How could he explain the complexities and contradictions of humanity to a visitor from another world who was stepping into the human realm for the first time?
Humans were both brave and weak, both yearning and evasive, both alive and dying.
That was far harder to describe than the difference between sweet and sour.
So Yu Bai thought for a moment and gave up on the explanation. He quickened his pace, leading Xie Wufang out of the neighborhood toward their original destination. This let the little girl, who had quietly shrunk behind the tree, stop hiding from him and return to her bench without worry.
Even if Xie Wufang gave He Xi the ability to phase through walls, it wouldn’t truly transform her life or save her from her scumbag father.
This was the real world, where he couldn’t just recklessly call A Qiang and the others to come beat the scum senseless.
In this world, everything required following rules and weighing consequences.
In that moment, Yu Bai found himself missing those alternate timespaces where he could act without restraint.
He wouldn’t have to deal with cleaning up messes from one unexpected incident after another, like he did now.
Even though he could already proficiently tear around on a motorcycle, he still had to go get his driver’s license properly.
Sigh, what a hassle.
A summer breeze brushed their faces as Yu Bai and Xie Wufang walked down the noisy street. They passed the fruit shop, the luggage store, and the breakfast stall that Yu Bai usually went by alone.
Along the way, he chatted idly with the man beside him. “Does your power have the ability to grant wishes?”
It was something Yu Bai had just realized.
Xie Wufang seemed never to have considered the question. “Grant wishes?”
“Yeah.” Yu Bai nodded. “Like the little girl downstairs. She always wanted to hide away, and under your power’s influence, she actually slipped into the wall.”
“Then there’s the guy next door. The most important thing in his life seems to be music… So after you moved in, he started drumming with his own ribs.”
Yu Bai didn’t know if flower pots or watermelons had wishes of their own. If they did, maybe it was just for the plants inside to keep growing?
In any case, all these bizarre changes seemed tied to wishes somehow.
Before the time loop began, Yu Bai had been the only one around Xie Wufang who showed no abnormalities.
He wasn’t sure if it was some other reason or because his dream in life had always been to live as an ordinary person. Either way, the invisible power leaking into the air had quietly fulfilled that wish for him.
Xie Wufang listened quietly for a moment before replying, “Sorry, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know your power has that property?” Yu Bai asked curiously. “Or you don’t know what a wish is?”
Xie Wufang shook his head. “Neither.”
Yu Bai paused for a beat, his gaze skimming over those calm gray-blue eyes—like a serene lake—before turning to the bustling street ahead.
He stepped into a children’s clothing store and rifled through the clothes lining the walls until he found the pajama style Yuan Yuxing had specified.
A pure cotton white sleeveless tank top.
He held it up for Xie Wufang and grinned. “This is the old man tank top Uncle Yuan was talking about. The kind middle-aged and elderly folks wear all the time. Who knew they made it in kids’ sizes too.”
The store owner hurried over at the sight of customers and objected mildly. “This isn’t an old man tank top! It’s a tank top made just for kids—super skin-friendly fabric and a really cool style!”
Yu Bai replied, “I want it for an elderly guy who’s on the… slimmer, smaller side.”
“Of course, seniors can wear it too!” The owner pivoted smoothly, declaring with conviction, “This is totally an old man tank top!”
“…” Yu Bai chuckled despite himself. “I’ll take this one, and that set up top too.”
See? That was humanity in all its contradictory glory.
Yu Bai finished his shopping quickly and headed home with Xie Wufang.
But the moment they walked in the door, he froze at the sight before him.
Yuan Yuxing sat on a small stool while Yan Jing sat cross-legged on the floor. The two were roughly the same height as they huddled around the coffee table, each extending one hand to grip a little blue orb between them.
Directly beneath on the coffee table lay a sheet of white A4 paper, scattered with writing.
Right now, the pair looked deadly serious, their eyes darting between the Doom Orb in their hands and the paper below.
Yu Bai could hardly believe his eyes.
This was…
Both utterly stupid and completely idiotic.
Yes, perfect synonyms—no contradiction there.
Xie Wufang, witnessing the same scene, looked puzzled and turned to him. “What are they doing?”
Yu Bai almost hated to say it.
“They’re playing Pen Fairy—a game that’s supposed to let you talk to spirits.” He paused, then amended, “Or… Ball Fairy, I guess?”
Who in their right mind used a world-ending orb for Pen Fairy?!
Hearing them come in, Yan Jing glanced over and whispered, “You guys back from shopping? Shh—I think the Doom Orb’s about to move.”
Yuan Yuxing nodded solemnly. “Yeah, yeah—keep it quiet.”
Yu Bai drew closer and saw the paper divided into four sections, each with a single line:
One: Fulfill Zhang Yunjiang’s last wish.
Two: Dislike that Turtle Bastard.
Three: Dislike Comrade Little Xie.
Four: No reason—just wanna play.
The handwriting was bold and practiced, full of character. Not Yan Jing’s—must be Yuan Yuxing’s.
Every line was exactly the same length, like neat little eight-character poems.
“…”
Yu Bai felt like his sanity had taken a brutal hit.
For a second, he didn’t even know where to begin with the roasting.
The two stayed laser-focused on the orb in their hands, brows furrowed in concentration.
Yuan Yuxing pondered aloud. “Hiss—feels like it’s pulling every direction at once.”
Yan Jing muttered, “I get that too… Uncle Yuan, your hand isn’t shaking, is it?”
“Bullshit! You’re the one shaking!”
They were still bickering when they suddenly clocked that Xie Wufang was back too. They scrambled to cover the third section of the paper.
But it was too late—Xie Wufang had seen it.
He read the line aloud in a soft voice, a hint of confusion threading his calm tone.
“Dislike Comrade Little Xie?”
…
Yan Jing let out an awkward laugh. “Haha! Totally not about you, Brother Xie.”
“Useless!” Yuan Yuxing shot him a glare, then turned kindly eyes on Xie Wufang. “We’re just giving the Doom Orb some options to pick from. No shade on you at all!”
Yu Bai couldn’t take it anymore. He covered his face and came to their rescue. “Uncle Yuan, you’re not superstitious at all, are you?”
Willing to go along with Yan Jing’s nonsense.
Yuan Yuxing waved him off. “I’m an old sack of bones halfway in the grave already. Superstition? Who gives a damn? Figuring out what’s in front of us is what counts.”
Yan Jing took the opening to stuff the paper away and steer the conversation. “Right after you guys left, I saw the Doom Orb twitch. Uncle Yuan saw it too—that’s why we tried this.”
“The Doom Orb moved?”
Yu Bai had seen it give a faint tremble before—both when it failed to save and turned black, and when it succeeded and went blue.
“Yeah, yeah.” Yan Jing raised his hand like he was swearing an oath. “For real—it moved. I swear I felt it twitch again just now, but hard to tell if it was Uncle Yuan’s shaky hand.”
“I told you, my hands aren’t shaking!!”
“Then mine sure as hell aren’t either!”
“You’re just weak, Big Dumb Guy!”
Amid the chaos, Yu Bai glanced quietly at Xie Wufang—who still seemed a bit out of it—and offered another explanation for these foolish humans. “The game’s got zero scientific basis, sure. But it’s the Doom Orb… What if it actually gets it?”
Xie Wufang didn’t seem bothered. Instead, he confirmed with Yu Bai, “Comrade Little Xie—that’s me, right? You called me Little Xie in your text.”
“…Yeah.”
Yu Bai—who had fired off that text on pure muscle memory—now spoke in the most earnest tone he’d mustered yet.
“I think it’s a cute nickname. That’s what I called you in the other timespaces.”
He threw in a save for Yuan Yuxing too. “The suffix Uncle Yuan added? It’s this retro, old-school way of talking—pretty cute, no disrespect meant.”
Against the other two humans’ tiptoeing caution, Yu Bai—who’d never seen the issue—suddenly felt a touch reckless.
He looked over with a flicker of nerves.
And there was the man beside him, nodding faintly.
Xie Wufang said, “You can keep calling me that.”
Yu Bai let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
He also felt kind of embarrassed.
That night, Yu Bai helped the little boy—now sporting his old man tank top—tidy up the sofa. Yan Jing, stuck with the floor, dutifully laid out his own bedding.
The blue orb they’d secretly messed with that afternoon sat peacefully on the coffee table, showing no further signs of movement.
A deep, rich blue swirled gently within it, like a vast starry sky.
Yu Bai’s small house, where he usually lived alone, felt terribly crowded that night, so Xie Wufang returned to his own place next door.
The wall between them was thin enough that if anything happened with the Doom Orb, he could rush over in an instant.
What did a non-human who didn’t need sleep do during such a long, lonely night?
But Yu Bai could at least be sure of one thing Xie Wufang would do: write in his diary using that cryptic script.
…Yu Bai hadn’t meant to peek.
He had just caught a glimpse by accident while brushing his teeth in the kitchen.
The stark white walls, the simple dining table, the yellowed notebook, and the pen tip swaying gently under the light.
He wondered if today’s Xie Wufang would fill the pages with more of those enigmatic, plump little arrows.
He wondered what Xie Wufang would write in that notebook full of mysterious symbols.
Brushing his teeth quietly by the window, Yu Bai let his thoughts wander aimlessly.
He hoped Xie Wufang wouldn’t portray humans as too foolish.
Even though they kind of were.
The night passed peacefully amid these scattered musings.
The next morning, the three humans dragged themselves out of bed, sleepy-eyed, and joined the non-human next door to take the elevator.
Inspired by yesterday’s possible activity from the Doom Orb and the Ball Fairy’s behavior, Yu Bai decided to take Yuan Yuxing and Xie Wufang back to the Funeral Parlor today. They might even need to visit the morgue where Uncle Zhang’s body was stored.
Returning to the place where the Doom Orb had run rampant before might trigger some new disturbance.
Things couldn’t get much worse at this point anyway.
They also needed to retrieve Yuan Yuxing’s chess jar, which he’d left there yesterday.
Yan Jing looked reluctant, his face full of gloom as he pressed the elevator button. “I want to go with you guys too.”
Yu Bai, cradling the black box containing the Doom Orb, replied calmly, “No chance. Go to work.”
Yan Jing had already taken yesterday off to accompany him for the Doom Orb’s incineration, using the excuse of an upset stomach. He couldn’t pull that again today.
“Sigh, why do people have to work?” he muttered. “The world might be on the brink of destruction, and here I am, still clocking in.”
Yuan Yuxing shot him a displeased glare. “What do you mean ‘destruction’? Don’t jinx it!”
The normal silver elevator on the right had just descended, while the luxurious Golden Elevator arrived at the 12th Floor and slowly opened its doors.
Faced with the sudden blaze of opulence before them, everyone fell silent for a moment before stepping inside.
Yu Bai reassured himself and the others. “This one’s faster, at least.”
He would miss the elevator’s former humble appearance.
As Yuan Yuxing entered the car and glanced around, he remarked with a sigh, “Little Bai, you said it was this left elevator that plummeted from midair before, right? I wonder if it’s fully fixed now. It better not act up again.”
Yan Jing seized the opportunity to fire back. “Uncle Yuan, don’t jinx it yourself.”
“Hey, you little punk, you really are—”
The two bickered quietly as the golden walls of the car gleamed around them. A vibrant display screen played the morning news, its voice smooth and lively.
The elevator stopped at the 11th Floor and opened slowly.
Outside stood a little girl in a school uniform, backpack slung over her shoulders, with two thin braids hanging down like twisted dough.
It was He Xi.
She looked up, saw the people inside, and immediately dropped her gaze. Spotting Yu Bai in particular, she instinctively stepped back, too timid to enter.
Yu Bai averted his eyes at the same moment, turning to Yuan Yuxing and Yan Jing, who were still trading barbs, as if he hadn’t noticed the girl at all.
He chatted with them naturally. “You two are both jinxes.”
Only then did the girl, in a hurry to get to school, creep inside cautiously and stand in the corner of the lavish elevator, head bowed.
“No, Little Bai, be fair—Uncle Yuan started it!”
“Pah, you were the real jinx. I was just talking. A brand-new elevator isn’t gonna break that fast.”
The shiny new display screen continued with the news. Two timers—one at the top and one below the footage—ticked away in sync.
Yu Bai pretended hard not to have seen the girl and tossed in casually, “Are you two both seven years old or what?”
“I’m not—Uncle Yuan is!”
“Hey! Seven what? That’s—”
Amid the overlapping chatter, Xie Wufang, standing quietly to the side, suddenly seemed to sense something and turned his gaze to the black box in Yu Bai’s hand.
The elevator continued descending normally.
“Uncle Yuan, why’s your face red again? Whatever, dropping it. I don’t want you ending up in the hospital.”
Yan Jing decided not to argue with the old man. He looked away to check the news and let out a puzzled sound.
“Weird. Why are these two times different?”
At that exact moment, Xie Wufang’s voice rang out in the elevator, laced with chill. “Don’t look at the other time.”
But before his words could land, the other four had already glanced over.
The two timers, once synchronized at the top of the screen and below the news footage, had diverged at some point.
The top read 07:05:13—the current morning time.
The bottom showed 16:18:54—an afternoon hour.
The bewildered brown-haired young man, the muscle-bound guy scratching his head in confusion, the flushed-faced boy, and the elementary school girl huddled in the corner… following the voices, their eyes all locked onto the anomalous time.
Yu Bai was the first to snap out of it. He whipped his head toward Xie Wufang. “Why not—”
In his final glimpse, Xie Wufang had turned to look at the extra time as well, saying softly, “It’s fine.”
Yu Bai blinked instinctively, trying to make sense of what was happening before his eyes.
In that fleeting darkness, a wave of dizziness crashed over him.
His thick lashes fluttered uneasily.
When he opened his eyes again, the golden elevator car was gone.
Replaced by a vast blue sky and an open outdoor vista.
People around him paused here and there—some gazing up at the perfectly normal sky, others scrolling through videos they’d just recorded on their phones.
Yu Bai stared around in bewilderment, feeling an eerie sense of déjà vu.
Behind him loomed the faintly visible police station, where a group of officers had just come to their senses. They exchanged glances and broke into a sprint toward him.
At his side stood the black-haired, blue-eyed man— a face both achingly familiar and impossible to forget.
In a daze, Yu Bai realized which afternoon that 16:18:54 on the elevator display belonged to.
But first, he had to confirm something.
Staring tensely at this Xie Wufang, whose gaze held a hint of coldness, Yu Bai whispered, “…Comrade Little Xie?”
The man understood the signal. “It’s me.”
Not the Xie Wufang from the time loop who’d spent the day with him, but the one from moments ago in the Golden Elevator, warning them not to look at the time.
Xie Wufang glanced at the people charging toward them from behind, asking uncertainly, “The police are chasing us?”
“…” Yu Bai, now fully recalling the situation, sighed. “Yeah.”
That day was supposed to have ended right there, looping him into a fresh cycle.
Yet somehow, he’d abruptly returned to this timeline that had seemed to have no more to it.
“Why?”
“Because your ID will change clothes and get flagged as fake at the police station.”
Yu Bai explained, flashing a soul-weary smile.
“And me? I helped you escape from a pack of cops.”
