Shen Bin and Xu Zhilian left at some point without Shen Yue knowing. After she realized that those two were no longer appearing like before, the family returned to how it was in the past.
With two fewer people yet one more in the family, their lives were completely unaffected. In fact, the seven Shen family members were living even healthier.
Shen Yue summarized her recent daily life, finding it not only healthy, but also quite regular.
Big brother would wake her and Shen Hui up in the mornings to send them to school before going to work himself.
Second brother had temporarily stopped working and would push third brother around in his wheelchair all over the house every day. That day he nearly made third brother fall, scaring second brother half to death, and since then he didn’t dare push the wheelchair anymore.
Fourth brother had been holed up at home for a long time now. Word was that a research project of his had just finished, so he wanted to properly rest (and read novels).
Fifth brother would go out during the day to intern as a mock doctor, then at night he would bring home all kinds of weird experimental materials to tinker with in his lab, sometimes even showboating them in front of Shen Yue.
Shen Hui would often react to such behavior with incomprehension and pull Shen Yue away.
If Shen Wu was in a good mood, he would let Shen Hui take Shen Yue away. If he was in a bad mood, he would get into an argument with Shen Hui. So far the results of their arguments were 32 wins 0 losses for Shen Hui, 32 losses 0 wins for Shen Wu.
And Shen Wu’s penalty for losing was that a certain notebook had been completely revamped into 700 things he was not allowed to do.
Half a month later.
Shen Hui’s research lab was close to completion. She was also less and less interested in going to school.
Fortunately, Niu Kaihuai was finally ready at this time. Brimming with energy, he went up to Shen Hui holding a question, or rather an academic topic, asking her to solve it.
Shen Hui spent a whole day on it but did not get the answer. So she was coaxed and persuaded by Niu Kaihuai into joining his research group, at least for the short term Shen Hui had no way of leaving.
Through tireless effort, Qing Xiaoyu could now say a couple sentences to Shen Hui every day.
By insisting on herself, Zou Xuerong had also regained the chance to eat with Shen Yue.
At first Shen Hui would glare at Zou Xueorng, but later she found that Zou Xuerong was far too timid, so she couldn’t be bothered to pay her any attention.
Shen Yue was always following Shen Hui around. When Shen Hui would subconsciously reject those around her, Shen Yue would speak up to gently guide her, persisting for half a month until finally Shen Hui’s interpersonal relations eased up a bit.
One night after washing up, Shen Hui lay down on Shen Yue’s bed out of habit and started looking through academic papers on her tablet.
Meanwhile, Shen Yue was watching some video on her phone, giggling away. After noticing Shen Hui she put on earphones and also shifted a bit farther away, apparently afraid of disturbing Shen Hui.
Shen Hui frowned but said nothing.
After a while, it seemed someone sent Shen Yue a message. She got up from her previous lying position into a sitting one, phone in hand asking: “Huihui, Xiaoyu invited us to go shopping for clothes together on Saturday, want to come?”
Although posing the question to Shen Hui, Shen Yue did not wait for her reply before responding to Qing Xiaoyu on her phone: Sure.
Sitting right next to Shen Yue, Shen Hui saw her response with one glance. Soon her eyes returned to the paper Niu Kaihuai had just sent over to her tablet. “You already promised her so stop asking me.”
“Alright, you’re going.”
Shen Hui said nothing more.
She was resisting through silence.
Shen Yue understood what Shen Hui meant and simply lay down next to her, “If you don’t go with me I won’t dare buy anything. The Shen family’s money isn’t my money after all, I can only rely on you...”
Hearing this, Shen Hui’s hand scrolling the paper paused. After a long while she sighed.
Under Shen Yue’s subtle influence recently, Shen Hui had already internalized Shen Yue using her things and money for granted. Sometimes Shen Hui even felt that Shen Yue spending her money was normal – after all Shen Yue could only rely on her, right?
They had suffered the same ordeals and were both abandoned existences. Only the two of them could understand each other.
In her heart Shen Hui was not actually unwilling to go out with Shen Yue. She was just afraid of those people coming to find them.
Shen Hui knew she was an experimental subject for developing the brain. And opposite her were experimental subjects for developing bodily functions.
Her lab wasn’t built yet and she didn’t yet have the drugs that could control those people. She might not necessarily be able to defeat them if they met.
But that was fine. She was already used to walking the line between life and death.
“I’ll only go with you for an hour.” Shen Hui still agreed in the end.
If they truly met one of the other experiments, she definitely had ways to keep Shen Yue safe.
Shen Yue was not surprised by Shen Hui’s response. Shen Hui would not refuse her anymore these days.
Shen Yue looked at her phone a bit more until she got bored. She sat up facing Shen Hui, “Huihui what are you reading?”
“Special relativity.”
Shen Yue oh-ed. So 20-year-old Shen Hui also liked reading about special relativity, a habit continuing on from when she was 15. Interesting.
Shen Yue scooted over to take a look at Shen Hui’s tablet and asked: “What’s this?”
“The relativistic mass-velocity equation. This is relativistic mass, this is rest mass, this is velocity, and this is the speed of light.”
Shen Yue actually knew this knowledge already. In her memories, 21-year-old Shen Hui had explained it all to her before.
But for some reason she still wanted to hear 15-year-old Shen Hui explain it again. This was the real her.
“If you exceed the speed of light, can you go back to the past?” Shen Yue turned over to prop her chin on Shen Hui’s leg, looking up at her.
Shen Hui shook her leg to shake Shen Yue off. “You’re too skinny, it hurts my leg when you put your weight on it.”
Shen Yue laid her chin back down. This time Shen Hui shook her off again, “Your chin’s so pointy too, it's poking me.”
Shen Yue oh-ed and scurried down to the foot of the bed.
Seeing Shen Yue curled up like that, Shen Hui found her rather cute for some reason. Her inner ice melted a bit more and she beckoned Shen Yue over, “Come here, I’ll explain special relativity to you.”
Shen Yue looked away. “I don’t want to hear about special relativity. I want to know if people can go back to the past.”
Shen Hui’s motions paused. She asked: “What would you do if you could go back to the past?”
Shen Yue answered without any hesitation, fast as lightning: “I would save you.”
Seeing Shen Yue’s rare seriousness, Shen Hui felt she was just spouting nonsense. “Don’t pin hopes on changing the past. Sometimes human foolishness leads to the same results no matter how many times you repeat things. Going back won’t change much.”
Shen Hui waved Shen Yue over again, “Come here.”
Shen Yue crawled over like an inchworm.
Shen Hui grabbed the blanket and had Shen Yue burrow in before speaking again, “Are you interested in time?”
Shen Yue nodded. “Yeah, I want to know what would happen if someone went back to the past.”
A mocking smile appeared on Shen Hui's face as if recalling something. "Have you heard of the parallel worlds theory? Every choice a person makes leads down a different path toward alternate outcomes, eventually forming many parallel worlds."
Shen Yue nodded. She knew that theory, lots of novels used it.
"Actually that's not the case. There is only one timeline. All things converge on just one outcome. If the past changes then that outcome doesn't disappear, but rather stops and gets covered over."
Shen Yue didn't ask how Shen Hui knew that or arrived at this conclusion. She simply rested her head on Shen Hui's shoulder and asked the critical question: "Covered over - what does that mean?"
Shen Hui drew a straight line on her tablet and explained: "If you travel back from July to May, those original two months from May to July don't disappear but get covered over - that is to say you overlay another path through time on top of the initial timeline, leading toward another outcome that covers the first."
"So coming back to July again and going back to May, you would have memories of having repeated things twice."
"What if a third person repeated it, would the person who already repeated twice have the memories too?”
Shen Hui looked at Shen Yue, somewhat surprised she understood such an advanced theory. "Correct. The third returnee would encounter another person with two layers of memories."
"So if this person goes back the second time, instead of going from July to May, he goes from July to June, wouldn't that mean the person who goes back the third time would meet the same person from the two timelines?" Shen Hui stared at Shen Yue for a long time after hearing these words from her. Shen Yue was utterly fearless, simply allowing Shen Hui to look at her.
Finally, Shen Hui spoke, "What novel have you been reading recently?"
Shen Yue thought hard, carefully filtering through options, before answering, "The Heavenly-Priced Delicate Wife of the Supreme Emperor Running with the Ball."
Shen Hui: "..."
