Genius Playground

Jiang Ran set down his tools and peered into the metal box.

To his surprise,

there was very little inside.

”Glass bottles?”

Jiang Ran checked every corner.

There really wasn’t anything else inside—just two transparent glass bottles about the size of soda cans.

Through the glass, he could see a rolled-up piece of letter paper in each bottle, covered in writing.

”Is this... a message in a bottle? Or something like a time capsule?”

Jiang Ran understood.

This had been popular for a while when he was a kid.

You would write a letter to your future self—from a few years or even decades later—or leave some kind of memento, bury it underground, and then dig it up when the time came.

It seemed like a meaningful activity.

It had the feel of a time capsule.

But more often than not... people would bury them and then just forget, or forget where they buried them. Or they’d be ruthlessly destroyed by excavators during a real estate boom.

Anyway.

Jiang Ran was certain that, in his memories, he had never buried a lockbox with Cheng Mengxue.

’But are my memories really reliable now?’

Jiang Ran gave a bitter smile.

Right now, he really had no confidence in his memories. They always felt incomplete.

He picked up the two glass bottles. There were sticky notes on the outside with words written on them.

The note on one bottle read [Xiaoxue].

The note on the other bottle read [Yanyan].

”Ohhh...”

Jiang Ran had a sudden realization.

As he’d thought, this had nothing to do with him. The rusty metal box had been buried by Cheng Mengxue and her cousin, Xu Yan.

’They must really be letters they wrote to their future selves.’

Filled with curiosity, Jiang Ran picked up Cheng Mengxue’s ”time bottle” and pulled out the cork stopper.

POP.

The air, sealed away for who knows how many years, finally escaped, bridging the gap in time.

He used a pair of tweezers to pull out the small slip of paper and slowly unfolded it.

The handwriting on it was childish but neat, with quite a bit of Pinyin mixed in... This suggested the letter had been written a long time ago, probably in early elementary school.

He flattened it out on the table and began to read the first line—

[Jiang Ran is a big idiot!]

???

A bombshell right from the start!

Jiang Ran’s eyes widened. He felt a bullet from the past hit him right between the eyes.

”Ahem.”

He sat up straight and read the rest of the letter:

[Jiang Ran is a big idiot!

Seriously, every time I tell him to go to swimming lessons, he never takes it seriously!

What if he almost drowns again next time? He could die!

Sigh.

Oh well, I guess I should just focus on learning.

If something like that happens again and he falls in the river, it’ll be my turn to jump in and save him.

Me from 20 years in the future...

You must be a grown-up by now, right?

You must be really amazing, beautiful, and strong!

Are you and Jiang Ran still together?

Are you still best friends?

I really hope you’re still the best friends in the world, just like when we were kids.

Can you promise me one thing?

No matter where you two are in 20 years, or what your relationship is like...

If Jiang Ran is ever in danger or trouble, please, please help him, okay?

After all, he saved our life once, and he almost lost his own doing it.

In my heart...

Jiang Ran will always be a great hero.]

...

...

...

Jiang Ran stared at the yellowed letter in his hand.

His breathing grew heavy, as if the air had turned solid. Each breath was a struggle, and the feeling was impossible to shake.

He set the letter down.

He rubbed his eyes.

”Sigh...”

A thousand unspoken words melted into a single sigh.

”Jiang Ran, what about you? What’s your dream!”

The words of a tipsy Cheng Mengxue echoed in his ears, her face flushed as she spoke to him on the highest deck of a luxury cruise ship:

”Is it... to be a savior?”

”Is it... to be a genius like Einstein, pushing science forward?”

”Then just be like you are now. Keep being a hero.”

He opened his eyes.

Cheng Mengxue, her cheeks flushed from red wine and her gaze hazy, was not by his side.

All the years and time had left behind...

...was the letter covered in Pinyin and an empty glass bottle.

’I *will* save you.’

Jiang Ran clenched his fists.

”No matter what, I keep my promises.”

This was the one thought he had never, ever given up on since arriving in World Line 1.

Even if the Positron Cannon was broken,

even if it couldn’t be fixed anytime soon,

even if its replacement, the Time Travel Machine, was a hopeless prospect for the near future,

so what?

He didn’t care how much time it took to save Cheng Mengxue.

A few months?

A few years?

A decade or more?

It didn’t matter.

He was in this World Line 1 for one reason and one reason only. Even if it took his entire life, he would keep his promise. He would do what he said he would do.

Keeping your promises, doing what you said you would—that was the code he had always lived by.

In the bottom right corner of the letter, a date was written:

August 17, 2013.

’Doing the math, that should be the summer vacation of second grade.’

Then it was no surprise that the other bottle was written by Xu Yan.

Because every summer vacation, Xu Yan would come to stay at Cheng Mengxue’s house for two months.

So.

These two time capsule-like glass bottles both contained the secrets of a young girl’s heart—or, to put it another way, they were messages sent through time to their future selves, 20 years from now.

He picked up the glass bottle with the name Yanyan written on it.

The letter inside must have been written by Xu Yan, who was a year older than them, making her eight at the time.

’Should I read it?’

Jiang Ran hesitated for a few seconds.

”Nah, I’d better not. It’s not polite.”

He and Cheng Mengxue had grown up together; they were so close that reading her letter was one thing. Besides, he hadn’t known what it was at first, and by the time he opened it, it was too late. An honest mistake.

But Xu Yan’s... he felt it would be wrong to pry into a young girl’s private thoughts.