novelraw Chapter 126 The Meaning of 42
Chapter 126 The Meaning of 42
Warm sunlight fell across his body.
Jiang Ran looked toward the south.
On the road that had just been cleaned, two more withered leaves drifted down and landed on the ground.
He narrowed his eyes, recalling the Magician Qin Feng’s final words in the 2045 future world—
[42 is correct.]
That public enemy of humanity, the greatest criminal in history—his appearance had indeed been Qin Feng twenty years later. Of this, there was no doubt. Jiang Ran could not possibly have been mistaken.
Then…
How exactly should that incomprehensible sentence be understood?
42.
Again, 42.What special meaning did this eerie number carry?
Did it refer to a person? Or to something? Or perhaps to some kind of symbol?
Jiang Ran couldn’t figure it out.
What puzzled him even more was that earlier, on Worldline No. 0, when they first conducted the time-traveling text experiment, they had also received a mysterious message related to 42—
[Do not trust 42.]
That was a contradiction!
One moment it said 42 was correct, the next it said not to trust 42…
Which one was true?
Not only that—this trip to the future in 2045 had brought up many new questions that required thought.
Jiang Ran now felt like one head had become two.
“I’ll think about it slowly during class later.”
Jiang Ran hung up the call and put down his phone.
“Anyway, university classes are all more or less the same.”
After that, Jiang Ran returned to the Film Camera Club activity room and chatted casually with Chi Xiaoguo for a bit.
Right now, Chi Xiaoguo’s entire mind was focused on [club recruitment].
In the new semester, the Film Camera Club needed at least five official members in order to operate normally and lift the threat of dissolution.
“No problem at all!”
Chi Xiaoguo patted her chest.
“In the past couple of years, film-style photography has become popular online again! Once this year’s freshmen finish their military training, our recruitment booth is going to be packed!”
“When that time comes, we’ll have to be selective—we can only accept people who truly love film photography!”
“After all… our activity room is so small. If we recruit too many people at once, there won’t even be enough space to sit.”
“But if there really are a lot of enthusiasts, then there’s no helping it—we can apply to the school for a bigger activity room! Ahh, who would’ve thought having too many members could be such a problem~”
Chi Xiaoguo had already entered full fantasy mode.
If she kept going, Donghai University might as well rename itself Film University.
Jiang Ran had originally wanted to tell her not to set expectations so high from the start—that the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment, and that they still had to face the reality that film cameras were relics of a bygone era.
But…
Seeing how sincere her passion was, Jiang Ran hesitated—and in the end, he didn’t say the discouraging words.
“Mm.”
He nodded.
“After military training ends, let’s work hard on recruitment together.”
After that, the two went their separate ways to attend class.
Although Jiang Ran, Cheng Mengxue, and Fang Ze were all in the same graduate micro-cohort, most of their classes did not overlap.
The reason was simple.
In their group, Jiang Ran was the only true graduate student. The other two were exchange students from the United States.
Naturally, exchange students had different course structures from standard graduate students. Not to mention that Cheng Mengxue and Fang Ze had different academic interests—the overlap between their schedules was minimal.
Thus, in daily life, the three of them mostly attended classes separately.
Jiang Ran checked his schedule. Each week, the three of them only shared two specialized courses.
Adding Professor Yan Su’s requirement of two to three additional lab sessions per week, their “three-sword fellowship” only met four or five times at most.
“Why does it feel like graduate school has even more classes than undergrad?”
Looking at the packed timetable, Jiang Ran was dissatisfied.
He clearly had so many other things to do…
On the podium, the lecturer had already begun teaching. Jiang Ran settled into the rhythm, picked up his pen, and began organizing his thoughts on paper.
To be fair, this trip to the 2045 future had yielded significant gains.
[First and foremost, the greatest gain was meeting the Magician Qin Feng, confirming his identity, and successfully communicating with him.]
He was certain—
The Qin Feng of twenty years later had recognized him.
That much was undeniable.
“Qin Feng is that smart. That 70-character message could compress so much information. And on top of that, he even broke into my basement to steal the prototype… there’s no way he wouldn’t remember what I look like, right?”
Impossible.
In fact, who knew how many times Qin Feng had already been watching him from the shadows.
At that thought—
Jiang Ran suddenly shook his head and looked toward the classroom window.
He scanned around, front and back.
There were no suspicious figures.
He snorted softly.
He was becoming a bit paranoid.
But then again, if Qin Feng truly wanted to observe him from the shadows, it would be difficult for him to notice anyway.
“In any case, the Qin Feng who was about to be beheaded on the execution platform twenty years later definitely recognized me from twenty years ago.”
Jiang Ran continued his reasoning:
“With Qin Feng’s intellect, the moment he saw me, he would probably realize I had traveled from twenty years in the past… I look young—definitely not in my thirties or forties.”
He rubbed his chin, finding no noticeable stubble.
Thinking of the thick beard clinging to Qin Feng’s face in 2045, it was clear—time spared no one.
“At the very end of his life, just before the execution, Qin Feng desperately tried to convey something to me.”
“And that information carried immense value. It was absolutely critical.”
Scratch, scratch.
Jiang Ran’s pen moved across the page, writing down the words Qin Feng had shouted hysterically:
42!
Follow 42!
42 is correct!
42 is—
The final sentence had been cut off. The blade had fallen, blood had splattered across the execution ground.
“42 is… is… what exactly?”
Jiang Ran frowned.
No matter how he looked at it, that unfinished final sentence was the most crucial part.
“Couldn’t he have said that one first?”
But it wasn’t really Qin Feng’s fault.
Even for a genius, in that moment—on the brink of beheading, faced with such a sudden situation—he had only been given an instant to think.
Within that instant, he had to recognize Jiang Ran, deduce why Jiang Ran was there, and only then decide what information to convey…
If Jiang Ran himself had been in that position, he absolutely wouldn’t have reacted as quickly.
“A genius really is a genius. But…”
“Can this version of Qin Feng be trusted?”
Jiang Ran shook his head.
Back on Worldline No. 0, Qin Feng had already deceived him once.
And later, on Worldline No. 1, where they barely interacted, Qin Feng had still sneaked into his basement…
That didn’t exactly inspire confidence. It significantly reduced Jiang Ran’s trust in him.
On top of that, the message this time directly contradicted the mysterious text they had received earlier.
It left Jiang Ran unable to decide which one to believe.
“Forget it. I’ll stop here for now.”
He decided not to think too deeply about it.
After all, there wasn’t enough information yet. Thinking further would be pointless. It would be better to return to 2045 next time, gather more data, and then analyze it in depth.
If he could reach the execution ground earlier next time, could he hear Qin Feng finish his sentence?
Or perhaps—
He could shout Qin Feng’s previous words himself, prompting him to reveal even more information?
That could work.
Jiang Ran found the idea promising.
This time, Qin Feng shouted information A. Next time, Jiang Ran would shout A first—forcing Qin Feng to reveal B. Then next time, he would shout B, and Qin Feng would reveal…
And so on.
Step by step, climbing upward in a spiral.
Of course, it probably wouldn’t go that smoothly.
But in principle, the more information he could obtain, the more it would help his analysis.
That logic held.
“Alright. Let’s set aside the issue of 42 for now.”
Jiang Ran picked up the sheet of paper, preparing to place it at the bottom.
But the moment he saw the number 42—
His thoughts drifted again.
This strange number was like a lingering ghost, appearing around him again and again, startling him each time.
The very first time he saw 42 was on Worldline No. 0—on Cheng Mengxue’s phone charm, on the belly of the Astronaut Rhine Cat.
The second time was the No. 42 transformer distribution box outside the Film Camera Club window—though he hadn’t noticed it at the time.
The third time was that one and only mysterious text message, whose ending digits were 42.
The fourth time was on the night of the Worldline Transition, when he suddenly realized Qin Feng’s student number was 42.
The fifth time was rather interesting—also on the night of the Worldline Transition, at a villa party hosted by one of Nan Xiuxiu’s friends…
In the fluttering gauze under the night breeze, Nan Xiuxiu lifted his chin teasingly—and at that exact moment, the digital clock displayed 00:42.
Could it be that Nan Xiuxiu—who seemed like nothing more than a passerby, an insignificant side character—was also connected to the mysterious number 42?
Probably not.
After all, her connection to him existed only on Worldline No. 1, and they were already drifting apart.
Moreover, unlike Qin Feng or Cheng Mengxue, there was nothing mysterious or incomprehensible about her.
She was just an ordinary girl.
Even if her personality was far from ordinary, from the perspective of spacetime and worldlines, she was utterly normal—nothing special at all.
Jiang Ran continued thinking.
The sixth time he saw 42 was at the summer class reunion. People came and went, yet the number of attendees always remained fixed at 42.
At the final moment, Cheng Mengxue—student number 42—arrived in stunning fashion.
These were all the moments when 42 had appeared around him.
Coincidentally, every appearance of 42 seemed to carry an undertone of unease.
“So…”
Jiang Ran narrowed his eyes.
“Does 42 refer to a person? A group of people? Or something… something else?”
“Or…”
“42 refers to 42 itself. It doesn’t represent anyone or anything. The number itself holds an unfathomable meaning—”
“42 is simply 42. It is everywhere.”