novelraw Chapter 38 A Life That Was Lost
Chapter 38 A Life That Was Lost
“Don’t touch me!”
Jiang Ran dodged at once, swiftly pulling away from the girl and putting distance between them.
He sized up this colorful girl from head to toe.
About 165 centimeters tall—not short, not tall. Delicate features, a good figure, eyes full of mischief and liveliness… but the most impossible thing to look away from was her exaggerated, waterfall-like pink long hair.
The color had to be dyed—glossy, smooth, permed into big waves. For Jiang Ran’s aesthetic, this kind of hairstyle was far too trendy, almost impossible to accept.
If it were cosplay, maybe he could understand it. But who cosplays in pajamas in the middle of the night?
But given the situation, Jiang Ran didn’t have time to worry about any of that.
A sudden thought struck him.
Could it be… that this girl was the [Xiuxiu] Wang Hao had mentioned?
Judging from what she’d just said, she was even his girlfriend?What nonsense!
Jiang Ran had never dated anyone in his life. The type he’d always liked were gentle, quiet, bookish girls… This pink-haired girl was completely not his type.
Seeing Jiang Ran hop away like a startled rabbit, the girl tilted her head.
Blink.
Blink.
She looked completely puzzled.
Then she tiptoed closer again.
“What’s wrong? Did you drink too much? Or do you have a fever?”
As she spoke, she reached out, about to press her palm to Jiang Ran’s forehead.
Jiang Ran dodged again, quick as lightning.
He didn’t understand what was going on, but one thing was clear—this place was not somewhere he should stay.
He scanned around, spotted his shoes and clothes, threw them on in a flash, opened the door, and left.
“Hey! Jiang Ran!”
The pink-haired girl hurried after him.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?!”
Jiang Ran ignored her completely and rushed straight out.
Sure enough.
This wasn’t a hotel—just a bedroom on the second floor of a villa.
Outside the bedroom was a massive living room. Empty bottles and cans were scattered across the bar, and various snack bags littered the floor.
After a quick glance at the layout, he headed for the stairs.
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Creak.
A door nearby opened.
A girl wearing a white camisole and white pajama pants stepped out, her short hair dyed blond.
Slim build, high looks—again.
What is this, a model gathering?
Oh. No.
Jiang Ran recalled what Wang Hao had said on the phone. This seemed to be a birthday party—Xiuxiu’s best friend had rented out the villa to host it.
“Jiang Ran, where are you going?”
The blond girl spoke casually, sounding very familiar with him.
“Where’s Xiuxiu?”
Jiang Ran flicked a glance at her and kept walking without slowing down.
“Huh? Ignoring me?”
The girl leaned against the doorframe, calling after him.
“I was showering just now. Xiuxiu said she was going to borrow your bathroom. Why are you getting dressed and leaving?”
Still no response. Jiang Ran was already heading down the stairs.
“Crazy.”
The girl muttered under her breath, then walked toward another bedroom.
“Xiuxiu! What’s wrong with Jiang Ran? His face looked awful—did you two have a fight?”
……
Jiang Ran pushed open the villa’s front door and walked out into the courtyard.
As far as the eye could see, there were standalone villas everywhere.
This really was some kind of villa resort—and a very high-end one, at that.
He ran straight to the gate, got into a taxi, and said,
“Driver, Donghai University.”
Right now, he had only one thought in his mind.
He needed to figure out, as quickly as possible, what exactly had happened to himself, Qin Feng, and Cheng Mengxue.
Ring—ring—ring—ring—ring—
The taxi had just started moving when his phone rang.
He picked it up.
A WeChat video call from Nan Xiuxiu.
Jiang Ran enlarged the profile picture.
Blinding pink.
No mistake—this was the pink-haired girl who had just given him a midnight scare.
So it seemed…
That girl’s name was Nan Xiuxiu.
He couldn’t understand why, on this brand-new worldline, he would be mixed up with someone like her—let alone be in a romantic relationship.
But that didn’t matter right now. He had more important things to deal with.
“Xiaoxue… is she really dead?”
Cheng Mengxue filled his thoughts.
Even though Wang Hao had been so explicit, Jiang Ran still couldn’t bring himself to believe it.
Ring—ring—ring—ring—ring—
The phone kept ringing.
Jiang Ran hung up directly, switched his phone to Do Not Disturb, and rejected all calls and notifications.
Then he opened his photo gallery and scrolled rapidly from top to bottom.
He hoped—desperately—that among the countless photos, he might find some trace of Cheng Mengxue.
But reality was cruel.
There wasn’t a single one.
Not one photo related to Cheng Mengxue.
Until he reached the very bottom of the gallery, where a high school graduation class photo appeared.
Clinging to his last shred of hope, he hurriedly opened it, zoomed in, and looked toward the familiar spot—
Nothing.
Nothing.
He found where he himself was standing at a glance, but Qin Feng wasn’t beside him, and neither was Cheng Mengxue. He searched every corner of the photo—those two familiar faces were nowhere to be found.
And then—
He noticed his own expression in the picture.
Head lowered, bangs covering his eyes, no smile at all. He looked utterly miserable.
At that moment,
grief spanning time itself seemed to merge into one—thick and crushing, like a raging flood that swallowed Jiang Ran whole.
He gasped for breath.
Clutched his violently throbbing chest.
Leaving the villa—the place of trouble—and thinking calmly after that brief escape, he finally accepted the truth.
[Cheng Mengxue really had already passed away, having died two years ago.]
Jiang Ran’s palms were icy cold.
First.
One thing was now certain.
[All of these unforeseen changes stemmed from the time-traveling text message Qin Feng had sent.]
That message had triggered a worldline shift. A violent butterfly effect had overturned history completely.
There was no doubt about that.
So, starting from this premise, he continued reasoning.
A time-traveling text sent ten days into the past could not possibly affect events from two years ago—or even earlier.
Suddenly, he recalled the conversation he’d had with Qin Feng before they went out for barbecue that day.
“What have you been tinkering with all this time?”
Back then, Qin Feng had been modifying the Positron Cannon on the workbench, and Jiang Ran had been curious.
“The Positron Cannon is already pretty much perfect. What are you still busy with?”
“Perfect?”
Qin Feng had chuckled.
“Not even close.”
“Did you forget? Right now the Positron Cannon can only run for 0.7 seconds. I want to try to fix that problem.”
……
Right.
That was the point of suspicion.
The Positron Cannon’s 0.7-second runtime was a long-established design flaw—something fundamentally impossible to overcome. Qin Feng had no reason to waste effort on it.
[He was lying.]
So what, exactly, had Qin Feng been modifying that night?
It seemed he had taken apart the dial control board.
It seemed he had re-soldered the circuitry.
“So that’s it…”
Jiang Ran opened his eyes, everything falling into place.
That dial control board could digitally adjust the time point to which the message was sent.
The first dial adjusted the year.
The second dial adjusted the month.
The third dial adjusted the day.
The fourth dial adjusted the hour.
So—
What if Qin Feng had modified the internal wiring, swapped the circuits of the first and third dials?
That would mean—
The first dial, labeled as controlling the “year,” was actually controlling the “day”!
And the third dial, labeled as controlling the “day,” was actually controlling the “year”!
[The “10 days” shown on the control board actually meant 10 years!]
Which meant—
The message Qin Feng had edited wasn’t sent ten days into the past at all.
It had, for the first time ever, crossed an unimaginably distant span of time…
And been sent to—
“Ten years ago.”