Chapter 001: Foresight

"Dark clouds have loomed over New York for days, netizens comment that it looks like a doomsday scene..."

"Continuous thunder and lightning in London, nearly twenty thousand lightning strikes lit up the night sky in a single night, turning it as bright as day..."

"Beijing has suffered a month-long severe sandstorm, making it difficult for residents to go out, with highways and airports repeatedly forced to close..."

"Extreme weather has been occurring frequently around the globe recently. Experts say it may be related to global warming, but this view has been widely refuted. American scientist Warner Jason published a commentary in The New York Times, suggesting that the emergence of extreme climates may signal a major change in Earth's environment. However, this theory was also challenged by several experts as soon as it was published..."

"Tonight, our station will connect with renowned meteorological experts in our country to discuss and communicate with everyone. Netizens can participate through..."

...

Snap. Closing his laptop, William Scott looked up and pinched his throbbing brow.

"Yesterday, this morning..." he muttered to himself.

Of the three news stories, two were ones he had already "seen" yesterday, and the other was one he "saw" this morning.

The interval between "seeing" and the actual event had grown even shorter.

And what he called "seeing," according to some explanations he found online, should be called—"foresight."

Since the age of seven or eight, William Scott had occasionally seen strange visions. Most were just scattered fragments, often shocking and astonishing. But since the visions were so brief, William Scott didn't even tell his parents, choosing instead to keep this small anomaly to himself.

A child seeing hallucinations is not a good thing. Even back then, William Scott understood this.

But it wasn't until he once saw, in a vision, a torrent of mud and boulders crashing down before him, and then a few days later saw the exact same scene on the news, that William Scott suddenly realized what he saw was not just hallucinations...

"A mudslide disaster occurred at a scenic spot in a neighboring city due to heavy rain. Fortunately, there were few tourists at the time, so there were no casualties. Our reporter is on the scene..."

During the repeated process of comparison and confirmation, William Scott's mind and spirit were both deeply shaken.

Foresight ability... His parents were ordinary workers, and he was just an average kid—why would he have such a power?

From then on, William Scott began a long period of research and comparison. On one hand, he read a large number of books to try to figure out his problem; on the other, he searched for patterns between foresight and reality.

At first, he relied on newspapers and watching the news on TV. After the internet appeared, William Scott's "work" became much more convenient and easy.

After hundreds of comparisons, William Scott discovered that there was always a time gap—sometimes long, sometimes short—between the "facts" he foresaw and their actual occurrence. The longest was a month, the shortest just a few days.

But after these three news stories, his latest record became...

"Six hours." William Scott exhaled softly.

"What were you just looking at?" A familiar voice suddenly came from across him, startling William Scott, who quickly looked up.

At some point, a long-haired girl had appeared across the coffee table, smiling at him.

Grace Johnson, like him, was a graduate student at Ningnan University's School of Biological Sciences. She was also a girl with a soft voice, delicate and sweet looks, and a gentle temperament unique to girls from the Jiangnan region. But anyone who knew her a little better knew that she had a quirky personality that didn't match her appearance.

For example, right now, she was looking at him with a mischievous glint in her eyes. William Scott had once casually mentioned that there might be a volcanic eruption somewhere... At the time, he had been frantically researching every known volcano, but before he could find the right one, the news had already reported it. And the moment he said that was when Grace Johnson had asked him during his intense research.

Such a small, unintentional incident, yet Grace Johnson remembered it well. Ever since, every time she saw William Scott staring at his computer, she would show great interest. But she never pressed him, only hinted at it, so William Scott just felt helpless, but not annoyed.

Over time, the two of them gradually went from being ordinary classmates to becoming friends.