In Room 503 of the Magic Cube Youth Apartment, there was currently a female college student living there. The landlord had informed her in advance that a new tenant was coming to view the apartment today. The female student, being diligent, had tidied up the small apartment, making it spotless.
It’s easy for people of the same age to strike up a conversation, and with Lin Zhizhi’s warm smile and friendly attitude, she quickly started chatting with the student. Lin Heyu, listening on the side, furrowed his brow deeper and deeper. What kind of questions were these? How often do you order takeout? Is the night market nearby? From the looks of it, she didn’t plan on cooking for herself while in Nanyi.
The small single apartment, though modest in size, had all the necessary facilities. The environment was nice, the transportation convenient, and most importantly, the rent wasn’t expensive. The female student admitted that if she weren’t moving to work in another city after the new year, she wouldn’t want to leave. Lin Zhizhi smiled and said, “I’m here for work from out of town too. It’s my first time leaving home for such a long time. Just thinking about it makes me a little excited.”
“What’s so exciting?” Lin Heyu knocked on her forehead. “Is it because no one’s around to control you anymore?”
“How could that be?” Lin Zhizhi linked her arm with his. “It’s because I’m finally independent. From now on, you don’t have to worry about me anymore.”
After leaving the apartment, Lin Zhizhi wanted to wander around, and Lin Heyu, though distracted, followed her, his mind consumed with thoughts of how he could meet Yi Shi again. Now that he had his complete memory, he was desperate for Yi Shi to understand the fate that intertwined the two of them and to quickly find the key to breaking the cycle.
Although their memories weren’t equal, since Yi Shi had been able to find him in advance, surely he could do something too, right? At the very least, he shouldn’t passively wait for his memories to fade away bit by bit.
A cone of ice cream suddenly appeared in front of him. Lin Zhizhi also had one in her hand and was habitually scolded by Lin Heyu, “Eating ice cream in winter? Aren’t you cold? Be careful not to get a stomachache.”
“Just this once. I got one for you too.” Lin Zhizhi pushed the cone into his hand and took a bite of hers. “Look, it’s a new flavor. I waited in line for a long time to get it.”
“…” Lin Heyu was even more helpless. He didn’t like sweets at all. Candy and chocolate were things he avoided entirely, but his sister had a serious sweet tooth. Ice cream was something he bought the most, especially because stores often had ‘buy one, get one half-off’ promotions, and the half-off one always ended up being for him.
Today’s ice cream was a spiral of brown and white intertwined. Based on his experience, Lin Heyu guessed the brown part was likely caramel or cappuccino. He took a bite, and the rich flavor of hazelnuts spread through his mouth. It was much better than the overly sweet strawberry or mango flavors.
“How is it? Not bad, right? It’s not that sweet, and if you savor it, you can even taste bits of crushed nuts.”
Lin Heyu rarely agreed. “It’s not bad.”
“Wow, it’s so rare to hear you give a compliment.” Lin Zhizhi clung to his arm. “I found a trendy hot pot restaurant. If we head there now, we should avoid the line!”
“…Hot pot again.”
“Of course! I’ve already set a goal for myself. In half a year, I’m going to try all the good hot pot places in Nanyi!”
Lin Heyu, as always, indulged his sister and dutifully took on the role of her chauffeur. He just didn’t expect that the hot pot restaurant would be located at Pingju Plaza. That place was all too familiar, especially the café there, which seemed to be a crossroads between two worlds. Every time he went in, something strange happened.
This time, he didn’t even need to step inside. As they passed by, he already saw something strange.
Lin Heyu slammed the brakes and stared in disbelief at the figure inside the glass wall waving at him—Yi Shi?!
Sunlight poured down from the front, casting half of that handsome and refined face into shadow, but his familiar figure and aura were unmistakable. He could be recognized instantly. What was he doing in a café, and why was he waving at him with a smile? At this time, Yi Shi should be preparing for a capture operation.
Yi Shi’s long fingers traced across the glass, writing a single word—”Come.”
Lin Zhizhi followed her brother’s gaze. “Ge, what are you looking at?”
“…The café.”
“Huh? You want to eat there? That’s fine.” Lin Zhizhi rested her chin on her hand. “I just don’t know if the food’s any good. There aren’t many customers inside.”
She couldn’t see Yi Shi? He was standing right there, near the entrance, with such striking features. He should’ve been the first person Lin Zhizhi noticed.
Lin Heyu parked the car and hurriedly undid his seatbelt. “Zhizhi, I’ve got something to take care of. You go to the hot pot place, and send me a message when you’re done.”
“What business could you possibly have in Nanyi? You don’t know anyone here.” Lin Zhizhi suddenly widened her eyes and asked mysteriously, “Did you spot a fugitive?”
“…Something like that.”
Hearing that her brother had a case to work on, Lin Zhizhi quickly grabbed her bag and got out of the car, not forgetting to remind him to stay safe and that she could find her way back to the hotel after finishing her meal.
After watching her walk into Pingju Plaza, Lin Heyu locked the car, crossed the street quickly, and pushed open the glass door of the café. Yi Shi was already seated, and with a slight raise of his hand, he said, “We meet again.”
That “again”—did it refer to their encounter while capturing Zhao Chenghu or their meeting after October 15?
Lin Heyu quickly reached a conclusion, and his mood instantly lifted as he sat across from him. Yi Shi rested his chin on his hand, his eyes filled with soft, shimmering light.
“I was just wondering earlier how I could find you quickly to help you regain your memory. I didn’t expect…” Lin Heyu extended his right hand and placed it on the back of Yi Shi’s. “I didn’t expect to see you again, with all your memories intact. How have you been lately?”
Yi Shi nodded and lightly hooked Lin Heyu’s pinky with his long finger. “I’ve been well. I’ve been waiting for you to awaken.”
“Awaken” referred to the restoration of his memories? That word wasn’t wrong. When his memories were incomplete, Lin Heyu had believed himself to be in a normal and peaceful world. But once his memories were complete, after several “unscientific” crossings between worlds, he had long grasped the wonder of dimensional travel.
Lin Heyu smiled, gently grasping the cool fingers. “I’m glad you’ve been waiting for me. But—something feels strange.”
“You’ve noticed, haven’t you? Two versions of me, both appearing on the same day.” Yi Shi slowly leaned forward, lowering his voice deliberately. “And—the other me is working on a case as usual, with no memory gaps or overlaps. That proves that I shouldn’t be here at all on this day.”
That was exactly Lin Heyu’s suspicion. His fingers rubbed lightly against Yi Shi’s palm, feeling the smooth texture and temperature. Could it be the café causing this? It was, after all, a key connection point between parallel worlds. Inside, anything was possible.
Yi Shi spoke directly. “That’s also why I came to find you. To help you ‘separate.'”
—
The discovery of this separation phenomenon began when Yi Shi impulsively followed Lin Heyu back to Haijing for a brief vacation. Yi Shi noticed that although he had gone to another world and stayed with Lin Heyu for seven days, his original memories hadn’t been affected, nor had his life undergone any changes.
All of these things had happened as they were supposed to, which only proved that from October 7 to October 15, he had indeed followed his usual, monotonous routine at work and, at the same time, had also spent a short vacation with Lin Heyu. He interpreted this as the mirrored world’s temporal order adjusting itself. But this raised another problem—once he returned, the current Yi Shi would replace the one with memory gaps. Yet with his complete memories, there was no way he would go back to his ordinary routine. He would stop at nothing to investigate, act, and single-mindedly attempt to change what had already been determined.
These unexpected events had never appeared in memory, which meant they hadn’t happened. Amid all the confusion, on October 15th, Yi Shi returned to Nanyi and saw another version of himself with his own eyes. In that instant, he understood the reason for the memory loss on that day, as well as the most plausible explanation for the phenomenon.
It was like the shadow clone technique from a two-dimensional world. He had split off from the memory-blank Yi Shi, becoming a separate, new individual. This separation, he didn’t know how long it would last, but at least for now, he and the other version of himself had separate memories without forming new overlaps.
“So, what you meant by helping me ‘split off’—are you saying you’d help me break away from this current timeline too?” Lin Heyu rubbed his chin. He wasn’t disbelieving, just quietly reflecting on how there was no end to learning and how much more there still was to research.
Yi Shi held his right hand to his forehead. “The split will definitely happen, but you can’t do it alone—you need my help.” He looked at the glass door. “Once you walk through there, you’ll be able to split off into my world.”
“……”
“You must be thinking, isn’t this just a typical time-travel story?” Yi Shi wagged his finger. “It’s different. The memories are different, making the individual entirely different, with far more possibilities.”
“Yeah, definitely. If Xiao Shitou had your complete memories, finding Gardenia would have been much easier.”
Yi Shi stared at him for a long while before speaking. “…Have you ever seen what Gardenia looks like?”
Lin Heyu hadn’t taken a good look, but from Xiao Shitou’s descriptions, he knew the general features—a very pretty little girl with dimples when she smiled. Their only meeting had been on the dark riverbank, and at that time, Lin Heyu’s attention was entirely on the severely injured Yi Shi. He only remembered that Gardenia was small and soft, with wet black hair covering half of her frostbitten red face when they fished her out of the water.
Yi Shi looked toward Pingju Plaza. “What about Zhizhi? Didn’t you come to Nanyi with her to look at houses?”
Lin Heyu pointed in the direction of the big diamond. “She’s gone to eat hot pot.”
Yi Shi coughed lightly. “Lin Heyu, let me tell you something—sit tight.”
“Hmm?”
“Zhizhi…,” his face for the first time showed a complicated and conflicted expression, “is Gardenia.”
“…?”
Lin Heyu was clearly stunned, frozen for several seconds before he found his voice again. “She’s your sister?”
“Yeah.”
“And your adoptive mother too?”
“…Yeah.”
“Then I—”
Yi Shi raised his hand to stop him. Enough, no need to get tangled up in family titles. Lin Heyu was still Lin Heyu, and since there was no blood relation, there was no point in trying to figure it out. Despite this, an eerie silence fell over them. Lin Heyu drank two cups of lemon water, seemingly digesting the shocking news, his expression sour.
“After I split off, will Zhizhi safely return to Haijing today?”
Yi Shi assured him there’d be no problem. He had already contacted Aunt Lin earlier and confirmed that she returned to Haijing on December 11th after seeing the house, without any incident. Lin Heyu breathed a sigh of relief, nodding. “Okay, I’ll go with you.”
Yi Shi stood up, pulling Lin Heyu up with him. As they turned, they passed the glass door, where a petite waitress was cleaning. She was stretching as high as she could, but her arms couldn’t quite reach the quartz clock on the wall.
She waved her arms and was about to grab a stool when someone came up behind her and, with a simple reach, took down the clock and handed it to her.
“Thanks!” The waitress hugged the clock, sneaking a peek: So tall!
She carried the clock back to the counter, wiped the glass face with a towel, and checked the time against the computer. She mumbled to herself, “Huh? Why is it slow? Is the battery dead?”
After putting in a new battery, she reset the time, winding the clock back five minutes—from 11:20 to 11:15. When she turned around, she saw Lin Heyu still standing there. Apologizing with a smile, she asked, “Sorry, could I trouble you again?”
Without a word, Lin Heyu hung the clock back in place. The waitress thanked him repeatedly and gave him a packet of lemon slices.
Yi Shi’s hand rested on the glass door, his gaze fixed on the tinted glass. This piece of tinted glass reflected the world opposite, and every time he sat down, he would unconsciously observe it. Now, in the reflection, there was a beggar slowly walking by. Strangely enough, five minutes earlier, Yi Shi had seen this same beggar limping past the café, bowl in hand.
Had he walked back around? Or…
The beggar was about to pass the small flower bed in front of the café when Yi Shi silently chanted in his mind: Fall. The beggar accidentally stepped on a loose stone and took a tumble. Yi Shi kept thinking: Pick up a dime. The beggar, grimacing in pain, spotted a dime on the ground and broke into a grin, happily picking it up.
It wasn’t his imagination; time had indeed rewound five minutes, and the events were playing out again.
Yi Shi turned to stare at the quartz clock. Though it looked ordinary, it actually had such a function. Was it just a rare coincidence, or could it truly work like that?
He held onto Lin Heyu with one hand and pushed open the glass door with the other. The moment the wind chime jingled, the bright sunlight outside was swallowed by rolling clouds, and a downpour was imminent.
Yi Shi pulled up his mask and tugged on the hood of his sweatshirt, covering his face until it blended into the crowd. Glancing at the gloomy weather, he muttered softly, “We need to find somewhere to take cover from the rain.”
“A hotel?” Lin Heyu interlocked their fingers.
Yi Shi’s face flushed slightly. “Come with me this time. I’ll take you to my place.”
—–
Author’s note:
Ah, I’m about to sprinkle some sweetness again!
