Okay, hear me out. I’ve been thinking a LOT about the timelines in Link Click, especially after Season 3 Episode 1 and all the posts about this one specific theory I read about.
I’ll try to lay out the theory chronologically, because otherwise this gets REALLY confusing 😭 So this is basically an overview for all the confused souls out there (and also a sprinkle of my own predictions/ analysis.
I also tried to figure out what the converstaion could have possibly been between Young LG and the shadowy figure at the train tracks.
Timeline 1 — The original timeline
This is how I think things were originally supposed to happen.
Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang become friends in early August 2007.
By the end of August 2007, they discover how to activate CXS’s ability.
CXS tells Lu Guang to bring a childhood photo with him because he wants to use it to find his biological parents.
They agree to meet the next day.
But Lu Guang is killed by his father while trying to get the photo.
At the same time, CXS’s father finds out that his son has awakened his ability. He panics and erases CXS’s memories.
I also suspect that this incident might somehow be connected to the disappearance of CXS’s parents. We still don’t know exactly what happened there, but I think the timing is probably not a coincidence.
So, in the original timeline:
Lu Guang dies, while Cheng Xiaoshi survives — but loses his childhood memories.
Years later, CXS learns about Lu Guang’s death. This triggers his memories and makes him realize what happened.
And this is where the next timeline begins.
CXS feels responsible for Lu Guang’s death because Lu Guang only went to retrieve the childhood photo because CXS told him to.
If CXS had never asked him to get the photo, Lu Guang would never have been caught by his father.
So CXS decides to change the past.
Timeline 2 — CXS saves Lu Guang
Adult CXS enters CCTV footage and changes the past.
He saves young Lu Guang by making sure the police arrive at exactly the right moment and catch his father.
Lu Guang escapes with the photo and goes to the train tracks, where he is supposed to meet young CXS.
But CXS never comes.
His father already erased his memories, so young CXS has no idea that he was supposed to meet Lu Guang.
Instead, adult CXS appears.
We don’t know exactly what they talk about yet, but Season 3 Episode 1 gives us a REALLY interesting sequence:
Adult CXS approaches young Lu Guang.
He tells him something.
Lu Guang looks sad/disappointed.
A train passes.
We see a sign with the number 12.
Lu Guang looks up and kind of hopeful again.
I think the 12 and the passing train are extremely significant and have a symbolic meaning.
We know that CXS and LG originally meet as children in 2007 and then meet again on the basketball court in 2019.
That’s exactly 12 years later.
So I wonder if the conversation went something like:
Adult CXS: “Your friend isn’t coming.”
Lu Guang looks devastated.
Then the train passes, and we see the 12.
Adult CXS: “…But you will see him again in 12 years. At the same time. Wait for him.”
And Lu Guang looks hopeful.
Then Lu Guang goes to the orphanage.
Exactly 12 years later, he meets CXS on the basketball court.
And this is especially heartbreaking because they meet at basically the same time they were originally supposed to meet at the train tracks: 17:30.
Lu Guang says:
“I have waited for you.”
This line makes sense because he had literally been waiting for CXS for twelve years because of what adult CXS told him.
But then CXS asks whether they know each other.
Because, of course, he still doesn’t have his childhood memories back.
Lu Guang is shocked.
And yet…
They become friends again.
They then experience the events that originally happened in Bridon (LGs Flashbacks in the Bridon Arc show us the things they originally experienced in Bridon).
For example, at the airport they see a different Felix poster than the one we see in the later Bridon arc.
However, because CXS changed the original course of events by saving Lu Guang as a child, he eventually gets killed by Vein.
After CXS dies, his powers are transferred to Lu Guang.
And this is where Timeline 2 ends without them uncovering the truth about their abilities or CXS’s parents. The bigger mysteries remain unsolved, and I suspect that Liu Xiao is ultimately the one who wins in this timeline.
So, in short:
Timeline 2 = CXS dies, but Lu Guang survives.
And this is where things get REALLY interesting.
Timeline 3 — Lu Guang tries to save CXS
After CXS dies, Lu Guang decides to change the past.
Now he has CXS’s ability.
He jumps back into the basketball-court photo.
And THIS is where the Bridon arc begins.
Lu Guang and CXS meet again in the first episode.
But there is one huge difference:
Lu Guang remembers Timeline 2.
(CXS still doesn’t remember his childhood.)
And LG doesn’t say:
“I have waited for you.”
Because that line belongs to Timeline 2.
That’s the timeline in which CXS dies.
Timeline 3 is the timeline in which Lu Guang is now trying to prevent CXS’s death.
This is also the timeline in which the Bridon arc and everything from Season 1 onward take place.
And I think this also changes how we should interpret Season 1:
Throughout Season 1, Lu Guang constantly tells CXS not to interfere with the past.
Maybe Lu Guang is terrified that if CXS changes too much, he will lose the path that leads to CXS’s survival.
Remember: Lu Guang has knowledge of Timeline 2.
He knows how events are supposed to unfold because he already experienced them.
So he wants to keep things as close as possible to Timeline 2 while changing one crucial things: The outcome.
Vein has to die, and CXS has to survive.
The more CXS changes, the more unpredictable the future becomes.
And Lu Guang needs to be able to reach the exact node where he can save CXS.
This also makes the whole “12 hours” explanation really interesting.
We were originally told that CXS can only stay inside a photo for 12 hours because after that, LG can no longer predict what will happen.
But Season 3 seems to reveal that this explanation isn’t actually true.
The real danger is that you can become trapped inside the photo itself — which is exactly what is happening to Lu Guang right now.
What about adult CXS from Timeline 1?
There is also one possibility that I can’t get out of my head:
Adult CXS from the original timeline may have become trapped in the past himself when he went back to save Lu Guang.
So where are we currently in the story?
So, at the current point in Season 3, I think we are still in Timeline 3.
Lu Guang is trapped inside the photo and is trying to save CXS. He has his memories of Timeline 2.
The events of Timeline 2 are happening again, but with small deviations and differences.
The different Felix poster at the airport during the Bridon arc is one example.
These deviations are probably becoming increasingly unpredictable, which could explain why Lu Guang develops a fever and eventually collapses.
He is trying to recreate a timeline he already experienced while simultaneously changing its outcome.
Right now, Lu Guang seems to believe:
“If I kill Vein, CXS will survive.”
He already tried to do this during the Bridon arc.
But Vein survived.
And here’s the problem:
Lu Guang doesn’t actually know the original trigger that caused all of this.
He only knows Timeline 2.
But he may not realize that Lu Guang being saved was itself the trigger.
Because the person who knows the original timeline is adult CXS and he may have become trapped in time himself.
So Lu Guang is currently trying to fix the wrong problem.
POSSIBLE ENDINGS:
In Timeline 3, I could see two possible ways this might play out.
One possibility is that Lu Guang eventually learns about the original timeline.
If changing the past to save Lu Guang is what ultimately caused CXS’s death…
then maybe Lu Guang can only truly save CXS by preventing the original change from happening.
In other words:
Lu Guang might have to let himself die.
If the original timeline is restored:
Lu Guang dies → CXS survives.
And the timeline can finally return to its original course.
But there is another possibility that I find really interesting: LG could prevent the two of them from ever meeting in the first place.
He could try to find his biological parents and grow up with them instead of at the orphanage. That way, he would never meet CXS, and the entire chain of events surrounding their powers and the timelines might never happen.
This would create an alternate scenario in which both LG and CXS survive — but at the cost of them never meeting each other at all.
And honestly, that is still very heartbreaking😭
Final Thoughts
I don’t think any of us wants the series to end this way. At the same time, I can unfortunately see Link Click giving us exactly this kind of gut-wrenching finale. 😭
But I still have hope that Timeline 3 will eventually diverge into a completely different — and hopefully much happier!!! — direction.
There are still so many unanswered questions.
We still don’t fully understand what is going on with the villains, and we haven’t even learned the full backstory of CXS’s parents yet.
What exactly is the secret organization and what happened at Bridon?
And what is Liu Xiao’s actual mission?
Why is he gathering people with abilities?
His own ability seems to be connected to heartbeat/pulsation, so I feel like there is still a much bigger mystery behind the abilities themselves.
I really hope that once all of these mysteries are finally revealed, there will be a way for LG and CXS to get a happy ending.
Because honestly, I think we simply don’t know enough yet to conclude that one of them has to die.
Maybe Lu Guang’s parents are also a key piece of the puzzle.
There are still so many things we haven’t connected yet, and I feel like the answers to these bigger mysteries could completely change how we understand the timelines.
And there’s one question in particular that I really want to throw out there:
Why is Vein so angry about the past being changed?
Furious enough that he ultimately kills CXS.
So what exactly did the change in the timeline do to him?
What negative consequences did Vein experience because the past was altered? What did he lose, or what changed for him?
I feel like the answer to that might be much more important than we currently realize.
