Chapter 148

Zhao Jianguo stood in the elevator, his finger still resting on the button, before the metal doors slowly closed, he glanced back at the edge of the platform. The wind had already stopped, the once surging light flow also sank into the night sky, leaving only a faint warmth against his skin. Shuang Baotai slept sweetly in his arms, heads left and right leaning on his shoulders, tiny hands still clutching the silver‑gray shell fragments he had picked up beside the machine.

Su Qing stood in the corner holding a thermos cup, her gaze sweeping over his face: "Your look is just like when you got off the night shift, as if you could see through walls."

"It's nothing." He smiled, "I just felt that earlier, like someone was knocking on the door."

"Who?"

"I don't know." He shook his head, "but they didn't force their way in, and were quite polite."

The elevator descended, lights dimming layer by layer then brightening again. The children stirred, humming a sleepy murmur, Zhao Jianguo gently patted their backs. Su Qing whispered: "You're going to attend to your business—can you take us with you?"

"It's not that I don't want to bring them," he said, "it's that some things require a single person to record a name."

The door opened, and at the end of the corridor stood an Iron Gate labeled "East Wing No Entry." He carried the child forward, his steps never stopping: "Just wait here for a moment; there's a lounge ahead with the heating on."

Su Qing didn't ask further, took the child, and slipped the insulated cup back into his hand: "Don't forget to drink; if it gets cold, no one will heat it for you a second time."

He nodded, turned, and pushed the door inside.

The passage was narrow, the walls glowing with a cold white light, and footsteps made no echo. At the end stood a fingerprint lock; he pressed it, and the Mechanical Lesson sound clack rang, the doors sliding open to both sides. Inside was a modest room, with a semi‑transparent Operation Console in the center, and the surrounding walls, like paper soaked in water, gradually revealed fine text and lines.

The Terminal vibrated briefly.

【Please establish a civilization archive, record the history of traversers, and safeguard the integrity of the timeline】

The characters were golden, suspended in the air, neither flashing nor moving.

He gently placed the other child on the soft mat at the doorway, slipped off his Coat and covered their small bodies. "You two nap for a bit; dad's going to do something proper."

The child mumbled drowsily, turned over, and clutched the metal shell, continuing to sleep.

He approached the Operation Console, pressing his palm onto it. The icy sensation crawled up his palm, and a scene flashed in his mind— a rainy night in an old Shanghai factory, a Teacup steaming, the person opposite raising their eyes and saying, "You're also from later?"

His chest felt a bit tight.

System Prompt reappeared: 【The first file entry must restore the trajectory via mental resonance; please confirm activation】

He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, he had already calmed down.

"First entry—Chen Jianguo."

The moment the words fell, the whole room lit up. The patterns floating on the walls began to flow, like river water back‑flooding a ditch. A silhouette stepped out from the Light Gate, not tall, wearing old‑style work clothes with sleeves frayed to white, and a scar on his face that ran from the brow bone diagonally to the corner of his mouth.

Zhao Jianguo stared for two seconds, then couldn't help but laugh: "You really dressed yourself up as a model worker."

The image gave no reply, just standing silently.

Then the scene changed.

The two first met at the East Shanghai Mechanical Exhibition, eyeing each other across a steam pump. The other handed over a blueprint, the back bearing the words "Do not trust Group Three data." Later they met in the boiler room, exchanged the information each had gathered, and discovered that the numbering rules of the two systems were completely different yet pointed to the same temporal node.

Later came a dispute. Over whether to pre‑activate the stabilizer, they argued to the brink of a fight. Chen Jianguo smashed a cup, pointed at him and said, "Did you think this was a test? One wrong step and the whole line breaks!"

Then came cooperation. On a stormy night, they pieced the fragments together; blood dripped onto the interface, and the machine hummed, lighting a green light. In the battle at the church's underground storage, a bullet pierced the equipment frame; Chen Jianguo shoved him aside, himself crushed beneath the collapsing steel frame, and before leaving slipped him a slip of paper.

The scene froze there.

Zhao Jianguo's breath caught.

The slip bore only four characters: "Beware 1978."

The image continued. Chen Jianguo's figure grew increasingly faint, finally standing before a cracked Light Gate, turning back to glance at him, his lips moving. The system couldn't capture the sound, but Zhao Jianguo knew what he said.

"See the ending for me."

The room was so quiet you could hear the child's breathing. He leaned against the Operation Console for a while, raised his hand to wipe his face, and realized his forehead was drenched in sweat.

【First file load complete, Permission to browse the 'Civilization Trajectory Atlas' unlocked】

When the golden frame popped out, Footsteps came from outside the door.

It wasn't the light, gentle rhythm Su Qing made, but a steady, heavy, step‑by‑step tread that pressed firmly.

When the door opened, a gust of cold wind swept in. A man in a dark uniform entered, his shoulder insignia unobtrusive, yet his gait impossible to ignore. He stood before the Operation Console, saluted cleanly and efficiently.

"Chief, we have synchronized to your file activation signal."

Zhao Jianguo didn't rush to reply, first shifting the two children inward and covering them with their coats. "Did you detect this?"

"More than monitoring." The man took a portable Terminal from his chest, placed it on the console, "We have our own readings. In the past seventy‑two hours, the city's power fluctuated three times, satellites captured abnormal flashes in the high‑altitude ionosphere, and the frequency matches exactly the signal you just activated."

He tapped the Screen, and a map unfolded, the flashing red dot pinpointing the Tech Tower.

"More crucially," he lowered his voice, "we found a temporary exam roster in the old Education Bureau archive, dated June 15, 1978. The seventeenth examinee's name was ink‑blotted out, but beneath you can still see two characters—Jianguo."

Zhao Jianguo jerked his head up.

"We compared handwriting, paper batches, even the day's weather records," Special Forces Captain said, looking at him. "This isn't coincidence. That anchor point has already stabilized."

The light on the Operation Console still flowed, the Civilization Trajectory Atlas rotating slowly like a miniature galaxy. Zhao Jianguo stared at the diagram for a long while, then asked, "Have you ever seen anyone like him before?"

"Never seen a living one," the other replied bluntly. "Only mentioned once in an early‑70s classified report, saying a technician suddenly could speak five foreign languages, his circuit diagrams were twenty years ahead, and later vanished during a test, leaving only half a page of calculation paper on site."

"What does it say?"

"One sentence: Don't let 1978 become a break point."

Zhao Jianguo was silent for a few seconds, then smiled suddenly: "Do you believe it now?"

"We never believe the mystical," Special Forces Captain tucked away the Terminal, "but we trust the data. And all the data say—what you did isn't an individual act; it's a patch."

"Patch whose gap?"

"The future's."

The room fell quiet again. From afar came the faint hum of the air‑conditioner, and the child's breathing was even and calm.

Zhao Jianguo walked to the glass wall, gazing at the main engine inside that was running. Countless tiny light specks darted within, like fireflies scattered by wind, or some invisible river flowing.

"They aren't enemies," he said suddenly.

"Who?"

"Those who want to read the files." He turned, "Whether high‑dimensional nodes or later arrivals, they aren't here to destroy. They're lost, looking for a way Go Home."

Special Forces Captain gave no reply, only a slight nod.

Zhao Jianguo walked back to the Operation Console, flicked his finger in the air, and brought up the Permission management interface. He created a new access channel, set the encryption level to maximum, and entered three characters in the name field: "Guide Light."

I want to leave something behind. He said, "It's not a password, nor a weapon. It's a passage of words, a path, a proof—someone came through, someone held on, someone didn't run."

The Special Forces Captain watched him finish operating, then spoke: "Where to next?"

"Not decided yet." He touched the terminal in his pocket, "But I definitely need to go to the exam hall."

Do you need to cooperate?

"Not for now." He bent over to check the children's sleeping positions; one turned over and mumbled in his sleep, "Let me set up the markers, then we'll meet again."

That person gave a salute, turned and left. When the iron gate closed, it made a faint suction sound.

Zhao Jianguo sat in the chair beside the operation console, staring at the message he had just written on the screen:

"If you see this record, please remember—

You are not the first person to wake, nor will you be the last.

He deleted the last sentence and changed it to:

"The buns in the cafeteria start steaming at six in the morning; don't be late."

Then he clicked save.

A flash of light flowed, and the information sank into the depths of the database.

He lowered his head to look at the sleeping child, reached out and picked up that piece of silver-gray fragment, weighing it in his palm. This thing originally was part of a stabilizer, but now it's like a toy, being treasured by the little child who refuses to let go.

He suddenly thought of something, opened the terminal, flipped to the materials list page, and added a line in the remarks column:

【Suggest that the outer casing of the next-generation stabilizer be changed to child-friendly material to avoid accidental injury】

After he pressed Enter, the host suddenly emitted an extremely short alert tone.

The screen flickered.

A new line of message floated up:

【Weak signal feedback detected, source: 1978.06.15.08:30, Capital City Education Bureau South Building Second Exam Hall】

Zhao Jianguo straightened his body.

After that string of time, there followed an extremely short data packet; once decoded, it contained only one line of text:

"The buns need meat filling."