Chapter 160

Chapter 160

Nan Mu gave a bitter smile. This wasn’t Nan Huan Group.

He was nothing more than an intern. What kind of clout could he possibly have to make the security guards at the entrance let her in?

Besides, he hadn’t been here long. The guards probably didn’t even know he existed.

Nan Mu comforted Wen Tangtang. “I guessed you might not be able to get upstairs, which is why I called you. I just messaged Liang Mingqi. She’s still in the lab. I’ll send you her phone number. Call her and see if she can come down to get you.”

Wen Tangtang was depressed. “Wouldn’t it be better if you just called her and told her?”

Nan Mu was left momentarily speechless by Wen Tangtang’s question.

He and Wen Xin had been keeping their distance at the company, pretending not to know each other. If he called Liang Mingqi now and mentioned Wen Xin, Liang Mingqi would definitely find it strange.

He was just about to explain when Wen Tangtang impatiently said, “Forget it, forget it. Hurry up and send me the number.”

…

By the time Nan Mu returned to 2032, it was already past six in the evening.

Unlike every time he had returned before, this time Nan Mu felt exceptionally exhausted.

He couldn’t even stand up right away. Instead, he lay there in a daze on the cold cement floor.

By the time he fully came to, it was already past seven.

Outside the door was the bustling city. The moon and stars vied to shimmer in the sky, and the night wind brushed past, carrying a trace of late autumn chill.

Nan Mu dragged his weary feet away from Lijiang North Road. He didn’t return to the place where he had lived for years. Instead, he went to the apartment under his name that was closest to Lijiang North Road.

While he was waiting for the elevator downstairs, two female students in school uniforms followed him into the building.

Both girls had their heads lowered, scrolling through their phones as they shared the latest trending news with each other.

“Oh my god! Did you see this?” One of the girls stared at her phone screen and suddenly shrieked. “Look at the newest trending search!”

“What is it?” The other girl, baffled, took the shrieking girl’s phone and looked down at the entry that had just shot to the top of the trending list. She read it out word by word. “‘City A teacher-killer Wen Tangtang escapes from hospital while out on medical parole’… Holy crap! That murderer got out?”

“Yeah, it’s so scary. Someone that dangerous actually ran away from the hospital. What if she kills someone again?”

“Stop talking about it. Let’s hurry home. We have to be careful on the way to and from school these next couple of days…”

Frowning, Nan Mu took out his phone and saw that the headlines on every major news app were all about Wen Tangtang.

Wen Tangtang, the teacher-killer.

So Wen Miao had still died after all.

In the end, he still hadn’t been able to change the past.

Nan Mu thought of the words Wen Miao had whispered by his ear-“See you in ten years”-and couldn’t stop his eyes from reddening.

“Liar.”

Nan Mu murmured the word under his breath.

===

Nan Mu slept groggily at home through the night. It wasn’t until the next morning that a knock at the door startled him awake.

Still bleary-eyed, Nan Mu grabbed at his messy hair and shuffled to the entrance in his slippers, peering out through the peephole.

It was Qiu Ziyu.

Nan Mu opened the door and found that Qiu Ziyu, standing outside, was unshaven and scruffy. He actually looked even more disheveled than Nan Mu, who had just gotten out of bed.

“What happened to you…?” Nan Mu looked him up and down, then asked in astonishment, “Where did you crawl back from, a war zone?”
Qiu Ziyu’s eyes were bloodshot. He shoved Nan Mu weakly aside, went straight to the entryway, kicked off his shoes, then made his way to the bar counter as if he owned the place. He poured himself a glass of water and gulped it down.

Nan Mu shut the door with a helpless sigh, then bent down and patiently set Qiu Ziyu’s shoes neatly in place.

After finishing the water, Qiu Ziyu set down the glass, stretched his aching body, and let out a huge yawn. Only then did he turn to look at Nan Mu and ask lazily, “When did you get back? Why didn’t you let me know?”

Nan Mu pinched the bridge of his nose and walked over to sit on the sofa. “Late last night, so I didn’t call you. What about you? What happened to make you look this awful?”

The moment Qiu Ziyu thought about what he’d been through these past two days, he couldn’t help letting out a grief-stricken sigh. He sank into the sofa and said, “You have no idea. Not long after you left, Wen Tangtang used her medical parole as a chance to escape from the hospital. Our entire criminal investigation brigade is in complete chaos. None of us have slept for a day and a night.”

Thinking back to the scene in the office when he’d left, Qiu Ziyu gave a bitter smile. “Originally, the higher-ups wanted us to quietly capture her again without making a fuss. But who knows which idiot leaked the news to the media… Now the whole internet’s blowing up.”

“If the whole internet’s blowing up, you still have time to come here?”

“I’m not made of iron, you know. I really couldn’t hold on anymore. If I hadn’t been worried about you, I would’ve gone straight home and slept.”

Nan Mu smiled. “Then I suppose I should thank you for remembering to squeeze in a visit during your busy schedule.”

“Of course.” Qiu Ziyu accepted it without the slightest modesty.

Thinking of Wen Tangtang, Nan Mu asked, “What happened to Wen Tangtang? How did she get medical parole?”

“You forgot?” Qiu Ziyu looked at Nan Mu, a hint of surprise in his eyes. “Back at the hospital, didn’t I mention this to you? I said Fang Yue told me himself that Wen Tangtang had suddenly fallen ill, and the police processed her medical parole. You even asked me what illness she had.”

Nan Mu froze for a moment. Seeing him like that, Qiu Ziyu looked puzzled. “Don’t tell me you even forgot that? At the time, you told me to ask around about her condition. If it was serious, you said I should hire a specialist to take a look at her, and you’d pay for it.”

Only then did Nan Mu remember that before his last trip back, Qiu Ziyu had indeed told him about Wen Tangtang’s medical parole. But for some reason, he hadn’t recalled it at all just now.

Qiu Ziyu found it strange and teased him, “That’s rare. With your memory, that shouldn’t happen.”

The speaker meant nothing by it, but the listener took it to heart.

Hearing those words, Nan Mu fell into a daze.

That was right. It clearly hadn’t been that long ago, so how could he have forgotten? Forgetting was one thing, but even after Qiu Ziyu reminded him several times, he still hadn’t remembered immediately.

A fear unlike anything he’d ever felt before rose from the depths of his heart, nearly drowning him completely.

Nan Mu unconsciously clenched his fingertips. He thought again of how, when he’d returned yesterday, he had lain on the concrete floor for over an hour, unable to get up.

His declining memory. His weakening body…

All these signs seemed to confirm the sentence Wen Xin had written in his Time Machine Experiment Manual.

The test subject must not use the Time Machine more than seven times. Otherwise, the test subject will suffer severe adverse reactions!!!