1novels Chapter 1 New Year's Eve Failure
Chapter 1 New Year's Eve Failure
The lights outside the delivery room were bright, but there seemed to be some loose wiring, causing the lights to flicker occasionally.
The man sat on a somewhat dilapidated chair with some paint peeling off, yet he felt restless all over.
So he stood up and paced back and forth in the corridor, but tried his best to keep his footsteps down, afraid that even the slightest sound would disturb the situation in the delivery room.
The red light on the digital LED clock hanging on the wall was slightly dazzling at the moment.
1999年12月31号23点59分50秒。
"It's almost the year 2000, why isn't it fixed yet?" an elderly father asked from the side.
The man also began to feel anxious.
In his anxiety, however, his attention was drawn to some sounds.
In the distance, at the nurses' station, which was bright but somewhat dim, stood a young nurse on duty, with a radio playing a slightly noisy tune next to her.
The static was mixed with the sound of firecrackers, and you could vaguely hear a radio host giving congratulations.
"It's the last minute of '99, everyone. We're about to say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new..."
"Countdown...buzz...last ten seconds!!"
"Ten...Zzz!"
51...
"Nine...buzzing!!" The electrical noise seemed to have increased slightly.
The nurse patted the radio and adjusted the channel.
Time seems to leap by rapidly.
"Three...sizzle!"
57...
"two……"
58...
"one!"
"Wah!!!" A cry rang out, and joy welled up in the man's heart.
59...
Congratulations!!
"New Year's Eve attempt failed!!!"
The man was suddenly stunned, a feeling of absurdity and horror spreading from the bottom of his heart.
Joy and horror intertwined in his heart, and his face quickly contorted into a strange state of either joy or sorrow.
He looked up at the digital clock hanging on the wall.
At this moment, the time was clearly written on it...
1999年12月32号00点00分01秒。
Staring at number 32, the man paused for a moment, then turned to look at the nurses' station. The nurses were nowhere to be seen, only a radio with a buzzing sound remained.
Only then did he remember something. After looking around, he realized that his father, mother, father-in-law, mother-in-law, and other family members who had accompanied him to give birth were nowhere to be seen.
He stood alone in the brightly lit corridor, unable to tell whether he was dreaming or haunted.
He instinctively rushed towards the delivery room and grabbed the doorknob of the door.
The doorknob, which had been locked tightly, was now easily opened.
After he rushed inside, his wife, the attending physician, and the nurses all disappeared.
All that remained was a lonely operating table and a child on it whose umbilical cord had not yet been cut.
The child's umbilical cord extends upwards and then plunges into the darkness, as if sucking on the darkness.
He stared intently at the scene, feeling as if his entire body was being watched by something indescribable, and his soul was being sucked away at that moment.
The next moment, the newborn, who was supposed to be unable to open his eyes, opened his dark eyes.
Then the noise overwhelmed him; he could hear his wife crying, and his relatives were whispering nearby.
It felt like there was snow-like noise in my vision, and the tinnitus never stopped.
After a long while, he seemed to recover from that strange state.
They later learned the truth: the baby was stillborn.
The man opened his mouth, recalling his strange encounter, but then closed it and went to comfort his wife.
-----------------
2026, Changshi, China.
Lu Shi was using chopsticks to spread out the toppings on the rice noodle roll, then mixing them thoroughly with soy sauce. He then picked up a piece and happily popped it into his mouth.
The fans inside the restaurant were whirring and making a whooshing sound.
Not far away, another diner with a child was trying to quiet his noisy child and encourage him to eat a few more bites.
People come and go on the street outside the shop, where the paving stones are somewhat broken.
Several trash cans were placed on the other side of the street.
The trash can was covered with some black grime that was difficult to clean.
Several motorcycles and electric bikes were parked haphazardly nearby.
The traffic lights further away were now dutifully announcing the numbers.
On an LED sign to the side, the scrolling text reads: "Safe travels".
The red light flickered for a moment, and the text on it seemed to go haywire for a split second, turning into meaningless garbled light.
The traffic light on the pedestrian crossing below, with its little red figure indicating "No Crossing," suddenly started running.
*Smack!*
The traffic light went dark for a second.
The next moment, a bright red ball rolled on the traffic light.
Upon seeing this scene, Lu Shi finished the last bite of rice noodle roll, raised his left hand, and glanced at the somewhat unusual electronic watch on his wrist.
After wiping his mouth with a tissue, he opened a palm-sized notebook, picked up the ballpoint pen clipped to it, and began to take notes.
2026...
After a slight pause, Lu Shi, seemingly calculating something, continued writing.
5月6号，上午8点35分23秒。
C1-level serial number 2256 exhibits a characteristic with an erosion level of 5. The characteristic description is as follows: ...
Lu Shi closed his laptop, stood up, and scanned the QR code to pay.
After greeting the proprietress familiarly, he took the tissue he had used to wipe his mouth and headed for the trash can.
A faint, unpleasant odor began to linger.
Lu Shi calmly held his breath, looked down at the trash can, met the gaze of the messy head inside that obscured a large portion of the face, and threw the tissue into the trash can.
The fluctuating traffic lights in the distance quickly returned to normal at that moment.
The passersby around seemed not to notice anything amiss.
Everything was a very ordinary scene.
Lu Shi glanced at his watch again, opened his notebook, and wrote down that C1-level item number 2256 had returned to normal after being thrown into the trash, and its corrosion level had entered a safe range.
He walked over to a nearby electric scooter, skillfully inserted the key, turned it, powered it on, and then drove the scooter to the side of the intersection to wait for the traffic light.
The light quickly turned green, and Lu drove forward.
The next moment, the traffic light suddenly turned red, the round head started to spin, and the LED display screen next to it rapidly displayed rows of heads, each one seemingly mocking the other.
A dump truck had already charged out with unstoppable momentum.
Lu Shi was pinned to the ground without any ability to resist. He was dragged under the car, and the dark wheels crushed his neck.
His head, clad in a safety helmet, was kicked out like a soccer ball by the dump truck's wheels and rolled onto the road.
Lu Shi's remaining vision was covered in blood, and he could see the terrified screams of the people around him, but the screams had not yet reached his ears.
The time belonging to Lu Shi is taken away from this day.
The lights flickered a couple of times; in the delivery room of 1999, the darkness still seemed to be sucking something in.
For more than nine thousand days starting from this day, each day has a "Lu Shi" (a period of time), from childhood to adulthood little by little.
But in this 'past' time, the only living being was Lu Shi.
Every day felt like a beach after the tide had receded, devoid of any sign of life.
In this deserted world, Lu Shi's movements were also restricted, preventing him from going to places he hadn't been to that day or experiencing feelings he hadn't felt that day.
In this empty world, every moment is a colorless state; the world is like black and white, even the sunlight is black and white.
Everything seems to be archived, automatically changing according to past records.
But apart from Lu Shi, everyone else was gone, and apart from Lu Shi's perception, everything else was blurry.
Like a nightmare, it's indistinct, there are no actual ghosts or monsters, but it's still unsettling and unsettling.
All the land time gathered together is like a large fish stranded on the beach of time, unable to move or breathe, seemingly only waiting to die.
1999年，12月，9653号，23点59分59秒。
On the alarm clock by Lu Shi's bedside, time was frozen at this second, no longer moving forward.
A coin with a clock hand on one side and a blurry image on the other was tossed into the darkness.
Click, as if a second had passed, Lu Shi opened his eyes.
时钟闪烁了一瞬，恢复到了正常的时间，2026年5月6号00点00分01秒。
"Oh well, I ate rice noodle rolls for nothing again."