Chapter 1: Physics No Longer Exists

At 11 p.m., just after the celebration banquet, Xu Qingzhou leaned against the hotel’s decorative stone wall, lit a cigarette, and tried to ease his exhaustion—he had stayed up two straight nights to debug the experimental setup for microwave-photon and optical-photon entanglement.

He was the guest of honor at this banquet, with superiors present; he couldn’t refuse without offending them.

Night fell, stars glittered, Beijing’s neon lights blazed, all building illuminations turned on, milky moonlight intertwining with urban radiance, revealing the city’s splendor.

Suddenly, a sharp, abrupt ringtone sounded.

Xu Qingzhou stared at the name on the screen, silent; he took a deep drag, then finally pressed answer.

“Qingzhou, congratulations—you’ve finally realized your dream.” The caller ID showed “Zhang Yuxin.”

“Thank you.” Xu Qingzhou replied flatly, politely; his fading memories began to resurface.

Zhang Yuxin transferred to Xu Qingzhou’s class in her final year of high school—beautiful, skilled at piano, danced well, could do the splits, had suitors like fish crossing a river; Xu Qingzhou was one of them, and thanks to proximity, he nearly turned the tables.

Huh~ the cigarette smoke passed through his lungs—suddenly, a deafening explosion rang in his ears, his chest felt pierced by a knife, searing pain surged through his body, the world spun, and dense black dots rapidly filled his vision.

Read! {

The cigarette butt grew scalding hot.

He sat up straight, emptied his mind, and silently murmured: System? Activate system. Check environment? Xu Qingzhou failed—he had tried thirteen different system activation methods from novels, yet not a single cold mechanical voice appeared in his mind.

Xu Qingzhou ignored him, rubbed his temples, slumped back in his chair, and said, “I need to be alone.”

“Quick, call an ambulance!”

First, from the perspective of general relativity, spacetime is viewed as a curved four-dimensional space, but under countless constraints, time travel is vanishingly improbable—requiring motion faster than light and the existence of negative energy. What if he turned to his familiar quantum domain?

#Nobel Prize announcement: For contributions to entangled-photon experiments, verification of Bell inequality violations, and pioneering quantum information science, Chinese physicist Xu Qingzhou has been awarded the 2032 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Xu Qingzhou felt a tightness in his chest—his old ailment from working himself to the bone; his discomfort had drained even his urge to curse.

From then on, he sealed his heart, threw himself into the game, and worked himself to death for the experiments.

Pain! Extreme pain!

He looked up; his vision gradually cleared. When he fully saw the scene before him, he froze in shock.

Quantum entanglement and quantum tunneling do exist in physics—two interdependent particles, changing one instantly affects the other; some particles tunnel through potential barriers deemed insurmountable by classical mechanics. But precisely because he understood quantum mechanics, he knew these were impossible! Now, physics… did not exist.

“Are you crazy?” Guo Zi yang had intended to scare Xu Qingzhou with the homeroom teacher, but he himself jumped in fright.

“Honestly, don’t be sad. So many people like Zhang Yuxin—not everyone has the courage to confess. You tried. No matter the outcome, you won’t regret it in the future.”

“.”

“Sss~”

Xu Qingzhou automatically filtered out the chattering noise.

Around him were students in blue-and-white school uniforms.

In that moment, he realized: the bicycle he’d been too lazy to ride, others truly would stand up and pedal.

Fuck, I haven’t deleted my computer files yet! “Professor Xu!”

She had posted this man on her social media—some “boss,” producer of the drama, and its male lead.

[Sorry, I don’t want to date before graduating high school.] [Xu Qingzhou, I don’t want to date before graduating university—let’s talk about us later.] [I don’t want to date until my job is stable.] The reasons were simple, and he, like an idiot, waited eight years.

!.

To the left, the wall held a water dispenser; beside it hung a prominent sign—“60 days until the college entrance exam.” Xu Qingzhou suppressed the storm in his chest, his gaze finally settling on the boy beside him, rolling his book into a trumpet—Guo Zi yang, his high school buddy.

He was stunned.

Xu Qingzhou pressed his lips together, pinched his thigh, and twisted hard.

Ding~ The phone screen lit up—this time, a message notification.

Four years after graduation, she landed the female second lead role in a idol drama.

Everything before him was strange yet familiar.

Did I really get reincarnated?

“Fine, be quiet, be quiet.”

His memory of Zhang Yuxin still dated back a year—to the class reunion, her, sitting in a Maybach, visibly pregnant.

Not a hotel. Not a hospital. But a classroom! On the desk: stacks of books, piled like mountains, messy and crowded, yet oddly comforting.

Duh~ He silently hung up, quickly took two drags to soothe his lungs.

Directly opposite, above the blackboard, a prominent sign read: “Study hard, make progress every day.” To the right hung the “Middle School Student Code of Conduct” and the “Chengnan Middle School Student Behavioral Standards.”

Could it be… he thought of a possibility, swallowed hard—was the end of science really mysticism?

Xu Qingzhou chuckled bitterly, crossed his arms, and emptied his mind.

Sudden death?

“Can I come see you? Don’t misunderstand.” Zhang Yuxin’s voice pleaded: “I know I’m not good enough for you, but in Beijing, you’re the only friend I have left. I just want to witness this important moment in your life.”

“Everyone step back, keep it ventilated! Xiao Liu, bring the AED quickly!”

There were plenty of pretty girls in class—how the hell did I go blind and fall for Zhang Yuxin?

Guo Zi yang nodded sheepishly in agreement, then after a pause, leaned in again, nagging: “I told you to confess after the college entrance exam—you insisted on rushing it at the last minute, wrecked your own mindset.”

He pulled out another cigarette, lit it, took two puffs, and lit up again.

Is this… a high school classroom? Ha, surely I didn’t get reincarnated.

He waited two hours in the hotel lobby, only to see her enter, arm linked with a man, tenderly adjusting his cuff, asking if he was tired, saying she’d just learned some massage.

On the day filming ended, he took a thousand-mile train ride, secretly holding flowers in the hotel lobby, waiting to surprise her.

“.”

“Xu Qingzhou, wake up! The homeroom teacher’s coming!” It felt like someone was shouting into his ear with a megaphone.

“Am I still alive?” Xu Qingzhou’s awareness returned; he regained control of his body—his hand was numb, his mind chaotic.

Fine. Don’t be greedy. I’m reincarnated—why do I still care about a bicycle?

“Besides, Zhang Yuxin never outright rejected you,” Guo Zi yang was saying, when suddenly he felt a hand tap his shoulder.

He turned and saw Xu Qingzhou’s solemn expression, sincere tone: “Blackie, in these final days, work hard—aim for a good university. And don’t be a lapdog.”

Strictly speaking, Guo Zi yang was worse off—he confessed, but couldn’t hold on.

(End of chapter)