Ch 20: Text Messages Across Time

Thud.

At the moment it struck 10:12, in a hotel in Xuhu in 2024, Lin Wu heard the bell ring in his mind right on time. New memories followed. The past unfolded like flickering scenes from a film, shifting rapidly, until he saw September 19.

That night, he tucked one lottery ticket into his English textbook and placed another in a drawer at home. He checked them every day until September 23.

At noon on the 23rd, he used the school’s public phone to call Hao Shuqin.

“Xiao Wu, is something wrong at home?” Hao Shuqin had just finished lunch and assumed something had happened to Luo Xiaorong.

“Everything’s fine. Is Uncle Wang there? And Huihui?” It was Sunday, so both Wang Manshan and Wang Jiahui should have been home.

“Your Uncle Wang is downstairs playing chess. Huihui went to her grandma’s and will be back tomorrow. You need your Uncle Wang? I’ll go get him!”

“No, don’t!” Lin Wu quickly stopped her. “Aunt Hao, I have something very important to tell you and Uncle Wang. I’ll come over at eight tonight. Please make sure you’re both home.”

“What is it?” she asked, curious.

“Very, very important. It concerns Huihui.”

“Alright!” Hao Shuqin agreed immediately. She knew Lin Wu’s personality, he wouldn’t use words like “very, very” lightly.

After hanging up, Lin Wu returned to class. School ended early that day. He spent three hours at the bookstore calming himself before heading to Hao Shuqin’s home.

“Your Uncle Wang bought some cold dishes and braised pork knuckle at the market. You haven’t eaten yet, right? Come eat first,” Hao Shuqin greeted him warmly as soon as he walked in.

Their home was ninety square meters. The table was already full of dishes. Wang Manshan sat on the sofa reading the newspaper, but when he saw Lin Wu, he stood up enthusiastically. “I also bought some stinky tofu, the old-style farmhouse kind. Take some home later.”

“Uncle Wang, Aunt Hao, I’ll serve myself,” Lin Wu said quickly, stepping forward to help. It was 7:50. He planned to wait until after dinner to avoid ruining their mood.

They ate together, chatting and laughing, then sat on the sofa. Hao Shuqin and Wang Manshan exchanged a glance before she spoke first.

“Huihui is dating someone, isn’t she?”

After Lin Wu’s call earlier, they had discussed it and assumed he had caught Wang Jiahui in an early relationship.

“We’ve been too busy with work lately and haven’t been paying attention. When she comes back, I’ll definitely talk to her about this!” Hao Shuqin said, already getting upset.

“Aunt Hao, you misunderstood. Huihui isn’t dating,” Lin Wu said quickly.

“Then what is it?” both of them asked, puzzled.

“I had a dream yesterday… In the dream, Huihui was murdered.” Lin Wu disguised the future messages as a dream and described the details of Wang Jiahui’s death.

“Xiao Wu… this…” Wang Manshan and Hao Shuqin exchanged looks. To them, it sounded like stress-induced delusion. No one would take a dream seriously.

Lin Wu had expected that. Without hesitation, he took out the lottery ticket from his bag.

“Uncle Wang, Aunt Hao, what I’m saying is true. These are the lottery numbers from the dream. They’ll win tonight. The prize is five hundred thousand yuan.”

“There are lottery numbers in your dream?” They stared at the numbers: 02, 21, 25, 13…

It was a single set, as if completely certain.

“Uncle Wang, can we watch the education channel?”

It was 8:55. The drawing was in twenty minutes.

“Sure.” Wang Manshan switched to the channel, planning to talk some sense into Lin Wu afterward.

At 9:15, the lottery drawing began.

The red balls dropped one by one.

They didn’t take it seriously… until the first number appeared:

A match.

Then 21, 25, 13…

Six numbers in total. All but the last matched perfectly.

Bang!

Wang Manshan and Hao Shuqin jumped to their feet, stunned.

“It… really hit?”

“Yes.” Lin Wu didn’t mention time travel or messages. He knew the “dream” was enough.

Over the next half hour, he explained the three possible outcomes for Wang Jiahui and Luo Xiaorong. Then he said:

“The killer isn’t random. Even if we change the timing, they will still die.”

“How could this happen… Huihui is still so young…” Hao Shuqin broke down in tears. Earlier she had dismissed it as nonsense. Now that it was real, it felt like someone was cutting into her heart.

She even called her parents just to hear Huihui’s voice before calming down.

“I hope we can leave Xuhu together,” Lin Wu said at last. You can’t guard against a thief forever. He refused to gamble any longer.

He had expected resistance.

Instead, Hao Shuqin made the decision instantly:

“We’re leaving too!”

Huihui was everything to her.

She turned to Wang Manshan.

“The factory has a ten-year project with Shenhai. They need one technician. I’ll apply,” Wang Manshan said, lighting a rare cigarette. Translated on Hololo novels. The job was over two thousand kilometers away, which was why no one else wanted it.

“Good!” The three of them spent the whole night planning the move.

Back in 2024, Lin Wu’s memories continued to replay.

He saw himself claim the five hundred thousand yuan, split it in half after taxes, and give half to Wang Manshan. Wang refused at first, but eventually accepted it as a loan.

Wang Manshan quickly secured the job. He and Wang Jiahui withdrew from school.

“Why are we moving?” Wang Jiahui asked, completely confused.

“Your father got a new job. We’re going to Shenhai,” Hao Shuqin explained simply.

On October 30, 2004, the five of them moved to Shenhai as quickly as possible. Their departure was extremely low-key, so much so that many employees at the steel plant didn’t even know they had left.

Housing was relatively cheap at the time. Each family spent 150,000 yuan to buy two adjacent apartments. Then came renovating, moving in, transferring schools… they adapted to the new environment at the fastest pace.

November 19 passed. Wang Jiahui was not harmed. They safely made it through December 2, December 15, December 17, and all the other critical dates.

In September 2005, Lin Wu was admitted to Jianghe University with outstanding results. Wang Jiahui’s grades weren’t strong, so she pursued dance and was admitted to Shenhai Dance Academy in September 2007.

After arriving in Shenhai, Luo Xiaorong worked at a bun shop near their residential complex. In 2009, Hao Shuqin became dissatisfied with her job and resigned. Coincidentally, the bun shop was up for transfer. The two families took it over together. Hao Shuqin proved highly capable in business, handling finances, while Luo Xiaorong made buns when she felt like it, and relaxed in the shop when she didn’t. She lived happily.

After ten years, the small twenty-square-meter shop had grown into a two-thousand-square-meter business with thirty employees. Wang Manshan continued working at the steel plant, and perhaps because of the change in environment, his career flourished. He became a technical director, frequently attending conferences and even went abroad for a month last year. He seemed younger and more energetic.

The outcome after leaving was so good it felt like a dream.

In 2024, at a hotel in Xuhu, Lin Wu watched all of this unfold in his refreshed memories and couldn’t help but smile.

But the next second, the smile vanished.

January 2005.

He saw “himself” reading a newspaper. The headline read:

“December 28, 2004: A second-year high school girl in Xuhu was murdered after school. This marks the third murdered high school girl in Xuhu. Police confirm it is a serial killing case…”

After December 28 came January, then March, then September… the number of cases rose from five to nine. The case remained unsolved.

“How could this happen…”

At that moment, a surge of overwhelming emotion hit him: shock, disbelief, guilt, pain.

In the original ending, the victims were A, B, Wang Jiahui, C, D.

In the second and third endings: A, B, Wang Jiahui, Luo Xiaorong, C, D.

Now, in the fourth ending: A, B, E, F, C, D, G, H, I.

Nine victims. Five entirely new.

Memory was like a constantly refreshing film.

He saw himself in July 2005 standing near victim C’s home. She was cheerful and lively. He wanted to warn her, but he had no evidence and didn’t dare. Translated on Hololo novels. Every action he took was like the flap of a butterfly’s wings, he feared making things worse.

He watched her silently, trying to find the killer.

He failed.

In the original timeline, victim C died in July 2005. After Wang Jiahui’s fate changed, C’s death shifted to September, an impossible time to predict.

“There’s still a chance…” Lin Wu murmured.

The present and the past were already entangled. The chance he spoke of was simple:

Nineteen years later, the 2005 version of himself would obtain the phone again, reconnect with the past, and rewrite everything.

The Lin Wu of 2005 would reach the same conclusion.

Over the next twenty years, “Lin Wu” lived carefully.

On August 18, he returned to Xuhu after an academic conference. In the original timeline, Hao Shuqin had taken her own life on that day. Now, she was alive and well.

He found the phone in the old apartment. It had been a birthday gift from Luo Xiaorong when he turned eighteen. He had never turned it on and had left it under the bed during the summer of 2005.

He brought it back to the hotel.

He had already seen the messages from September 5 to 19 and knew the internet café fire would happen. He waited.

On the night of September 5, the message appeared:

“Yueyang Road Xingxing Internet Café. Help me reserve two computers. I’ll arrive at 10:30.”

He tried to reply.

But he couldn’t type.

Three minutes later, the phone responded automatically:

“Didn’t Xingxing Internet Café close down twenty years ago?”

Watching the words appear on their own, Lin Wu suddenly understood something:

“Once a move is made, it cannot be undone.”

“Making a move” didn’t just refer to events in 2004.

It also referred to the messages sent in 2024.

The moment they were sent, they belonged to 2004.

From that point on, they could not be changed.

Over the next half month, every message auto-completed exactly as before. Even if he turned off the phone or removed the battery, the messages reappeared when it was turned back on.

Whether he had the phone or not in 2024 no longer mattered.

The messages already existed in 2004.

They were fixed.

Even destroying the phone or ending his own life would not change them.

2004 and 2024 were two timelines moving in parallel.

Every message sent was a move.

And once made, it could never be undone.

Ten seconds later, Lin Wu finished processing the new memories. They were neatly separated, not overlapping.

He rubbed his temples and reached for water.

At that moment, his phone rang.

Caller: Hao Shuqin.

Before answering, he caught sight of his phone’s wallpaper.

It was a photo of him and Luo Xiaorong.

In the photo, she wore a blue down jacket with a fluffy hat, her face marked slightly by time, smiling brightly.

This version of her had never existed in the previous three endings.

Lin Wu answered.

“Xiao Wu, how’s the house in Xuhu coming along? When are you coming back? Going straight to Jianghe, or stopping by Shenhai first?” Hao Shuqin’s voice was cheerful and full of life, a voice he had never heard in any of the previous endings.

✧˖°.──⋆⭒˚.⋆💌⋆⭒˚.⋆──✧˖°.

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