After Lin Shilan finished saying those two sentences, Lu Xiaorong stroked the teacup, wordless for a long time.

Finally, she stood up and walked toward the desk, leaving behind that cup of unfinished tea. It was getting late—the mother and daughter’s conversation time for tonight had ended.

After a simple wash, Lin Shilan returned to her room.

In the rainy season, the bedroom had a musty smell. The cotton quilt had absorbed moisture, making it damp and heavy.

She lifted a corner of her quilt, about to lie down, when she suddenly discovered something under the blanket—

It was that book, “The Glittering Multiverse.”

It seemed that the “Lin Shilan” of this spacetime had also seen this book. Her hiding place for things was exactly the same as her own.

Not knowing what would happen in the future, not having experienced the repeating rainy season—how did this “Lin Shilan” view this book? Perhaps she just treated it as bedtime reading, finding it novel.

Lin Shilan opened the book, her mind associating it with the anxious-looking Su Ge she had encountered in the corridor.

Today’s Su Ge was taken away by teachers for cheating. In Chapter One of “The Glittering Multiverse”—the original spacetime that she and Tan Jin were from—the Su Ge there had also cheated.

The book was written like this:

[After the college entrance exam, he probably won’t stay in this small town anymore. This is my only and most important chance.

To seize this opportunity, I chose to cheat.

Unfortunately, I was caught red-handed by the teacher in the exam room.

Cheating—I failed.

The heavy rain of the entire world fell upon me.]

That Su Ge, in order to get close to the person she liked, cheated in the exam room. She failed.

After rereading this passage, Lin Shilan’s confusion deepened: setting aside whether the current Su Ge would still take risks to get close to Tan Jin, this book—the current Su Ge had read it. She had no reason not to know that “even if she cheated on the third mock exam, she would still fail.” So why would she still cheat?

The Su Ge from the original spacetime had a bad ending.

When she died, Lin Shilan was beside her.

Remembering those hollow eyes like glass marbles, Lin Shilan couldn’t help but pull out her phone. Last time Su Ge helped her find the dog, she had saved her phone number.

Successfully finding Su Ge’s name in her contacts, Lin Shilan sent a text message asking: Are you okay?

Until the next morning, the sent message still hadn’t been replied to.

Tan Jin rode his bicycle carrying Lin Shilan to school.

This was her first time sitting on his bicycle. Tan Jin was full of energy, pedaling powerfully and vigorously, going so fast he almost overtook the electric scooters on the road.

Sitting on the back seat, she silently held the umbrella, trying hard to raise her arms to protect him from the rain.

The small bike passed through a small road with serious water accumulation, the wheels rolling up large amounts of water.

“Lift your feet quickly!” he shouted a reminder.

Lin Shilan did as told. Unable to maintain balance, she held the umbrella with one hand and quickly wrapped her other arm around Tan Jin’s waist, leaning her body toward him.

The handlebars shook violently.

He awkwardly regained his balance and rode for another stretch of road.

Lin Shilan originally didn’t think anything of it, but when she heard several muffled silly laughs in her ear… her hand instantly felt awkward, not knowing whether to leave it there or take it back.

In the end, her hand transformed into an angry little fist and heavily pounded his back once.

His smile finally stopped.

The pleasant journey to school was very brief. In the blink of an eye, the school gate had appeared before them.

Reluctant to give up their time alone together, thinking about how entering the classroom meant being separated from Lin Shilan again, Tan Jin’s pedaling strength weakened bit by bit.

“Last chance, do you want to skip school?” He rode so slowly the bike was about to fall over.

Lin Shilan jumped off the bike and patted Tan Jin’s shoulder. “Can’t skip school. You need to study hard.”

Pointing at herself, then at him, she said, “The Lin Shilan and Tan Jin here lent us their bodies. We can’t ruin their future. Whether the Tan Jin of this spacetime can get into a good university in the future depends on you.”

Tan Jin also got off to push the bike, his eyes staring at her intently.

Lin Shilan found it funny. “What are you looking at?”

He stopped walking, touched his chin, and said in a deliberately profound manner, “Looking at the top of your head. It’s radiating a holy light of kindness.”

“…”

“Is that how you compliment someone? It sounds so sarcastic.”

Lin Shilan shook off the goosebumps on her body.

“Then how should I compliment you?” Tan Jin caught up with her.

“If you’re complimenting me, of course you have to come up with the words yourself.” Swinging her ponytail, she hopped up the stairs.

Actually, Lin Shilan thought to herself: how could she be considered kind?

Her soul had temporarily come to this spacetime, borrowing the body of the “Lin Shilan” here.

When the rain stopped, she would return to the spacetime that belonged to her.

But the Tan Jin of their spacetime had already died and no longer had a body to house his soul.

After the rainy season ended, none of them knew where he would go.

If Tan Jin’s consciousness remained here, then right now, this spacetime was Tan Jin’s reality.

Lin Shilan was just selfishly considering the person she loved before her eyes. If he couldn’t return with her, she hoped he would have a good future.

Without revealing even half of her heavy thoughts, Lin Shilan chatted and laughed with Tan Jin as they walked toward their classroom together.

After finishing a day of classes.

Lin Shilan’s class was unprecedentedly dismissed earlier than Tan Jin’s. She stood in the corridor waiting for him, bored, looking at her phone. Just then a text message came in—it was from Su Ge. Lin Shilan smoothly opened it.

How strange.

She opened the text message, exited in confusion, reopened the inbox, and clicked on the message again…

Was there something wrong with her phone, or was Su Ge playing a prank?

It was a blank text message. Su Ge hadn’t written anything.

Lin Shilan scratched her head, thinking about the intent behind it.

“Ah—!” Tan Jin suddenly appeared from behind her.

He made a strange face, hands with five fingers spread open beside his face, pulling an ugly grimace, attempting to startle her.

Lin Shilan turned her head and looked him up and down.

“Oh my, how scary, I’m so alarmed.” Her expression was calm, her tone light and airy, cooperating with his performance without much sincerity.

Tan Jin came over with a beaming smile.

“You were looking so absorbed. Is there something fun on your phone?”

Lin Shilan showed him the blank text Su Ge had sent. “So strange, why would she reply to me with a message that has no information? If she had nothing to say, normally speaking, she just wouldn’t reply…”

The message was indeed odd, but Tan Jin noticed another thing that made him feel even more surprised. “You texted Su Ge? When did your relationship get so good?”

Lin Shilan didn’t answer his question. Looking at the crowd exiting the classroom, she abruptly asked, “Did Su Ge come to class at all today?”

“No, every time the teacher called roll, she wasn’t there.”

After hearing his words, Lin Shilan dialed Su Ge’s phone number.

She patiently called three times, and all of them prompted “The number you have dialed is temporarily unavailable.”

“She’s not answering. There’s no way…” Lin Shilan sighed and looked up. “Let’s go. Come with me, we’ll go check on her at her home.”

Accompanying her to Su Ge’s home was of course no problem. However, Tan Jin was still curious. “So you and Su Ge—how did you get so close?!”

Lin Shilan had already started walking. Her silhouette looked cool, but she walked very quickly.

“I’m not close with her.”