Zhang Jingchan got into Cheng Chuan’s car, and Cheng Chuan didn’t notice at all.

After that, Zhang Jingchan witnessed the history that should have occurred. He followed Cheng Chuan to the small apartment he shared with his fellow ex-prisoner. The two got into a heated argument and even pulled out knives. In that split second, Zhang Jingchan exerted all his strength and pushed Cheng Chuan.

His transparent hands clearly passed through Cheng Chuan’s back, yet Cheng Chuan’s whole body shook, he stumbled, and the dagger that was about to stab into his cellmate fell from his hand to the ground.

The cellmate punched Cheng Chuan in the face.

The two beat each other savagely until they had no strength left, one leaning against the wall, the other gasping for breath sprawled on the table. The thugs’ emotions were vented, and they gradually calmed down instead. One saying something, the other responding, and in the end, they actually reached an agreement.

Zhang Jingchan stood in the dark corner, watching Cheng Chuan instruct his cellmate to hide the evidence, promise generous rewards afterward, and then drive out again.

Weiyi, why didn’t the loop happen?

Probably because the loop was never meant to happen.

Because on January 13, 2022, when the loop should have occurred, Cheng Chuan accidentally killed his cellmate and was imprisoned again.

So what about now?

History had been changed by his own hands. Had the loop started?

Zhang Jingchan closed his eyes and smiled.

Of course it had started.

He, traveling from 2043 to 2022, was the 0th loop.

The loop began from this point.

……

As if an entire lifetime had passed, yet also as if it were just the instant of closing and opening his eyes.

Zhang Jingchan saw an extremely marvelous sight.

In the void, he saw the overlay of dual spaces.

He clearly stood at the exit of the cross-river tunnel late at night, watching the dark mass of people crossing the road, watching Xu Yi in his thirties driving a jeep and hitting several people, seeing himself in his twenties with Li Weiyi, driving another car, crashing head-on into it.

Yet he also saw bright sunshine, an unfamiliar road, a pond beside it, residential buildings not far away, and high school students walking home in twos and threes after school.

In an instant, his feet were already on that unfamiliar road, and the 2022 scene disappeared. He looked around, his pupils instantly contracting.

Because he saw seventeen-year-old Li Weiyi holding an art book, walking while reading, approaching his direction.

This Zhang Jingchan had never seen what seventeen-year-old Li Weiyi looked like, yet he recognized her at a glance.

He watched her smile at the corners of her mouth, watched her not even looking at the road. Her foot slipped, and Zhang Jingchan hurriedly shouted: “Watch out!” But it was already too late—her foot slipped into the pond and she fell in.

Zhang Jingchan was frantic. Without thinking, he jumped into the water, wanting to hold her up, but could only see his fingers passing through her body. And Li Weiyi struggling in the water actually looked in his direction and reached out her hand toward him, seeking help.

But he couldn’t grab hold!

In the next instant, Zhang Jingchan was back on the ground. He looked around wanting to find someone to help, yet as if driven by fate, he looked in a certain direction.

He saw his nineteen-year-old self, walking shoulder to shoulder with Li Yunmo discussing something, passing under the tree shade without glancing this way.

A theory he had once heard suddenly flashed through Zhang Jingchan’s mind: If time travel occurs, two versions of you cannot exist in the same spacetime, or else spacetime would collapse.

He looked down at his phantom body, as if understanding something.

He ran over and grabbed hard at the shoulder of his nineteen-year-old self.

The young man’s back trembled. He turned back inexplicably, saw nothing, but noticed the splashing figure in the pond not far away. Without thinking, the young man threw down his backpack, ran over, and jumped into the water.

Zhang Jingchan jumped into the water together with the young man. Behind him, he looked at her seventeen-year-old appearance again and smiled at her.

She looked confused, but she also smiled at him and reached out wanting to touch him, yet all the lights and shadows disappeared before Zhang Jingchan’s eyes.

His second overlapping loop had ended.

When Zhang Jingchan woke in the third loop, he understood everything. He understood that because the same spacetime cannot have two versions of himself, he could only loop in energy form; he understood that his loop could originally only go from 2043 to 2022. But because when he traveled back, their layer of the loop was occurring, he had actually been fortunate enough to be carried back to 2014 by their loop.

He was truly happy to be able to return to 2014.

He arrived again in September 2014.

When he saw Xu Yi cross into Zhang Jingchan’s body and try to deceive Li Weiyi, he didn’t feel panicked. Because he always had a feeling they would win. All evildoers would be brought to justice, Zhang Jingchan would ultimately be with Li Weiyi, his parents and friends would all be safe and healthy, just as he had seen in his dreams.

When he saw Li Weiyi cleverly run to the hospital, while Zhang Jingchan paced in the fire escape on the other side, unable to approach due to the police guard, he suddenly felt an impulse.

He wanted to help them.

And also wanted her to look at him again, just like the first time they met in the water.

Though later, she probably thought what she saw from beginning to end was only the nineteen-year-old Zhang Jingchan.

So he stood in the corridor where people shuttled back and forth and shouted at her: “Weiyi! Li Weiyi! I’m here! I’m Zhang Jingchan!”

I am that Zhang Jingchan who once missed you, unable to loop.

Under bright lights, in the noisy crowd, the girl slowly raised her head and looked toward his direction in confusion.

Zhang Jingchan showed her a smile.

He knew that in that instant, she saw him.

But she probably would never know that what she saw was Zhang Jingchan who had traveled from many years in the future.

Li Weiyi ran toward where he was standing, passed through his body, and ran toward where the young Zhang Jingchan was.

Zhang Jingchan looked down at his fingertips, watching his originally transparent body gradually dissolve bit by bit in this spacetime.

The overall situation has been decided, he thought.

The history of 2014 has been changed, so 2022 will inevitably change accordingly.

Then what about 2043?

In that spacetime where the 0th loop only occurred twenty-one years later, will I find happiness?

——

January 21, 2022.

The day after Li Weiyi rushed to Shanghai.

Sunshine streamed in. Zhang Jingchan slowly opened his eyes, dazed for a moment.

Li Weiyi in his arms wore nothing. She drowsily woke, leaned against him and asked: “What are you thinking about? So absorbed?”

Zhang Jingchan answered: “I dreamed about some things.”

“Such as?”

“I dreamed the loop didn’t happen, that you and I passed each other by, not meeting until twenty-one years later.”

“That would be truly miserable.” Li Weiyi clicked her tongue twice. “Seriously, without me, you’d be so pathetic—how eccentric would you become? Remember the first life when we met, you were so passive-aggressive. White moonlight came? Sit? How many months along? Heard it’s mine? The first time I saw you, even your walk had the bearing of someone destined to die alone. Sister Zhou told me then that all the women in Xiang City didn’t want to marry you.”

Zhang Jingchan laughed out loud and pinched her nose: “So are you satisfied?”

Li Weiyi understood what he was asking. She honestly nodded and uttered two words: “So good.”

Zhang Jingchan stared at her, then after a moment turned his face away. This early in the morning, she was sometimes extremely shy, and sometimes extremely straightforward.

Li Weiyi leaned in his arms and said: “Tell me, those spacetimes that we rewrote—will they continue forward according to their original fate, or will they also be rewritten accordingly, or… be completely overwritten and cease to exist?”

The answer in Zhang Jingchan’s heart was “overwritten,” but he answered gently: “Probably rewritten accordingly, with each parallel spacetime moving forward.”

Li Weiyi was happy and nodded, saying: “That’s good. Then the us in every spacetime have found happiness.”

Yes, Li Weiyi, from now on you and I in every spacetime have found happiness.