Hearing Jenkins' groundless accusation, the well-behaved cat "meow~" in a low voice, not knowing what it was thinking.
Probably because he came home too late last night and didn't have a good rest, Jenkins sat on the chair in the corridor corridor of the gallery, feeling drowsy. He tried his best not to close his eyes, but he couldn't restrain the sleepiness at all. He fell asleep the moment his eyelids closed, but was soon woken up by the noisy environment around him.
He raised his head tiredly and looked ahead, the bustling crowd was passing by in front of him. His eyes looked at the painting on the opposite wall, but instead of cats fluttering butterflies, it turned into a self-portrait of a middle-aged man wearing a ridiculous hat.
Some don't understand how the painting changed so quickly, and the chocolate next to it disappeared when I touched it. Jenkins stood up abruptly, only then did he realize that something was wrong with the surrounding environment.
It's still the same gallery, only the walls have been painted and the patterns of gas lamps on the walls have become more intricate. A more delicate bronze-colored mechanical structure is hung under the lamps. The fine gears and bearings are linked together, and they are connected in series with the tiny metal parts in the wall.
The bench under him has changed from the original wood to a metal material, but it is also padded with soft cushions. People are dressed normally, but it looks more like summer clothes, but it's just early spring.
"Sorry, did you see my cat?"
He stopped a passing gentleman and wanted to inquire about the specific situation.
"Sorry, I just came here too. There are too many people at the art exhibition on the tenth anniversary of Mr. Grant's death. I don't know how many tickets were sold by those black-hearted businessmen... Eh? Why do you look so familiar?"
Jenkins was frightened by the phrase "the tenth anniversary of Mr. Grant's death", bid farewell to the puzzled middle-aged gentleman in a hurry, and walked inward with the flow of people. What is currently displayed in the gallery is the familiar cartoon-style oil painting, and the lender and the last auction price of the painting are marked under the inner few paintings.
"Thirty thousand pounds?"
Jenkins was spooked, and then spooked by the fact that this could be the future.
He stopped a person again, asked the current date, and got the fact that it is now 1878 in the universal calendar.
"The tenth anniversary of his death... What I know now is 1866 in the general calendar. If this is really the future, it means that Mr. Grant died two years after meeting me..."
He opened his eyes and looked around, but didn't see any suspicious aura. Surrounded by crowds like this, from the exit of the gallery to the street, the outside is also crowded with people coming and going. Most of the houses on both sides of the street are still the same as before, but the steam pipes climbing on the wall have all become mechanically beautiful shapes spliced by fine gears. Various metal pipes cross the sky, and people In his hand was a brass-colored mechanical device that Jenkins couldn't recognize.
The policemen with miniaturized steam ovens and steam rifles looked suspiciously at Jenkins who was dazed at the entrance of the gallery, but they couldn't cross the street to question him because of the dense crowd. He grabbed the iron box on a side lamp post, located under the words of the sage, and after entering the password, he took out an abacus-like slender iron box from the small door that popped open, and ticked. hit those buttons.
Jenkins didn't notice that he was being watched. He felt the shadow covering himself and most of the street. When he looked up, he saw a huge steam airship flying over the city, pulling A red banner:
[Maxius steam power furnace, your best choice!]
"Am I crazy?"
Jenkins asked himself on the noisy street, and then thought of a very famous B-type extraordinary event B-07-1-6233 [Uncertain Future] related to the future.
This is a type B extraordinary event that can only happen to the benefactor. It targets a certain person and makes the target shuttle between the present and the future frequently in a short period of time.
And the future observed by the benefactor who experienced the B-07-1-6233 event is not a definite future, it is just a possibility.
According to the teachings of the great [The Hermit of Destiny], all observations of the future are uncertain before the future arrives. This is to warn fortune tellers not to place too much trust in prophecy, but it also illustrates the unreliability of B-07-1-6233.
But according to a large amount of data, part of the future predicted by B-07-1-6233 must appear. For example, the scene Jenkins sees now may mean that Nolan has become ruins 12 years later, and dense tourists walk through the ruins, remembering the last relics of this great city.
B-07-1-6233 is valuable, but people often don't know which part is valuable. This leads to the fact that for those benefactors who have experienced the B-07-1-6233 event, it is safest to choose not to trust what they see, this is to prevent being misled by the future and being played by fate.
Jenkins stared wide-eyed at everything in front of him. He didn't belong to this world, and now he doesn't belong to this era.
"Speaking of which, can I see myself in this era?"
He suddenly thought of this, eager to go to his home on St. George Street. But before passing through the dense celebration crowd, sleepiness surged up again.
Before he could resist, his eyelids closed unconsciously, and then his consciousness disappeared again, and he fell into that peaceful long sleep.
"Meow~"
The cry of chocolate awakened the numb brain, and then the strange pain caused by the back of the hand being scratched by the cat's claw made the consciousness completely awake.
When he looked up, the oil painting of the cat was still on the opposite wall, obviously Jenkins had returned.
He couldn't help covering his forehead, and let out a long sigh. There is some pain in the left side of his head, or he has some migraines now, which is one of the aftereffects of observing the future through B-07-1-6233.
Generally speaking, the benefactor who experienced the B-07-1-6233 event will "travel through the future" several times in a row at intervals of about 5 minutes. The highest number of times in the record is ten, and the lowest number is three, which means that Jenkins will still observe the future many times.
"Should I tell the church about this?"
Jenkins considered it, then decided to depend on the observed future outcome. If it's all a peaceful future like just now, without secrets and unknowns, then it doesn't matter if you say it. And if it involves his own secrets, then it's better to rot in his heart along with other things.