Early morning of January 1st.
As the New Year's bell rings, all timers roll over to the next year.
Lin Chaoxi sat in front of the window of a small room in the old house at No. 284 Zhuanzhu Lane. The small room now was completely different from the non-mainstream style when she came to the "Heavy Cheese World". The periodic table and world map were posted on the wall, and the reference books were neatly arranged. Although the indoor temperature was very low, the learning atmosphere was strong.
The little mouse alarm clock on the table was ticking away, but Lin Chaoxi was not reading a book. Instead, he was staring at the alarm clock dial.
She felt confused and even doubted the existence of reality, but at the same time she became clearer than ever.
All the details of the Internet cafe fire kept replaying in her mind.
After understanding the whole story, Lao Lin did not blame her for meddling in other people's business. Instead, he blamed her for not explaining things clearly. If the boss had been more careful, the Internet cafe might not have burned down.
She stood in the night wind, listening to Lao Lin's chattering, her heart as cold as a leaking wind due to despair.
There were police officers investigating the situation in the Internet cafe at the time. They heard their conversation and she was taken back to the police station to take a statement.
Same story as before.
Several elementary school students who set the fire were caught immediately. Their parents were very unreasonable and quarreled with the police in the police station, causing a lot of noise all around.
Lin Zhaoxi was taken to identify the suspect.
She looked into the room through the one-way glass. Under the incandescent light, the children's faces reflected the past moments.
One child had a lot of flesh on his face, one child had a mole near his nose, and another child had a small scar under the corner of his eye.
They lowered their heads and said nothing.
The event, location and people have not changed; only the time and severity of the event have changed.
It was difficult for her to describe how she felt afterwards.
After staying in the "Heavy Cheese World" for a long time, she got used to everything here, although she kept reminding herself: she would leave eventually, and her goal was to study mathematics at Sanmi University in the future.
But these self-reminders cannot appear all the time...
In a sense, she is still like a frog in warm water. She looks sober and has something to do every day, but her life is still confused.
So everything that happened in the Naimao Internet Cafe now was like a cruel hammer, or a clear dividing line drawn on the ground, telling her the clear difference between here and there.
She doesn't belong here.
If you just think like this, everything in the cheese world seems meaningless.
But Lin Chaoxi has a firm belief that the people here are real, the stories here are real, and Lao Lin here is also real. So, no matter how difficult it is, it will never be in vain to prevent the misfortune that Lao Lin will encounter in the future.
The hour hand reaches 1.
She picked up a pen and wrote three lines on the white paper in front of her:
1. Assume that Lao Lin’s car accident is bound to happen.
2. Assume that the time and location of the car accident remain unchanged.
3. How can we save Lao Lin?
Looking at these three lines, she wrote many solutions below and listed possible problems one by one, then crossed out the unrealistic ones, leaving only three in the end.
(1) On the day of the car accident, she kept Lao Lin company and wouldn’t let him go out. Problem: She might not be able to keep Lao Lin company.
(2) He followed Lao Lin the entire day of the accident. Problem: They were both hit and thrown away under uncertain circumstances.
(3) Determine the time and location of the accident and help Lao Lin avoid the accident. Question: I don’t know.
The white paper was already covered with dense handwriting, but Lin Chaoxi just stared at her and watched her write the three most difficult words - "I don't know".
Of all the solutions, option 3 looks the best, but it also has the biggest problems.
Because Chen Zhu's father did not solve this problem back then, now that her timeline jumps to before that time, she won't know more.
She circled "I don't know" again with a pen, took a deep breath, took the schoolbag, unzipped it, took out the draft paper hidden in the compartment, and spread it out on the table.
These pieces of draft paper had been stuffed in her schoolbag for too long and were wrinkled, but they were densely covered with her memories of the past written in pens of various colors.
From the small shops they often eat at to the roads that Lao Lin must take to and from get off work every day, to the parks they often go to, to the friends that Lao Lin occasionally visits...
Based on her experience, she first circled the important places that were visited frequently, then she rummaged through the drawer and found a map of Anning City.
Looking at the red dot on the map, she realized again where the problem lay.
Lao Lin used to work in an accounting firm, but now he has changed to the Red Star Welfare Home, so his behavior trajectory should also change accordingly.
So will the location of Lao Lin’s car accident really be the same as it was that year?
Perhaps she was too sleepy and she was distracted for a moment.
Inexplicably, many terms popped up in my mind, such as chaos theory, nonlinear mathematics, probability theory, and mathematical statistics...
Her mind was in a daze and she fell asleep on the table.
During this night, she always felt that she should have some dreams and gain corresponding enlightenment.
However, when she raised her head from the desk, she was blinded by the glaring sunlight outside the window. She pinched her face with her hands and found that she was very awake. She slept until dawn.
The desk was still in the same mess she had made yesterday. She didn't know what had gone wrong for her yesterday, and what she was thinking at the last moment.
——Calculate Lao Lin’s future?
Complex nouns emerged again, and Lin Chaoxi once again struggled with his own thoughts. At this moment, there was a knock on the door of the room.
"It's time for breakfast!" Lao Lin shouted outside the house.
She quickly picked up everything on the table and ran out to open the door.
What she didn't expect was that although she had been tidying up for a while, as soon as the door opened, Lao Lin was standing straight at the door without moving a step.
"You didn't change your clothes all night?" Lao Lin said sharply.
"I don't think it's very dirty!" Lin Chaoxi made up an excuse.
Lao Lin showed a look of disgust and turned to go to the kitchen.
Looking at Lao Lin's back in the morning light, Lin Chaoxi blurted out: "Dad!"
Lao Lin turned around.
The tragic scene of the Milk Cat Internet Cafe last night reappeared, and the words on the tip of his tongue were swallowed. Lin Chaoxi forced himself to laugh and shouted to Lao Lin: "Happy New Year!"
"Just have fun." said Lao Lin.
——
After breakfast, Lin Chaoxi packed up his things and went straight to Anning Library.
Standing in front of the mathematics bookshelf of Mingo1, facing the vast ocean of mathematics books, Lin Chaoxi once again fell into a state of contemplation, not knowing what he was doing.
From "mathematical theory" to "classical mathematics", from "combinatorics" to "operations science", she didn't know what kind of content she was looking for, nor did she know whether the solution she was trying to find was correct.
She even had an unrealistic thought: if she was still in Strawberry World and knew Pei Zhi, the 22-year-old who led a team to participate in the modeling competition, would she have the answer to the calculation problem that was bothering her now?
Then her gaze moved toward the reading room window.
The 15-year-old Pei Zhi, sitting in the New Year's sunshine, raised his hand slightly and greeted her.
"Aren't you going to stay home to celebrate the New Year?" Lin Chaoxi sat down opposite him and asked in a low voice for fear of disturbing others.
"You're not at home either?"
"I'm afraid of Old Lin's nagging." Seeing Pei Zhi about to speak, Lin Chaoxi interrupted him, "You can't say that I'm the same."
"No, there's no one at home." Pei Zhi said.
"Didn't you spend New Year's Eve together?"
Pei Zhi shook his head.
"Then why don't you come to us?"
"It may be the same reason why you went out."
Lin Chaoxi was stunned for a moment, then realized he was joking and felt a little relieved.
In front of Pei Zhi was a large stack of draft paper and the reference books he was reading.
He seemed to be teaching himself something in the field of mathematical analysis, and he had turned to the book about Hilbert space or something.
Lin Chaoxi thought about the question carefully, and then found a suitable entry point: "Have you read "Minority Report"? "
"What is that?"
"A movie."
"What is it about?"
"From a metaphysical perspective, predicting future crimes."
"And then?"
"Well...it's a long story..."
Lin Chaoxi said this, and Pei Zhi began to pack up.
He stuffed the things spread out on the table back into his schoolbag, zipped it up, and went out to borrow the reference book from the service desk. Lin Chaoxi followed him to the small coffee shop in the library.
Pei Zhi ordered a cup of milk tea, placed it in front of her, and finally said, "You can talk now."
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