Chapter 10: New World
I lay on the hospital bed, quietly waiting for my time travel to end.
The world still looked the same. But in truth, this timeline might have been tampered with countless times already.
Jessica hadn't been punished for defying her father. She was asleep right now, slumped against the edge of my hospital bed. Eight hours—she had endured unimaginable tribulations, and in the other timelines I never saw, her suffering had been far crueler than what I witnessed.
What does it feel like, to be an eighteen-year-old girl forced to jump from a building by her own father?
And yet, that same girl still had the capacity to love someone.
"I still want to be with you."
She had written those words on my hand, and they filled me with both bitterness and warmth.
Why was I having all these pointless thoughts?
Perhaps because these seven hours had been so exhausting, so terrifying.
This moment of failure actually brought me an unprecedented sense of relief.
The hospital bed was comfortable. Even the smell of antiseptic in the air made me feel safe.
The entire timeline had been altered. Even, as Damian had theorized, the world might be on the verge of collapse because of it.
But I didn't want to think about that anymore.
I wanted to sleep.
Beside Jessica.
Just then, a nurse walked into the room, moving quietly toward my bedside.
"Sir, the mission isn't over yet."
My drowsiness vanished. "What did you say?"
The nurse pulled a scalpel from inside her uniform.
"Think one step further."
She raised the blade and drove it toward my chest.
I grabbed her wrist just in time.
Her strength wasn't overwhelming—the knife could go no further.
But more people flooded into the room.
Doctors, nurses, patients in hospital gowns.
Ten, twenty, thirty...
Each one held a blade.
Each one murmured nearly the same words.
They moved like replicated machines, expressions vacant, stepping forward one by one, driving their knives into my chest.
"Think one step further..."
"Think one step further..."
"For the entire timeline."
I could stop them no longer. I let the blades pierce my chest, one after another.
---
57—2019
I sat bolt upright from my cardboard bed.
Though I'd just had that nightmare again, I'd dreamed it so many times that it no longer startled me.
Old habit—always having strange dreams.
But reality hadn't turned out the way those dreams once promised.
I never married Jessica, never had that wedding among the mountains of Europe. Even after traveling back to 2017, I never saw her again.
I was arrested.
Not for killing Damian, not for attempting to assassinate Victor.
My charge was: crimes against humanity.
During the expansion of the Gate technology, before the Temporal Laws were enacted, anyone who posed a threat to the timeline was charged with "crimes against humanity."
Damian was retroactively designated the first person convicted under this charge. I was the second.
But considering my immense contributions to Project Rebirth, I was released in 2019.
The world looked the same, but its foundations had been rewritten.
In this world, Victor's Project Rebirth organization had grown enormously powerful.
Despite its extreme barriers to entry, the organization had swelled to tens of thousands of members within a year. Most were tech professionals and entrepreneurs. Project Rebirth had only one purpose:
To calculate more parameters.
Parameters were the prerequisite for Gate travel. After Victor single-handedly calculated the parameter for April 7, 2007, at 4:03 PM, he could compute no earlier ones.
Because every incremental step forward demanded enormous computing power, which in turn required vast amounts of labor and capital.
But Project Rebirth filled that gap.
New parameters were calculated continuously, new Gates were built, and more people could undertake "eight-hour rebirths" at exorbitant prices, modifying their histories within "limited scopes that wouldn't disrupt the historical timeline," rewriting their own lives.
And Victor had become the most respected person in all of society.
His titles included President of Project Rebirth, chairman of multiple tech institutions, the youngest academician, and a strong contender for several upcoming Nobel Prizes.
But privately, more people preferred to call him "Savior."
Similarly, once people learned of my history with Victor, they gave me a name too: "Traitor."
They believed that I, the person who had contributed the most to Project Rebirth, had committed the ultimate betrayal by trying to assassinate Victor.
They believed I had betrayed the entire timeline.
My name is Marcus. In 2019, I was thirty years old.
After my release from prison, I discovered that everyone knew me—and despised me.
Naturally, I couldn't get hired for any job, couldn't even rent an apartment or ride a bus.
The first time I used welfare money to buy groceries, every vendor told me to get lost. Until one kind woman secretly slipped me two steamed buns and whispered, "Get out of here, quick."
"If I do business with you, I won't be able to stay in this market anymore."
After that, I survived by scavenging.
Essen City, where I lived, was known for its tech industry. Because of the Gate, it seemed to be developing faster and faster—new high-rises, subway lines, and elevated highways sprouting and weaving together.
But the number of homeless people seemed to be growing too.
Eventually, one of them took me in.
He was an old scavenger.
His head would twitch to the right from time to time, his mouth producing sounds like "Mm," "Hah," "Rrgh."
On the right back of his skull, there was a crater about five or six centimeters deep. Though it had healed, the sheer depth of the wound made it seem like a miracle he'd survived at all.
That morning, the old scavenger stood before me for a long moment, then handed me a piece of Haier refrigerator cardboard packaging, telling me it had been his bed for years.
"Mm, trust me, mm, secondhand stalls sell sofas for forty or fifty, hah, none as comfortable as this."
After he said that, I decided he was the only person in this new world I could trust.
Over the next six months, I was frequently beaten by homeless men who recognized me.
They couldn't afford to use the Gate, didn't understand how I'd "betrayed the timeline" or committed "crimes against humanity." They were simply miserable, wanting to vent their rage at the world through brute force.
I never fought back. Not because I couldn't win.
Because fighting back would make me hungrier.
During those beatings, the old scavenger would stand to one side, not trying to stop them. Instead, he'd clap and shout encouragement, even offering suggestions for their attacks.
"Mm! Go for the vitals, mm!"
"Stomp! Mm, his hand!"
"His crotch is open, hah! Kick him in the crotch!"
I understood the old man. First, if he intervened, he'd just get beaten alongside me. Second, his brain was so damaged that anything he said could be expected.
When the homeless men beat me, I always thought back to that evening on April 7, 2007.
Derek had beaten me up, and then Jessica had come running over and "rescued" me.
Back then, I'd felt so full of hope for the future.
But now...
One late-autumn day, a typhoon struck Essen City, bringing torrential rain.
In the corner of the urban village, the plastic awning that sheltered the old scavenger and me was ripped away. Waste from the neighboring factory flooded, and the stench multiplied. My Haier-brand cardboard bed grew damp, attracting swarms of ants.
But that day was the old scavenger's happiest.
Because he'd found a radio. And without a soldering iron, solder, or any relevant knowledge, he'd miraculously coaxed it into producing sound.
It picked up three stations.
That night, the old scavenger and I fell asleep to the sound of rain and music. He thought of his daughter, and I thought of Jessica.
The next morning, the storm had cleared.
The dense, crumbling buildings of the urban village were pierced by warm sunlight. The smell of industrial waste had been washed away, replaced by the scent of fresh earth, carrying a hint of green.
The old man was up much earlier than I was, having switched the radio from music to news.
"Today is Saturday, August 24th, 2019..."
The radio droned on.
"Mm, it's already August!" The old man smiled, clearly having lost track of months and years for a very long time.
"Today's top stories..."
The radio kept chattering about uninteresting things. I wanted to steal a little more sleep in this fresh air and sunshine, but the old man had the volume turned up so high that I couldn't ignore it...
"The annual G7 summit opens today, with leaders from..."