Genius Playground

Chapter 315: Chapter 5: Meeting an Old Acquaintance

Good grief…

‘Why do I have this weird feeling like I’m a thief?’

He touched his stomach and realized something.

He had already eaten his fill for free on the food street, yet now he was feeling a little hungry again.

‘This meant the “rewind” just now wasn’t a simple shift back a few dozen minutes. It was a complete and total rewind. It didn’t just send my entire person back to where I was at 10 o’clock; even my physical condition was reverted to how it was at 10 o’clock.’

‘I can’t just go eat another meal, can I?’

Jiang Ran shook his head.

‘Forget it.’ Even though the food was unbelievably delicious, he had more important things to do. He wasn’t *that* hungry.

He raised his wrist and looked at the time.

10:21 AM.

It was a digital watch with a precise display, one Jiang Ran had chosen specifically for that reason.

He continued to stroll down the street.

He was growing more and more aware of the city’s sci-fi feel…

No one was on their phones. They seemed to have something more advanced to replace them.

For example, the waitress promoting the orange juice was wearing smart contacts. A screen probably floated in her field of vision, which she could operate with eye movements or brainwaves.

He looked up. The sky was still a magnificent spectacle of traffic, like a school of fish. Countless flying vehicles moved in orderly, efficient layers.

His hands itched to give one a try. A moment ago, he had seen flying motorcycles parked by the roadside, arranged just like the shared bikes common in 2025.

‘I wonder if I can just take one for a ride. Might as well try.’ ‘Since everything on the street is free, a simple shared flying motorcycle can’t possibly have a fee, right?’

He gave it a try.

Sure enough, this Utopian World was great. The flying motorcycles didn’t require any identification, authentication, or QR codes. You just get on and go.

WHOOSH—

Jiang Ran twisted the throttle and took right off.

The controls were silky smooth. It was hard to tell if it was autopilot or something else, but either way, Jiang Ran found it incredibly comfortable. While he was definitely the one steering, a subtle force was clearly correcting his flight posture. The effect was so ingenious that it preserved his sense of control while guaranteeing a stable and safe flight path.

He pulled back on the handlebars, and the flying motorcycle ascended smoothly, merging into the stream of traffic in the sky. The feeling was incredible. He couldn’t have dreamed up something this fun.

He flew over many areas. The slogans and advertisements he passed confirmed that this city was still East Sea City, but he couldn’t spot a single landmark building.

‘The Oriental Pearl is gone, too…’

Jiang Ran scanned the city from above; he really couldn’t find the distinctive Oriental Pearl tower.

‘Twenty years from now, would the East Sea City government really tear down the Oriental Pearl? That seems impossible, no matter how you look at it. This world really is strange.’

Recently, there was a lame joke on Douyin that said if you drank Mixue Bingcheng in East Sea City, you’d be annihilated by a laser from the Oriental Pearl.

‘Maybe Snow King and Luckin Coffee teamed up and took out the Oriental Pearl.’

But after flying a full circle, he couldn’t find a Mixue Bingcheng or a Luckin Coffee anywhere… Even though this city was called East Sea City, it had almost nothing in common with the East Sea City he remembered.

“Huh?”

Suddenly, as Jiang Ran glided along at a low altitude, he saw a familiar figure!

“Holy shit!”

The curse was the only way he could express his shocked excitement.

There, outside the walls of a classical-style building, a portly but sturdy middle-aged man was skulking about.

‘That familiar silhouette! That familiar presence! That familiar feeling!’

“Sang Biao—!”

Jiang Ran, riding the flying motorcycle, swooped down.

He never thought that in this drastically changed Future World, he’d actually run into Sang Biao!

The warmth of seeing a familiar face from home made him slam the throttle, eager to meet Sang Biao right away.

‘Of course, the Sang Biao of this time wouldn’t know me, but I know *him*! In this completely alien world, Sang Biao is the only person I recognize… I have to go say hi!’

After parking the flying motorcycle, Jiang Ran swung his leg over, got off, and bounded forward.

“Sang Biao!”

The burly man who had been skulking about was clearly taken aback. He whipped his head around fiercely.

“Who the fuck are you calling Sang Biao? Get lost!”

But when he saw the man’s face…

Jiang Ran smiled.

The messy hair, the fleshy double chin, the mole on his right cheek, and that fierce, cunning gaze—the eyes of a man born to do hard time…

‘If this wasn’t Sang Biao from Cell Block 1 back in prison, then who could it be?’

“Sang Biao.”

“Say that one more fucking time!”

“Wait, just listen to me—”

Jiang Ran stepped forward and grabbed Sang Biao’s arm.

“I—” CLICK.

A long, hard object was pressed against Jiang Ran’s abdomen. Jiang Ran’s eyes widened.

“Get lost.”

Sang Biao glared at Jiang Ran and said in a low voice,

“One more fucking word and I’ll waste you.”

“…”

With a gun pointed at him, Jiang Ran calmed down.

‘I can’t believe it. The Future World of 2045 has changed so much, but Sang Biao is still as hot-tempered and rude as ever. There’s just no talking to him normally. I might as well drop it. I’ve got more important things to do, after all.’

“Alright, alright. Calm down, man.”

Jiang Ran raised his hands, slowly backed away to the flying motorcycle, and got on.

“Now get the fuck out of here!” Sang Biao roared.

“What’s your hurry?”

Jiang Ran scoffed and twisted the throttle.

“Fine, I’m leaving!”

Suddenly—

Something bizarre happened.

The instant his right hand twisted the throttle, the flying motorcycle flickered, appearing two meters up in the air in front of him. Then it instantly flickered back underneath him, then out again, then back again, the frequency so high it was leaving afterimages.

Meanwhile, Jiang Ran was frozen in a bizarre sitting position, stuck in mid-air, forced to watch helplessly as the flying motorcycle flickered in and out from under him.

The image it created…

‘It didn’t look like I was riding the motorcycle. It looked more like the motorcycle was riding *me*!’

He turned his head and saw that Sang Biao had become completely pixelated, his entire body dissolving into a series of crude, shifting color blocks.

“GET-LOST-GET-LOST-GET-LOST-GET-LOST-GET-LOST-GET-LOST—”

The words repeated from Sang Biao’s mouth like a skipping cassette tape, toneless and mechanical.

At the same time, the hand holding the pistol was raising and lowering, raising and lowering, raising and lowering… The movement was so fast he looked like a traffic cop.

Behind him, the classical-style building flickered like a fast-forwarded movie, vanishing one moment, then transforming into a bank, a clock tower, a skyscraper, a sculpture, a fountain!

Jiang Ran snapped his head back around and saw afterimages of his own chin and eyeballs… He looked down and raised his wrist. It was the same, glitching like a stuttering film. His arm trailed into a fan of afterimages, constantly breaking apart into blocks of color.

He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to look at the flickering watch on his wrist. The afterimages kept overlapping, making it impossible to read the time.

Jiang Ran flung his arm violently. A blur of flesh-toned afterimages obscured his vision, but he finally managed to catch a glimpse of the time on the watch face—

September 17, 2045, 10:39:11 AM.

WHOOSH!

Everything went dark.

He couldn’t feel himself breathing, couldn’t feel his heart beating. He couldn’t feel anything at all. He couldn’t even feel his own existence. He couldn’t even think.

「In an instant.」

The world became bright again.

“Ah!”

He cried out, squinting as the bright sunlight stung his eyes—

“Sir, would you like to try our new orange juice?”

Behind him, a pretty waitress in a maid outfit approached, offering a slight smile.

“It’s free!”