novelraw Chapter 8 Numbers
Chapter 8 Numbers
“How was it?”
Jiang Ran dropped the exaggerated act;
his performance snapped neatly back into control.
Clapclapclapclap.
Scattered applause rose.
“So handsome!” “A bit pretentious, but way better than the Student Union president.”
“Alright, enough—back to work. Don’t pop champagne at halftime. The bigger the hope, the bigger the disappointment.”
Jiang Ran waved a hand and went to the small blackboard, pointing at the diagrams and notes on it.
“The conditions for creating a spacetime black hole are extremely complicated, and extremely strict. The timing has to be grasped perfectly.”
“So before we begin, let’s make the process clear one more time.”
“First, division of labor: Qin Feng operates the Positron Cannon. I’ll stand by the transformer distribution box and send the text. Xiaoxue stays by the window to coordinate the countdown.”He explained every step with care.
These past few days, Qin Feng had already mastered how to use the Positron Cannon.
But because of a design flaw—or because of some lingering issue in the core components—the moment the Positron Cannon started up, it could only run for [0.7] seconds.
After 0.7 seconds, the capacitor would blow and leak, and the entire Positron Cannon would enter an overload state;
it would need to be unplugged and left for [20 hours], and only after swapping in a new capacitor could it be used again.
Qin Feng stated bluntly that this problem couldn’t be solved unless he was allowed to dismantle the Positron Cannon’s core components—the modified CRT picture tube the seniors had worked on.
But with a thing like that—principle unknown, cobbled together from parts—it was best not to crack it open and mess with it.
No one knew how it actually ran. Once you took it apart, it was guaranteed you wouldn’t be able to put it back together;
even if the original builder showed up in person, it wouldn’t help.
Besides, capacitors weren’t expensive. They might as well treat them as one-time consumables.
In addition, Qin Feng had specially installed a fuse socket, ensuring that even if the circuit board shorted out, it wouldn’t damage the building’s power lines—avoiding another confiscation by the Student Union for prohibited electrical equipment.
“The Positron Cannon can only start for 0.7 seconds. That means the positron beam can only fire for 0.7 seconds, and at the same time… the duration of the [spacetime black hole] is only 0.7 seconds.”
Jiang Ran continued.
“What I need to do is get as close as possible to the transformer distribution box, and within those 0.7 seconds, send the text.”
That wasn’t difficult.
He could write the message in advance. In 0.7 seconds, there was more than enough time to press send.
Because this experiment was only a simple test and verification, the message itself didn’t need any practical meaning—just four characters: “Test, test.”
If everything went smoothly,
this text would be just like the previous time-traveling text message—
sent to three days earlier.
History would change because of them.
…
Final deployment complete.
The experiment officially began.
Qin Feng aimed the Positron Cannon at the distribution box outside the window, plugged in the power, and gave an OK sign.
Jiang Ran ran out of the activity room, out of the building, looped around, and reached the transformer distribution box. He gave an OK sign toward the club window.
“Received!”
Cheng Mengxue straddled the windowsill, looking outside at Jiang Ran, and inside at Qin Feng.
“Then I’m starting the countdown! When I hit zero, Qin Feng starts the Positron Cannon first, and then Jiang Ran sends the text immediately!”
She took a deep breath.
“Five!”
A breeze swept by. Cicadas rose all at once. The world became quiet.
“Four!”
Time seemed to slow as well;
the sizzling current inside the transformer thundered in their ears.
“Three!”
In Jiang Ran’s mind flashed a clock running backward, a sunset reversing its course.
“Two!”
Fish with fins crawled out of the water;
apes rose upright from the earth!
“One!”
The Earth opened its eyes.
“Zero!”
The Positron Cannon started—roaring.
Jiang Ran clenched his teeth and pressed send—
Woom!
Woom!
Woom!
The world spun. His vision blurred. His head felt heavy, his legs light.
It was here!
That familiar vertigo was here!
A [temporal shift] happened!
Ringing ears, splitting headache—his body wouldn’t stop tilting;
the sky was flipping upside down.
“Ah!”
Jiang Ran planted his right hand on the ground and braced himself.
Two seconds later, all the discomfort vanished. The world before his eyes stopped shaking.
He stood up and looked toward the club window.
“Temporal shift—”
The words jammed in his throat.
No one.
He’d been about to share the good news with Cheng Mengxue on the windowsill, but in front of him… the club window was closed.
So the track of history had changed.
In the new worldline, in the new history, they hadn’t done a time-traveling text experiment today.
“Then did the time-traveling text actually send successfully?”
He had to confirm—immediately!
The club window curtain wasn’t drawn. Jiang Ran rose onto his tiptoes and looked in… Qin Feng was fiddling with the Positron Cannon on the table, and Cheng Mengxue sat on the sofa playing on her phone.
“Memory not syncing really is inconvenient.”
After this temporal shift, just as he’d expected, he was still the special one: he still retained the original memories, and he still knew nothing about the altered history.
He had no idea what was going on with Qin Feng and Cheng Mengxue.
He jogged all the way back, entered the student activity building, and shoved open the Film Camera Club door.
“Did you receive the time-traveling text?!”
The two of them looked up at him, bewildered.
“What are you talking about? Didn’t we receive it three days ago?”
Three days ago.
Jiang Ran let out a breath.
Good.
The text had still been sent to three days earlier—received exactly as promised.
A perfect replication.
A perfect success.
“That’s great!”
A smile rose at the corner of his mouth.
“Our theory was right. Sending a time-traveling text message into the past… we finally did it!”
…
Silence in the room.
Qin Feng and Cheng Mengxue couldn’t keep up with Jiang Ran’s tempo at all, and they couldn’t cooperate with his performance.
“Um… didn’t it succeed three days ago? We already held the celebration banquet. Are you still half-asleep?”
Cheng Mengxue tilted her head.
“Three days ago, my phone received the test text, and you refused to admit you sent it. That obviously means… this text, just like the previous one, came from some day in the future.”
“Exactly.”
Qin Feng lifted his head.
“That means all our guesses about time-traveling texts are correct. We just have to wait for me to fix the Positron Cannon, and then we can text the past too.”
Good.
Jiang Ran rejoiced silently.
Looks like everything was normal—developing exactly as expected.
Only Qin Feng and Cheng Mengxue still didn’t have memories from before the temporal shift. The only special one was him.
“Qin Feng—did our celebration banquet delay your repairs on the Positron Cannon?”
“What are you getting at?”
“In the original history, your repair progress wasn’t this slow.”
Jiang Ran smiled faintly.
“In the original history, you fixed the Positron Cannon this morning—otherwise… how did we run the experiment?”
?
!
Qin Feng’s eyes went wide. Realization hit him hard.
“So that’s it! Jiang Ran—you just sent the text, then you experienced a temporal shift, and you still have the original history’s memories?”
Cheng Mengxue hurriedly stood as well.
“So in the original history, we just ran the time-traveling text experiment! The text successfully sent to three days ago, and then the original course of history changed again!”
Jiang Ran nodded.
They really were top students at Donghai University—one hint and they understood.
He’d already figured out the spacetime logic just now.
In the original history, on the morning of March 25, Qin Feng fixed the Positron Cannon. In the afternoon, they ran the experiment and successfully sent the test text to three days earlier—March 22.
After the three of them on March 22 received the test text, they immediately realized it came from the future. The experiment had succeeded. So they held a celebration banquet on the spot.
That celebration banquet belonged to the altered history—and it delayed Qin Feng’s time fixing the Positron Cannon.
As a result, in the altered history—meaning the current worldline—on the afternoon of March 25, the Positron Cannon still hadn’t been repaired.
But none of that mattered anymore.
What mattered was—
[They have already successfully mastered the ability to text the past. A cheat-coded life is about to take off!]
“You threw the celebration banquet way too early. Couldn’t you have waited for me?” Jiang Ran complained.
“You sure ate plenty,” Cheng Mengxue shot back.
“But I don’t have any memory of the celebration banquet.”
Jiang Ran shrugged.
“Seriously—having no memory of the past three days after a temporal shift is such a pain. Every time I have to ask you two to sync me up. It’s like opening a blind box.”
He sat down on the sofa.
“Alright, alright—enough of that. Tell me quickly: after you got the text three days ago, up to today, what happened?”
Qin Feng sat across from him.
“We received the two test texts you sent at 4:06 p.m. on March 22.”
“Mm.”
!
“Mm?”
Jiang Ran jerked his head up. A chill ran down his spine.
“What did you say?”
“What’s wrong?” Qin Feng asked, puzzled.
Jiang Ran stared at him.
“How many texts did you say you received?”
“Two!”
Qin Feng was a little dazed.
“Didn’t you send them both?”
“How could it be two!”
Jiang Ran couldn’t stay seated anymore. He stood up at once.
“I clearly only sent one test text! How could you have received two?!”
“I—I mean, it was two…”
Cheng Mengxue blinked innocently and handed her phone over.
“Look. They both arrived at the same time.”
Jiang Ran took the phone slowly.
He felt as if something was wrong, as if he were being pulled away from the world.
He opened the messages.
Three days ago, Cheng Mengxue’s phone really had received two texts.
Both were from him.
The first was the test message: ‘Test, test.’
And when he opened the second—
it was completely unfamiliar,
and so bizarre it made his scalp go cold—
a string of numbers.
[289269426494642]