novelraw Chapter 35 42
Chapter 35 42
“Yes.”
Jiang Ran answered.
“I definitely will.”
“No matter how the worldline changes, I will never abandon either of you.”
“No matter what the temporal butterfly effect turns our relationship into, I will find you both again and bring us back together—just like we are now.”
He said it without the slightest hesitation—firm, decisive, straight from the heart.
Qin Feng cherished the three of them above all else.
And how could Jiang Ran be any different?
“Only…”
Jiang Ran spread his hands.“Only, like you said, I’m the only one who keeps memories of the original worldline. If I really grab the ‘you’ from the new worldline and start explaining time travel and friendship, odds are you’d think I was insane.”
“So the biggest problem isn’t whether I’d come find you—it’s that after I find you… you might not believe a single word I say.”
Qin Feng nodded.
“That’s true.”
No normal person would casually believe a stranger’s wild talk—let alone something as absurd as worldline changes.
“Sometimes, people meeting each other really is fate. An accident. A coincidence. Miss it once, and you might miss it for a lifetime.”
Qin Feng looked up at the night sky.
“Come to think of it, the three of us meeting was like something arranged by heaven. We didn’t know each other when we started high school, but our student numbers ended up right next to each other.”
“Jiang Ran, do you remember our high school student numbers?”
Jiang Ran smiled knowingly.
“Of course I remember. I’m not senile.”
At Hang City No.1 High School, the first digits of a student number indicated the cohort, and the last two were the class number.
Teachers often called on students by number in class—like drawing blind lots.
No one knew how the numbers were assigned. It wasn’t alphabetical, and it wasn’t by stroke count. It always felt chaotic and random.
And yet, by sheer coincidence—
Jiang Ran’s, Cheng Mengxue’s, and Qin Feng’s class numbers really were consecutive, and they happened to be the last three.
There were forty-two students in their class.
So their numbers were 40, 41, and 42.
“I remember it clearly.”
Jiang Ran recalled.
“My number was 40. Xiaoxue’s was 41. Yours was 42. Just like you said—doesn’t that feel like fate?”
“Heh!”
From inside the activity room, Xiaoxue urged them on.
“How much longer are you two going to chat? Aren’t you starting yet?”
Jiang Ran checked the time on his phone.
She was right.
They had been talking nonstop since the experiment was interrupted, and it was already close to midnight. They couldn’t delay any longer.
“Then let’s begin.”
Jiang Ran picked up the phone and looked toward Qin Feng, who was standing with his hands in his pockets in front of the distribution box.
“I hope you don’t take what happened tonight to heart. I’ll apologize to you properly afterward.”
“Oh, give it a rest.”
Qin Feng rolled his eyes at him.
“After the worldline changes, I won’t even remember this. You’re as melodramatic as ever.”
Jiang Ran smiled and gave Cheng Mengxue an OK gesture.
“Alright, I’m starting the countdown!”
Words she had repeated countless times—Cheng Mengxue’s voice came through the window from inside the clubroom.
“5!”
Jiang Ran lowered his head and looked at the phone screen.
It was the message Qin Feng had edited earlier—simple, straightforward, no issues at all.
Compared to it, his own suspicion felt petty and small.
His thumb hovered over the send button.
His gaze shifted to the transformer distribution box.
“4!”
The moon was full tonight, bright enough to wash the ground in pale white.
Qin Feng had his eyes closed, hands in his pockets, leaning against the distribution box. His breathing was steady and faint, blending with the sound of willow branches swaying.
The transformer inside the box hummed steadily—zzzt, zzzt—quietly broadcasting danger.
Embedded in the silver metal casing was a black nameplate, engraved with a large yellow serial number—
Donghai University No. 42 Distribution Box.
Huh?
“3!”
Jiang Ran blinked.
Forty-two.
Again.
Hadn’t they just been talking about that number?
Right.
Qin Feng’s student number was also 42. What a coincidence.
All of a sudden, Jiang Ran felt like the number 42 had been appearing with unsettling frequency lately, as if it were deliberately closing in around him.
Where else?
Where else had he seen 42?
“2!”
Hearing Cheng Mengxue’s voice, realization struck him.
Right.
All the way back at the very first worldline change, the first time they sent a time-traveling text—he had already seen it.
It was on the Rhine Cat charm hanging from Cheng Mengxue’s phone.
A limited collaboration with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Only 4,200 units had been released. Extremely rare.
Jiang Ran vaguely remembered it: a Rhine Cat in a spacesuit, with a large blue number 42 printed on the chest of the white suit.
“1!”
So strange. Why so many forty-twos?
Suddenly, another thought flashed through Jiang Ran’s mind.
That mysterious text message—those mysterious digits—seemed to contain 42 as well.
289269426494642
There was a 42 in the middle, and it ended with 42.
In an instant, the numbers broke apart and regrouped in his mind, aligning one by one with the nine-key keypad decoding.
do (28) not (926) believe (94264) trust (946) ha (42)
do (bu) not (yao) believe (xiang) trust (xin) ha (ha)
No—!
Jiang Ran’s eyes flew open. He sucked in a sharp breath.
Rhine Cat 42. Distribution box No. 42. Qin Feng’s student number: 42.
In that instant, countless puzzle pieces that had been circling his mind snapped together at lightning speed.
All his unease.
All his hesitation.
So that was the answer.
It wasn’t incomplete. There was no missing follow-up. It wasn’t obscure at all!
That string of mysterious digits had been delivering a complete, unmistakable warning all along!
Do not trust ha.
Do not trust ha.
[Do not trust 42!!!]
“0!”
“Xiaoxue, wait—!”
Jiang Ran shouted.
But—
It was too late!
At the exact moment Jiang Ran shouted, Cheng Mengxue had already pressed the activation button on the old electronic cannon! A thunderous roar erupted from inside the student activity building, slamming straight into the transformer distribution box!
“I’m sorry, Jiang Ran.”
Beside the distribution box, Qin Feng pulled an old-style button phone out of his pocket.
He had been hiding another phone!
His thumb rested on the physical send key.
At the last moment—
He hesitated and glanced at Jiang Ran.
“Forgive me.”
Click!
Buzz!
Buzz!
A wave of dizziness slammed into Jiang Ran. His five senses vanished, as if he’d been thrown into a spinning washing machine.
Damn it.
Why did I only realize it now?
Why did it take me this long to notice?!
His intuition had been right all along.
That string of mysterious digits was a simple coded warning—telling him to beware of Qin Feng!
Qin Feng, that genius, must have seen the truth long ago. That was why he had played dumb the entire time, deliberately steering their thoughts in the wrong direction.
Malfunctions. Incomplete information. A missing follow-up message…
All of it had been camouflage and misdirection!
Do not trust 42.
That final number—42—pointed straight at Qin Feng.
At everything related to the time-traveling texts, from beginning to end.
The world spun faster and faster.
Everything before his eyes blurred into darkness. He couldn’t see anything.
Unable to resist the crushing wheels of history and time, Jiang Ran—
fell—
into an unknown, entirely new worldline.