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In 2035, in San Francisco, quantum physicist Arthur Crowder's wife was killed in a "perfect murder." There were no fingerprints, no witnesses—only half of a high-tech alloy button, clearly belonging to future technology. To uncover the truth, Arthur infiltrated his own creation, the "Novous Timefold Experiment," but a malfunction in the equipment threw him into parallel timelines. He gradually discovered that in each timeline, a different version of himself was enacting vengeance in various ways. All clues pointed to a more terrifying truth—the murderer was Raymond Stone, his mentor, who had "died" twenty years ago due to an experimental failure caused by Arthur himself. After crossing twelve timelines, Arthur was forced to choose between saving his wife and maintaining the stability of time itself. Ultimately, he uncovered an even darker conspiracy—the collective manipulation of human memories.

The Chrono's Redemption

The liquid nitrogen pipes in the second basement floor hissed above Arthur's head, like a dying mechanical boa constrictor coiling around the Novous prototype machine. He entered his wife's birthday to disable the security lock, but his pupils suddenly contracted when the system log appeared— it showed that a user had successfully activated the Timefold Generator at 03:15 AM on the night of the incident.

"This is impossible." Arthur's knuckles slammed into the holographic keyboard, and the quantum computer immediately popped up a red warning box: [Observer Permission Conflict, Paradox Entity CR-2049 Detected].

The sound of leather shoes tapping against the static-resistant floor behind him made his heart race. Detective Watson's shadow stretched across the room, distorted by the security lights into the shape of prison bars.

"The FBI just sent over an interesting toy," he said, lifting an antique film reel sealed in a plastic bag. "Photos from the 1985 Raymond Stone suicide case. In the background, there's a device with 'CR-2049' etched into it."

Arthur felt the metallic taste of blood seep into his mouth. The photo showed a younger Raymond Stone lying face-up in front of the particle accelerator's hatch, with bluish-purple crystals scattered around a bullet hole in his temple— the same quantum decoherence residue he had found on his wife's wound the night before.

"The coroner's team found tissue under Eileen's nails," Watson's voice whispered into his ear. "Guess whose mitochondrial DNA it matches?"

The alarm from the cryogenic chamber blared to life. Arthur rushed to the monitoring screen, where he saw that the B-07 slot, which was supposed to contain his wife's body, was empty. The surface of the preservative floated with undissipated Kármán vortices. Even more bizarre, all the sensors showed that the slot had never been activated in the past 72 hours.

"Dr. Crowder, please explain why your retinal scan logs…" Watson's voice was cut off by the sudden black screen of the quantum computer, but Arthur was transfixed by his reflection on the screen. The image was adjusting its tie with the left hand—when in reality, he was using his right hand.

A thick white mist with a jasmine scent suddenly poured out of the underground ventilation ducts. Arthur, coughing violently, caught a glimpse of a blurry figure emerging from the mist. The person's white lab coat hem reflected the metallic sheen of a mechanical prosthesis, matching the amputation report for Raymond's 1985 car accident perfectly.

When the emergency lights flickered back on, Arthur found Detective Watson's service weapon pressed to his forehead. Between them on the lab table lay a complete CR-2049 metal fragment, its edge still stained with fresh blood.

Quantum Blind Spot