Lin Jie drove to a secluded corner, turned on the air conditioning, and held his drink.
Then he quietly watched a patch of empty ground outside the window.
That patch of ground was precisely where Lin Jie had "died" last time.
He waited patiently.
As far as Lin Jie was concerned, that gunman would definitely appear.
Because Lin Jie had followed his previous actions exactly, reenacting everything that had happened.
He had stolen a huge amount of cash, blown up the villa, gone to a gas station several miles away for a drink, and made an arrogant phone call to Zhou Lan.
Every bit of it had been reproduced without the slightest deviation.
So that gunman should also appear in that spot without the slightest deviation.
Time ticked by, and he soon finished his drink.
Lin Jie nervously checked the time on his phone.
Soon. Any moment now...
There were less than ten seconds until the moment Lin Jie had been shot dead last time!
Meanwhile, on a road outside the villa.
"Sir, could you please drive a little slower?"
In the back seat of the taxi, Xia Qu nervously clutched her seat belt and quietly reminded him.
"Hey, young lady, don't worry! I know this road!"
Chen Li kept his right hand on the steering wheel, his left resting lightly outside the window with a cigarette between his fingers.
He chatted on and off:
"Just graduated, young lady? My daughter's about your age..."
A sudden thunderous boom interrupted his chatter.
"Holy crap, an earthquake?"
In the distance, a fierce blaze lit up the night sky.
He kept driving, but before he had gone far, a sea of cars blocked his way.
"Even this road gets traffic jams?"
Chen Li stuck his head out the window in disbelief.
Not far away, traffic police had blocked the road ahead.
"We're very sorry. There's been a major explosion up ahead, and we're dealing with it. Please wait patiently."
Chen Li pulled his head back in. "Just my luck."
Xia Qu said uncertainly, "How about we just wait here for a while, sir?"
But Chen Li waved a hand. "No need, young lady. I know a shortcut!"
"Just sit tight and leave the rest to me!"
He spun the steering wheel and stepped on the accelerator.
The taxi cut diagonally ahead.
After a series of left and right turns, it entered a dirt road.
The road was very narrow and had no streetlights, making it difficult to see the road conditions in the darkness.
But Chen Li paid it no mind and continued driving at high speed.
Xia Qu trembled with fear. "It's too dark, sir. How about slowing down? I'm not in a hurry."
Chen Li remained carefree. "What's there to be scared of? Let me tell you, young lady, I've been driving for years, and I, Chen Li, have never had a single accident."
"What, is a car going to pop out in front of me today, just by coincidence, and send me flying?"
Before he had finished speaking, an ambulance approached a short distance ahead.
"Doctor, this road looks so narrow. Are you sure it's okay to take it?"
Inside the ambulance, two medical workers in white coats were talking.
"It's fine. I'll just tell the driver to slow down."
"We don't have a patient on board anyway, so there's no rush."
"If there hadn't been an explosion up ahead, we wouldn't have taken this road."
The young nurse suddenly pointed ahead. "Doctor, look! Up ahead, there's a car! A car's about to hit us!!!"
At the very instant the two vehicles were about to collide, the taxi suddenly swerved hard and went around the ambulance.
The two vehicles were only a centimeter away from smashing each other to pieces.
"Phew, good thing we don't have a patient on board and aren't in a hurry. Otherwise..."
"If we'd been going any faster, there'd have been no time to react. The two vehicles would definitely have collided."
In the taxi, Xia Qu pressed a hand to her chest, still shaken. "Phew, that was so close. I thought I was going to die."
"I don't know why, but I kept feeling like our car was going to crash into that ambulance ahead."
Chen Li's palms were sweating with nerves too, but he still pretended to be relaxed. "I told you, young lady. Don't worry."
"That ambulance probably didn't have a patient on board. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been going so slowly."
"All right, sit tight. I'm about to turn."
Since this dirt road was not a proper road, it had many sharp bends.
"Huh? That's strange. Why isn't the steering wheel responding?"
"Sir, hit the brakes! The car-the car's about to fly off the road!"
Chen Li repeatedly stamped on the brakes, but they did not respond either.
Not only that, even though he had long since taken his foot off the accelerator, the car kept going faster and faster.
It was as though some force was controlling it.
An accident happened after all.
Crash!
The car smashed through the guardrail and flew into the lake beside the road.
Soon, both of them lost consciousness.
The car slowly sank...
Inside Lin Jie's car.
He stared at the patch of empty ground, occasionally glancing at the time on his phone.
Five seconds... four seconds... three seconds... two seconds... one second...
Now!
Lin Jie went on full alert, constantly scanning the empty ground and its surroundings.
Everything was quiet.
What was going on?
The person he had expected did not appear.
There was no sign whatsoever of that stranger with the gun.
But Lin Jie did not dare get out of the car to investigate rashly.
After all, last time, it was precisely because Lin Jie had gotten out of the car that he had ended up being shot dead.
Perhaps that man was hiding somewhere in ambush, waiting to rush out and shoot as soon as Lin Jie showed himself.
Lin Jie started the car and slowly circled at a distance, staying hidden in the darkness as he kept observing his surroundings.
But he still found no sign of anyone.
Now Lin Jie had no choice but to accept one fact: that man had not come this time.
A term immediately sprang to mind: the butterfly effect.
The butterfly effect was also known as chaos theory.
It had been proposed by Edward Lorenz:
If a butterfly flapped its wings once over the Amazon River, it might well cause a tornado in Texas, in the United States, one day in the future.
A tiny disturbance in the past could very well change the entire future.
Lin Jie considered that even if he strictly repeated his previous actions, he would still inevitably change certain things.
For example, last time, Lin Jie had used Liu Yunyun as his "stand-in."
This time, Liu Yunyun had disappeared, so Lin Jie had used Li Xin instead.
Last time, after Lin Jie had driven here, a stranger had stopped him, which had led to him being shot dead.
This time, because Lin Jie had prepared in advance, he had not taken that road. Instead, he had come to a secluded corner nearby to observe.
These changes might very well have caused the stranger not to appear.
Was it over?
Uneasily, Lin Jie started the car and drove home.
The shooting he had expected had not happened at all this time.
So had he really come back to life this time?
The journey was uneventful. Even by the time Lin Jie parked his car in the garage by his front door, no accidents had occurred.
As he got out, Lin Jie felt dazed.
Had there really been a shooting?
Had he really died once, then played a bizarre game of Werewolf?
Could all of this have been a hallucination caused by too much stress?
Lin Jie rubbed his temples, took out his key, turned the lock, and stepped inside his home.
"Don't move."
In the darkness, Lin Jie sensed a pitch-black gun barrel pressed against the back of his head.