Winter Returns

Chapter 58 "Condolences"

2020 12 Month 12 Day.

The ferry cut through the dark blue-green surface of the lake.

Its destination was an island called "Yanlong Island," the largest inland island in northern China, with a total area of ​​approximately 9 square kilometers. The only way to get to the island was by boat. The ferry didn't even have cabins; it only had a huge deck painted green, and the paint was already peeling.

The ferry departs every 20 minutes, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and a one-way trip takes more than 20 minutes. Standing tickets for pedestrians cost three yuan each... He can easily recall this information, not only because he studied on this island for four years, but also because he had just spent four days on the island a moment ago.

That was Saturday, December 8, 2012, eight years ago during my junior high school years.

And at this moment...

I'm back again.

He stood by the railing at the front of the deck, the floor beneath his feet vibrating slightly from the engine's hum. A fishy smell wafted through the cold, damp air. He opened his mouth silently, as if all his strength had been drained.

He still remembered that four days ago, no, now it should be called eight years and four days ago, he returned to his junior high school classroom. On that day, he could see the snow covering the plastic playground, the classmates buried in their studies, the exercise books on the desks, the building block castles on the bookshelves... They were like an old photograph from the depths of his memory. He looked around at everything in disbelief. Then the photograph gradually turned into color, and he became a part of the photograph. So the possibility of a normal life and starting over, which had been buried in his heart for many years but which he had never dared to hope for, became a reality at that moment.

reality……

Ah.

Today, there was no wind or waves, and the lake surface was an almost solidified iron-blue color. Only when the ferry slowly moved forward and cut through the lake surface did the water droplets on both sides of the boat roll and turn into foam that would burst at the slightest touch.

Zhang Shutong silently watched the churning and dissipating bubbles. Now he really wanted to sit down and rest for a while, for no reason or explanation, he just wanted to find a place to sit for a little while, just for a short time.

There were no cabins or seats on the ferry. It was the dead of winter, not the season for tourism. He was the only person on the entire ship, wearing a black trench coat. He looked at his hands, clenching them tightly and then loosening them.

Zhang Shutong wasn't foolish enough to think those four days of junior high were a dream. He was certain that the flashback had indeed been triggered late Saturday night.

But what he never expected was that he would return to the origin of time and space after the incident was resolved.

He used to be tormented by this ability, but it only happened in a fixed cycle within a certain period of time.

The triggering mechanism for backtracking is:

If something bad happens around him, he will return to the key moments before the event occurred.

It's usually a few minutes or a few days ago.

If we compare time to a radio tape, this ability has always been the one to press the "rewind button," but this time, why is it the "forward button"?
Zhang Shutong had no answer.

All he knew was that he had indeed returned.

But why did he have to come back at this time, just when he was ready to embark on a new chapter in his life?
He opened his mouth again, unsure of what to say. He was all alone on the boat, and countless fragments of memories flashed through his mind: Qingyi, Ruoping, Dukang... They chattered around him, going night fishing together, riding bicycles to eat in the shopping street, and wandering around the supermarket on weekends, laughing and talking. The scenes seemed so close... No, not just close, they were indeed right before his eyes.

He leaned against the railing somewhat blankly, looking up at the sky.

Until the whistle sounded.

Zhang Shutong slowly walked off the boat.

The ship has reached the shore.

There is only one bus route on the island. He arrived at the bus stop almost instinctively. Soon the bus arrived. It was a yellow electric bus with the number 121 written on it. He got on the bus and found a seat.

It got a little warmer inside the bus, but he pushed the window open a crack, letting the cold wind outside sting his face. His twenty-four-year-old face was reflected in the window, his features a bit more defined, not much different from eight years ago.

The person in the car window was also looking at him indifferently, with a stern expression and dull eyes.

This is the real "Zhang Shutong".

He looked away and stopped looking. After only four days, he had almost forgotten what he was supposed to look like.

Zhang Shutong silently looked out the window at the desolate scene. The bus was traveling on the newly built lakeside road, so the reeds on the shore could be seen.

Behind the reeds lay an abandoned drainage hole, its cement walls riddled with cracks. Zhang Shutong knew that inside was a broken safe containing a fishing rod, a helmet, and compressed biscuits. He had recently cycled here with a girl, spending an afternoon on the shore. If he could, he really wanted to go down and check if the safe was still there.

However, the "base" is just his base; the bus route will not have a stop next to a drainage hole.

Finally, Zhang Shutong sighed and closed the car window.

It's about time to accept reality.

If the price of "rescuing" others is "sacrificing" yourself, what should you do?
His mind was a bit muddled right now. He was just giving a random example. He was saying, if Gu Qiumian's life hadn't been changed, would he still have come back from eight years ago?

Forget it.

There's no point in going back to these things.

It's better than having no solution at all.

He thought that fate was really fair. You save someone, and the reward is not just two bags of snacks, but also a four-day childhood experience card. Now the experience card has expired, and you can't buy it with money. He should go back to his original life trajectory.

People eventually have to learn to reconcile with reality; I've already gotten used to it.

Yeah, I'm used to it.

But what could he do if he wasn't used to it? He felt that sometimes pondering these questions was just asking for trouble, so he simply closed his eyes and stopped thinking about it. The bus bounced up and down, and he didn't know how much time had passed until a dignified female voice came over the loudspeaker to announce:
"Next stop, funeral home. Passengers getting off the bus, please prepare in advance and take your belongings with you..."

Zhang Shutong opened his eyes wearily and got up.

It was time to get off the bus. He didn't need to prepare in advance, nor did he bring any personal belongings. He remembered that he left home in a hurry and forgot to put on an extra layer of clothing to keep warm. He was freezing cold standing outside, and Du Kang even accused him of showing off.

Holding onto the railing, Zhang Shutong stepped out of the bus the moment the rear door opened.

Then it suddenly stopped.

Wait, why a funeral home?
Or to put it more directly—

Why did I return to the island eight years later?
……

Zhang Shutong then belatedly realized something:

If he hadn't returned to the island for eight years in the original timeline until he received news of Lu Qinglian's death and returned to attend her funeral, then what is it today?
He immediately checked the time; it was December 12, 2020. There was no mistake about that; he had arrived at the island on that same day.

"Are you going to log off or not?"

At this moment, the bus driver turned around and shouted at him. Zhang Shutong jumped off the bus. Before he could think any further, he took out his phone, opened the call log, and searched for Lu Qinglian's missed call.

He has always had a good memory and remembered that it happened around 11 p.m. on December 10. He had his phone on silent at the time, so he didn't receive her call... But now?
Zhang Shutong's call records were few, and the result was obtained quickly; the answer was no.

No.

He breathed a sigh of relief for no apparent reason. There shouldn't have been any, which meant that history had really been changed. It would be strange if there were identical missed calls left on his phone. It seemed that these four days back in junior high school were really just an illusion.

So what is the purpose of my visit today?
He scrolled to his most recent call log and remembered that the last call was for work. The other party was an editor at a publishing house. He had been working as a translator at home for the past few years. He had only exchanged a few words with the editor because he needed to attend a funeral and would be delayed for a few days. It was indeed that same editor now.

This discovery did not reassure him; instead, it filled him with dread.

Why am I still doing translation work from home?

Wait, wait, wait. He had been mistaken about one thing all along. When he came back, he subconsciously thought that he was still trapped in the past, with no end in sight. But now he realized that since history had changed, his life should have changed too.

But it seems like there haven't been many changes?
Is backtracking still possible?

Zhang Shutong once naively believed that as long as he stopped going up that mountain, his life would be completely changed. But now that he has been sent back, it means that his abilities are still there.

However, the mechanism that "when something bad happens around you, you will return to the key point of the matter" has indeed disappeared.

Just like the time Gu Qiumian's building blocks were thrown, if he followed past experience, he would have gone back to the time before Li Yipeng took action, instead of running to solve the case afterward.

If it's gone, then why stay home to do translation and avoid communicating with strangers?
He simply opened the food delivery app to check the records, and what he saw almost made Zhang Shutong suffocate. Why was he still ordering food delivery every day?
The head is a bit big.

If someone wants to confirm their past, what is the best way to do so?
Zhang Shutong rarely takes photos or writes in his diary. He checked his call logs and found that he had called an unfamiliar name last night.

"Su Yunzhi".

Who is this?
It sounded familiar, and as he thought about it carefully, his memory gradually overlapped with that of the senior from high school.

He should have lost contact with the other party long ago, but this time... he confirmed the time of the call, it was last night, and they talked for a full ten minutes.

He continued flipping through the pages, trying to find Qingyi, Du Kang, Ruoping, and the others. He remembered that in the original timeline, although everyone had contact information in junior high school, they had all changed their numbers and cell phones later, so none of the three of them had their phone numbers anymore.

Of the three, Ruoping had completely lost contact with him, but he still had Qingyi and Dukang on WeChat. He didn't communicate much with the former, only liking each other's posts on Moments, but that relationship lasted the longest.
The latter chatted occasionally, and it was he who informed Lu Qinglian of her death. He was also the first old classmate he saw after returning to the island, and his enthusiasm was as strong as ever.

What about this time?

He searched by the first letter of the pinyin, and this time all of them were there: Feng Ruoping, Meng Qingyi, Du Kang... He even found Gu Qiumian and Lu Qinglian's. When he checked everyone's call records, he found that only Ruoping's was still showing, just a few days ago.

What exactly happened in between?
There were no longer any chat records in WeChat where Du Kang had informed him of his death;
He was standing by the bus stop when he came to his senses and realized how cold it was. Zhang Shutong tightened his trench coat and then noticed something else: why was his outfit still the same as before?
Zhang Shutong wasn't one to dwell on things, so after thinking for a moment, he called Ruoping back first. He waited patiently for a while, but the call was already busy.

He instinctively put his hand in his pocket, but felt a cardboard box. When he took it out, he found it was a pack of cigarettes... He had smoked for a while after graduating from university, but quit later. He shouldn't be carrying a cigarette pack with him. He made a simple judgment, sniffed his fingers, and realized that he hadn't quit.

It's really a bit bewildering. When he went back to eight years ago, although many memories were blurry, it was just reliving the past, and there were traces to follow. But now, in a sense, he has gone to the future, and the future has changed, becoming both familiar and strange.

Let's go back to the original question: what exactly is he coming back for?

A class reunion?

He now regrets getting off the bus. Perhaps he could have gotten some clues by walking around the island from the bus. Even just thinking about it would have been better than standing in the cold wind.

But there were very few buses on the island, so he stopped standing there waiting and found a place to shelter from the wind. If only there were a convenience store, he could buy a hot drink. He was also a little sleepy. The regression was triggered in his sleep on Saturday night, and he didn't expect that mental fatigue would follow. But this place was desolate and not a city, so where would there be any convenience stores?

The nearest place... Zhang Shutong thought for a moment and realized it was the funeral home. The funeral home should still be there, otherwise the station name wouldn't have appeared on the train. He started walking based on his memory, his hands were frozen stiff, but he couldn't help but continue to scroll through the records on his phone.

He opened QQ, the software he used most often eight years ago. But after entering university, everyone around him switched to WeChat. He didn't have high expectations, and it turned out to be true. There were no chat records with anyone. The latest messages were random things like "friend's birthday reminder" and "channel messages". The four-person group chat was found from the group chat, and just like before, it was completely blank.

Zhang Shutong breathed on her palm and noticed the continuous autumn rain. She really liked sheep; even after all these years, her profile picture was still that pattern that looked like both a sheep and a cloud.

Thinking of this, Zhang Shutong couldn't help but raise his head. He could already see the outline of the funeral home in the distance, but the big chimney was gone. On Saturday morning, he and Gu Qiumian rode in their homeroom teacher's car to the mall, and their eyes followed the smoke from the chimney for a long time.

To Zhang Shutong's surprise, he saw some people standing in front of the funeral home.

There's no one in this place normally. If someone is there, it just means someone has died. Theoretically, there's nothing to worry about. The island has a population of at least eight thousand, and he knows no more than ten people he's connected with... But he quickened his pace. He could hear funeral music coming from inside through the gate.

Zhang Shutong's heart sank inexplicably. He pushed open the funeral home door, walked past the wreaths on both sides, and rushed into the mourning hall, his gaze instantly locking onto the person being buried:
It was a black and white portrait of a deceased person.

The photo shows a beautiful woman with long hair. She has a slightly furrowed brow, but her eyes are calm and serene.

Suddenly, someone patted Zhang Shutong on the shoulder and said:
"Condolences."

(End of this chapter)