“Stop yourself, do you think I’m like you? I won’t do anything to her. Okay, I’m going to shield my internal chip. Contact me through the terminal if there’s anything,” Meng Qing was startled by Lin Bai’s voice and stood up to open the terminal.
When Yu Yi woke up, she found herself lying in a strange room, alone. Just as she was wondering where she was, she suddenly remembered that Meng Qing had just raised his hand, and she had lost consciousness. Her heart sank, and she hurriedly checked her body, finding her clothes intact and the same ones she wore in the pavilion.
She noticed the items in the room were extremely simple but peculiar. For example, the silver-gray table in the center had incredibly thin legs supporting such a large tabletop. How could such a thin table hold anything?
The table was one thing, but the two chairs beside it looked equally fragile. Could such fragile chairs support a person?
She feared the chair legs would break if someone sat on them.
Yu Yi lifted the thin blanket made of an unknown fabric and sat up, looking for something that could be used as a weapon. The room had very few furnishings and was easily surveyed. After scanning with her eyes, she found nothing usable.
She reached to remove the hairpin from her hair, looking at it. Though not very sharp, she had no other choice. She gripped the hairpin in her right hand, exposing only the sharp tip, then lowered her arm, her sleeve covering her hand.
She might still have a chance to escape before he returned. Yu Yi tiptoed to the door, finding a curved handle-like object. She grasped it and pushed outward, but the door didn’t move.
He had locked the door, which was to be expected. Yu Yi straightened up in disappointment, inadvertently pressing the door handle down, and unexpectedly, the door opened slightly.
He hadn’t locked the door. Yu Yi looked in surprise as the door slowly opened, but the scene outside that entered her view was shocking.
Outside was not a street or village, but a vast, open wilderness. The ground was deep blue, covered by dense blue grass, and the sky was actually a light purple! Two light yellow suns hung in the sky! Though their light was dazzling and she couldn’t look directly at them, there were indeed two suns.
She looked around blankly, now truly not knowing where she was.
Not far from the house where she had awakened, about several dozen feet away, was a small house. As her gaze moved toward it, the house’s door opened, and Meng Qing walked out. He wore a strange garment, the hem only reaching a little below his waist, with extremely short sleeves exposing his long arms, and tight, form-fitting pants.
He saw her standing in the doorway without any surprise or worry about her escaping. He simply greeted her in an ordinary manner: “Awake?” and walked towards her.
Yu Yi tightened the hairpin in her hand, involuntarily revealing a nervous look in her eyes: “Young Master Meng, why did you bring me here? Where is this place, and why do the sky and scenery look so strange?”
Meng Qing walked to her side and smiled: “Don’t be afraid, I brought you here with pure intentions…”
Yu Yi saw him approaching closely, pursed her lips, gripped the hairpin, and suddenly thrust it towards him. However, Meng Qing easily dodged and caught her right hand. Yu Yi struggled desperately, but he held both her hands tightly. Unable to break free, she tried to kick him. Meng Qing twisted her hands behind her back, pressed her against his chest, and said with a slightly hurt expression: “I won’t harm you. Can’t you calm down and listen to me for a moment?”
Yu Yi stood in place, her hand hanging, turning her head away from him.
Meng Qing sighed softly: “Don’t be afraid, and don’t hate me. Rendering you unconscious was a last resort. If you’d listen to my explanation, you’d understand my reasons.”
“What reasons?”
“Explaining might take some time. Let’s sit down and talk,” Meng Qing said, raising his left arm.
Yu Yi was on full alert, afraid he might suddenly render her unconscious like before, and involuntarily stepped back nervously.
Unexpectedly, Meng Qing didn’t look at her. He simply ran his right hand along the inside of his left arm, and suddenly a table and two chairs appeared. Yu Yi turned in shock to look inside – the original furniture was still there, which meant he had conjured these chairs out of thin air?
Who was he? Or was he even human?
Yu Yi murmured: “Are you a deity or a demon?”
Meng Qing smiled bitterly: “Neither. You could do this too.” He raised his left arm to show her.
Seeing a small, slightly glowing square on his arm’s inner side, Yu Yi involuntarily moved closer, then suddenly realized he was drawing her in. Her steps hesitated, unsure whether to sit and listen.
Meng Qing’s mouth curved slightly: “If I truly wanted to harm you, I would have done so while you were unconscious.”
Yu Yi blushed and slowly walked to the chair.
She carefully arranged her dress and sat elegantly. The chair was surprisingly comfortable, supporting her back perfectly.
Meng Qing, seeing her seated, lightly traced the glowing object on his arm. A teapot, teacups, and a small plate of snacks appeared on the table. He began: “Time is like an endless river, always flowing forward. Normally, people are like water in the river, unable to trace back to the source or leave the river’s constraints. Of course, during floods, that’s different.”
“However, some people can leave their current water flow, jump back to upstream locations, or even exit the river’s constraints and enter a completely different river. I’m such a person. I work for the Spacetime Management Bureau as a mission executor. These ‘rivers’ are called ‘spacetime domains’. Time is time, space is location. Where we are now is a completely different spacetime domain from where you originally lived, which is why everything here seems different. Do you understand?”
Yu Yi gently nodded, understanding the metaphor of water and rivers representing time and spacetime domains, even if she couldn’t comprehend how he moved between them.
When a person returns to their own past, for that person, the events they have experienced have not yet occurred at that point in the past.
Meng Qing looked at Yu Yi and nodded to show understanding, then continued, “Originally, two years later, your family would have been raided, your father stripped of his title, all male family members executed, and female members sold into slavery. You were going to commit suicide but instead were chosen to become a time-space mission executor.”
Yu Yi stared at him blankly: “Are these all events that were destined to happen?”
Meng Qing shook his head: “They will never happen again. To save the other members of the Yu family, you secretly returned to your own fourteen-year-old time and space, changed some things, and thus altered the Yu family’s impending disaster.”
Yu Yi asked in surprise: “Is this change the murder of Chen Shilang that you mentioned? Did I kill Chen Shilang?”
Meng Qing nodded: “It was you, the you who would become a mission executor three years later. I followed you here, but I couldn’t persuade you to change your mind.”
“How is this possible…” She was momentarily confused, but the day she first met him was indeed the day Chen Shilang was murdered, after which he came and spoke those strange words. This bizarre world, with furniture appearing out of thin air, seemed to only make sense if she believed his words.
Meng Qing opened the projection function on his terminal and projected the Time-Space Management Bureau’s file on Yu Yi onto the table, including her mission records and the documentation of her criminal actions to change her family’s fate.
Yu Yi finished reading the file, still feeling incredulous. Meng Qing said nothing, quietly waiting for her to process everything.
