The Disappearing Husband

You may not believe it, but I had a husband, and he suddenly disappeared. Except me, no one around him remembered him.

Everyone said that I had been single for too long and had gone crazy, thinking about someone who didn’t even exist.

My family also wanted to send me to a mental hospital, but I immediately said that I was mistaken, I don’t have a husband and I’m still single.

But only I know that I have a husband who loves me very much, and he disappeared.

1

My husband was originally an engineer in a state-owned enterprise and a graduate student of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. He is very gentle to me. He likes Gundam and fish farming, and he is planning to have a child with me after the New Year.

After he disappeared, all the Gundam robots on display at home also disappeared.

His personal belongings were gone, his company had no information about him, and even his good brothers didn’t recognize him.

I tried every possible way to find him for a long time, but to no avail.

No one knows my husband, and everyone thinks he is a figment of my imagination.

If I’m not crazy, then the world is crazy.

My cousin accompanied me to the hospital for a follow-up examination, and the doctor once again confirmed that I did not have schizophrenia. After being discharged from the hospital, I treated my cousin to milk tea.

My cousin who just graduated sat across from me, drinking the milk tea I bought for him, and said worriedly, “Cousin, do you know who you look like now?”

I shook my head.

“Like Lu Mingfei, his senior brother disappeared in the Nibelungen. No one in the world remembers his senior brother Chu Zihang, only Lu Mingfei remembers him.”

Nibelungen?

My heart skipped a beat. Could it be that my husband had really entered the Nibelungen?

Unexpectedly, my cousin laughed and said, “The real world is not a novel. Like the doctor said, you must have been single for too long and you are crazy about men. You have imagined a good husband for yourself.”

I retorted angrily. “I don’t have any illusions. His name is Li Zheng. He is a graduate student at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. He is my elementary school classmate. He earns 200,000 yuan a year and treats you well. He even bought you a Lynk & Co when you graduated.”

My cousin sighed. “Sister, Lynk & Co is a prize I won at my company’s annual meeting.”

Everything related to my husband has been changed to another form.

I sighed. “What if what I said is true?” “That would be crazy.”

“Cousin, why don’t I introduce you to a handsome guy who is also a graduate student.”

“roll.”

I clearly remember the night Li Zheng disappeared. He went to bed early, which was unusual for him, and said he was not feeling well. I poured him a cup of hot water but he didn’t drink it. When he woke up, Li Zheng was gone.

I wanted to contact Li Zheng, but found that there was no Li Zheng’s WeChat or phone number. The photos of Li Zheng and I were gone, and all the things related to Li Zheng in the house disappeared.

I realized the seriousness of the matter and quickly called my mother to ask her if she knew where Li Zheng had gone.

But everyone asked me back, “Li Zheng? Who is Li Zheng?” In the first few days after Li Zheng disappeared, I searched for him like crazy all over the world, even hiring hackers who were good at human flesh search.

It turned out that there was no such person. It was as if Li Zheng had never appeared in this world.

There was news about the space-time storm on TV.

One expert said such storms could cause parallel out-of-control storms to connect in an instant.

I don’t have time for the bullshit on TV.

In the eyes of other people today, I have never been married and am still single. Except for the absence of Li Zheng in my life, the general trend of my life is the same as before.

Gradually, seeing that everyone around me was so sure, I also began to suspect that I had been sick before and had imagined a husband.

But how could the fantasy be so real? I decided to go out and relax. So after returning home with my cousin, I told him that I was going to travel for a few days.

My cousin asked me curiously where I was going. “Western Sichuan, Yunnan, Qinghai are all fine. Anyway, I don’t want to stay here. Wherever I go, there are traces of Li Zheng.”

My cousin asked me worriedly, “Sister, can you make it in your current mental state?”

“As long as you don’t tell my mom, it’s okay.” My cousin nodded thoughtfully.

“The TV said there’s a sudden change in time and space storm, so remember to bring an umbrella when you go out.”

I was speechless for a moment: “It’s not like it will rain in a space-time storm.”

My cousin said with certainty, “It will definitely rain in the space-time storm.”

I’m too lazy to talk nonsense with my cousin.

On the surface, I was going out to relax and travel, but in fact, I was planning to go to Deyang, Sichuan, which is my hometown and where Li Zheng and I met.

I want to go to the place where I used to be and find out why Li Zheng disappeared.

Li Zheng and I met when we were children. Because my parents were transferred to work, I followed them to a primary school in Deyang.

As soon as I moved there, I met Li Zheng who lived opposite me. Not only did we become neighbors, we were also classmates.

Li Zheng was an extrovert when he was a child. I still remember that when I first arrived in the elementary school class, I didn’t dare to talk much.

Only Li Zheng was willing to take me to play with other children of the same age.

To me, Li Zheng was an angel when he was little. I naturally fell in love with him, and it was natural for us to get married.

If this is really a fantasy, did I imagine that I like Li Zheng since I was very young? Too many mysteries bother me, and I plan to go to Deyang to find out.

My cousin sent me to the high-speed railway station, and as soon as I got on the train, my mother called me. When I heard the news on the phone, my heart sank instantly.

My mother said that when we first moved to Deyang, there was indeed a child named Li Zheng next door. But that was before we moved to Deyang, and the child committed suicide by drinking pesticides, and our neighbors also moved away.

Logically speaking, I have never met Li Zhengcai. Why would I have such fantasies about someone I have never met? I went to Deyang with doubts.

The speed of high-speed trains is really fast now. I arrived at Deyang Railway Station in a few hours. Looking at the familiar scenery outside and thinking about the little things that happened here with Li Zheng, I couldn’t help but feel sad.

If Li Zheng really died at a very young age, then who was the person who grew up with me and got married to me in my memory?

To be honest, there was a moment when I really believed that there was a parallel world in the world. In that parallel world, Li Zheng and I were childhood sweethearts, got married, and lived a very sweet life. When I was hungry and wanted to have a midnight snack at night, Li Zheng would immediately go out to buy it for me. When we were in love, we were in different places, and Li Zheng would take a train for more than ten hours every week to see me.

Everything seemed so real back then, yet now it seems so unreal.

After I arrived in Deyang, I rushed to my childhood home. My family sold the house in Deyang when I was in high school, and I have never been back since then. Today, I returned to my hometown with a lot of emotion in my heart.

Everything is so familiar, yet so strange.

2

The small city has not changed much. Although I have been away from Deyang for so long, the scenery here remains the same. Relying on my childhood memories, I quickly found my previous residence. This is where Li Zheng and I met.

Cicadas are chirping in the old neighborhood. Looking at the familiar residence in my memory, I feel filled with emotion.

The owner of the grocery store downstairs looks familiar. She is my aunt from childhood, but now she has some gray hair.

My aunt has been selling things here for a long time, so she should know about Li Zheng’s family situation.

I walked over and pretended to buy something, and asked my aunt at the same time.

“Auntie, I want to ask you something. Do you remember the Li family who lived on the third floor above us seventeen years ago? One of their children committed suicide by drinking pesticides.”

The aunt didn’t expect me to ask this. She asked me warily if I was a police officer.

I said I was their relative and I hadn’t been in touch with them for a long time and I didn’t know where they lived now.

Fortunately, my aunt wasn’t that wary. She thought about it and responded.

“I remember a kid upstairs drank pesticide and committed suicide. His parents were very sad to be left here, so they moved to xx neighborhood. I don’t know if they are still there now, but the dry goods seller next door knows their family. You can go ask them.”

Then I asked the boss who sells dried goods about where Li Zheng’s parents live now. I heard that Li Zheng committed suicide without any warning. He was only seven years old and drank pesticide for unknown reasons. Li Zheng’s parents were heartbroken and finally moved away.

The grocery store owner was also kind enough to tell me the specific address of Li Zheng’s parents.

After figuring out the general situation, I decided to visit Li Zheng’s parents.

On the way there, I secretly planned in my mind that I must not tell others that Li Zheng and I were married, otherwise it might scare the two old people.

But when I really arrived at Li Zheng’s parents’ house, I started to get timid again, wondering whether I should go in or not.

Unexpectedly, a young man saw me standing at the door and asked me who I was looking for in a curious manner.

I was stunned when I saw the young man’s appearance. The young man in front of me was very similar to Li Zheng in my memory, with thick eyebrows, big eyes and thin lips, but that was just the similarity.

I said I came to visit Uncle Li.

The young man welcomed me into the house with a smile. As soon as I entered, my parents-in-law from my memory came up to me and looked at me curiously.

The young man explained that he met me at the door and said that I came to see them.

I accidentally saw a portrait placed in the corner of the room. In the black and white photo, the young Li Zheng was smiling sweetly.

My heart felt like it was struck by lightning and my head was buzzing. The Li Zheng in the black and white photo in front of me was exactly the same as the Li Zheng in my memory.

If everything I had before was just fantasy, why was my imagination exactly the same as the real Li Zheng?

According to my mother, I should have never met Li Zheng’s family. They moved away after we moved to Deyang.

Uncle Li and Aunt Li saw me standing there in a daze and kept asking me what was wrong.

I really wanted to tell them all that Li Zheng and I were married, but I was worried that the two old people would treat me like a lunatic and kick me out.

I could only use the excuse that I was Li Zheng’s elementary school classmate and come to see Li Zheng.

The two old men’s expressions suddenly looked a little sad. They quickly asked me to sit anywhere and invited me to have lunch. They talked to me a lot about Li Zheng.

It turns out that the boy with eyes and eyebrows like Li Zheng is Li Zheng’s younger brother. After Li Zheng passed away, the two old people had another child.

They named the young man Li Yizheng.

The two of them also told me what happened seventeen years ago.

The night before Li Zheng committed suicide by taking poison, he talked a lot with his parents.

The two elderly people felt that Li Zheng’s conversation and behavior that day were like those of an adult, which was completely inconsistent with their impression of Li Zheng.

They thought that Li Zheng must have been possessed by an unclean thing. After Li Zheng committed suicide, Uncle Li even found a Taoist priest to exorcise the evil spirit.

Looking at the statues enshrined in the room, it was obvious that Li Zheng’s departure had dealt a heavy blow to the two elders.

Li Zheng’s departure remains a mystery to this day, and I couldn’t find any useful information from the two old people, so after lunch, I left the Li family.

But at least I know from the Li family that the child in the photo is Li Zheng when he was a child.

Before I had time to think carefully about the relationship, Li Yi Zheng chased me out unexpectedly.

He said he had something for me, and I took it with confusion. It was a framed painting.

“This is my brother’s relic.” said Li Yizhen.

I took the painting and took a look at it. My head suddenly buzzed, like a bolt from the blue. I felt that nothing was real.

The painting was a sketch, and the woman in the sketch was exactly what I looked like when I got married.

At that moment my heart skipped a beat and it took me a long time to come back to my senses.

“The person in the painting looks a lot like you. You and my brother are more than just elementary school classmates, right?”

Li Yizheng asked me, and I was trembling all over, not knowing whether I should tell Li Yizheng what happened to me.

Will he believe what I say?

But at this moment, I don’t know who to talk to.

Young Li Yizheng saw that I was hesitant to speak.

“Just say whatever you want to say.”

Perhaps because he and Li Zheng are brothers, I did not hide it anymore and told Li Yizheng all the stories of how Li Zheng and I had known each other since we were young, became childhood sweethearts, dated in college, and finally got married. However, Li Zheng disappeared not long ago.

Li Yizhen was in a daze throughout the whole process.

You can see that he is a little unconvinced.

Yes, if I heard such a thing, I would naturally not believe it.

But Li Yi Zheng thought about it for a long time, and suddenly he said in a decisive tone.

“Sister-in-law, I believe you and my brother were married.”

It was the first time in a long time that someone trusted me, and tears came to my eyes for no reason.

“Otherwise my brother would never have been able to draw you getting married.”

Li Yizhen pointed at the painting and added.

I looked at the painting in my hand.

It is precisely because of this painting that I was proven not to be delusional.

My husband really exists.

I’m not crazy.

The emotions that had been suppressed for a long time were finally released. Regardless of my loss of composure, I couldn’t help crying in front of Li Yizheng.

“If the Li Zheng in your memory is the same person as my brother, then is he faking his death?”

Li Yizheng asked at a loss.

A child who had been dead for 17 years married me and then mysteriously disappeared. No one knew him except me. It didn’t make sense no matter how I thought about it.

I wiped away my tears.

“We have to find out the cause of Li Zheng’s death first. Li Zheng committed suicide when he was young, and my husband disappeared. There must be a connection between the two.”

Li Yizheng also nodded thoughtfully.

But there is no clue at the moment.

I can only find a place to stay in Deyang first.

Li Yizhen and I exchanged phone numbers so that we could notify each other if we found anything. From our conversation, I also learned that Li Yizhen is now a freshman in college and that he was born two years after Li Zheng committed suicide.

At night, I was alone in Deyang Hotel, looking at the painting that Li Yizhen gave me, and fell into deep thought.

In the painting, I am wearing a white wedding dress, exactly how I looked when I got married.

It is amazing that seven-year-old Li Zheng can draw such exquisite sketches.

What happened that made Li Zheng commit suicide seventeen years ago?

And also drew my appearance.

The more I thought about it, the weirder it felt. Finally, sleepiness came over me and I fell into a deep sleep.

In my dream I seemed to see Li Zheng, he proposed to me in a black suit.

But gradually I couldn’t see his face clearly.

Li Zheng disappeared in front of me out of thin air.

I broke out in a cold sweat and woke up to find it was the middle of the night.

The lights outside were bright. I used to like having nightmares, but with Li Zheng by my side, I felt safe every time I woke up.

But Li Zheng is not around now.

I got up and drank some water but couldn’t fall asleep.

I continued to look at the sketch, sitting alone in the hotel until dawn.

The first ray of sunlight in the morning shone through the gap in the hotel curtains, illuminating the sketch in my hand.

3

Since I was alone in the room and it was so quiet around me, I turned on the TV in the room with a nervous heart, and there was at least a little more sound in the room.

There seemed to be a science and education channel on TV, which was explaining something about space-time storms, but I was not interested in it.

I just vaguely heard the host on TV saying that this year’s space-time storm will erupt twice in a row.

And the time interval between the two times was only three days.

But this has nothing to do with me. Looking at the painting in my hand and thinking of every little thing with Li Zheng, I feel very sad.

This painting is enough to prove that everything that happened between Li Zheng and I was very likely true.

But where did Li Zheng go?

Did Li Zheng really die when he was a child?

Who is the Li Zheng in my memory?

Countless questions surround my mind.

I sat like this until dawn.

The first ray of sunlight in the morning shone through the gap in the hotel curtains, illuminating the sketch in my hand.

In the bright sunlight, I saw a long string of numbers and symbols where the eyes should be in the painting.

I couldn’t see it clearly before because it was too dark, and only with the help of sunlight could I see the details of the painting.

I quickly picked up the magnifying glass of my phone and carefully observed the string of characters.

It appears to be a string of URLs.

This was a surprising discovery. I quickly took a piece of paper and a pen and carefully wrote down the list of websites.

However, judging from the domain name, it should be a very old website. I don’t know if it is still there.

I tried to log in using my computer, and after the browser rotated for a moment, I entered the website.

I was able to log in, but the page was very stuck. It must be because the website version is too old.

After entering the website, the background is pitch black, and a series of white symbols are arranged from top to bottom, which looks like mathematical formulas.

A string of soft music sounded.

Listen carefully, it’s Jay Chou’s “Sea of ​​Flowers”.

That’s my favorite song.

When “Capricorn” was released, it happened to be the time when Li Zheng and I met. We were still in elementary school at the time and we loved this song very much. We would listen to it together on MP3 on the way home from school.

Knowing that I like Jay Chou the most, Li Zheng sang “Sea of ​​Flowers” when he proposed to me.

Memories are so real, yet so unreal.

The prelude sounded, Jay Chou started singing, and I got goosebumps all over my body.

“Still, all the flowers bloom.”

Accompanied by the music of “Sea of ​​Flowers”, I browsed the webpage carefully. However, there were a lot of data on the website that I couldn’t understand. I tried to copy some data and then search online, but found that most of the formulas on most websites were related to space-time matrices.

“Space-time matrix?” This is the first time I’ve seen this term.

Just when I was curious, the hotel’s landline phone suddenly rang, which scared me. It was the first time I received a call in a hotel.

Confused, I walked to the phone, picked up the receiver, and asked politely, “Hello?”

“Hello, ma’am. Security has seen naked men in the hotel. It is best not to go out unless necessary. If you hear any knocks on the door, please do not open it casually. Thank you for your cooperation.”

“Okay, thank you.” I hung up the phone speechlessly. Naked man?

Could it be that a pervert broke into the hotel?

These days, there are all kinds of weird and abnormal things.

But this has nothing to do with me. I sat back at my computer desk and carefully observed the content on the web page.

The data on the website is very rigorous. Could it be that this was also written by Li Zheng?

It is surprising enough that a seven-year-old child can draw such a beautiful sketch, but it is hard to imagine that he can also write such advanced formulas.

Just as I was thinking about it, there was suddenly a noise in the toilet, like someone walking, the sound was very faint.

I stood up in horror. Could someone have gotten in?

I carefully took out the pepper spray from my bag, took off my shoes, and tiptoed towards the toilet to avoid making any noise and alerting the enemy.

When the bathroom door opened, I was horrified to find a dark shadow reflected on the ground crawling in the bathroom. Yes, there was someone in the bathroom!

I was about to rush in with the spray in my hand, but unexpectedly a knife stretched out from the toilet and was placed accurately on my neck.

My hair stood on end, my whole body stiffened, my heart skipped a beat, and I felt a strong sense of unreality.

I stared at the knife in fear. A man in a bath towel walked out of the bathroom slowly, holding a knife. His face was covered with scars and burns, and his eyes were dark and murderous, like a man walking out of war.

Without the towel, he would have been clearly naked.

Could this be the naked man who sneaked into the hotel? He climbed in through the toilet window, and I was unlucky enough to run into him?

“Zhao Rui?” The man asked me word by word in a deep voice.

I didn’t know why the man knew my name, and I nodded nervously, but my thumb was pressing on the pepper spray and button.

The man didn’t say anything, but I could clearly feel the murderous intent in his eyes. He slowly raised the knife.

While the man was raising the knife, I quickly picked up the spray and pressed it towards the man’s eyes.

There was a hissing sound, and the man yelled, stabbing the wall behind me with the sharp knife in his hand. I took the opportunity to rush out the door, quickly opened it and shouted, “Help! Someone is killing me!!!”

“Help!!!”

I ran and shouted in the corridor, and soon a group of security guards rushed up to me. When they saw me, they asked anxiously, “Ma’am, are you okay?!”

I quickly told them that a naked man broke into my room and tried to stab me with a knife. The security guards immediately protected me, and I took them back to my room to catch the guy.

However, after returning to the room, the man was gone. The security guards checked the room and found that he had climbed up along the water pipe. Maybe after I escaped, the man escaped out of the window again. The hotel apologized to me, promised to cooperate with the police to find the naked man, and was willing to give me compensation.

I didn’t care about the compensation. What puzzled me was that this man knew my name and seemed to be coming for me. Moreover, the sketch on the table was missing. I searched the entire room but couldn’t find it. Could it be that he took it away?

Why did the naked man know my name? Did he see the list of residents living downstairs?

But I asked the hotel manager and he said the naked man had never been at the front desk, so he had no chance of touching the guest list.

But why did the naked man come to me? It seemed like he came to me on purpose.

Before one problem is solved, another one arises. I haven’t figured out what happened to Li Zheng yet, but then a man suddenly appears out of nowhere to try to assassinate me.

I was still in shock. This hotel was not a good place to stay. I wanted to find another one, but my sixth sense told me that the man might come to see me again.

I don’t know anyone in Deyang.

It’s strange that I suddenly thought of Li Yizhen for some reason.

Maybe it was because he was Li Zheng’s younger brother, or maybe he was the first person who believed in me, anyway, I thought of him inexplicably.

I decided to call Li Yizheng.

After the call was connected, I told Li Yizhen what happened in the hotel.

4

Li Yizhen came to see me as expected.

Seeing his face that was 80% similar to Li Zheng, the moment I saw Li Yi Zheng, I felt more at ease and breathed a sigh of relief. However, Li Yi Zheng asked me directly, “Do you know what that person looks like?”

“The hotel has handed over the surveillance footage to the police station. The man’s face is covered with scars,” I told Li Yizhen.

Li Yizheng replied: “My friend is a policeman, he will tell me if there is any progress.”

“Thank you.” I didn’t expect Li Yi Zheng to help me so wholeheartedly, which made me somewhat touched.

“It’s getting late. Let me take you to eat X Ji Dry Pot. People in Deyang love it. If you go late, you’ll have to queue.”

I didn’t refuse, and I was hungry besides. However, while I was having dinner with Li Yizhen, he received a phone call and then told me with a serious expression.

“My friend told me that they found the man’s specific information from the Deyang police system, but…” Li Yizheng hesitated for a moment, as if considering whether to tell me or not.

Seeing my anxious look, Li Yizhen finally made up his mind.

“Through a DNA match within the police system, it was confirmed that the person who was chasing you had died seventeen years ago.”

“Dead?!” I almost spit out the Coke I just drank.

The person who died seventeen years ago is now hunting me?

Another seventeen years passed.

I vaguely felt that the person who came might be related to Li Zheng.

“Can you help me get the death record of that person? I always feel that it is related to Li Zheng’s death.” I asked uncertainly.

“This is difficult.” Li Yizheng looked embarrassed.

I sighed.

“But I guess the police must be more curious than you about why that person came back to life. Why don’t we go to the police station and find out the truth.” Li Yizheng said with certainty.

My husband, who was forgotten by the whole world, and the man who died seventeen years ago, is hunting me down.

I felt my head buzzing. Everything seemed like a novel. Li Yizheng quickly comforted me: “Sister-in-law, don’t think too much. It’s possible that the police made a mistake.”

I didn’t expect that Li Yi Zheng really treats me as his sister-in-law. He may be the only one in the world who trusts me.

Although the dry pot smelled delicious, I couldn’t eat any more. I said to Li Yizheng, I wanted to go to the police station.

A family of three sat next to me. The child was eating chicken wings and asked his father in a childish voice, “Dad, why was there a round lightning in the sky this morning?”

“That’s ball lightning. When you grow up, you should be a scientist and study why ball lightning occurs,” explained the middle-aged man.

“But I want to be a star and a host and make a lot of money.” The child answered in a baby voice.

But I suddenly thought of Li Zheng.

If nothing goes wrong, I originally wanted to have a baby with Li Zheng this year.

But…….

It started to drizzle. The weather forecast showed that it would rain for the next three days. My cousin was right. It would really rain during this period. Many pedestrians on the road were hurriedly looking for places to shelter from the rain.

Li Yizhen and I rushed to the police station. Li Yizhen had already made arrangements with his friends before we went there. The police also felt that the person who attacked me was strange and wanted to ask me for the specific reasons and learn some details.

“Ms. Zhao Rui, I would like to ask, are you sure that this is the man who attacked you?” After arriving at the police station, the police showed me a photo of the attacker.

The man had scars all over his face and was of a burly build. He was definitely the one who attacked me in the hotel.

“The attacker’s DNA is an exact match to an unidentified body found within the police system 17 years ago. We can’t find any social information about that body, and there is no such person in the national police system.” The policeman told me straight to the point.

“Clone?” Li Yizheng suddenly asked.

“Or there is something wrong with your police system. How else can you explain this person’s origin?” Li Yizhen seemed to be certain that the attacker was a clone.

I think Li Yizhen is right. With the same DNA, what else could they be but clones?

But why are you coming to me?

“No matter who he is, even if he is a wandering ghost who has been dead for seventeen years, you have to trust the police. We will catch him and interrogate him thoroughly!” said the police confidently.

5

“Can we see the cause of death?” I asked the police. Although Li Yizhen guessed that the person who attacked me was a clone, I didn’t think there would be such a mysterious thing in the world.

Clones? Reality is not Blade Runner.

Perhaps because of Li Yizhen, the police did not refuse and were willing to show me the cause of the man’s death.

They handed me a file which was taken with a mobile phone. It contained a photo of the deceased and allowed me to clearly see his appearance.

The dead man in the photo had a face full of scars, exactly like the man who assassinated me.

My heart tightened. Could it be that clones really exist?

The forensic report showed that the cause of death was sudden death. The case file showed that when the deceased was found, all his fingernails and hair had fallen off, and the muscle tissue inside his body was severely decayed, which was found to be related to sudden death.

Is it really a clone?

I’ve read in the news that only cloned humans’ body tissues would age quickly and be prone to sudden death.

But how could I possibly provoke a clone? Everything was like a fog that troubled me.

Seeing my worried expression, the police from the police station assured me that they would catch the attacker as soon as possible and asked me to pay attention to my own safety during this period. Since I had learned relevant information about the attacker from the police station, there was no point in staying any longer, so Li Yizheng and I left the police station.

On the way, I curiously asked Li Yizheng: “You are not that old, how come you know someone from the police station?”

“When I was a freshman, I was brave enough to help someone. The girl I saved had a father who was a policeman, so I became familiar with the police over time.”

I didn’t expect Li Zheng’s younger brother to be such a brave child.

I couldn’t help but praise Li Yizheng: “You are as brave as your brother. I remember one time when your brother and I went to Qinghai, a child drowned on the road, and your brother jumped into the water to save him without hesitation.”

“Oh?” Li Yizheng said with a smile, “It’s strange, I always feel that this is something my brother would do.”

I burst out laughing. This person was so familiar to me in my memory, but he died seventeen years ago and did not exist in anyone’s memory.

Not wanting to dwell on these sad things, I asked Li Yizheng with a smile, “So the girl you saved is about your age?”

Li Yizheng replied with some pride: “She is my girlfriend now. She went to the same university as me.”

“Which university?” I asked curiously.

“University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.”

After Li Yizheng finished speaking, he suddenly remembered something and hurriedly said to me, “I almost forgot about sister-in-law. My tutor has a class today and I have to go back quickly, otherwise I will definitely fail the space-time matrix course I took this year!” (The space-time matrix is ​​purely fictional. Don’t ask the TVU teachers. They have many talented people.)

Spacetime, Matrix?

But I thought of the densely packed formulas on the website, which seemed to be related to the space-time matrix.

“It’s a side subject of physics. It’s said to be the first one created by our professor. It’s an unpopular subject. I’ll get some credits.” Li Yizheng looked at me a little worriedly. “Why don’t you sit in the police station for a while? It’s safe there. I’ll come back to Deyang to find you in the evening.”

“I’ll go to school with you.” I said firmly.

“Ah?” Li Yizheng was a little surprised.

I told Li Yi Zheng about the URL I found in the sketch. I cannot let go of any related matter. I must investigate the reason for my husband’s disappearance.

Li Yizheng asked in surprise: “There is a space-time matrix formula on a website from 17 years ago? Impossible. Our instructor said that he developed the space-time matrix himself eight years ago. Could it be that the instructor plagiarized academic research?”

Seeing that Li Yi Zheng didn’t believe it, I entered the URL on my phone based on my memory, and soon the website appeared.

Li Yizheng took my phone, took a look at it, and then his eyes widened and he said, “Sister-in-law, this… the content here is very similar to some of the formulas our professor taught us.”

“What’s going on?” Li Yizhen and I looked at each other.

Li Yizheng shook his head and added, “I guess the instructor must know the meaning of these formulas.”

The two of us decided to go to the Qingshuihe campus of HKUST together to find out the truth.

I took an intercity minibus to Chengdu with Li Yizheng. On the way, Li Yizheng called his tutor, wanting to ask him questions in advance, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t get through to his tutor.

“I can’t get through.” Li Yizheng said. He muttered to himself in a strange way, “Could it be that the instructor is taking a nap?”

Just as he finished speaking, his cell phone suddenly rang. I glanced and saw “Guai Guai” on it. I thought it must be Li Yizhen’s girlfriend.

“Baby! It’s so scary! We saw a naked man stabbing a teacher in the office and then jumping off the building to commit suicide!!! Now the two bodies are still in our school, it’s so scary!!!”

A very loud female voice, I could hear it clearly even without the speaker turned on.

“Naked man?” Li Yizhen and I looked at each other strangely, and I immediately thought of the scarred man who was chasing me.

What’s going on? Why is there another naked man?!

“Are you in school? We’ll be there right away!!!” Li Yizheng said anxiously.

As soon as I finished speaking, the minibus braked suddenly, my body leaned forward suddenly, the passengers in the car cursed, and I quickly looked forward.

It was drizzling. Looking out from the windshield, I saw a naked woman standing there holding a knife. She was naked and looking quietly into the car. Her body was covered with scars, and raindrops were dripping from the tip of the knife.

“Are you crazy? Not wearing clothes in broad daylight!” the other people in the car shouted.

“Could it be a woman being abused nearby? Call the police quickly!” Someone was concerned about the woman outside.

The driver also opened the window and shouted angrily: “Are you going to die?!”

The woman looked exactly like the man I saw in the bathroom today. Her eyes were full of murderous intent, and just one glance at her was enough to make people feel creepy.

She didn’t say anything, but walked slowly towards the minibus.

“Master! Drive! She is not a good person.” I said nervously. Unexpectedly, the woman suddenly jumped to the right. Before we could react, there was a roar behind the car, and then I felt the minibus being hit violently.

A car slammed straight into the minibus we were riding in.

I just felt the minibus spun several times on the road and then hit the guardrail on the side of the road hard before stopping. The violent impact made me dizzy. I just felt a black screen in front of my eyes and lost consciousness in an instant.

6

When I woke up again, I found myself lying on a hospital bed.

Li Yizhen was sitting on the side. When he saw me wake up, he quickly stood up.

“You’re fine. The doctor said you were too frightened and overworked recently, which is why you fell into a coma.”

I nodded. Apart from feeling a little dizzy, I didn’t feel any discomfort anywhere else in my body.

“What happened just now?” I asked curiously, not knowing why I was in the hospital again.

“After the car accident, a fire truck happened to pass by and a group of firefighters rescued us,” Li Yizhen replied.

“What about the naked woman?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see her after I got out of the minibus. Maybe the fire truck passed by, so the vehicle that caused the accident fled. The police found out through Sky Eye that the perpetrator was most likely the naked man who attacked you, and the naked woman took advantage of the chaos to get into his car and escape.”

It was obvious that the car accident was aimed at me.

Li Yizheng took out his phone and said to me, “And just now my roommate sent me a message saying that the teacher who was attacked at school was my teacher of the Space-Time Matrix course and is now confirmed dead.”

The person who died was actually Li Yizhen’s mentor?

Why was he attacked when we were going to find the mentor?!

Naked man, naked woman, space-time matrix teacher. All of these seem to be connected, but I can’t figure out what the connection is.

“During the time you were in a coma, I sorted out the lessons that my instructor had taught me, and I made a new discovery. Our previous research direction was wrong. The naked man and the naked woman are not clones.”

Li Yizheng handed me a notebook while speaking.

There are a lot of things written down in the notebook, but to be honest I can’t understand them.

“Um, can you explain why you guess that?” I asked quickly.

“The space-time matrix formula shows that if you want to achieve material travel, you have to distinguish organic matter, which is related to the formula for carbon-containing substances. Because I’m not very good at chemistry, I only understood half of it at the time. I just asked an old classmate to help me convert the formula. In other words, if you want to achieve material travel, you can only be naked and can’t carry anything else on your body.”

I only understood one useful piece of information from Li Yizheng’s long speech.

To achieve the time travel, you have to be naked.

Naked? Naked women? Naked men?

Could it be that the person who attacked me came from across time and space?

Li Yizheng took out his phone again and said, “This is the message that the instructor sent in the group chat this afternoon. I think it might be useful.”

I took the phone and saw a message for everyone in the group:

Space-time storms are hard to come by, so students should come to class early in the afternoon to study whether the space-time storm can connect to the nearest space-time storm!

“Our mentor believes that during the outbreak of the space-time storm, it is possible to connect with space-time storms at other times, and perhaps use it to travel through time and space.” Li Yizhen said seriously.

If it weren’t for the strange things that happened during this period, I would definitely think that Li Yizhen was talking nonsense.

Time travel? How is this possible?!

Li Yizheng took out his phone while speaking. After a moment, he raised his phone and said, “I looked up the time of the recent space-time storm outbreaks on the Internet.”

I stared at the phone screen in confusion, and it showed the year 2005.

“Seventeen years ago.” Li Yizhen and I said in unison.

7

All clues point to seventeen years ago.

Li Yizheng thought for a moment and deduced, “Sister-in-law, I think the naked man who died seventeen years ago is very likely the one who attacked you today. Maybe he attacked you to no avail, and traveled back to seventeen years ago with the help of the time-space storm, but died for some unknown reason.”

Li Yizhen’s speculation is not without reason. It is currently the most reasonable explanation for why the naked man who attacked me was found dead seventeen years ago.

I had never thought about this situation before, but Li Yizhen made this decision based on a few formulas.

Li Yizheng is only fifteen years old now. It is true that it takes less brain cells to do things with smart people. Thinking of his age, I asked curiously, “Why are you a freshman at the age of fifteen?”

Li Yizhen scratched his head shyly: “I skipped a grade in junior high school and high school, so I went to college relatively early.”

Well, I don’t understand the world of academic elites, but Li Yizhen seems a little too anxious.

“If your inference is correct, can we also go back to the past through the time storm to save Li Zheng?” I asked excitedly.

“According to my instructor’s inference, this method may be feasible! But I don’t know how to implement it specifically. Maybe there are relevant records in my instructor’s computer.” Li Yizhen also answered excitedly.

“If we can travel through time and space to save your brother! Wouldn’t that prove that I don’t have hysteria?”

Li Yizheng also nodded excitedly: “Yes! If I can save my brother, then I will definitely…”

Li Yizheng suddenly thought of something, he looked at me and said, “If that’s the case, I wouldn’t have been born?!”

My heart skipped a beat. Yes, if Li Zheng hadn’t died, my parents-in-law wouldn’t have been sad, and they wouldn’t have had a second child. In that case, Li Yi Zheng would never have been born!

I felt a tightness in my chest, and an indescribable emotion rose up.

But if I hadn’t gone back to save Li Zheng, he would have died seventeen years ago.

I looked at Li Yi Zheng with a complicated expression.

Li Yizheng was also looking at me with a frown at this time.

To me, Li Zheng is real, and Li Yi Zheng is also real.

But because of Li Yi Zheng, I had to give up the opportunity to save Li Zheng, but I was unwilling to do so.

There is clearly a chance to save Li Zheng now.

Li Yizheng obviously figured this out. He looked at me, his lips moved slightly, and he finally spoke: “I was born because of my brother’s death. Since I was a child, many people around me have said that I look like my brother. They say that I am as smart as my brother.”

Li Yizheng stood up, walked to the window, and looked down. I didn’t know what he was thinking. Li Yizheng continued, “I am full of curiosity about my brother. I want to know what kind of person he is, but everyone treats me as a substitute for my brother. Even my name is to commemorate my brother.”

I could hear Li Yi Zheng complaining in his heart, but I said nothing. If I save Li Zheng and prevent him from being born smoothly, wouldn’t I be exchanging my life for another’s?

Li Yizheng looked back at me and said, “I have a girlfriend now. If I disappear because I go back to save my brother, sister-in-law, do you think my girlfriend will forget me? Can she remember my brother like you do and never forget me?”

Li Yizheng paused and said, “Even if the whole world forgets me, will she remember me? Will she search for my whereabouts all over the world?”

I remained silent. Even if the whole world forgot about Li Zheng, he would always be in my heart.

But if I could really go back and save Li Zheng, I couldn’t sacrifice Li Yi Zheng.

“Go away, I want some quiet time.” I pushed Li Yi Zheng away, wanting to think carefully by myself.

Li Yizheng looked at me, his lips moved, but he didn’t say anything in the end. There was a loud thunder outside the window, and raindrops hit the window.

Li Yizheng said nothing, turned around and left the room.

Yes, Li Yizhen has a girlfriend, and he is an irreplaceable boy for other girls.

But my boy stayed seventeen years ago.

I walked out of the hospital without an umbrella, letting the raindrops hit my face.

I stood by the Mianyuan River, looking at the raindrops gently hitting the surface of the river.

When Li Zheng and I were young, we would always walk slowly along the Mianyuan River back home after school.

Fortunately, a trip to Deyang made me realize that the boy I loved really existed and the boy in my memory was not just a figment of my imagination.

I took out my headphones, found Jay Chou’s “Sea of ​​Flowers”, looked at the flowing river, and listened to the clear melody.

“I don’t want you to leave. Distance can’t separate us.”

I seemed to see Li Zheng singing this song to me at the wedding again.

“My longing turns into the sea…”

I smiled bitterly.

I remembered the first time Li Zheng confessed to me on campus.

I remembered Li Zheng’s bright smile.

I remembered how embarrassed Li Zheng felt when he saw my parents.

I remember the first time Li Zheng kissed my face.

I touched my face. The rain was cold on my face. I couldn’t tell whether it was tears or rain falling down my cheeks.

Why do I still have the memory of marrying him even though he died seventeen years ago?

Why does my heart ache when I think of him?

Why?

“Love songs are defeated, love no longer exists.”

Li Zheng, what should I do?

I can’t let your brother go just to save you.

At this moment, I finally understood the meaning of the space-time paradox.

If you want to change time and space, you will always lose something.

8

I went to my father-in-law and mother-in-law’s house again. They seemed surprised to see me coming for the second time, but they didn’t ask much.

Li Yizheng was not at home either. No one knew where he had gone. Only his parents-in-law were there.

My father-in-law poured me a cup of hot tea, and my mother-in-law asked me enthusiastically, “Although you and Li Zheng were elementary school classmates, you still come to visit her after such a long time. You must have had a very close relationship with Li Zheng when you were young, right?”

I want to say that it was not just when we were children, he grew up and even married me.

Of course I didn’t say this out loud, for fear that my mother-in-law would think I was crazy.

My mother-in-law looked at me. The expression she gave me made me feel uneasy. I was very familiar with this expression. I remembered that she looked at me in the same way when Li Zheng first brought me home.

According to Li Zheng, this is the expression a woman has when she looks at her daughter-in-law.

And now my mother-in-law is looking at me with this expression again.

I smiled sheepishly and responded to my mother-in-law: “Mother-in-law… um, Auntie, I would like to ask where Li Zheng’s grave is. I want to go see him.”

My mother-in-law immediately told me the location of the cemetery. After chatting with my parents-in-law for a few minutes, I said goodbye to them and set off for the cemetery.

The drizzle continued, dripping on my head. I didn’t hold an umbrella and came to Li Zheng’s cemetery according to the location given by my mother-in-law.

On the tombstone is a photo of Li Zheng when he was a child. Seeing Li Zheng smiling so brightly, I couldn’t help but smile too.

As I laughed, my heart ached. Looking at the young Li Zheng, I reached out and touched the monument.

Suddenly, a male voice came from behind: “After I got home, my parents told me that you were here. They told me that you asked about my brother’s tombstone. I guess you should be here.”

I turned around and saw Li Yizheng holding a book in his hand. He smiled and said, “I just went to school and found that the equipment in the laboratory had been tampered with. Those were my advisor’s equipment, and they were related to the study of space-time matrices.”

I turned back in confusion, but Li Yizheng walked straight up to me and said, “Sister-in-law, I’ve thought a lot about this. After all, it’s related to my brother, and I can’t just stand by and watch.”

“What do you mean?” I asked curiously.

“I figured out the method of time travel from my mentor’s laboratory. Space-time storms always produce ball lightning. If we use the ball lightning and the cracks torn by the space-time storm, we can pass through the space-time storm and travel to the time when another space-time storm comes, thus completing the time travel.” Li Yizheng handed me the notebook in his hand: “This is related to the column I chose. I have proposed the theory of space-time decay before, which may be helpful to you.”

“Time and space decay?” I had no idea what he was talking about, so I asked out of curiosity, “Why did you go from Deyang to Chengdu and come back so quickly?”

Perhaps my focus was too strange, Li Yizheng was stunned for a long time, and answered uncertainly: “Aren’t there bullet trains now? They come and go very quickly.”

I was speechless for a moment, feeling that my question was too stupid, so I quickly changed the subject and asked, “What is space-time decay?”

“When the physical body travels through time and space, it will be affected by the time and space paradox and will deteriorate very rapidly in a time and space that does not belong to its own world. It may only have a survival time of about ten days. If it travels through time and space twice in a row, the survival time will be even shorter.” Li Yizhen stated his research results.

“The naked man who attacked you may have traveled back to seventeen years ago, so the police found his body seventeen years ago. It is very likely that the attacker died due to time-space decay after traveling back in time.”

Li Yizheng then said confidently, “I guess my brother’s death has something to do with these naked men.”

Watching a fifteen-year-old kid talking big about time travel in front of me, I felt it was unreal.

“Do you have a way to travel through time?” I asked directly.

Li Yizheng was overwhelmed by my continuous questions. He shook his head and then nodded: “The spherical lightning collector developed by the tutor was stolen. If I can find the spherical lightning collector, maybe we can travel through time and space.”

“Your mentor was killed, and the device that can travel through time and space was stolen?” I said discouragedly, “Then how can we travel through time and space?”

Unexpectedly, Li Yi Zheng smiled and said, “If my plan is correct, we will be able to get the ball lightning collector soon.”

“What?” I was puzzled.

“Find a shovel and pry open my brother’s grave.” Li Yizheng said something extremely treasonous.

“What?” I was completely stunned.

“Hurry up and stop talking nonsense. If the plan is correct, the collector must be in my brother’s grave!” Li Yizheng vowed.

And I had no idea what was going on.

But when I saw the top student Li Yizhen looking around for a shovel, I thought it might be right to follow his idea.

“I’m sorry, husband.” I whispered to the tombstone.

9

Li Yizhen found a shovel from somewhere. He stood on the grave, shoveled out the soil on the tombstone, and began to dig the grave.

And the person whose grave was dug was my husband who committed suicide seventeen years ago.

“Sister-in-law, why are you standing there? Hurry up.” Li Yi Zheng urged me. I stared blankly at the shovel in my hand. Now that things have come to this, I no longer think about it and simply start digging the grave with Li Yi Zheng.

We dug up soil one handful at a time and soon saw a slightly corroded small box. Next to the small box was a round object similar to a Poké Ball. We didn’t know what it was used for.

Li Yizheng said in surprise: “Collector.”

I don’t understand why the collector was found in Li Zheng’s tomb. Although my husband’s tomb was dug up, seeing Li Yi Zheng’s excitement, I asked uncertainly, “Why is this thing in your brother’s tomb?”

Li Yizheng nodded excitedly: “It’s a long story. I have to check the collector first. I can only use it if it is not damaged.”

Li Yizheng picked up the ball and took a look at it. I don’t know how he checked it, but after fiddling with it for a while, he said to me with certainty, “It’s OK, sister-in-law! I got a few batteries from the lab. If I start it, maybe I can achieve time travel.”

I asked uncertainly, “Are you sure you want to go back seventeen years?”

“I know what you’re worried about.” Li Yizheng said in a relaxed tone. He added, “You shouldn’t have to choose this matter. Let my brother worry about whether I should be born or not.”

I didn’t expect Li Yi Zheng to be so carefree. I was about to say something, but Li Yi Zheng comforted me: “If we don’t go back to see what happened seventeen years ago, it will definitely become a regret in your life. I also want to know what happened seventeen years ago, and by the way, visit my brother whom I have never met.”

I think if you go to see your brother like this, he might be scared.

“Are you ready?” Li Yizheng looked at me, picked up the collector in his hand and asked solemnly.

Although I haven’t spent a long time with Li Yi Zheng, I’m still worried that if this time travel changes the past, Li Yi Zheng will not be born. I still shake my head without the courage.

Unexpectedly, Li Yi Zheng smiled brilliantly, showing his big white teeth and said, “If I can save my brother, then at worst I won’t have to suffer in this world.”

“But what about your girlfriend and those people who care about you?”

When Li Yizheng heard this, his eyes dimmed a little. He said at a loss: “Without me, the world will not stop turning. They will live a life without me.”

Even though Li Yi Zheng said this, I still can’t let it go.

Li Yizheng picked up the collector. He didn’t give me a chance to think about it. He raised the collector happily and said, “Recite the Prajnaparamita with me!”

I burst out laughing. I didn’t expect that Li Yi Zheng is also a loyal fan of “A Chinese Odyssey”.

“Wait, after we travel through time, will our clothes disappear?!”

“That’s the theory.” Li Yizheng nodded. “The space-time tunnel will tear apart all non-organic matter, but this collector is made of special material and will not be affected by the time travel. That’s why it has not been damaged after being placed underground for seventeen years.”

“Naked?!” I suddenly didn’t want to travel through time anymore. I didn’t want to appear naked seventeen years ago.

10

Li Yizheng didn’t give me a chance to think. He said urgently, “Actually, I went back this time not only to see my brother, but also because the naked man killed my mentor. I want to find out why, otherwise my mentor and my brother would have died in vain.”

Perhaps this is the reason that prompted Li Yi Zheng to want to go back to the past. He wanted to figure out the cause and effect of all this.

I want to, but I’m worried that if I go back, I won’t be able to help but save Li Zheng.

Before I could answer, Li Yizheng raised the collector again. I saw a white light coming out of his hand. A strange circular lightning gathered around us. Soon the air around us gradually became dark, as if a gray fog enveloped my sight. Only the circular lightning was left in front of my eyes.

Li Yizhen pressed the collector.

I suddenly felt panic-stricken because I could clearly see that the clothes on my body were slowly shattering and turning into ashes. I was afraid that I would be destroyed into ashes like my clothes. I raised my hand and saw circles of white electric current surrounding me. Before I could react, the gray fog disappeared in an instant, and the surroundings gradually became clear. I could finally see my surroundings clearly. I was standing on a flat piece of land, and there was no trace of Li Zheng’s tombstone behind me.

I stood there in confusion, wondering if I had traveled through time. Suddenly, I felt a chill in my chest. I was standing naked in front of a grave!!!

Looking back, Li Yizheng had already hidden behind a tree. His face was red as he said to me, “Sister-in-law! Wait a moment. I saw some clothes hanging outside the hut over there. I’ll go steal them.”

I quickly covered my chest and genitals and found a tree to hide. I saw a few men’s clothes hanging outside a small house below the cemetery. Li Yizheng stole a few pieces with his bare buttocks, hugged them and rushed back frantically.

“Sister-in-law! Change quickly!” Li Yizhen threw clothes to me who was hiding behind a tree.

I hurriedly changed my clothes. Although they were a little big, at least I was not naked.

I didn’t dare to look at Li Yi Zheng and ran out from behind the tree. Li Yi Zheng didn’t say anything else, but the scene just now made us both extremely embarrassed.

“Let’s go to your house. Li Zheng should be home at this time.”

As soon as I finished speaking, Li Yizheng reminded me: “Sister-in-law, in a time and space that does not belong to us, the decay of time and space will affect our lifespan, which means that we can only stay in this time and space for a maximum of nine days, otherwise we may die here.”

Then Li Yizhen turned around and buried the collector in the soil without a tombstone.

“The battery is only enough for one trip now. I’ll bury the collector here. If we get separated, we must meet here on the ninth day.”

I nodded obediently, and in an instant I understood why we dug out the collector from Li Zheng’s tomb. It turned out that Li Zheng placed the collector in the soil after he came, so it could not be dug up until seventeen years later.

But! I suddenly thought of a question. Obviously, the collector will also travel through time, but this collector has been lying in the soil for seventeen years. Could it be that Li Yizheng and I have never returned since we came here? !

“Why is the collector still here? Don’t we need it anymore?” I asked nervously. This is a matter of life and death, so I have to get to the bottom of it.

“This collector is placed here for backup. Have you forgotten that someone stole my mentor’s collector? The naked man’s body appeared in this time and space, which means that the naked man used my mentor’s collector to travel through time and space. Now there are two collectors in this time and space.”

But I found a fatal bug. How did this collector buried in the soil come from? It can’t have appeared out of thin air.

It seems that Li Yizhen and I will encounter a lot of things in this time and space.

The future is uncertain and I don’t know what will happen.

11

Seeing that I was still standing there in a daze, Li Yizheng hurriedly urged me, “Hurry up, the naked man and the naked woman must have come. I’m afraid they will attack my brother.”

Without having time to think, I hurriedly followed Li Yizheng. Although Deyang has built many high-rise buildings in the past 17 years, the overall change is not big. The music playing on the loudspeakers on both sides of the streets is “Lilac”, and Santana cars are traveling on the streets. Relying on my memory, I followed Li Yizheng, and soon we arrived at Li’s community. Li Yizheng went straight to Li’s house, and I followed Li Yizheng to the door of Li’s house.

Looking at the familiar door, Li Yizhen and I stood at the door, and neither of us dared to knock first.

Unexpectedly, the door creaked open and a child appeared at the door.

I held my breath and looked at the child’s face clearly. It was indeed Li Zheng as a child. I covered my mouth and almost screamed. Li Zheng looked up and found Li Yizheng and me.

“Wife?!” Li Zheng looked surprised, as if he was very surprised by our arrival.

My heart skipped a beat. Li Zheng called me his wife the first time he saw me. Does this mean that I was really married to him?! But why did Li Zheng go back to seventeen years ago?

All my questions were finally answered at this moment. I couldn’t help crying and wanted to ask Li Zheng the truth.

Li Zheng looked at Li Yizheng again and asked curiously, “Who are you?”

“Brother.” Li Yi Zheng called affectionately, but it was really strange for a fifteen-year-old boy to call a seven-year-old boy brother.

But now is not the time to care about these details. I asked Li Zheng a little excitedly: “Why? Why did you become like this?”

Li Zheng knew that I was very emotional. He opened the door and said, “Come in, let’s talk slowly.”

Then Li Zheng looked at Li Yi Zheng and asked, “Are you the younger brother? Are your parents okay?”

“Mom and Dad are in very good health.” Li Yi Zheng nodded slightly.

Li Zheng’s body is clearly that of a child, but he speaks and acts like an adult. He motioned for us to enter the room, then closed the door and led us into his room.

“Since you can come here, it means you already know about time travel. There are actually two types of time travel. One is physical travel, and the other is spiritual travel.” Li Zheng sat opposite us. His eyes revealed a very vicissitudes of life, as if the person sitting in front of us was not a child, but an old man.

Seeing me sobbing, Li Zheng handed me a piece of paper.

“As the name suggests, physical time travel is just like you traveling through time, but it has a very serious consequence. The traveler can only survive for ten days at most in the space and time they travel through. However, the distance they can travel through is very long, and the span can be as long as three hundred years.”

Then Li Zheng took out a collector with a smile on his face and said, “But later I developed a method of mental travel. This kind of travel allows the traveler to retain the memory and spirit before the travel and return to the past, similar to the soul incarnation, returning to any time when you are alive. Although the travel span is very short, only a maximum of a hundred years, it also depends on the life span of the person being traveled. I used the spirit to travel back to
2004.”

Then Li Zheng took my hand and handed me the collector in his hand, and said seriously: “But in the future, some people will use spiritual travel as a way to achieve immortality, so this is why there
is a technological explosion after the 21st century. There are many spiritual travelers around you. They traveled to the past with the memory of future technology and raised the level of technology to several heights and levels.”

Li Yizhen and I looked at each other in surprise. This really seemed like a fantasy.

“But the spirit travelers also triggered World War III…”

12

It was like I was listening to a foreign language and I couldn’t understand anything. I need to digest these things carefully, but what does this have to do with Li Zheng traveling back to his childhood?

So I hurriedly asked, “Why are you like this now?”

Li Zheng stared at me lovingly. This expression looked a little strange on a boy of seven or eight years old, but I didn’t mind. Li Zheng reached out his hand to me, gently stroked my face and said, “Wife, I finally saved you this time.”

“What?” I asked curiously, having no idea what Li Zheng was talking about.

Li Zheng sat up straight again, looked at Li Yizheng and me, and spoke slowly.

“Our fate has already been determined. Although I have invented a way to travel through time and space, time travel is still restricted by the time and space storm. If you want to travel through time and space, you can only rely on the time and space storm. Since 2021
, the time and space storm has not appeared for fifty years.”

After Li Zheng finished speaking, he looked at me tremblingly: “Fifty years after your death, I finally invented a mind-traveling device. I went back to 2021 and kept looping the two days when you died to save you.”

No wonder Li Zheng is so experienced now, it turns out he lived to be over seventy years old.

I saw tears flashing in Li Zheng’s eyes: “But your death seems to be destined. I have tried hundreds of times, but still cannot save you.”

“I don’t quite understand what you mean.” I shook my head.

Li Zheng smiled and said slowly: “The day I traveled through time is the day you died. The Third World War broke out because of the time travel device. Some major countries used the time travel device to travel back in time to kill the other country’s scientists, causing the opponent’s country’s science to stop. This consequence caused the Third World War to break out. The world became chaotic. Some people wanted to solve the source problem of time travel, that is, me.”

Li Zheng pointed at himself, and I asked blankly, “Then why did I die?”

“A naked man and woman came to kill me. They were time agents from the future. You encountered them every time. You tried your best to block their attacks, but you died under their knives in the end. When you died for the first time, the spirit time travel device had not yet been made. Although I escaped, I still had to wait for fifty years before I finally made a spherical lightning collector and returned to
the day when the space-time storm broke out in 2021. With the collector, I can
travel back and forth on the two days when the space-time storm broke out in 2021. But it seems like fate, no matter what I do, even if I repeat it a hundred times, I can’t save you. Your death is destined, and you will die to save me every time.”

Li Zheng’s voice was already filled with tears.

“In the fifty years without you, I was extremely lonely and lost my passion for everything. I devoted myself to scientific research and created a time-space collector. Afterwards, countless cycles failed to save you. I finally realized that this collector was the culprit of your death. Since fate has destined us to be apart, why not let me die in exchange for your survival? I thought of traveling back to the day when the time-space storm broke out when I was a child. If I hadn’t met you, if I hadn’t created the collector, perhaps everything would have changed and you wouldn’t have died.”

Li Zheng paused and said.

“So I traveled back to the present, intending to commit suicide so that you can live a stable life.”

I roughly understood that the reason why Li Zheng disappeared was because someone wanted to kill him, but I blocked the attack for him, so after Li Zheng invented the time travel device, he went back to that day and kept saving me. However, the result was that no matter how he saved me, I would die, so Li Zheng wanted to change all this.

Perhaps if I hadn’t met you and if you hadn’t created the collector, none of this would have happened.

I finally understood Li Zheng’s good intentions.

“Only if I die can I protect you.” said the young Li Zheng softly.

I looked at Li Zheng, not knowing how to start talking for a moment.

“But your death is useless, isn’t it? The space-time collector has been developed, and the time agents have also set their sights on my sister-in-law and my mentor.” Li Yizhen suddenly spoke.

“Your mentor?”

“Professor of space-time matrix science at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.” Li Yizhen responded directly.

Li Zheng frowned: “That’s also my mentor.”

It seems that even if Li Zheng died, Li Yizheng would still follow in his brother’s footsteps and develop a time and space collector.

“So no matter what, the development of the space-time collector is inevitable? And after your death, there are more uncontrollable factors. The development of the space-time collector is related to my sister-in-law and my mentor?” Li Yizhen analyzed rationally.

Li Zheng asked at a loss: “Are you still being attacked?”

“Wait.” I realized one of the questions was very serious. “According to what you said, you traveled back to the present and committed suicide, so we shouldn’t know each other. But why do I remember you? This is not scientific!”

Li Zheng and Li Yi Zheng looked at me at the same time.

“Yeah, this is unscientific.” Li Yizhen also scratched his head and said.

Li Zheng shook his head and said, “I don’t know why either. This is beyond the scope of scientific explanation.”

As soon as the words fell, there was a knock on the door. The three of us looked towards the door at the same time. Li Yizheng was about to ask, but Li Zheng made a hushing gesture: “Don’t shout.”

I looked towards the door nervously and inadvertently caught a glimpse of a head in the window.

I was startled and took a few steps back with a scream. Li Zheng and the other man looked in the direction of my scream and saw a scarred head gradually appearing from the window. I had seen this man before. He was the naked man before I traveled through time.

He found the clothes from somewhere and came up from downstairs with a knife in his mouth.

The man jumped directly into the room.

I didn’t expect that the naked man I had seen before really traveled through time and space. Then there was a series of banging sounds outside the door. Since this is an old house, the doors are made of wood. With a loud bang, the door was knocked open and someone broke in again.

I looked towards the door and saw the person coming in clearly. Her face was covered in blood. It was the naked woman I saw on the street before, but now she was wearing clothes.

The naked man and the naked woman were holding knives in their hands. They walked towards us step by step, and Li Yizheng shouted loudly: “Don’t come over! We’re calling the police!”

Li Zheng said seriously, “It’s useless. They are both future special forces soldiers. They are here for me.”

I quickly tried to take out the bottle of pepper spray, completely forgetting that I also came here naked seventeen years ago, without anything on my body.

The man and woman with scars on their faces obviously didn’t want to let us go. They rushed towards us with knives in their hands and gnashing teeth. I hurriedly pulled the young Li Zheng to dodge. After all, Li Yi Zheng was only fifteen years old, and he was frightened by the scene and stood still. However, the naked man and woman seemed to ignore his existence and stabbed Li Zheng and me with knives.

Li Zheng pushed away the tables and chairs, trying to block the two men’s way, but the other party was a special forces soldier after all. The man grabbed Li Zheng and cut Li Zheng’s chest directly with the knife.

“Stop!!!” Li Yi Zheng hurriedly hugged the naked man to stop his actions, but the woman walked directly behind Li Yi Zheng and pulled him over. Li Yi Zheng had no power to resist, and his hands were pressed on the table by the woman.

With a loud snap, the woman nailed Li Yizheng’s palm to the table with a knife.

Li Yizheng screamed in pain.

Blood flowed out from the knife gap.

When I saw Li Yizhen injured, I also exclaimed.

Li Zheng was also caught. Just as the naked man was about to stab him with the knife, Li Zheng suddenly spoke up.

…

Finale

“Even if you kill me, the time travel device can still be developed! I have already backed up the data and formulas!”

The man’s movements were indeed slow. He looked at Li Zheng suspiciously, but he said word by word: “The website in the painting is your backup, right? I have destroyed the painting and the website, and killed the mentor of the space-time matrix. No one will know the formula of time travel anymore, and World War III will not break out again!!!”

The man’s voice was hoarse, like a cat with its throat pinched. The scars pulled at his face, making him look extremely terrifying.

Li Zheng chuckled and said, “Who said I only backed up one copy? The first thing I did after traveling back was to make countless copies of the manufacturing method of the time travel device and send them out through various channels. There will always be someone who knows how to travel through time and space.”

The man gnashed his teeth and asked, “Why do you do this? Do you know that it’s because of your invention that millions of people died in the Third World War? You’re a butcher! You’re a devil!”

“Once the arrow is shot, there is no turning back. How many people have used the spirit transmitter to create technology that serves humanity! If the transmitter is destroyed, there may be more serious consequences! It will cause the development of science and technology, medicine, education, etc. to stagnate! It will affect the current world structure! Maybe by then, more than tens of millions of people will die!!! Don’t think you are saving the world by doing this!!! In fact, you are destroying it!!!” Although Li Zheng is a child, he was full of vigor when he said this.

The man was stunned.

“Stop talking nonsense! Kill them!” the woman shouted, then she swung her hand back, grabbed Li Yizhen’s arm, shook him off and kicked Li Yizhen away. Li Yizhen staggered to the ground, but the woman jumped towards me and grabbed my throat with her hand.

The man’s face was fierce: “Where are the other backups?!!! Otherwise, kill this woman!”

The woman grabbed my neck and I couldn’t breathe, but Li Yizheng got up from the ground. He shouted and rushed forward. He used inertia to hug the man and pushed him towards the window, shouting, “Brother! Sister-in-law! Go!!!”

The man lost his balance and fell backwards out of the window. I saw with my own eyes Li Yizhen and the man falling out of the window together.

I quickly reached out my hand to grab Li Yi Zheng, but the woman was strangling me and I couldn’t move at all. The young Li Zheng was free at this time. He jumped up and bit the woman’s hand holding the knife. The woman wanted to fight back against Li Zheng with the knife, so the hand that was strangling my neck loosened.

I quickly struggled to break free from the woman’s arm, but Li Zheng took the opportunity to snatch the knife from the woman’s hand. He stabbed the woman’s arm hard, and the woman felt pain. Li Zheng pulled out the knife again and stabbed the woman in the chest without any emotion.

The woman wanted to dodge, but her leg was injured and she couldn’t run fast, and the knife in Li Zheng’s hand pierced into the woman’s chest.

The woman covered the knife with her hand and looked at Li Zheng in disbelief. She fell straight to the ground with her eyes wide open. There was unwillingness in her eyes as her life slipped away quickly.

“Li Yi Zheng!” I quickly ran to the window and looked down. Li Yi Zheng and the man were lying together motionless. Rain was flowing along with the blood. Several residents saw what happened and came to watch. Someone had already called the police.

“You should go back! If you are caught by the police, it will delay your return! The decay of time and space will kill you.” Li Zheng reminded me quickly.

“No!” Li Yi Zheng’s life or death is unknown, and I can’t just watch Li Yi Zheng die in this time and space.

“You must go back!!!” Li Zheng said seriously, “The time and space line has changed. You and I are not dead.”

“It’s your brother who is going to die!!” Although Li Zheng and Li Yi Zheng had never met each other, they were related by blood, and Li Yi Zheng came with me for his brother.

“I will find a way to save him.” Li Zheng looked sad, and then continued, “I don’t want to see you get hurt again. Where is the time travel device that brought you here? Go back and wait for me. I promise to bring Li Yi Zheng back to find you.”

I could only nod helplessly. At this point, I had no other options. I looked at Li Yizheng lying in a pool of blood again and said to him, “The time travel device is in the cemetery.”

“To the cemetery!”

Li Zheng quickly pulled me out of the house. Some residents saw us running out of the house. Some neighbors shouted to Li Zheng, “Zheng boy! Someone in your house fell down and died!”

Li Zheng and I ignored it completely.

I led Li Zheng to the tomb where the time-travel device was hidden and dug out the time-travel device inside.

Sirens sounded all around. It seemed that the police had followed the clues and were chasing after them. Li Zheng looked at the time travel device and said, “You can travel again. Go back to your original time and space.”

I looked at the time traveler and thought about how I was with Li Yizheng when I came here, but now I was the only one going back. I quickly told Li Zheng: “You must save your brother.”

“Don’t worry!” Li Zheng nodded at me.

“I’ll wait for you in the future.” I suddenly thought of this line from “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time”, so I blurted it out.

“See you in seventeen years.” Li Zheng smiled and nodded to me, and I saw a group of policemen chasing after me from behind.

I pressed the timer, and white lightning gathered in the dark sky. I saw that everything around me was pitch black. When the surroundings gradually became visible, I felt a chill on my body.

The cemetery was still in front of me. A girl stood in front of me. She had a pretty face and a mole at the corner of her mouth that was particularly conspicuous. She looked at me in surprise and asked, “Why are you not wearing any clothes?”

The girl held two sets of clothes in her hand, one for men and one for women. She handed the clothes to me and said strangely, “I have been dreaming for the past few days. In my dream, a boy asked me to wait for him here. He said that he and his sister-in-law would appear here and asked me to help get two sets of clothes.”

“Are you a student of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China? Is your father a policeman?” I suddenly suspected that she was Li Yizhen’s girlfriend.

“How do you know?” The girl blinked curiously and handed me the women’s clothes.

“Don’t you know Li Yi Zheng?” I quickly put on my clothes and asked curiously.

“The name sounds familiar.” The girl said sadly.

I didn’t know how to answer. Li Yi Zheng didn’t come back. When I was getting dressed, I accidentally saw the name on the tombstone: Li Yi Zheng.

Li Zheng still failed to save his brother.

“If you know that boy, please say hello to him for me!” The girl bowed to me and thanked me, then turned and left the cemetery.

A man walked out from under the shadow of the tree. I saw his appearance clearly and it was Li Zheng.

Li Zheng was wearing sunglasses. He smiled when he saw me and said, “Long time no see.”

I didn’t answer and looked at Li Yizhen’s tombstone.

“I asked my mother to bury Li Yizhen here, and I invented a physical time travel device and placed it in the grave.”

I didn’t answer Li Zheng, but looked at the girl’s receding figure and said, “She seems to remember Li Yi Zheng.”

“Love can transcend time and space, even though this is another parallel world.” Li Zheng suddenly said. “Just like in a time and space without me, you still remember me.”

“Don’t be sad! I haven’t been idle in the past seventeen years. I have predicted many timelines that can save Li Yi Zheng.” Li Zheng stretched out his hand to me and said, “Let’s go together to save my brother this time.”

I stretched out my hand hesitantly, and Li Zheng smiled.

“Just like you guys came to save me without hesitation!”

Extra:

World War III has become inevitable, and nuclear bombs have turned half of the earth into scorched earth.

Countless women and men accepted the latest mission without hesitation to prevent the invention of the time travel device.

The background sound of the pre-war movie “Interstellar” was playing on the radio. The bells were ringing, and more than a hundred people were holding time and space collectors and preparing to travel through time and space.

“The time-travel device can only travel twice. Once the battery runs out, you will be trapped in another time and space and decay and die. Please be careful when traveling!” the boss warned through the radio.

“We must stop the development of the time travel device! Only in this way can we stop the war and save countless people from danger.”

Two time travelers from Group F set out with the belief of saving the world. Before setting out, the man asked the woman, “Are you afraid of the decay of time and space?”

“Of course I’m not afraid. I heard that death in the space-time decay is pretty miserable. But if I can use my life to exchange for the future of mankind and let our descendants live a normal life, I am full of courage.”

The man smiled and said, “You must come back alive!”

The woman nodded. “You too.”

A white-haired female doctor watched 120 special forces soldiers traveling across time to stop the outbreak of World War III. She smiled, and a mole at the corner of her mouth was particularly conspicuous.

A captain behind him saluted and said, “Doctor, the signal shows that the special forces have successfully traveled through time and space.”

The doctor did not answer, but looked at the special forces who kept disappearing and said slowly:

“Li Yizheng, I’m here to save you.”