Lin Shilan snapped the book in half with a “crack.”

What “Shining Parallel Universes”—it wasn’t a novel at all. Lin Shilan knew most clearly that everything inside was real.

There was still a bit of the book left unfinished, but she couldn’t read on. Despite being wrapped in her blanket, she was so cold that goosebumps crawled all over her back and arms.

—How deeply moving, Su Ge’s unwavering infatuation across three spacetimes.

Back then, Lin Shilan had fled her home and hidden in the school auditorium.

The confession scene she’d stumbled upon remained vivid in her mind to this day:

Heavy rain fell outside the window; looking out, it seemed as if trees and houses were floating in a vast ocean.

The girl by the window twisted the hem of her school uniform between her fingers, saying sullenly:

“Don’t like her anymore. Like me instead.”

“Huh?” The boy was stunned.

She said with complete confidence: “After I grow up, I’ll be smarter and more beautiful than Lin Shilan.”

“…” He didn’t respond, as if he hadn’t heard.

The young girl sighed and said, “I’m going home.”

As her figure disappeared into the howling wind and rain, the boy suddenly came to his senses.

“Okay then.” He said to her retreating back.

The Su Ge of the third spacetime was the bravest—her confession ultimately received Tan Jin’s response.

What a pity that his final words, Su Ge never heard.

She should probably be moved by this loving couple too.

That is, if she weren’t named Lin Shilan.

The content in the book, combined with her own personal experiences, made her thoughts become clear.

—So it was parallel spacetimes!

It turned out that each year when she returned to the rainy season, she wasn’t traveling back to the past.

Each year, the “rainy season” she went to was a new parallel spacetime.

Following this line of reasoning…

Many things that hadn’t made sense before suddenly became traceable.

Why, when Lin Shilan went back the first time and saved people, were they not alive when she returned to reality? Because the event of them being saved happened in another spacetime, not in hers.

Why, when Lin Shilan conducted experiments and left wounds in the past, did they not appear in reality? Because it was the her in a parallel world who got injured, which didn’t affect her body in another world.

Why was the chicken soup her mother made sometimes just unpleasant, but other times could poison her into the hospital? Because between parallel spacetimes, things have differences and developments vary.

Past and future have a causal relationship: when the past is changed, the future changes accordingly.

But parallel spacetimes are independent and don’t interfere with each other—there’s no causal relationship between them.

The things Lin Shilan hadn’t understood were clarified by Su Ge’s book.

During the rainy season, she overlapped with other people’s parallel spacetimes.

When the rainy season ended, she said goodbye to that spacetime; they each went home, no longer connected.

Understanding this, what was she still doing here?

So she’d been coming to take the college entrance exam for free for various parallel world versions of herself, to be tormented by her mother for free, to suffer through disasters for free…

Was this fair? Why did it all come at her?

Lin Shilan felt wronged on her own behalf.

Parallel spacetimes intersected at her, rainy seasons all crashed down on her alone.

Even if she was unlucky enough to become some kind of scapegoat for “cosmic chaotic energy,” if they were going to fleece the sheep, they couldn’t continuously fleece only her for four straight years!

Normally, the huffing and puffing Lin Shilan would already be looking for her “companion in misfortune,” Tan Jin, to discuss how they could escape.

After reading Su Ge’s book, her mood became complicated.

Rather than seeing Tan Jin, Lin Shilan wanted more to meet the current Su Ge.

The experiences of Su Ge in the first two spacetimes had brought tears to the corners of her eyes.

The third Su Ge made anger rise from Lin Shilan’s heart: That Su Ge was mean-spirited and selfish, not hesitating to use despicable means to achieve her goals; she would blindly project her own experiences to criticize others’ behavior without actually understanding the real situation at all.

After finishing her chapter, Lin Shilan was so angry she tore up the book.

The second year of crossing through the rainy season.

While she was sick, a group of people robbed her of the bundle she was carrying and drove her from her hiding place, and ultimately she couldn’t survive.

In that spacetime, Su Ge participated in that robbery and even led the charge to rob her.

Even though the one who died was her in a parallel world, the pain of death was something she personally experienced in full.

Lin Shilan had a grudge of “killing me” with this Su Ge.

That said.

Now, what kind of person was the Su Ge staying in the same spacetime as her?

Lin Shilan recalled the incidents of her losing her dog and stalking Tan Jin.

She didn’t seem like a good character…

Tonight was destined to be a sleepless night.

The bed was still the same bed, the room still the same room.

Staring at the ceiling, the deeper her thoughts went, the stranger the feeling became.

Everything familiar around her became somewhat unfamiliar.

Lin Shilan had once read a concept like this in some book: In the universe exist countless parallel spacetimes, and those spacetimes share the same space with our spacetime. It’s just that we can’t see each other.

According to this concept.

At the moment each rainy season arrived, she could see the world parallel to hers.

Moreover, she could walk into the parallel world and visit for a period of time.

Compared to seeing ghosts or a madwoman’s hallucinations, Lin Shilan was more willing to accept this answer.

Suddenly enlightened, she felt excited.

—I’m not crazy.

—I’ve just been caught up in an unsolved mystery worth serious study by scientists.

As if the owner’s excited emotions infected the little earth dog.

Jing Jing suddenly lifted its head from the floor.

It shook its body, stretched lazily, and ran outside for a lap on its own accord.

After tossing and turning all night like a pancake, Lin Shilan was still hesitating about whether or not to finish reading the rest of the book…

The little dog barked twice toward the outside.

She startled and hurriedly hid the book properly.

Someone had entered the house.

Seeing that Lin Shilan’s light wasn’t off when she returned late, the first thing Lu Xiaorong did upon coming home was come over and nag at her.

“I told you on the phone that I’m no longer your mother. Didn’t you understand? What are you keeping the light on waiting for me for?”

Lin Shilan understood her mother wanted to vent.

She’d spent tonight at Uncle Tang’s place, deliberately not answering the phone, and when she did answer, she spoke harsh words.

Making a fuss all evening—wasn’t it just to vent this one breath of anger?

If she answered “I was waiting for you, I can’t be without you as my mother,” she’d definitely be humiliated by her mother, who would arrogantly refuse to give her a way out.

If she answered “I wasn’t waiting for you, I was already asleep,” her mother would be displeased and would definitely say: You’re doing so well without a mother, huh? As a daughter, you don’t care about your old mother at all. Your mom doesn’t come home at night, dies outside, and you don’t even care, right? You can even sleep soundly with peace of mind—truly heartless.

Familiar with her mother’s tactics, Lin Shilan answered ambiguously: “Um, I’m about to sleep.”

Seeing she wasn’t taking the bait, Lu Xiaorong’s eyes darted around.

She sharply spotted something under the pillow.

In her haste, Lin Shilan hadn’t hidden it well, leaving a small corner of the book exposed.

Lu Xiaorong walked over, preparing to pull it out: “What bad thing are you doing?”

“Nothing.” Lin Shilan leaned half her body toward the bed, blocking her view.

“Hiding what? You’re reading idle books while I’m not home, aren’t you?” Lu Xiaorong reached over to grab the pillow.

She pressed down hard on the pillow, not letting her mother pull it away.

This book and the content in this book absolutely could not be seen by her mother.

Both of them used their maximum strength.

Unable to bear it anymore, Lin Shilan shouted at her.

“Mom! Can you not control what I read! I have my privacy!”

At this moment, Lu Xiaorong couldn’t remember the harsh words she’d said on the phone.

She laughed coldly: “Privacy? Lin Shilan, I’m your mother!”

Prying open Lin Shilan’s fingers one by one, Lu Xiaorong was determined to figure out what she was up to.

“I gave birth to you—what privacy are you talking about with me? There’s nothing about you I can’t see.”

Lin Shilan suddenly felt dazed.

She suddenly thought: This is a parallel spacetime, so is the mother before my eyes still my mother?

This thought made her heart harden at once.

Lin Shilan relaxed her grip.

Just as Lu Xiaorong successfully lifted the pillow and was about to get the book…

She pushed her mother’s shoulder backward.

Looking directly into her eyes, Lin Shilan’s expression was serious, her tone cold and distant.

“I am an independent individual. I have my privacy, which has nothing to do with whether you’re my mother or not.”

“Please treat me as a person and give me respect.”

Lu Xiaorong’s chest heaved up and down. These two sentences from Lin Shilan left her speechless.

Already at a disadvantage, her mother still refused to concede.

Her cheeks flushed red, both angry and annoyed: “Fine then, Lin Shilan, you’re independent now, right? You’re so capable, then don’t come asking me for meal money next week.”

—This trick again.

Lin Shilan felt suffocated. No matter what attitude she used, her mother absolutely wouldn’t listen to her words.

Was this really another spacetime?

Why wasn’t there a single spacetime where she and her mother could communicate properly?

She really wanted to ask her mother: Mom, why are you this kind of mother in every spacetime?

Lu Xiaorong slammed the door heavily.

After she left, the little earth dog that had been hiding slowly crawled out from under the bed.

Lin Shilan sighed.

Rushing to the bed, she stuffed the “Shining Parallel Universes” that had been torn in half under the pillow into her schoolbag.

This book was temporarily safe.

It was too important—it couldn’t be snatched away by her mother. There were still many mysteries inside that she hadn’t figured out.

Tomorrow she’d go find Su Ge and see if she could find out anything more. Lin Shilan made up her mind.