Lin Xian took a step back.

He stared at the eight gleaming password dials on the locked safe, below his nameplate:

20240328

These eight digits formed a date, the 20th birthday of Chu Anqing, and the day she vanished into blue stardust.

Actually, until today, when Lin Xian planned to set the password, he hadn't considered what password to use.

He simply thought that setting a complex password would suffice.

Or even a simple one, for that matter.

Because a safe is only effective against honest people, not thieves. If his dream was fake, a studio fabricated by enemies, then they could spend 600 years brute-forcing the hafnium alloy safe, see the note inside in advance, and copy it for him.

The password didn't matter.

What mattered was the content of the note, and that he needed the safe as a location marker to ensure that his future self, 600 years later, could find it.

That was why he hadn't given any thought to what the password should be.

But…

Just as he was about to close the safe.

He thought of many things.

He thought of Chu Anqing.

He thought of the girl who dared to jump from a plane for him, and the fragments of her that turned into blue stardust.

Twenty years old.

Her birthday, and her death anniversary.

He didn't even have time to say "Happy Birthday" to her, nor give her a birthday present.

She vanished mysteriously before seeing the first rays of her twentieth birthday.

After investigating the Millennium Stakes for some time, Lin Xian had a gut feeling that Chu Anqing was still alive.

She had just disappeared, not died!

In this magical world, there were all kinds of wondrous things, and all kinds of wondrous powers.

Since time and causality could be reversed, why couldn't the vanished Chu Anqing return?

Lin Xian wouldn't give up easily.

He would find those who had planted the Millennium Stakes:

"Give Chu Anqing… back to me!"

Intact,

Perfect,

Returned to March 28th, 2024, to the moment he grabbed her hand in the sky, to the moment he landed, opened his spacesuit, and saw her smiling face.

This was an impulse from the depths of his being.

It made him set the eight password dials to that date without hesitation, feeling it was only natural.

He had considered it just now.

If this was a closed loop of history, wouldn't he disrupt the loop by not setting this password?

But the problem was…

Brother Wang had said that the password, once set, could not be changed.

Would he use the precious spacetime particles and the note that Chu Anqing had sacrificed everything for, to verify such a meaningless thing?

He wasn't willing to.

Whether history was a closed loop or not, it didn't matter to him.

But at this moment.

Lin Xian believed that only by using this date as the password could he do justice to Chu Anqing's sacrifice, and be worthy of the 600 years of displacement.

No wonder his past self couldn't guess the password…

Even if he knew it was Chu Anqing's birthday.

It wasn't the year she was born, nor the year she turned eighteen, but a plain, ordinary 20th birthday.

Who would attach so much importance to a 20th birthday?

What's more…

He didn't know Chu Anqing before the MX celebration party. He hadn't paid much attention to this lively and cheerful younger schoolmate before.

"See you on the other side."

He said softly, reaching out with his right hand to completely scramble the eight password dials. Finally, he glanced back at the hafnium alloy safe filled with secrets and time:

"[I will find you.]"

Lin Xian turned around and strode towards the password door in the alloy wall.

*Click.*

Outside the door, Brother Wang opened it directly to greet Lin Xian:

"Yo, that was quick! Many customers take a long time just to think about the password. After all, this password can't be changed once it's set, so everyone is very cautious, wanting to set a password that is very meaningful and worthy of the time capsule."

"And more people are considering the possibility of sleeping in a hibernation pod in the future. Isn't it said that hibernation pods have the side effect of amnesia? When they wake up, they have no memory, they don't even know who they are. How can they make themselves believe who they are, and believe that the things in the safe have special significance to them?"

"This is also a very hot social issue now. Hibernation pod technology is becoming more and more mature, and the problem of memory loss has become a major concern for many people."

"So many customers are considering that the password must be set as a very important number, date, or code to them... so that when they open the safe after losing their memory, they can understand how important and precious the things inside are to them."

…

Lin Xian had heard a little about what Brother Wang was saying.

Xu Yiyi had already entered a hibernation pod, and the first batch of volunteers recruited by the Dragon Science Academy had also gone in. Currently, they were in good condition.

Presumably, after a few rounds of experiments without any problems, the first generation of mass-produced hibernation pods would be on sale.

Sleeping in a hibernation pod and essentially traveling to the future was indeed a very attractive thing. But in addition to this surprise, the problem of amnesia and how to recover memories had become the biggest hidden danger people worried about.

Many people naively thought:

"Write a diary! Then just read the diary when you wake up!"

"Prepare a few more hard drives to store recordings, take more videos, and watch them again when you wake up."

"Have a trusted person take turns hibernating with you. Each time one wakes up, the other tells him about his original memories, and then takes his place in the hibernation pod."

It had to be said.

These ideas were too taken for granted.

Not to mention that human memory was extremely complex, extremely fragmented, and also included emotions and other things that couldn't be simply recorded in diaries and videos.

Sociologists said that the biggest problem facing memory recovery was--

[Trust].

Once a person wakes up from hibernation, their mind is blank, and they will instinctively feel danger, rejecting all kindness and malice, trusting their own judgment more than anyone else.

At this time, if you give them a diary and say that this is what you wrote before, your memories, please take a look at it and quickly get into character.

No one would believe it.

At that time, the person who had lost all memory, watching the diary they had once written so carefully, would only feel bored, uninterested, without any sense of immersion, and would not want to read it at all.

They would not so easily accept these memories that others were shoving at them, even if they were once written by themselves.

The same went for videos.

People with blank minds had a strong sense of self-preservation and would instinctively resist all of this.

Even the person they trusted the most before hibernation would just be a stranger after waking up. The problem of trust was very difficult to solve.

And if the most basic trust couldn't be achieved, how could those memories from outside be restored to the brain?

What's more…

If you thought about it deeply, there would be many situations such as memory fraud and memory modification. There were many plots in martial arts stories where people lost their memories and recognized their enemies as their fathers. Considering that hibernation pods would completely erase the brain's memory, this situation could happen in reality.

As hibernation pods, this sci-fi product, got closer and closer to real life, the worries of the world's people also grew heavier and heavier.

More than the loss of property after hibernation, they were more worried about losing themselves.

They feared that after waking up, a few men in black would hand them a diary and a videotape:

"This is your memory, quickly get into character, and come with us! It's time to work!"

This was indeed a little scary.

It also made many people give up the curious idea of sleeping in a hibernation pod.

After all, every era had thieves and bad people. Now they could defraud you of money, and in the future, they could defraud you of your memory, directly instill a fake memory into you, and make you work for them.

Therefore, under this premise, many people began to have wild ideas, finding a way out for their memories, finding a real guarantee.

Brother Wang had told him before that many customers who bought safes were preparing for hibernation in the future. They wanted to keep the most authentic backup of their memories in the safe, and then find a way to let their awakened selves know the password.

This step was difficult... and contradictory.

But there was no choice. Faced with the upcoming era of hibernation, everyone had to be prepared.

"The era is about to change greatly, Lin Xian!"

Brother Wang smiled and patted Lin Xian on the shoulder, putting his arm around him as they walked outside:

"Do you think I should sleep in a hibernation pod, and then wake up in a few hundred years to see if my Time Bank still recognizes me as the founder?"

"If you really have this idea, I support it." Lin Xian said directly:

"I can pay all the expenses for you."

"Hahaha, I'm just kidding!"

Brother Wang waved his hand:

"I won't sleep in a hibernation pod. I can't bear to leave my family, and I can't bear to leave my friends... This era is quite good. Who knows if the future will be better or worse? What if there's a war?"

As they talked, the two walked out of Time Bank.

Brother Wang went back to continue his work.

Lin Xian sighed and got back into the Elfa van.

Since returning to the East Sea, he had run around, done many things, and ended many things. And now... it was finally time to do the most difficult thing.

The electric door closed, and Lin Xian looked at the driver in front:

"Go to the Chu Shanhe Manor."

He paused:

"Drive slower."

…

An hour later.

The Elfa van drove directly into the manor. Lin Xian got out of the car in front of the door and came to the entrance door.

His finger was raised several times, but he couldn't press the doorbell.

Finally.

He gritted his teeth.

And pressed it!

*Ding-dong—*

This *ding-dong* was particularly harsh, like a knife stabbing into Lin Xian's heart.

After a while, the door opened.

It was Su Xiuying.

Her eyes were red, her eye bags were swollen, and there were still traces of tears on her face.

"Aunt Xiuying…"

Lin Xian said softly.

It seemed.

Chu Shanhe and Su Xiuying obviously already knew about Chu Anqing's matter.

But how did they know?

That didn't matter…

Su Xiuying's swollen eyes obviously had been crying for a long time.

Lin Xian felt guilty and clenched his fist:

"I'm sorry, Auntie."

Su Xiuying wiped her eyes and pointed to the living room inside:

"Shanhe is waiting for you in there... He knows you're coming."

Lin Xian nodded.

And walked in.

He had already made all kinds of mental preparations, and didn't mind telling the truth about any questions Chu Shanhe had.

He was the one who lost Chu Anqing, and he had to take responsibility for it.

He walked into the living room with his footsteps.

The burly man sitting on the sofa stood up at the sound… He seemed to have lost a lot of weight, and was not as burly and tall as before. His back also looked much thinner.

Chu Shanhe slowly turned around, looking at Lin Xian with furrowed eyes.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Chu."

Lin Xian lowered his head:

"I'm sorry... I didn't protect Anqing well."

Five meters away.

Chu Shanhe stood in place, not moving.

He breathed out a long breath:

"Lin Xian, I don't blame you."

Hearing this sentence.

Lin Xian couldn't help but clench his teeth.

A burst of pain went through his heart.

Chu Shanhe, as expected, still said the words he couldn't bear the most.

Even if he beat him up or scolded him, it would be much better than hearing these words.

"The day after Anqing's accident, a woman named Huang Que came, along with the leaders of the National Aerospace Department."

Chu Shanhe looked at Lin Xian, his voice a little hoarse:

"That woman brought the leaders of the Aerospace Department, it seemed, just to increase the credibility of what she said. She called me to the tea room, just the two of us, and she told me what happened to Anqing, and... that you jumped off the plane and saved Anqing."

"She said a lot of things I didn't understand, but I generally knew what the result was... My daughter disappeared. You clearly grabbed her hand in the air, and landed with her, but Anqing disappeared out of thin air, without a trace, leaving nothing behind."

"I asked her a lot of things, but she couldn't answer many of them. I was very angry, but after all, I allowed Anqing to participate in this space mission. I knew there would be danger, and I knew that Anqing had done something amazing."

"But Lin Xian... How could any father bear such a thing? Finally, after I asked in a fit of anger, the woman named Huang Que said that you had gone to investigate this matter. She said that you would investigate this strange thing and give me a reply, an answer."

Chu Shanhe's voice was very soft.

Lin Xian had never heard his voice so soft.

Unlike his previous confidence, unlike his previous thickness and grandeur.

After a pause, Chu Shanhe continued:

"So, these days, I haven't contacted you. I couldn't help but want to call you several times, but in the end, I held back."

"Lin Xian, since I was willing to entrust my daughter to you, it means that I trust you. I have always admired you, and regarded you as my own. So I also believe that you will definitely come here to find me, you will definitely investigate all of this, and then tell me an accurate answer."

Lin Xian slowly raised his head, meeting Chu Shanhe's gaze.

"Lin Xian…"

Chu Shanhe continued:

"When you jumped off the plane from an altitude of 20,000 meters... you had already fulfilled your promise to me. So you don't need to feel any guilt now, you can face me with a clear conscience."

"I, Chu Shanhe, have been in the business world for so many years, and I have seen a lot of things. I also know that there are many phenomena in this world that science cannot explain. I am more accepting of these things than your Aunt Xiuying."

"I believe every word you say, and I also believe that you are a responsible man. So Lin Xian, I only ask you one question."

Chu Shanhe looked directly into Lin Xian's eyes, directly into his soul:

"My daughter, is she dead, or is she alive?"

Lin Xian's eyes were firm, one word at a time:

"She's alive."

"Then where is she!" Chu Shanhe shouted.

Lin Xian took two steps forward.

And walked to Chu Shanhe.

Facing this sad and strong father:

"Mr. Chu, I don't know where Anqing is now."

"But, I guarantee it with my life, with everything I have."

He pressed his right hand on his chest, and looked up at Chu Shanhe:

"[No matter where she is, no matter who she is now. No matter the ends of the earth, no matter the river of history, even if I search every corner of time and space and the universe--]"

Lin Xian gritted his teeth, his eyes burning like torches:

"[I will definitely bring Chu Anqing back to you!]"

…

Chu Shanhe tensed up, clenched his fists, and took a big step forward.

Extending his broad right palm, he pressed it heavily on Lin Xian's shoulder:

"A man must keep his word, and do what he says."

He frowned and looked at Lin Xian:

"I'm waiting for you... Bring my daughter back!"