When Bright Moon Encounter the Dark Clouds

The first instance we ever talked about time was in that small shack I lived in. Back then, Tan Jiao looked extremely pale as if her soul had left her body. Even though I was reluctant at that time, I still made it very clear to her the date and time. ‘It’s the 18th of July 2017, and a year has already passed.’

That was the third day after we first saw each other, which was on the 16th of July.

A month later, we solved the Yan Yuan case. It was also around the end of the month that both of us returned to that ship.

……

Logically, shouldn’t the date be the 1st of August 2017 when we got back from the ship?

And not the 1st of July roughly half a month before the two of us met.

It appeared that our time was not going forward.

Yet, none of the people around us noticed anything odd.

……

“Tan Jiao, you… haven’t noticed anything strange?”

She looked at me puzzled and innocently with her sparkling eyes. Her awareness of time did not seem very good; this was evident from the fact that she did not realize that one year had passed. Now, even though the obvious fact that it was the 15th of July had been placed in front of her, she still had not realized that there was something wrong with our time.

“Tan Jiao…” I said slowly. “Only our time has gone backward.”

Her eyes immediately widened. For a brief moment, I saw numerous emotions flash through her eyes: fear, realization, disbelief, and panic. Just like me, her mind had sunken into deep thinking. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but closed it again. Then she looked at me, pale-faced and shocked. “How could this be… How could this happen? How?”

I knew she had awoken now and realized the time.

After arriving back at the inn, the two of us still felt tense and shocked. Sitting at the end of the bed, I smoked several cigarettes before I finally calmed down. She sat on the head of the bed, not saying anything at first, probably because she had her wits shocked out of her. Soon, she began to babble. “No wonder it felt odd to me when I realized Zhuang Yu was having a test again… That day when we had dinner, she also seemed to not know who you were. Not only that, but she and Shen Shiyan also didn’t hit it off because she hadn’t met Shen Shiyan yet at this time… Oh my gosh, this is totally absurd!”

I knew she had gradually accepted this fact. Though the truth was terrifying and beyond our wildest imaginations, what else could we do besides accepting it as is?

If time kept going backward, then what could we do? I felt fairly shaken when this question crossed my mind. As for other potential problems, I could not care about them for the time being.

“Does this mean that we have not caught Yan Yuan yet? And that we have not met his crazy friend?” Tan Jiao asked all of a sudden.

“Check online.”

Tan Jiao turned on the computer, and sure enough, there were only reports of two cases of abductions so far. In fact, the police had not even started investigating it yet.

“Damn it.”

“Are you able to contact Shen Shiyan?”

Tan Jiao flipped through her phone again, checking the chat she had with the matchmaker that probably still had Shen Shiyan’s number there. Then she called him and placed it on speaker.

“Shen Shiyan!” she called out impatiently.

The man on the other side of the call stayed quiet for a bit before asking, “Tan Jiao? What… what is it?”

She said urgently, “Listen to me! I’ll ask you a question, you answer it! Number one, have you guys caught Yan Yuan and Xu Zifeng?”

“Who? Who are they?”