Chapter 44: Chapter 44: For Better or For Worse

"I don’t know how to say this!" Lin Xia said, his fingers rubbing the lottery ticket. "There’s good news and bad news."

"What a coincidence. I have good news and bad news too!" Chu Bamboo stretched his wrists and said half-jokingly, "The good news is, if you spit it out, you’ll be fine. The bad news is, if you keep me in suspense any longer, I’m going to have to beat you up."

"Oh!" Lin Xia shrank back and sighed. "The bad news is, we won. But it’s just the third prize!"

"Looks like he changed a number at the last minute!" Chu Bamboo nodded. ’Makes sense. Makes perfect sense!’

But he quickly realized something was wrong, and his gaze sharpened. "How is that bad news? So what’s the good news?!"

"The good news is, I bought fifty tickets!" Lin Xia suddenly broke into a mischievous grin, leaning back in the gaming chair. "So we can cash it in for 150,000..."

Chu Bamboo: "?"

The corner of Chu Bamboo’s eye twitched as he stared speechlessly at Lin Xia. ’Fifty tickets? Were you trying to empty out the entire prize pool?!’

To be fair, if it was just about winning five million, Chu Bamboo felt it might have been possible—after all, you need to chum the waters to catch fish. The fisherman might show some mercy now and then.

But expecting to bag the entire prize pool... Heh.

"Of course," Lin Xia said, pulling out his phone with a troubled expression, "we have to consider taxes! Let me check the tax rate..."

"Don’t worry about that. I remember reading that winnings under 10,000 per ticket aren’t taxed. That means you get to keep the full 150,000," Chu Bamboo said after a moment’s thought. "Either way, congratulations!"

"...Congratulations my ass! Aren’t I just working for you?" Lin Xia rolled his eyes, but still let out a long sigh of relief. ’At least this takes a lot of the financial pressure off!’

"I’ll go cash it in tomorrow. By the way, do you want to come with me?"

"Not interested." Chu Bamboo waved his hand dismissively. Lin Xia wasn’t surprised. He nodded frankly and asked, "Are you going back to the dorm? Or to the new apartment you rented?"

"If I have a choice, I’m definitely going to pick the place where I can get a good night’s sleep!" Chu Bamboo paused, pulled out his phone, and first messaged his dorm leader, then sent a quick note to his academic advisor.

After that, he saw messages from his two coach friends, with eye-catching unread message counts of 27+ and 46+.

"I can’t believe they said so much even though I didn’t reply once!" Chu Bamboo sighed, but still clicked in to skim through the messages. His expression then turned strange.

"What’s wrong?" Lin Xia had been watching Chu Bamboo’s reaction the whole time.

"They want to find my parents to ’do some ideological work’ on me!" Chu Bamboo laughed out loud and finally replied to them, "Go ahead if you want! But just a heads-up, it won’t work."

Chu Bamboo then ignored the instant replies from the two, chatted a bit more with his advisor and dorm leader, then turned off the screen, stuffed the phone in his pocket, and stood up to walk out of the internet cafe.

Lin Xia naturally followed, settling the bill on their way out.

"About your family situation... um, your parents... yeah." Lin Xia’s expression was a bit strange. He knew that because of the weird dreams Chu Bamboo had had since he was a kid, his family’s attitude toward him wasn’t quite the same as a normal family’s.

High-EQ take: Lenient and hands-off.

Low-EQ take: They’re too scared to discipline him, afraid they’ll actually push him into a mental breakdown.

"Let’s go! Wait, no." Chu Bamboo realized. "We need to go back to the dorm first. I have to grab some things."

"I’ve already got bedding and stuff prepared over there! Hmm, from the look on your face, that’s not what you need to get. But it doesn’t matter. I’m sleeping in the dorm tonight anyway, so we can walk together." Lin Xia raised his eyebrows.

"The apartment you rented, does it only have one bed?" Chu Bamboo’s interest was piqued. "If it has multiple rooms, I wouldn’t mind splitting the rent!"

"Dude!" Lin Xia’s face contorted. "Listen to your Cultivation Technique—nuclear radiation! Even if you were okay with it, I wouldn’t dare live with you! Besides, you definitely have secrets that even I can’t be told, right..."

Chu Bamboo didn’t say anything.

Lin Xia took a deep breath, rubbed his face, and his voice became more serious than ever before. "Bamboo! No, Chu Bamboo! I need you to take one thing seriously."

"Even though I already know more than enough, there are certain... extremely sensitive things... that I hope you won’t tell me. Anything you do tell me should be things that, if exposed, would have consequences, but not irreversible ones!"

"I don’t know what you’ll go through in the future, or what you’ll do, but I have a feeling it’s going to be an experience beyond imagination! Maybe, in the future, I’ll get dragged into this because of you, get captured, and... brutally tortured!"

"I’m telling you this in advance: I definitely wouldn’t be able to withstand that kind of torture! They wouldn’t even have to use a honey trap on me; the moment I see them pull out a pair of pliers, I’d probably spill everything... You need to be mentally prepared for that."

Chu Bamboo paused, gave Lin Xia a deep look, and gave a noncommittal nod. "I understand."

Of course, Chu Bamboo wasn’t actually that worried about anything happening to Lin Xia. Or rather, if he—someone who could travel to the future, knew parts of its recorded history, and could take precautions in advance—couldn’t even protect his best bro... then he’d be truly useless.

...

"Baron! I got it."

As soon as he got back to the dorm, Chu Bamboo heard his roommates shouting. He rolled his eyes, didn’t talk to them, and climbed onto his top bunk to grab his laptop. Then he took a notebook from the drawer and packed some toiletries and personal items...

"I’m heading out then! See you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow." Lin Xia waved.

...

The apartment Lin Xia rented was right next to the school.

One bedroom, one living room, one bathroom—a classic layout. It wasn’t spacious, but it was fully furnished and had a cozy feel.

"It really does feel much more peaceful!" Chu Bamboo flopped directly onto the large, soft bed, yawned, and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he muttered, "But I’m so used to the sound of my roommates gaming... It’s actually a little weird not hearing it!"

Slapping his cheeks, Chu Bamboo went to the desk, took out his notebook, and flipped through it, looking at the scattered words written inside.

"Next, it’s time to run an experiment!" Chu Bamboo turned to a completely blank page and, with a serious expression, wrote on it:

"Tomorrow, I will communicate with Chancellor Li Quanyuan, confess everything about my situation, and run again, this time going all out! I will completely shatter the human record and use it to prove my situation is real! After that, I will hand over the formula for the Purification of nuclear radiation to the country, using the nation’s power to guide the future and avoid that post-apocalyptic timeline!"

Then, Chu Bamboo tore the page from the notebook, unhesitatingly lit it with a lighter, and ground the ashes into a fine powder before pouring them into the toilet and flushing—of course, he wasn’t really planning to hand it over directly. He just wanted to test if actually doing this would create a butterfly effect and influence the future. And if it did...

After washing up, Chu Bamboo lay on the bed and closed his eyes. ’Let’s just see whether doing this will make the future better... or worse!’