083 The Hamster’s Work
While Pei Ningle was eavesdropping behind Han Yixuan, Wang Heng had also finished his day of programming and slacking off and returned to his dormitory.
Tang Hexing and Fu Hanwen were teamed up and gaming, while Wang Ke was watching a loli anime.
Tonight, the dorm was as peaceful and busy as ever. It was less than two hours before lights-out, and they had to seize the last moments of entertainment for the day.
The little white cat was lying on Wang Heng’s desk, but not in the usual lazy posture of a cat. To be precise, it was the opposite. The little white cat was in a posture resembling a dogeza, respectfully paying homage to the cage. Inside the cage, the hamster was holding a small piece of dried fish that was half its own size, seemingly pondering where to start nibbling.
Wang Heng picked up the little white cat from the desk, then carried the hamster cage and walked out of the dormitory again.
The destination was still the rooftop.
Under normal circumstances, no one was there at night. As long as one didn’t speak too loudly, it was the best place for a secret conversation.
Holding the cage up to his eyes, Wang Heng teased, “You’re getting more and more capable, aren’t you? Snatching food from a cat’s mouth?”
The hamster put down the dried fish and spread its little paws. “I have no interest in bullying a masochist. This was a voluntary tribute.”
“Voluntary tribute of dried fish?” Wang Heng couldn’t help but be a little curious. “What on earth did you do to leave such a deep psychological scar on it?”
“Amitabha,” the hamster put its little paws together, uttered a Buddhist chant, and sighed. “Sinful, sinful, it cannot be spoken.”
Wang Heng: “Alright, if it can’t be spoken, then don’t. Let me ask you first, you didn’t run out of the dorm today, did you?”
The hamster: “Why do you ask?”
“Because what Pei Ningle said to me today was a bit strange,” Wang Heng rubbed his chin with his other hand. “So I have a reasonable suspicion that it might have been influenced by something.”
The hamster tilted its little head. “How can you slander an innocent person out of thin air?”
Wang Heng stared at it for a long while, but he really couldn’t see anything suspicious. Of course, with this guy’s level of shamelessness, even if there really was something suspicious, he probably wouldn’t let him see it.
So he stated the method he had thought of on the subway. “Let’s set a rule from now on. You can manipulate me, whether it’s through threats, intimidation, or temptation, that’s fine. But there’s one thing: you absolutely cannot influence other people. Especially, you can’t communicate directly with other people. Just like you said at the beginning, you have to play the part of an honest and well-behaved hamster.”
“Cannot influence other people, like Pei Ningle and Han Yixuan?”
“Yes. You are a Spacetime Administrator and can foresee the worldlines that may come true in the future. If there’s an anomaly, just tell me and let me solve it. Since I am the key point of this current worldline, and also the owner of this body of yours, this request isn’t too much, is it?”
After Wang Heng finished speaking, he saw the hamster lying on the dried fish, its small eyes shifting, seemingly in thought.
After a long while, the hamster said, “Then you also have to agree to one condition of mine.”
Wang Heng: “What condition?”
The hamster raised its head to look at him, its tone becoming very serious. “The matter of you directly rejecting Pei Ningle today cannot happen a second time.”
“Alright!”
This “alright” was squeezed out through Wang Heng’s gritted teeth.
The fact that the hamster mentioned him rejecting Pei Ningle today was enough to prove that it had indeed contacted Pei Ningle. Otherwise, there would be no need to use it as a bargaining chip. And with it pulling strings behind his back like this, Wang Heng had no grasp of Pei Ningle’s movements at all, which was even more dangerous than letting her stay by his side.
The other party was in the dark while he was in the light—this was the most dangerous situation.
The hamster straightened up and said solemnly again, “Since this deal is established, and you’ve recognized your own job, then…”
“Wait!” Wang Heng quickly interrupted it. “What job do I have?”
The hamster: “Correcting the anomalies of the worldline.”
Wang Heng: “Isn’t that just my daily routine now?”
The hamster’s small mouth curled into what could be considered a smile. “You think it’s that simple? What you’re doing now is just lying low! Do you know why I’ve never used this running wheel in the cage?”
Wang Heng: “Why?”
The hamster: “Because I have things to do every night, and the amount of exercise is huge! Although you yourself are the biggest anomaly in this worldline, besides you, it’s not completely a pool of stagnant water.”
“But you’re just a mere hamster. How can you…” Wang Heng suddenly realized something, his eyes widening.
The hamster shrank back. “It seems you’ve already guessed how I correct the worldline?”
Wang Heng carried the cage and ran down from the rooftop, returning to his dormitory at the fastest speed. He sat back down at his desk, put the cage to one side, and opened his computer.
Then, he carefully checked the computer’s usage history.
If a mere hamster could stir up the world, then the only possibility was probably through the internet, right?
Sure enough, Wang Heng soon found many operations that were not his own in the yet-to-be-cleared history, and the operating time displayed by the computer system was all after three in the morning.
Imagine that scene: when the four boys in the dormitory were all fast asleep, a hamster would squeeze out of its cage and turn on the computer.
In the dead of night, a hamster would dance on the keyboard…
Wang Heng closed his laptop, carried the cage to the balcony, and closed the door between the balcony and the dormitory.
Then he asked in a low voice, “What on earth have you been doing with my computer?”
The hamster: “Many things. For example, last night I provided some inside information to the US federal intelligence agencies. This way, in a few more days, that Silk Road website will be taken down by the feds, just as you wished.”
Wang Heng: “But according to the original progress of the worldline, Silk Road should have been destroyed anyway!”
The hamster sighed. “So naive. Haven’t you realized yet? You are the source of the butterfly effect! From the moment you filled in your application for Rongdu and rejected Han Yixuan, you have already caused an endless stream of butterfly effects.”
“Butterfly effect…”
Wang Heng repeated the phrase, not because he needed an explanation. He knew very well what the so-called butterfly effect was.
In a sufficiently complex system, any tiny disturbance could cause huge changes, such as a butterfly flapping its wings causing a storm on the other side of the earth dozens of days later.
There were even more direct examples, such as the story that goes:
Because a horseshoe nail was lost, the horse’s hoof was broken; because of the horse’s hoof, the general fell; because the general fell and died on the battlefield, the war was lost; because of the failure of a war, the country was destroyed. Who would have thought that a single nail could destroy a country?
And the real world was even more complex. Countless factors were interlinked, and the complexity was simply beyond the comprehension of the human brain. An extremely small change, after being influenced by countless links, would produce a change that would affect the worldline…
At this moment, the hamster spoke again, “Since we’ve reached an agreement, then in the future, I’ll leave this kind of thing to you?”
