As long as he could get in touch with Cheng ngxue, everything would beco much simpler.
First, he would synchronize his mories with her.
After that, the two of them could work together to figure out Qin Feng’s situation.
Jiang Ran had already planned out the steps that followed.
He sat up at the edge of the bed and noticed that there happened to be a pencil and a sticky note on the nightstand.
So he wedged his phone between his shoulder and ear, picked up the sticky note, and prepared to copy Cheng ngxue’s phone number onto it in a mont.
Under the faint moonlight, he saw a line of small printed text at the top of the sticky note.
XXXX Villa Resort.
A villa?
He lifted his head and looked out the window.
The shadows of dense branches and leaves were cast against the window screen, swaying and dancing like a shadow play.
Seen this way,
the room he was in clearly wasn’t a hotel.
It was one of the guest rooms inside a vacation villa.
But why… was he staying in a villa resort like this?
Forget it. Contact Cheng ngxue first.
However.
After waiting more than ten seconds, there was still no response from Wang Hao on the other end of the line.
?
Sothing felt off.
“Wang Hao? Did you fall asleep?”
Jiang Ran urged him,
“Hurry up and give Xiaoxue’s number already. Can’t you hear ?”
……
Still no response.
“Wang Hao!”
“Jiang Ran, you….”
Wang Hao’s voice finally ca through, but it stopped halfway, hesitant.
“Are you… are you being serious right now?”
“What’s wrong?”
Jiang Ran couldn’t understand why, after the worldline shift, Wang Hao had beco so strangely indecisive and abnormal.
He put the sticky note down and switched the phone to his other hand.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Dragging your feet like this. You might not know Qin Feng, but you definitely know Xiaoxue, right? Just give her number already.”
“Are you… not feeling well?”
Wang Hao asked cautiously.
“Or did you… get so kind of shock?”
“Are you done yet?!”
Jiang Ran was genuinely getting angry.
“I’m just asking you for Xiaoxue’s phone number! What does that have to do with being sick or traumatized? Can you act normal for once?!”
Sigh……
From the other end of the line ca a long sigh.
That sigh made Jiang Ran’s scalp tighten, his breathing grow heavy.
“Jiang Ran, I don’t know what kind of madness you’re on today, and I don’t know what you an by saying all this in the middle of the night.”
“But… but…”
Wang Hao’s voice dropped low.
“[But Xiaoxue, she… she already passed away two years ago.]”
Bang!
Jiang Ran shot up from the edge of the bed.
What?
Passed away?
Cheng ngxue is dead?!
In an instant, that smiling face with the ponytail and doll-like features flashed before his eyes.
From childhood, to adolescence, to the day the college entrance exam results were released, to the university track field, to diving off a luxury cruise ship, to her cheeks faintly flushed as she spoke those bold words—
“Are you serious?”
A chill ran through Jiang Ran’s entire body.
He didn’t believe it, didn’t dare to believe it, yet amid all the eerie abnormalities and inconsistencies, he found himself forced to believe.
“How did Xiaoxue die?”
“Two years ago? Two years ago… wasn’t that when we graduated high school? Senior year? The college entrance exams?”
“Yeah…”
Wang Hao sounded completely bewildered now, answering blankly.
“It was the day after the exam. On the way to the test center, Xiaoxue was in a car accident… she died in a car accident.”
“Jiang Ran, what is going on with you today? I don’t even know how to talk to you anymore. You’re acting all startled and jumpy, and you’re scaring too, okay?”
“Where’s Xiuxiu? Where is Xiuxiu? Is she with you right now?”
Xiuxiu.
He heard a completely unfamiliar na.
It sounded like a girl’s na, but Jiang Ran had no idea who it was.
“Weren’t you with Xiuxiu today, going to her best friend’s birthday party? You even rented a whole villa just to decorate it…”
“…Are the two of you together right now?”
Wang Hao continued,
“Hey, let remind you—if you drank too much and you’re talking nonsense, don’t go bringing up sore subjects in front of Xiuxiu. Just don’t ntion Xiaoxue at all. It’s all in the past.”
Jiang Ran didn’t care in the slightest about this Xiuxiu or that Xiuxiu.
All he cared about was Cheng ngxue.
According to Wang Hao, Cheng ngxue had died two years ago, in a car accident on the day after the college entrance exam.
That would an June 8?
June 8, 2023.
On that day… what exactly happened?
“Jiang Ran?”
Sensing that there had been no response for a long while, Wang Hao called out again.
“Jiang Ran? Are you listening? Where’s Xiuxiu?”
“Stop talking about Xiuxiu!”
Jiang Ran’s brain felt overloaded.
“Talk about Xiaoxue! What exactly happened to Cheng ngxue?!”
Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—
The sudden sound of flushing ca from the bathroom.
Soone’s in there!
“Who is it?!”
Jiang Ran took a step back. His nerves were stretched to their absolute limit.
“What are you making such a fuss about?”
A sweet, soft complaint ca from the bathroom.
Creak.
The glass partition door was pushed open, and a pair of slender, fair feet stepped out one after the other.
“What’s wrong? You don’t even recognize your own girlfriend now?”
The girl, dressed in a nightgown, smiled playfully as she walked over at an unhurried pace.
She wiped her forehead and swept her pink, wavy long hair back behind her head, stepping closer across the carpet.
Huff.
A sudden gust of night wind lifted the white window curtain, sending it drifting across Jiang Ran’s eyes, blocking his vision and leaving him unable to see anything.
“Just now, I heard a very interesting na.”
The girl’s voice drew closer and closer.
Her toes brushed softly against the carpet, just like the sheer fabric grazing the back of his neck.
“Cheng, ng, Xue. Whose na is that?”
The night wind faded, the curtain stilled, and then fell back into place before his eyes.
The room returned fully to Jiang Ran’s view.
The girl who had been standing far away just monts ago was now right in front of him, close enough to touch.
A pink nightgown paired with pink long hair, like a flower fairy dancing in a forest;
the scent of so floral shampoo filled his nose, making Jiang Ran instinctively avert his gaze.
Just then,
the electronic clock on the table flicked over, the digits on the LCD screen displaying:
[00:42]
“Hey, tell about it.”
Through the sheer fabric, the girl lifted Jiang Ran’s chin, pulling his gaze back to her.
Her eyes reflected the moonlight, her smile blooming like a flower.
“Cheng ngxue… she isn’t, by any chance, your…”
“……forr girlfriend, is she?”
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