Ch 3: Text Messages Across Time

“Wang Gao’ang’s been running his mouth, saying he’ll beat us up every time he sees us. No idea who it was that got beaten like a dog last time…” In the taxi in 2004, Hu Wei rambled on about what had been happening these past few days.

There were three high schools in their area: Xuhu No. 1 High School, Lide High School, and the Xuhu Vocational Education Center. Xuhu No. 1 was the best high school in the city, and the students there looked down on others. They had little to do with that side.

Lide’s college admission rate wasn’t as high as No. 1, but its facilities were better, and it had many specialty students and students planning to go abroad. The students there were basically divided into two types: good students, and those who got in through money and connections. Hu Wei and Qin Weidong belonged to the second group. Hu Wei’s family had pinned all their hopes on him and scraped together money to get him in as a sports student, while Qin Weidong had paid a hefty school selection fee and planned to go abroad after graduation.

Qin Weidong was one of the troublemakers at school. Listening to Hu Wei go on from Wang Gao’ang to the group fight the other day, he said dully, “The school’s been cracking down hard lately. Let’s not stir up trouble for now.” He had just been called in by the homeroom teacher that afternoon over a fight, and he felt completely drained.

“Right, right, we’ll study hard! Violence doesn’t solve anything!” Hu Wei immediately changed his tone.

Qin Weidong barely lifted his eyelids, not in the mood to banter.

The scenery outside the taxi window slid by quickly, and soon they arrived at the internet café. It was a two-story place with about 120 computers. Since it was Wednesday, there weren’t many people, and plenty of machines were free when they walked in.

“We texted earlier to reserve machines. Why didn’t anyone respond?” Hu Wei knocked lazily on the counter.

The cashier was a girl in her early twenties, watching a Korean drama. She glanced up. “Who did you text? I didn’t get anything.”

“Zhou Ping, the tall skinny guy from before!”

“The network admin took leave today. He probably didn’t see it. It’s quiet today anyway. You guys opening machines or not?” she asked directly.

“Two private rooms.”

“No private rooms left. Only the main hall.”

“Then the hall it is.”

After chatting a bit more, Hu Wei bought two cans of cola and went back outside to find Qin Weidong. “Brother Qin, all set. Machines 32 and 33!”

It was stuffy inside the café, so Qin Weidong had been standing at the entrance getting some air. Translated on Hololo novels. Seeing Hu Wei return, he casually opened his wallet, pulled out five hundred yuan, and handed it over. “Use this for the computer fees. If it runs out, we’ll talk later.”

“Thanks, boss! I’ll keep a record and give it to you later!” Hu Wei took the money smoothly, clearly not the first time.

“Whatever.” Qin Weidong didn’t care about small amounts of money. When he went out with friends, he rarely fussed over these things and wasn’t used to letting others pay.

They quickly returned inside. Their seats were in a corner on the first floor, far from the entrance, relatively quiet.

Hu Wei sat down and immediately launched Counter-Strike. Qin Weidong placed his phone on the desk, planning to find a few sci-fi movies to watch. But the moment he set it down, a message tone rang out.

He was using the latest Motorola phone, and the message tone sounded especially crisp in the café.

“Who’s that?” Hu Wei asked curiously.

“No idea.” Qin Weidong assumed it was from Qin Jianzhang, probably nagging him again about fighting and not studying. Thinking this, he opened the message—

But it wasn’t Qin Jianzhang.

It was the number for the café’s network admin.

Unknown number: 【Didn’t Xingchen Internet Café shut down twenty years ago?】

Qin Weidong: ???

He turned to Hu Wei. “The number you gave me earlier, that’s the admin’s number?”

“Yeah. I just asked. He took leave today, that’s why he didn’t reply in time. But it’s quiet today anyway, no need to reserve machines…”

At that moment, the game finished loading, and Hu Wei quickly immersed himself in it.

Qin Weidong stared at the message, then casually replied: “Oh? When did it shut down? How come I didn’t know?”

Xingchen had opened just last year. He figured the admin must have had some conflict with the owner and was just talking nonsense out of boredom.

After sending it, Qin Weidong felt like he was wasting his time. He was about to look for a movie when the phone lit up again:

【Forwarded: September 5, 2004, 23:25 — A major fire broke out at Xingchen Internet Café on Yueyang Road in Xuhu City, causing 22 deaths and 39 injuries. The fire was caused by improper use of electrical equipment by staff…】

“Getting creative now?” Qin Weidong frowned deeply. He found it tasteless. If the employee had a problem with the boss, then curse the boss. What did it have to do with the people just there to use the computers? There were over seventy people in the café right now. That message basically cursed most of them.

Already in a bad mood these past few days, Qin Weidong didn’t bother replying anymore and simply called the number.

“Beep. The number you have dialed is not in service. Please check and try again.”

Qin Weidong: …Blocked me???

“What’s wrong, Brother Qin?” Hu Wei leaned over, noticing him staring at his phone.

“Let me use your phone.”

“Sure!” Hu Wei pulled out his phone, confused.

Qin Weidong dialed again. Same result. Number not in service.

He tried sending messages from both phones. Both failed to send.

“Who’s texting you?” Hu Wei asked, remembering Qin Weidong hadn’t said.

“The admin from before…” Qin Weidong felt that everything about this was strange. He glanced at the computer’s clock: 22:32.

There were still fifty-three minutes until the time of the fire mentioned in the message.

……

In the hotel in Xuhu in 2024, Lin Wu also found the message odd. After thinking it over, he guessed it might be a bug with the telecom provider, perhaps old messages being delayed and delivered now, or just some random prank.

As for why he had replied…

Lin Wu looked at his laptop screen. The fire report he had searched earlier was still displayed.

That fire had been so severe that their school had held a full month of fire safety lectures because of it. It was one of the few memories from his final year of high school that could be called relatively uneventful.

……

Back in 2004, at Xingchen Internet Café, Qin Weidong was still thinking about the messages when he suddenly felt two gazes on his back, followed by an obvious attempt at conversation.

“Is that a foreign movie?”

Qin Weidong turned around. Translated on Hololo novels. It was two middle school students. They wore oversized camouflage clothes, had streaks of dyed yellow hair, and smelled faintly of smoke. At a glance, they were clearly troublemakers.

“Yeah,” Qin Weidong replied casually.

Seeing that Qin Weidong also seemed like someone from “the same circle,” they took out a pack of cigarettes and tried to strike up a conversation. “What are you watching? Looks pretty good.”

Qin Weidong tapped the title on the screen. “If you want to watch, go open a machine yourself.”

They wanted to keep talking, but seeing the impatience on his face, they wisely left.

“Brother Qin, looks like you’re pretty popular with the younger kids,” Hu Wei joked after they were gone.

“They’re too young. Don’t know anything.”

Qin Weidong was the school bully at Lide. From his looks and demeanor alone, he seemed like someone who both caused trouble and could handle it. Many younger students liked to latch onto him, calling him “brother,” and some even asked whether he had a girlfriend. Standing next to him made them feel important.

Qin Weidong didn’t like that kind of atmosphere. He wasn’t bored enough to go looking for trouble.

It was now 10:40. Qin Weidong took a sip of cola and glanced around the café. “Why are there so many middle schoolers here?”

“The middle schools in the district have been doing military training these past few days. Probably the supervision’s a bit looser,” Hu Wei said.

“Mm.”

Qin Weidong glanced around roughly. There were more than seventy people in the internet café tonight, and about half of them were middle school students in camouflage uniforms. The café was clearly violating regulations, but he himself was underage, so he had no real standing to criticize it.

He finished the rest of his cola, then thought again about the message. If a fire really broke out here, more than half the people would be gone…

Irritated, Qin Weidong stood up.

“What’s wrong?” Hu Wei was startled.

“Nothing. I’m just going to take a look around.” Normally, Qin Weidong wouldn’t have paid any attention to a prank message like this, but the number had been out of service and still able to send texts. The more he thought about it, the stranger it felt.

It was now 22:50. Qin Weidong walked from the first floor to the second, then back down again. There weren’t many people staying overnight tonight, so he focused mainly on things like computer outlets and refrigerator plugs, while recalling the content of the message:

[The fire was caused by improper use of electrical equipment by staff…]

The message didn’t specify what equipment. He looked around, but everything seemed normal. Nothing stood out as a problem.

Qin Weidong wandered over to the counter.

The cashier had just poured hot water into a cup of instant noodles.

He stood to the side, watching.

The cashier was happily watching her Korean drama, but sensing his gaze, she looked up in confusion. “What is it?”

“Eating instant noodles?” Qin Weidong asked.

“Yeah.”

“Go ahead,” he said, tilting his chin.

Feeling slightly uncomfortable, the cashier started eating.

Qin Weidong stood there for seven minutes, making sure she finished without anything like noodle broth spilling onto the keyboard and causing a fire. Only then did he return to his seat, expressionless.

“What’s going on with you?” Hu Wei asked, completely baffled by Qin Weidong’s pacing.

“Nothing.” Qin Weidong felt like he was being overly suspicious, but the message still felt off.

23:15. There were ten minutes left until the fire mentioned in the message.

He thought about dragging Hu Wei to a nearby convenience store. That way, whether there was a fire or not, at least the two of them would be safe. But looking at all the middle school students in the café, if a fire really broke out, more than half of them would be doomed—

He couldn’t exactly stand up and shout that there was going to be a fire.

Even he felt like he’d look like an idiot.

“Did your dad call you or something?” Hu Wei asked, noticing how distracted Qin Weidong had been all night.

“Something like that,” Qin Weidong replied vaguely, then looked at his screen. “You finished that round?”

“Just did.” Hu Wei was about to start another.

“Don’t start yet. Go to the convenience store up front and buy me a chocolate bar and two cans of Red Bull.” Qin Weidong took out a hundred yuan.

“They sell stuff here…” Hu Wei started toward the counter.

“The chocolate here tastes bad. Go to the one up front. Hazelnut flavor.” The store up ahead was about 800 meters away. A round trip, plus shopping time, would take about fifteen minutes.

“Alright!”

Hu Wei often ran errands for Qin Weidong, so he didn’t mind. He happily headed out, though he didn’t take the hundred yuan from the table. Qin Weidong didn’t say anything and simply put the money away. As long as neither of them let the other take a loss, that was enough.

After Hu Wei left, Qin Weidong went over the messages again. Still uneasy, he muttered a curse and headed upstairs. If this really was a prank, he was determined to find that network admin and beat him up.

The second floor was the same size as the first, but without a front desk. Instead, there were five private rooms and two staff rooms.

Just like before, he focused on the outlets and plugs. Only one staff member was on duty upstairs, sitting in the hall playing games, while the other customers were inside private rooms. There were fewer people upstairs, so Qin Weidong’s footsteps echoed loudly.

He checked carefully. Just when he thought he would come up empty-handed again, he suddenly caught a faint smell of something burning.

It was coming from the staff room.

Through the crack in the door, he could see flames rapidly spreading.

……

“Hazelnut chocolate bar, two cans of Red Bull…” At Jia Jia Supermarket, 800 meters away from Xingchen, Hu Wei finished buying what Qin Weidong had asked for. Remembering that Qin hadn’t eaten dinner, he also picked up two cups of instant noodles and a couple of sausages.

After paying and stepping out of the store, he suddenly noticed a fire in the distance.

At first he didn’t think much of it. But two seconds later, it hit him—

The place on fire… was the internet café?!

……

“Thank you for your help. You’ve really assisted a lot these past few days.”

“No trouble at all. Your initial paperwork is already done. You’ll just need to sign a relocation agreement later. That should take about a week.”

On the morning of September 6, after completing the demolition procedures, Lin Wu left the municipal office building. The sun was shining brightly, and his mood felt a little lighter as well. He stood by the roadside for a moment, then casually hailed a taxi.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

After giving the hotel address, Lin Wu added, “Take Yueyang Road.”

Both Yueyang Road and Government Avenue led to the hotel, but Yueyang Road was a bit longer. Perhaps because of the strange message he had received the night before, and with nothing urgent to do, he wanted to pass by the area where he used to go to school.

“Sure thing!” The driver clearly liked passengers who asked for a longer route, and his tone became noticeably more enthusiastic.

The scenery slid past outside the window, and Lin Wu’s thoughts drifted back to the fire.

In his memory, most of the victims had been nearby students, many of them middle schoolers undergoing military training. After the incident, the entire city tightened regulations on internet cafés, and the person in charge had reportedly been sentenced to many years in prison.

Lin Wu let his thoughts wander until, as they passed a storefront, he suddenly froze. “Wait!”

“What’s wrong?” The driver quickly pulled over.

“That internet café… it’s still there?” Lin Wu stared blankly across the street.

“Which one?” the driver followed his gaze.

“Xingchen Internet Café.” Lin Wu felt that something had gone wrong. He had specifically looked up the fire the day before. After the incident, the café had shut down and, after several changes, had become a small roadside shop.

“It’s always been there. Old place, been around twenty years. I think it’s about to be demolished soon,” the driver said. Having driven all over the area for years, he knew the layout well.

“Twenty years…”

Lin Wu tried hard to recall.

In his memory, that internet café had been gone.

✧˖°.──⋆⭒˚.⋆💌⋆⭒˚.⋆──✧˖°.