Ch 5: Text Messages Across Time

Bang!

After this message was successfully sent, not only Lin Wu, but Qin Weidong in the hospital room in 2004 also jolted violently. He shot upright so suddenly that his head slammed hard against the wall behind him.

“Hiss!” Qin Weidong clutched his head in pain.

All day, Lin Wu had been sending Qin Weidong messages every half hour, and Qin Weidong had been sending messages back from time to time. The messages had gone from “How did you know about the fire?” to “Who are you?”, then “Are you there?”, and finally shortened to just “There?”

Just like before, every single one had failed to send.

He had been about to try sending a question mark next, but to his shock, it suddenly went through!

Qin Weidong felt a lump rising on the back of his head, but he ignored the pain and immediately sent another message:

【Who are you? Why did you know the internet café would catch fire?!!!】

He had thought about it all day. His guess was that the other person might know the network admin, and the two had planned to start a fire together as some kind of revenge against society. But the admin from yesterday had seemed spineless, not like someone with the guts to set a fire. And the message itself was full of coincidences, with too many gaps in the logic.

In the hotel in Xuhu in 2024, Lin Wu stared at the message with his lips pressed tight. His face remained expressionless, but his heart was pounding violently as his mind raced through the entire chain of events.

The strange messages, the altered fire outcome, the extra set of memories…

All of it told him that something unnatural had happened to him. Through these messages, he had connected to a point in time twenty years in the past, and might even be able to change the present.

The moment he realized this, only one thought filled his mind:

On September 6, 2004, Wang Jiahui and Luo Xiaorong had not yet met with disaster.

The fire had already changed… so did that mean he could rewrite their fates as well?

The idea grew wildly in his mind. Translated on Hololo novels. The more he thought about it, the more agitated he became. Then he realized the biggest problem:

He didn’t know when these messages would appear.
He didn’t know whether the person on the other side was always the same.
He didn’t know whether there were limitations to the messages, since before this, every single one he sent had failed…

Lin Wu analyzed rapidly, then made a swift decision:

While this connection across time was still open, he had to make the most effective move possible in the shortest time.

In the hospital room in 2004, seeing no reply, Qin Weidong frowned and sent another message:

【???】

Lin Wu looked at the new message and immediately began typing.

Although it seemed like he had taken a long time to think, only seventy-six seconds had passed since the first successful message. In that short span, he had to process the additional memories, deduce the other party’s identity, and analyze the implications of these messages. It was mentally exhausting. He had never thought this quickly in his life.

Back in the hospital, Qin Weidong assumed there would be no reply, but suddenly his inbox lit up—

Unknown number: 【You went to Xingchen Internet Café yesterday? Did you watch “Star Police”?】

Qin Weidong frowned.

【I went. The movie hasn’t been released yet.】

“Star Police” was a foreign film scheduled to release in early November 2004. Lin Wu mentioned it simply to confirm the timeline on the other side.

After replying, Qin Weidong felt like he had been led off track and asked impatiently:

【Your phone can’t be called and messages can’t be sent. Did you set it to airplane mode? Why do you know the café would catch fire!】

As someone raised under materialist education, he never considered the possibility of messages crossing time. The most reasonable explanation he could come up with was some trick involving inactive numbers or airplane mode, even though it didn’t really make sense.

Lin Wu replied quickly:

【Are you a high school student?】

This was something he had learned from the café owner, and also a key difference between the two sets of memories.

Qin Weidong: !!!

How did the other person know he was in high school?

“You were at the café yesterday?” Qin Weidong suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. “Were you there yesterday? Did you tamper with the admin’s water boiler when he wasn’t paying attention, planning to set the place on fire?”

“No wonder you knew the exact time of the fire. It was premeditated arson.”

“If my instincts hadn’t been sharp, me and everyone else would’ve burned to death!”

“Why did you tell me the time? Some twisted psychological urge before committing a crime?”

……

Qin Weidong had been trying to figure out the other person’s identity all along, but if the other party had deliberately set the fire, then everything made sense. As for why the culprit appeared in the café… even if he wasn’t the admin, he used a local Xuhu number, so he might have been waiting there for the chance to start the fire.

The more Qin Weidong thought about it, the more convinced he became that he was close to the truth. Aside from the coincidence of sending the message to the wrong number, everything fit perfectly.

At that moment, he wanted to call the police immediately.

Looking at the flood of messages, Lin Wu was momentarily stunned, then replied:

【I didn’t start the fire.】

【Then how did you know the time?】 Qin Weidong didn’t believe him.

Explaining the connection between twenty years apart would be too unbelievable. Lin Wu didn’t want to waste time on that, so he moved straight to the point:

“Please…”

He wanted the other person to find his younger self in high school and tell him the time and place of Wang Jiahui’s and his mother’s accidents. But that kind of warning would sound like a stranger suddenly claiming the world would end in a few months. No one would believe it.

At present, the serial murder case in Xuhu was still unsolved. The killer was unknown. Translated on Hololo novels. Over the years, Lin Wu had often gone to the police station to ask about it. All he knew was that the killer acted randomly and was likely a man in his thirties. There were no further leads.

He couldn’t tell the other person who the killer was, because he didn’t know.
He couldn’t directly say Wang Jiahui would be involved in a murder case either. The chance that the person on the other end was the killer was extremely small, but he wasn’t willing to risk her life by drawing attention to her.

After thinking it through, Lin Wu finally sent:

【For the sake of me telling you about the fire, please go to Class Five, Senior Year, Xuhu No. 1 High School, find Lin Wu, and tell him: at 8 p.m. on November 19, Xiao Hulu will be in a car accident. At 10 p.m. on December 15, Luo Xiaorong will be in a car accident.】

【Please make sure to tell him! Thank you.】

“For the sake of me telling you about the fire” sounded a bit awkward, even childish. Lin Wu wasn’t the kind of person to demand repayment for a favor. But Wang Jiahui and Luo Xiaorong were too important to him. Whether his younger self would believe it or not, he still hoped the message would be delivered.

At the same time, he also wanted to see whether, once the other person found him, his memories would change again.

As Lin Wu’s thoughts churned, in the hospital room in Xuhu, Qin Weidong suddenly shot to his feet, his face twisting.

He was already convinced Lin Wu had been lurking in the café to start the fire. Now the other person was sending him predictions of two car accidents…

A new set of crimes?

“!!!” Qin Weidong angrily typed out a long string of curses and hit send.

Half a second later, the screen displayed: message failed to send.

Qin Weidong: furious.

………

At the same time, in the hotel in Xuhu, Lin Wu’s message interface also showed a failed send.

He picked up a notebook and began recording:

September 5, 22:12 — received a strange message, discrepancy in Xingchen Internet Café fire.
September 6, 22:12 — new memory appeared.
22:15 — received another message.
22:27 — messages failed to send.

He didn’t know whether more messages would come, or whether new memories would appear again.

But his desire to change the past had never been stronger.

He wanted to find a pattern in all of this, to increase his chances of altering what had already happened.

✧˖°.──⋆⭒˚.⋆💌⋆⭒˚.⋆──✧˖°.

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