Chapter 12

Chapter 12

“So what you’re saying is, yesterday you used a Time Machine to travel back to the past and saw with your own eyes that Xu Lei was going to kill Wen Miao. So, you killed Xu Lei instead? But the strange thing is, when you came back, you found out that Xu Lei isn’t dead?”

“Correct.”

“Is there a possibility…” Qiu Ziyu sat up straight, looking dead serious. “That everything you just said is actually just your own hallucination?”

Nan Mu: “…”

He took a deep breath, suppressing his anger. “I’m not joking!”

Qiu Ziyu rested his chin on one hand. “Then how can you prove that by going back, you can actually change the past? Is it possible it’s like a 5D movie? It feels immersive, but in reality, nothing you do has any substantial impact on the people in the movie.”

“Of course not! Wen Miao’s first time of death was October 8th. I went back and saved her, and then the future changed. Her time of death became October 24th…”

“Wait…” Qiu Ziyu held up the documents in his hand. “But Wen Miao was always supposed to have died on October 24th?”

“That’s because I changed it! I traveled back and saved Wen Miao, changing the timeline. That’s why the memories in your head were updated to this…”

Nan Mu talked for a long time, only to find that Qiu Ziyu still had an expression that said, “I don’t believe you, but I’ll play along.” He was so frustrated that he snapped up from his chair.

He yanked his jacket off the back of the chair, draped it over his arm, and said crossly, “Come with me!”

=

Nan Mu brought Qiu Ziyu to Lijiangbei Street in Lin’an District.

When they got out of the car, Qiu Ziyu saw Nan Mu take out a ring of keys and asked curiously, “When did you buy a house in Lin’an District?”

Nan Mu didn’t answer. Instead, he tossed the keys to him.

Qiu Ziyu scrambled to catch the keys, looking bewildered. Seeing that Nan Mu had no intention of answering, he could only examine the keys in his hand. With just one look, he recognized them immediately. “Hey, the ones Wen Xin gave you?”

“Yeah.”

“Wen Xin’s house? What’s inside?” Qiu Ziyu asked excitedly.

Nan Mu glanced at him sideways but said nothing.

The two of them soon arrived at No. 110 Lijiangbei Street.

Nan Mu tilted his head, gesturing for Qiu Ziyu to open the door. Qiu Ziyu didn’t mind and scurried over to unlock it.

Once the door was open, he didn’t wait for Nan Mu to lead the way. He looked around and headed straight for the only small door in the house.

The moment he pulled open the old mesh screen door, he was stunned. “What kind of setup is this? A mesh wooden door paired with a metal door… what kind of taste is this!”

He pushed the grey metal door and saw the keypad lock on the handle.

“There’s a password too.” Qiu Ziyu stepped aside, making room for Nan Mu to enter the code.

Nan Mu stood there, reciting the numbers as he typed. “The first time I entered this password, it was [20221008], the day Wen Miao died… Later, when I came back to enter it a second time, the password had become [20221024].”

He entered the eight digits on the electronic touchscreen. The lock emitted a long “beep,” and in the silent night, both of them heard the sound of the deadbolts retracting one by one.

*Clack-*

Without the bolts holding it back, the iron door swung inward slightly. Qiu Ziyu gave it a push, and a two-story-high machine was the first thing to meet his eyes.

He stared open-mouthed at this seemingly ordinary old house, which was actually packed with sophisticated, cutting-edge technological equipment.

“The giant machine in front of you is a quantum computer capable of traveling through time and space,” Nan Mu said, standing beside Qiu Ziyu with his hands in his pockets. “In short, a Time Machine.”

Qiu Ziyu looked up at the tall, cold machine. “You wouldn’t set up such an elaborate hoax just to trick me, would you?”

“Do I look like I have nothing better to do?” Nan Mu rolled his eyes.

“I just find it so hard to believe,” Qiu Ziyu said, walking a circle around the machine. He suddenly had a bright idea. “How about this: you go back and tell the past me… tell me that in the year 2032, you’ll take me to see a Time Machine? If you do that, I’ll definitely believe you!”

Nan Mu pulled over a chair and sat facing the backrest, resting his chin on his hand as he stared coldly at Qiu Ziyu for a few seconds.

Qiu Ziyu pursed his lips and looked away, sighing with some emotion. “Wen Xin was really hiding his light under a bushel. Did he build this big guy all by himself?”

“I’m not sure,” Nan Mu shook his head. “According to the lab manual, it started because Wen Miao discovered the Zj element.”

“Zj? Isn’t that element number 178…”

“Yeah.”

Both of them involuntarily thought back to what happened ten years ago.

At that time, Wen Miao had discovered the new element 178 in the laboratory. She named the element Zhejiang, with the symbol Zj.

This discovery caused a sensation throughout the physics world. Because of it, she won the Highest National Physics Award, instantly becoming a rising star in the field. During that period, even the top three trending topics on Weibo were her name.

Nan Mu still clearly remembered the trending headlines from back then.

[Genius Girl Wen Miao Wins Highest National Physics Award]

[Wen Miao, Youngest Recipient of the National Physics Award]

[Beauty and Brains: A University of Science and Technology Genius Girl Wen Miao Wins Award]

Back then, everyone said she was the person in the country with the best chance of becoming the youngest Nobel Prize winner.

At that time, the name Wen Miao was a source of pride for so many people.

But…

Somewhere along the way, the pearl had been covered in dust, and her name was never mentioned again.
“Wait, were Wen Miao and Wen Xin already researching this back then?”

“Probably not. Looking at the experiment logs, it seems the element Wen Miao discovered simply gave Wen Xin some inspiration.”

Qiu Ziyu sighed after hearing this. “What a waste of a talent like Wen Xin… If this thing ever went public, it would definitely win a Nobel Prize, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t know about the Nobel Prize. But I can say for certain that if word of this got out, there’s no telling if the two of us would even keep our lives.”

Qiu Ziyu: ???

Nan Mu gave a cold, thin smile. “Think about it. This thing can change the past… On a small scale, you could go back and, as long as you have the right time and place, you could always witness exactly who a killer was. A businessman like me could go back and always know the right choice for any investment, whether it’s a red ocean or a blue ocean… On a larger scale, a country could go back in time…”

Qiu Ziyu shuddered. He didn’t need Nan Mu to finish; he could already imagine that once the outside world learned of this machine, the state would strictly lockdown all information. If other nations found out, who could sit idly by while another country possessed such a secret weapon? Who could guarantee that the history they knew hadn’t already been tampered with by someone else?

Setting aside international warfare, how would the National Administration of State Secrets Protection handle the two of them just to ensure the secret didn’t leak?

An ordinary man is innocent, but possessing a treasure makes him guilty.

Qiu Ziyu suddenly realized he hadn’t dug up a treasure; he had dug up a landmine.

“You were the one who said you wanted to know,” Nan Mu said, dousing him with a bucket of cold water before Qiu Ziyu could explode.

Qiu Ziyu: “…”

Silently lighting a candle for himself in his mind, Qiu Ziyu pulled himself together. “So you really went back to the past… and the killer really was Xu Lei?”

“Yes… but I don’t know why. I clearly killed him…” Nan Mu looked at his open palms, falling into a state of confusion.

“Could it be because you’re from the future, so you can’t actually kill him?”

“I’m not sure…” Nan Mu hesitated. “But what you’re saying is a possibility.”

“Anyway, you have a Time Machine. What are you afraid of? Just go back and try a few more times until you figure it out.”

“I can’t!”

Qiu Ziyu turned back in confusion, seeing Nan Mu’s heavy gaze fixed on the giant machine before them. “The Time Machine doesn’t allow a person to go back to the past infinitely.”

The last entry of the Time Machine Experiment Manual: The subject should not use the Time Machine more than seven times, otherwise, the subject will experience severe adverse reactions!!!

Wen Xin had even drawn a star after the final entry and written the word “IMPORTANT” in large letters, followed by two massive exclamation points.

“So you can’t just go back whenever you want? What do we do then?”

Both men fell silent for a moment.

Qiu Ziyu suddenly remembered something. “I have an unrefined idea. Since you can’t change Wen Miao’s fate, why don’t you go back and change Wen Xin’s? I bet he has more insight into this Time Machine he invented than we do, right?”

“Good idea!” Nan Mu gave him a thumbs up before sneering. “And what if it’s like Wen Miao? I save him the first time, and then he dies again a second time?”

“Hey, do you think maybe a person’s death can only be changed once…”

Nan Mu’s heart skipped a beat, but he quickly countered, “I don’t think that’s the reason.”

He didn’t dare think too deeply about that possibility. If it were true, it meant Wen Miao’s death was already set in stone. He could not accept that reality.

“There’s another possibility.”

Nan Mu looked at him. Qiu Ziyu leaned in mysteriously. “Isn’t that how loops work in movies and TV shows? We have to catch the killer before we can break the loop.”

“The killer is Xu Lei.”

“Uh…” Qiu Ziyu blinked, realizing he had forgotten that. He hurriedly tried to salvage his point. “Then… then we have to find the motive! We have to find the reason he’s doing it. Do you know why Xu Lei wanted to kill Wen Miao?!”

Nan Mu shook his head.

Qiu Ziyu straightened his back and snapped his fingers. “That’s what I’m saying! We have to find the reason Xu Lei wanted to kill Wen Miao!”

There was some logic to that. Nan Mu pondered for a moment. “Speaking of which, before my second leap, I always thought Xu Lei was the one who asked Wen Miao to meet at the crime scene. But Wen Miao told me then that she was invited there by a letter…”

That letter’s paper looked quite old. Some parts of the handwritten address on the envelope were even starting to blur, as if it had been written many, many years ago. It didn’t look like something recently sent to Wen Miao at all.

Furthermore, the content of the envelope was dated October 24th, and the postmark was also October 24th. It was as if someone wanted Wen Miao to go to the crime scene immediately, without giving her any time to think.

“What did the letter say?” Qiu Ziyu pressed.

“I don’t know. I didn’t have time to open it then.”

Nan Mu repeated what Wen Miao had said to Qiu Ziyu. “The envelope only had the recipient’s name, phone number, and address. There was no sender information.”

“It’s impossible for there to be no sender information. Real-name registration was already mandatory ten years ago. It might not be printed on the envelope, but the post office must have a record.” Qiu Ziyu was more familiar with tracking such things. “The police didn’t find the letter you’re talking about during the evidence search. Where is it? Was it put away with her personal effects? We should take the letter to the post office to check.”

Where would Wen Miao’s things be?

Nan Mu thought for a while, and a place suddenly came to mind: Happiness Orphanage.