Naming Technique of the Night

The old man in the gold shop counted the money and muttered, “Such a young age yet so cautious, but it’s right to be careful in your line of work. Next time you come by with more gains, I’ll give you an extra 5 yuan per gram if it’s a large amount—I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”

The old man seemed to think Qing Chen was a thief, but Qing Chen didn’t argue.

As he handed the money over to Qing Chen, he watched him manually verify each bill under the light, checking for watermarks, security threads, intaglio prints, and latent images—and he didn’t miss a single detail.

In the end, Qing Chen pulled out two notes: “This 50 and 20, please exchange them.”

The old man’s teeth hurt a little: “People in your business usually just take the money and leave, not many are as meticulous as you.”

With that, he opened a drawer beside him and swapped the notes with new ones.

“If you want to do business properly, don’t try to swindle people with fake notes,” Qing Chen said.

“All right, come often,” the old man said resignedly.

Qing Chen took the money, turned, and left. The elderly gold shop owner, with missing teeth and advancing years, watched his departing figure and thought to himself that this young man would definitely go far in the future and become a king of thieves.

He turned seven or eight corners in the alleyway before boarding the bus home.

He also bought more than ten pounds of beef, three pounds of eggs, and some vegetables at the farmers’ market.

Ye Wan once said that he now had to become a fierce carnivore.

When he arrived back at the building, he looked up and saw Li Tongyun secretly waving at him from the second floor.

Qing Chen thought for a moment and then waved back at Li Tongyun, signaling for her to come down if she had something to say.

Jiang Xue was a Time Traveler known publicly, and visiting her home might draw attention, but Li Tongyun was just a little girl, and it wouldn’t be so conspicuous for her to come to his place to talk.

As soon as Li Tongyun entered the door, she said, “Brother Qing Chen, who are the new neighbors, have you talked to them?”

“They’re from Haicheng, here for Liu Dezhu,” Qing Chen shared his information: “I’ve heard them speaking English; Haicheng should correspond to Inner World’s city number 7.”

“Brother Qing Chen, you can understand English?” Li Tongyun asked doubtfully: “Is your listening that good?”

“It’s decent,” Qing Chen said, not elaborating further, and continued: “They’re here definitely for your mother, those people have no foothold after traveling to city number 7, so they want to look for opportunities in city number 18. Of course, I don’t think it’s that simple. They might even have enemies in city number 7.”

Whether one has enemies in the Inner World after arrival is not for a Time Traveler to decide.

If they had no enemies, then why not seek help directly from other Time Travelers locally in Haicheng, given their influence there?

According to Qing Chen’s information from the internet, Haicheng had a Transcendent and a spokesperson for the Green Dragon Society from city number 7, which should be quite formidable.

Yet Hu Xiaoniu and the others did not spend money to seek help from these figures but instead went out of their way to Los Angeles City to find Liu Dezhu.

They must have provoked someone that the Haicheng Time Travelers couldn’t handle.

Li Tongyun thought for a bit and then said, “City number 7 is the territory of Chen’s Consortium, and city number 18 is the home ground of Li’s Financial Group. Could they have provoked the Chen Clan?”

Qing Chen thought for a moment and said, “It doesn’t matter. They are openly communicating in English now—I’ll keep listening and find out.”

“They just talk about it in front of you?” Li Tongyun asked, looking up.

Qing Chen patted her head and smiled: “Because they’re not as smart as you are.”

At that moment, Li Tongyun ran to Qing Chen’s bathroom, grabbed the clothes he had changed out of, and ran off: “Mom told me to take your dirty clothes upstairs to wash. Don’t make it hard for me, brother—I’m just following mom’s orders.”

After she spoke, Li Tongyun opened the door and hurried upstairs…

Qing Chen smiled and then turned to look at his empty home, beginning his solitary training.

There was no one to supervise him, no one to applaud.

All Qing Chen could do was to tell himself not to stop, to keep moving forward.

He had heard it said that those who live in isolation are either Gods or beasts.

Since he couldn’t yet be a God, it wasn’t bad to be a beast for now.

…

Five days countdown.

Qing Chen arrived at school early to swap his desk with Nan Gengchen, so he became Wang Yun’s desk mate.

After Nan Gengchen entered the classroom, he gave Qing Chen a knowing smile, then whispered, “I thought you really had no interest at all, but you’re surprisingly proactive. If you had said so earlier, I would have swapped with you yesterday!”

Qing Chen glanced at him, knowing that Nan Gengchen thought he switched desks to be closer to Wang Yun.

In fact, he just wanted to listen to the conversation between Wang Yun and Bai Waner.

However, it was best that Nan Gengchen thought this way. He hoped Wang Yun would think the same.

That way, when Wang Yun and Bai Waner spoke in English, they wouldn’t be mindful of him.

Nan Gengchen, seeing Qing Chen not replying, thought he was shy and changed the topic to gossip in a low voice, “A master joined our time travel group yesterday. He claimed that he learned the tech divination technique from the Inner World…”

Qing Chen asked, “Did you get a reading?”

“Of course, it was only 5 yuan,” Nan Gengchen said. “The fortune-teller told me I would come into a huge fortune at 65, an amount I’ve never seen in my life.”

Qing Chen hesitated, “Was it money your son burnt for you?”

Nan Gengchen: “…??”

Qing Chen said annoyed, “Can you quit that time travel group of yours? It’s headache-inducing just to hear about it. They don’t have a single genuine Time Traveler. No, wait, there is one, that guy from the Inner World who pimps for cougars.”

Nan Gengchen stubbornly said, “But what if there is a real one?”

At this moment, Wang Yun and Bai Waner walked into the classroom.

As expected, they paused for a moment upon seeing Qing Chen and Nan Gengchen had switched places.

Bai Waner asked in English, “Why did those two swap places?”

Wang Yun chuckled, “Who knows, let’s not worry about them.”

“Wait,” Bai Waner asked again, “Didn’t the teacher say he’s good at studying? Could he understand what we’re saying?”

Wang Yun turned to look at Qing Chen earnestly.

She saw Qing Chen looking down at the math competition test paper, continuing to check and fill in answers without pause.

Wang Yun, the top student from Haicheng, even followed Qing Chen’s problem-solving steps for a while, then confirmed that every step he took was correct, and he wasn’t just pretending.

Only then did Wang Yun say, “Teacher Haizhong said that even if students from small cities do well in English, it’s very difficult for them to communicate in English because they only learn it for exams, and the college entrance exam listening test isn’t included in the official grades. Look, he’s so focused on the test paper and wouldn’t be able to listen and calculate so quickly.”

“That’s true,” Bai Waner nodded.

Suddenly, Wang Yun expressed her concern in English, “Do you think we can really avoid Chen Leyou by going to the 18th City as Hu Xiaoniu said?”

Bai Waner shook her head, “I don’t know, at this point we can only take one step at a time.”

Ten minutes later, when the two finally stopped conversing, Qing Chen slowly set down his pen.

As expected, these four had enemies in the 7th City.

He was right in his judgment.

Of course, Wang Yun wasn’t wrong either.

Even someone like Qing Chen would find it hard to check math problems with high intensity while simultaneously eavesdropping and analyzing a conversation.

But what made him different was that he could remember all the sounds that ever happened in his mind.

His life indeed couldn’t restart, but it could replay.

…

There’s still a fourth update tonight, seeking monthly tickets!