Carrying a heavy load of questions, Fang Linyan lifted the shopping basket and set it in front of the cashier. After paying for his purchases, he picked them up and started to leave. But as he walked out of the supermarket, something unexpected happened: the scanner beside the entrance suddenly started beeping.
Fang Linyan was still bewildered when a security guard beside him moved deftly to block the exit and grabbed his shoulder. With a false smile, he said:
"Stay put. Take out what you've got."
A burly middle-aged woman nearby jumped up as if she'd been given a shot of adrenaline.
"Oh, you little brat! You actually dared to steal something!"
Fang Linyan was so indignant that his face turned red.
"I didn't—cough, cough, cough."
Overcome with emotion, he bent over and began coughing violently. The guard thought he was trying to put on an act and escape while no one was watching. Something like that had happened before, earning him a half-month's pay deduction, so this time he bluntly grabbed Fang Linyan, who was nearly doubled over, and dragged him inside, shouting for help.
The burly woman came running over excitedly, the fat on her face wobbling. As she approached, she even raised her arm, looking ready to slap Fang Linyan several times.
But the next second, something terrifying happened!!
A low rumble suddenly came from the street. Everyone knew the sound well: it was the strained roar of a heavy truck engine, a noise they heard frequently as trucks passed by. But mixed in with the engine's roar was the shrill blare of a horn.
Then a heavy truck, loaded with at least seventy tons, came hurtling in completely out of control, a gust of cold air in its wake. Traveling at more than eighty kilometers per hour, it smashed straight into the supermarket.
The truck shot past less than a meter from Fang Linyan in the blink of an eye. At that incredible speed, the pillar at the entrance shattered instantly, and its metal framework twisted and softened like plasticine.
The out-of-control truck carved a path of blood, concrete, and metal through the supermarket entrance, then rolled another twenty meters or so before crashing headfirst into a five-story building behind it.
The building's exterior walls were made of red brick and hadn't even been plastered. It looked older than Fang Linyan by quite a few years. How could it have withstood such an impact? After swaying twice, it came crashing down, burying half the truck's cab and sending up a vast cloud of dust.
Everyone who witnessed the horrific scene was so shocked that they couldn't speak for more than ten seconds. It was only the pained, anguished screams of the injured that brought them back to their senses. They hurried to help.
Who could still care about the earlier scanner alarm? Fang Linyan naturally joined in, working so hard that he was drenched in sweat. Eventually, someone noticed that he was coughing so violently he was even bringing up blood. They hurriedly urged him to stop and rest nearby.
After Fang Linyan returned home and lay down in bed, he tossed and turned, unable to sleep. The two things he'd experienced earlier had shaken him too deeply. The incident in the restroom had been utterly bizarre, while the truck crash that followed had brought terror right to his doorstep!
The shock of facing a dump truck hurtling toward him, the cruel helplessness of watching lives snuffed out in an instant—it all drove home for Fang Linyan just how unpredictable and fleeting life could be. The details of what had happened kept replaying in his mind.
Suddenly, Fang Linyan thought of something so horrifying that the hairs on his neck stood up. It felt as though he'd been plunged into an ice cellar! He carefully worked it out: if he'd paid for his things and left normally, without the supermarket scanner going off, then there was no doubt the out-of-control truck would have slammed right into him!!!
He took two deep breaths to calm himself, then immediately focused on one crucial question.
Why had the supermarket scanner suddenly gone off?
False alarms weren't impossible, but they were rare, so Fang Linyan dismissed that possibility outright.
The most likely explanation was that he really did have an unscanned item on him!!
It was easy enough to check. He just had to look.
First, Fang Linyan emptied the contents of his shopping bag and counted them one by one. It took only a dozen seconds to confirm that nothing was missing.
Next, he checked himself. Out of habit, he first slipped his hand into his right trouser pocket. A bewildered look immediately appeared on his face. Yes, he'd felt something hard and square in there.
When Fang Linyan pulled it out, he discovered it was a mobile phone!
Yes, it was one of those outdated, nearly obsolete Nokia 100 models with a classic keypad. Young people had practically no use for these anymore, but they were loud, tough, had incredible battery life, and were cheap, so many elderly people liked them. That was why they were still sold in the supermarket.
Staring at the brand-new phone in his hand, Fang Linyan was completely stunned. He'd never imagined something like this could have appeared on him. He remembered perfectly well that he hadn't even gone near the phone section, let alone stolen the phone and put it in his pocket.
Besides, to be honest, he used a Huawei or Oppo smartphone. If he were going to steal a phone, he wouldn't steal one made for old people!
Just then, Fang Linyan noticed that the phone in his hand was still switched on. Almost as if possessed, he tapped into it and found three unread text messages. The sender was listed as "Unknown." When he opened the first message, his pupils suddenly contracted. The contents were so bizarre they were beyond belief!!
"You were never meant to see this message. You should know exactly what I mean. Yes, according to the normal course of your fate, your life should have ended abruptly tonight at 9:47:32 p.m. The cause of death would have been a traffic accident so horrific that it would have been difficult to recover your entire body."
These old phones allowed only a limited number of characters in each text, so the message ended there. He would have to read the next one to see the rest. Fang Linyan didn't rush to open it. His heart was pounding, and his whole worldview had taken a tremendous blow. He knew that every word in the message was true!
Fang Linyan's vision began to darken. He knew his frail body couldn't withstand such intense emotions; he might pass out at any moment. So he took a few deep breaths, hurriedly grabbed a handful of glucose powder and shoved it into his mouth, then shut his eyes and forced his mind to go blank. Gradually, he managed to recover.
It took more than ten minutes for Fang Linyan to regain his composure. Only then did he open the second message.
"I know you have a lot of questions right now, but it's not time for me to give you the answers yet. Finding out you have terminal cancer and can only wait quietly for death must be a terrible feeling. Have you ever thought about changing this damn fate?"
As soon as he saw the question, Fang Linyan clenched his fists! His whole body began trembling violently.
Yes, ever since he'd received the terrible news, all he'd thought about was fighting back! But after looking up a huge amount of information, he'd discovered that fighting cancer really did come down to "leave it to fate." That helplessness, that powerlessness, was what made it so utterly despairing.
In fact, if fate had a throat, Fang Linyan would rush at it with everything he had and throttle it. If he couldn't choke it, he'd bite it. If he couldn't bite it, he'd headbutt it! As long as he had a breath left, he would never give up!!!
"Of course I want to!" Fang Linyan squeezed the words out between his teeth without even realizing it.
He impatiently opened the third message. At that moment, he felt like a drowning man who would desperately grab even a straw. The worst possible outcome couldn't be any worse than his current situation, and besides, these mysterious messages had already revealed something clearly beyond the bounds of known science.
The third message was much simpler than the first two. It contained just one short sentence.
"Day 13, 12:17 a.m. Huichuan Pier No. 5. Silver Case. Don't arrive early, and don't arrive late."
Fang Linyan's expression grew serious as he read the words. This wasn't the kind of hint he wanted! It gave him only a time and a place, with no information about what he'd be facing. The unknown risks of stepping into the situation blindly were simply too great. Yet faced with such a bizarre choice, he had no choice at all. If he didn't go, he would die!!
Acting rashly wasn't Fang Linyan's style. He preferred to make careful plans before taking action.
So Fang Linyan immediately took out his own phone and began looking up maps and information. He soon discovered that Huichuan Pier No. 5 had been abandoned for several years. It was quite remote, roughly fifty or sixty kilometers from the city center. Even the nearest road was almost two kilometers away, connected to the pier by a dirt track.
After thinking it over, he went straight to an internet café, since only a computer could display satellite images and street views. But when Fang Linyan tried to access the images, all he got was a 404 error. He sighed in disappointment and decided to go survey the area from a distance in person the next day.
Fortunately, there were still almost two days to go before 12:17 a.m. on the thirteenth, giving Fang Linyan plenty of time to investigate everything.
Before you continue