WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Link Click Episode 4, now streaming on Funimation.
Meddling with time travel isn't as easy as it first seemed in Link Click. In Episode 4, Lu Guang explains that special circumstances have to be met in order for the future to change. As long as a certain node in a timeline isn't get altered, whatever Cheng Xiaoshi does before the node won't affect what happens after. If the node is changed, then everything after that point will be rewritten and consequently alter the future.
But, faced with the impossible choice of saving his loved ones' lives or sacrificing his future, Cheng Xiaoshi learns that time travel isn't all it's cracked up to be.
After the events of Episode 3, Cheng Xiaoshi is horrified when he reaches out to Lu Guang, only to be met with radio silence. Unsure whether Lu Guang still exists in this new future, he's about to return to the present when a voice stops him: it's Lu Guang, who decided to prank Cheng Xiaoshi by ignoring his call as he went to look for Chen Xiao's note.
Unfortunately, the coach tells Cheng Xiaoshi that the school is still planning on demolishing the gym, win or lose. At Cheng Xiaoshi's request, the coach decides not to tell the rest of the team. As they all head home, Cheng Xiaoshi takes Hong Bin back home on his bike and meets Hong Bin's sister, Liu Meng, who turns out to be Chen Xiao's first love. The two are shy around each other and, although it had seemed like unrequited love, it's obvious to Cheng Xiaoshi that Liu Meng is as attracted to Chen Xiao as he is to her. Once home, Cheng Xiaoshi gets scolded by his mother for playing basketball instead of studying but knows he's (kind of) forgiven when his mother hands him all of the chicken that she deboned.
At this point, Cheng Xiaoshi realizes that he time leaped all the way back to May 12, 2008: the day of the Great Wenchuan Earthquake that had killed over 80,000 people and would later claim the lives of Hong Bin, Liu Meng and Chen Xiao's mother. This explains why it didn't matter what Cheng Xiaoshi did -- because it wouldn't change the end result: the important node Lu Guang was referring to was death.
Chen Xiao's biggest regret that day was not being able to tell his loved ones everything he wanted to say before it was too late. Episode 4's airdate was only a few days after the Wenchuan earthquake's 13th anniversary, and the director made the artistic choice to leave Chen Xiao's words inaudible to viewers. We can only gather from their expressions that Chen Xiao said something that made them happy. According to a Twitter account that translated some comments from Link Click's Chinese streaming platform, some viewers believed this was to leave space for the survivors of the Wenchuan earthquake to fill in the blanks. It gives them the chance to say the words they weren't able to say to their friends, their first loves and to their mothers, fitting the episode's title: "Confession."
Underneath the title is an excerpt from a poem by Liu Bannong called "How Can I Rid My Mind of Her," where the narrator asks how they can stop thinking about someone who has died when everything seems to remind them of her. How do you ever stop the ache of missing someone?
When Cheng Xiaoshi realizes what is about to happen, he spirals into a panic attack as he remembers his own past and how his parents had (presumably) died in the earthquake. He manages to shake himself out of it and he races out of Chen Xiao's house to find some way to save them. Immediately, Lu Guang yells at him to stop. If he tries to save those in the past, he might accidentally change the future to a world where the current Cheng Xiaoshi, Lu Guang and Qiao Ling never existed.
This isn't the first time that Lu Guang deliberately withheld information from Cheng Xiaoshi. Despite not being malicious, this might be the cruelest instance of Lu Guang not telling Cheng Xiaoshi exactly what he was walking into -- was he aware of Cheng Xiaoshi's past trauma? Cheng Xiaoshi had not been able to save his loved ones but now that he knows exactly what will happen and has the opportunity to save Chen Xiao's, he'll have to grapple with whether he just stands by or not. Is he really willing to sacrifice the lives of his and his friends for the sake of the past?
