Genius Club

Chapter 112: Chapter 108: Smiling Face

“Wait a second.”

Lin Xian became serious, staring at CC:

“Are you saying… tonight, a batch of water-damaged books will be delivered to Waste Treatment Plant No. 314, is this information reliable?”

“Of course, it’s reliable, have you forgotten?”

CC pinched the gadget in hand, resembling a Bluetooth earpiece, and shook it:

“This thing can monitor all of the waste treatment plants’ tasks, garbage truck routes, transportation schedules and the like at any time. How could it possibly be unreliable?”

“I check the worklist of the nearby waste treatment plants every day. I look very carefully and definitely won’t remember it wrong.”

“Waste Treatment Plant No. 314 is not far from here, and it’s in the same district as Tem Bank, so I also pay special attention to it every day. In their worklist last night, there was an entry about sending a dedicated garbage truck to collect water-damaged books.”

“Let me confirm it for you once more.”

Having said that, CC clipped the device resembling a Bluetooth earpiece to her left ear, and then her eyes became lifeless, focusing on a spot about twenty to thirty centimeters in front of her, her pupils flickering wildly as if operating something.

“Found it.”

CC’s pupils stopped flickering, staring into the air, and read to Lin Xian:

“I’ll just highlight the simple part, it says that a large bookstore in the east of the city had a water leak on the second floor leading to extensive water damage in the book area on the first floor. The related disputes and insurance have been settled. Now they’ve arranged for specialized waste transportation vehicles.”

“Time… let me check, Waste Treatment Plant No. 314 has scheduled four large garbage trucks to transport the water-damaged books… That means there must be a huge quantity of water-damaged books if they need four trucks to haul them all.”

“Departure time… the return to Waste Treatment Plant No. 314 is scheduled for 23:19. Okay, I remembered the time wrong. Since it gets to the garbage plant so late, I guess they haven’t started burning them yet.”

“But you’ve already missed the shift change for the supervisor today, and it would be too late even if you head to that waste treatment plant right now. Moreover…”

CC glanced over her shoulder and took a look at the supervisor in the garbage plant control room:

“Moreover, the question of how we escape from here is still an issue. I plan to hide somewhere here until the supervisor’s shift change tomorrow before making my escape. I don’t know what you have in mind.”

“I’m very grateful for your information, it really came just in time,” Lin Xian stood up:

“About the safe… if one day I manage to sneak into New Donghai City, I’ll go check it out for you.”

CC lifted her head, looking at Lin Xian with confusion:

“The second batch of garbage trucks is about to arrive, the safe will be brought over soon. What are you talking about?”

“It’s about time I left,” Lin Xian raised his wrist to check his watch.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

Boom!!!!@@novelbin@@

Boom!!!!

Boom!!!!

The bright white light of 00:42 arrived on schedule, incinerating everything in sight to ashes, illuminating everything, then returning to darkness.

…

…

“Phew…”

In a corner of the bedroom, Lin Xian took a deep breath and sat up.

He got out of bed, put on his slippers, and took a few sips of water from the cup on his desk.

The gains from this dream, Lin Xian was still very satisfied with.

Quite substantial.

Though CC’s identity and her relationship with Chu Anqing were still as enigmatic as ever, he had at least eliminated a few incorrect options, which cleared up a lot of his thoughts.

He still believed.

The copy-paste similarity between CC and Chu Anqing could not possibly be explained by coincidence.

But as for the specific reason, it depended on whether he could catch any clues in the future.

Considering CC’s obsession and her desperate attempt to open that safe…

[Could the answer to this question be hidden inside the safe?]

“From this perspective, I’m really looking forward to what’s inside that safe,” Lin Xian said.

Thud.

Lin Xian put the cup back on the desk and wiped the corner of his mouth.

Actually, all along.

Lin Xian hadn’t taken that safe too seriously.

After all, he had guessed the password so many times without success, and he wasn’t that curious about what was inside, so he often treated it like a side-task to handle when convenient.

If he got lucky, great; if not, no big deal.

That had always been his attitude towards the safe.

Far from CC’s level of obsession.

But now, at this moment, Lin Xian’s thoughts had changed, become a bit different.

Through the exchange of information with CC in the dream.

He realized that the safe seemed to hold numerous secrets… perhaps even more than he had imagined.

Including the relationship between himself and the big-bearded man, and between Chu Anqing and CC, the answers were probably hidden in that safe.

“It’s come full circle, back to the start again.”

Actually, Lin Xian was still eager to try today, excited to try the password 29990203.

After all, it was an admonishment from himself to his future self and also an ideological imprint he had set for himself.

Logically speaking, if his future self ever did set up the safe, he should certainly use this password. After all, it wouldn’t make sense to work against oneself… why make things difficult for oneself?

But unfortunately.

The heavens were not kind.

The hafnium alloy safe unloaded by the first batch of garbage trucks didn’t contain his safe, which was indeed disappointing.

More disappointing was…

The second batch of garbage trucks carrying his safe wouldn’t arrive at the garbage factory until 00:57, becoming Schrödinger’s garbage truck.

It seems to come, looks like it’s coming, but never arrives.

So.

“`

To open the safe with one’s own name on it, there was only one way to do it—

[Infiltrate New Donghai City during the day, find the now-defunct Tem Bank, and then open the safe that had not yet been taken away by the garbage trucks.]

“So, in the end, we have to infiltrate New Donghai City.” Lin Xian said.

“That’s fine, all the main tasks have now converged into one storyline, which makes them much easier to strategize.” Lin Xian responded thoughtfully.

“However, I still have to try my luck at the Waste Treatment Plant 314 tomorrow night.” Lin Xian sat in his chair, pondering.

He did indeed care very much about who the president of MX Company would be 600 years later…

This was a matter directly related to him.

It was also directly linked to Zhao Yingjun’s identity and stance, and it might be a powerful clue for delving deeper into the Genius Club investigation.

MX Company was so famous in New Donghai City that the entire city was built by it; Lin Xian felt that finding information about the company wouldn’t be difficult.

It should frequently appear in various newspapers, magazines, and books.

It was just that the people of New Donghai City generally did not read paper newspapers and magazines, which is why the Garbage Factory had come up empty.

“But Waste Treatment Plant 314 is different.” Lin Xian remembered CC’s words very clearly.

The second floor of a major chain bookstore had leaked water, causing a large area of the book section on the first floor to be water-damaged, which resulted in a large number of water-damaged books.

It would take no fewer than four large garbage trucks to transport them… so this batch of water-damaged books must count at least tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands.

Otherwise, why bother deploying four large garbage trucks?

Moreover, the bookstore carried a very diverse and wide range of books, including various magazines and periodicals, which were treasures for Lin Xian at the moment!

Finding information and history about MX Company in such a “fresh” sea of books should not be difficult.

As for whether he could find the book “Introduction to the Cosmological Constant” at Waste Treatment Plant 314, that would depend on luck.

The book sounded very niche.

It was hard to say whether it had been reprinted over the years; chain bookstores did not necessarily stock such items.

“Anyway, I’ll just try my luck.” Lin Xian yawned.

After using the bathroom and turning off the bedroom light, Lin Xian climbed back into bed.

Time to sleep.

…

The next day.

Lin Xian was awakened by a phone call from Gao Yang.

“Bro! Quick! Help me save face!” Gao Yang sounded anxious on the phone.

He told Lin Xian that he had arranged a high school reunion for the evening of the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, to be held at a big hotel near their alma mater, Hang City No.1 High School’s new campus.

But!

He had just sent out the notice in the class QQ group, yet no one had replied!

Not a single person!

For the past half hour, he had checked the class QQ group every minute, but not one person had responded!

As the class president, this was too embarrassing!

Face had to be salvaged!

“So Lin Xian, hurry up and log into QQ, and in our class group, give me a shout-out! Say that you will go! Say how much you miss everyone! They will surely respond for your sake!”

“What face do I have…” Lin Xian questioned.

“The founder of Rhein Cat, man! You might not be famous, but your cat is! Now, who doesn’t know about Rhein Cat? Isn’t that face enough? Go on, hurry! Don’t let me, the old class president, suffer this embarrassment, as if I’m so unpopular!” Gao Yang pleaded.

Helplessly,

Lin Xian had no choice but to redownload QQ.

After a troublesome struggle, he finally convinced Tencent that he was indeed himself and managed to log in.

Upon logging in, he received many spam messages from classmates with hacked accounts, then Lin Xian directly opened the high school class group chat.

There was only one message, the “Class Reunion Notice” sent by Gao Yang.

Indeed.

Half an hour had passed.

Not a single reply.

Lin Xian posted a message as per Gao Yang’s request:

“It’s been a long time, classmates, we should really get together! See you at home for the New Year!”

However…

After waiting several minutes, still no one replied.

Lin Xian dialed back Gao Yang:

“Give it up, nobody uses QQ anymore. Just use WeChat and find everyone one by one, you can surely gather everyone through those classmates you’re still close with.”

Gao Yang accepted the reality.

Ding dong!

Just as he hung up the phone, a QQ notification popped up.

Someone had replied in the QQ group.

Lin Xian opened the group chat—

“Sure, Lin Xian, I’ll definitely be there!”

An extremely unfamiliar name and avatar sent this message.

Behind it…

There was also a smiling face ^_^.

“`