Chapter Two: The Day Remade

When Xia Mi touched the microphone, the water in every empty seat rose into human shapes. Each transparent figure wore her face. Tang Li screamed behind her, “Don’t sing!” Remembering the warning, Xia Mi did not turn. The world spun backward like a record dragged beneath a needle. She struck the wet pavement of the harbor. Her phone showed July 29, two years earlier, 9:17 A.M. Wen Yu stood five meters away. “If you board that ship, we’re over,” her past self said through her mouth. “Fine.” The light left his eyes. He turned. Xia Mi ran and wrapped both arms around him. This was the one decision she could change. She could not stop the typhoon or prove the ship would sink. She could only take back the sentence that had driven them apart.