"Tong Yang! Where are you going?"
Tong Yang pushed through the panicked crowd, her clothes stained with shocking streaks of blood as she dashed into the stairwell. Taking the steps two at a time, she raced upward toward the rooftop.
The building was mostly filled with high school seniors. It was just after the fourth-period dismissal, and most students were heading downstairs toward the cafeteria. Ignoring their stunned expressions, Tong Yang weaved through the crowd moving in the opposite direction, her face tense.
The students in the hallway didn’t know what was happening, but at the sight of her bloodied figure, they instinctively stepped aside in alarm. Unhindered, she reached the rooftop.
"Bang!" She kicked open the heavy metal door and strode inside.
She had run too fast, and her breathing was ragged. Standing in the empty space, she scanned the area—no one was there.
Clenching her jaw, Tong Yang knew the person who had pushed the boy off the rooftop must have fled long ago. They wouldn’t linger here. Still, frustration burned inside her.
If it had been like the news reports—if he had jumped to his death—she wouldn’t have wasted another second thinking about it. But that wasn’t the case.
She had seen it clearly—the hands that shoved him over the edge.
Who was it? Could they be the same kind of person who had killed her?
Tong Yang walked to the edge of the rooftop and saw scattered papers—the practice exam sheets she had given him earlier, now marked with red ink.
"Tong Yang! What are you doing? Get away from there!"
Her homeroom teacher, Teacher Yang, had finally caught up. The woman’s face turned ghostly pale when she saw Tong Yang standing where the boy had fallen. She quickly pulled her back.
"Are you okay? Don’t be scared. Let’s leave this place, alright?"
Being so close to a death scene, Teacher Yang must have assumed she was in shock.
Teacher Yang was a woman in her early forties.
"Teacher Yang, he was pushed," Tong Yang said, taking a deep breath to steady her voice. "I saw it."
The teacher froze, shock flashing across her face before she wrapped an arm around Tong Yang and guided her downstairs. "It’s alright, it’s alright. The school has already called the police. They’ll be here soon. Let’s get you changed first."
The school urgently ordered all students back to their classrooms. Teacher Yang took Tong Yang to the dormitory to change into clean clothes. By the time they returned to the school building, the police and forensic team had arrived. There was no need to check—it was clear the boy had died on impact.
The sky had darkened, but the school’s lights blazed brightly. Yet, an eerie silence hung in the air.
Every classroom was sealed, curtains drawn tight. Panicked school administrators and teachers hurried through the halls.
"Have the parents been notified?"
"The call didn’t go through. The police are sending someone to find them."
"Do it quickly."
"Understood."
Two officers passed by Tong Yang, carrying a yellow body bag. The weight made it sag toward the ground, reminding her of the boy’s gruesome state.
Downstairs, a few officers were murmuring among themselves while others headed to the rooftop to investigate. Staff members brought out hoses to wash away the bloodstains. The principal instructed all homeroom teachers to contact parents immediately—every student was to be picked up and taken home. Everyone’s expression was grave.
"Officer Li, this is the student who witnessed the scene up close—Tong Yang."
Officer Li appeared to be in his thirties or forties, his stern face naturally commanding authority. He forced a smile when he saw Tong Yang. "Are you alright, kid?"
Tong Yang’s face was pale, but she remained composed. "Officer Li, I saw someone push him."
Officer Li patted her shoulder reassuringly. "Don’t worry. We’ve already pulled the school’s surveillance footage. Leave the rest to us."
Tong Yang pressed her lips together and nodded.
"It’s late. Have your parents take you home. Get some rest, take a hot shower, and stay with your family. We might need your help later."
"I’m fine. I can cooperate now," Tong Yang said.
Officer Li hesitated, glancing at the principal. If this was a homicide, the best course of action would be to take Tong Yang—the only eyewitness—to the station immediately for a statement. But considering her age and the upcoming college entrance exams, they didn’t want to disrupt her mental state. The other students who had seen the scene had already been sent home or given psychological counseling.
The principal recognized Tong Yang and didn’t want this to affect her either. "Tong Yang, you should go home and rest. We can talk later. The exams are coming up, and you shouldn’t let this—"
"My parents are dead. There’s no one at home," Tong Yang said flatly, her eyes downcast.
Officer Li paused, then stopped insisting. "Alright. Then come with us to the station. It’s too late—you can stay there for the night."
Accompanied by Teacher Yang, Tong Yang went to the police station to give her statement. She recounted everything she had seen that day, including the hands that had pushed the boy. Meanwhile, Officer Li reviewed the surveillance footage in another room.
After the interview, Tong Yang sat in the break room while Teacher Yang brought her a cup of hot water.
"The police brought in Chu Shiyu. They suspect she might be involved," Teacher Yang said with a sigh.
Tong Yang stayed silent.
Before long, Chu Shiyu emerged from the interrogation room and entered the break area.
She looked terrified, her eyes red and brimming with tears.
"I—I didn’t like him, but I never thought he’d die…" When Chu Shiyu saw Tong Yang, she suddenly choked up.
No matter how mischievous or willful she usually was, she was still just a seventeen-year-old girl. She had never faced anything like this before—she was probably traumatized.
"Did he jump because of me? How could he… I told him I didn’t like him…" Chu Shiyu sobbed helplessly. "If I had been nicer to him, maybe… maybe he wouldn’t have…"
"He was pushed. It wasn’t your fault."
Tong Yang’s expression was complicated, but she didn’t say anything else.
Chu Shiyu had a solid alibi. After giving her statement, her parents took her home.
While waiting for the surveillance results, a plainly dressed couple arrived outside the break room. Through the glass wall, Tong Yang saw them frantically asking the officers questions. When they received the answer, they collapsed to the ground, wailing and clutching each other.
Even without hearing them, their heart-wrenching cries were palpable.
Several red-eyed officers helped them into another room. Tong Yang watched their hunched figures in silence. Teacher Yang sighed and pulled her into a hug, patting her back gently.
Before long, Officer Li entered the break room, his expression solemn.
"Well? Did you find out who did it?" Tong Yang stared straight at him, her tone urgent.
Officer Li motioned for her to calm down before sitting across from her. "Kid, are you absolutely certain you saw someone push Sun Ye off the roof?"
Tong Yang stared at him, stunned. "Yes. I’m sure."
Officer Li gave her a deep look and said, "I'm sorry, but we’ve reviewed all the surveillance footage from the fifth-floor hallway after you left the rooftop at 1:50 PM until Sun Ye’s fatal fall at 5:42 PM. No one else entered the rooftop during that time except for the victim. In other words, when Sun Ye fell from the rooftop, there was no one else with him."
"Is that so?" Tong Yang murmured, her expression calm, as if she wasn’t particularly surprised.
She thought about the killers who had appeared and vanished without a trace in several murder cases. Perhaps Sun Ye’s fall was a similar incident, deliberately staged to look like an accident.
"What you saw—those hands—was likely just a memory distortion caused by shock. We’ve arranged for a professional psychological counselor to speak with you later."
Teacher Yang thanked Officer Li on Tong Yang’s behalf and escorted him out of the break room.
"Tong Yang, don’t overthink it. Maybe you just saw wrong," Teacher Yang reassured her in a hoarse voice after returning to her side.
Tong Yang nodded silently, but deep down, she didn’t believe that was the case. She was certain she hadn’t imagined it—she hadn’t been traumatized by the bloody scene, so there was no reason for her memory to distort.
If the hallway surveillance showed no sign of the killer, then the killer must have only appeared on the rooftop, materializing and vanishing out of thin air—just like the woman she had encountered.
But that night, she had clearly felt that the woman had been killed by her. That meant these similar incidents weren’t the work of the same person. Instead, these "people" might know each other—or perhaps they came from the same place.
What place? A parallel dimension?
She had joined a group chat created two years in the future, proving that time wasn’t irreversible or incapable of intersecting. The fact that she had entered a time loop twice in the early hours of May 28th was the best evidence.
But what was the trigger for the time loop? What was the anchor point? Why could she enter the time loop? And why did her timeline overlap with the future?
If she could identify the trigger and anchor point, could she actively enter the time loop?
The first two times, the trigger had been death, and the anchor point had been rewinding ten minutes.
But there was no guarantee that she would enter the loop again if she died. Tong Yang certainly wasn’t going to gamble with her life.
What if there was another trigger besides death?
The first time she entered the loop, she had genuinely felt herself being killed. The second time, she hadn’t sensed death approaching—she had simply relaxed and fallen asleep, only to wake up ten minutes before her death. Was it near-death or a deep unconscious state?
"Tong Yang, the psychological counselor is here."
Snapping out of her thoughts, Tong Yang followed an officer into the counseling room.
"Please, have a seat." The counselor was a young man in a white coat and black-rimmed glasses, politely gesturing to a chair beside him.
Once everyone else had left the room, the counselor smiled warmly and asked, "Are you hungry? Have you eaten?"
Tong Yang studied the counselor and suddenly had a bold idea.
She couldn’t risk her life for an experiment—but what if she only needed to enter a deep unconscious state?
It might not work, but for Tong Yang, there was nothing to lose.
Even if she did enter the time loop, she’d only go back ten minutes—not enough to change anything.
But if it worked, she’d at least have some control. After all, the terrorist attack on June 7th was fast approaching.
After a moment of contemplation, Tong Yang looked up and asked,
"Doctor, can you hypnotize me?"
