Wendy Lynch placed her handbag on the corner of her desk and pressed the power button on her desktop computer.
The moment the screen lit up, she habitually opened her work email. This had been her unshakable routine for the two months since she joined the company. Seeing no new messages from her priority contacts, she breathed a sigh of relief. Slowly scrolling down with her mouse, she selected and deleted the irrelevant emails one by one:
[Spam] (2)
[UNICEF wishes you a happy birthday...]
[Your iCloud storage is full]
...
Wendy’s hand suddenly paused as her cursor hovered over a specific email. The sender was herself, but the subject line was rather strange.
[Time Capsule: You have a letter from September 15, 2025]
She chuckled at first, assuming it was just some cringey angst from her student days. Back then, before her edges had been smoothed out by KPIs and daily commutes, she used to be quite the sentimental romantic. Skipping class to wait for the sunrise at the beach. Crying her eyes out over a comment on Nexora. Wrapping herself in a coat to brave the cold wind on the dorm rooftop all night, just to keep a heartbroken roommate company. It was probably a sappy message sent by her past self using the time capsule feature, meant to be read after graduation.
But a second later, Wendy realized something was wrong.
Wait! September 15, 2025?
Her cursor hovered over the subject line as her brow slowly furrowed. She thought, "No, today is exactly September 12, 2025. This is actually an email from three days in the future?"
Something was wrong. Very, very wrong!
The "Time Capsule" sounded fancy, but it was essentially just a scheduled email. You could use the feature to write to your future self or someone else, set a future delivery date, and the system would automatically send it when the time came. Logically, she could receive a letter sent by her past self from months or even years ago, but it was absolutely impossible to receive an email from the future.
Wendy felt her heart skip a beat as curiosity wound around her mind like a creeping vine. Taking a deep breath, she gently clicked open the strange email. The content was long, so Wendy slowly scrolled down.
"Happy birthday to my 24-year-old self!
"A year from now, will you regret braving the rain to save someone?
"If given another chance, would you still help?
"...
"The other party’s family came to the company and caused a scene for two days straight. Today, the team supervisor told me to submit my resignation...
"The major tech company offer I worked so hard to get is just gone!
"By the way, have you found a new job yet?
"...
"It was obvious that she fell on her own, so how could she lie through her teeth and frame me!
"The bumper of the electric scooter is indeed bent, but I accidentally bumped it right after I bought it... Sadly, there’s no way to prove anything now.
"...
"My cousin said she helped contact the TV station, hoping to use the media to find vehicles that were passing by at that time...
"If only I could get hold of dashcam footage, maybe I could clear my name...
"...
"If only this Time Capsule could send a message to me three days ago!
"Sorry, it seems my sentimental romantic side is acting up again!
"Once again, happy birthday to you, my 24-year-old self..."
Wendy stared at the final line—*Once again, happy birthday*—as the expression on her face constantly shifted. The writing style really did look like her own. It had her signature excessive exclamation marks, question marks, and half-finished ellipses. But the content was just too bizarre.
Frowning, she opened the email’s detailed information.
Sender: Wendy Lynch [[email protected]]
Recipient: Wendy Lynch [[email protected]]
Size: 36K
Sent Date: 2025-09-15 00:00:00
This email had actually been sent from her own account, and the timestamp was exactly midnight, three days in the future. Although she didn’t major in computer science, she knew that the sender information of a Google email could not be manually altered. Unless... someone managed to hack into Google’s servers.
But Wendy knew very well that Google’s server security was top-tier worldwide. She highly doubted that some super hacker would be bored enough to go through the immense trouble of breaching Google’s servers just to send her a spam email.
Wendy felt her breathing grow heavy. She instinctively glanced out the window. The morning sun baked the asphalt road until it gleamed, and there wasn’t a single wisp of cloud in the sky. It didn’t look like it was going to rain at all. Pulling out her phone, she checked the weather forecast. Not only was it supposed to be sunny all day today, but the next three days were also forecasted to be perfectly clear.
Just as Wendy was wondering whether this email was a super hacker’s prank or if her protagonist cheat had actually arrived, the intercom on her desk rang. She picked it up, and the voice of her team leader, Ms. Campbell, came through the line.
"Wendy, regarding the project proposal we coordinated yesterday.
"The client brought up some new requests this morning. I’ve already sent the updated requirements to you.
"Hurry up and revise the proposal. I need to review it before you get off work."
"Understood, Ms. Campbell. I’ll get right on it," Wendy replied, immediately suppressing her wild thoughts.
She thought, "Where would I ever get a protagonist cheat? I’ve definitely been reading too many novels." Once she got busy with work, all her doubts about the email were pushed to the back of her mind.
Amidst the constant clicking of her mouse and keyboard, the day passed in the blink of an eye, and the sky outside the window gradually darkened. Most of her colleagues had long since clocked out. In the massive office area, only a few other corporate drones who had to work overtime like her remained.
Wendy gently clicked the send button, delivering the revised proposal. Glancing down at the time in the bottom right corner of her screen, she noticed it was already 9:15 PM. She waited for about another ten minutes before Ms. Campbell called her back. Hearing that the new proposal was fine, Wendy briskly packed up her things, shouldered her handbag, and walked out of the office building.
The evening wind blew against her face, carrying the stifling heat of late summer. Suddenly, she remembered what the morning’s email had said about braving heavy rain to save someone. She looked up at the night sky.
The expanse above was dotted with stars, without even a single sizable cloud in sight. Seeing this virtually cloudless sky, she couldn’t help but smile bitterly and shake her head. How could it possibly rain in this kind of weather? Sure enough, she really needed to cut back on web novels and short dramas.
She wheeled her electric scooter out of the parking shed, kicked up the stand, and rode off. Riding at a leisurely pace, she headed in the direction of her home.
However, just as she passed the second intersection, a sudden gust of cool wind blew by. She was just wondering why the wind had suddenly turned cold when an icy drop of water went SPLAT against her cheek. Wendy instinctively raised a hand to her face, her fingertips brushing against a streak of freezing wetness.
She looked up at the sky. The starry expanse from moments ago had somehow been completely obscured by dark clouds. Immediately after, another drop of rain fell onto the back of her hand.
Not daring to hesitate, Wendy hurriedly parked her scooter by the side of the road, intending to put on her raincoat first.
But just as she opened the seat compartment...
A brilliant flash of white lightning tore through the dark night sky in the distance. A long moment later, a dull, sluggish rumble of thunder rolled in. Hearing that distant thunder, Wendy felt a sudden BUZZ ring through her mind.
She swallowed hard.
"No way, it’s actually going to rain!!"