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“Goodbye!” he yapped softly.

Once Lin Xian was out of sight, VV hurriedly carried his small dog bed back to Zhao Ying Jun’s bedroom, placing it in its usual spot beside her bed.

Evening.

VV’s eyes went wide. Lin Xian had returned! And he had a backpack with him again!

The small dog stared, his eyes almost popping out. “Hey, buddy, don’t you have your own home?”

Sure enough, Lin Xian carried VV’s little bed out and put it in the corner of the living room, giving the Pomeranian’s head a gentle pat.

“From now on, you’ll be sleeping here, alright?”

“Woof!” VV protested loudly. Why?! He had been here first! How had it come to this?

The next day…

The day after that…

VV sighed, finally giving in to the situation. He accepted the new reality, staying calm. Sure, he couldn’t sleep in the bedroom anymore, but at least the house was lively and warm now. Besides, he really liked Lin Xian, and Lin Xian was always kind to him.

Most importantly, Lin Xian seemed to have a lot of free time. He didn’t go to work, and despite sleeping in far too often, he never forgot to feed VV during the day, which was timely and quite nice.

However, every night, Lin Xian slept like a log—completely dead to the world. No matter how much anyone called out, he wouldn’t wake up, not even for VV to get his attention.

Yes, VV had tried.

Once, VV saw it with his own eyes. Zhao Ying Jun came home after work, changed her shoes and clothes, fed VV his kibble, and then went to the bedroom.

She didn’t even bother trying to wake Lin Xian. Instead, she sat by his side, smiling at his peaceful sleeping face. She even reached out and gave him a little poke to check if he was truly asleep.

Truthfully, there was no need for all that. VV had confirmed it many times before. As long as the bedroom door wasn’t locked, VV could jump up, bite the handle, and use his weight to push it open.

There were a few times when VV had been so hungry, and Zhao Ying Jun was working late, that he’d tried to wake Lin Xian to fulfill his duties. He’d jumped onto the bed, stood on Lin Xian’s chest, licked his face, even put a paw over his nose—once, he even flopped over Lin Xian’s face, trying to smother him awake.

Nothing worked. Lin Xian was like a lazy pig, utterly motionless. His face would turn bright red—almost purple—from the lack of air, and still, he wouldn’t wake up.

VV had given up. There was no point in fighting it. He knew he could still get his food eventually.

“Woof!” VV barked from the doorway, as if to let Zhao Ying Jun know there was no need to be so careful. Lin Xian wasn’t waking up anytime soon.

Zhao Ying Jun jumped in surprise, turning to scold VV as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have.

She walked over and, with a huff, shut the bedroom door.

Click. The lock turned.

VV tilted his head. “V?”

What was that for? Everyone in this house seemed to act so mysteriously, sneaking around as if there were secrets to be kept.

VV sighed again, slinking back to his own lonely bed and lying down.

To be honest, he missed that little girl who used to stay home and play with him every day. Where had she gone?

Would she come back? VV missed her terribly.

12:42 a.m.

On the right side of the double bed, Lin Xian’s eyes fluttered open.

“You’re awake?” Zhao Ying Jun’s voice came from the left side of the bed. She was sitting up, reading under the soft glow of the bedside lamp. She turned to look at him, her eyes soft.

“How did you sleep? Are you comfortable here at my place?”

Lin Xian scratched his head, sitting up slowly. “It was a good sleep, actually. But… I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something… strange about your room.”

“Strange?” Zhao Ying Jun’s brows furrowed slightly. “Don’t start telling ghost stories! You already scare me enough with that deep sleep of yours. There’s nothing strange about my room.”

“I don’t know.” Lin Xian looked puzzled. “It just feels like… like sometimes I’m experiencing sleep paralysis. My chest feels tight, and I can’t breathe properly. I don’t feel it in my dreams, but when I wake up, it’s like I’m suffocating. I must take deep breaths several times before I feel normal again.”

He shook his head. “But it’s probably nothing—just my imagination. Maybe it’s the heat during the day. It’s August now, after all, and it’s only getting hotter. Maybe I should turn the air conditioning up a bit during the day.”

Zhao Ying Jun smiled and gestured towards the right-hand nightstand. “I left a warm cup of milk there for you. I know you always wake up around this time, so I made sure to heat it up for you.”

Lin Xian turned his head to the nightstand. Sure enough, there it was—a steaming cup of milk. He smiled softly.

“You didn’t have to wait up for me,” he said gently, sitting up and reaching for the cup. “I wake up so late. It must be tough for you, staying up just to look after me.”

“You sleeping all day from noon until midnight isn’t healthy either, you know,” Zhao Ying Jun retorted, setting her book aside on the bedspread. “To be a hero, you need to at least stay healthy, right? Since your dreams seem to involve a lot of progress, why not take care of yourself while you’re awake too? Hot milk will help your stomach.”

Lin Xian nodded and took the cup in his hands. He drank deeply, the warmth of the milk filling his empty stomach. He sighed in comfort.

This was the first time, in a long time, that he had woken up to a warm cup of milk. Usually, at home, he’d just drink cold water straight from the bottle.

“How was it in the dream today?” Zhao Ying Jun asked.

“The same as before. Memorizing blueprints.” Lin Xian put the empty cup back on the nightstand and got out of bed. “We can talk more later. I need to get these blueprints down on paper before I forget.”

He slipped on his slippers and made his way over to the desk, nudging the mouse to wake up the computer. The screen flickered to life, revealing the CAD software that was already open. On the screen was the partial blueprint he had drawn the previous day. Tonight, he would continue adding to it.

Truth be told, memorizing blueprints was a lot harder than just memorizing theory. Engineering diagrams were not only varied, but also highly abstract and three-dimensional, which made them infinitely more difficult to commit to memory.

Recently, Lin Xian had been avoiding anything that could disrupt the timeline—avoiding any possibility of ruining things for Gao Wen, the time machine, or the blueprints they were trying to preserve.

In the earlier dreams, Lin Xian had spoken to Gao Wen, insisting they keep only the most vital parts of the blueprints. Anything that had to do with appearance, outer casing, or energy supply—those could be left for scientists in 2024 to figure out.

It was like designing a lighter.

You could make it in any shape or size depending on aesthetics or purpose, but the core mechanics were always the same. Once you understood the principle, you could make it however you liked, and it would still light up.

The same went for computers. The core parts were the CPU, motherboard, memory, and storage—how they were put together was up to the designers, as long as they functioned.

Gao Wen, the human emperor and an unparalleled genius, had quickly realized that, after his time-travel plan had failed, Lin Xian might just be the only one capable of saving them all. He threw himself into assisting Lin Xian with all he had.

Working with someone as smart as Gao Wen made things smooth—almost effortless. Not only did Gao Wen quickly gather all the necessary information, but he also provided Lin Xian with better memorization techniques, more efficient ways to enter dreams, and ways to ensure continuity in the blueprints.

Lin Xian dragged his mouse across the CAD screen, sketching out the details.

Tonight, it was just a tiny component of the time machine. And there were still countless small components like this left to draw.

Even with Gao Wen’s help in compressing the information, just the core blueprints alone would take three or four months to transcribe.

Completing the entire set of blueprints was impossible and unnecessary. Gao Wen’s city in the slums didn’t even have an electrical grid, while Lin Xian had access to modern infrastructure. By relying on the national grid, he could skip a lot of unnecessary steps.

Finally, he drew the last line and marked it up.

At last, Lin Xian stretched and looked over at Zhao Ying Jun, who was leaning against the headboard, wrapped in a blanket, wearing a nightgown, and sitting on the bed. She was still reading, waiting for him.

It was an English book, and it looked quite complex. Lin Xian squinted at the cover and saw that it was a book about general relativity—some sort of educational science text.

“Can you understand that?” Lin Xian asked.

“Of course I understand it.”

Zhao Ying Jun turned a page and continued browsing the content.

“But, just barely,” she admitted. “This book explains things in great detail, with lots of examples. I follow along with the author’s explanations, and I can grasp it. But that’s it—I can’t say I could take what I’ve read and make it my own. Still, the minds of those geniuses are really something else. It’s hard to imagine how they figured all this out, especially in those early days of physics.”

Lin Xian glanced at the nightstand. It was piled high with books, in both X Country and English, all of them scientific texts—some about time travel, some about quantum mechanics, astronomy, or the mysteries of the universe. All of them were newly bought by Zhao Ying Jun.

Obviously, all of it was for him.

“You don’t really need to study all this,” Lin Xian said. “I don’t even fully understand some of these areas.”

“Then that’s even more reason for me to learn,” Zhao Ying Jun said, turning another page.

“I wanted to learn this stuff because I wasn’t sure how I could help you. I don’t want to be a burden. I don’t want to hold you back. So, with that in mind, learning more is always the right choice. Since you said you don’t know much about the deeper layers of this physics stuff, then I’ll learn it. If I can grasp it, then it’s like you’ve learned it too—maybe I’ll even find a way to solve your problem in an area you don’t know.”

“You keep saying you feel like your invitation to the Genius Club was some kind of cheat, but I don’t think that’s true. If the Genius Club is as impressive as it sounds, and everyone there has made it on their own merit, then if you got an invitation, you deserve it.”

“A genius has to be unique—they have to stand out, break the mold. If everyone follows the same path, puts in the same effort, they’re just regular students. I’ve never heard of a true genius being created by exams alone.”

Lin Xian smiled faintly at Zhao Ying Jun, who was staying up late studying for his sake.

“You know, I feel like you’re perfect for the Genius Club,” he said. “Maybe Yellow Finch was right to give you that invitation. Like you said, just getting one shows you have what it takes—there’s no such thing as a fake invitation or cheating your way in.”

He paused and added, “But look—I don’t have a job, and I can sleep whenever I want, so staying up late is fine for me. You, on the other hand, have work in the morning. If you keep staying up this late, it’s going to affect your health. From now on, don’t wait up for me. Just go to sleep when you get home from work. I’ll be at this time machine blueprint for months, at least—I’ll be on a ‘sleep at noon, wake at midnight’ schedule.”

“Ha.” Zhao Ying Jun chuckled and folded the corner of her book, placing it on the nightstand. She crossed her arms and looked at him.

“That’s not what you said the other night.”

“What did I say?”

“You said you were going to bring Yu Xi back home,” she said, raising an eyebrow at him. “I was looking forward to it… and now?”

She huffed. “This is it?”

…

Donghai City. Sewer. Noon. August 28th, 2624.

Lin Xian, CC, and Xu Yi Yi were running through the dark sewer, heading out of the city to find Gao Wen in Sin City.

CC looked back, puzzled. She eyed Lin Xian at the back of the group, who was breathing heavily.

“Are you sick?”

“Huh?” Lin Xian held his side, looking up. “No, I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know…”

CC squinted at him, looking him up and down.

“You seem weaker than you did in the last few memory fragments. You used to be so agile, running fast and jumping high, never out of breath. What’s going on?”

“Something happened?” she pressed. “What have you been busy with lately?”

“Busy memorizing blueprints,” Lin Xian said wearily. “It’s exhausting. Worse than studying in school. And the difficulty’s through the roof this time—the requirements are really strict. Blueprints aren’t like theory or principles; you can’t mess up even a little. With theory, you can be slightly off and still make sense. Even with formulas, you might copy a number wrong, but the overall logic can help you fix it. Blueprints, though, leave no room for error.”

CC nodded thoughtfully. “That does sound tough. I wish I could help.” She turned back, keeping pace with Xu Yi Yi. “But for me, today’s just one day—a unique, one-time experience. I can’t travel to the past, so there’s not much I can do.”

“It’s okay.” Lin Xian waved his hand. “I’ll handle it myself.”

…

Sin City. Underground laboratory. Beside the time machine.

Gao Wen had the engineering blueprints ready for Lin Xian to memorize. They laid them out on the table for him to study after confirming their plan.

Lin Xian had a sudden thought—a question that needed an answer.

The development of the time machine seemed far off. But…

When, exactly, did Copernicus steal the entangled time-space particle from himself in both the 0.0000000 and -0.0000042 timelines?

Specifically, in the 0.0000000 timeline, Copernicus stole the particle from Elon Musk. At the time, the particle must have been in a charged state.

In April of 2024, when Elon Musk visited X Country with Angelica, Copernicus tried to steal the particle using Angelica.

Though he failed, it proved that Copernicus was aware of the importance of the particle then.

After that, Elon Musk destroyed it, rendering it useless.

From then on, the small refrigerator holding it sat unguarded in Liu Feng’s lab, but no one tried to steal it.

They had all been fooled—even Liu Feng and Lin Xian thought the uncharged particle was worthless. So naturally, Copernicus and Elon Musk must have thought the same.

In 2024, several Genius Club members knew about the time-space particles. But those who knew about the entangled one were few—likely only himself, Elon Musk, and Copernicus.

And of those, who knew that the “dead” particle had been recharged? Perhaps only himself.

The logic was clear: if Elon Musk had known the particle could be recharged, he wouldn’t have given it to Lin Xian. He’d have either kept it or sent it into space to prevent anyone else from getting it.

If Copernicus had known, he would have stolen that small fridge from the lab.

Considering that there was a mole near Elon Musk, it was safe to assume that Copernicus knew everything.

But even so, the entangled particle stayed untouched in Liu Feng’s lab—like no one cared about it.

Lin Xian needed to figure out when Copernicus would steal the particle.

At the very least, Copernicus would have to realize its value and that it could be recharged first.

“Gao Wen,” Lin Xian asked, “In your opinion, when will humanity realize that time-space particles can be recharged?”

“It’ll be tough for anyone to realize that,” Gao Wen replied, shaking his head. “If you hadn’t told me, I would never have guessed. There’s no evidence that they can be recharged.”

He looked curious. “How did you figure it out, anyway? Was there a specific clue?”

Lin Xian recalled something Liu Feng had said and repeated it.

“A scientist I know measured the energy of two exhausted particles. He found a slight difference between them, so he theorized that, like voltage or potential difference, the energy was reversible.”

Gao Wen frowned, thinking it over. He shook his head.

“That’s a pretty irresponsible guess—it doesn’t prove anything. I’d say your scientist friend just got lucky.”

Lin Xian laughed awkwardly. Liu Feng was exactly that kind of person—someone who treated arithmetic sequences like profound truth and somehow stumbled on the right answer through a baffling process.

In other words, the steps were all wrong, but the answer was right.

Maybe that was Liu Feng’s greatest talent.

But in scientific research, a bit of luck was indispensable. Experience was useful with known phenomena, but with unknowns, luck mattered more than anything.

“Let me ask differently,” Lin Xian said. “If we ignore my friend’s guess, realistically, when would humanity discover that the particles can be recharged?”

“Probably only after we invent the time machine and complete a successful time-travel experiment,” Gao Wen answered without hesitation. “Even with decades of research, neither Big Cat Face’s father Chen Heping nor I considered recharging particles. Even if we’d had two uncharged particles, we might never have figured it out. But if we had data from an actual time-travel experiment, we could make that guess.”

Lin Xian rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

It seemed Copernicus might not realize the particles could be recharged until after a successful time machine test. Optimistically, it would be around the time Gao Wen mentioned—when the time machine was invented in 2234.

Still, he couldn’t let his guard down. Copernicus might learn it early on from Genius Club discussions.

Once he knew the particle was valuable, even in a “dead” state, the little fridge in Liu Feng’s lab would become a prime target.

Lin Xian had to hide it. But where?

Honestly, nowhere seemed safe enough.

Time-space particles could be detected—with the right device, even hiding it in a deep-sea volcano wouldn’t help.

This was a headache. Hiding it in Time Bank’s vault or a national secret storage wasn’t foolproof either.

Elon Musk had a mole, so what guarantee was there that Copernicus wouldn’t bribe or turn the storage staff?

“No.” Lin Xian shook his head. “I have to handle this myself.”

The best solution was still what he had thought before—use the particle for time travel, drain it completely, and be done with it.

If only Astatine-339 could be more cooperative—they couldn’t observe it until 2077, and it wouldn’t reach Earth until 2234.

He had to think of another way. “Maybe Einstein can give me an answer I’ll be happy with.”

A few days later, August 1st, 00:20 a.m.

Zhao Ying Jun looked into the study, where Lin Xian sat in a mahogany chair, leaning back and fiddling with a VR headset.

“You going to that meeting now?” she asked.

Lin Xian nodded. “We aren’t allowed to make noise during the meeting, and all electronic devices have to be silent. I’ll leave my phone with you. If there’s a call or something urgent, just come in and squeeze my hand.”

Zhao Ying Jun nodded, took his phone, and left the study, closing the door.

Bang.

The door closed.

Lin Xian put on the VR headset and held the Genius Club’s golden badge in his right hand, taking a deep breath.

“Time for the Genius Club’s second meeting… I wonder what questions my fellow geniuses have in store for us this time.”