Chapter 16: 216. The Truth

Was it necessary to make such a fuss for a dream?

It was, of course.

Qi Le’an believed that it was never a dream.

It was all too much of a coincidence. He could feel the feeling of touch so clearly. The dream happened on the date of his death. Time and space relapsed. The nightmare system… Qi Le’an could not help but think of the people who had given him financial help before he left the country.

Elder Xu, the head of a scientific research project.

Qi Le’an sat on his grandfather’s old-fashioned bed, organising his thoughts.

His parents had participated in a scientific research project when he was very young and left their will to their son thirteen years ago. They left Qi Le’an a million yuan as well as a letter.

Thirteen years ago, it was in 2003.

His parents died nine years ago; and in the same year of their death, the letter was lost in a burglary at the law firm, that was in 2007.

In that same year, Qi Le’an’s grandfather, who had been looking after him, passed away because he could not bear the grief. After that, the house was occupied by his eldest uncle.

If something was to be hidden here, where would it be hidden so that his eldest uncle would never be able to touch?

Qi Le’an’s gaze turned to his grandfather’s portrait hanging on the wall of the room.

As evil as his uncle was, he was nothing more than an uneducated farmer. He believed in ghosts and gods and feared them. When Qi Le’an’s parents died, there was no portrait of them in the room because there was no photo of them. But after his grandfather died, someone from his parents’ research company helped Qi Le’an make arrangements for the funeral.

If there was anything in this house that his uncle could not possibly touch or destroy in his lifetime, it must be his grandfather’s portrait!

Thinking of this, Qi Le’an took two steps forward and looked at his grandfather’s portrait. Grandpa’s gaze was kind, just like he was looking at Qi Le’an as a child.

“Grandpa…” Qi Le’an said with shaking lips, “I’m sorry… I have to get to the bottom of this.”

He bowed to the already dusty portrait and took it down from the wall.

Qi Le’an operated precisely and opened the back cover of the frame, and his pupils shrank.

Inside was indeed a letter.

An old-fashioned yellowish envelope with a slightly unfamiliar script on it.

The words said, “For Le’an.”

Qi Le’an took a deep sniffle and tilted his head to suppress the flow of tears.

It was true, it was all true. Even if he didn’t know why, it was all true.

He had embraced his mother in the ninth year after his parents had died.

Qi Le’an took the letter out quickly, then hung up his grandfather’s portrait. He did not choose to leave, but opened the letter where he was.

It was a letter from home written in fountain pen and had two pages of paper.

“Le’an, it must be 2016 now and you have passed the moment of our reunion. Your mind must be full of doubts. But don’t be afraid. Mum and dad will tell you everything.”

“As written in the last letter, mum and dad are involved in a scientific research project that could change the history of mankind. And just as everyone feared, the experiment failed.”

“The space-time vortex caused by the activation of the equipment killed three colleagues instantly, and your father held me tightly as the tearing sensation came from every inch of my body. I thought that I would probably never see my child again in my life.”

“But just when I thought I was going to die, I saw you again, the dead you, to be exact.”

“I couldn’t believe that the person lying in the hospital bed, not breathing, was my child. My little Le’an should have grown up peacefully and happily, and should have grown old with the person he loves. He should never, in the prime of his life, lie in a hospital bed without making a choice.”

“At that moment, out of nowhere, I broke free of your father’s embrace and grabbed the equipment.”

“Everything then stopped.”

“I was surrounded only by your father and the equipment, and the time we were stuck in showed it was August 9, 2016. I thought to myself that I must go back to that time and save my son. But I could not manipulate the equipment accurately. We lacked the energy to activate it and time was once again set back and both. Your father and I were taken away by a huge vortex of energy.”

“Regaining consciousness again, we realized that the time had changed to June 6, 2011. We knew that the time travel had been successful. But immediately afterwards, we discovered that the equipment had lost its core part.”

“As written in the previous letter, the purpose of the equipment was to confirm the feasibility of time travel, and it was equipped with an intelligent projection system that would help the experimenter arrive at the exact time required and record everything. Then it would project it onto the cerebral cortex in a dreamlike manner.”

“It acts as a guide so that the experimenter does not get lost in the chaos of space and time. If it were missing, then we would not be able to return to the time of experience through the equipment”.

“The dimensional dislocation caused by time travel prevents us from having a real body to return to the time we have arrived at, leaving us unable to remedy the situation. Most importantly, we don’t know what happened to you.”

“Then your father discovered that it was not only ourselves that we had brought from the past.”

“We brought you to the past as well.”

“And the projection system, too, was fused with you.”

“It has been said that the death of mankind is actually a rise in dimensions, from a lower dimension of the world to a higher one. This now seems to be very close to the truth.”

“Mum is glad to have brought you back to July 6, 2011, so that my child will not die at this time.”

“Time has countless branches at every second, and these branches each creates a different parallel world. The one you are in is a brand-new world that you will not die in your twenties.”

“Yet there is another threat to you in this world.”

“Mum and Dad have managed to leave a letter to you, thinking that even if we are to die for our country one day, my child will know what we once were doing. But the letter becomes your biggest hidden threat. We don’t know how long the system would fuse with you, and we are afraid that Mr. Xu would find out about it all and classify you as an experimental subject.”

“So, we activated the equipment again, and without the support of the system, we were unable to determine the right world you are in. The good thing is that after going through countless worlds, we return to this correct time to take the letter out and have a chance to tell you all about it.”

“Next, Mum and Dad are going on another journey. If this one is successful, we can meet at a time where space and time overlap and you can also read this letter.”

“However, the wonders of time and space cannot be fully explored, and I don’t know if we will get lost in the journey or find our way home.”

“But remember, Le’an, love is the greatest power in all the worlds.”

“Mum and Dad will always be watching over you.”

“I look forward to the opportunity for us to see each other again.”

“PS: Destroy it all. You must understand it, my baby.”

The font on the last line was extremely different from the previous delicate and pretty one; it was majestic and bold, just like the person who wrote it.

Qi Le’an’s tears had wet the paper and he slumped on his bed, unable to speak.

He thought his rebirth was lucky; he thought it was God’s arrangement that he met the system; he thought he was a poor little boy whose parents died early and nobody wanted him, but all this was given to him by his parents!

All his luck was full of love.

He was not a scientist. He could not understand space and time and dimension. But he knew that it must be hard and difficult.

Qi Le’an finally couldn’t help crying out in pain and murmured, “Dad… Mum…”

He looked around, convinced that there were those two people who would always love him and be watching him.

He shook his hand and opened the second page.

“Boy, I think you’re eighteen years old now and have become a grown-up. I wonder if you have got a birthday present? And I can’t be sure where Mom and Dad will be now.”

“Dad is taking Mom to take part in a top-secret scientific project that is great enough to change the world. We don’t know how long the project will take or when it will be completed, but please believe that what Mom and Dad are doing is all for a good cause.”

“Mankind is moving forward in its explorations. A hundred years ago, someone came up with the idea of travelling through time and space, and a hundred years after that, someone is trying to put that theory into practice.”

“We’ve got a great thing, and it’s just as clever as you are. It can weave countless stories into a dream and project it into a human brain.”

“How’s that? Pretty amazing, isn’t it?”

“With its help, we can record times and travel to any time and place.”

“Yes, what Mom and Dad are working on sounds crazy, but it’s great, isn’t it?”

“If the experiment works, we’ll definitely travel through time and space to see you, boy.”

Qi Le’an sniffed. Father was writing in a humorous way. When he wrote the letter, he must not have known that even if the experiment failed, they would still fight for their lives to come and see their son.

Everything had finally come out, and what he wanted to understand, he understood them.

But why was he still so sad?

Qi Le’an took the two letters and he knew he had to destroy them. It was like what his mother had said: only by destroying them could he be assured of peace in the future.

Yet looking at the handwriting on them, Qi Le’an could not bring himself to do so.

It was as if by throwing away these two pieces of paper, he was giving up his last link with his parents.

The lighter was on the side, but Qi Le’an’s hands trembled as he looked at the words over and over again, as if he wanted to carve them into his brain.

Nobody knew how long it took, but it was getting dark and the words on it started to become blurred. After another unknown period of time, darkness fell and everything was completely out of sight.

The phone beeped twice, emitting a light that irritated Qi Le’an and made him squint his eyes.

Wei Changfeng sent a message, saying, “Dinner is ready, when are you coming home?”

Qi Le’an stared at the message in a daze.

Finally, he stood up from the bed, grabbed the lighter and two letters, and stumbled to the bathroom.

In the darkness, the fire lit up and the flames of the lighter leapt with the air currents.

As if he had made up his mind about something, Qi Le’an moved the lighter, little by little, to the letter.

The letter caught fire at the slightest point of touch and burst into flames in the darkness. The flames illuminated the tear stains on Qi Le’an’s face, and Qi Le’an held the letter until the heat forced his fingers to let go.

With only a little remnant of the letter floating down and the fire extinguished, Qi Le’an pressed the flushing button on the toilet and the ashes disappeared with the flow of water.

It was all over.

All the secrets would disappear with the letters, and all the truth would be in his mind.

Qi Le’an turned around, ready to go home.

Wei Sama was waiting for him for dinner.