Chapter 161
Chapter 161
Nan Mu had never given much thought to why Wen Xin had stressed that the Time Machine must not be used more than seven times.
Where had that figure come from?
For a rigorous researcher, every number had to be supported by rigorous experimentation.
If Wen Xin had written that warning, he must have reached the conclusion through experiments.
The existence of the Time Machine was a secret that could never be revealed to the outside world. Given Wen Xin’s small social circle and his personality, who could he possibly have used as a test subject to obtain his data?
Wen Tangtang?
No. It couldn’t have been her.
No matter how much confidence Wen Xin had in the Time Machine he had developed, he would never have gambled with Wen Tangtang’s life during the first trial.
Which meant…
It could only have been Wen Xin himself.
If Wen Xin had arrived at the number seven by personally traveling into the past, then the conclusion meant his body must already have suffered irreversible damage by then.
Nan Mu suddenly remembered Wen Xin’s cause of death in the Xu Lei murder case. Wen Xin had supposedly been injured by accident while trying to stop Wen Tangtang from attacking Xu Lei.
But what if Wen Xin had already been physically weakened at the time? Could it be that he had no longer possessed the strength to break up Wen Tangtang and Xu Lei’s struggle?
The possibility gave Nan Mu an entirely new understanding of what it meant to use the Time Machine.
So that was it…
Using the Time Machine was not without a price.
The price was the user’s life.
…
Nan Mu thought again of those “seven times.”
The main reason the Time Machine’s secret had never leaked was that very few people knew it existed.
With so few people aware of it, the experimental data recorded in Wen Xin’s Time Machine Experiment Manual had probably never been validated through a large enough sample.
The data should have been tested on multiple subjects. Individual differences could be enormous, after all, and every person’s endurance varied.
Wen Xin’s seven trips through time could, at best, substantiate the manual’s other observations. But its final warning-“A test subject should not use the Time Machine more than seven times, or the subject will suffer severe adverse reactions!”-demanded closer scrutiny.
People were simply too different. Some could endure longer, while others…
And now that Nan Mu thought about it, what did “seven times” actually mean? Did it mean a person could complete the first seven trips and return safely, completely unharmed each time? Or did the seventh trip burn away the final remnants of their life?
Nan Mu opened his hand, then curled it into a fist, lowering his gaze as he gauged the strength left in his body.
Perhaps he had never truly had seven chances to travel through time.
If the seventh trip meant burning away the last of his life, and if he wanted to avoid using that seventh chance…
Then he might have only one or two opportunities left to return to the past and save Wen Miao.
…
Qiu Ziyu was stunned by Nan Mu’s deduction. At a loss for how to comfort him, he said, “It’s only a theory. Maybe things aren’t as bad as you think.”
Nan Mu lifted his head, his voice low and hoarse. “My body is deteriorating. I can feel that clearly. But you’re right-this is only my theory. Of everything I suspect, if there’s still one person in this world who knows the truth, it can only be Wen Tangtang.”
He had to find Wen Tangtang.
Besides, there were other things he needed to learn from her.
He needed to know exactly what had happened to Wen Miao and the others that day. He needed to know why Wen Miao… had still died.
He had to find Wen Tangtang, get the answers from her, and unravel these mysteries.
===
Qiu Ziyu commandeered the bedroom to catch up on sleep, leaving Nan Mu to rest in the living room.
Nan Mu called Auntie Li and asked her to bring a change of clothes to the apartment and cook them a meal while she was there.
Auntie Li was a longtime housekeeper employed by the Nan family. She had worked for them for five or six years, but this was her first time at the apartment.
After handing Nan Mu the clothes she had prepared, she went into the kitchen and discovered that it showed no sign of ever having been used.
She opened the refrigerator.
Good grief. It wasn’t even plugged in.
With no other choice, Auntie Li went back downstairs and visited the nearest supermarket, where she bought groceries, cooking oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and the rest of the kitchen essentials. Only then could she begin making lunch.
More than an hour later, the food was finally on the table. Just then, the door to the master bedroom opened, and Qiu Ziyu emerged. He sniffed the air. “That smells amazing.”
Nan Mu took a jab at him. “Your nose works well. You woke up the instant lunch was ready.”
Qiu Ziyu rubbed his stomach. “Hunger woke me.”
After tidying the kitchen, Auntie Li noticed the thin layer of dust covering the living room and hallway. She found cleaning supplies in the bathroom and set to work.
As Qiu Ziyu sat down to eat, he teased her. “Don’t bother cleaning. He doesn’t live here anyway. It’ll only get dusty again.”
Auntie Li knew her responsibilities and naturally did not take his joke seriously. She smiled politely. “Once dust sits too long, it’s harder to clean. If I take care of it now, it’ll be much easier if Mr. Nan ever decides to stay here.”
…
After finishing his meal, Qiu Ziyu rubbed his stomach contentedly and headed for the bathroom.
Passing the study, he saw Auntie Li cleaning inside.
The room had a clear line of sight, so the familiar easel among the pile of belongings caught his eye at once.
“So this is where you moved everything from your lounge after graduation,” Qiu Ziyu called to Nan Mu in the dining room. “You brought it all to this apartment.”
A mischievous smile crept across his face. He walked straight over and, unable to resist, lifted the white cloth draped over the easel.
He had wanted for years to know what Nan Mu had hidden in this painting.
The white cloth slipped from the easel and fell to the floor, revealing a smiling face. The young woman in the painting seemed to be smiling at someone, her eyes curved like crescent moons and shimmering with light. She was as lovely as a camellia blooming in the mountains.
Qiu Ziyu knew that face.
It was Wen Miao.
“So this is why you never let anyone touch the painting,” Qiu Ziyu murmured. “Because you painted her.”
Wen Miao was forbidden ground to Nan Mu, a subject no one was allowed to touch.
Qiu Ziyu expected Nan Mu to berate him. For once, however, Nan Mu did not lose his temper. He simply picked up the cloth and covered the painting again.
Before, Nan Mu had been afraid that someone might discover his feelings, so he had kept the painting hidden and refused to let anyone see it.
Now that Wen Miao was dead, he no longer felt any need to hide.
He loved her. The truly heartbreaking regret was never loving someone and failing to be with her. It was that she had died without ever knowing how he felt.
As the smiling young woman slowly disappeared beneath the cloth, Qiu Ziyu was struck by a strange sense of déjà vu.
Nan Mu turned and found him standing there in a daze, staring fixedly at the now-covered easel. He raised an eyebrow. “Why are you still here? What are you staring at? Looking for a scolding?”
Qiu Ziyu scratched his head. “Of course not. I just feel like…”
He sucked in a thoughtful breath, reached past Nan Mu, and lifted the cloth. “Let me see it one more time.”
Nan Mu was clearly displeased by his behavior. He pressed his lips together and warned in a low voice, “Qiu Ziyu, don’t push your luck.”
Qiu Ziyu ignored him. All his attention was on the painting.
After racking his brain for a long while, he asked curiously, “Did you paint this from life, or did you imagine it?”
Nan Mu frowned, not understanding why he would suddenly ask.
Thinking Nan Mu had not understood, Qiu Ziyu rephrased the question. “Why did you paint her making that V sign? Did you actually see her doing this?”
Nan Mu shifted his gaze to the painting.
He had painted it on the day Wen Miao received an award from the university.
Because she had discovered a new element, the university had held a grand ceremony to recognize her achievement.
The publicity department had wanted to take her picture. She stood in the sunlight in a white dress, facing the camera with a radiant smile.
That brilliant smile was like dazzling sunlight, warm and bright. Reflected in Nan Mu’s eyes, it had touched his heart and branded itself into his memory.
That evening, after returning home, Nan Mu had painted the scene stroke by stroke from memory, restoring that moment to the canvas.
The V sign had, of course, been Wen Miao’s own pose. But it was an ordinary gesture. Nearly everyone had made it for a photograph at one time or another.
What was so strange about that?