And there’s another important question.

Bai Yuyang wasn’t naive enough to assume he was the only one who’d been reborn from seven years in the future.

He’d have to keep an eye on that.

As for the probe he’d just made… it hadn’t really gotten him anywhere.

Yuyang quietly turned his head and glanced at Yuxi and Qingyu. They were sitting on opposite ends of the living-room sofa.

He said nothing more and went into the bathroom, silently praying the two of them wouldn’t start fighting.

Even if it was only for the short time it took him to wash up.

Xiao Xi and Qingyu had never gotten along, not since they were little. Yuyang knew that better than anyone.

……………………

Once Yuyang had shut the bathroom door, Bai Yuxi was the first to break the silence.

Qingyu’s older sister was sitting on the sofa across from her, sulking without saying a word. Letting things stay like this wouldn’t help, right?

“Qingyu, don’t be mad. You know how my brother never panics, no matter what happens. We know that better than anyone, don’t we?”

“Like hell I do!”

Hey, you ungrateful little loli! I’m giving you an opening, and you won’t even take it?!

In that case, Yuxi decided there was no point holding back.

“Honestly, Qingyu, I think your parents named you ‘Qingyu’ hoping you’d speak a little more softly, like a proper lady, instead of being so loud and brash. And if nothing else, you should at least act like a carbon-based life-form when dealing with people. What do you think?”

“Ah… I guess… Wait, no! You little brat! You’re insulting me in a roundabout way!”

“I’m not insulting you, Qingyu. I’m just tracing back why your parents gave you that name. That’s perfectly normal, isn’t it? Or have you finally realized… you don’t live up to it?”

“It’s not like I picked my own name!”

Lin Qingyu stood up and shook her little fists, but soon deflated like a balloon and sat back down on the sofa.

“Sigh… Forget it. I can’t win an argument with you, and I shouldn’t stoop to arguing with a kid.”

You’re not even a year older than me…

Yuxi wanted to make a couple of snarky remarks, but she knew she’d already won, so she only smiled and said:

“Right. Thanks for not stooping to my level, Qingyu.”

The hot-tempered little loli could only swallow her grievance, with no way to voice it.

Honestly, sometimes Yuxi’s personality seemed so strange. Around Yuyang, she was a little white cat who did whatever he wanted.

Though, when it came to personality, Lin Qingyu wasn’t exactly in a position to judge anyone else.

Qingyu lifted her little head and looked around.

“Your mom and dad aren’t home?”

It was really a question she already knew the answer to.

Yuxi replied, “Yeah. You know that, Qingyu. They’re hardly ever home. It’d be unusual for them to be here.”

“That’s true.”

Yuyang and Yuxi’s parents seemed to work in some kind of secret environmental-protection field. No one really knew the details.

But one thing was certain: they spent most of the year working away from home, and might only come back once or twice a year.

Qingyu knew quite a bit about Yuyang’s family, after all. They’d grown up together and lived next door to each other.

And there was something else… something she’d only found out recently.

Yuyang and Yuxi weren’t related by blood.

Well… her uncle and aunt weren’t supposed to tell them until seven years later. But somehow, Lin Qingyu knew today.

Because she’d also been reborn from seven years in the future.

And she was certain Yuyang was in the same situation.

He’d just asked about the cake. Qingyu couldn’t possibly have forgotten it; she’d only pretended she didn’t know what he meant.

She’d been enjoying that cake just yesterday. Then, somehow, her head had started spinning—and when she woke up, she was seven years in the past.

Thinking about it all, Lin Qingyu let out a long sigh.

“Qingyu, is… is something bothering you?”

Yuxi was a little confused when she suddenly sighed.

Lin Qingyu paused, then raised her head. Her pink eyes suddenly turned sharp.

“Yuxi, stop pretending. Don’t you know why I sighed?”

“Stop pretending?” Yuxi’s eyes widened slightly. “What are you talking about all of a sudden, Qingyu? Let me guess… Did you sigh because you burned breakfast again?”

“I’ve never burned a pot, either!”

Oh, no—careful! She’d almost been led off track.

Lin Qingyu glanced toward the bathroom. Yuyang still hadn’t come out.

She deliberately lowered her voice and spoke in a hushed, mysterious tone.

“You’re still pretending? Let’s get straight to it. Did you suddenly come back to the present from a few years in the future too?”

That one word—“too”—made Lin Qingyu’s position clear.

“……”

Yuxi blinked in surprise.

But the surprise lasted only an instant.

Her expression quickly returned to normal. “There’s just one thing I want to say.”

“What?”

“I just want to ask, Qingyu—have you been watching too many sci-fi movies? Or did something happen to you?”

That was fair. At first, anyone hearing this would have just one thought:

Absurd.

“No.”

But this time, Lin Qingyu was perfectly clear. “Yuxi, you don’t need to keep dodging the question and changing the subject. I wouldn’t bring this up so openly if I weren’t almost completely certain.”

“Almost completely certain…”

Yuxi put down the empty teacup she’d been idly playing with.

Her older brother had given it to her, and she’d always liked it.

Then she turned around and sat properly. The casual look on her face gradually gave way to a serious one.

“Let’s be clear, Qingyu. I’m not admitting that what you just said—that ridiculous claim—is true. But I am curious why you suddenly brought it up, and what makes you so certain.”

“It’s simple.”

Lin Qingyu struggled to lift her short legs and cross them. She finally managed it, but it was tiring, so she lowered them again.

Instead, she raised her right index finger and began to lay out her reasoning.

“When I arrived, I said Yuyang had asked me yesterday to wait outside so we could go to the opening ceremony together. I also said you were there when we made the plans. But then you both stood me up and left me waiting for over twenty minutes.”

“But none of that actually happened. I clearly remember that in my previous life, on this day—the day before September 1—I was supposed to help my family, so I went to school in my dad’s car. I didn’t go with you two.”

“So if there was no plan to go to school together this morning, why didn’t you react when I brought it up just now? Yuyang didn’t react either. You both acted as if we’d really made that plan.”

Finally, Qingyu summed it up. “So the answer’s obvious. You either didn’t know—or didn’t remember—whether we’d made that plan yesterday. I brought it up so naturally that you could only believe me. If you hadn’t been reborn, why wouldn’t you remember a simple plan from ‘yesterday’?”

This time, Yuxi was genuinely surprised.

She froze for a long moment, then gave a couple of wry laughs and sighed.

“I have to give you that, Qingyu. Your head might be small, but your memory really is amazing.”

“Hmph! Of course it is! You didn’t need to tell me that.”

………………..