novelraw Chapter 178 002
Chapter 178 002
Jiang Ran looked left and right.
The scene was still familiar.
The maid-outfit waitress promoting orange juice, the child running with a lollipop, the streams of cars swirling overhead like schools of fish, the freshly baked cakes giving off their fragrance across the street.
He was back.
Back again!
There was no need to ask—he already knew the time must be exactly 10:00 a.m., September 17th, 2045.
But—
“39 minutes and 11 seconds.”
He murmured the numbers aloud.
Just now, amid that visual chaos like a lagging film or a glitching game, he had forced himself to catch a glimpse of the watch.10:39:11.
That meant—
In this cyber-utopian future world, the interval between each rewind was exactly 39 minutes and 11 seconds.
“Every 39 minutes and 11 seconds, I reset back here… to the entrance of this juice shop.”
“And at the same time, everything resets to 10:00. My condition, everyone else’s condition, the state of the entire city—no, the entire world—everything returns to how it was at 10:00.”
Jiang Ran narrowed his eyes.
This was too bizarre.
He had no idea what was happening.
And he was certain—this was not a Worldline Transition.
Because he had not felt the buzzing resonance of spacetime change, nor the dizziness and spinning disorientation.
There was no discomfort at all.
Even the black screen that followed the visual collapse felt more like a computer freezing and rebooting.
No vertigo.
No spinning.
Just a few seconds of blank stillness—
And then everything refreshed, suddenly snapping back to this point.
Then everything—
Restarted once more from 10:00 a.m., September 17th, 2045.
“Sir?”
The maid waitress tilted her head, blinking her cute smart lenses.
“Are you okay? Would you like to try our new juice? It’s very tasty.”
“Oh…”
Jiang Ran hesitated.
“…I’ll take a cup.”
The feeling was strange.
His brain told him: You already drank a huge cup just now! You’re already a bit sick of it!
But his mouth and stomach told him: You’re thirsty. You need something to soothe your throat.
In the end, he gave in to his body and accepted the full cup of orange juice.
The waitress giggled.
“If you like it, come back anytime for a refill~”
“Alright.”
At this point, Jiang Ran felt no shame anymore.
After all, this was already his second refill.
Standing once more by the roadside, he gulped down the juice.
For a moment, he felt like he had turned into someone like Wang Hao—a bottomless pit.
In just over an hour, he had walked through the entire snack street, eaten a large slice of cake, and drunk two huge cups of orange juice.
Under normal circumstances, he couldn’t even eat this much in an entire day.
This inexplicable rewind—
It was terrifying.
“But… there seems to be a pattern.”
Jiang Ran licked his lips, savoring the sweetness of the juice.
The moment he realized that this bizarre phenomenon followed a strict rule, he immediately calmed down.
If there was a pattern, then it must be scientific.
And if it was scientific, then it could be explained.
“If every rewind interval is exactly 39 minutes and 11 seconds, then the first rewind must have happened at the same interval.”
“Two intervals would be just under 80 minutes. Three intervals… just under two hours.”
Jiang Ran calculated silently.
According to the Positron Cannon 2.0 (battle-damaged version) manual he had previously summarized, the maximum time he could remain in the future world was exactly two hours.
Once the clock hit 12:00 noon, he would be kicked back to 2025, and the trip would end.
To travel again, he would have to wait 20 hours for the Positron Cannon to cool down.
“Then following this logic, I only need to experience one more rewind here… and then the two-hour limit will be reached. I’ll be sent back to 2025.”
Taking another sip of sweet-tart juice, Jiang Ran felt confident in this reasoning.
Of course, based on past experience, death could also instantly return him to 2025.
But that had been unavoidable in the prison.
Faced with guards’ guns and attack dogs’ fangs, dying had been inevitable.
Now, he was free.
Why would he seek that out?
The sensation of having his skull shattered—
Just thinking about it was awful.
Besides, in this peaceful future city, the only way to commit suicide would be jumping from a height.
The weightlessness of falling—
Just imagining it made his skin crawl.
Even at amusement parks, Jiang Ran avoided thrill rides.
How could he possibly bring himself to jump off a building?
“Forget it.”
He finished the juice and tossed the cup into a trash bin.
“If I die instantly, fine. But if I don’t die cleanly… that would be pure torture.”
After that, Jiang Ran mounted a shared flying motorcycle and followed the route in his memory, heading toward Sang Biao.
He still wanted to talk to him.
After all, in that prison, they had escaped together for quite some time. There was at least some bond.
Unfortunately, due to the temporal butterfly effect and changes in the future, that bond now existed only on one side.
Jiang Ran felt familiarity toward Sang Biao—
But to Sang Biao, he was just a random stranger forcing a conversation.
What a mess.
Back in the prison, they had been bound by shared interests. Under the excuse of escaping, they had been able to cooperate and set aside differences.
Now that they were both free, how could he possibly make Sang Biao accept him as an ally?
“Given how sneaky he looked, he’s definitely up to no good.”
As he merged into the flowing traffic of flying vehicles, Jiang Ran thought into the wind,
“With his temper, he’s probably stealing or breaking in somewhere… Could he be trying to sneak into that classical building?”
“Seriously, no matter which future we’re in, he’s still a criminal? Can’t he just behave for once?”
After thinking the whole way, Jiang Ran still couldn’t come up with a good approach.
They didn’t know each other deeply enough.
They had no secret codes, no shared signals.
There was simply no way to make him trust him instantly.
“Guess I’ll just brute-force it.”
Soon, he arrived above the classical building again and spotted the suspicious, bulky figure outside the wall.
He forced himself to land, parked the motorcycle, and walked over.
“Sang Biao.”
He called softly.
Sang Biao reacted as if a trigger had been pulled beside his ear, jumping in shock before turning around viciously.
“Who the hell are you calling Sang Biao!? Get lost!”
Jiang Ran spread his hands.
“Then what’s your name?”
“The hell does that have to do with you!?”
Ah—
That filthy-mouthed attitude.
For some reason, Jiang Ran felt a strange sense of nostalgic familiarity.
“Alright, whatever your name is, just listen to me first.”
Jiang Ran kept his tone patient.
“My name is Jiang Ran. I mean no harm. I—”
Click.
Same old move.
Sang Biao pressed the gun against Jiang Ran’s abdomen.
“Get lost! Or I’ll blow you away!”
Sigh.
Jiang Ran felt utterly helpless.
Communicating with this single-celled organism was far too difficult.
And he knew Sang Biao well.
Short temper.
Ruthless.
Reckless.
If he said he’d shoot, he really would.
This time, Jiang Ran still had things to verify, so it wasn’t worth taking risks.
Better to deal with him properly next time.
“Alright, alright, big brother, calm down.”
History repeated itself once again.
Jiang Ran retreated step by step and climbed onto the flying motorcycle.
“Hurry up and get lost!” Sang Biao shouted.
“Stop rushing me!”
Jiang Ran clicked his tongue and twisted the throttle hard.
“No wonder you end up in prison.”
Whoosh—
He shot into the sky.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Enraged, Sang Biao fired three shots into the air.
Fortunately, the flying motorcycle was too fast.
Not a single bullet hit.
Jiang Ran gave him the middle finger midair and flew off—
This time, he wandered in another direction.
Unexpectedly, he discovered a massive screen on a commercial complex broadcasting the news.
Many people hovered in midair on flying bikes to watch.
Jiang Ran joined them and looked up.
It was an ultra-high-resolution 3D display.
The host looked so real it felt like they were standing right in front of him.
“Today marks the anniversary of the passing of Mr. Pangbete, resident No. 002 of the [Digital World], and the very creator of this beautiful world.”
“Three years ago, Mr. Pangbete left us, a loss that continues to grieve us deeply.”
“Now, let us remember him. Please stop whatever you are doing—stop everything—and observe a moment of silence.”
As the host finished speaking, people both on the ground and hovering in the air closed their eyes and bowed their heads.
Even the traffic in the sky began honking in unison, the sound echoing through the clouds.
It seemed that everyone in this city—no, this world—held this Mr. Pangbete in the highest respect.
But—
Jiang Ran caught the keyword that shocked him to the core.
What—
What did she say?
[Digital World]?
The host had just said this was a digital world?
Was this world fake?
Virtual!?
Jiang Ran sucked in a cold breath and raised his hand, staring at his own incredibly real, detailed skin, at the faint pulse beneath it.
This—
This was fake?
Was this world truly what he had first suspected—a constructed program, something like a video game?
In an instant—
The familiar anomaly struck again!
The host on the screen began flickering violently, her face multiplying across his entire field of vision—then suddenly appearing right in front of him!
The traffic in the sky began falling, stuttering like glitching meteors, moving forward three steps, then snapping back two, as if restrained by invisible strings.
The massive mall before him disappeared, then reappeared, then vanished again.
The sky turned black, then white, then black, then white—
Everything behaved like a fast-forwarded film, a corrupted disc, everything breaking into colorful blocks, into textures, into overlapping models passing through each other.
Jiang Ran’s arm once again became like a brush, painting everything it passed over in skin tones, while his movements split into thousands of overlapping afterimages, like frames captured by a high-speed camera.
Repeating his previous method, he flung his wrist upward and looked at the watch.
September 17th, 2045, 10:39:11 AM.
Ah!
The entire world went black.
Everything vanished.
Nothing could be seen.
Nothing existed.
All things collapsed into a blank screen, waiting for the next reboot.
A few seconds later—
Sunlight, fragrance, street calls, and children’s laughter all returned.
The maid waitress approached with a smile.
“Sir, would you like to try our new orange juice? It’s free!”
Heh.
Jiang Ran let out a helpless chuckle and shook his head.
“I actually could drink more… and I want to. But I’m afraid there’s no time.”
The waitress tilted her head.
“How could that be? It won’t take long at all.”
“…”
“What time is it now?”
The waitress looked ahead and blinked.
“It’s—10:02… 27 seconds.”
Buzz!
Buzz!
Buzz!
The familiar dizziness and spinning sensation finally arrived.
For the first time, Jiang Ran felt this falling sensation as something comforting—
Relieving.
Because it meant—
The two-hour limit had been reached.
He could finally escape that endless loop of rewinding every 39 minutes and 11 seconds—
And return to the normal world of 2025.
Soon, all discomfort faded.
Donghai University.
Outside the Film Camera Club activity room window.
Beside the transformer distribution box—
Jiang Ran
opened his eyes.