Yu Bai, who had suddenly lost all focus, fell silent for a long time. The room was left in utter stillness.
The second hand on the wall clock ticked away relentlessly. Time was destined to march forward, and oblivion was merely a question of sooner or later.
Yet he had received a form of eternity that was utterly impossible for any human.
…If only the thing inside hadn’t been his black history of wreaking havoc across the world and tormenting non-humans along the way.
A precious gift that could only be used once—why did it have to be wasted on something like this?!
Yu Bai’s current mood was even more chaotic than the moment he had broken free from the time loop.
Anyone could tell that the expression on his face wasn’t simple happiness.
After a long silence, Xie Wufang asked, “You don’t like it?”
He spoke softly, as if out of pure curiosity.
But when Yu Bai gazed into those eyes, calm as a lake, he immediately recalled that other night illuminated by the moon. In the quiet neighborhood shadowed by trees, Li Nanxiao had thanked the neighbor he happened to run into—a thank-you for the gift given to Little Bai.
“I heard you gave something to Little Bai,” Li Nanxiao had said. “It’s his first gift from a neighbor. He really likes it. Thank you.”
The neighbor, whose name Yu Bai hadn’t known back then, had heard those polite words, and his eyes had suddenly lit up. The faint melancholy that had lingered around him like mist over a lakeside vanished, as if fireflies had wandered into the forest, leaving only a gentle smile.
It was only now that Yu Bai belatedly realized something.
After receiving that gift, his mood had been incredibly complicated—he’d just confirmed that the next-door neighbor wasn’t human—so he’d simply snatched up the small ball and shut the door without a backward glance, offering no response, let alone thanks.
So, had that sudden melancholy that night stemmed from thinking he disliked the gift?
Yu Bai took a deep breath.
…If this guy had ordinary black eyes like any normal human, he never would have remembered those fleeting glimpses of emotion so clearly.
That beautiful, unique clarity of gray-blue was just way too foul play.
It was all the blue’s fault!
“I don’t dislike it,” Yu Bai said after struggling for a moment. He sounded a bit awkward. “It’s a very precious gift… Thank you.”
Just thinking about the flood of memories churning inside made it impossible for him to happily say he liked it.
Yu Bai wasn’t sure if Xie Wufang could detect the insincerity in his words, but he could see the other man looking over at him.
—Looking at him, glued to the sofa as if by superglue, and at the gift buried under the sofa cushions.
Yu Bai struggled a bit more.
The night lights cast a quiet, dim yellow glow across that patch of blue.
Slowly, Yu Bai hauled himself up from the sofa, all the while vigilantly watching the man in front of him.
The man in the white shirt showed no unusual expression.
There was no sign of the small ball under the cushion flying toward him either.
He was probably safe for the moment?
A low, subdued voice spoke up right on cue. “I’m not sensing any more memories. It’s entered a sealed state, as if it’s digesting something.”
Please don’t describe this thing like it’s an egg!
Yu Bai let out a discreet breath of relief. He straightened up slowly and managed a casual, “Oh. I wasn’t worried about that.”
Xie Wufang clearly hesitated, as if wanting to say more.
…Fine, he knew his attempt at playing it cool was pretty pathetic.
Before the other man could speak, Yu Bai cut in preemptively. “You need to keep yourself under control right now. Don’t zone out.”
The man blinked in confusion. “What?”
Then he saw the brown-haired young man striding quickly toward him.
The next instant, a wave of searing heat landed on his shoulder.
Yu Bai pressed his hand against the non-human neighbor’s upper back, trying to shove him out the door. His words tumbled out in a rush. “Go home already. I need to sleep!”
His palm immediately registered the other’s icy body temperature, clear even through the thin fabric of his shirt.
A human’s temperature was much hotter than that. It would be all too easy to give himself away like this.
Yu Bai wanted to point that out to Xie Wufang, but in the end, he held his tongue.
As he pushed the man toward the door, he muttered under his breath, “You don’t have to wear a white shirt, you know. You can wear whatever you want. A white shirt is just the most common suggestion—it’s not the only option. You could go for other styles or colors.”
Incredibly, he managed to usher the man—who was far stronger than him—out the door.
In the hallway, where their two long, slanting shadows intertwined, Yu Bai released his grip. He lowered his eyes and said, “…Anyway, you hate white.”
So stop wearing white shirts.
He shut the door without looking back to see the man’s reaction.
Non-humans probably couldn’t pick up on the complex, subtle subtext in human words anyway.
Yu Bai leaned back against the door. The hallway behind him, out of sight, was exceptionally quiet. The night scene reflected in the window ahead was serene, no longer transforming into a mirror-like lake.
It was the most ordinary world imaginable.
Yet Yu Bai, propped against the cold door, let out an inexplicable sigh.
He zoned out for a bit, then walked over to the sofa and finally fished out the small ball that had been shoved under the cushion.
The smooth orb, once uniformly grayish-white, now gleamed with a deep, rich blue. It still felt cool to the touch, but it was no longer as light as before.
Something was clearly packed inside. It wasn’t heavy, though—like a gift box containing some priceless treasure.
Yu Bai glared at the small ball that served as his criminal record. He had half a mind to punch it out of spite.
He restrained the impulse with effort.
What if he accidentally cracked the shell and let the memories spill out?
In the quiet living room, Yu Bai sat on the sofa with his brows tightly furrowed. He still couldn’t unravel the nagging doubts swirling in his mind.
In this timeline, he’d had the gift for a week already, and it hadn’t shown any anomalies during that time. As Uncle Li had guessed, it had seemed more like some postmodern minimalist decor piece.
Why had it changed color precisely tonight, storing his memories in the process?
Moreover, Yu Bai recalled that in the one time loop where he’d received the small ball, it had briefly turned black at some point. But he wasn’t sure if that was real or just a hallucination—after all, he’d been up all night that day, so his eyes playing tricks on him was entirely possible.
What had he been doing at the time?
Yu Bai was deep in recollection when the phone in his pocket suddenly buzzed.
It was a call from Yan Jing.
The moment Yu Bai picked up, Yan Jing’s boisterous voice blared through. “Little Bai! I sent you a ton of messages—how come you haven’t replied to a single one? You okay? You home yet?”
After escaping that endlessly protracted day, this was the first time Yu Bai had spoken to an ordinary human living on normal time.
For a moment, he felt a touch dazed.
Listening to that familiar, friendly voice, Yu Bai couldn’t help but think…
Okay, fine—he felt zero sense of longing from a long-awaited reunion.
After all, during the loops, he’d often dragged the perpetually off-duty Yan Jing out to hang, including sitting together for hotpot just an hour ago. He’d even watched the guy flip out, convinced he’d poisoned himself on mushrooms.
“I’m home,” Yu Bai said. He’d forgotten to mention it. He glanced at his phone screen, piled high with unread messages. “Why’d you send so many? What’s up?”
Yan Jing’s voice grew a bit distant at first as he turned to speak to someone nearby. “Mom, you hear that? Little Bai’s home safe. Nothing’s gonna happen to him with Brother Qiang and the others watching.”
Yan Mama’s relieved sigh faded into the distance. “Alright, alright. I’m reassured then. You boys chat. Oh, I need to call my friend too…”
“Go ahead, go ahead.” Yan Jing turned back to Yu Bai, his tone exaggerated. “The world’s about to end, and you’re asking me what’s up! Didn’t you see it?”
Yu Bai hadn’t seen the world end. He’d only seen that blue orb, which might symbolize his personal apocalypse.
Damn that blue.
“…” He rubbed his forehead, forcing his gaze away from it. “What world-ending stuff?”
“That blue sky earlier! It was reflecting the ground like a mirror! The internet’s blowing up right now—people calling it a global mirage, an omen of the apocalypse, or saying the sky’s actually a glass dome because Earth’s just a toy for higher-dimensional aliens… All sorts of conspiracy theories flying around. Folks are even lining up at banks to withdraw cash!”
“I’m leaning toward the apocalypse explanation myself,” Yan Jing went on. “I don’t wanna go to work tomorrow anyway. Neither do my parents. Work sucks.” He paused. “You really didn’t see it? Were you writing again?”
Of course Yu Bai had seen it.
Not only had he seen it—he might be the only human who knew the real reason.
It wasn’t a mirage, or the end of the world, or some alien plaything.
It was simply because, when he’d grabbed Xie Wufang by the collar, his fingertip had accidentally brushed the other’s skin.
Truth be told, those first three reasons still sounded more convincing.
“I was busy and didn’t notice,” Yu Bai said, trying to change the subject. “Why go to the bank to withdraw cash?”
“I don’t know. Maybe to use for escaping if the aliens invade?” Yan Jing pondered. “Should I go withdraw some too?”
Yu Bai looked baffled. “If we’re already toys trapped in the aliens’ glass dome, would running away even help? Besides, everyone uses mobile payments these days. They might not even accept cash.”
“You’re right. The banks have huge lines anyway—forget it.” Yan Jing nodded in deep agreement, then remembered something. “Oh, right, that guy who lives next door to you…”
He leaned in mysteriously, lowering his voice. “He started writing notes and growing flowers just like you. He must really like you as a neighbor. Why don’t you ask him? If the aliens really invade, maybe he can help us humans out?”
Don’t even ask—this guy was the real culprit.
“Don’t worry, there won’t be any alien invasion,” Yu Bai said casually to reassure him. Then he asked, “My place has a leaking pipe. Can I crash at your house for a couple of days?”
“Of course! You should’ve said so sooner. You just ate dinner at my place and headed home, and now you’re coming back. What a hassle, going back and forth.”
“It just started leaking.”
As they spoke, Yu Bai cast a lingering glance at the Blue Orb.
He still hadn’t sorted out his jumbled emotions. Plus, he worried that the thin wall separating their apartments wouldn’t block the transmission of memories. He figured it was best to stay elsewhere for a couple of days.
“How’d it leak? Want me to have my dad come over and fix it?”
“No need. Your dad couldn’t handle it anyway. I’ll call someone later.”
“Oh, okay. Then make sure to shut off the main breaker before you head out.” As Yan Jing spoke, he couldn’t help but chuckle. “Even my mom’s on the phone gossiping with her friends about that weird reflection in the sky tonight, and here we are talking about a leaky pipe.”
Yan Jing sighed with feeling. “I was kinda scared at first, but chatting with you made me forget all about it. You’re so calm, Little Bai.”
Yu Bai was already packing up the Small Ball. “That’s because the reflection in the sky was my doing.”
Yan Jing burst out laughing. “Hahaha! You’re hilarious.”
Yu Bai couldn’t muster a smile. He replied flatly, “Haha.”
Yan Jing caught the odd tone in his voice and suddenly looked alarmed. “…You’re not serious, are you?!”
An hour later, Yu Bai showed up at Yan Jing’s door again.
He had brought a massive suitcase, but it only held a couple of changes of clothes and some daily essentials. The rest of the space was taken up by a large square box.
When Yu Bai carefully lifted the box out and set it on the table—politely refusing Yan Jing’s eager offer to help—Yan Jing felt a strange twinge of tension for no clear reason.
He held his breath instinctively, watching as Yu Bai opened the box with unusual solemnity. Bracing himself mentally, Yan Jing leaned in for a closer look.
Inside was…
Another square box.
Yan Jing blinked in confusion. Then he watched Yu Bai gravely unpack that one too.
He held his breath again.
Inside that one was still another square box.
…
One minute later, Yan Jing stared at the floor littered with empty boxes of all sizes and let out a yawn. “I’m getting sleepy. Is this some new hypnosis trick?”
Yu Bai, who had finally reached the innermost small box, had been watching Yan Jing’s reactions the whole time.
He picked up the Blue Orb nestled inside and slowly brought it closer to Yan Jing. At the same time, he asked, “Do you feel anything?”
“What kind of feeling?” Yan Jing was utterly baffled, taking a stab at it. “You gonna throw it and have me fetch it like a dog? Come on, I’m a person, not a pet.”
It seemed ordinary people couldn’t sense what was inside after all.
Yu Bai’s mood lifted slightly. He started to put the orb back in the box.
“Never mind. Pretend I didn’t ask.”
Yan Jing’s face lit up with surprise.
He eyed his oddly behaved friend with curiosity.
“I thought you had some super important thing stashed in all those boxes. But after nesting box after box, it’s just a little ball? Why drag a ball over to my place in the dead of night…”
At that moment, inspiration struck Yan Jing like a bolt. A certain phrase popped into his head.
He blurted it out. “Don’t tell me this is you ‘knocking her up and running off’?”
The next second, Yu Bai’s previously calm expression froze solid. It was as if some awful thought had hit him—he bristled like a spooked cat and shot back, “What the hell are you talking about?!”
Yan Jing’s eyes went wide. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Then opened it again, only to close it once more.
“…Whoa,” he marveled. “You’re really getting worked up over this.”
