Chapter 1 (1/2)

Huang Xuan was flying aimlessly along a bizarre pa.s.sage of mixed colors of black, white, red, green and blue that didn't seem to have a beginning or an end. He sat on a blanket with his left hand under his leg to stop the trembling of his little finger.

Huang Xuan, who was 15 years old, was still a middle school student, so what was happening in front of him was clearly beyond his imagination. Just an hour before, he had been wondering why the ground of the new pool in his home had been so dry and hard since, when his school had been transplanting some trees several days before, the holes had been filled with water as if it had rained. Out of curiosity, he wrapped himself in a blanket and pretended to read in the garden pavilion. He then came to the pool and started to dig deeper.

Although it was still early spring, it had been warm in Nanjing. Having dug about one meter deep, Huang Xuan realized that the ground was getting even harder and no water was coming out of the ground. He began to feel tired. So he lifted the hammer left by the worker and struck hard several times before he went back inside to rest. However, he suddenly heard some hollow sounds coming from under the ground. He weighed the hammer in his hand, then went to the toolbox and picked up the biggest one he could find. Carrying it on his shoulder, he smiled and said to himself as he walked towards the source of the sound, ”I'll show you what I've got.”

And that was how Huang Xuan ended up in the kaleidoscope-like pa.s.sage.

Huang Xuan shouted and cursed, but there wasn't even an echo in the pa.s.sage, so he unwillingly gave up. His limbs were numb and trembled uncontrollably. Of course, he wouldn't admit that he got scared. He had been to a lot of amus.e.m.e.nt parks. It would have been safer if he had been kidnapped in an amus.e.m.e.nt park. His body went up and down along with the blanket, like a sc.r.a.p of paper floating in the river. He shouted again: ”I am thirsty. Give me some water.”

There was still no response. Huang Xuan looked down at his watch, but it had stopped since he entered this mysterious pa.s.sage. Maybe because he was too tired, Huang Xuan started to doze off, but suddenly, he heard a loud noise that sounded like a high-power machine being unplugged. He immediately remembered the situation he was in and opened his eyes. A ring of white light could be seen from afar, which stood out against the colorful background of the pa.s.sage.

A gender-neutral voice arose: ”The destination P113T1061968W7890 has been reached.”

”Who are you?”

”According to human interpretation, you can call me the 'Time Machine'.”

”Wait. What?!” Huang Xuan was angry and scared. He said in a louder voice: ”Send me back! What is this place?”

”Plane P113, equivalent to the geographic location 7890 in the year 1968, from the Plane P112, in terms of s.p.a.ce coordinates.”

”I don't care where this is. Send me back right now. You should know that my dad is very powerful.” Huang Xuan started to feel nervous as the ring of white light grew bigger.

”I can't,” said the voice in an extremely frigid tone. ”You have threatened the safety of the base. Due to your violation of the fifth clause of the third article, and the fourth clause of the eleventh article of the s.p.a.ce Convention, the guardian of the base has by default sentenced the creature from P112 to exile.”

Before Huang Xuan could respond, he had already been drawn into the white ring along with his blanket.

One day later, Huang Xuan became almost certain that he was in the year 1968, although he had only heard of this age from his father's generation. He talked to the people in the streets, scanned through books in the bookstore, asked many drivers and checked their license plates, flipped through invoices and grain coupons, and even looked at machinery numbers.

Everything he saw pointed to the same reality.