Chapter 5: Time-space Administrator
On the screen, the mysterious pop-up window changed its text every ten-odd seconds. This “page-turning” speed was a little slow for Wang Heng, but it gave him just enough time to understand and contemplate.
In reality, the reason you died so miserably before your rebirth was a time-space bug that caused major issues with causality. In other words, you weren’t supposed to die, at least not at the age of 25. To fix the bug, we had to roll back this worldline. Your consciousness was an unchangeable marker during the rollback, so we could only let you be reborn.
For you, this should be considered compensation. But the problem now is, to avoid creating new bugs, your actions cannot deviate too much from the norm. You can invest in companies that will rise in seven years, like DouLe, as they were going to rise regardless of your investment. But you can’t go and kill the entire startup team of DouLe, as that would create a massive bug.
It can be summarized like this: all your actions must be reasonable. Therefore, you have now landed yourself in trouble. Reasonably speaking, if a girl you have feelings for confesses to you, you at eighteen shouldn’t refuse, understand?
Of course, it’s just a minor anomaly right now, not yet a bug. But if the anomaly escalates into a bug, I’ll have to resort to more severe measures to smooth it out. Simply put, arrange a car accident for you, or something similar, an accidental death.
After reading these few lines, Wang Heng understood his situation.
“I knew it, things like transmigration or rebirth wouldn’t be so simple…” Wang Heng put down the mouse and asked, “So what you’re saying is, I have to live the same way as my previous life and get involved with those girls again?”
Not necessarily, and you don’t need to agonize over this. The worldline has a self-correction mechanism. You just need to play the part of a normal boy who hasn’t been reborn.
“Worldline’s self-correction mechanism?”
Yes, this mechanism is closely related to your future, but it’s hard to explain. The principles involved are, I’m quite sure, beyond your current knowledge and logical ability to comprehend, so there’s no need for you to keep asking.
“…Are you looking down on my intelligence?”
Just stating the facts. The mysteries of time and space are inherently beyond the comprehension of the human mind. In summary, all I can tell you now is a single piece of advice: maintain your current stable mentality and strive to be even more stable, for your own sake. But on the other hand, you can’t be too cowardly to the point of contradicting your original personality. You’ll have to gauge that balance yourself.
As these lines of text appeared, the window began to gradually fade. Wang Heng read it three times before it became too faint to distinguish on the screen. Blinking again, he saw the window disappear from the screen.
Moving the mouse and keyboard, the computer’s feedback was perfectly normal, as if that supernatural chat window had never appeared. But Wang Heng could be sure it wasn’t an illusion, it felt as real as having gained seven years of memories.
“Besides being passive, I also have to stick to my pre-rebirth personality? By the way, what was I thinking at eighteen?”
Wang Heng recalled and immediately remembered. According to the original worldline, at this time he should have just established a relationship with Han Yixuan and was in a state of extreme excitement.
“Truly a typical newbie mentality…”
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Han Yixuan had forgotten how she got home.
When she came to her senses, she was already home and realized she was changing into her slippers. Her parents were sitting on the sofa, one watching television, the other reading a magazine.
Her mother lowered the TV volume, turned her head, and asked, “Didn’t you say you were just going for a meal? Why are you so late?”
Han Yixuan stood at the doorway, biting her lower lip, unable to speak.
Her mother noticed something was wrong with her daughter and asked again, “Did something happen?”
“No, nothing…”
Han Yixuan avoided her parents’ gaze and hurried into her bedroom.
Closing the door, she habitually sat at her desk and was struck with a daze upon seeing the notebook on it.
She didn’t need to open it; she remembered what was inside—everything she had written down stroke by stroke in the past few days, her records of those dreams.
She vaguely remembered reading somewhere that dream plots are quickly forgotten after waking, so if you don’t want to forget them, you have to write them down quickly. But Han Yixuan felt her situation was definitely an exception. She remembered the beautiful moments in her dreams over the past few days with perfect clarity. Even now, closing her eyes, they would immediately appear before her, including that person’s warm smile…
However, reality was not warm at all.
The young girl suddenly stood up, tore off all the pages in the notebook that contained the dream records, shredded them, and threw them into the trash can with force.
Then she picked up her mobile phone and dialed her best friend.
“Xiao Xia, are you free tomorrow?”
On the other end of the line was Song Xiaoxia, one of the two female classmates who had blocked Wang Heng’s path at the restaurant entrance that day. Among their classmates, Han Yixuan’s best friend was her.
Song Xiaoxia asked, “No plans, what’s up? Don’t tell me you’ve got that guy and want to call me out to flaunt your affection, right?”
Han Yixuan said in a low voice, “No, he still doesn’t agree.”
Song Xiaoxia was silent for a moment, then said fiercely, “That guy has no taste and his brain is short-circuited if he refused our Xiao Xuan!”
Han Yixuan laughed, “Alright, no need to comfort me, I’m fine. I just wanted to ask if you’re free tomorrow. If you are, can you come out shopping with me?”
“Shopping? Of course, no problem!” The girl on the other end of the phone agreed without hesitation, but then said with some concern, “Are you feeling really down right now? Let me tell you, it’s okay. It’s fine not to be in a relationship right now. Once you get to university, there will be plenty of handsome and considerate senior male students, and you’ll know then…”
Han Yixuan interrupted with a smile, “Okay, I know. There are so many boys in the world, why would I be so foolish? Don’t worry about me, rest assured.”
“Mhm, then tomorrow… what time?”
“Eleven o’clock, we can grab lunch together then.”
“See you then.”
“Okay, see you then.”
After arranging their plans for tomorrow, she smiled and hung up the phone.
The room became quiet, with only the sound of the television from the living room faintly coming through the room door, indistinct.
Han Yixuan’s smile quickly disappeared.
She slumped onto the desk, buried her face, and cried silently.
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