Chapter 15: The Eleventh Cycle of Time (I)

Li Shiqing and Xiao Heyun are both ordinary young men, perhaps a little better than ordinary people in terms of mental capacity and logical reasoning because of their personal qualities, but by no means in the realm of the "extraordinary".

By the same token, they had received neither systematic combat training nor professional bomb disposal skills.

With two young men like that, if they want to solve the bomb + the terrorists in a short period of time, they must do both, tackle + defuse the bomb.

Now, however, the harsh reality is in front of them.

A young girl who has never even been in a fight in reality.

One is a rookie who hasn't even completed a double kill in the game ......

Fate showed its grim face to the two young men and once again viciously shattered it just as their hopes were rising.

The two men looked at each other and looked at each other, and what was revealed in their eyes was deep despair.

The ignorant are fearless, just as they were able to try to get the driver to stop or reach the end of the line without knowing there was a bomb in the car, once they knew the car was going to explode, their immediate reaction was to run away from the car.

Similarly, when they didn't know what the explosives were, they were able to take the chance that if the explosives in the car were time bombs, they could try to get everyone out of the car first and then have the police sort them out, which was one of the plans Boy was going to write in his notebook at the time.

But now that the car proved to be a bomb that could be detonated at any time, all plans were meaningless.

They were in the same time and space as the prisoner, and what they could improvise, the other side could also improvise. Since that person had the idea of dying together, sooner or later the bomb would blow up, sooner or later.

So if they want to stop this tragedy from happening, they will have to be more careful and stealthy.

[What is that man after all?

Li Shiqing scribbled in her notebook, "If that man was in the car, he would have died too!"

[Could there be a misanthropic complex?

Boy, who remains upbeat even in the face of such things, naturally cannot understand how some people think, [or want to take revenge on society for some injustice they have suffered?

[You can't drag a bunch of innocent people into this! You can't drag a bunch of innocent people into this!

Li Shiqing writes with a force that penetrates the paper, shivering with anger.

"None of this is the point ......"

Boy looked out of the car and his expression suddenly became very complicated.

He blinked hard.

"...... We really seem to be able to get off the station properly?"

Following his surprised gaze, Li Shiqing looked up in surprise to see the bus slowly approaching the bus stop on East River Road.

This is the last stop before going onto the bridge and the longest stop between the two stops on this bus route.

She used to see people accidentally riding past this stop and then begging the driver in various ways to pull over and let them turn back.

If you miss this stop, you have to go to the bridge, and it takes more than 20 minutes to get to the next stop, and counting the time to turn around and come back, you will be delayed by 40 to 50 minutes.

"Let's shout for everyone to get off."

Li Shiqing gritted her teeth and whispered to Boy, "Just shout that there are bombs in the car, and run as many as you can!"

"And then what? The same as I just did, when you shouted the car blew up and even innocent passers-by had to die in vain?"

Boy shakes his head, calmly extinguishing the last vestiges of Li Shiqing's luck.

"Since you can get off the station normally, of course you'll get off first, do you want to get blown up again?"

Li Shiqing shivered at the thought of the tearing pain she had felt several times before and couldn't help but agree.

"OK, get off!"

They made their decision just as the bus automatically started to announce its stop.

[Link Seng Group reminds you that the East River Road station is here, please use the back door if you need to get off the station.

"Go!"

Boy stood up first and gestured for Li Shiqing to wait with him at the back door.

The vast majority of people who take this route do so to cross the bridge, and there are no residential areas nearby, so they are the only two people who get off at this stop.

Li Shiqing and Xiao Heyun's palms were sweating as they pressed the button to get off the bus and waited for the door to open.

Before they entered the "time loop", they were both half asleep and had no memory of this stop, let alone getting off the train at it.

Now they want to get out of the car, but what if the madman in the car doesn't give a damn about getting out of the car?

What if he found out that someone was getting out of the car and the car just exploded?

It is the fear of the unknown that is most frightening, and in this the human imagination trumps even explosives.

With such fear, the bus, which they had just found "homely", seemed to have become some kind of eerie place, with only the railing by the door to lean on to give them a little courage to stand still.

The passengers on the bus, who were not at all visible, seemed to be able to unveil their own faces at any moment, revealing a frenzied and hideous face, so that they did not even have the courage to take the opportunity to look at them, lest the slightest flaw might provoke the man into another "death".

Fortunately, it didn't take long to get them to ramble on. The car stopped slightly and the back door opened without a moment's delay, nor did anyone give them more than a passing glance.

Getting off at the station would have been the natural thing to do.

Li Shiqing and Boy were almost impatient to get out of the car and jump out.

As soon as he got off the bus, Li Shiqing went around to the back of the bus, took a picture of the number plate and dialled 110.

"Hello, I'm calling the police, there's a bomb on a number 45 bus at East River Road station that's heading to Jiangbei Bottom station, it's just leaving East River Road station now, the number plate is ......"

It was the first time Boy had ever gotten out of a car properly, and he was still observing his surroundings when he suddenly heard Li Shiqing behind him saying something.

However Li Shiqing just gave him a somewhat puzzled look and went on to finish with a flourish.

"The explosives are not timed devices and could go off at any time, but the expected time of explosion is at 1.45pm at the River Road crossroads or on the Cross River Bridge. Also, the person who planted the bomb is in the car, so please be very careful!"

Unlike SMS alerts, it is significantly easier to say something over the phone and enquiries from the other party come much quicker.

"Gee you don't care how I know, time is of the essence, can you guys go and sort out the bomb thing first?"

When Li Shiqing saw that the police officer had started asking the same series of questions as last time, she was so anxious that she was about to explode, "What do you mean, what are our demands? What can I ask? My request is that you stop this car from exploding!"

"That's all I can reveal, I don't know anything else!"

Seeing that she was about to get stuck in an endless loop of "why do you know what you know", she simply hung up the phone.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?"

Xiao Heyun held back her anger until she hung up the phone.

"I'm calling the police, aren't I? I didn't even finish reporting it last time ......"

Li Shiqing mumbled as she looked at Boy, who was grimacing in front of her.

"And you say you don't want to be interrogated by the police anymore, isn't that just another way to get us in the hole?"

Boy was exasperated, "Just get out of the car, why did you call the police?"

"But we must still be summoned to ...... as soon as we get off the bus."

Li Shiqing was in the middle of her sentence when she suddenly reacted and stopped for a moment.

Twice before, they had gotten out of the car suddenly halfway through the day, and the timing was so coincidental that it would have been unconscionable for the police not to suspect them.

Even if they were questioned by the police, all they had to do was explain that they were "getting off at the station".

Even if the car did explode, they, as two "survivors", would only be consoled and thankful that no one would ever be happy that they survived.

"But that car will explode!"

With no one at the bus stop, Li Shiqing has no qualms about voicing her thoughts.

"That's a busload of people! We can get off the bus ourselves because we're escaping the pain of death, but we can't watch them in trouble and do nothing, that's a straw man!"

Her emotions were still lingering from the regret that the last time cycle had not succeeded in alerting, let alone solving, any problems.

"And have you ever wondered if 'getting off normally' is also a possibility for stopping the time loop?"

Boy suddenly sneers.

"What if this stop is the way of life that God has purposely set aside for us?"

"Have you always been so impulsive in what you do? Before too, not planning well and having to listen to you all the time, what can be the result?, call the police and the police will believe you?"

"How do you know we're bound to cycle through time again? Is it okay to mess around when the lives and deaths of so many people are at stake?"

"How do you know that there won't be a limit to the number of time cycles? If you don't treat every time loop as if it's the last, what if it really is just the last one? Continue to be held as a suspect until you die?"

Boy continuously questioned Li Shiqing.

Unlike Li Shiqing, who cries when she breaks down and speaks up when she wants to give up, Xiao Heyun is an adult who wants to be more reliable and take care of Li Shiqing, so he is very restrained in his emotions and the way they get along, and tries to be more humble to Li Shiqing.

But that doesn't mean he's really a noodle man.

The negative emotions he had been holding in his heart had been accumulating, and although he was doing his best to manage his emotions well, now that he had easily encountered a glimmer of hope again, only to have it extinguished once again, the psychological fallout from this could not be described in words at all.

Now he was on the verge of exploding with emotion just like that bus.

Li Shiqing's face grew whiter and whiter as Xiao Heyun questioned her, and reason made her realize that he was right, and even a hint of regret at the bottom of her heart ......

"And then what? Just watch them die because of that?"

And yet, deep down, there is still something that makes her reluctant to "live with it".

"Even if this really is the last time loop of time, even if you escape the loop, when you remember the past, won't you feel guilty and remorseful when you think of what you could have done but didn't?"

"There's always a way!"

She said it as if she had convinced Boy, or herself.

"Surely there can be a better way! Gotta try!"

During the argument, Li Shiqing's mobile phone rang again, presumably a call back from the police trying to verify the information, but as no one bothered to answer it, the ringing could only be repeated on a time loop.

This made the two men feel more and more irritated.

"You turn your phone off first, unless you still want to go to the police station!"

Boy restrained himself from being on the verge of an outburst and decided to get over this hurdle before talking about the future.

"Forget it, it's done and no more bickering is going to help."

Faced with this passive situation, he wiped his face tiredly and his mind was in turmoil, unable to piece together any better solution.

He refused to acknowledge that Li Shiqing's "unrepentant" attitude had moved him, but once again he chose to "give in" to Li Shiqing.

"Let's find a place to hide and then we'll talk it over!"

The author has something to say: No matter how well Boy and Li Shiqing understand each other, they were just strangers who didn't know each other before, and they have been able to get along with each other until now because of the "pressure of life and death". Fortunately, Boy is a much calmer and more considerate person than the hot-headed Li Shiqing, and is able to deal with these conflicts between them.