Genius Club

Chapter 99: Chapter 96 Another Approach (Additional update for alliance leader Singing and Dancing Ancient!)

Boom!!!!!

Boom!!!!!

Boom!!!!!

In those smiling eyes, the white light of 00:42 arrived with a bang, incinerating everything.

…

…

…

In the corner of his bedroom, Lin Xian opened his eyes.

He did not get out of bed.

His gaze was fixed on the ceiling light above the white ceiling, unlit… as if those faintly smiling crescent moons still lingered before his eyes.

“CC.”

Lin Xian whispered softly.

He couldn’t tell if it was the taste of reunion, or the sense of security of meeting an old friend in a foreign land.

In any case.

He had seen CC again.

The future world of the second dream had indeed changed, and the change was significant.

Many things had changed, and many things had not.

He did not know how to explain this from the perspective of the Space-time Law, or perhaps… all these “laws” and “rules” were hidden within those yet-to-be-detected Space-time Laws?

Actually, it was not hard to guess the reason why CC appeared at the Waste Treatment Plant.

Because her goal had always been the same…

It was still “to open the safe with Lin Xian’s name on it.”

“Truly faithful to her original aspiration, so persistent in every dream,” Lin Xian thought.

This was enough to show that the safe was not just a matter of curiosity or a desire to know the truth for CC.

She must have some special past,

Some unique experiences,

Some special stories,

So much so that she was prepared to stake her life, just to open that safe.

But…

How did she know for sure that those safes would appear in this Garbage Factory tonight?

Lin Xian scratched his head.

Whether it was her posing as Lee Ningning, or her timely use of Big Face Cat and Er Zhuzi’s human ladder, everything was premeditated, prepared, and planned.

Therefore.

Unlike Big Face Cat and the others.

CC must have control over some information related to New Donghai City, which is how she knew for certain that the safes would appear at the Garbage Factory tonight.

“Also, there’s one more thing…”

Lin Xian recalled the words CC said through her smile as she took off her mask, just before the white light at 00:42 arrived:

“It really is you!”

That tone carried the warmth of an old acquaintance reuniting after a long separation.

This meant that for the second dream’s CC, Lin Xian’s face was very familiar, something she had seen before.

This was intriguing…

And even somewhat terrifying.

Lin Xian flipped off the blanket and sat up.

Where had CC seen him?

Logically, in the second dream, this should’ve been their first encounter, and she shouldn’t be familiar with his face.

But why…

Would the second dream’s CC say something like “It really is you!”?

So, if we reason backwards.

If she could say that sentence, it means that CC must have truly seen his face somewhere before.

A chill came over him.

Could it be…

“In the second dream, there’s another man who looks exactly like me?”

This…

Lin Xian scratched his head, the thought deeply unsettling.

Even though the idea was incredible, considering CC and Chu Anqing’s precedent… it wasn’t far-fetched!

“Forget it, forget it… After entering the dream tomorrow, just go straight to CC and ask her,” Lin Xian decided.

Instead of guessing wildly here on his own.

It would be better to connect with CC earlier in the next dream, reveal his identity, and directly ask her everything.

Lin Xian had too many questions for CC…

including whether she and Chu Anqing were actually the same person,

when exactly she had seen him,

and information about New Donghai City.

“There are many mysteries around CC, but understanding these mysteries is very valuable and necessary,” Lin Xian thought.

Lin Xian stood up and stretched languidly.

He had been dreaming for such a long time this time…

From around five or six in the afternoon, he had slept straight through to 00:42 in the early morning, and now he felt very refreshed, without a hint of drowsiness.

Honestly speaking, the gains from entering the dream this time were significant, an absolute explosion of intelligence and information that clarified many things.

If he had to say what the biggest gain was, it would definitely be the universal constant 42.

“Big Face Cat’s father studied ‘Introduction to the Cosmological Constant’ for so many years without any issues. Yet, soon after calculating the number 42, he was taken away by the people of New Donghai City.”

“So… this number is definitely not simple.”

Just as he had considered before.

The Genius Club killed Xu Yun but showed no interest in his research results.

But with Big Face Cat’s father, they were not merely intent on killing, they even abstained from leaving behind a single scrap of paper.

Lin Xian felt that if it weren’t for the fear of startling the snake and revealing their goal, the people from the Genius Club would probably have wished to burn down Big Face Cat’s father’s house.

But they certainly wouldn’t do that.

Now the entire village knows about Big Face Cat’s father constantly muttering, “42 is everywhere.” If you burn down his house now, it’s as obvious as ‘thieves leaving signs of their guilt,’ as if you were afraid that others wouldn’t know why you burned it.

That’s not the Genius Club’s style at all. Staying hidden, concealed, and not exposing themselves is their primary objective.

At present…

As for the mystery of the number 42, Lin Xian didn’t have a clue and would need to continue exploring in the follow-up.

Luckily, now he had not only connected with Big Face Cat, but also joined Lee Cheng’s team.

In The Second Dreamland, Big Face Cat and Lee Cheng had become allies for justice, striving by all means to steal history and knowledge from New Donghai City.

This was quite comforting.

Even though Lin Xian, Big Face Cat, and Lee Cheng had been fighting and killing for many years.

But that was all history from The First Dreamland. In The Second Dreamland, everyone had become fresh allies with a common purpose.

Unfortunately…

This trip to the garbage dump neither uncovered the ‘Introduction to the Cosmological Constant’ nor ‘The Materials of MX Company’.

“Trying to find these two books from the Garbage Factory is simply too difficult, like looking for a needle in a haystack,” he thought.

Lin Xian decided that after the next dream entry, he would first connect with CC to see if he could get some intelligence on infiltrating New Donghai City. It seemed more reliable to look for the two books there.

On thinking of New Donghai City, the image of the MX Twin Towers Building, like a Sea-Calming Divine Needle, immediately surfaced in Lin Xian’s mind.

This was also a fact that surprised Lin Xian the most in The Second Dreamland… even more so than the universal constant 42.

Because the universal constant and the Genius Club’s business were, frankly speaking, very distant from him and lacking a sense of reality.

But the MX Company was different.

He had been working there for more than half a year, even reaching the Vice President level.

And now, to suddenly learn that MX Company hadn’t closed down over 600 years and had grown even stronger, becoming a supergiant that could single-handedly construct a Steel Sci-fi City, was truly hard to accept.

Lin Xian found his emotions indescribable.

Moreover, there was one more horrifying thought that kept nagging at him…

Could it be…

[The CEO of MX Company 600 years later, could it still be Zhao Yingjun?]

“Also, the establishment of the Steel Sci-fi City, New Donghai City, is another mystery,” he thought.

Lin Xian twirled his pen, eyes closed deep in thought.

Why was there a need to build such a high-walled, isolated city?

And why was it MX Company that constructed this city?

What about the other cities like New Imperial Capital City and New Hangzhou City… What were their situations?

The world of The Second Dreamland still held many pieces of information waiting for him to explore.

But it was undeniable that the appearance of CC was an unexpected breakthrough.

Lin Xian truly hadn’t expected to see CC in The Second Dreamland… Although he had hoped for it, intuitively, he felt that with the world being so vast, it was highly unlikely for such a coincidence to happen.

And yet… many things are inexplicable, just happening to align that way.

As if there were certain inevitabilities and focal points within time and history. These focal points, like threading needles… weave the future world into a new tapestry on some fundamental level.

Lin Xian hypothesized.

That safety deposit box with his name on it… might have already existed in history for a very long time.

And precisely because its material was durable enough, it had survived 600 years of history without wear and tear, loss, and still looked as new as before.

“It’s also possible… that the safety deposit box was built not long after the year 2023 that I’m currently in.”

“Perhaps I deposited something in the box a few years later or even a decade later and set the password myself.”

Lin Xian once again spun the pen between his fingers, pondering over this possibility.

It was not beyond the realm of possibility.

But if it were truly a safety deposit box that his future self had stored something in and set the password for, then the password shouldn’t be so difficult to guess.

We’re all the same person after all, why make it difficult for oneself?

The password should have been something easy and related to himself, even if it wasn’t his most commonly used 19990320.

“If this safety deposit box really is something that my future self put something in and set a password for… there actually is one method that could work as a way to reverse-engineer the password,” he thought.

Lin Xian looked down at the white paper on the desk that listed all his summaries of what he had gained.

He put aside this piece of paper and then picked up a brand new sheet.

He decided…

[To write a letter to his future self!]