Compressed Time

"Ahaha~, forget it, I won't see that kind of thing again anyway." Taking a long breath, Jiu Ming stretched his body. "Since I'm free, I'll go shopping!"

Shopping...

"What a good era."

Carrying a large pile of things, Jiu Ming found a small alley and directly put the thing behind him that could crush people onto the ground!

Patting it, the pile of things turned into a card under Jiu Ming's touch...

As long as he dressed properly, even if people noticed something was wrong on the street, they wouldn't say much. After all, this world had various supernatural abilities, so one more strange thing was nothing. If it were Jiu Ming's original Earth, someone would have already noticed and called the police!

"Hey! Someone called the police! Fortunately, I made arrangements with the people at the bureau in advance, otherwise you now... tsk!"

"...What!?" The mobile phone rang, and as soon as Jiu Ming answered, Wang Hai's voice came through. "Who's so bored?"

"How would I know... Forget it, I knew you couldn't sit still. Next time, wear a hood. Just having the shadow of a body without a head is quite scary."

"Okay." Jiu Ming glanced at the ground. Because of his clothes, there was indeed a shadow, but a shadow without a head could indeed make people break out in a cold sweat at first glance.

"Your voice sounds a bit strange, are you in a car?"

"Uh? I'm going to the Frontline for a couple of days."

The Frontline? Jiu Ming had heard of it, the border area fighting against Exotic Beasts. Most Exotic Beasts were divided into several larger areas. This was also a result of the battle between humans and Exotic Beasts. Otherwise, if powerful Exotic Beasts could be encountered everywhere, human cities would not be able to have peace.

"Oh? Not taking a break?"

"...Isn't that obvious!" Wang Hai moved his neck, his tone a little annoyed. "Anyway, be careful yourself. I'm hanging up."

After speaking, Wang Hai directly hung up the phone number full of garbled characters.

Students are on holiday, but teachers are not. Hmph, it feels a bit miserable.

Smiling maliciously, Jiu Ming stepped back into the Mysterious Shop. Speaking of which, the other day Suzumiya Haruhi and the others also talked about summer vacation. Jiu Ming had underestimated Suzumiya Haruhi's patience. After all, although this place could change scenes, it had a big flaw...

She got angry. That's right, in such a large place, there were usually no decent people!!

"Hoo, what a waste." Jiu Ming looked at the High-Energy Crystals spread under the sofa. Over the past few days, their value had dropped by a full point...!

Is the dissipation speed a bit too fast?

Forget it, as long as he felt comfortable. If Wang Hai weren't absent now, Jiu Ming would really go find him again to exchange some of these low-level ordinary High-Energy Crystals.

With nothing to do, Jiu Ming yawned, took out the Sealed Card that stored quite a lot of items, and waved it. A pair of heavy various commodities immediately appeared on the ground. All of them were for playing...

After shopping... I don't know if Suzumiya Haruhi was in a bad mood these days or what, but she hadn't come here at all, which made Jiu Ming feel quite strange. Strange as it was, he couldn't go find them to see what happened.

It's not that he's cold-blooded, but he's simply powerless to go find them.

I can only wait.

It's just...

"Huh? Yuki?" Jiu Ming felt a little strange seeing the Three-No Girl standing in front of the World Crossing Gate. She gave him a very unreal feeling... like a projection?

"Something wrong?"

"En... Please bear with me for a while. Before solving the problem Suzumiya Haruhi encountered, absolutely do not reveal your experiences..."

Very strange words. After speaking, the girl's body in front of him slowly faded and disappeared, leaving a confused Jiu Ming. Had she encountered some strange problem that kept her away during this time? Could it be that she had stirred up some trouble again... Huh? Why did I add "again"?

Soon, Jiu Ming knew what had happened!!

What in the world is going on!?

Jiu Ming felt the sounds around his ears suddenly become noisy. The scene before his eyes seemed to enter a super-fast-forward mode. The rapidly flashing scenes were of him and Suzumiya Haruhi talking. The scene of them passing through that World Crossing Gate alone appeared several times! The speaking speed became extremely chaotic due to the excessive speed...

What happened...!?

After the noisy sound disappeared, Jiu Ming, who was originally standing, suddenly sat on the sofa, gasping for breath. His head ached faintly, his Soul Body was a little unstable, and he had some unclear memories, with the content being vague.

Summer vacation...?

What is going on? Is it related to Yuki's warning not long ago?

Tapping his forehead, Jiu Ming let out a long sigh. He checked the time, and his expression became stunned. Although the memory was vague, it clearly gave him the feeling that a long time had passed. However, the time displayed on the clock showed only one minute had passed!

Is this a joke!!

One minute later...

"!? Spare me!!" As that noisy feeling began to surge again, Jiu Ming immediately wailed. He felt like this was some kind of revenge from Suzumiya Haruhi for her dissatisfaction!!

The noisy and chaotic feeling made Jiu Ming experience it again. He glanced at the time, and another minute had passed!

And the seemingly vague 'forced' memory seemed to have become clearer by a fraction. If it happened a few more times, it might become completely clear.

No! Please don't let it happen again!

Rubbing his forehead, Jiu Ming grinned, revealing a pained expression. His head hurt!

One minute later, again...

"Damn it!!"

Jiu Ming finally understood. The interval frequency of this noisy and chaotic state was one minute, and the duration of each episode was also one minute. He had experienced this state three times within half an hour. What in the world had happened!!

Letting out a long sigh, and not understanding what strange change had occurred, Jiu Ming felt he needed to go away for a few days?

"Oh, right, Panel-kun! Did anything unusual happen here?"

The temporal flow within a localized area near you has experienced abnormal expansion.

"...Huh? What do you mean?" Abnormal expansion? What's going on?

You can understand it as the flow of time around your body having been extremely accelerated.

"I don't quite understand." Jiu Ming scratched his head, his expression becoming a little confused. Things like time and space are too high-level. Localized abnormal expansion of the world's flow rate, meaning the flow of time around him inexplicably sped up when Suzumiya Haruhi arrived?

This also explains why he felt like a long time had passed, with many vague memories, while only a minute had actually passed in the Mysterious Shop.

Because of Suzumiya Haruhi, when she came here, she forcibly brought the flow of time from her own location to this place, creating a rift of fast and slow time for you. For you, time accelerated, while for this place, the locally accelerated time was compressed, leading to your current discomfort.

"Ah!? I'm so confused." Jiu Ming's eyes twitched constantly. It took him a long time to grasp the general meaning. Essentially, the overall flow of time here didn't change, but his personal flow of time sped up. Because it didn't affect the overall temporal flow of this place, from the Mysterious Shop's perspective, Jiu Ming's time was compressed.

For example, if he experienced an hour within the accelerated time frame, but the overall time of the Mysterious Shop remained unchanged, then from this place's perspective, that hour he experienced was forcefully compressed into just one minute!!

Twisted time!

What exactly happened to Suzumiya Haruhi to cause the timeline around him to become so chaotic? The two conflicting temporal flows made Jiu Ming extremely uncomfortable...

With this delay, one minute had already passed. That noisy and chaotic feeling returned. This time, Jiu Ming was fully prepared mentally. Even so, it was still quite troublesome, making him want to curse!

That vague memory became a little clearer again, very little. Well, it looks like it won't take many more times before it becomes completely clear!!

"I'm going to die..." Jiu Ming lay on the sofa, gasping for breath, as if he had just been chased by a pack of wolves for dozens of miles. Both mentally and physically, he was suffering. What bothered him even more was that he felt his strength had increased slightly.

Perhaps the torment of the temporal flow difference had trained Jiu Ming's spirit, or perhaps those High-Energy Crystals had taken effect... In any case, was this a case of suffering and happiness?

Jiu Ming noticed that some of the High-Energy Crystals had dimmed. He couldn't judge it himself. Each time the chaos occurred, he didn't know how long that 'super long time' compressed into one minute actually was.

"Memories, memories... I'm not a masochist..." Jiu Ming rested his chin on his hand, looking at a little notebook on the coffee table with three tally marks on it. His eyes were slightly red as he muttered. Just before the noisy and chaotic feeling appeared, Jiu Ming had quickly added another mark to the little notebook.

After the chaos ended, the pen Jiu Ming was tightly gripping had disappeared. He eventually found it in the crevice of the sofa cushion, and the little notebook was found under the sofa... This one minute of 'cursed' time!

From the vague memories, Jiu Ming had a slight impression. He had stuffed the pen into the sofa crevice, and he seemed to have kicked the little notebook under the sofa to hide it.

As for the other content, it remained blurry!

"Damn it! Damn it!!" With red eyes, Jiu Ming looked at the little notebook filled with tally marks, his tone becoming extremely irritable. The noisy chaos that occurred every two minutes made Jiu Ming feel like his nerves were about to snap at any moment. Even though he wanted to calm down, the intense mental fluctuations made him feel like someone who hadn't slept for a long time and was being forced to stay awake.

He could explode like a powder keg at any moment!

Fortunately, the only comfort he could find was that the vague memories were gradually becoming clearer with each experience.

The clearest part was Suzumiya Haruhi, who inexplicably carried a lonely aura. He had to endure a bit longer... He couldn't give up halfway. He didn't know what he would miss if he experienced one less time... He had to endure for a while.

Taking a deep breath, Jiu Ming forcefully closed the little notebook in his hand!