Ch 58: Text Messages Across Time

On December 17, 2024, under an overcast sky, Lin Wu got up, tidied himself, and carried a bouquet of flowers to the Xuhu Sanatorium, the most high-end comprehensive care facility in Xuhu. After entering, he went straight to a VIP room with practiced familiarity.

“Mr. Lin, you’re here early today.” Inside, caregiver Xiao Liu was making the bed. Seeing Lin Wu, he greeted him.

“I got up early today.” As he spoke, Lin Wu placed the flowers into the vase by the bed. There had been lilies in it before, but they were starting to wilt, so he replaced them with the sunflowers he had just bought.

“You’re really thoughtful, Mr. Lin. You always remember to change the flowers.” Xiao Liu’s praise was sincere. They had known each other for twenty years. Visit HololoNovels dot com for the complete chapter. During those twenty years, Lin Wu had come two or three times a week, almost without fail, rain or shine.

“It’s nothing much.” After arranging the flowers, Lin Wu asked, “Where’s Mr. Qin?”

“Xiao Chen took him outside for some sun.” Xiao Liu pointed out the window. The room had excellent lighting and a good view. From inside, one could see a large artificial lake, and at the edge of it were two blurry figures.

“I’ll go take a look.” Lin Wu headed out as if by habit.

“Mr. Lin!” By the lake, Xiao Chen had just paused the wheelchair to let him rest a bit. Seeing Lin Wu, he quickly stood.

“It’s fine. I’ll take over.” Lin Wu waved him off, signaling him to go do his own work, then took the wheelchair himself.

It was a well-made black wheelchair. Sitting in it was a young man in a blue-and-white hospital gown, gaunt to the point of skin and bones. It was winter now, so over the gown he wore two extra layers and an oversized down jacket. On his head was a fluffy hat, making him look very well bundled up.

“I’ll be just up ahead. If you need anything, just call me,” Xiao Chen said. He was quite used to this scene by now. After handing the wheelchair over and explaining a few details, he left.

“It’s pretty cold today. It’ll probably snow tonight…” Lin Wu pushed the wheelchair along the lakeside as he spoke. The man simply stared blankly at the water.

It was Qin Weidong.

And this was their twenty-first ending:

Luo Xiaorong lived. Qin Weidong became a vegetative patient.

Lin Wu had already refreshed the memories of the twenty-first ending and everything before it.

On the night of December 15, in the previous ending, he had contacted 2004. As before, he told his 2004 self that Luo Xiaorong would be attacked in the second workshop on the night of the seventeenth. Because time was short, he hoped the other side could stop her from going to work first, then they would re-plan as they had before.

Ten seconds after sending the message, the other side replied: 【Received.】

It felt like everything had returned to the days before Zhao Fangli was caught. The endless cycle of factory workshops. He was exhausted by it, but this was the only way to change the ending.

He had expected the new ending to appear as simply as before.

But the new memory was different.

On the night of December 15, 2004, he and Qin Weidong had been eating strawberries together. Someone came by to collect the water bill, and Lin Wu stepped out for half a minute. During that time, Qin Weidong received the message from 2024.

He did not tell Lin Wu.

Instead, he opened a new ending himself.

In previous resets, Lin Wu had changed the ending through a process of “forming an intention, then generating enough inner momentum to carry it through.” It was like deciding today that tomorrow you would eat beef noodles. Tomorrow had not yet arrived, but the intention was strong, no other circumstances changed, and so for that person’s future, tomorrow he would indeed eat beef noodles.

Previously, Lin Wu himself had gone to the workshop to change the ending.

This time, Qin Weidong went instead.

Just as eating the noodles fulfilled the intention, Qin Weidong’s involvement in the event also changed the course of 2024.

Lin Wu did not know the exact details of that night. All he had were witness accounts:

On the night of December 17, 2004, a heavy crashing sound came from the second workshop of the steel plant. A witness, hearing the noise, went to check. The back door of the workshop creaked as if someone inside had heard the disturbance and left.

The witness had assumed it was a wild cat or a rat. He turned on his phone flashlight and then saw a large pool of blood. Qin Weidong was lying in it. Not far away, Luo Xiaorong had been knocked unconscious.

“At first I really thought it was just cats or rats. I never expected someone had attacked people there!” the witness said later, still shaken.

After receiving the news, Lin Wu rushed to the hospital. After emergency treatment, Luo Xiaorong was out of danger. But Qin Weidong had suffered a severe blow to the back of the head and became a vegetative patient.

“How did my son end up at the steel plant…” It was in the hospital that Lin Wu first met Qin Jianzhang, a once vigorous middle-aged man who seemed to have aged ten years in an instant.

At the time of the crime, the steel plant had been hosting a celebration, and there had been a large crowd. Luo Xiaorong had been knocked unconscious. The killer had come prepared. Aside from a pen cap clenched in Qin Weidong’s hand, there were no other clues at the scene.

It was an ordinary black gel pen cap, the kind commonly used in factories and offices. Apart from a small chip on the clip, it was indistinguishable from countless others on the market. After investigation, no leads emerged. The case eventually went cold.

After Qin Weidong’s injury, Qin Jianzhang took him for treatment out of province, then abroad, trying all kinds of Western and Chinese medicine, but nothing worked. In the end, Qin Weidong was brought back to the Xuhu Sanatorium and placed under professional care.

In this ending, perhaps because the killer had nearly been caught, they never struck again after Qin Weidong. Luo Xiaorong and everyone else lived well.

Lin Wu continued living along the same old path, but unlike before, he did not go to Jianghe University. Instead, he chose to teach at Xuhu University. In recent years, his life had narrowed down to three places: home, the sanatorium, and the university. It was orderly, almost mechanical.

“It’s too cold. Let’s go back inside.” After pushing Qin Weidong around the lake once, Lin Wu returned to the room.

Inside, the caregiver had already cleaned everything thoroughly. Seeing Lin Wu, he said quickly, “Mr. Lin, the bed sheets and covers have already been changed, and the room temperature has been adjusted.”

“Thank you.”

Lin Wu nodded, then worked with the caregiver to move Qin Weidong onto the bed. The sanatorium’s environment and service were excellent, but after being in a vegetative state so long, Qin Weidong now weighed less than ninety jin. Visit HololoNovels dot com for the complete chapter. Touching him was like touching a skeleton. After settling him in, Lin Wu carefully tucked in the blanket around him.

“Mr. Lin, shall I head out now?” the caregiver asked after finishing up.

“That’s fine.” Lin Wu indicated he could manage alone from here.

The caregiver left with a complicated expression. He had worked here for twenty years and seen every kind of human warmth and indifference. But this was the first time he had ever seen someone visit a vegetative patient every few days like clockwork. That kind of patience alone was remarkable.

Lin Wu sat in the room for a while, then went to the sanatorium cafeteria for lunch. When he returned, he found Hu Wei had come by.

“Mr. Lin, you’re here too.” Hu Wei greeted him upon seeing him.

He had only come to know Lin Wu after Qin Weidong’s accident.

At first, he didn’t like Lin Wu at all. The reason was simple. He didn’t know why Qin Weidong had gone to the steel plant workshop, but he knew the incident had involved Lin Wu’s mother. She was a key figure in the case, mentally impaired, knocked unconscious from behind, and unable to recall anything. All of it left him furious.

On top of that, he remembered Qin Weidong’s strange behavior before the accident. According to the police investigation, Qin Weidong had been staying at Lin Wu’s home. Combined with Lin Wu’s reaction afterward, he felt there must have been something subtle between them.

He wasn’t the only one who thought so. Qin Jianzhang likely sensed it too.

Qin Weidong had a simple nature and a good character. Even if Lin Wu wasn’t the killer, he felt that Lin Wu must have had some ulterior motive in getting close to him. Because of that, he had been sarcastic and cold toward Lin Wu for a long time.

But as time passed, he saw that Lin Wu came to the sanatorium unfailingly.

Not for two months. Not for a short while. But day after day, for twenty years.

He asked himself honestly. Even if his own father had ended up like this, he might not have had the patience to keep showing up like that. His feelings grew complicated.

“Brother Qin was a really good person. Back in high school, my family wasn’t well off. My parents spent a lot of money to send me to private school, so I was always broke. A lot of people said I was just his lackey, but honestly, I think he wanted to help me without making me feel embarrassed.”

Hu Wei sat nearby, chatting casually.

His life had followed its original course. School, graduation, marriage. Now he and his wife ran a small supermarket, their child was seven, and their family lived happily. The only thing he couldn’t let go of was Qin Weidong.

“He really was a good person.” Lin Wu took out a nail clipper and carefully trimmed Qin Weidong’s nails.

“Twenty years have passed. You should try to move on,” Hu Wei said, rarely speaking so earnestly. Neither Lin Wu nor his mother had been the killer. Whatever his relationship with Qin Weidong had been, the past years hadn’t been easy.

After staying a while, Hu Wei left.

Once he was gone, Lin Wu leaned back on the sofa and read. He had picked the book at random from the lobby library. Perhaps by coincidence, it was David Copperfield. Qin Weidong had once read it to him, though back then it had been in English. This copy was a translated edition.

At five in the afternoon, Qin Jianzhang arrived.

“Mr. Qin.” Lin Wu stood to greet him. After Qin Weidong’s accident, Qin Jianzhang had never had another child. He continued working in real estate and hospitality, financially well-off, but visibly worn down.

“I called the sanatorium earlier. They said you were here, so I came by.” Qin Jianzhang looked at Lin Wu as he spoke.

“I didn’t have class today, so I came over,” Lin Wu replied.

“Mm.” Qin Jianzhang sat on the single sofa beside the hospital bed. They exchanged a few neutral words. After a pause, he asked, “What you said before… that once it reaches 2024, you can contact 2004 through that time channel. Is it really true?”

“Yes.”

“Then… will there be a new ending tomorrow?”

His thoughts drifted back twenty years.

Back then, after Qin Weidong’s accident, two clues had been left behind:

One, a broken pen cap.

Two, his phone.

There were no text messages on the phone, only a string of numbers saved in the drafts folder: 2024.12.16.

Neither he nor the police understood what it meant. But when Lin Wu heard about it, he immediately understood.

December 16, 2024, was the next point in time when a message could be sent again.

And he understood Qin Weidong’s intention. Qin Weidong had once died in that second workshop. This time, he had gone in Lin Wu’s place.

Before going, he didn’t know whether anything would happen, so he had cautiously left that message. The same set of numbers had also been found in his notebook, written before he left, ensuring Lin Wu would see it no matter what.

Lin Wu no longer remembered exactly how he had felt when he saw it back in high school. At the time, he had only one thought:

Live well until 2024, and then rewrite everything.

Before the accident, Qin Weidong had deleted all the chat history. The time-space messages could not be recovered. Only the regular messages from 2004 could be restored. The police recovered those records, and Lin Wu did not hide them.

Most of them were simple things:

“Have you eaten?”
“What time do you get out of school?”
“I’ll wait for you at the school gate.”

But Qin Jianzhang was sharp. From those messages, he understood the nature of their relationship. His feelings toward Lin Wu became even more complicated.

He knew Qin Weidong’s accident wasn’t Lin Wu’s fault. But if not for Lin Wu, his son would never have gone to the steel plant.

He didn’t know why his son went there, but he felt it had something to do with Lin Wu. He carried that resentment for a long time.

His upbringing kept him from acting harshly, but he remained cold toward Lin Wu, until one day, Lin Wu came to him.

“Qin Weidong isn’t completely gone. We can still change the past.”

Lin Wu did not mention the phone, only said that in 2024 he would be able to contact 2004. If they could establish that connection, there was still a chance to rewrite everything. He also explained why Qin Weidong had gone to the second workshop: he had received information from 2024 and wanted to save Luo Xiaorong.

“That’s impossible!” Qin Jianzhang had dismissed it as absurd, a fantasy born from grief.

“It’s true.” Lin Wu had simply said.

Qin Jianzhang didn’t believe him at first. But as the years passed, he began to think it might be real. It would explain the numbers on his son’s phone.

If it were true, then they should have made contact yesterday.

And tomorrow… a new ending would appear.

“Did you make contact?” Qin Jianzhang asked, his lips trembling slightly. Twenty years of waiting had been too long. He had placed his hope in something intangible, almost imaginary.

“We did.” Lin Wu took out his phone. On it were all the messages from yesterday and before.

Qin Jianzhang stared at the screen, stunned. He didn’t know if it was real.

But he wanted it to be.

“I hope it’s real…” he murmured, as if wishing to start everything over again from 2004.

After speaking, he looked at Lin Wu.

Lin Wu was wearing a dark black down jacket, his face pale against it.

Qin Jianzhang lifted his hand as if to pat Lin Wu on the head, but in the end he only sighed.

“If the past could really be changed, I think I would have liked you very much. Whether you were a man or not, we would’ve gotten along well.”

He truly admired Lin Wu. If nothing else, the fact that Lin Wu had come to the sanatorium day after day for twenty years to care for his son… that kind of devotion could not be explained by guilt alone.

But no matter how much he admired him, there was still the matter of his son becoming a vegetative patient. No matter how rational he tried to be, he could not say there was no resentment in his heart.

“I hope we can meet again in 2004,” Qin Jianzhang said at last, pulling Lin Wu into a brief embrace. He hoped they could start over. With how much he loved his son, even if Lin Wu was a man, he felt he would try to accept it.

Lin Wu was a good child. He hoped everyone could have a better beginning.

…

At eight that evening, Lin Wu took a taxi to the Xuhu Steel Plant.

The Xuhu Steel Plant had once been a major local enterprise. At its peak, it employed thirty thousand workers. After forty years of rise and decline, the employees had all moved to the new plant. The old one was scheduled to be demolished and shut down next year.

Outside, sleet was falling.

After paying and getting out of the car, Lin Wu opened his umbrella and walked to the gatehouse.

“Oh, Lin Wu, you’re here?” Sun Xiaotao, an old employee of the plant, was sitting by an electric heater in a padded coat and hat, warming himself. He looked a little surprised. “Here on business?”

“No business. Just came to sit for a bit. Is it alright if I stay a while?” Lin Wu closed his umbrella.

“Of course it is. There’s barely anyone here these days. It’s boring sitting alone. Come, warm yourself first.” Sun Xiaotao pushed the heater closer, then chatted casually, “Your mom’s bun shop is doing pretty well, huh? I went the other day to buy some, but they were all sold out.”

“That was probably around mealtime. It’s usually not that crowded,” Lin Wu said. In this ending, Luo Xiaorong had not been harmed. She had opened a bun shop with Hao Shuqin, just as before.

“I went around seven in the evening. Maybe it was busy then.” Sun Xiaotao nodded, then sighed. “Your mom was always good at making buns even before she retired. Now it’s like she’s retired and started a second career.”

“It’s alright.” Lin Wu chatted with him.

Sun Xiaotao was a longtime worker. He had married in 2010, divorced, then remarried. Lin Wu had often run into him when picking up Luo Xiaorong after work, so they were familiar with each other.

They talked about the plant’s early days, the relocation a few years ago, and the upcoming closure next year. After nearly an hour, Sun Xiaotao grew a little puzzled.

“You really didn’t come here for anything today?” In the past, Lin Wu would chat for a bit and leave. Today, he had stayed much longer.

“There’s nothing at the plant. I actually came to see you about something,” Lin Wu said.

“What is it?” Sun Xiaotao asked.

“Uncle Sun, our families aren’t close, and we’ve never wronged you. Why did you kill my mother?”

The moment the words left his mouth, the gatehouse fell silent.

Inside, the warm glow of the heater flickered. Outside, wind howled, and the sound of heavy trucks passing echoed faintly.

Lin Wu looked at Sun Xiaotao.

Sun Xiaotao looked back at Lin Wu.

“Your mother is alive and well. When did I ever kill her?” After three seconds, Sun Xiaotao smiled, as if he had no idea why Lin Wu would ask such a strange question.

✧˖°.──⋆⭒˚.⋆💌⋆⭒˚.⋆──✧˖°.