Chapter 2098: The Backward Clock
"At this point, you still think the motive matters?" Tang Ming sneered. "That neighbor wasn't here last night. Her sudden appearance proves that Pumpkin City's storyline changes according to player actions. If we don't kill this robber, Dr. Wu's wife and daughter might still die because of him."
"So what if you kill him?" Wang Ling said. "Are we out now?"
Tang Ming stepped over the fallen corpse. "At least now, even if Dr. Wu's wife and daughter die, it won't be from a home invasion. I've altered the main plotline. Let's see if Pumpkin City changes because of it."
The four of them faced each other. Hearing the distant alarm sirens, they had no choice but to prepare to leave.
Xu Huo turned to look at the hostess, whose face had gone pale. "When the police arrive, just tell them the truth. The man we killed was a habitual robber. You're safe now."
The hostess still watched them warily.
When the police reached the house, Xu Huo and the others slipped out without drawing any attention. They followed the police car all the way to the station, confirming that Dr. Wu's wife and daughter were safe before finally relaxing.
But they didn't leave. Instead, they lingered nearby in case anyone else tried to harm the two.
What they never expected, however, was that within moments, a live broadcast appeared on television showing a police operation. The fugitive shot dead on the spot was the same man Tang Ming had killed earlier. At the same time, the report tracked down the latest news, stating that the robber had already caused one death and one serious injury, and the person sent to the hospital for rescue was still in critical condition.
A fleeting image in the video footage clearly showed it was the Sunshine Tree Villa District—even though they had killed the robber in the villa and watched "Dr. Wu's wife and daughter" enter the police station, the subsequent "plotline" continued without any change.
"It seems our interference doesn't matter much." Meng Wenguang hesitated. "What exactly does Dr. Wu want the players who enter to do?"
Inside the police station, the mother and daughter were still calmly drinking hot tea. But on the other side of the villa district, a corpse and a seriously injured person were being carried out. The key to this important plotline apparently wasn't whether the mother and daughter survived. Just as they had thought before, saving two characters in a fake plotline within a fake space had no real meaning. So they had been focusing on the wrong thing.
"I'll go check out the company side." Xu Huo said and left 12th Street. After several subtle sensations, he returned to 16th Street and retrieved the recorder he had left earlier. The footage on the recorder showed that "Dr. Wu" had left the company a little past 10 o'clock, alone, heading to an unknown location.
"Isn't the timing off?" Wang Ling said. "Your recorder started working at 9:17. We were on 12th Street for less than 40 minutes. It's just now 10 o'clock. Why has Dr. Wu already left the company? Is the device broken?"
Whether the device was broken was easy to check. In fact, the recorder not only captured "Dr. Wu" leaving the company a little past 10 o'clock, it kept recording until nearly 10:30. That meant the time captured by the recorder far exceeded the time they had experienced.
"Isn't this time travel?" Meng Wenguang wondered. "Could the flow of time be different between 12th Street and 16th Street?"
Wang Ling immediately checked his own daytime recordings, which included his records of crossing several streets to the city government. After checking, he said, "Mine is fine."
Xu Huo also checked his own records of coming to Little Star Company. "Same here, no problem."
Tang Ming's situation was the same. He had two days' worth of recordings. They were fine during the day. As for the night, he wasn't too sure, because last night he had spent almost all his time near 12th Street. He hadn't noticed anything wrong himself, and after confirming Dr. Wu's wife and daughter were dead, he had casually tossed the recorder into his pocket.
Just then, Xu Huo suddenly noticed a clock on 15th Street. The hands on that clock were moving backward.
Wang Ling and the others also sensed something was off. They jumped onto nearby buildings to observe the surroundings. Finally, they confirmed that the clocks on 14th and 15th Streets were all moving backward, while those on 16th Street and beyond were normal.
"Our timing tools are fine." Wang Ling repeatedly checked his watch.
His watch had almost no discrepancy with the current time on 16th Street.
"What the hell is going on?" Wang Ling said in confusion. "How can one Pumpkin City have a normal time zone and a time-reversal zone at the same time!"
"Watches don't represent accurate time." Tang Ming said. "Time itself is chaotic here. Don't be fooled by the tools."
One street, with clocks on one side moving backward and clocks on the other moving forward, and exactly with the 16th Street they were on as the dividing line...
Xu Huo paused for a moment, signaled the three to stay where they were, and immediately leaped to the top of 17th Street. When he looked back at the clock on 16th Street, he found it was also moving backward now.
"Is there a problem with your watches?" he asked.
Meng Wenguang checked and shouted back, "Everything's normal."
Xu Huo's expression darkened. "From 17th Street, the clock on 16th Street is moving backward."
The three were shocked. They followed him up and, upon seeing the backward-moving clock, could hardly hide their astonishment. Just then, Yue Rui and the others arrived at 15th Street, so they had them spread out across the three streets from 14th to 16th to observe the surrounding clocks.
After several comparisons, they determined that when a person was on a given street, the clock they saw on that street appeared normal, though it differed from their own timing tools. However, if they looked back from their current street, the clocks on the previous street were moving backward.
To verify if this was the case for all streets, Xu Huo and the others continued two streets further back to 18th Street. But another surprise occurred. From 17th Street, the clock on 16th was moving backward. But from 18th Street, the clock on 17th was moving forward normally. When they moved forward to 19th Street, the time on 17th Street was still moving forward.
"Our time seems completely messed up." Meng Wenguang slapped his normally ticking watch. "Does anyone know what time it really is now?"
"Around 10:30." Tang Ming replied, then paused and added, "That is, if the time before 9:17 was normal."
His words reminded Xu Huo. Xu Huo turned to Meng Wenguang and said, "I need a favor."
"Go to 6th Street immediately. Get there within three minutes. Check if the clocks on 5th and 7th Streets are moving in opposite directions. If they are, use a red warning light. If they're the same, use a green one. Then go to 4th Street and check if the clock on 5th Street is moving normally. Normal means green light, backward means red light."
Meng Wenguang said no problem. Soon, a bright red light flashed in the distant sky. After a brief pause, it turned green.