“Ms. Yu, we’ve already contacted Mr. Jiang, and he’ll be here to pick you up shortly,” the staff member, wearing a professional smile, placed a glass of water in front of Yu Yao, eyeing her like she was some rare specimen.

Yu Yao took the glass, thanked the staff member, and glanced at the clock on the wall, which displayed the time—5:31 PM, July 15, 2058.

2058.

She took a sip of water.

On July 15, 2018, she and Jiang Zhonglin had just celebrated their first wedding anniversary. She had decided to cook a meal herself, a rare occasion, but on her way back from buying groceries, she had tripped and fallen. When she got back up, she found that everything around her had suddenly changed. She still hadn’t fully processed that she had somehow fallen forty years into the future, from 2018 directly to 2058.

After standing there in shock for a while, a kind passerby, who had witnessed her suddenly appear in the middle of the road, took her to the local Citizen Service Center and explained the situation. The staff there efficiently managed to contact her husband, Jiang Zhonglin, and now they were just waiting for him to come and pick her up.

Like she was some lost item waiting to be claimed.

“Actually, Ms. Yu, you’re already the fifth recorded time-travel case in recent years.” One of the young staff members attending to her chatted casually, mentioning the previous four time-travel cases: an old man, a child, a lung cancer patient, and someone in a wheelchair—classic cases of the ‘old, weak, sick, and disabled.’ She was the fifth case, which explained why the staff hadn’t immediately sent her to a mental hospital when she mentioned time travel. There were already precedents.

Since being brought here, Yu Yao had been sitting in the service center for almost two hours. Every so often, a staff member would come by with the excuse of bringing her water, just to get a closer look at her, as if she were an alien.

After drinking her fill, Yu Yao put down the glass, and, out of boredom, looked down at the plastic bag by her feet. Inside were the groceries she had bought at the supermarket: eggs, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, bok choy, green beans, tofu, duck blood, mushrooms, yam, a large box of cooked food, and two mandarin fish. She had bought a lot of random items since she hadn’t decided what to cook for dinner yet and had planned to discuss it with Jiang Zhonglin when he got home.

As she was counting the peppers in the bag, she suddenly sensed something and looked up.

Someone had pushed open the door and walked in. Despite the hot summer weather, he was dressed in a shirt and long pants, with a pair of thin-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and holding a black umbrella—it must have started raining outside without her noticing.

The umbrella dripped water onto the floor as the man stood by the door for a moment. He placed the umbrella on the rack by the entrance and walked towards Yu Yao.

Yu Yao stared at the white hairs at his temples and the lines on his face, which marked the passage of time, and took a soft breath.

Young Mr. Jiang had indeed become Old Mr. Jiang. Her husband of one year had turned into an old man.

Damn.

“Yu Yao?” He stopped about a meter in front of her, calling her name with a calm demeanor. His voice wasn’t as clear and pleasant as it was forty years ago, but it had a warm, gentle tone.

Yu Yao had been sitting here calmly for a while, but at this moment, she couldn’t help but curse inwardly. She wasn’t sure where this sudden surge of anger came from.

“It’s me.” Yu Yao stood up and casually picked up the plastic bag from the floor. “Shall we go?”

She noticed Jiang Zhonglin adjusting his glasses and nodding at her, patiently explaining, “Wait for me a little longer. I need to fill out a form. Your situation is a bit different, so you’ll need to sign a temporary confidentiality agreement. We’ll have to complete the formalities later. Please sit down for a bit.”

Yu Yao plopped back down, thinking, Is he picking up his granddaughter from kindergarten with this attitude?

Jiang Zhonglin walked over to the service desk, spoke with the staff, and filled out a few forms. After about ten minutes, he returned and said, “Let’s go.”

As soon as the door opened, the sound of pouring rain outside grew louder. Jiang Zhonglin opened his umbrella. It was large enough to cover both of them. Yu Yao followed him to the roadside, watching the splashes of water as he walked. His pace was slow and steady. At sixty-five, Jiang Zhonglin wasn’t hunched or hard of hearing, but his hair had turned white, and the hand holding the umbrella was wrinkled, the hand of an elderly man.

At twenty-five, Jiang Zhonglin’s hands were one of his most attractive features, along with his eyes—long, slender, and fairer than hers. Now, they were no longer the same.

Yu Yao felt a tightness in her chest and wanted to say something, but they had already reached a bus stop. Jiang Zhonglin tapped a control panel on the bus stop sign, and an empty car arrived shortly after. He opened the passenger door for Yu Yao, letting her in before getting into the driver’s seat and driving off.

Yu Yao kept quiet, observing the car from forty years in the future. Its overall appearance hadn’t changed much, but many details were different. It seemed to have an automatic route-setting feature. The car had changed, the people had changed, even the roads and buildings outside had changed.

She looked out at the unfamiliar buildings, all the roads and structures meticulously planned, quite different from her memories of Haishi. Or was this even Haishi anymore? It wasn’t until she saw a towering landmark in the distance, a building that had once been the symbol of Haishi, that she was certain they were still in the same city.