Prodigy’s Playground

Chapter 116 The Basement

The two left the barbecue stall and headed to Jiang Ran’s house.

When they opened the door, Jiang Ran’s father was still awake, watching television in the living room.

“Oh! Haohao’s here! Haven’t seen you in a while—you’ve gotten fatter again! You should lose some weight!”

“Hahaha!”

Wang Hao laughed and slapped his belly.

“The school food’s too good! Once I graduate and start working, living on plain soup and water, I’ll naturally slim down!”

Jiang Ran watched the two of them trade jokes.

In his memory—meaning the history of Worldline 0—Wang Hao hadn’t been nearly this close with his parents. In fact, they had barely met a few times. But on Worldline 1, because of the butterfly effect, that relationship had changed as well.

First of all, during high school the two of them had been inseparable best friends. Wang Hao must have come to his house frequently to hang out, just like Qin Feng had in Worldline 0.

Secondly, after Cheng Mengxue’s car accident back then, his parents had been afraid Jiang Ran might spiral into despair or even attempt suicide. They deliberately had him apply to the same junior college Wang Hao attended and asked Wang Hao to keep an eye on him. With that responsibility, they must have called Wang Hao often to ask about Jiang Ran’s condition.“Have you eaten?” Jiang Ran’s father asked.

“Yeah, yeah, we already ate.”

Jiang Ran walked to the sideboard, opened a drawer, and rummaged out the key to the basement.

“Dad, keep watching TV. Wang Hao and I are going to the basement to look for something.”

“This late?”

His father tried to persuade him.

“Look for it tomorrow during the day. Why rush in the middle of the night?”

“We need it urgently.”

Jiang Ran pulled Wang Hao along.

“We’re heading down. Enjoy your TV.”

Soon afterward, the two of them arrived at the basement, switched on the lights, and began rummaging through boxes.

The basement of Jiang Ran’s house was large, and it was packed with things. Finding a draft notebook from many years ago here would not be easy. The main problem was that Jiang Ran’s father had what could only be described as a hamster-like hoarding habit—just like a hamster storing everything away, he couldn’t bear to throw anything out. Even Jiang Ran’s old textbooks, exercise books, and extracurricular reading had all been piled into a corner of the basement for storage.

Not only were his middle school textbooks and miscellaneous items still there—even his elementary school workbooks and assignments remained. Even picture books and comic booklets from early childhood had been kept!

“Your dad really knows how to store stuff.”

Wang Hao couldn’t help commenting.

“If it were my dad, the day after I graduated he’d have packed up all my textbooks and notebooks and sold them as scrap.”

“You wouldn’t read them anyway,” Jiang Ran shot back.

“Look at this!”

Wang Hao tossed him a comic book titled “Calabash Brothers vs. Transformers.”

“Go on, read it! Bootleg comics!”

Jiang Ran caught it and smiled faintly.

“You’d be surprised—this one actually isn’t bootleg. It’s part of a whole series.”

As he spoke, Wang Hao dug out another one from underneath: “Calabash Brothers vs. Saint Seiya.”

You wouldn’t know until you looked.

And once you did, it was shocking—it was actually an officially published series.

“The world really is absurd.”

The basement was far more chaotic than Jiang Ran had expected. The storage of books had no pattern whatsoever—they were scattered everywhere in complete disorder.

Jiang Ran wiped sweat from his forehead.

“In my memory it shouldn’t have been this messy. My dad should have arranged my books in piles according to the years I studied—after all, once they’re stored down here, they’re rarely touched again. But now everything’s mixed together. Elementary school, middle school, high school—it’s all piled together.”

This disorder made finding the Setting Collection even more difficult.

It meant they had to conduct a full sweep search.

Every stack of books, every scrap notebook or draft pad had to be opened and checked.

The results were disappointing.

They searched for three or four hours.

By the time midnight passed and early morning arrived, they had combed through every corner of the basement.

But they still couldn’t find the Setting Collection.

“That’s strange.”

Jiang Ran scratched his head.

Had the notebook been thrown away as scrap paper?

That didn’t make sense.

It didn’t fit his father’s hamster-like personality.

His father always had the mentality of “It might be useful someday,” “Let’s keep it just in case,” “What a shame to sell perfectly good books as scrap,” “Let’s keep it as a memory.”

He never threw things away.

So why couldn’t they find that Setting Collection?

“What are you two still looking for this late?”

Suddenly—

His father’s voice came from the basement entrance.

Jiang Ran looked up.

His father was wearing pajamas, holding his phone with the flashlight on as a makeshift torch, yawning as he walked in.

“I already slept for a while. Got up to use the bathroom, noticed you weren’t in your room and Haohao wasn’t sleeping either, so I figured I’d come check the basement.”

Jiang Ran straightened up, supporting his tired back with both hands.

“We’re trying to find a draft notebook from when I was in middle school. But we still haven’t found it.”

“Oh—”

His father nodded in realization.

“Well then it’s not surprising you can’t find it. Son, did you forget? When you were in either tenth or eleventh grade, our basement got broken into. Everything was rummaged through.”

“There wasn’t anything valuable down here at the time. Just a few boxes of old liquor that weren’t worth much. The thief didn’t take anything.”

“The police investigated afterward and confirmed nothing valuable was missing, so they didn’t make a big deal of it. They just told us to change the lock on the basement.”

“Later, when we cleaned things up, a lot of books had gotten moldy. Your mom called one of those scrap collectors who ride around on tricycles, and he hauled away a bunch of them. Maybe the notebook you’re looking for got taken away then.”

“…What?”

Jiang Ran suddenly lifted his head.

Their basement…

had been broken into?

This was the first time he had ever heard about it.

He was certain that on Worldline 0, this had never happened.

It was a new piece of history that existed only on Worldline 1.

“Nothing was stolen?” Jiang Ran asked.

“Nothing at all. At least your mom and I didn’t notice anything missing.”

His father chuckled.

“It’s not like the thief came specifically to steal your draft notebook, right? Hahaha! That’d be hilarious. What did you write in there—state secrets?”

His father’s hearty laughter echoed throughout the basement, bouncing through the quiet midnight corridor like something from a horror movie.

But in Jiang Ran’s mind…

This situation might be more terrifying than a horror movie.

If this conversation had happened a few days earlier—if his father had casually told him the basement had been broken into and the notebook was missing—Jiang Ran wouldn’t have been surprised at all.

Basement thefts were common.

But now…

All the events of the past few days lined up together.

The micro-film Prodigy’s Playground, adapted from his middle school Setting Collection, had won the University Student Film Festival Grand Prize, yet it was forbidden from being publicly released.

A film company and a famous director had bought the script rights at an absurdly high price far beyond normal logic, forcing the entire film club to sign confidentiality agreements.

Every piece of material related to the micro-film—scripts, footage, everything—had been destroyed, leaving no trace.

At the class reunion, Zhou Xiong had performed a show with his phone where Lilith granted any wish, and the scene perfectly matched the plot of Jiang Ran’s Setting Collection.

The final remaining evidence in the world—the Setting Collection manuscript stored in the basement—had now mysteriously disappeared.

Strange.

Very strange.

When these events were connected together, the air smelled strongly of conspiracy.

His father said the scrap collector had taken the notebook away on a tricycle.

Jiang Ran didn’t believe that explanation for a second.

Clearly—

“That notebook… that Setting Collection…”

Jiang Ran muttered.

“It was stolen.”

Yes.

When their basement had been broken into during his high school years, it wasn’t that nothing had been taken.

The thief’s objective had simply never been anything else.

They had come specifically for the Setting Collection.

“Huh? What did you say?”

Wang Hao shifted and stood up.

“Man, I can’t hold it anymore—I’ve got to pee! Uncle! Uncle, you’ve got the keys, right? Take me upstairs—I need the bathroom!”

Wang Hao, true to form, grabbed Jiang Ran’s father and ran toward the elevator.

Soon the enormous basement was left with only Jiang Ran.

The surroundings instantly fell silent.

He closed his eyes and began to think.

Everything was chaotic.

There were no clear leads.

But his intuition told him the truth behind these bizarre events was extremely important.

So he had to sort out the logic.

He picked up a yellowed exercise notebook, pressed down a ballpoint pen, and began writing his thoughts on the blank page.

[Why was our basement burglarized?]

This event existed only on Worldline 1.

Since it differed from Worldline 0, it meant the divergence must have been caused by the temporal butterfly effect.

Or perhaps…

Very likely…

It was related to the time-traveling text message Qin Feng had sent.

His father had said the basement was thoroughly rummaged through, yet no valuables were missing.

That was only because he had looked for valuables.

He had overlooked the one thing that truly mattered.

The Setting Collection Jiang Ran had written in middle school.

At the time, it had been nothing more than nonsense he had invented.

Yet the facts spoke for themselves.

If in the year 2025, someone was willing to pay 12 million yuan—or even more—to purchase the script for Prodigy’s Playground, then the Setting Collection that served as its prototype must possess the same value.

That much was undeniable.

Next came the second question.

[Who would have broken into the basement during Jiang Ran’s high school years?]

Almost instantly, a name appeared in his mind.

A figure.

“Qin Feng.”

On the current Worldline 1, Jiang Ran had never told anyone about the Setting Collection.

Not even Wang Hao knew it had been stored in the basement.

But on Worldline 0, there had been two people who knew that information.

Jiang Ran, Qin Feng, and Wang Hao had once been eating barbecue together.

Qin Feng had been extremely interested in the story of Prodigy’s Playground. It wasn’t the first time he had asked about it. He had tried several times before to learn more details.

At the time, Jiang Ran simply couldn’t remember much about it, and he hadn’t thought Qin Feng’s persistence was strange.

During that barbecue gathering, Qin Feng had brought it up again, trying to pry information from Wang Hao.

But Wang Hao, being the food-loving idiot he was, only remembered the title of the Setting Collection. Everything else was gone from his memory.

Qin Feng had been disappointed and mocked their terrible memories.

Then Jiang Ran had suggested that Qin Feng spend a few days at his hometown during summer vacation so they could search the basement together for the old manuscript.

“Yes.”

Jiang Ran continued reasoning.

“Thinking about it now, Qin Feng’s attention toward that Setting Collection… really did seem abnormal.”

Memories surfaced in Jiang Ran’s mind.

Fragments of conversations with Qin Feng on Worldline 0.

“A phone that can grant any wish, a diary that can travel through time… honestly, the settings you came up with in middle school are pretty interesting.”

“‘Prodigy’s Playground’—what exactly does that refer to?”

“You named the story Prodigy’s Playground and said it was a game involving eleven geniuses.”

“So can you tell me… what kind of game the Prodigy’s Playground actually is?”

“Do you remember anything else?”

“For example… how would someone join the Prodigy’s Playground? How would they enter the game?”

“The two of you seriously make me question whether your brains are secondhand. How can you forget something you wrote yourselves?”

“Who do you think we are?”

“Fine, fine. If you’re really that interested, come back to my hometown with me during summer vacation.”

“You can stay at my house for a few days, and we’ll dig through the basement together. Maybe we’ll find the notebook from middle school.”

Slowly, Jiang Ran opened his eyes.

Yes.

On Worldline 0, Qin Feng’s reaction had been strange.

It hadn’t just been curiosity.

It had been obsession.

A fixation on discovering the contents of the Setting Collection.

“Could it be…”

Jiang Ran frowned as a bold hypothesis formed in his mind.

“Could it be that the time-traveling text message Qin Feng sent ten years into the past specifically mentioned the Setting Collection in my basement?”

“So he calculated the timing—waiting until I was in high school, when my middle school notebooks had been stored in the basement…”

“…and then came to steal it?”