```
A figure, lurking slyly at the bottom of the comprehensive building, waited.
Finally, Huang Xin and a few of his buddies came down, and to conceal the injuries on his face, Huang Xin had deliberately worn a mask.
As soon as Luo Yao saw Huang Xin emerge, he immediately came forward, asking gleefully, "How did the beating go?"
"They begged for mercy," said Huang Xin.
"Really? That's great," Luo Yao's face broke into a complacent smile.
Too bad he hadn't seen it firsthand; it would have been so much more thrilling.
"Lend me your camera," Huang Xin said to Luo Yao.
"You're going to help me take a few photos of Ji Yun begging on the ground?" Luo Yao immediately became excited.
What a great idea.
They could mock Ji Yun with those pictures for years to come.
Ten years from now, Ji Yun still won't be able to hold his head high.
"Taking pictures, yes, but of you," Huang Xin said before giving his cronies a look.
The cronies understood at once and started dragging Luo Yao off to a corner.
With a mouth twisted in pain from being beaten, Huang Xin followed quickly.
"What are you doing, what are you doing??" Luo Yao panicked immediately.
"What are doing, if you dare plot against our brother-in-law again, we'll beat you to death! Hit him!!" Huang Xin had taken a fierce beating today and was full of pent-up anger with no outlet.
He dared not trouble Ji Yun again, but taking out his anger on Luo Yao was definitely an option.
Huang Xin even suspected that Luo Yao had a grudge against him, deliberately setting him up to provoke Ji Yun!
"Stop, stop, don't hit me, my face, my glasses!!" In the corner, Luo Yao was being beaten pitifully.
He begged continuously, but Huang Xin's lackeys showed no sign of stopping.
As Luo Yao began to beg and apologize, he didn't understand what he had done wrong, which only infuriated Huang Xin further.
Huang Xin took a few photos but didn't feel satisfied.
He walked over to the muddy ground littered with cigarette butts and stomped out a clump of foul mud with his old shoes.
He picked up the clump of mud and approached Luo Yao.
"Hold this in your mouth, and I'll take a photo. Otherwise, we'll beat you more!" Huang Xin held the clump of mud in front of Luo Yao.
Looking at the pile that was indistinguishable from excrement, complete with cigarette butts, Luo Yao felt nauseous at the thought of putting it in his mouth.
"You won't do it, huh? Hit him!" Huang Xin said unceremoniously.
"I'll do it, I'll do it," Luo Yao was scared, hurriedly grabbing the mud.
With utmost agony and an expression no different from eating shit, Luo Yao opened his mouth and held the richly tainted mud.
"Good, stay like that." Huang Xin was quite pleased and pressed the camera shutter right away.
"Click!"
A photo of a mouthful of mud was captured in an instant!
Humiliated, Luo Yao wanted to cry, but he still had to cooperate.
Probably, after today, every time he saw a camera, his mouth would feel sick!
...
At the end of the second-floor corridor of the comprehensive building, Ji Yun watched the whole scene and couldn't help but smirk.
Later, Huang Xin would send the photos to him.
Though what he ate was mud.
But that clump of mud, even after a decade, if someone insisted it was a pile of shit, he probably couldn't clear it up!
"Wu Kai has already learned Jiang Hua's true colors, so even if something happens in the future, he shouldn't stand up for him anymore, and even if Jiang Hua continues to play the victim and I'm still clueless, with Chin Feng severing ties with Jiang Hua, there shouldn't be any more vile incidents."
"In that case, there should be hope for me to get into university."
Ji Yun began to calculate the logic.
After all, he was to change future events, and the time and actions he could take were very limited.
He needed to influence the coming years through small events, affecting the future slowly; the difficulty was quite substantial.
Ji Yun was also puzzled why fate didn't grant him a clean rebirth like other protagonists who knew everything, conquered the world, and had to set such a high bar for him!
Sigh, it wasn't the destiny of others.
The most difficult rebirth and time travel!
This life's cheat code, activated but seeming not.
"There's another issue."
"If I'm lying in the hospital, how would I know if I got into university??"
"Theoretically, I'll still be donating this heart, or perhaps a me who went to university and found a better job in another city won't end up donating the heart…"
The time for this replay of the old days was ending, and soon the changes he had made would ripple into the future. What would happen in ten years was unknown.
It was impossible not to feel anxious.
Looking up at the sky, where the sun was half-eclipsed, Ji Yun couldn't help but wonder.
Was this interplay between his past and future somehow greatly related to the solar eclipse?
If he hadn't been caught in an accident during the solar eclipse, would he not have fallen into the loop?
```
This act of mine equated to altering a major trajectory in my life, relating to whether or not I would attend university—a rather bold exploration that could possibly lead to my escape from the cycle, never to return to the past again.
Time had finally come!
Ji Yun felt his consciousness floating into the air.
To anyone here, ten years was an incredibly long time.
But for Ji Yun, it was just a blink of an eye.
A blindingly bright light caused temporary blindness.
Then time flew by, and a world ten years later came rushing at him!
Outside, it was still a day of solar eclipse.
The solar eclipse ten years later, and the sun was completely devoured.
When Ji Yun awoke ten years later, the sun had completely disappeared, and the entire Lan City should have been cloaked in darkness!
The world outside was pitch black.
Incandescent lights on the ceiling.
Floors reflecting light.
The pale walls.
The hospital bustling with people coming and going…
Everything continued as usual.
At the entrance, a security guard was complaining about something, arguing with an old woman with pale hair.
A woman wearing black stockings would walk past me, giving me a strange look before hastily walking away.
In the neighboring seat sat a man with a stomachache, looking at me with equal surprise, yet not daring to come over and lend a hand.
Several more people passed by, all oblivious to me, until a middle-aged man with a potbelly approached and stopped to inquire about Ji Yun, who was lying on the ground.
Ah, Vice Principal Wang!
It's so good to see you!!
Ji Yun's heart surged with excitement.
He was still in the cycle.
He was still in the hospital!
This meant that he very likely had still joined the rescue team and had not strayed from his original intent to escort the donor heart!
Did he attend university???
Ji Yun was now extremely curious whether his experiences had changed!
But he was lying in the hospital, and next, he would be carried to the emergency room; the information he could learn at the moment was extremely limited.
A newspaper from the neighboring bed.
Two TVs on the wall.
The conversations between doctors and nurses—they were unlikely to reveal whether he had attended university, and this time Vice Principal Wang definitely would not recognize him.
Ji Yun initially thought that Vice Principal Wang remembered him so clearly because of the serious issue of his early romance, but now Ji Yun understood that unless he dated Qiu Mo, Vice Principal Wang wouldn't remember him that well. Qiu Mo was his niece.
"Young man, is it cool on the ground?" Vice Principal Wang kindly asked.
Soon, Vice Principal Wang called over a nurse, followed by a male doctor who had prepared a stretcher in advance.
The male doctor looked relatively young and experienced enough to deal with most emergency patient situations. It's just that Ji Yun's illness was rather complex, and he could only be guaranteed seven minutes.
Overall, not much had changed.
But Ji Yun's lying posture was different.
This time, Ji Yun saw the name badge hanging on the doctor. His surname was Fu, and his name was Guangyi.
"Uncle Wang, please help contact this patient's family later; his condition is critical, and he may need surgery," Doctor Fu Guangyi said.
Uncle Wang???
This time Doctor Fu Guangyi's address to Vice Principal Wang stirred a trace of curiosity in Ji Yun.
Ji Yun remembered, in his second cycle lying on the floor, this male doctor also referred to Vice Principal Wang as Uncle Wang.
But most of the time, Doctor Fu Guangyi and Vice Principal Wang did not know each other.
After so many cycles, Ji Yun had indeed doubted at first that all this was just an illusion before death.
But if it were an illusion, everything should be repetitive, or it would give a preposterous feeling at some moment like a dream, prompting one to question it.
In the world he found himself in, however, each time there were different changes, and there were many details that Ji Yun had never deeply considered.
This made Ji Yun even more certain that he had entered a real, unpredictable world with memories from multiple times.
This world was not hastily continuing its story where he walked; it was always evolving, blossoming at every moment…
Why did the male doctor sometimes recognize Vice Principal Wang and at other times call him Uncle?
If every act of mine in the past could have a butterfly effect on the future, then why hadn't the content reported in the newspaper changed?
The TV in the hospital lobby, broadcasting the news, had never changed, so much so that Ji Yun could almost recite every word in the news.
The other TV, hanging in the waiting area for patients, was playing a movie instead.
This was the biggest change brought about by averting Lou Yu's misfortunes.
Originally, the TV was supposed to broadcast a promotional video for Lanyang Hospital, but it was changed to feature a movie starring Lou Yu.
This was due to Lou Yu's transfer and the hospital's deliberate promotion.