Ding!
The elevator doors slid shut slowly.
“Huh?” Wang Jianbin finally caught on and hurriedly apologized. “Sorry, sorry! I won’t do that again.”
As the elevator began its ascent, a rich aroma of food quickly filled the cabin.
Called out by two strangers for his mistake, Wang Jianbin felt a bit awkward. Just then, the elevator shook for no apparent reason. He tried to say something to ease the tension.
“Whoa, why’s the elevator shaking? Did I really break it by holding the door?”
No sooner had he spoken than the brown-haired young man said, “Master, let me take those bags for you.”
The stranger reached out and took the pile of plastic bags from his hands. Wang Jianbin instinctively let go, a mix of bewilderment and flattery washing over him. “Whoa, you’re too polite…”
This young guy seemed pretty nice.
But had he really reached the age where people started showing him elder respect?
Wang Jianbin was a little puzzled but figured he should return the courtesy. “Have you eaten yet? I got some fried chicken, barbecue, and—holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!”
A harsh screech of metal rang out as the elevator plunged abruptly, cutting off his menu rundown. Caught off guard, Master Wang lost his footing and fell flat on his butt.
Meanwhile, Yu Bai stood steady, holding the bags. He silently finished the thought in his mind: and spicy hot noodles.
This time, he’d saved the spicy hot noodles from spilling.
He’d been bracing for the drop, so it felt just like riding a roller coaster’s freefall—pretty thrilling, actually.
With his heart still pounding from the instinctive weightlessness, he steadied his breathing and glanced toward the figure in the corner.
The man who apparently didn’t know elevators could break stood there as casually as ever, like some out-of-place ghost.
Unlike that day, though, he was looking over with his head tilted.
Yu Bai met his gaze right then.
Those gray-blue eyes, like a frozen lake in a winter forest, clearly reflected Yu Bai’s image under the dim elevator lights, shimmering quietly.
Yu Bai froze for a moment, suddenly forgetting he’d meant to mock his non-human neighbor in his head.
Feeling a bit awkward, he spoke up softly. “The elevator’s broken.”
The man repeated his words with some surprise. “The elevator’s broken?”
Yu Bai looked away first, nodding toward the third passenger sprawled on the floor.
“Yeah, so he’s freaking out. We’re stuck in here for now.”
“What should we do?”
“Call the rescue team to fix it. The number’s on the sign above the buttons.”
Listening to this conversation that seemed normal but somehow wasn’t, Master Wang—flat on his back—couldn’t hold back anymore. He piped up weakly. “Um, sorry to interrupt… Did the elevator just stop? Are we… still alive?”
Why were these two young guys so calm?!
It even felt like a tour guide explaining a scenic spot.
For a second, he wondered if he was already in the afterlife.
“We’re still alive. Wait for the rescue team. No need to panic.”
Yu Bai pulled out his phone with one hand to call for help and handed the saved food bags back to Master Wang with the other, striking first. “You hungry?”
“I’m not…”
His stomach growled.
“Er, yeah, I guess I am. Haha.”
Wang Jianbin scratched his head and asked cautiously, “Can I move? Will it make the elevator drop again? Sorry about this, guys. If I’d known holding the door would break it, I never would’ve done it. You scared the hell out of me.”
Yu Bai waved it off. “The drop wasn’t because of you. Eat up—just don’t move too much.”
Last time, Master Wang hadn’t even gotten on, and the elevator still malfunctioned.
“That’s a relief, that’s a relief. Thank goodness you’re here—thanks a ton!”
Moments later, having carefully adjusted his position on the floor, Wang Jianbin sat properly and tucked into his spicy hot noodles, answering the stranger’s questions as he ate.
Yu Bai sat down too, pulling a notebook and pen from his backpack. He looked serious as he asked their opinions.
“There’s a plot in the novel I’m writing that I’m not sure how to handle. The protagonist’s this super powerful… guy, but someone discovers his secret and threatens him hard. What do you think he should do about that person?”
He’d wanted to ask the non-human neighbor more directly, but with Master Wang here, he had to be indirect.
Master Wang spoke first. “Obviously, kill him and shut him up—take him out!”
Yu Bai paused, then turned to the man in the corner. “What about you?”
The black-haired, blue-eyed man thought for a moment before shaking his head frankly. “No idea. I’m not great at imagining things.”
Yu Bai pressed on, getting more specific. “It’s a sci-fi story with a machine that can cross timespace. Should the protagonist toss that person into some far-off space or time?”
Master Wang slurped up a big mouthful of noodles, his tone fired up. “Toss the bastard! The farther, the better!”
“…”
Yu Bai regretted saving those spicy hot noodles.
He turned to the mysterious neighbor anyway.
The man seemed to ponder Yu Bai’s question seriously, his eyes flickering thoughtfully.
“No,” he said softly. “That would be very lonely.”
Yu Bai stared blankly for a bit, then put away his notebook.
He felt like he’d gotten his answer.
Even though it was hypothetical, the clear, bottomless look in the man’s eyes when he spoke showed he really thought that way. He wasn’t good at hiding or lying.
The non-human neighbor really hadn’t trapped him in the time loop on purpose.
Master Wang was a bit more suspicious, even.
Faint voices drifted in from outside the elevator.
Yu Bai checked his phone—about fifteen minutes had passed. The rescue team and a crowd must have arrived.
He patted his backpack and stood up ahead of time.
Soon, the doors burst open, revealing a sea of people outside: rescue workers, reporters and photographers tagging along for the story, property managers, nosy residents…
Master Wang, who’d just finished his noodles and was sipping the broth from the bowl, twisted around at the noise, coming face-to-face with a photographer about to snap a picture.
The dazed photographer hit the shutter anyway.
This time, ready for it, Yu Bai faced the camera and flashed a polite smile.
But the man beside him didn’t look at the lens.
He stared at the brown-haired young man next to him, lost in thought.
Click.
Yu Bai left explaining things to the rescue team to Master Wang. He couldn’t be bothered with the reporters blurring his face in photos and headed for the stairwell to go home.
In his mind, he ran through what was supposed to happen next: Sun Tiantian’s video call, the deadline… Right, first he had to guide the non-human neighbor upstairs from here and tell him fire doors were different from elevator doors.
He pushed open a fire door and, thinking of that, glanced back.
At the same moment, a magnetic, pleasant voice cut through the surrounding clamor and into his ears.
“You seem to know everything that’s going to happen next.”
Yu Bai looked into those gray-blue eyes in astonishment.
“You knew when the elevator would break. You knew when the rescue team would arrive.”
The man’s words came slowly, but with firm certainty.
“And that question you asked… I think, has all this happened before?”
A deep wave of regret rose in those inhumanly beautiful eyes.
“Sorry. Did I send you back to the past timespace?”
The world spun.
The afternoon sun shone brightly as ever.
Yu Bai sprawled on the soft guest sofa in the counseling room, letting out a complicated sigh.
One of the two questions he’d been unsure about had an answer now.
The previous reset hadn’t been from physical contact—it was from telling the neighbor about going back to the past.
This time, he hadn’t said anything, but the guy had figured it out himself. So here he was, back at the start of the loop.
Yu Bai hadn’t hidden his actions too much, but he hadn’t expected the non-human neighbor to catch on so quickly.
Master Wang hadn’t suspected a thing.
The non-human just wasn’t familiar with this world, but he wasn’t dumb.
At the same time, this made escaping the loop even harder.
He couldn’t just ask the non-human neighbor to send him back.
He’d have to figure it out himself.
Or maybe he never would.
Yu Bai flipped over glumly on the sofa. Doctor Chen, watching him, stifled a laugh before clearing her throat casually, pretending nothing happened.
“I heard you laugh.”
“Huh? You must’ve misheard.”
The sun warmed his back through the window glass, bringing a cozy feeling.
Yu Bai lay there a while longer before deciding to pull himself together and find a way out of the loop.
Though right now, at least, being stuck in it didn’t feel so bad.
He grabbed his bag and stood. Before leaving, he hugged the gray-haired doctor. “See you tomorrow, Doctor Chen!”
“Tomorrow—huh?”
Tomorrow’s Doctor Chen wouldn’t be retired yet.
But today’s Yu Bai had another uncertainty to test: Did falling asleep cause the reset, or was it a fixed time point?
Yu Bai boarded the same bus, shot a quick reply to his editor promising to submit the manuscript tomorrow, and before stepping off, flipped off the young man who was grimacing and berating his girlfriend.
Then he made his way back to the neighborhood, rode up in the elevator while watching the hot and sour noodle vendor breathe his last, chatted with Master Wang—who had so generously shared his food—about the location of the fried chicken shop, and finally stepped out of the malfunctioning elevator amid the stares of the gathered crowd.
He had more or less recreated the events exactly as they had unfolded the first time, all to avoid giving himself away in front of his clever non-human neighbor.
But at the very end of the elevator mishap, he did one thing differently.
In the crowded, bustling elevator lobby teeming with people, Yu Bai pushed open a fire door. He glanced back over his shoulder, searching the sea of unfamiliar faces for something—or someone—until his gaze locked with that of a somewhat bewildered figure.
He simply stood there in the doorway to the stairwell, propping the door open with one hand, and called out to the man in an utterly casual tone.
“Hey—this way.”
The other man’s eyes lit up in an instant, just as they had on the day they first met.
