You on the other side of time

"I understand." After a long while, Si Yang finally found his voice.

After the Wen Jinxin incident, he was finally certain that he could indeed reverse the present by changing the past. But if he had already changed Wen Jinxin, why couldn't he change himself?

"Yang-ge, do you remember? There was a time when you liked to talk nonsense and told me to remind you not to meddle in other people's business..." Wen Jinxin's words came from the other end of the phone again, but Si Yang couldn't listen to it anymore and just remained silent on the other end of the phone.

He had always been a rational, almost obsessive, person who demanded the utmost understanding of everything. He was convinced that there must be some reason preventing him from changing his destiny. But what was that reason?

"By the way, Yang-ge, Ying-mei said she wants to go home early. Don't go to the hospital, just go home. The nurses here are pointing and whispering, it's really annoying, and Ying-mei doesn't feel comfortable watching them."

The words had barely left his mouth when, with a "click," the phone was hung up.

Only then did Si Yang feel the cold in his lower body. Although his upper body was wrapped in a down jacket and was relatively warm, his lower body was only wearing a thin pair of athletic shorts. The cold wind seeped into his legs, and goosebumps had already formed on his leg muscles. His little finger was so cold that he couldn't feel it.

He dragged his weary body forward step by step with difficulty, finally managing to get home. As soon as he opened the door, he saw that the living room was deserted.

Xu Qingwan and Si Xingbin sat on the living room sofa, both looking worried and remaining silent.

Si Chuying's door was tightly closed, and there was no sound from inside.

Wen Jinxin sat against the wall outside Si Chuying's bedroom, squatting on the ground with his hands wrapped around his knees, his head buried in his chest, his eyes lifeless.

Hearing the door open, Wen Jinxin looked up and saw Si Yang. He stood up, hesitated for a moment, and then looked at Si Xingbin and Xu Qingwan on the sofa. "Brother Yang, Uncle and Aunt, you must keep a close eye on Yingmei. At least... at least stay by her side every step of the way."

Si Yang followed his gaze and felt a sudden pang of sadness. In just over two weeks, his parents seemed to have aged ten years. Si Xingbin's hair had turned a little whiter, and Xu Qingwan's eyes were bloodshot, with heavy dark circles under them.

He took a deep breath. "Don't worry, this was our oversight. It will definitely not happen again."

He knew that his mother and father didn't even have the strength to speak. These past few days, they had to stay by Si Chuying's side, deal with the rumors outside, and worry about his situation. They were already exhausted, both physically and mentally.

Si Yang had already cursed those rumor-mongering bastards countless times in his heart. With all that time they spent focusing on him, they could have turned Jinchuan upside down, leaving no place for human traffickers to hide. What was the point of tormenting someone who had done a good deed? It only chilled the hearts of all good people!

The living room fell silent again, probably because no one wanted to disturb Si Chuying who was resting inside. Wen Jinxin had to go to work, so he left shortly after Si Yang returned. Before leaving, he repeatedly told him that he would come over to check on things whenever he had time, to see if there was anything he could do to help.

After Wen Jinxin left, Si Yang sat down next to Si Xingbin and Xu Qingwan, patted the two middle-aged men on the shoulders, and said, "Dad, Mom, things will be resolved soon, trust me. Things will turn around, after all, the situation can't get any worse."

Only he knew that he had been forcing himself to remain calm, even though his mind was a complete mess. If he panicked, his parents would panic even more, and the family would truly collapse.

Seeing that the two remained silent, only nodding slightly, Si Yang didn't say anything more. He slowly stood up and returned to his room. After closing the door behind him, he took out his phone.

When he returned to the past timeline this time, he added Song Wanxi on WeChat and asked her to send him the landlord's phone number. However, he got a little carried away chatting and didn't save it to his phonebook in time.

However, he later managed to contact the landlord, and the phone number was definitely correct. But that was a call record from several months ago, and the phone's call history was densely packed, making it extremely difficult to scroll back. He tried searching for Song Wanxi directly on WeChat, but the screen was empty; he couldn't find the person at all.

"She wouldn't have deleted me, would she?" Si Yang's heart suddenly tightened. When he added her, he thought her WeChat profile picture was very unique—a cartoon panda with a black and white background and its playful red tongue sticking out, its gaze seeming to be staring at him with a grin. It left a deep impression on him at the time, and he remembered it immediately.

He scrolled through his contacts and even his chat history several times, but Song Wanxi was nowhere to be found. He had been a bit confused at the time; he had only added her on WeChat and hadn't asked for her phone number. Otherwise, he wouldn't be in such a passive position now, unable to even find his landlord's phone number.

Si Yang listened intently to the next room, but there was still no sound from Si Chuying's room. He had originally planned to ask his sister for Song Wanxi's phone number, since Si Chuying had never idolized Song Wanxi, and the two must have some connection. However, thinking about what his sister had just experienced, he had to give up the idea.

"Who else knows her?" Si Yang mentally went through the scenes of his previous trips back to his hometown, while also scrolling through his call logs from the past few months. However, two months ago, due to insufficient phone memory, he had deleted all the unlabeled phone numbers.

For a moment, Si Yang was in a dilemma. Only by finding Song Wanxi could he get back the landlord's phone number, contact the landlord, and find out more about single mothers.

"She took Mom's class, so you must know her well, right? Do you have her contact information?" Si Yang paused, gently opened the bedroom door, tiptoed to the living room, and walked up to Xu Qingwan. "Mom, do you remember that high school girl who took your class? She had long hair and always sat in the last row. I noticed you two were quite familiar with each other. Do you have her contact information?"

He knew that at this critical juncture, it was inappropriate to ask his mother for a strange girl's phone number, but it was the only opportunity he had at the moment.

Xu Qingwan tilted her head slightly, moving it away from Si Xingbin's shoulder. Then she slowly looked away from the floor, staring blankly at Si Yang, her eyes filled with a sense of bewilderment, as if she were thinking about something.

Several minutes passed before she slowly spoke, "Yangyang, no other students have ever attended my classes. What are you talking about?"

Si Yang was startled. His excellent memory was inherited from Xu Qingwan. Even at this age, Xu Qingwan still possessed a photographic memory; she would never forget someone she had met or interacted with even once. Yet she directly denied this.

He had previously suspected that he had transmigrated to two parallel worlds that did not interfere with each other. But considering the unexpected appearance of the rabbit, Wen Jinxin's change of profession, the notes in the notebook, and all the other changes, they were simply in different points in time within the same world.

So, as a student with a talent for archaeology who often audited classes, it was impossible for her mother not to remember her. But her mother's eyes didn't seem to be lying. Si Yang originally wanted to ask another question, but seeing her mother's certainty, she had no choice but to swallow the words that were on the tip of her tongue.

Xu Qingwan noticed his unusual behavior and looked nervous. She reached out and touched Si Yang's exposed knees, her brows furrowing immediately. She quickly covered him with a small blanket from the sofa.

"Child, don't overwork yourself. Things will always work out. Focus on writing your graduation thesis first." Xu Qingwan's tone was full of worry. She then touched Si Yang's forehead with the back of her hand to make sure he didn't have a fever before she felt a little relieved and leaned her head back on Si Xingbin's shoulder.

Si Yang felt a pang of sadness. He knew his mother was worried that he was overworking himself and that something was wrong with his mind, which was why she said those things. But at that moment, he was perfectly clear-headed.

Moreover, his mother's mention of "graduation thesis" made him instantly realize that his mother was unaware that he had been "forced" to drop out of school.

In other words, the mother must not have gone to school these past two days, and may even have been "forced" to completely stop working and stay at home.

He knew all too well that if something happened to his family, his former colleagues of decades would avoid him like the plague, and some might even take the opportunity to betray him, for fear of being implicated.

Not wanting his mother to worry, he simply hummed, "Mmm."

Then, he stood up, folded the small blanket and put it back on the sofa, picked up Si Chuying's cup, filled it with warm water, and walked towards her room.