Lin Wanwan put her handbag on the corner of her desk, then pressed the power button on her desktop computer.
The moment the screen lit up, she habitually opened her work email first.
This was her unwavering work routine since starting the job two months ago.
After confirming that the specially starred contact hadn’t sent any new emails, she let out a sigh of relief.
Scrolling down slowly with the mouse wheel, she selected and deleted the irrelevant emails one by one:
[Ad Email] (2)
[UNICEF, wishes you a happy birthday…]
[Your iCloud storage space is full]
…
Her movements suddenly stopped when the mouse rested in front of an email.
The sender column showed herself, but the title was a bit strange.
[Time Mailbox: You have a letter from September 15, 2025]
She laughed at first, thinking it was the senseless sentimentalism of her student days.
During her student days, before her sharp edges were worn down by KPIs and commutes, she used to suffer from all kinds of literary-youth ailments.
She would skip class to go to the beach to wait for a sunrise.
She would cry her eyes red over a single comment in the NetEase Cloud Music comment section.
She would accompany a heartbroken roommate, wrapped in coats on the dormitory rooftop, blowing in the cold wind all night long.
It was probably something her past self sent through the time mailbox feature, mailing some sappy message to her future, graduated self.
However, the very next second, Lin Wanwan felt that something was off.
Wait, no!
September 15, 2025?!
With her mouse cursor hovering over the email title, her brows slowly knitted together.
No, today was clearly September 12, 2025.
This was actually an email sent from three days in the future?!
Something was wrong—terribly, immensely wrong!
The Time Mailbox sounded high-tech, but in essence, it was just a scheduled email.
Using the scheduled delivery function to write letters to one’s future self or others, setting a future delivery time, and when the time came, the email would automatically be sent out.
Normally, she might receive letters sent by herself from several months or even several years ago, but it was absolutely impossible to receive an email sent from the future.
Lin Wanwan felt her heart inexplicably skip a beat, curiosity twining around her like a vine.
Taking a deep breath, she gently clicked open this strange email.
The email content was very long, and Lin Wanwan slowly scrolled down with her mouse:
“24-year-old me, happy birthday!”
“Does the you from one year later regret braving the rain to save someone a year ago?”
“If given another chance, would you still help?”
…
“The person’s family came to the company to cause a scene for two consecutive days. Today, the group supervisor asked me to submit my resignation application myself…”
“The big-tech offer I worked so hard to get is gone just like that!”
“By the way, have you found a new job?”
…
“It was clearly her who fell on her own, why can she go against her conscience to frame me!”
“The electric scooter’s bumper is indeed bent, but that was clearly from an accidental bump when I just bought the electric scooter… Unfortunately, nothing can be proven now.”
…
“Cousin said she helped me contact the TV station, hoping to find vehicles passing by at that time through the media…”
“If we can retrieve dashcam footage, maybe I can clear my suspicion…”
…
“If only this time mailbox could send messages to the me from three days ago!”
“Sorry, my literary-youth ailment seems to be acting up again!”
“Happy birthday to you once again, 24-year-old me…”
…
Lin Wanwan stared at the sentence “Happy birthday to you once again” at the end of the email, the expression on her face constantly shifting.
The style of the email was indeed like something she would write herself.
A large number of exclamation marks, question marks, and half-baked ellipses, but the content was truly too strange.
Frowning, she opened the detailed information of the email.
Sender: Lin Wanwan [@qq]
Recipient: Lin Wanwan [@qq]
Size: 36K
Sent Time: 2025-09-15 00:00:00
This email was actually sent from her own account, and the sending date was midnight three days later.
Although she wasn’t a computer major, she knew very well that the sending information of Tencent Mail couldn’t be manually altered.
Unless… the other party could hack into Tencent’s servers.
However, Lin Wanwan knew clearly that the security level of Tencent’s servers was Top 1 in the world.
She didn’t think any super hacker would be so bored as to painstakingly hack into Tencent’s servers just to send her a piece of spam mail.
Lin Wanwan felt her breathing grow heavier and heavier.
She subconsciously glanced out the window.
The morning light baked the asphalt road bright; there wasn’t even a wispy strand of cloud on the edge of the sky, showing not the slightest sign of rain.
Lin Wanwan pulled out her phone and checked the weather forecast.
Not only was it sunny all day today, but the next three days were all clear and sunny.
Just as Lin Wanwan was thinking about whether this email was a super hacker’s prank or if her golden finger had truly arrived, the intercom phone on her desk rang. Picking up the phone, Team Leader Sister Zhang’s voice sounded from the other end:
“Wanwan, about the project proposal we interfaced on yesterday.”
“Party A raised new requirements this morning. I’ve already sent the demand proposal to you.”
“Hurry up and revamp the proposal. Run it by me before work ends.”
“Okay, Sister Zhang, I’ll work on it right now.”
Lin Wanwan agreed and immediately suppressed the wild thoughts in her heart.
How could there be so many golden fingers? She had definitely been reading too many novels.
Once work got busy, those doubts regarding the email were pushed to the back of Lin Wanwan’s mind.
With the continuous clicking of the mouse and keyboard, a day passed in the blink of an eye, and the sky outside the window gradually darkened.
Most of the colleagues in the office had already left work, leaving only a few workhorses like her in the huge office area who needed to work overtime.
Lin Wanwan gently clicked the send button, delivering the revised proposal out.
She looked down at the time in the bottom right corner of the computer screen; the time had unknowingly reached 9:15.
After waiting for about another 10 minutes, Sister Zhang’s phone call came through.
Hearing that there were no issues with the new proposal, Lin Wanwan nimbly packed up her things, put her handbag on her back, and walked out of the office building.
The night breeze blew against her face, carrying the stifling heat of late summer.
Suddenly, she remembered the part in the morning’s email about saving someone in the heavy rain.
She looked up at the night sky.
The night sky was dotted with stars, without even a slightly larger cloud.
Seeing this virtually cloudless night sky, she couldn’t help but shake her head with a bitter laugh.
How could it possibly rain in weather like this?
Sure enough, she really shouldn’t read too many novels and short dramas.
She wheeled her electric scooter out of the bike shed, kicked up the kickstand, and rode out.
She rode her electric scooter leisurely, rushing in the direction of home.
However, just after passing the second intersection, a sudden gust of cool wind blew over.
Just as she was wondering why the wind had suddenly turned cool, a freezing drop of water slammed onto her cheek with a snap.
Lin Wanwan subconsciously raised her hand to touch her face, her fingertips feeling a sense of chill.
She raised her head to look at the sky; the night sky that had been full of stars just a moment ago was now covered by dark clouds at an unknown time.
Immediately after, another drop of rain fell onto the back of her hand.
Lin Wanwan didn’t dare to hesitate; she hurriedly parked the electric scooter by the roadside, preparing to put on her raincoat first.
However, she had just opened the seat storage.
A streak of bright white lightning in the distance sliced through the dark night sky, and after a long moment, a rumble of muffled thunder came dragging along slowly.
Listening to that distant sound of thunder, Lin Wanwan felt her mind suddenly go buzz.
She swallowed hard with difficulty:
“No way, it’s really going to rain?!”