In the time it took to pick up an umbrella, the world before her eyes had completely changed appearance.

With the school building as the center, scenes around it rapidly unfolded.

Trees—the roadside trees lining both sides of the campus grew wildly.

People—dialect-speaking people, their speech incredibly fast, fragmented voices surging forward.

Various vehicles honking, groups of students passing behind her.

Shops rapidly lit up, one after another extending outward.

A food stall’s oil wok was frying skewers, sizzling loudly, the spicy smell assaulting the nose.

It was as if the world had unveiled a boiling pot right in Lin Shilan’s face—scalding steam rushing at her.

She was going to be sick.

Lin Shilan covered her abdomen, her throat turning sour.

Everything she’d eaten tonight was vomited into the umbrella.

“Ew! That person threw up!”

“Isn’t she that someone?”

“Yeah, the class monitor from Class One. Don’t mess with her—let’s go, let’s go.”

All the students detoured, avoiding her as they walked.

The weakened Lin Shilan straightened up, reaching to get medicine from her bag.

Her previous shoulder bag had turned into the backpack now on her back—naturally there was no medicine. Helplessly, she removed the thermos from the side of her backpack. Fortunately, there was still half a bottle of water inside.

Lin Shilan struggled to clean up her embarrassing mess.

She was back again, back in the small, bustling Yan County, back in the rainy season of her seventeenth year.

Lin Shilan had experienced this kind of time travel quite a few times, but the timing and location this time were too terrible.

It was dismissal time—the school gate was packed with people.

Lin Shilan hadn’t forgotten about Tan Jin, who had suddenly disappeared from her side. She waited in place for a while but didn’t see him. So she went against the flow of people, walking into the school.

Light rain fell from the sky. She’d thrown away the umbrella.

Too many people coming and going—Lin Shilan wasn’t sure whether she and Tan Jin had already missed each other.

In her senior year of high school, her myopia suddenly deepened by 200 degrees. Afraid of being scolded, she didn’t dare tell her mother she wanted to change glasses, so she just endured it. Therefore, the glasses she was wearing now had insufficient prescription—she couldn’t see distant objects clearly at all.

Walking all the way to the floor for seniors, just as Lin Shilan was planning to check Tan Jin’s classroom, she finally realized she didn’t know which class he was in.

Occasionally seeing him during morning exercises, occasionally running into him when going home—but in her senior year, her mind was filled with too many things. She’d never paid attention to Tan Jin, even though he was her neighbor and they’d been at the same school for three years.

The feeling of irritation grew stronger and stronger.

—Go home.

Lin Shilan thought of it.

Tan Jin said he would come find her.

Leaving the school, Lin Shilan walked quickly toward home.

It was raining, the small path muddy.

The alley had no streetlights, yet she could still navigate through it skillfully.

Those streets and alleys, familiar beyond familiar, finally gave her a sense of reality: this was her hometown.

A hometown won’t tell you where to go, but it reminds you where you came from.

Deep in the alley, there was a dried-up well.

Leaning by the well was a man with a mouthful of yellow teeth, his face wreathed in smiles.

As Lin Shilan passed by, the man affectionately called out her childhood nickname.

“Rui Rui, getting out of school? Has your family made dinner?”

“Tell your mom—Uncle’s bringing some people over in a bit to mooch some food.”

The nausea she’d just suppressed—his words made the sick feeling surge back up.

The man was Lin Shilan’s father’s cousin. By seniority, she should call him Uncle Tang. After her father died and their finances were poor, they’d borrowed some money from him. From time to time when things broke at home or they needed to move heavy objects, her mother would ask him to help.

But Lin Shilan truly detested this Uncle Tang. He was an old drunk who, whenever he felt like drinking, would bring friends over to drink at her house. The money spent buying him alcohol was a huge monthly expense for the household. Not to mention, after drinking he loved getting handsy, hugging and embracing people.

He called to her, but Lin Shilan pretended not to hear. Uncle Tang, however, had no intention of letting her go.

“Why aren’t you acknowledging people?” He grabbed her backpack, yanking her entire body back, his arm smoothly draping over her shoulder: “Rui Rui, watch out or I’ll complain to your mom.”

“Get lost!”

Lin Shilan exploded completely, all her strength concentrating in her hands, pushing heavily toward his chest.

The man didn’t stand steady and sat down hard on the ground.

Barely supporting himself on the well’s edge, Uncle Tang glared at her, cursing viciously: “You fucking dare push me? Little bitch, you’ve got some nerve—did you take the wrong medicine today? Fuck, I’ll charge all my medical fees to your family. You just wait—I’ll kill you…”

The girl stared at him silently.

She was naturally beautiful—delicate brows, almond eyes, a palm-sized face. In the light rain, those large eyes were black as if without pupils. Her face pale as a ghost, like a demon spirit crawling out of supernatural fiction.

Letting raindrops fall, Lin Shilan’s lips curved in a smile, her eyes unblinking.

The man felt somewhat intimidated by her stare. He spat on the ground and swallowed the rest of his curses.

Moss grew luxuriantly by the dried well, emanating an eerie grayish hue. Lin Shilan knew that before long, her Uncle Tang would die accidentally, falling into that well.

This wasn’t a curse, but a fact that had already occurred.

Lin Shilan patted her backpack, shouldered it again properly, and continued walking home.

…

At the entrance to the petrochemical plant residential area, under the rain shelter for electric scooters, someone crouched.

Lin Shilan walked past him and waved.

He stared at a puddle, no response.

She deliberately walked forward a few steps—he didn’t follow.

Lin Shilan had no choice but to retrace her steps and stand before him.

That person looked up, his gaze meeting hers.

Lin Shilan was accustomed to Tan Jin’s cheerful appearance—curved eyes like a tail-wagging puppy, his smile sunny and silly. It turned out that when he wasn’t smiling, his single eyelids drooped, making his entire face take on a somewhat distant, cold quality.

She crossed her arms, hugging herself, observing what he was up to.

Tan Jin stood up, instantly a head taller than her.

Hands in pockets, his tone distant: “You looking for me?”

Without a word, Lin Shilan turned and walked away.

She walked so fast it was almost running. Reaching the stairwell of her building, her steps didn’t stop, continuing upward.

Behind her head, her ponytail tied high with a hair tie swayed with her running, pulling her scalp tight. In the steamy rainy night, the collar of her school uniform was stuffy and sticky, every button fastened all the way to the top, even her arms under the clothes sweating. The enclosed stairwell didn’t let in the slightest breeze—her body was like a comforter sealed in a vacuum bag.

Someone followed running up behind her, running even faster than she did.

She turned a deaf ear to the sounds behind her, until he forcibly grabbed her hand.

“Lin Shilan!”

To make her stop, Tan Jin’s action shifted from holding to clasping.

In the stairwell, panting breaths drained the air from their chests.

Fingers tightly interlaced, impossible to tell whose hand sweat it was—both their hands had become sticky.

“I just…” His breathing not yet steady, his breaths were chaotic: “I—I waited for you a long time, just wanted to play a joke with you…”

“Who wants to joke with you?”

The resentment suppressed all evening poured out, her voice taut, her expression fierce.

As she spoke, she tried to pull her hand back. Lin Shilan’s anger intensified: How dare he hold her hand?

“Let go!”

Yelled at, he quickly released her.

Tan Jin hadn’t expected Lin Shilan to get this angry—it was really just a small joke. He was playing with her.

But what he didn’t know was that Lin Shilan never joked around.

Her life didn’t have that much fun to find, that many jokes to make.

Tan Jin looked up, sneaking a glance at her.

Lin Shilan stood on a step two levels higher than him. She was very thin, so much thinner than her university self. Looking closely, the entire circle around her eyes was tinged with faint red—whether from anger, heat, or some other reason, he couldn’t tell.

“I pretended not to know you—did it scare you? Made you think you came back alone again?”

“No. Whether you come back or not, I don’t care either way.”

Her chin lifted, her gaze passing over him, looking toward some unknown place.

“We weren’t close to begin with.”

“Oh.”

He looked up at her with a smile: “So you really were scared by me.”

Lin Shilan couldn’t be bothered to respond to him.

“Don’t be angry—I waited too long for you, got bored and wanted to tease you. I won’t do it again next time.”

“I was also worried you didn’t travel through time with me. Why were you delayed so long? Where did you go?”

“You’re really childish.”

She maintained her poker face.

But Tan Jin knew Lin Shilan’s state had already eased.

“When I came through, I was at the school gate. I went into the school to find you.”

Tan Jin was surprised: “You know which class I’m in?”

She pursed her lips: “No.”

His face showed hurt: “I’m in Class Two—the class next to yours. Lin Shilan, we’ve been schoolmates for how many years! Neighbors for how many years! You…”

“So do you understand me?” she interrupted him.

“I do.”

Tan Jin suddenly stepped up one stair level.

She wasn’t prepared—his hand reached over, gently tugging her ponytail.

The hair tie there was loosened somewhat by him.

Lin Shilan felt the thoughts in her mind “boom—” break free from constraint, becoming fluffy and scattered.

If the hand-holding earlier had been a helpless move to stop her.

What was this one now?

Tan Jin retreated to his previous position.

Before her, still that harmless smiling face.

As if nothing had happened.

For the first time, Lin Shilan felt that her current partner might be no simple person. At least, his inner thoughts weren’t as easy and casual as he consistently presented.

Perhaps that second’s display of his thoughtful nature inspired her—Lin Shilan asked him:

“Tan Jin, what do you think prevents us from ending this rainy season?”

He frowned, his eyes bright, containing some glimmer of wisdom: “You really asked the right question. I’ve seriously researched this. I believe the source causing the current strange phenomena must be…”

To build suspense, after deliberately pausing for ten seconds, he uttered three big words:

“Aliens!”

“…”

“On July 17th four years ago, when our county flooded, an alien spaceship happened to fly by and saved us. After awakening, due to residual radiation from the spaceship, we gained special abilities—able to experience things during each rainy season that ordinary earthlings can’t experience. As for why time and space can be twisted, this inexplicable everything is precisely the aliens developing a brand new cosmic technology.”

“…”

Tan Jin was speaking happily when he discovered the person beside him was gone.

“Lin Shilan? Lin Shilan, why did you leave?”

He chased after her, chattering away relentlessly.

“Haven’t you watched science fiction documentaries? You must have read sci-fi novels, right? The universe is so big—it’s impossible for humanity to be the only civilization. Aliens definitely exist, so using sci-fi story logic, our story is completely reasonable! Listen a bit more—otherwise, should I tell you about the Egyptian pyramids?”

Lin Shilan covered her ears, regretting her momentary lapse in judgment that had opened Tan Jin’s chatterbox.

Now she was in for some annoyance.