004 Prudence is a Virtue
After he had laid everything bare, the two of them fell into silence.
After a long silence, as the sky grew darker, Wang Heng said, “Let’s go. I’ll walk you home.”
Han Yixuan nodded. The two stood up and walked side by side in the direction of the girl’s home.
After walking in silence for a while, Han Yixuan suddenly stopped.
A few steps later, Wang Heng noticed something was off, stopped, and turned around. He saw the girl gazing at him, seemingly with a lot to say.
After a few seconds of inner conflict, Han Yixuan finally spoke. “I understand what you mean, but dating doesn’t have to cost money. Just like this, not buying anything, not doing anything, just taking a walk and chatting. Can’t we even do that?”
“Unfortunately, I have to work a part-time job this summer. I can’t do anything about the university tuition, but I can at least try to figure out my own living expenses.”
“Can’t you just not work?”
Wang Heng smiled. “If I don’t make money, are you going to support me?”
Han Yixuan gritted her teeth. “I’ll support you!”
Wang Heng’s smile instantly froze.
After a moment, he sighed. “Why must you be like this? I really don’t understand what’s so good about me to deserve this honor…”
Wang Heng remembered the course of his relationship with Han Yixuan in the previous timeline, but his impression was that right after the college entrance exam, at the very beginning of their relationship, Han Yixuan shouldn’t have been this deeply devoted and insistent.
“Are you wondering why I’m so persistent? It’s hard for me to explain it myself. The reason is really… you’ll definitely laugh at me if you hear it.” As she said this, Han Yixuan became a little shy.
This was a bit strange. Was there anything harder to say than a confession?
But the next moment, Wang Heng understood. There really was.
Han Yixuan continued, “I’ve been dreaming these past few days. It started the night after the English exam. I dreamed that I confessed to you, we had a great chat, and we started dating. Then, we spent the whole summer together. You didn’t work a part-time job or anything, but we didn’t spend much money either. We just had our dates on the bus every day.”
“Dates on the bus?” Wang Heng was utterly astonished, his eyes wide.
Han Yixuan spoke with great certainty about the contents of her dream. “Yes, we’d just hop on a random bus and ride it to the last stop, then switch to another one. We’d sit together in the back row, watching the scenery outside the window, watching the other people on the bus, and just chatting casually. When we got hungry, we’d get off and fill our stomachs at a noodle shop by the road. When we were thirsty, we’d buy a bottle of water. We didn’t care about anything, didn’t think about anything… No, we thought about so, so much. We imagined what the future would be like, imagined university life. We made a promise that after starting university, we’d buy round-trip train tickets every two months to meet face-to-face. The rest of the time, we’d video chat. You can’t even imagine how happy I felt in that dream…”
However, not only could Wang Heng imagine it, he had actually experienced it. In the previous timeline, when he and Han Yixuan began their first love, it was exactly like the dream she had just described!
Cold sweat began to form on his back. I thought I was the only one who was reborn. Could it be that Han Yixuan also has memories of the previous timeline?
The girl continued her story. “It went on for several days, like a TV series. It felt so real, so real it didn’t even feel like a dream, as if it had actually happened… So, do you understand? I was really, really looking forward to the moment I confessed to you. Really, I was.”
Wang Heng felt a tickle in his throat. He swallowed subconsciously, only to find his mouth was so dry there wasn’t a single drop of saliva.
After a moment, he forced a smile. “That kind of nearly free romance sounds really nice… If we were at the same university, I definitely wouldn’t have rejected you. Come on, I should walk you home first.”
Han Yixuan finally understood that she couldn’t sway this guy’s mind. Her expression immediately fell, her face crestfallen. “You don’t have to walk me. I can get home by myself!”
Wang Heng was blunt. “Alright then. Be careful on your way.”
At this moment, he was in absolutely no mood to display any gentlemanly conduct.
**
After parting with the dejected girl, Wang Heng did not go home. He went straight to the largest bookstore in the small city, found the psychology section, and began to search carefully.
He first found a famous work by Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams. A quick scan of the table of contents was enough to confirm that this book didn’t have what he was looking for. But among the rows of psychology books, very few actually discussed dreams. And aside from The Interpretation of Dreams, most were strange self-help books like XXX Teaches You How to Interpret Dreams or Find the Key to Life in Your Dreams, which were clearly even less reliable.
“This won’t work. Han Yixuan’s dream is just too unscientific… Should I check the philosophy section? Or maybe, when in doubt, quantum mechanics?”
Wang Heng muttered to himself as he wandered around the bookstore for two more laps. Helpless, he left the bookstore and entered a nearby internet cafe.
The best way to look up information was, of course, a search engine, but his phone was an old-fashioned keypad model without a web browser. As for the only computer at home, it was undoubtedly being monopolized by his father. Anxious, Wang Heng had no choice but to spend some of his dwindling pocket money to rent the cheapest computer in the internet cafe.
However, while there was a lot of information online, there was even more useless junk. Wang Heng searched for a long time but couldn’t find a single valuable reference or hypothesis.
“Right, if something like rebirth can happen, someone having a dream that crosses worldlines is probably even more normal…” Wang Heng sighed and was about to turn off the computer. But just then, a window popped up on the screen.
【Do you want to know the meaning of life? Do you want to truly… live?】
Below this sentence were two buttons: 【Yes】 and 【No】.
Wang Heng was stunned. Isn’t this how an ‘unlimited flow’ story starts?
He grabbed the mouse and, without hesitation, clicked 【No】.
The pop-up window flickered and was replaced by a new message:
【More prudent than expected. I originally thought that after experiencing something like rebirth, you would think you had plot armor and the courage to charge ahead recklessly.】
Wang Heng couldn’t help but ponder.
Since it can accurately use the word ‘rebirth,’ it seems I’ve encountered some kind of extraordinary existence?
The pop-up flickered again:
【Jokes aside, let me introduce myself. I am a Spacetime Administrator of the multiverse, primarily responsible for maintaining the normal causality of various worlds and cleaning up bugs that shouldn’t exist. By the way, you don’t need to type. You can communicate with me just by speaking. Just move your lips; a whisper is loud enough for me to hear.】
Wang Heng narrowed his eyes, read the text twice, and said in a low voice, “Uh… hello?”
【Good, very polite.】
【You should have adapted to your life after rebirth by now. Unfortunately, I have to tell you something, something you probably won’t want to hear.】
