Chapter 2

Chapter 2

My first reaction was that I’d run into a gang scam.

And the kind with a terrible script, but actors who performed it with frightening sincerity.

I picked up my bag and was about to leave.

My mom pressed down on my hand.

“Listen to him first.”

“Mom, do you know what he was like three years ago?”

“I do.”

“And you’re still sitting here?”

She looked at me, her eyes a little helpless. “When your dad left, I also felt like the whole world had gone wrong. But Zhixia, some things won’t stop happening just because you refuse to listen.”

Liang Yan took a transparent evidence bag from the inner pocket of his overcoat.

Inside was an old ticket.

Exactly the same as the one in my drawer.

My fingers went cold.

He pushed the evidence bag in front of me.

“You gave me this.”

“I didn’t.”

“Not yet.”

He said it very calmly, as if he had already explained it many times, and failed many times too.

I stared at him. “If you dare say you’re from the future, I’m calling the police right now.”

Liang Yan smiled faintly.

“You said the same thing before.”

That “before” instantly made me furious.

“Mr. Liang, don’t act like we’re close.”

“All right.”

He immediately stopped smiling.

The reaction was too quick-so quick it made me even more uncomfortable.

As if he knew very well what I hated, and also knew exactly when he should back off.

My mom coughed softly.

“Tell her first why you came to me.”

Liang Yan lowered his head and glanced at his watch.

“At 4:27 this afternoon, a temporal collapse will occur on the Chengnan-Jiugang Line.”

I restrained myself. “Speak like a normal person.”

“Your mom will get on the bus that doesn’t exist.”

My mom’s fingers curled slightly.

I immediately looked at her. “Where are you going?”

She said nothing.

Liang Yan answered for her. “Jiugang North Station.”

My head buzzed.

Jiugang North Station.

The place on the bus ticket.

I set my cup down on the table. “Mom, why are you going there?”

“To meet someone.”

“Who?”

She looked at me, her eyes slowly reddening.

“To meet you twenty years in the future.”

For a moment, I didn’t understand what I’d heard.

People were chatting softly in the café, cups and spoons making faint clinks.

It was clearly daytime outside the window, yet I felt as though the surroundings had dimmed by a shade.

Liang Yan said, “Twenty years in the future, you were involved in a project called Echo Station. It was originally meant to preserve the final voices of people who vanished in disasters, but later someone modified it into a temporal locator.”

I laughed out loud.

Not because I found it funny, but because I was afraid I’d go mad if I didn’t laugh.

“I’m an illustrator, not a scientist.”

“You weren’t the lead scientist.”

He looked at me.

“You were the first volunteer to go in and save people.”

I couldn’t speak.

Liang Yan continued, “Three years ago, I was trapped in the Jiugang Line Collapse. It was you twenty years in the future who pushed me out. She told me to come find the present you. The first thing I had to tell you was: don’t stop Zhou Lan from going on the blind date.”

I pointed at my mom. “So the blind date was just a cover?”

My mom lowered her head.

“More or less.”

“You lied to me?”

She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

The sourness in my heart suddenly turned into fire.

“One of you says he’s from the future, and the other says she’s going to meet my future self. What, have I been working too little overtime these past few years, so I look easy to fool?”

I grabbed my bag.

Liang Yan didn’t stop me.

He only said, “On the inside of your right wrist, there’s a three-centimeter burn scar.”

My footsteps stopped.

That scar was from when I was ten.

My mom was boiling water, and I stood on tiptoe to reach the sugar jar on the cabinet when the kettle tipped over.

It wasn’t exactly a secret.

Liang Yan said again, “You always thought it was because you were being greedy.”

I turned back to look at him.

His voice was very soft.

“But that day, you weren’t trying to get sugar. You heard someone in the kitchen calling your mother’s name.”

My mom abruptly raised her head.

My whole body froze.

I had never told anyone about this.

Not even my mom knew.

When I was ten, I really did hear someone in the kitchen call, “Zhou Lan, don’t open the door.”

That voice sounded a lot like my dad.

But at the time, my dad was clearly away on a business trip.

Later, the kettle came crashing down, and I cried from the pain. That detail was then dismissed by everyone as a child’s auditory hallucination.

Liang Yan said, “That wasn’t a hallucination.”

I asked, “Then what was it?”

He looked at me, deep exhaustion in his eyes.

“The first echo leak.”

The moment he finished speaking, a thin crack suddenly split across the water glass on his table.

The lights in the café flickered twice.

Outside the window came the sound of the bus braking.

I instinctively looked over.

An old-fashioned green bus had stopped by the roadside.

Written on its body were the words: Jiugang North Station.