Julia Evans saw that her son Adam Bolton had woken up, and the worry on her face eased a little. She reached out to touch his forehead, then pressed it against her own, feeling the difference in temperature. “The fever’s gone down, Chris, Little Adam’s fever is gone…”

Adam Bolton was filled with confusion, but the sensation of his mother’s cool palm on his forehead was undeniably real and alive. His father pushed open the door from the outer room, wearing a freshly washed, snow-white mandarin-collar short-sleeved shirt. His eye sockets were sunken, his hair disheveled, and his beard hadn’t been shaved for several days. This was exactly how his father looked fourteen years ago, when the provincial inspection team came down because of Henry Harris’s bribery case.

Am I still dreaming?

At that moment, Adam Bolton recalled the voice he’d heard upon waking. That person was Henry Harris’s full-time secretary, Ethan Reed, before Henry Harris was placed under double designation. If this dream was repeating the events of fourteen years ago, Ethan Reed should be using Henry Harris’s name as a pretext to trick his father into leaving Haizhou.

To relive the events of fourteen years ago in a dream—how pathetic. His father left Haizhou, Henry Harris was imprisoned for bribery, rumors spread everywhere, and his father became the traitor who framed Henry Harris, sending him to jail. The family’s fate was about to take a dramatic turn. The world around them would suddenly become cold and cruel. After experiencing the pain of his first major setback, Adam Bolton became cynical. Before the age of sixteen, as he himself put it, Adam Bolton was an innocent youth who hadn’t even had any sexual experience with his own hands.

A doctor in a white coat followed his father in. Adam Bolton only remembered that his surname was Sullivan. Dr. Sullivan reached out to feel Adam Bolton’s forehead and said with certainty, “The fever’s gone. Take the medicine on time. I’ll come again tomorrow. If there’s no problem, then there’s no problem…”

Adam Bolton looked down at his hands and the body under the sheets. They were indeed not the hands of his thirty-year-old self; his body was as thin and youthful as it had been in his teenage years.

If this is a dream, why does it feel so real? Maybe he really had gone back fourteen years.

Adam Bolton looked at his parents standing in front of him, not knowing what to say. After all, patients always have a reason to stay silent.

He drifted back to sleep in a daze. Even though it all felt so real, Adam Bolton would rather believe it was just a dream. The wrongful imprisonment fourteen years ago was a nightmare for both Henry Harris and Adam Bolton’s family—who would ever want to go through that again?

Chapter 2: The Inevitable Car Accident

When he woke up again, he was starving. The hunger meant his body was already starting to recover.

On the nightstand sat a bowl of porridge, topped with a poached egg and minced meat sauce, giving off an enticing aroma. He couldn’t sense anyone in the outer room; they had probably all gone out.

Adam Bolton lay still for a while, but in the end, he couldn’t resist the very real hunger and the tempting smell of food. He struggled to sit up, thinking that even in a dream, there was no reason to let himself go hungry. He devoured the porridge, egg, and meat, then lay down for a bit longer until strength slowly returned to his limbs.

Adam Bolton pushed open the door and walked to the bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror. His face was pale and sickly, his chin sharp, his eyes dull, his lips thin, with a bit of fuzz above them. This was exactly how he looked at sixteen. If he hadn’t seen it in the mirror, he wouldn’t have been able to recall such a vivid image from memory alone.

What on earth is going on? Adam Bolton slapped his face lightly, not daring to use much force. It hurt a little. Dreams can’t simulate physical pain, but then again, who could say for sure? Was time travel even possible? He couldn’t prove he was dreaming, but he couldn’t believe this was reality either. Adam Bolton had no idea what had gone wrong to put him in this state.

Walking through the living room, his gaze swept over the calendar on the glass table—July 18, 1994—ah, July 18!

Didn’t the fever break on July 16? The reason Adam Bolton remembered the date so clearly was because, in his sixteenth year, three days after his high fever broke—on July 18—a horrific traffic accident occurred on North Street behind the government compound, resulting in five deaths and three injuries.

Adam Bolton grabbed a T-shirt and pulled it over his head, then took a handful of change from the ceramic jar on the wardrobe by the door. A key was threaded through a colorful string—exactly as he remembered; at sixteen, he used to wear the key around his neck. He stuffed the key and the change into his pocket and went downstairs.

He bought a copy of the morning paper for that day. It really was July 18. Adam Bolton looked up at the sun hanging on the corner of the tall building to the west, turned the corner, and headed toward North Street.

At this time, North Street showed no sign of anything unusual. The stifling air made people drowsy. Near the street corner was a building materials store, next to it a hardware shop, and further down a convenience store. The heat was oppressive, and there were hardly any pedestrians on the street. This was the place—except for himself, there was no one else. Occasionally, a car would speed by. Adam Bolton stood by the roadside for a while. It didn’t look like there had been an accident, nor did it seem like one was about to happen. His body, still weak from the fever, couldn’t stand the heat, and sweat streamed down his forehead. Adam Bolton ducked into the convenience store and stood under the loudly whirring ceiling fan.

The curtain was lifted from outside. A young man raised the curtain above his head, letting the woman behind him, holding a little girl’s hand, enter first. Adam Bolton glanced at them. The woman was beautiful, with a slender waist, wearing a plain long dress that accentuated her narrow waist and made her chest look even more prominent. As she walked through the doorway with the light behind her, Adam Bolton could almost see the shapely, fair thighs of the woman through the thin fabric of her dress.