It was obvious all three of them had little sches going on in their heads.
Their expressions had already sold them out—especially starting from the mont Jiang Ran smiled just now.
The three of them narrowed their eyes, looking at you, looking at , and in the end, without saying it aloud yet sohow saying it together—
“Lottery!” “Lottery!” “Lottery!”
A burst of laughter.
“Sure enough, heroes think alike.”
Qin Feng laughed.
“Just based on what I know about you two, I knew you’d both been thinking about doing this for ages.”
“And you haven’t?”
“Of course I have. I wanted to do it the first ti we tested.”
Jiang Ran spread his hands.
“Having that thought is normal. Before you stare up at the stars, you’ve still got to keep your feet on the ground. Let see… perfect—today happens to be Double Color Ball draw day.”
Double Color Ball was one of the most common lottery gas.
It was six plus one numbers in total. If you matched everything, that was the first prize: five million. If you matched the first six numbers, that was the second prize;
the payout fluctuated, but it was usually around two hundred thousand.
The lottery drew once every two days. On draw days, at 9:15 p.m., the winning numbers were broadcast live on a TV channel.
“Pretty lucky.”
Jiang Ran opened his laptop and pulled up the live draw.
“We’ll wait ten-so minutes. Once the numbers are announced, we’ll send a ti-traveling text ssage to our past selves.”
“Whether that ssage lands three days ago, two days ago, one day ago, or even just a few hours ago—we’ll still have ti to buy tickets.”
…
You had to admit, plotting lottery numbers really did get the blood pumping.
The atmosphere in the club room was ridiculously cheerful.
Ten-so minutes later, the winning numbers were announced. Jiang Ran wrote them down on white paper and handed it to Qin Feng.
“What’s this for?” Qin Feng didn’t understand.
“This ti you’re the one sending the text.”
Jiang Ran said, “Let’s switch it up. See if you’ll keep [All-Spaceti mory] this ti.”
“That won’t work… I have to operate this.”
Qin Feng pointed at the Positron Cannon.
“I just adjusted the focusing unit’s intensity to one-fifth of what it was before. I want to see if we can send the text to yesterday.”
“And there are so detailed operations. You two can’t handle them, and I don’t feel good about letting you touch it.”
“Fair.”
Jiang Ran turned around, handed the paper to Cheng ngxue.
“Then you send it. Use your own phone. Send the lottery numbers to my phone.”
Cheng ngxue nodded.
“Do we need to tell our past selves not to buy first prize? That would be way too conspicuous.”
“Heh. Our past selves aren’t idiots.”
Jiang Ran was very confident.
“Our past selves are us. The brainpower’s still online.”
“Second prize is obviously better anyway. I just checked—every Double Color Ball draw, across the whole country, there are hundreds of second-prize winners. Hiding in plain sight.”
With the plan set, the three of them took their positions.
Cheng ngxue held her phone and stood right up against the transforr distribution box.
“You don’t have to press yourself that close…”
Jiang Ran warned her.
“If there’s leakage current, it stops being fun.”
Qin Feng stayed responsible for the Positron Cannon. Jiang Ran climbed onto the windowsill to count down.
“5! 4! 3! 2! 1!”
His gaze locked onto Cheng ngxue’s finger…
“0!”
The Positron Cannon roared! Cheng ngxue hit send—
Wumm!
Wumm!
Wumm!
That familiar dizziness, the world flipping upside down.
Jiang Ran felt like he’d fallen off the windowsill—like he’d been stuffed into a front-loading washing machine, the entire world spinning.
[The worldline has shifted!]
It seed that no matter who sent the ssage, and no matter whose phone was used, as long as those prerequisite conditions were t, the ti-traveling text ssage could be sent successfully.
Sender, recipient, phone, ssage content… none of that mattered.
Only the Positron Cannon and the transforr distribution box were mandatory.
Roughly speaking, there were plenty of transforr distribution boxes of the sa spec around campus—maybe you could substitute one in the sa position.
But only the Positron Cannon was [unique].
It was an accidental product, cobbled together from who-knew-what principles. Nobody could replicate a second one.
Two seconds later.
The vertigo vanished.
Gravity and the sense of the floor returned.
He opened his eyes.
And realized…
He wasn’t perched on the windowsill at all. The window wasn’t even open. He hadn’t fallen from anywhere—he was standing in the middle of the club room.
After waking up in the hospital last ti, Jiang Ran was already used to this kind of positional change.
Under Worldline Theory, it was completely reasonable.
Since the temporal butterfly effect altered history, his life trajectory would naturally change along with it.
Unless it was an absurd coincidence, it was hard to still be standing in the exact sa spot after a worldline shift.
“Tomorrow I’m buying an obscene amount of Rhine Cat rch!”
Cheng ngxue sounded ecstatic, practically tossing confetti in the club room.
“I can’t spend it all—there’s no way I can spend it all!”
From the look of it…
“Did we win?”
Jiang Ran asked even though he already knew the answer.
“How much!”
That was what he actually cared about.
“A full 1.3 million!”
…
The three of them sat down first and helped Jiang Ran synchronize mories—that is, everything that had happened from yesterday to today after the worldline shift.
“The text ca yesterday afternoon.”
Cheng ngxue pointed at Jiang Ran’s phone.
“This ti your phone received it. I was the sender.”
“Good.”
Jiang Ran nodded.
Qin Feng really was a genius—one shot, dead on—
[Adjusting the Positron Cannon focusing unit’s intensity really can control the ti point the ti-traveling text is delivered to!]
This ti, dropping it to one-fifth of the initial value turned “three days ago” into “yesterday.”
Which ant, conversely…
As long as they increased the focusing unit’s intensity, they could send texts to a farther past—one month ago, one year ago, even ten years ago.
You could say, without exaggeration, that this was the biggest gain from the experint.
As for the second gain, it was pretty much as expected:
[All-Spaceti mory really is unique to , and has nothing to do with who sends the text.]
This ti, Cheng ngxue had personally sent the text, yet Jiang Ran’s dizziness arrived right on schedule;
and Cheng ngxue still didn’t have any mory from before the worldline shift, while Jiang Ran—as always—rembered everything clearly.
“Oh, right, right.”
Jiang Ran imdiately pulled out his phone.
To confirm how many ssages he’d received this ti.
“Still just one.”
He smacked his lips.
He didn’t know how to feel.
He both hoped he’d receive another mysterious ssage… and feared he would.
It was contradictory.
But at least, judging from the situation so far… not receiving one again made him feel a little more at ease.
Cheng ngxue told Jiang Ran how the lottery thing had gone.
After receiving the text yesterday afternoon, the three of them t up imdiately and agreed: they couldn’t buy first prize. Too conspicuous, too flashy. Their target was second prize from the start.
They each went to different lottery shops and bought a lot of tickets. Most of the numbers were random, doing their best to create the illusion of an “accidental win.”
Just ten-so minutes ago, the winning numbers were announced, and sure enough, they matched the numbers in the ti-traveling text down to the last digit.
So altogether, they’d won five second-prize tickets—total payout: 1.3 million.
“We’re rich…”
Qin Feng stared at the few lottery tickets in his hand.
“We’re millionaires.”
“Th-this is too easy…”
After the cheering, once she cald down, Cheng ngxue started to feel guilty.
“Really… nothing’s going to happen, right? We… uh, this counts as legal, doesn’t it?”
Jiang Ran smiled.
“If it exists, it’s reasonable. This is a gift from physics.”
“Shouldn’t it be a gift from the Film Cara Club seniors who cobbled together the Positron Cannon?” Cheng ngxue corrected.
“That’s true too.”
Jiang Ran nodded.
“So, to repay them, we’ll keep the Film Cara Club going. Consider it letting their spirits in heaven see—”
“Hey, hey, hey, the seniors just graduated, they’re not dead!”
…
The next day.
Outside Donghai’s Welfare Lottery Center.
The three of them stood on the sidewalk, watching the busy stream of traffic in front of them…
Lost.
After cashing out, each of their bank cards had an extra several hundred thousand.
Oh my god.
How were they supposed to spend this?
Normally they lived on 2,000 a month, broke as hell. When had they ever seen this much money?
For a mont, they genuinely couldn’t even find a direction to waste it in.
“Uh…”
Jiang Ran scratched his head.
“How about… we go back to school for class first?”
“Mhm, mhm.”
The other two followed.
…
After walking two steps, Jiang Ran made another suggestion.
“After class, we use ti-traveling texts to make a little more money?”
“Mhm, mhm!!”
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