“Brother Sijin, I can finally talk with you again. Xiaona is truly so moved…”
Late at night, in a hotel near Bincheng University, Feng Na lay alone in bed, her slender arms desperately clutching a pillow.
On the white pillowcase was taped a photo of Gao Sijin, a freshly planted lipstick kiss mark lingering on its surface.
The brother she had once killed in a moment of impulse now stood before her eyes again. Although he was a brother from a parallel world, it didn’t matter. Memories could be inherited. As long as scientific means were used, humanity could reach any height they could imagine.
With her delicate little hand pressed against her pounding heart, Feng Na walked to the bathroom mirror. The cold shower had failed to extinguish the heat of her feverish body. This body had come into this world for a single purpose: to melt into Brother Sijin’s embrace, to blend as one, and to grasp happiness.
In this lifetime, she absolutely could not let him slip through her fingers again.
In this lifetime, she had to make sure Brother belonged to Sister Xiaohe and herself, forever.
“Ah, Brother, let me hold your body again, let me lick your skin again, touch your hair, kiss your lips, and then let’s become strange together.”
Once, she had killed her brother with a cleaver, believing he had become a playboy.
Her heart had been so chaotic back then. She fled her own country, evading the law, and went to North America to join a research team developing a conceptual model for a time machine.
To meet her brother again, she had truly paid an immense price, even staying awake for three days and three nights straight just to prove a single formula was valid.
Yet validating one formula only brought a cascade of even more insurmountable hurdles. At that time, many theories were still incomplete. For the scientists working on the time machine, it was akin to building a castle in the air.
However, their brains were all one-in-a-century gifts. To ultimately achieve success, North America initiated the Hibernation Plan. The most brilliant minds were placed into hibernation pods. Once certain theories matured, they would be awakened, passing the baton of wisdom down through the ages like a relay race.
Feng Na was one of those hibernators. She no longer had any attachments anyway. Her brother was dead. Even her sister, weeping over her brother’s death, had cried until she fainted and died. With that, this mortal world held nothing left worth lingering for. She resolutely entered a hibernation pod, hoping for the successful creation of the time machine so she could meet her long-lost brother and sister.
No matter what, Feng Na would not give up.
During the long sleep, many things happened. Even World War III broke out in 2036.
After the war ended, looking at the devastated lands, people became even more desperate to return to that still clean and peaceful era.
Nations formed a joint scientific coalition. The theories for the time machine gradually matured, and they even discovered the Parallel Worldline Theory.
Later, selected minds were gradually awakened and put to work on the theoretical development of the time machine.
By the time Feng Na awoke, one hundred and thirty years had passed. After awakening, she personally put the finishing touches on the time machine project and became an agent of the Time Management Bureau.
The Bureau could turn a blind eye to small-scale tampering with World Line causality. But if they found a Time Traveler going too far, it could affect other parallel worlds, leading to the destruction of those worlds and even their own. It was just like the Butterfly Effect.
For example, in one worldline, an advanced alien civilization with three suns invaded Earth, herding all humans to Australia and raising them like animals. Because of that specific worldline, some neighboring parallel worldlines also experienced invasions by other alien civilizations attempting to colonize Earth.
Thus, Feng Na came to the current worldline.
Her superiors ordered her to track down the true Time Traveler—whether an individual or a group. In this current worldline, there were many suspicious points, and the most suspicious person right now was none other than Tsukiyuki Rio.
However, Feng Na was no mere puppet of the organization. She had something she desperately wanted to do more: to be with Brother Sijin and Sister Xiaohe, and attain the little happiness that belonged to the three of them.
Inside her backpack was a Memory Implantation Device that could alter the memories within a person’s brain.
As long as she tampered with the memories of Brother Sijin in this worldline, he could achieve a complete “rebirth” in this timeline.
Taking out her phone, she opened the Penguin chat app. Gazing at Brother Sijin’s profile picture, Feng Na gently kissed the screen.
“I miss you so much…”
Chestnut Rice and Kamehameha: By the way, Brother Sijin, are you going to the coffee shop tomorrow?
Ai: Have you already gotten back to school?
Chestnut Rice and Kamehameha: Yep, back at school. Is Brother Sijin actually worrying about me?
Chestnut Rice and Kamehameha: So happy.
Ai: I won’t be going back to that coffee shop tomorrow. I should be going to the embassy. My trip to Tokyo has been moved up a week earlier than originally planned.
Ai: My girlfriend already found out that I was chatting idly with you at the coffee shop today. She’s furious, just short of flying back from abroad to beat me up.
Chestnut Rice and Kamehameha: Poor Brother Sijin…
Chestnut Rice and Kamehameha: Oh right, Brother Sijin, can I read yours? I can’t sleep alone right now, I want to read something nice.
Ai: Don’t read my book, don’t read it…
Ai: Do you know Reki Kawahara, the author of 《Sword Art Online》? He once said that showing someone your own work is as embarrassing as showing them your own asshole.
Chestnut Rice and Kamehameha: So vulgar.
Chestnut Rice and Kamehameha: But I like it (≧∇≦)ﾉ。
Chestnut Rice and Kamehameha: Let me admire Brother Sijin’s asshole real quick!
Chestnut Rice and Kamehameha: Lemme see.
Ai: No!
Chestnut Rice and Kamehameha: You can show yours to random strangers online, so why can’t you show me?
Ai: Streaking with a mask on your face and streaking with your face bare are two different concepts.
Chestnut Rice and Kamehameha: Brother Sijin, you’re such a miser.
She recalled back then, her brother had always hidden things from her, terrified she’d find out.
But eventually, she had secretly discovered his pen name—Bishop Myriel.
Bishop Myriel was the bishop in 《Les Misérables》 whose kindness granted Jean Valjean a rebirth. In reality, the character was based on Bishop Miollis. The image of Bishop Myriel was Victor Hugo’s own interpretation of benevolence.
Although her brother often verbally warned her not to be kind in this society—that, at least in contemporary times, kindness needed a little sharp edge—he himself still harbored an inner yearning for goodness.
She had found Gao Sijin’s pen name.
In the future, Brother Sijin would fall gravely ill while writing his fifth book.
After his death, readers would occasionally still come to “pay respects at his grave,” assuming the author had pulled a vanishing act, never knowing he had long since passed away.
She lay alone in the empty room, golden hair scattered messily across the bed, her bare, smooth body clutching the blanket tightly.
Sleeping alone really was so lonely…
Truly, she wanted to embrace him tightly, to cross that forbidden line. She didn’t simply want to be his sister-in-law. She wanted to share the same man with her sister.
Chestnut Rice and Kamehameha: Anyway, what’s Brother Sijin doing right now?
Ai: Playing a game.
Ai: If you want to chat, I’ll talk with you later.
Chestnut Rice and Kamehameha: Okay then.
Chestnut Rice and Kamehameha: Actually, right now I don’t just want to talk.
I want to melt into you, body and soul, my dearest Brother Sijin…
