Finding Jiang Xingye

"Lin Xu! Lin Xu!"

"Get up!"

"Hurry!"

"Hurry!"

In his daze, Lin Xu heard Jiang Xingye calling his name.

He thought he was in the wristband world, but he did not know why Jiang Xingye was not shouting "Run!" this time, but "Hurry!"

—Then, the next second, he heard a loud pounding on the door.

Opening his eyes, Lin Xu struggled to get up and grabbed his phone to check the time.

12:30.

Rubbing his eyes, he walked to the apartment door. When he pulled it open, Jiang Xingye was already standing outside, fully dressed.

"What's going on? It's the weekend..."

Lin Xu said with a yawn,

"It's only twelve-thirty, sis. I only slept four hours..."

"Four hours isn't enough? Who told you not to sleep last night?"

Jiang Xingye curiously peeked into Chen Yan's room and remarked,

"Your room is pretty clean. Totally different from my stereotype of a guy's room."

"...Clean, huh? Want to come in and sit?"

"...No thanks."

Jiang Xingye waved her hand.

"The boss sent you a message. Did you see it?"

"The boss? President Ren?"

Lin Xu took out his phone and opened the app. At the very top of a huge pile of group chat messages was an ID named "Ren Jian00001."

The message he had sent was simple.

"Student Lin, if you have time on Monday, come to my office for a chat. Any time is fine."

Lin Xu's heart suddenly skipped a beat.

"What does that mean? They've already looked over the proposal?"

"That's right!"

Jiang Xingye nodded.

"I heard the boss and the chief engineer were both very interested in your proposal. They sent you a message on the spot and asked you to come talk."

"But when they didn't get a reply from you, Chen Yan came looking for me again and asked me to check what was going on with you."

As she spoke, Jiang Xingye started laughing.

"Heh, you should've heard the way that bastard sounded when he called me!"

"He was so servile, so meek, so careful..."

"I bet the boss was sitting right beside him when he called me."

"This time, we finally got to vent some serious frustration..."

"Hold on."

Lin Xu raised a hand to cut her off.

"You woke me up in such a hurry just to tell me something this unimportant?"

"Unimportant?"

Jiang Xingye glared at him as though she hated his inability to meet expectations.

"Bro, the boss is waiting for you to reply!"

"You think 'any time is fine' really means any time? He has a meeting with investors on Monday, and the company has a mountain of business too. Do you really think he's going to wait around all day just for you?"

"Hurry up and reply to set a time so the executive office can arrange the schedule!"

"...Forgot about that."

Lin Xu smiled awkwardly and pulled out his phone.

"Morning or afternoon? Did you ask for me?"

"Three in the afternoon. That time's relatively open."

"Got it."

Lin Xu lightly tapped his fingers, quickly drafting a suitably official-looking reply and sending it to the boss. Only after the message was marked as read and Ren Jian00001 sent back an "OK" gesture did Jiang Xingye nod in satisfaction.

"OK, OK! As long as you replied!"

"Want to eat? Let's grab lunch together?"

There was a hint of expectation in Jiang Xingye's eyes. Lin Xu hesitated for a moment before replying,

"No, I'm going to sleep a little longer."

"Tonight, tonight I'll treat you to Japanese food. You really worked hard on the new project. I should thank you properly."

This time, Lin Xu was not joking with Jiang Xingye.

And it was true. From the Experiment Three project to the current new project, Jiang Xingye had indeed fought for a lot on his behalf as his supervisor.

He was not the kind of person to forget kindness. If someone treated you well, then even if you could not repay the favor immediately, you still had to show your appreciation.

He did not have anything to do that night anyway. He also felt that last time, he and Jiang Xingye had not fully talked through the matter of "the apocalypse." Today was a good chance to spend more time discussing it properly.

"Oh? You're finally getting it?"

Jiang Xingye looked Lin Xu up and down.

"I can't eat anything cold today, so no Japanese food. Let's have hotpot."

"If you can't eat cold food, then don't go."

Lin Xu said solemnly.

"You bastard! Say that again?"

Jiang Xingye raised her hand as if to smack him, and Lin Xu quickly stepped back.

"Just kidding, just kidding... Hotpot it is."

"I'll call you tonight. I'm going back to sleep now—want to join me?"

"Join you, my ass!"

Jiang Xingye rolled her eyes, though a flush rose to her cheeks.

Clearly, ever since Lin Xu had started letting himself go, she had never been a match for him again.

She slammed the door shut with a bang, and her footsteps rapidly faded away.

Lin Xu shook his head with an amused smile. Returning to his room, he did not lie back down. Instead, he sat in front of his computer.

Besides the preliminary design proposal for Star Traveler One, the documents open on his desktop also included a "Clues" file he had compiled.

At the end of that document, Lin Xu had updated several highest-priority tasks.

[First: Attempt to verify the connection between the real world and the wristband world, and determine what degree of change can affect the wristband world]

[Second: Further advance the Star Traveler One project and obtain more technical information from the wristband world]

[Third: Figure out Jiang Xingye's motive and method for saving me]

After reading through the list again, Lin Xu could not help sighing.

The first two tasks were actually easy enough.

To determine the connection between the real world and the wristband world, the simplest method was to see whether something from the real world could be preserved until twenty years later by some means, then passed into the wristband world.

Twenty years was not that long. Most buildings would not even have reached the end of their service lives. Lin Xu even felt that if he found an inaccessible rooftop and left a mark there, it might remain twenty years later.

And if "small-scale changes" could not have enough of an impact on the wristband world, it would be simple enough to gradually raise the testing standard step by step.

As for obtaining information from the wristband, that went without saying. It was nothing more than repetitive, tedious work.

The third matter, on the other hand, was the hardest and the most directionless.

From his earlier probing, Lin Xu could tell that Jiang Xingye clearly still knew nothing about the apocalypse.

Asking her "why" or "how" now was no different from the story of marking a boat to find a lost sword.

She would not know the answer.

—Wait.

If asking Jiang Xingye here is like marking a boat to find a sword, then why don't I just go back to the river where the sword fell and retrieve it directly?!

Lin Xu suddenly realized that his thinking really had been constrained.

Jiang Xingye from twenty years ago did not know what the apocalypse was. Did that mean Jiang Xingye from twenty years later would not know either?

If she did not know, how could she warn him in advance?

So, "figuring out her motive" had been a false premise from the start.

As long as he found her in the wristband world, every question would be answered!

Lin Xu raised his wrist. The number displayed on the wristband was "3."

He still had three chances left today.

Enough.

Lin Xu lay back on the bed as his consciousness was gradually pulled away.

Once again, he entered the world within the wristband.

And this time, he had only one goal.

Find Jiang Xingye!