As Adam Bolton was recalling events that had not yet happened, the Haizhou evening news began. The content consisted of meetings and inspections that left little impression on Adam Bolton; incidents like the Clock Tower Square event or the provincial inspection team investigating Henry Harris were not mentioned at all in the evening news. Adam Bolton didn’t care about these; he only wanted to see how the social news would report the traffic accident that happened on North Street.

“…At around 4:15 p.m., a major traffic accident occurred on the east side of the Daijiaqiao bus stop on North Street, Xicheng District, resulting in four deaths and three injuries, two of whom are in serious condition. The scene was at the Daijiaqiao bus stop on North Street, Xicheng District. A dump truck with the license plate Hai A48854 lost control while making a U-turn from Dongsheng Road onto North Street, veered onto the sidewalk, snapped a poplar tree as thick as a bowl, and struck four men who were playing cards in the shade. A young man who was watching nearby was also hit by the dump truck. According to bystanders, the young man’s daughter had fallen right in front of the dump truck, and a brave teenager rushed over to save her. Witnesses recalled that the dump truck nearly grazed the boy who rescued her as it swerved off the sidewalk and collided with a Jetta coming from east to west on North Street. It has been confirmed that the dump truck driver was driving under the influence, entered the city from Beiguan, and was speeding the entire way. He is now in police custody in accordance with the law…”

To get from Beiguan into the city and then to North Street, one must pass several major intersections. Normally, a drunk and speeding driver would have been stopped by traffic police, but on this day, nearly a hundred workers from the Xinguang Paper Mill were causing a disturbance at Clock Tower Square, so most of the traffic police in Xicheng District had been dispatched there to maintain order. This was also a factor in the accident.

The screen showed the aftermath of the crash: the broken poplar tree, the Jetta with its roof nearly torn off, the dismembered small table, playing cards scattered everywhere, congealed bloodstains… Compared to the accident Adam Bolton had seen on the news fourteen years ago, except for the little girl escaping from under the wheels, everything else was exactly the same.

The news did not show a photo of the little girl. Adam Bolton recalled her delicate face and thought that if such a beautiful little girl had really died in the accident, it would have been truly regrettable.

The world does not simply repeat itself. The accident happened, but the little girl escaped from under the wheels. Thinking this, Adam Bolton felt somewhat relieved. Since he was able to save the little girl from under the wheels, he could also change the fate of the entire family.

The more Adam Bolton thought about it, the more excited he became. He had returned to his sixteen-year-old body, but with experiences that no one else had yet, and he knew the truth about the Henry Harris case that almost no one else knew at this time—the very case that would change his family’s fate.

The shock from the accident was thus greatly diminished. Adam Bolton just felt extremely hungry, too weak to think about anything more complicated. There was nothing ready to eat in the kitchen, so he boiled a pot of water and cooked half a bag of noodles once it boiled.

Adam Bolton scooped the noodles into a bowl and sat back on the living room sofa, ready to fill his stomach, when his parents came in from outside.

Julia Evans saw her son Adam Bolton sitting on the sofa with a bowl of noodles in his hands. For a moment, she forgot her worries and asked joyfully, “Is your fever gone?”

Facing his parents, who were more than ten years younger, felt a bit awkward. While swallowing noodles, Adam Bolton mumbled, “Yeah, I’m better. Hungry.”

“As long as you’re hungry, that’s good…” Chris Bolton said, tossing his briefcase onto the sofa. His brows were still furrowed, and he sat down heavily, his thin body sinking into the sofa, his eyes filled with despair.

“How’s Uncle Harris doing?” Adam Bolton asked tentatively.

“Oh…” Chris Bolton just responded with a sound, saying nothing more and not even turning his head to look.

Adam Bolton knew that in his father’s eyes, he was still that ignorant sixteen-year-old, not someone to discuss problems with. Adam Bolton put his bowl on the glass coffee table, stood up, and said, “I didn’t know when you’d be back, so I didn’t cook noodles for you. I’ll go make some now…”

“I’ll do it…” Julia Evans rubbed her hands and headed for the kitchen.

Adam Bolton pressed his mother’s shoulders, making her sit on the sofa. “Cooking noodles isn’t hard.”

He sprinkled chopped scallions on the noodles and even fried a couple of eggs to put on top. Carrying out two bowls of noodles, Adam Bolton found his parents still sitting on the sofa, almost motionless, worrying about Henry Harris.

When Chris Bolton saw his son Adam Bolton bring out the noodles, he took a bowl, endured the heat, and quickly finished it. He pushed the bowl away, leaned back, closed his eyes to think, but his mind was a tangled mess, unable to come up with anything. He fetched a box of Go pieces from the study, placed it on the glass coffee table in the living room, and brought out a Go manual to study. Whenever his thoughts hit a dead end, Chris Bolton was in the habit of finding someone to play a game of Go with to clear his mind. Now, in this situation, probably no one would come over, but studying a Go manual could at least help him calm down.

Adam Bolton had learned Go since childhood, up until fifth grade, when his mother Julia Evans stopped him, saying that Go would interfere with his studies and that people who played Go tended to be introverted. But after the family’s great upheaval, when he was in high school, Adam Bolton picked up Go again, and his current skill level was quite good.