Ordinary Chapter 64: Wait

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: KarateChopMonkey

 

As unethical as it may sound, there was no way around it. After all, it was a man who ordered his daughter-in-law to go to someone else’s doorstep and make a fire, and Jian Nian didn’t show much mercy. For the rest of the night, Jian Nian kept asking him to repeat what happened until he was sure that all he said was the truth.

The old man fell asleep on the sofa in shock and fear, Jian Nian took a look at the sunlight coming in from the balcony, then turned to leave. At the moment he walked out the door, he met the eyes of the next door neighbor, the woman who had just returned from grocery shopping looked at him with some surprise.

“You?” She looked at Jian Nian, “And you are…?”

“Good morning.” Jian Nian stopped her words, then said hello, after the woman subconsciously answered and turned to leave, without the slightest hesitation.

The woman watched Jian Nian’s figure disappear at the staircase, then she went to the next door and tried to ring the doorbell. For a second or two, no one came to open the door, the woman stood for a moment, and then she took her cell phone out of her pocket and called the owner of the house.

The young man who left the house just now didn’t know, although other people’s business was not easy to manage, she still gave the owner a call to confirm it, if it was okay, she would also be relieved.

On the other hand, Jian Nian came out of the building and walked towards Shen Si’s house, thinking about what the old man had said while he walked.

The old man, who had been trapped by feudal superstition all his life, firmly believed that Shen Si was the devil, because he had seen him on the balcony when Shen Si’s parents were in an accident, standing in the house with blood all over him. Soon he heard the news that Shen Si had been found at the scene of his parents’ car accident.

He told the police about this, but they told him that there was no surveillance of Shen Si’s return, and the police thought that he had been mistaken and that Shen Si could never have come home.

But how could he be wrong? That person was indeed Shen Si.

After questioning many times, the old man said the same thing, he didn’t think he saw wrong, nor did he think he remembered wrong. He stubbornly shouted that Shen Si was the devil.

If what the old man said was true, then there was indeed something that needed explaining.

Jian Nian gripped the door handle, just when he was about to turn it, he found that it wouldn’t turn, the door was locked. Jian Nian blinked, he knocked on the door, but there was no movement inside the house, and he didn’t hear Shen Si get up to open the door for him. What happened, had Shen Si finally reacted and kicked him out of the house?

“Ah, Shen Si went out this morning.” The neighbor across the street cautiously opened the door and looked at Jian Nian, “He’s not home.”

“Is that so? Thank you for telling me about it.” Jian Nian smiled at the neighbor, the smile looked gentle, but with Jian Nian’s not-so-healthy face looked slightly gloomy. The neighbor nodded at Jian Nian and immediately closed the door with a click, then, there was no movement behind him.

Jian Nian put away his smile, subtly glanced out of the window, then walked to the place where Shen Si hid the key and searched around, finally touching the key.

Looking at the key in his hand, Jian Nian narrowed his eyes slightly.

He left in the morning and left him the key, so it meant that he thought he wouldn’t come back anytime soon. Of course he couldn’t have gone back to the Yijiang District, so did he have somewhere to go?

Or was it… 

Jian Nian stuffed the key into his pocket, then jumped straight down the stairs. As he landed, Jian Nian rushed straight out of the building, where else would Shen Si have gone if it was not that place?

When Jian Nian walked to that deserted road, he saw such a scene.

Shen Si was standing by the abandoned road, behind him was the snow and the dead grass underneath it, and he was surrounded by bright-colored dots of light, each of which was a picture, and they were spinning around Shen Si, moving forward as if by clockwork.

Snow began to fall in the sky, not much, such very fine and thin specs, that those snowflakes falling on Shen Si’s hair weren’t very obvious.

Hearing the sound of arriving footsteps, Shen Si turned his head to look this way, the lights around him were like extinguished flames, leaving no trace.

Shen Si had mastered the power of time, and it was still growing.

“Shen Si,” Jian Nian stood in place with his hands in his jacket pockets, “Is everything okay?”

Shen Si shook his head, patted the snow on his jacket, then walked towards Jian Nian, “How did you know I was here?”

“It’s normal, it’s not easy to come back and once you did, you came over to see.” Jian Nian turned in a circle in the snow, as if he was a curious little child greeting the snowflakes, “Are you going to the cemetery later? Can you take me with you? Of course, I can leave if you don’t want me to follow.”

In Shen Si’s eyes, Jian Nian’s whole person presented a very loose figure, cold white complexion pale lips, he looked thin, but not too thin, so that even if people didn’t feel cold, once they saw him, they would empathize with a cold shiver.

Helplessly sighing, Shen Si walked forward, “Keep up.”

Jian Nian smiled and followed, “I’m coming.”

… 

Jian Nian’s funeral was the last time Shen Si had returned, and the last time he came to the cemetery, after which he never returned, until today.

There was no such thing as a graveyard keeper in the backward urban-rural county, only a cemetery hill where all kinds of graves, big and small, could be seen. Shen Si walked around those tombstones by memory and went to the third row in the middle, where he then found his parents’ tombstones.

There was no picture on the headstone, only the name of the deceased engraved on it, as well as the person who erected it and the date and year.

The flowers in his arms were placed in front of the tombstone, and Shen Si looked at the tombstone without much expression on his face. Jian Nian stood behind Shen Si and didn’t intend to make a sound until Shen Si opened his mouth, so he just stayed silent.

“There is a problem with the time.”

“Hmm?” Jian Nian froze for a moment, he turned his head to look at Shen Si, “What did you say?”

“Aren’t you looking into this matter?” Shen Si turned his head and glanced at him lightly, “I just went to check the time and found that there was a problem with the time, it was rewound twice during the time when my parents died. It was a very small time rewind interval, if you didn’t look closely you couldn’t see it at all. Of course, the only one who can find this is me, right?”

The wind swept through the snowflakes and blew over, scraping people painfully.

But what did Shen Si mean by that?

Time was rewound twice? At the time of his parents’ death? But that was at least eight years ago, so how could… 

“Why would time rewind happen?” Jian Nian followed behind Shen Si.

“I don’t know, but it’s not hard to figure out. There are only two answers to this matter, the first is to have a Survivor who also has the ability of time; the second is that the time regression is caused by me. Now it seems the second is more likely, I made time go backwards twice for some reason.” Shen Si explained.

He was casual and careless, without the slightest attempt to make sense of the situation.

Shen Si’s voice was filled with coldness, as if it was even colder than the current cold, blowing right through Jian Nian’s heart.

“Shen Si!” Jian Nian shouted Shen Si’s name, “You know that’s not the question I asked!”

Shen Si stopped in his tracks, they were standing at the entrance of the cemetery, there was no one around, not even a security camera. Shen Si turned around and looked at Jian Nian, with no emotion in those dark eyes, “Then what question were you going to ask?”

“Eight years ago, the world of unlimited flow had not yet opened, so why would time rewind happen? Shen Si you simply didn’t have the ability to rewind time back then.” Jian Nian looked at him, “That’s the point, isn’t it?”

Standing in silence, Shen Si shook his head, “No, that’s not the point.”

“What are you saying?”

“Not to me, at least.” Shen Si looked at Jian Nian, after a moment he smiled, it was a long-lost smile, but there was no trace of happiness in this smile, there was only self-deprecating sarcasm, Jian Nian’s heart hurt as if it had been torn.

He would rather Shen Si didn’t smile.

“Shen Si?”

“Rewinding time in this time period, and more than once, regardless of why there was time rewind eight years ago, this is how only I would be stupid enough to do such a thing.” Shen Si smiled and said, “What’s the point? The point is: even after going backwards in time twice, I still didn’t save anyone.”

Shen Si turned around and left, his steps still smooth, the snow crunching as he stepped on it. Jian Nian stood still and inexplicably understood Shen Si’s thoughts.

But why would one think of the worst?

It was true that going backwards in time twice in that time period looked very much like Shen Si’s doing, but there was no evidence to determine that this was indeed Shen Si’s doing, and this time eight years ago was just too suspicious.

This was a number before the unlimited flow world opened, which by definition was completely impossible.

“Shen Si,” Jian Nian chased after him, “Don’t be so quick to judge, you have no memory of that time, and didn’t have the ability of time. Your ability was only awakened recently, there may be other reasons. We can’t change the past, but we can’t get tangled up in it either, can we?”

Shen Si gave him a strange look, “When did I get tangled up in the past?”

“You didn’t?” Jian Nian forcibly grabbed his hand, “The look on your face tells me that you’re already blaming yourself.”

“I’m not.” Shen Si’s voice was calm, as if he was comforting a noisy child, “That’s why I hate the past. The past that can’t be changed but affects my future. I’m not one who blames myself because of the past. If that’s really what I did, even if I didn’t save the person, I did try. Trying and then failing, I hate this kind of unchangeable fate type of drama, and it’s no use beating myself up over it.”

Jian Nian looked at him, and after a moment he let go of his hand, “Then what were you going to do?”

“Wait.” Shen Si put his hands in his pockets, “My control over my abilities is still too weak, when I have a high level of control I will be able to view this memory and then I will understand what really happened at that time.”

Jian Nian froze for a moment, “Your ability can still do this? Isn’t that a bit…”

Overly counter-intuitive?

“It should be able to, at least it tells me it can be done.” Shen Si glanced at the clock floating next to him, “Nothing is impossible for time.”