Countdown: Humanity's struggle to survive against yesterday

At 6 a.m., when Zhang Jimin was about to leave the Bund, it was already getting light. After a night of commotion, he was both thirsty and tired. When he finally managed to squeeze out of the crowd and looked around, he found that the flow of people had not decreased. On the contrary, as it got brighter, even more people gathered from all around.

These people mostly gathered in groups of three or five, both men and women, sometimes talking loudly and laughing, sometimes stopping to point and whisper; there were also many small groups dressed in strange costumes, singing in the street as if no one else was around; some people stood on the hood of cars to give speeches, surrounded by a crowd; and some even urinated directly in front of the jewelry store.

"Fellow countrymen! Don't panic! Don't be afraid! I am Sun Yao, a specially appointed researcher at the Institute of Quantum Chaos, Chinese Academy of Sciences... uh... Today, I will use cutting-edge science to tell you what exactly is going on with this world's regression."

When Zhang Jimin passed by the speaker and heard these words, he stopped in his tracks.

Do you know what quantum entanglement is?

A few people nodded, but most looked bewildered.

"It's okay if you don't know. Let me tell you, quantum entanglement means that no matter how far apart two particles are, if one moves, the other also moves. Whoosh—the speed of light, you know instantly! This is what Einstein called spooky action at a distance."

At this point, the middle-aged man forcefully raised his hands: "Now, our scientists have discovered that at 5:11 a.m. on March 21, the entire human brain suddenly became entangled with a quantum system on a cosmic scale."

At 5:11 a.m. on March 21, this time is currently recognized as the starting point of the first time the world has reversed course.

"What's this system called? It's called... Time-Reversal Symmetry Breaking Compensation Field! Or simply Time-Reversal Field!"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Jimin adjusted his thick glasses, which were perched on the bridge of his nose.

He had heard of time symmetry in a popular science video, but he had never heard of inversion symmetry breaking compensation field.

The middle-aged man continued, "Do you know why time can only move forward and not backward? It's because of the second law of thermodynamics: entropy increases. But entropy increase isn't absolute. At the quantum level, time can be reversed, but the probability is extremely low... well, how low? Lower than being struck by lightning a million times in your lifetime!"

"Hiss~"

Someone gasped. Zhang Jimin turned his head and saw a woman with short hair, a slender figure, a delicate face, and sharp eyes, who was holding up her phone, recording while trying hard to suppress her laughter.

The middle-aged man seemed not to see her and continued speaking to himself: "But now, this probability has changed! Why? Because the time-reversal field has been activated, pulling all of humanity's consciousness into a quantum superposition state. Your consciousness is now today, and it is yesterday! It is life, and it is death! It is Schrödinger's cat, and it is Schrödinger's box!"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Jimin shook his head and left.

What he really wanted to ask was, "Teacher, will these unusual phenomena of the past twelve days happen again today?"

But after thinking about it, he still felt it was best not to ask, because it was pointless.

The revelry from last night until now has made him realize something:

"It doesn't seem like a big deal?"

If time continues to move forward and the world stops going backward at midnight tonight, then it was all just a dream.

If the world were to regress again, I'd live backwards. That way, I'd get younger and younger, no longer worry about debt, and never have to worry about not having enough to eat or drink.

After walking all the way to Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street, Zhang Jimin finally found a convenience store.

To his surprise, the convenience store was locked, but the transparent glass door had been violently smashed, and the floor was covered with broken glass.

Zhang Jimin peeked inside and could see that the convenience store was in a mess, but there were still quite a few supplies inside.

After hesitating for a while, Zhang Jimin decided to go in and find a bottle of water and something to eat first.

Just as he was about to leave with bottled water and bread from the convenience store shelf, he saw several young people staring at him in surprise at the door.

Zhang Jimin blushed, pushed up his glasses, and took out his phone as he passed the cashier.

"Hey buddy! Why are you still paying? This place will definitely be back to normal tomorrow!"

As one of the young men spoke, he quickly called his companions to also enter the convenience store and begin selecting what they wanted.

Zhang Jimin didn't reply. After scanning the code and paying, he quickly left. Once outside, he continued walking along Nanjing Road towards the nearest subway station while munching on bread.

All the shops on both sides of Nanjing Road were closed at this time. The further you went into the central section of the road, the more you could see that the shops had been broken open by external forces. Most of these shops were luxury stores.

At this time, there were many people on both sides of the pedestrian street. Some people would stop and look at the damaged shops for a while, and some people even walked out of the shops without any scruples, carrying a bunch of luxury goods that they could not normally afford.

Further on, Zhang Jimin was surprised to find that there were still people trying to break into ATMs, with many people watching from the outside, and some even taking over when the previous person got tired.

What puzzled Zhang Jimin even more was that although patrolling police officers appeared quickly in the crowd, not a single officer stopped to reprimand or stop them.

However, Zhang Jimin quickly found the reason. When he walked a few hundred meters further, he found a large crowd gathered there, and shouts of insults could be heard from the crowd.

Zhang Jimin struggled to squeeze in before realizing that it was a fight between two groups of young people. Even with the police there, one of them nonchalantly said, "Come on, arrest me! Arrest me now, and when the world reverses, I'll just show up at home..."

A middle-aged police officer said helplessly, "Young man, during this special period, I can overlook your acts of stealing, smashing, and looting shops in this area, but I only ask that you do not fight, and even more so, you do not hurt anyone."

Another elderly police officer spoke with even greater earnestness: "Many things are still unknown. The world might indeed rewind, and people might appear in yesterday's time. But who can guarantee that someone can be resurrected after death? Even if they could, there's always the possibility of unforeseen events. Besides, if there's bloodshed, it's impossible to get an appointment at the hospital now. Wouldn't that mean a whole day of pain for nothing? A pointless ordeal...?"

Perhaps it was the last sentence, "Who can guarantee that people will be resurrected 100% after they die?" that frightened the two groups of people, or perhaps they were afraid that the Skynet was now omnipresent and that if the world really did not flow backwards, they would be held accountable later. The two groups of people looked at each other awkwardly for a few moments, said a few more harsh words, and then left directly.

As the crowd dispersed, Zhang Jimin had a vague and inexplicable feeling.

He recalled that after the third reset, a niece who was also interning at Mingguang Hospital in Shanghai called him, tearfully recounting how the hospital morgue had resurrected a corpse.

He initially thought his niece was just terrified by the disaster and talking nonsense, but after listening for a while, he understood.

It's not that they've risen from the dead, but rather that people who died today have been resurrected "tomorrow" as the world turns backward.

Zhang Jimin didn't dare tell anyone about this news for those two days, because his niece had seriously reminded him at the end of the call that this matter was still in the confidential stage and it was best not to spread it to others, so as not to get into trouble.

But soon the whole internet knew about it because a live streamer broadcast it first, and now that guy named Li Dawei seems to have become an internet celebrity.

But then Zhang Jimin suddenly realized that, given the reactions of the people on the street, if the world were to regress and this continued to happen, it could happen tonight or tomorrow, and the whole world might really descend into chaos.

Throughout history, man-made disasters have always been more harmful than natural disasters.

As soon as the thought crossed Zhang Jimin's mind, he felt a chill run down his spine, and his hands and feet began to feel weak and unresponsive.

He sat shakily on the ground for a long time before he calmed down.

The next second, as if he had thought of something, he immediately stood up and strode towards the subway station, bumping into many people along the way. Amidst the cursing, he paid no attention and just wanted to get home as quickly as possible.

Finally, while catching his breath, he remembered something again and quickly took out his phone to send a message to his wife:

"Don't go out! Don't go out!"

"Try to stay home and wait for me to come back..."

After thinking for a while, he clicked on a profile picture he hadn't contacted in a long time. In fact, this was the third time he had clicked on this profile picture since the "world regression" phenomenon occurred.

"Jiang Ning, are you still in Shanghai?"

"I am here……"