"Now the clocks on 17th Street are running backward too. What does that mean?" Wang Ling asked. "Are 6th Street and 18th Street in the same state? Is time in the city symmetrical?"
"It looks that way." Xu Huo nodded. Everyone already knew Pumpkin City was symmetrical from the moment they got the map. There were twenty-three streets running from left to right. Aside from the straight street in the middle, 12th Street, all the others had corresponding streets on the opposite side. 1st Street corresponded to 23rd Street.
Time had clearly become chaotic after 9:17 p.m. When they had just looked both ways from 16th Street, the clocks had been running in different directions. Their own timekeeping devices were still working normally, but with the passage of so much time becoming difficult to gauge and no external reference to help them judge, they couldn't be sure what time it was anymore. Besides, in Pumpkin City after 9:17 p.m., it seemed there was no longer any precise way to tell the time.
"Why did you send Meng Wenguang to 6th Street?" Tang Ming asked. "When we were on 17th Street, the clocks on 16th and 18th Streets were running in opposite directions. Shouldn't he have gone to 7th Street instead? Did you figure out the pattern?"
"Actually, it's pretty simple." Xu Huo watched the clock on 17th Street, which had started running backward. "A clock running backward represents time that has already passed, while a clock running normally represents the future. If we go to 19th Street now, the clock on 18th Street will still be running normally. That means we've gone past the time."
Tang Ming frowned. Wang Ling had already caught on. "You mean the time on each street increases in sequence, and the clocks are accurate. It's