novelraw Chapter 1 Curtain Up
Chapter 1 Curtain Up
Bang bang bang!
Gunfire.
“Still haven’t found it?!”
Jiang Ran tore through the shelves like a madman, his face drained of all color.
“Not yet! This library’s too damn big!”
In the distance, the crash of toppled bookcases came one after another, and the gunshots were closing in—nearer, nearer.
“Found it!”
Jiang Ran shouted. From a heap of old volumes he yanked out a diary—its cover mottled and scarred, its pages yellowed with age.
He’d just started to open it—
Thud!His companion’s body jerked back and collapsed to the floor. A flower of blood bloomed fast in the center of his chest.
“Qin Feng!”
Jiang Ran lunged forward—only to be driven back by the storm of bullets.
“Go… now…”
Qin Feng’s face twisted, his hand clamped over the blood pouring from his chest.
“【As long as you go back to the past and change all of this… everything can start over… Go!】”
Jiang Ran ground his teeth.
There was no time to think. He spun and sprinted for the stairwell at the rear, taking the steps two at a time all the way to the roof.
He staggered to the edge of the rooftop, breathing hard.
He set the diary down on the parapet and flipped pages at a frantic pace.
“Not this entry… not this one… this one!”
His eyes burned as he locked onto the handwriting and read with vicious speed.
“March 27, 2009. Weather: clear. I thought today’s experiment would fail again, as always, but in the middle of the afternoon, a strange young man came—”
Click.
Something touched.
A scorching muzzle pressed into the back of his head.
“Don’t move.”
Jiang Ran’s heartbeat missed a beat.
What frightened him wasn’t the pistol.
It was the voice—so familiar it made his blood run cold.
His eyes were wide with shock and a disbelief he couldn’t swallow.
“Qin… Feng?”
Behind him, Qin Feng gave a quiet snort. From inside his shirt he took out a prop blood pack.
“Fake.”
He squeezed it hard. Blood splattered out, spattering both of them.
Jiang Ran didn’t turn around. He rose slowly.
Only then did he realize the chaos of gunfire had stopped at some point;
in the distance, the cicadas screamed loud enough to shake the air. The setting sun stretched their shadows long and parallel across the roof—never touching, never crossing.
“So this was a trap you set.”
“Yes.”
“We’ve known each other since high school…”
“Yes.”
Qin Feng’s voice was calm.
“But you never treated me like a friend. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had to wait until today to catch your secret.”
He lowered his gaze to the diary spread open on the parapet.
“I ran through a hundred possibilities. I never once imagined you could use a diary to travel through time.”
He let out a soft, almost curious breath.
“Judging from how desperate you were just now… if I let you finish reading that entry, what happens?”
“Do you vanish with a whoosh—back to 2009? Or… is it only your consciousness that goes back, while your body stays here?”
“You can try it,” Jiang Ran said flatly.
“No need.”
The muzzle didn’t shift. With his left hand, Qin Feng pulled out his phone and raised it to his ear.
“【Lilith.】”
A brief pause.
“I’ve got him. This game— I win.”
He ended the call.
“Lilith is your boss?” Jiang Ran stared into the dying light of the sun.
“Lilith is the god of this world,” Qin Feng replied.
Jiang Ran laughed.
“And you’re saying that with a straight face? Coming from the top scorer on the college entrance exam—didn’t your physics teacher die of anger?”
“Lilith is omnipotent.”
“Omnipotent,” Jiang Ran said, “still doesn’t make you a god.”
…
A short silence. Sparrows sprang up from the power lines.
“Fine.”
Qin Feng lifted his phone again.
“Call it fireworks to celebrate the end of the game. Let me show you.”
“Lilith.”
He spoke softly.
“【Let the sky go dark.】”
In an instant, the red sun vanished behind roiling clouds.
Thunder rolled in the distance. The whole world dimmed, as though a black veil had been pulled over the lens.
From basking in sunset to rain pouring down—only a few seconds passed.
Qin Feng lowered his phone.
“Well?”
“Breathtaking.”
Jiang Ran tipped his head back, letting the raindrops strike his face.
“So… that’s your secret. But I still have to say it—your fireworks went off too early.”
Qin Feng thrust the gun forward, forcing Jiang Ran onto the parapet.
One more half step and he would fall to his death.
“Your trump card’s exposed. Stop bluffing. Do you want to die with a little dignity, or should I send you on your way?”
Heh. Heh heh heh.
Jiang Ran laughed, spreading his arms wide.
“You’re wrong. The one who exposed his trump card…”
He looked at Qin Feng as if savoring the moment.
“…was you.”
“Oh?”
Qin Feng didn’t care.
“Show me this ‘reversal’.”
“I told you already: even omnipotence isn’t godhood. Only the one who controls history—who manipulates history—can be called a god.”
Jiang Ran shifted his feet and turned, bringing his forehead toward the muzzle.
“Keeping a diary is such a good habit, Qin Feng. These days, hardly anyone can do what you do—write in it every single day.”
Qin Feng’s pupils tightened.
“What are you saying?”
Jiang Ran studied his eyes, amused.
“【Ever consider… that we’re inside your diary right now?】”
BOOM—!!
Lightning split the sky. The flash came and went in a heartbeat, turning Qin Feng’s face corpse-white.
“No matter how I die, I’ll leave the diary. And when that happens—go on, guess—who will this gun be pointing at?”
Qin Feng’s trigger finger locked down tight, veins jumping along the back of his hand.
Jiang Ran closed his eyes, arms still outstretched, and leaned back into empty air.
“You’ll never defeat me in history. Because in this game that runs along the river of time…”
He let himself fall, earth and sky flipping over one another—
“【I am history!】”
…
…
…
…
…
…
Pff.
The dull impact of an air cushion.
“Cut!!!!!!!”
The director sprang up behind the camera, ecstatic, and yanked away the black veil in front of the lens. The world snapped bright again.
“Incredible! Perfect! A long take at this level of difficulty—and you nailed it in one go! You two are born leading men!”
Applause thundered all around them.
The guy with the watering can making the rain, the underclassman firing the flash to fake lightning, the girl holding the black cloth over the camera—everyone threw down their props and clapped until their palms turned red.
“You two seniors were amazing together!”
“We’re absolutely taking a prize at the university student film festival this time!”
“Under the pressure of a one-take shot and you still had that kind of control…”
“Senior Qin Feng is literally the top scorer—he’s just playing himself! Genius is genius anywhere!”
Amid the cheers, Qin Feng grabbed the parapet and hopped down.
Below was a lower roof. The air cushion they’d set up beforehand caught Jiang Ran perfectly. Not a scratch on him.
Qin Feng reached down, hauled Jiang Ran up, and punched him lightly in the shoulder.
“Not bad acting.”
Jiang Ran grinned and punched him back.
“You weren’t half bad yourself.”
The underclassmen crowded in, chattering, their eyes overflowing with worship.
“Jiang Ran, there’s one more thing I need to trouble you with.”
The director—also the film club president—walked over.
She handed Jiang Ran the script booklet.
“This micro-film still doesn’t have a name. Since you wrote the script, you name it.”
Jiang Ran took it.
“To be honest, it’s kind of embarrassing. This story is basically a setting I scribbled down in middle school when I was bored in class.”
“A phone that can grant any wish, a diary that can cross time… all of it was just that adolescent kind of fantasy. I was blushing when I said the lines just now.”
“I don’t know,” Qin Feng said, deadpan. “You looked like you were having a great time.”
The director offered him a pen.
“Either way, it’s your work. You should name it.”
“Fine.”
Jiang Ran didn’t refuse. He took the pen, thought for a moment, and began to write.
“The setting I came up with back then was about eleven geniuses joining a game that decides the fate of the world.”
“It was a long time ago. I don’t remember most of the details anymore, but I still remember the title.”
“If you don’t mind the cringe factor being a little too heavy… how about we use the original name?”
He smiled faintly, turned the script around, and showed them the name he’d just written on the cover—
“Genius Playground!”
【Genius Playground】