Chapter 3

After saying that, Lynette turned and went back inside with her mug of hot water. She didn't shut the door all the way, leaving it slightly ajar.

From inside, I could hear her humming a cheerful tune, the kind a perfectly ordinary expectant mother might hum on a perfectly ordinary morning.

I went back into my apartment and called my girlfriend. "Claire, can your dad's research institute run an electromagnetic radiation test for me? I mean the most authoritative kind possible. Something that'd hold up in court."

Claire Wilson was silent for a few seconds before solemnly asking, "What's going on?"

"It's a long story. Just help me make the appointment, please. The sooner, the better."

That afternoon, I walked into the city's most authoritative electromagnetic radiation testing laboratory with the brand-new router cradled in my arms.

Claire was already there, waiting for me outside. Her father was the institute's deputy director, and he had arranged for their most senior engineer, Sylvan Rockman, to handle the testing personally.

He donned a white lab coat and gold-rimmed glasses. A row of instruments I couldn't name covered the workbench. Waveforms danced across multiple monitors as the machines hummed to life.

"Set the router here. Hook up the spectrum analyzer… Field strength meter in position."

Without even looking up, Sylvan adjusted the equipment while reading off the measurements.

"Operating on the 2.4-gigahertz band. Transmit power is on the low side… With these specs, getting through a single brick wall is about the best you can expect. Beyond that, the signal degrades so badly you'll have trouble maintaining a connection."

I only asked the most crucial question, "Can it harm an unborn baby?"

Sylvan looked up at me, as if I had just asked the most idiotic question in the world.

"Young man, your router doesn't put out enough power to reliably cover the room next door, let alone penetrate a living room wall and affect your neighbors. If you're worried about radiation, you'd be better off giving up your cellphone first.

"A phone emits far more radio-frequency energy than a home router. When it's in your pocket against your thigh, it's ten thousand times closer to you than your router ever is."

To that, I said, "I need a report—an official one, with your institute's seal."

Sylvan shrugged. He turned to the printer, printed out a report, stamped it with the institute's official red seal, and handed it to me.

Verified and validated, the conclusion read, "The electromagnetic radiation emitted by this device is well below the national public exposure limits.

"It does not possess sufficient transmission power to penetrate load-bearing walls or produce measurable electromagnetic exposure to occupants of neighboring residences.

"There is no evidence supporting any causal relationship between the device's operation and miscarriage."

I gripped the report as I walked out of the laboratory. A long, slow breath escaped me.

Claire slipped her arm through mine. She read the report from beginning to end once more before looking up at me, her eyes shining.

"Now, they'll have nothing against you. It's all written right here—safe according to national standards, verified by an accredited testing institute. Even if this ends up in court, this report clears you completely."

I nodded. The weight that had been crushing my chest for days finally lifted.

Science couldn't lie, and neither could data. This time, I was prepared not to end up beaten into submission the way I had in my previous life.

That evening, Claire and I were having dinner beneath her apartment building. During the meal, my phone buzzed. Someone had tagged me in the neighborhood group chat from my old apartment complex.

I didn't open it. I simply flipped my phone face down on the table.

Claire placed a piece of meat on my plate and assured me, "Don't worry. You've got the report now. They can't make anything out of this."

Then, my phone rang again. It wasn't a group chat notification, but a phone call from an unfamiliar number.

When I answered, I heard hurried breathing, followed by a man's deliberately lowered voice, as though he were calling in secret from the middle of a noisy crowd.

"Hi, I'm with property management. You're the new tenant who just moved in, right? Yeah, I need to tell you something. The pregnant woman next door miscarried. It just happened.

"Her husband's already called the police. They're outside your apartment right now."

I ended the call and slowly set my cutlery down. Claire looked at me. "What happened?"

I didn't answer. Instead, I checked the date on my phone. It was the exact day Lynette had miscarried in my previous life. Back then, she had used those stillborn babies to pin the blame on me, destroying my reputation and my life.

In this life, she somehow still ended with the same fate.

My phone lit up again with yet another notification from the neighborhood group chat. Someone had sent a video showing David standing in a hospital corridor, crying into the camera.

Behind him, the red light above the emergency operating room glowed ominously. His eyes were bloodshot from exhaustion. His voice was so hoarse it was almost impossible to make out what he was saying.

The subtitles, however, made it clear. "My neighbor changed his Wi-Fi name and cursed my wife! The electromagnetic radiation triggered her contractions, and our three babies are gone!"

In the last few seconds, the camera shook. It swept past the glowing emergency room sign and the doctors hurrying back and forth outside.

My phone suddenly went berserk. It wouldn't stop vibrating. Then, one missed call after another flooded the screen. Some were from unknown numbers, some from former coworkers. Even a few of Claire's friends reached out.

Apparently, someone had left a screenshot of my radiation test report on my social media account. "A murderer bought himself a worthless piece of paper."

Two hours later, a police cruiser pulled up outside. Two uniformed officers knocked on my door. Their expressions were solemn.

Behind them, in the hallway, stood David. His eyes were bloodshot as he pointed straight at me, his body shaking like a leaf. "It's him. His Wi-Fi name killed all three of my unborn babies. I want to make him pay!"

I handed the officers the laboratory report. One of them took it, scanned it briefly, then looked back at it.

"This is an electromagnetic radiation test issued by a nationally accredited testing institute," I said. "The conclusion couldn't be clearer. My router's signal isn't even powerful enough to penetrate a wall. It's physically incapable of causing a miscarriage."

Before the officer could respond, David piped up again. His voice was quiet, but every word sounded as though it had been squeezed through clenched teeth.

"Then, explain something to me. Why did the signal follow you no matter where you moved? Why does your Wi-Fi name always revert to those same accursed words, no matter what you rename it? And why…"

He stepped forward, his eyes locked onto mine. "Why didn't my wife miscarry before or after? Why did it happen only after you changed the name?"