Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Pushing the door open, he found the courtyard filled with plants. These weren’t common flowers or greenery; they looked more like the specimens Wang Zheng kept in petri dishes for his research.

Walking a few steps further, he reached a small inner door made of wood and mesh screening.

As Nan Mu pulled it open, still wondering what era such a door belonged to, he was momentarily dazed by the door behind it.

It was a gray, metallic iron door. The polished sheen of the handle served as a prompt for visitors to enter a passcode. It was like opening a dilapidated cardboard box only to find an expensive diamond inside-utterly unexpected.

Nan Mu stared at the iron door in a daze for a moment before trying to input eight 8s.

The lock beeped several times, and as expected, the words “Incorrect Input” flashed on the screen.

Nan Mu fell into silence as he mentally calculated the permutations of the ten digits on the keypad and just how many possibilities there were.

Had Wen Xin not told him the password because he believed that as long as Nan Mu persisted, he would eventually open it? Or did he think Nan Mu would definitely be able to guess it?

As these thoughts crossed his mind, he tried eight 6s, eight 0s, eight 7s, and eight 9s.

Upon the fifth mistake, the lock beeped loudly several times, followed by a cold, female voice prompt: “Too many incorrect attempts. Please try again in 5 minutes.”

Nan Mu waited patiently for the five minutes to pass. During that time, he noted down the birthdays of Wen Xin, Wen Tangtang, and Wen Miao, planning to try those next.

The three of them were actually orphans and had no idea what day they were actually born on. Their birthdays were dates they had assigned to themselves as children just so they would have a legitimate excuse to buy and eat cake.

January 1st, May 1st, and September 1st.

Nan Mu remembered them clearly. Because they were orphans, they had to save money for a long time to afford a single cake. Every year, only on their birthdays would they extravagantly buy a small cake and share it among the three of them. That simple joy would last them a long time.

Including the years, Nan Mu tried three more times, but none were correct. On the fourth attempt, he even tried his own birthday.

The cold “Incorrect Input” message reminded him that he clearly had some unrealistic fantasies about his own status in Wen Xin’s heart.

By the fifth attempt, Nan Mu hesitated. After all, another mistake would mean waiting another five minutes. He tried to think of any date that might be special to them, but nothing came to mind for a long time.

Adopting the mindset of getting the errors out of the way early so he could try more times today, he entered “202210008.”

October 8, 2022-the day Wen Miao was murdered.

The sound of the lock’s bolt retracting was exceptionally clear in the quiet afternoon.

Nan Mu reached out and gave the door a gentle push. A machine two stories high, tangled in a dense web of wires, was the first thing to meet his eyes. Beside the door stood a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, stacked neatly with categorized papers, reports, and data. The completion date for every single report was meticulously labeled on the glass doors.

This appeared to be Wen Xin’s materials laboratory.

Wen Xin was a professor at A University of Science and Technology. He had a dedicated lab at the university and graduate students acting as his assistants. Why would he set up another laboratory in an urban village?

Mottled exterior walls and an ordinary gate hid a cold metal door, a three-story interior that had been hollowed out, and a massive machine housed within. What kind of secrets were hidden here?

…

Nan Mu found the answer in an experimental manual inside the glass cabinet.

The giant machine before him was actually a quantum computer capable of traversing time and space. In short: a Time Machine.

Go back.

So that was what Wen Xin meant by “going back.”

Nan Mu couldn’t stop himself from trembling.

If it was possible to go back.

If it was possible to return to the past.

Then… would he be able to change Wen Miao’s fate?
October 8, 2022. Dormitory 501, A University of Science and Technology.

Nan Mu opened his eyes and found himself standing on the floor.

However, the dizziness from riding the Time Machine had not yet dissipated. Disoriented, he stumbled back and slumped onto Wang Zheng’s bed.

*Creak-*

The dormitory door was pulled open from the outside. The noisy bustle of the dorm building, which had felt like it was on mute, suddenly flooded in all at once.

“Today’s beef buns are terrible. Is anyone even managing the cafeteria anymore?”

“Forget the beef buns, even my vegetable bun is bitter. They probably made it with old leaves scavenged from a trash heap.”

Nan Mu turned his head and saw Wang Zheng and Qiu Ziyu walking in with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

“Eh? Who’s this? Holy crap! Brother Nan, you look quite dapper today. This is a pretty stylish outfit!” Wang Zheng’s eyes lit up. He tossed the buns aside and reached out to touch the suit Nan Mu was wearing. “At first glance, I thought you just walked out of a CBD skyscraper.”

Nan Mu blinked, looking at the Wang Zheng before him. At this time, he wasn’t yet that serious professor; he still had slightly long bangs and radiated the vibe of a pretty boy.

“Why are you dressed like this? I remember you saying you were going to a lecture this afternoon, weren’t you?” Qiu Ziyu stood behind Wang Zheng, looking suspicious.

He had never noticed before how sharp Qiu Ziyu was. As expected of someone cut out to be a policeman.

Nan Mu subconsciously looked away and made up an excuse. “I was just trying it on. It seems it really isn’t suitable… I’ll change out of it.”

He stood up and rushed to the wardrobe. Before he could open it, he heard Wang Zheng’s voice.

“What are you doing? That’s my wardrobe!”

Nan Mu paused, remembering that after they had changed dorm rooms, the positions of the wardrobes had indeed been rearranged once. He felt a pang of annoyance at himself, then bypassed Wang Zheng’s wardrobe to open the one next to it, hurriedly changing into a set of clothes from his student days.

Fortunately, he hadn’t gained weight over the years; the clothes still fit.

“When did you secretly train those abs behind our backs? Not bad, Nan Mu,” Wang Zheng said, patting Nan Mu’s abs.

Nan Mu’s whole body stiffened. Suppressing the urge to pummel the guy, he hurriedly stuffed the suit into the very back of the wardrobe, put on a hat, and ran out of the classroom.

Memories from ten years ago were already somewhat blurred. Suddenly seeing the campus restored to its past state made it difficult to adapt.

Passing by the school’s bulletin board, Nan Mu saw two notices for today’s lectures posted on it.

**Lecturer:** Xu Lei, Senior Biological Researcher at Wisdom Biotech Company
**Topic:** Seminar on the Regeneration of Nerve Cells and Cloning Research of Stem Cells
**Time:** October 8, 2022, 10:00 AM
**Location:** 305 Biology Research Lab, 3rd Floor, Chongjing Building

**Lecturer:** Meng Ran, Senior Materials Researcher at Wisdom Biotech Company
**Topic:** Quantum Entanglement Theory
**Time:** October 8, 2022, 10:20 AM
**Location:** 203 Materials Research Lab, 2nd Floor, Chongjing Building

Nan Mu let out a soft gasp as he remembered.

In 2022, he was only a first-year graduate student at A University of Science and Technology. During their undergraduate years, Nan Mu and Wen Tangtang were classmates in the Biology Department. After taking the postgraduate entrance exams, both of them had set their sights on the same supervisor at their university: Professor Hu.

Professor Hu had a research project called “Regeneration of Nerve Cells and Cloning Research of Stem Cells.” This project was a collaborative research effort between A University of Science and Technology and Wisdom Biotech Company.

On October 8th, to give the biology students a better understanding of the subject, the school had invited Xu Lei, a senior biological researcher from Wisdom Biotech Company, to give a lecture.

That day, both he and Wen Tangtang had attended.

In other words, the acquaintance between Wen Tangtang and Xu Lei might have begun on this very day.