Around six that evening, Bai Yang returned from school with Lian Qiao.

Bai Yang wore a down jacket, looking as puffy as the Michelin Man, while Lian Qiao remained dressed lightly in a gray fleece hoodie. She carried his backpack, looking like a young mother who had just picked up her child from kindergarten.

“Based on our current experimental results, anything BG4MSR has confirmed as fact cannot be changed,” Bai Yang said, climbing to the eighth floor, catching his breath as he took out his keys to open the door. “No matter what you try to do, this world always makes you return to its predetermined track.”

“That sounds like fate is already determined,” Lian Qiao said, holding the bag. “We’re all puppets, controlled by something.”

“Are you saying we don’t have free will?” Bai Yang asked, turning his head as he pushed open the door.

Lian Qiao nodded.

“Perhaps it’s our free will that led to this result,” Bai Yang said. “I used to think about it this way: in BG4MSR’s era, most of the buildings in the city are still standing, like Building 12 next door. I wondered what would happen to the building on her side if we blew up Building 12?”

Lian Qiao was stunned for a moment.

“I kept thinking about this question, really struggling with it. Theoretically, it’s possible, right?” Bai Yang said. “Theoretically, we could blow up Building 12, but BG4MSR told us that Building 12 still exists in her time. Wouldn’t that create a contradiction between the two eras?”

“Yes.”

“But theory and reality are two different things. Theoretically, we could bomb Building 12, but in reality, it’s impossible,” Bai Yang said, entering and bending down in the entryway to change his shoes. “As long as it can’t be done, it won’t contradict logic. This is different from solving physics problems—on a physics exam, you only need to solve theoretical problems. On paper, you could blow up the Earth and it wouldn’t matter. But in real life, it’s different. In real life, what you want to do and what you can do are two separate things. So here’s the question… why is there such a difference between theory and reality? What creates such a huge gap?”

Bai Yang stuffed his sneakers into the shoe rack and continued:

“It’s free will—what we think is free will. Just like how your reason tells you that planning to blow up a building wouldn’t just fail but would land you in jail… The consciousness and thoughts that guide our actions are precisely what keep us moving along that predetermined path.”

“Do you know about the psychological concept called the self-fulfilling prophecy?” Lian Qiao followed Bai Yang inside. “Self-fulfilling Prophecy—it means people will unconsciously act according to a prophecy, ultimately making it come true.”

“What are you talking about?”

Bai Zhen sat on the sofa, hunched over stamping documents, glancing up at the two at the door.

“We’re discussing how it seems BG4MSR’s visions of the future must become unchangeable reality,” Lian Qiao said. “If that’s true, wouldn’t the coming of doomsday be inevitable?”

“Indeed,” Wang Ning said, head down writing materials.

“But this…”

“So what if it’s inevitable?” Wang Ning tossed the document in his hand to Bai Zhen. “Does it stop us from working? Old Bai! Stamp it!”

“Ka!” Bai Zhen pressed a bright red seal onto the document.

“Are you hungry?” Mom called from the kitchen. “Dinner will be a while! Want something to eat first?”

“Not hungry, Little Bai and I had a bowl of wonton on the way,” Lian Qiao tossed the backpack to Bai Yang and turned toward the kitchen. “Sis, I’ll help!”

Lian Qiao was a good girl—Mom visibly liked her. Their relationship was racing toward sisterhood, with Lian Qiao calling Mom “sis” at every turn, making Mom beam with joy.

Lian Qiao couldn’t cook, but she was always eager to help in the kitchen, washing dishes and pots. She was quick and efficient, never dawdling. At first, Bai Yang was puzzled, wondering if his sister’s assignment was to be Mom’s assistant. Before his slow brain could figure it out, Lian Qiao had already won the appreciation and affection of the command center’s hidden power broker—the Executive Director and Empress Dowager Mom—with lightning speed. Good grief, Bai Yang finally realized, but it was too late—with the Empress Dowager’s full support, Lian Qiao could now lord it over Bai Yang.

With Mom backing her, Bai Yang could no longer resist Lian Qiao’s tyranny. If Lian Qiao told him to stand, he couldn’t sit, or Mom would say, “Listen to your counselor! Stand more to grow taller!”

Lian Qiao had created an incredibly detailed schedule and taken on the responsibility of picking up and dropping off Bai Yang from school every day, always carrying his backpack. She lived by a routine, taking Bai Yang running every morning, then bringing him to school, and planning each day’s activities.

But Lian Qiao didn’t enter the school. After Bai Yang went through the gates, his sister would disappear somewhere. Bai Yang suspected she went to volunteer at nearby restaurants or other places.

This suspicion had basis. Much later, after everyone had gone their separate ways and Lian Qiao had completed her mission and returned to her unit, Bai Yang heard young waitresses in nearby restaurants humming “Golden Roof Palace, the Emperor Can’t See.” When he asked, he learned that an impressive sister had once worked there, able to carry six plates at once.

Lian Qiao was always waiting at the school gates when Bai Yang finished classes. She was tall and eye-catching, which particularly surprised He Leqin and Yan Zhihan when they occasionally walked together.

Young Master He and Brother Yan elbowed Bai Yang in the ribs from both sides, winking: “Not bad, Little Bai Yang, an older sister! Come clean, how did you hook up with her?”

In less than ten minutes, Lian Qiao had won over Yan Zhihan, arm in arm, whispering together, leaving the two boys behind with envious looks.

Lian Qiao told them she was Bai Yang’s bodyguard, saying a low-key, mysterious billionaire from across the ocean had found Bai Yang for a family reunion, making him the sole heir to hundreds of billions in assets. They were currently handling inheritance procedures, but people coveting this fortune were moving in the shadows. To ensure nothing went wrong with the process, they had to guarantee Bai Yang’s safety—now each hair on his head was worth more than its weight in gold.

After hearing this, Young Master He plucked one of Bai Yang’s hairs, making him yelp in pain. He Leqin said he was going to exchange it for money.

Finally, Lian Qiao mysteriously told Yan Zhihan that among the pedestrians they saw on the street, one in ten was an undercover guard—all bodyguards hired by Little Bai Yang.

Bai Yang was dumbfounded.

His sister was something else.

After hearing Lian Qiao’s speech, when Brother Yan and Young Master He looked at Bai Yang again, their eyes were like hungry wolves. They made Bai Yang swear on his conscience—given their friendship, weren’t they worth at least 100 million?

Bai Yang threw his backpack onto the bed. The “ka-ka” sound of stamping never ceased in the living room. Dad and Uncle Wang were working at their desks, one reviewing documents and one writing materials. When they had settled on this division of labor, they had argued—after all, writing materials was much more taxing than stamping and signing documents. Why should Old Wang do more work?

Finally, they agreed that Old Wang would get 60% of the military honors, Old Bai 40%, and only then did Wang Ning agree to do it.

Of course, he didn’t do it for long. Within half a month, Wang Ning had borrowed Little Zhu, promoted him to Deputy Director of the Command Center Office (Wang Ning told him this was the organization’s recognition, with unlimited prospects), and dumped all the writing work on Little Zhu.

Wang Ning just needed to sign his name.

Zhao Bowen wasn’t around—Uncle Zhao must be at another provincial or municipal committee meeting. Who knew when he’d return? He was always busy running from one thing to another.

Lian Qiao helped wash all the dishes in the kitchen, then went to Bai Yang’s room to discuss determinism and free will. She encouraged Bai Yang to do a simple experiment to test it. Blowing up Building 12 wasn’t realistic, but making marks on the wall would be easy. Since Bai Yang and BG4MSR were in the same room, he could make marks on his white wall and she could immediately see if there were any changes.

Drawing randomly on your wall—this was asking for a beating from Mom.

But Lian Qiao convinced Mom.

So Bai Yang dug out his watercolor paints from elementary school art class, first coordinating with BG4MSR to select an intact section of the wall.

“I told you, but you didn’t believe me,” Bai Yang said with a smirk. “We already verified this when we sent the time-slow delivery. But I’ll prove it to you again. I can tell you the conclusion right now—no matter what we draw on the wall, there won’t be any changes on her side.”

“Draw it!”

Bai Yang drew SpongeBob on the white wall, then Patrick Star on the opposite wall.

Next, he contacted BG4MSR via radio.

Sure enough, the girl answered that there was nothing—no changes at all.

Lian Qiao was shocked.

“See, what did I tell you?” Bai Yang clapped his hands. “There won’t be any changes at all. Want to know why? It must be because, shortly, my mom or someone else thought these two things were too ugly, really eyesores, so they painted over them. That’s why nothing can be seen on that side…”

Bai Yang made a further deduction:

“But these two drawings should still exist—they’re just covered up. So if I now have BG4MSR scrape the wall surface, they should see the light of day again.”

He spoke with absolute certainty.

Lian Qiao nodded.

So Bai Yang contacted the other side again, guiding Xia Ban to scrape the wall, removing the white putty layer by layer. If nothing went wrong, she should see the SpongeBob and Patrick Star that Bai Yang had drawn.

But this time it was Bai Yang’s turn to be surprised.

Still nothing.

Xia Ban scraped to the bottom, to the cement wall, without finding any trace of paint. It was as if it wasn’t the same wall, as if no one had ever drawn anything there.

Bai Yang was stunned. He turned to look at SpongeBob and Patrick Star on the wall—the freshly dried paint was still bright. For some unknown reason, these two best friends had been lost in the tumultuous river of time.