Prodigy’s Playground

Chapter 2 Text Message

“You know,” Qin Feng said, flipping through the script booklet, “for something you came up with in middle school, these settings are actually pretty interesting.”

He skimmed a few more pages, then looked up.

“Prodigy’s Playground—what’s it even supposed to mean?”

After filming wrapped, the film club hurried back to start editing. Jiang Ran and Qin Feng headed for the cafeteria.

“I don’t remember anymore.”

Jiang Ran kicked a pebble out of his way.

“It was all that pointless adolescent imagination. It’s been so many years—how could I possibly still remember?”

“I only have a vague recollection of a few fragments. I just used what I had to write a script for the club.”

“What a shame.”

Qin Feng closed the booklet.“I’m actually pretty interested in that story.”

Jiang Ran let out a soft laugh.

“Then when summer break starts, I’ll go dig around in my basement at home. If I’m lucky, maybe I can still find the old draft notebook I used back then.”

Qin Feng was Jiang Ran’s best friend.

They’d met in high school and been like brothers ever since.

“Jiang Ran! This is bad!”

Right in front of them, a short-haired girl came running over in a panic, a sheen of sweat on her forehead, her face tight with alarm.

She grabbed Jiang Ran by the arm.

“Oh no—oh no! I lost my phone! I’ve been looking forever and I can’t find it!”

Jiang Ran blinked.

The girl was his childhood friend—Cheng Mengxue—someone he’d grown up with from the time they were kids.

And with Qin Feng added to the mix, the three of them had been classmates in high school as well: a trio closer than anyone else, a friendship that had lasted all the way to now.

Even though they were in different majors in college, they still ended up together after class more often than not.

“Where did you lose it?” Jiang Ran asked.

“I don’t know!”

Cheng Mengxue looked like she was about to cry.

“While you two were filming, I went to browse the seniors’ market by myself. And when I finally noticed… my phone was just gone.”

“Honestly, losing the phone would be one thing—I’m more worried about the Rhine Cat charm! That’s the limited-edition Astronaut Rhine Cat! The collab with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—they only made 4,200 of them. It’s really valuable!”

Rhine Cat was the most popular plush toy of the moment, a global bestseller.

Apparently, back when it was first created, it had just been the mascot of a cosmetics brand—who would’ve thought it was so cute and so explosively popular that it had become a standalone IP on the level of Doraemon or Hello Kitty?

And Cheng Mengxue was, quite simply, a hardcore Rhine Cat fanatic.

“People usually don’t steal phones on campus. I’ll call it for you.”

Jiang Ran took out his phone and dialed Cheng Mengxue’s number. The ringtone sounded…

The number you have dialed is powered off, sorry…

“Probably dead.”

Jiang Ran thought for a moment.

“Then I’ll send your phone a text.”

“You didn’t set any privacy mode, so once whoever picked it up charges it— even if they don’t know your unlock code, they’ll still see the text, and they can contact me.”

“That’s a good idea,” Qin Feng said, nodding.

Jiang Ran started typing—

【Hello. If you found this phone, please contact XXXXXXX. Thank you very much!】

“Ugh…”

Cheng Mengxue sighed.

“I just hope they’ll give my Rhine Cat back…”

Jiang Ran smiled.

“Most people wouldn’t even recognize a limited edition. If you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known it was that expensive. Otherwise, it would’ve been sold off to a secondhand buyback ages ago.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“I’m kidding.”

Jiang Ran double-checked that the contact number was correct.

“Relax. We’ll find it soon.”

Then he hit send—

Bzz.

Bzz.

Bzz.

At the instant the message went out, the world lurched. His vision blurred.

A heavy ringing filled his ears;

Jiang Ran lost his balance and nearly stumbled.

He shut his eyes, clenched his jaw, and pressed his fingers to his temples…

Two seconds later, the discomfort vanished.

“What’s wrong?” Qin Feng asked, watching him closely.

“Feeling sick?”

“I don’t know. I just got dizzy all of a sudden.”

Jiang Ran exhaled long and slow, opened his eyes, and straightened.

Huh?

He looked left.

Looked right.

“Where’s Xiaoxue?”

“What Xiaoxue?” Qin Feng asked, baffled.

“Cheng Mengxue—who else would ‘Xiaoxue’ be?”

Jiang Ran turned in a full circle. Cheng Mengxue was nowhere in sight.

Weird.

She’d been standing right next to them a moment ago—how could she vanish in the blink of an eye?

“Hey.”

Qin Feng patted his shoulder.

“What are you looking for? Xiaoxue hasn’t been with us all afternoon. We were filming—she went off to do her own thing.”

“No…”

Jiang Ran was completely thrown. He gestured wildly with both hands.

“She was standing right here. She was still here a few seconds ago!”

“Heh—no way.”

Qin Feng laughed like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“What’s wrong with you? Are you messing with me?”

In an instant, cold crawled up Jiang Ran’s spine.

What the hell was going on?

【Why did Cheng Mengxue disappear the moment I got dizzy?】

【And why is Qin Feng acting like he’s never even seen her—when the three of us were talking just seconds ago?!】

“Who’s messing with who! I literally just texted her—”

He opened his messages—and went silent.

Nothing.

There was nothing there.

He was sure of it. In the split second before the dizziness hit, the text had definitely sent successfully.

And yet now—whether he checked his sent box or even the trash—there wasn’t a trace of that message anywhere.

Where did it go?

Why did that text vanish along with Xiaoxue?

He hurriedly dialed Cheng Mengxue.

“Hello? Jiang Ran—are you guys done filming already?”

The other end was noisy, full of voices.

“Where are you?” Jiang Ran asked bluntly.

“At the seniors’ market… what’s wrong with you? Your tone is weird—did something happen?”

Jiang Ran’s brow knotted. He had no idea how to explain.

This feeling…

was like sleepwalking in broad daylight.

Cheng Mengxue hadn’t lost her phone.

She hadn’t come running over in a panic.

He hadn’t sent that text.

So was everything that had just happened nothing more than an unreal hallucination?

“Jiang Ran?” The confusion on the other end sharpened.

Qin Feng leaned in too, concerned, staring at him.

“What is it? If something’s going on, say it—don’t just stand there like you’ve gone mute.”

Jiang Ran forced himself to calm down.

“I don’t know how to explain this, but in my memory just now, Xiaoxue lost her phone. She came to find us, and I texted her phone. I said—”

“Ah—!” “Hahaha, so that’s what it is.”

Jiang Ran was tense enough to snap, but the two of them were grinning like it was nothing.

“You finally admit it,” Qin Feng snorted.

“Admit what?” Jiang Ran stared at him.

“【Three days ago, you sent Xiaoxue a really weird text.】”

Qin Feng chuckled.

“You said if someone found her phone, they should contact your number—out of nowhere, for no reason.”

“Xiaoxue screenshotted it and asked you about it, and you played dumb, said you didn’t send it. I saw it too—the sender was clearly you, but you insisted it wasn’t. No matter what, you wouldn’t admit it.”

“You refused to budge, so what were we supposed to do? We just stopped paying attention to it.”

…

Jiang Ran’s arms dropped to his sides.

He stood there, rigid.

The sunset pulled his shadow long—like the hands of a clock running backward.

Three days ago?

That text—he’d sent it just now. A minute ago. How could it have been sent three days ago?

He opened WeChat, tapped into his chat history with Cheng Mengxue, and scrolled upward.

Sure enough.

Three days earlier—March 14—Cheng Mengxue had sent him a screenshot of a text message and asked what was going on.

He zoomed in.

The sender was, in fact, him.

And the content—word for word—was identical. An airtight piece of evidence.

“Look.”

Qin Feng pointed at the date in the top-left corner of the phone: March 17.

“It was you. Three days ago you texted Xiaoxue. It’s not even a big deal—so why do you have to dig in your heels like a stubborn mule?”

“No. I wasn’t digging in my heels.”

Jiang Ran shook his head.

“The me from three days ago wasn’t lying.”

The red sun sank completely beneath the horizon;

on the far side of the sky, a thin crescent moon rose.

He felt like something was finally clicking into place.

Three days ago—March 14—he really hadn’t texted Xiaoxue.

Because…

the person who sent that text was the him of March 17. The him of right now.

What he couldn’t understand—couldn’t even begin to comprehend—was this:

If the text was sent today, why was it received three days ago?

And why did Qin Feng and Cheng Mengxue remember the entire thing so differently?

“【Could it be… a text message that traveled through time?】” he murmured.

He didn’t know the principle behind it.

He didn’t know how it could be done.

But the result spoke for itself.

That text—just now—had crossed time and returned to the past—

It had been delivered three days earlier.