novelraw Chapter 158 Older Sister
Chapter 158 Older Sister
Jiang Ran stood up from the chair.
“Thank you, Professor Zhang. I understand now.”
He handed the peeled apple to Zhang Yang, then turned and walked toward the hospital room door.
“Huh? You’re leaving already?”
This sudden retreat caught Zhang Yang completely off guard.
“Dingdang Cat! You absolutely cannot start doubting science! That’s the bottom line for people like us who do research!”
“Once National Day is over and I’m back teaching, you need to start your project immediately! Whether it’s quantum tunneling or a spacetime shuttle, your teacher is still waiting for you to shine brilliantly!”
Jiang Ran stopped in his tracks.
“Don’t worry, Professor Zhang.”
He turned back and smiled faintly.“As your greatest disciple, I definitely won’t let you down.”
With that—
He pulled open the ward door and strode away.
Click.
The door closed behind him.
Taking a crunchy bite of the apple, Zhang Yang looked in puzzlement at the departing figure through the glass in the door.
“How strange.”
He shook his head.
“This kid may be a genius, but his thinking is still immature. Too unsteady.”
“But I suppose that’s part of growing up too. As his teacher, I still need to guide him more.”
Crunch.
Taking another bite of the apple, Zhang Yang rested his chin in one hand and stared at the bright fluorescent light overhead, where the image of an old friend seemed to emerge.
“In that reckless, headlong way… he really does resemble you.”
A faint smile rose on his lips as memories flooded back.
“When I get the chance, maybe I should tell him your story—so he can take it as a warning and avoid becoming someone as foolish as you.”
That evening, the Film Camera Club held its second club activity.
Chi Xiaoguo dragged over the small blackboard and began explaining the basics of film cameras to everyone. At the same time, she handed each person a camera without film loaded inside so they could get familiar with the controls.
“So that’s how it works. I get it now.”
“It’s actually simpler than I imagined.”
“A lot of things have to be done manually, but this mechanical feel is amazing.”
Under the little president’s guidance, the three of them learned quickly.
Jiang Ran glanced toward the shelf—
The Positron Cannon had now been packed away into a box and sealed behind the shelving unit.
He still needed more time to verify the secret surrounding Cheng Mengxue, so to be safe, all Positron Cannon experiments were temporarily suspended.
The moment he entered the club room today, he noticed more than twenty Rhine Cat plushies of various sizes had appeared all over the place.
This made Chi Xiaoguo absolutely ecstatic.
“Waaah! Waaah! Sister Mengxue, you’re so rich! You actually bought this many Rhine Cats!”
“Ahaha~ this is only a small part of them.”
Whenever Rhine Cats came up, Cheng Mengxue’s mood was always at MAX.
“Well? Doesn’t the mood automatically get better with all these Rhine Cat decorations around?”
“But these are all just the basic editions. None of them are especially expensive, hehe———— in a couple of days, maybe an ultra-rare limited-edition Rhine Cat will arrive too!”
As she said this, she waggled her brows and shot Jiang Ran an intense series of meaningful looks.
Jiang Ran laughed it off—
Of course he knew Cheng Mengxue was referring to the rice-cooker Rhine Cat he had promised her.
That was not a problem. He had already taken care of it.
Only—
Jiang Ran’s attention was not on that at all right now.
As his gaze swept across the Rhine Cat plushies scattered into every corner of the activity room, a suspicious thought surfaced in his heart:
[There aren’t hidden bugs or pinhole cameras inside these dolls, are there?]
Movies were always full of things like that.
The moment he thought about Cheng Mengxue’s sudden prank two days ago, and the way she had now brought in so many Rhine Cats to “camp” inside the activity room, Jiang Ran’s chronic caution syndrome flared up again.
Same old rule:
There was no harm in being careful.
Before confirming Cheng Mengxue’s true identity and real objective, he absolutely could not act rashly.
Otherwise, there was a very high chance he would expose the secrets of the Positron Cannon and the time-traveling text messages, causing consequences beyond estimation.
But then again—
Cheng Mengxue herself had no flaws. There was no breakthrough point anywhere.
If he wanted to uncover the secret around her, he had to wait for the right timing, the right opportunity.
Right now—
This was basically the stage where both sides knew full well what was going on but pretended ignorance, mutually “training hawks,” waiting to see who showed a flaw first.
As the club activity neared its end, Cheng Mengxue formally invited Chi Xiaoguo and Fang Ze, saying that Wednesday night was her birthday and she wanted to invite them to dinner together.
Chi Xiaoguo and Fang Ze happily agreed, both saying they would arrive on time with gifts.
“Hahaha, there’s no need to spend money on gifts! Just having you there is enough!”
The moment she said that, Cheng Mengxue immediately switched into a stern expression and pointed at Jiang Ran.
“Your gift is not optional!”
“Yeah, yeah, I know————”
Jiang Ran sighed.
“You’ve repeated that ten thousand times already.”
At the same time, on the other side of Donghai City, inside a luxurious conference room—
A middle-aged man pushed the door open and looked at the elderly man in Tang robes seated steadily in the boss’s chair.
“There’s some bad news.”
His face was grave.
“Jiang Ran seems to have noticed our movements. He’s already become wary.”
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“Before this, he had been highly active in the Film Camera Club at Donghai University. But ever since making contact with our [Key], those unusual activities immediately stopped.”
The old man in Tang robes opened his eyes.
“Then let me tell you another piece of bad news.”
He braced himself against the chair and sat upright.
“A certain member inside Prodigy’s Playground is also investigating us. Which means the one exposed isn’t just the [Key]—it’s us as well.”
The middle-aged man pulled out a chair and sat opposite him.
“If that’s the case, they may be working together. Just as we suspected from the start, there’s absolutely a mastermind from Prodigy’s Playground behind Jiang Ran. In the end, we really did bite the bait.”
“But I still insist we continue. After all, the clue on Jiang Ran’s side is a time machine! If we can truly get our hands on something like that and master the power to rewrite history and spacetime—we can easily win this game!”
The old man nodded.
“The good thing is, whoever’s tracing us—I don’t know who it is, but at least it isn’t the Witch.”
“That woman is still too cunning. For now, I don’t want any entanglement with her. As for the others… honestly, I’m curious. Who exactly gave them the courage to come provoke me?”
The old man frowned.
“First, I’ve never suppressed or interfered with any of them. In other words, I have no real grudge with anyone. I’ve only ever focused on my own affairs.”
“Second, I currently hold the King Coin. Coming to provoke me now is basically a dead end. What possible benefit could they gain from it?”
“Heh.”
After hearing that, the middle-aged man let out a soft laugh.
“That only proves one thing—[It’s not that he came to provoke you. It’s that you accidentally provoked him.]”
“Why not think carefully—who might our recent actions have offended?”
The old man in Tang robes fell silent.
Interlacing his fingers and pressing them to his lips, he thought for a moment.
“If you put it that way, then it seems… it could only be that person.”
“I truly didn’t expect that, even with that microfilm being buried, he would still turn his attention here so quickly.”
“Logically, his own situation shouldn’t be very good right now either. The [Clown] knows his background perfectly well and has been chasing him for years. He shouldn’t dare show himself so easily.”
“So under the current circumstances, could it really be that some critical opportunity has forced him to take action even at the risk of being caught by the [Clown]? What exactly is so important to him—what event, or what person?”
The middle-aged man narrowed his eyes.
“The one you’re talking about… it can’t be that one, can it? That person has never had any grudge with us.”
“Heh.”
The old man in Tang robes smiled helplessly.
“Before, perhaps not. But now it’s hard to say. If it really is him, then I actually feel sorry for Xue-ge.”
“After all, in the entire Playground, he’s the only one I’ve ever found genuinely interesting. But from the looks of it, perhaps it really can only be him—”
The old man’s throat bobbed as he spoke the name:
[The Magician.]
September 23rd, evening. Private dining room.
“Hurry up and light the candles!”
“I’ll do it, I’ll do it! Hehe, this is my favorite part!”
“Wang Hao! Go turn off the lights!”
Inside the not-so-large private room, six people sat around the round table:
Jiang Ran, Cheng Mengxue, Wang Hao, Xu Yan, Chi Xiaoguo, and Fang Ze.
At this moment, the lights in the room were off, leaving everything dim.
Chi Xiaoguo had already lit the candles on the cake, waiting for the birthday girl to blow them out and make a wish.
“Happy birthday to you~ happy birthday to you~ happy birthday dear Xiaoxue~ happy birthday to you~”
To the rhythm of clapping hands, everyone sang the birthday song together, then applause and cheers erupted for Cheng Mengxue to make her wish and blow out the candles.
Wearing a birthday hat, Cheng Mengxue clasped both hands together in front of the cake, made her wish devoutly, then bent forward and blew at the candlelight—
The two number-shaped candles went out, and everyone applauded again, congratulating Cheng Mengxue on her twentieth birthday.
“Aiya~ from now on I’m officially heading toward thirty!”
Cheng Mengxue sounded a little shy as she sighed over youth slipping away.
“Hmph.”
Fang Ze swept his gaze around the table.
“Everyone here except President Xiaoguo should already be heading toward thirty, right? Unless there’s someone here who’s still nineteen?”
In an instant, Xu Yan and Wang Hao both burst out laughing and pointed at Jiang Ran.
“This guy is nineteen! Don’t let how mature he acts fool you—he’s actually the youngest one here!”
“Huh?”
Chi Xiaoguo was utterly shocked.
She had been calling him senior for half a year, and it turned out Jiang Ran was actually the same age as her!
“Sigh.”
Jiang Ran let out a helpless sigh.
This had always been one of the things he hated bringing up the most.
That’s right.
He was actually one year younger than Cheng Mengxue.
More accurately, eight months younger.
But age was age. Even one day younger still counted as younger, which meant every time his childhood friend Cheng Mengxue celebrated her birthday, he inevitably got teased.
It had been fine when they were kids.
But after growing up, every birthday of Cheng Mengxue’s inevitably came with the same teasing:
“Little brother.”
“Hehe, what’s wrong? Is someone not convinced?”
As expected—
The little birthday girl walked over wearing a mischievous grin, proudly reaching out to thoroughly ruffle Jiang Ran’s hair.
“You little brother! Little brother!”
“Hey, stop touching my hair!”
Jiang Ran was genuinely sick of this fixed routine. He raised his right hand to brush Cheng Mengxue’s hand away.
However—
The moment he lifted his head and met Cheng Mengxue’s gaze, his right hand lost its strength and froze in midair.
And it wasn’t just Jiang Ran.
Everyone noticed something was wrong with Cheng Mengxue.
Just now, after teasing him with “little brother,” Cheng Mengxue had suddenly frozen in place as if turned to stone, staring blankly at Jiang Ran.
A moment later, the blankness vanished from her face.
Her expression turned gentle.
Turned sorrowful.
Her right hand lightly brushed across the top of Jiang Ran’s head, smoothing down the hair she had just mussed up and gently arranging it back into place.
Meeting the unusual look in Cheng Mengxue’s eyes, Jiang Ran felt something deeply strange.
He had never once seen Cheng Mengxue wear an expression like this—
It was a look of immeasurably deep longing.
And also a touch that felt impossibly far away.
Strange.
Even though she stood right in front of him, she felt impossibly distant.
Even though her eyes were fixed directly on him, it felt as if she were looking at someone else.
That was right.
Jiang Ran could clearly feel that [the person hidden in Cheng Mengxue’s deep, overflowing gaze was not him; he had no idea who was concealed inside her eyes.]
“I’m sorry.”
Cheng Mengxue’s voice was soft, yet unbearably heavy.
Her palm traced lightly across the crown of Jiang Ran’s head, her eyes glimmering faintly.
“Your older sister… grew up before you did.”