendary Positron Cannon for the first time.

"It looks like an enlarged camera!"

Jiang Ran blinked.

Come to think of it, it really did.

They were both boxy in shape, and the "barrel" in front looked a lot like a camera lens.

That was probably the romance of the Film Club seniors from back then.

Qin Feng picked up his tools and carefully inspected it.

"The problem isn't serious. Only the power supply module is burnt out. The core components seem fine. Of course... I'm not sure whether they're actually fine, because I have no idea what these core components even are."

Jiang Ran waved a hand.

"We're among ourselves. You don't need to be so precise. How long will it take to fix?"

"About four or five days."

"Fine."

Jiang Ran walked to the small blackboard.

"During these four or five days, you'll repair the Positron Cannon, and I'll try to solve the other problems."

He picked up a piece of chalk and quickly wrote two questions.

[1. What is the principle behind messages traveling through spacetime and being sent into the past?]

[2. Why am I, Jiang Ran, the only one who retains memories from before the Spacetime Shift?]

It would be best if they could figure out those two questions out before the official experiment. That way, they would feel safer.

Qin Feng looked up and glanced at the blackboard.

"I've been thinking about the first question these past few days. If the Positron Cannon really fired a Positron Beam at the electrical distribution box... what exactly would happen? I suddenly had a new idea today."

"Let's hear it."

"I think the main thing reacting with the [Positron Beam] is the [high-voltage transformer] inside the electrical distribution box."

Qin Feng stood and pointed at the electrical distribution box outside the window.

"My guess is that when the two collide, they create a field capable of traversing spacetime, or rather... how should I put it? Right, a [Spacetime Black Hole]."

He introduced a new term.

"This Spacetime Black Hole is very unusual. It should be incredibly, incredibly small, perhaps not even a conventional form of matter. Yet it connects to the spacetime of the past and... can absorb radio waves within a few meters."

Jiang Ran rested his chin on his hand and thought about it.

A Spacetime Black Hole absorbing radio waves did sound reasonable.

After all, a conventional cosmic black hole absorbed surrounding matter through its immense gravitational pull. Even light could not escape.

"Keep going."

"The rest is simple."

Qin Feng spread his hands.

"The radio waves from that text message were absorbed by the Spacetime Black Hole and traveled to the spacetime of three days earlier. Then they were captured by the signal tower from three days ago and relayed to Cheng Mengxue's phone from three days ago."

Jiang Ran nodded.

That logic was more or less the same as what he had imagined before.

Of course, whether this guess was correct would have to wait for the experiment in a few days.

If the experiment succeeded, then all their assumptions and guesses would be correct.

If the experiment failed...

Then all their theories and practical work would have to be scrapped and started over.

"As for the second question, I've got nothing."

Qin Feng lowered his head again and fiddled with the Positron Cannon.

"The problem is with you, so only you can find the reason."

"Yeah, but where am I supposed to look?"

Jiang Ran sighed. He was just as clueless. Who the hell knew why he was so special?

He had considered whether perhaps whoever sent the message would retain memories from before the Spacetime Shift... but he quickly rejected the idea.

There was no scientific basis for it at all.

Of course, he could not say that with absolute certainty. Once Cheng Mengxue and Qin Feng tried sending messages themselves, they would be able to tell.

Three days later, Qin Feng announced that the Positron Cannon had been repaired.

"It's completely fixed. There's absolutely no problem."

Jiang Ran opened his eyes and sat up from the sofa.

Finally.

Finally...

Finally, they were about to conduct the experiment closest to success!

"Wow! I'm so excited!"

Cheng Mengxue hugged her Rhine Cat plushie.

"At such a major moment, shouldn't the president say a few words?"

"What is there to say?"

Jiang Ran refused.

"It's not like it'll definitely succeed. Who knows whether we'll end up celebrating for nothing again?"

"Say a few words."

Qin Feng smiled and added fuel to the fire.

"After all, you're the one who led us this far. Just say something to boost morale."

Jiang Ran did not know whether to laugh or cry, but he did not want to spoil their mood.

"Fine."

Copying what he had seen before, he clapped his hands and stood upright, then looked at the calendar.

"March 25, 2025. This is a day of vital importance in human history, a day worth remembering, and a day worth commemorating."

Jiang Ran's grand act made Cheng Mengxue cover her mouth and laugh.

"Today, inside Donghai University's Film Club, the closest-knit trio in the world will conduct humanity's first controllable spacetime-travel experiment."

"We will use the Positron Cannon, the transformer distribution box, and an ordinary phone..."

He raised his head, the fluorescent light reflected in his pupils.

"[Send a letter... to the world of the past!]"