Ch 26: Text Messages Across Time

【I should’ve hidden the lottery tickets better.】 Seventeen-year-old Lin Wu reflected. He felt he should have put them inside a dictionary or tucked them into a hidden compartment of his backpack. That might have been safer.

【This isn’t your fault. It was an accident.】

After saying that, Lin Wu smiled. It felt like his thirty-seven-year-old self was comforting his seventeen-year-old self. But just as he said, it really was only an accident. And besides, borrowing someone’s phone every day, even without this incident, something else would have gone wrong eventually.

In the Xuhu hotel in 2024, Lin Wu tapped lightly on the table. He recalled how a psychology professor had described Qin Weidong: upright and kind. After spending time with him, that assessment felt accurate. But if Qin Weidong’s nature was upright and kind, then Lin Wu felt his own was overly cautious.

He had always thought that kind of personality was fine, even helpful in avoiding trouble. But now that things involved “privacy” and “trust,” he felt a kind of unease beyond his control. It was frustrating.

Seventeen-year-old Lin Wu felt the same way. The two of them analyzed the situation carefully. Five minutes later, Lin Wu opened the door.

“Done?” Qin Weidong had been leaning by the window in the hallway. Seeing the door open, he asked.

“Yeah.” The two returned to the room.

Lin Wu sat in a chair while Qin Weidong took the sofa. Lin Wu handed the phone back. Qin Weidong opened the messages and saw that Lin Wu had deleted everything again, just as expected.

“You say it, or he says it?” Qin Weidong asked directly.

“He says it.”

【?】 Qin Weidong sent a question mark. The person on the other side seemed to realize the phone was now in Qin Weidong’s hands and replied:

【Hello, I’m someone from twenty years in the future.】

!!!

Qin Weidong almost dropped the phone. Before confronting Lin Wu, he had already half believed the other party had some predictive ability. But now… they were from twenty years in the future?

This was like a sci-fi movie.

In the next five minutes, Qin Weidong learned the basics.

Name: not stated.
Identity: a future friend of Lin Wu.
Purpose: having discovered they could contact twenty years across time, they wanted to help Lin Wu save Wang Jiahui and Luo Xiaorong.

“Who’s Wang Jiahui?” Qin Weidong had heard Luo Xiaorong mentioned before as Lin Wu’s mother.

“Xiao Hulu, my neighbor,” Lin Wu replied.

Qin Weidong pulled up the sixth message:

[Please go to Class 5, Grade 12 at Xuhu No.1 High School and find Lin Wu. Tell him that at 8 p.m. on November 19, Xiao Hulu will have a car accident…]

Then the fifteenth message:

[Please go to Class 5, Grade 12 at Xuhu No.1 High School tomorrow and tell Lin Wu that Xiao Hulu will be murdered on the evening of November 19. The killer is random.]

Qin Weidong noticed the inconsistency. “Why is the first one a car accident, but the second says murder? And your mom’s time of death is different too?”

“Every choice in 2004 affects 2024. For example, on the 9th, you told me Wang Jiahui and Luo Xiaorong would be in a car accident. Even though I didn’t believe it, I still tried to prevent it just to be safe. That small change caused their death times to shift.”

Lin Wu had just been thinking about how to borrow the phone without revealing the truth about it. He realized it was nearly impossible. Even if he managed to gloss over it this time, repeated borrowing would eventually expose more flaws.

And the next flaw could be fatal. He would completely lose Qin Weidong’s trust. That was a risk he couldn’t take. Because after the fourth ending, both of them had come to the same conclusion: find the killer.

Moving away could avoid the killer, but it would only lead to more victims. Instead of constantly running, it would be better to find the killer before the tragedy happened.

The Xuhu murders remained unsolved because of a lack of clues. But if they connected clues from different endings, or explored more outcomes, they could potentially identify the killer in advance. The killer was brutal, but with “predictions” from 2024, Lin Wu might even know the killer’s actions better than the killer himself.

As he spoke, Lin Wu kept watching Qin Weidong’s expression. He knew he was taking a risk. To borrow the phone, he had to show some sincerity. Logically, it made sense. But emotionally, it pushed him outside his comfort zone.

He clenched his fists unconsciously. He felt like he was gambling on Qin Weidong’s character. Translated on Hololo novels. Everything he said, except “future friend,” was true. He omitted that part simply to make communication easier. Whether it was himself or not didn’t change the goal of finding the killer.

After he finished, the room fell silent. Qin Weidong frowned, glancing between the phone and Lin Wu, as if working through a complex problem.

“So you’re saying he’s from twenty years in the future, and you want to use different choices to find patterns, then have him tell you the results the next day?” Qin Weidong asked.

“Yes.” It was an efficient method.

Qin Weidong looked at him and refused immediately. “No.”

At the same time, he replied to the phone: 【No!】

“Why?” Lin Wu was stunned.

“Are you stupid?” Qin Weidong snapped, then grabbed paper and pen and drew a line. “Normally, time goes like this: first 2004, then 2005, 2006, 2007, all the way to 2024. We’re not supposed to know the future. But if what he says is true…”

He drew two dots. “This is 2004. This is 2024. Now 2024 can contact 2004 directly, which is amazing. But do you notice what’s missing?”

He drew a dashed line between them. “Time itself. No matter how many endings you change, to us it might feel like just a day passes before getting answers from 2024. But there’s still this invisible line, our future. For the Lin Wu in 2024, those twenty years actually existed!”

Lin Wu hadn’t expected this line of reasoning. He paused. “It doesn’t matter.”

“How could it not matter!” Qin Weidong grew frustrated. He struggled to explain, then gave an example. If he was in Xuhu and Qin Jianzhang was in another city 2,100 kilometers away, they could call each other instantly. But that didn’t mean the distance didn’t exist. That was spatial distance.

Now, between 2004 and 2024, there was also distance, twenty years of time. Without that distance, 2024 wouldn’t even exist.

“This is even scarier than TV dramas!” The more he thought about it, the more disturbing it felt. Then something struck him. He stared at Lin Wu. “You’ve already gone through four endings, haven’t you?”

“…Yes.”

Qin Weidong began writing:

First ending: Lin Wu knows nothing about the messages. Wang Jiahui dies. Luo Xiaorong dies in a car accident.

Second ending: Starting from September 9, with memories of being warned in the alley. Wang Jiahui dies. Luo Xiaorong dies.

Third ending: Starting from September 17, with communication between 2004 and 2024. Both Wang Jiahui and Luo Xiaorong die.

Fourth ending: Starting from September 19, Wang Jiahui and Luo Xiaorong live, but the Xuhu murder case expands to nine victims.

………

When he reached the fourth ending, Qin Weidong couldn’t continue writing. He looked at Lin Wu. “Do you know how you got through your fourth ending?

You might have saved Wang Jiahui and Luo Xiaorong, but when you saw more people die, you blamed yourself… you must have, otherwise there wouldn’t be this fifth ending now. After 2005, you lived with guilt toward others, and then lived all the way to 2024. During that time, you must have been constantly worried, maybe even wondering whether you would still be able to contact 2004 when you reached 2024.”

“Wait, that’s not right!” Qin Weidong suddenly frowned. “In your fourth ending, you should already remember the time-travel phone. Then in 2024, you shouldn’t have no reaction at all.”

Realizing this, he immediately picked up the phone:

【Where is Lin Wu twenty years later?】
【Does the Lin Wu twenty years later remember only one ending, or every ending?!】

……

After sending those two messages, the time happened to be 10:27. The connection ended.

Qin Weidong stared at the time on the phone, irritated, then grabbed his jacket. “Let’s go. I’ll walk you back.”

“I…” Lin Wu hadn’t expected Qin Weidong to figure things out so quickly, and also felt that might not even be the key point.

“You don’t need to say anything now. Everything I just said is just a hypothesis. Right now, I don’t trust you, and I don’t trust this so-called time-travel message either. That’s it for today.”

With that, Qin Weidong walked out expressionlessly. Translated on Hololo novels. Lin Wu had wanted to say he could go back on his own, but the atmosphere between them was tense, so he could only follow behind with his backpack.

They remained silent. After getting off the car, Lin Wu paid the fare. Qin Weidong walked him to downstairs.

“I…” Lin Wu hesitated. “Please don’t tell anyone about this. And take care of the phone.”

“It’s my phone. Do I need you to remind me?” Qin Weidong snapped, then looked away. “And I’m not crazy. No one would believe something this ridiculous anyway.”

“Then… can I see you tomorrow?”

“I’m being discharged tomorrow.”

“Then I’ll find you at school?”

“I might not be at school. We’ll see.”

Lin Wu touched the phone in his bag. He had planned to return it today, but was worried their connection might break, so he pretended not to bring it up.

Qin Weidong didn’t mention it either. He glanced at the time. “Go on, head back.”

“Mm. See you.”

“See you.”

……

At the Xuhu hotel in 2024, Lin Wu sat at his desk, looking at the last two messages on the phone.

He didn’t know Qin Weidong’s full reasoning, but from those messages, he could sense how perceptive Qin Weidong had been.

【Does the Lin Wu twenty years later remember only one ending, or every ending?!】

Lin Wu closed his eyes.

He remembered every ending.

In the first three endings, he hadn’t really felt how “receiving messages at seventeen” affected his present. But in the fourth ending, he could clearly feel the guilt, self-blame, and unease carried by that version of himself.

In that fourth life, he had lived with the memories of his seventeen-year-old self, and with the belief that he would one day reconnect with the past in 2024. That life had been far more tense and cautious than the previous ones. Because he already knew the destination, he had to walk carefully along the original path to avoid causing major changes.

【A new road, yet also an old one.】

Living with that mindset felt like a punishment, a punishment for altering the flow of time.

He had already told his seventeen-year-old self this, but neither of them cared. For an ordinary person, it would be a psychological burden. But for them, it was a gift, a chance to undo tragedy, something granted by fate.

……

The next day at noon, Lin Wu texted Qin Weidong: [Have you been discharged?]

No reply.

That evening: [Are you at school?]

Still no reply.

After school, Lin Wu hesitated, then called him. No answer.

He felt uneasy. He was worried their trust had been broken, that he might never be able to borrow the phone again. At 8:35, with most of his classmates gone, he thought it over and decided to go to Qin Weidong’s school anyway, even if it meant shamelessly trying again.

No matter what, he had to secure access to the phone.

Lost in thought, he walked out of the school gate and saw a tall figure under the streetlight, its shadow stretched long across the ground.

Qin Weidong hadn’t slept all night and had spent the entire day thinking. There were faint dark circles under his eyes. Seeing Lin Wu come out, he frowned. “Why are you coming out so late?”

“Had some things to pack up.” Lin Wu paused, then asked, “Why are you here?”

“I believe you.” Qin Weidong said irritably.

“What?”

“I mean what you said yesterday. I believe it now.”

Truthfully, he had already believed it yesterday. The whole thing sounded like science fiction, but if the unknown number was from twenty years in the future, it explained everything, why it was an empty number, how it knew about the internet café fire in advance, why it told him to find Lin Wu. That person knew “history.”

Qin Weidong stared at Lin Wu seriously. “Do you really want to change the ending? What I said yesterday wasn’t just guessing. Even though we’re in 2004 now, there’s still a line from 2004 to 2024, and that line contains the life you remember.”

He grew frustrated as he spoke. “If you choose wrong, you might suffer through twenty years. Honestly, maybe we should just report it to the police now and let them find the killer.”

After the internet café fire, he had reported it once before, though the results hadn’t been ideal. Still, when facing something this serious, his first instinct was to go to the police.

He expected Lin Wu to refuse, but Lin Wu nodded. “We can.”

“You agree?” Qin Weidong was surprised.

“That’s also a possible path.” Lin Wu didn’t oppose involving the police. He just didn’t want to expose the phone without being certain.

His goal had shifted from simply getting Wang Jiahui and Luo Xiaorong to safety to finding the killer. Seeking help from the police was a completely reasonable choice.

“Let’s organize the clues from these four endings first, then report it when we’re more certain.” Qin Weidong looked at him. “So you’re really set on using different choices to find the killer?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll go with you.”

“What?”

“It’s 8:50. I’ll walk you home, then we’ll contact that unknown number and the three of us can figure things out together. Oh, and I asked him yesterday about your future, but he hasn’t replied yet. Do you know what your future is like? How many endings you remember? I wonder what I’m like in the future. Probably more mature and more impressive…”

Most students had already left. The two of them walked together toward the bus stop. The warm streetlights stretched their shadows long behind them.

✧˖°.──⋆⭒˚.⋆💌⋆⭒˚.⋆──✧˖°.

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