Genius Club

This novel is translated and hosted on Bcatranslation

Lin Xian shrugged.

“Well, since my question was wrong, does that mean I get to rephrase it and ask again?”

But Einstein shook his head and smiled. “Rhine, you should know better than anyone else: a negative answer is still an answer. In fact, most of the questions geniuses ask are meant to be challenged. The point of asking is often to get a ‘no’ so they can prove their hypothesis.”

Lin Xian stayed silent. Einstein had been in the Genius Club for decades, and he understood the true purpose behind every question—just like the one Lin Xian had asked earlier.

If Lin Xian had only wanted to know the truth about the Millennial Stake or how to save Chu An Qing, he could have simply asked about Zhang Yu Qian and Chu An Qing directly. But instead, he used an uncertain fact from 1952 to test Einstein—to see if he could really see the future, or if he would lie.

The truth was, Lin Xian had started to doubt Einstein.

So, like Gauss, he wasn’t looking for a definitive answer. He wanted to set a trap—a question that might catch Einstein off guard, revealing a flaw.

Einstein certainly knew about Zhang Yu Qian and Chu An Qing turning into blue star fragments and fading away. And he knew that Lin Xian knew. They were both playing with open cards, so why pretend to deceive each other?

Instead, Lin Xian gave Einstein an opportunity—something from 1952 that was distant enough that he couldn’t verify it. Whatever Einstein said, Lin Xian would have to take at face value.

If Einstein refused to answer, it would mean the Millennial Stake was connected to him or the Genius Club itself. If Einstein answered honestly, Lin Xian would gain the truth he wanted. And if Einstein lied… Lin Xian could prove it, exposing a contradiction in Einstein’s vision of a “bright future.”

It was a question that, no matter the answer, would give him valuable information. And with the answers he got from Elon Musk, Lin Xian could piece everything together.

“Alright,” Lin Xian said, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back with a smile. “Let’s just call this a friendly chat, then. After all, I don’t want the Genius Club meetings to end just like that.”

“Everyone else has been asking you questions for years, but I’ve only been here for a few months. I barely got the chance to speak with you, and now… we might never meet again.”

He paused. “Actually, there’s one thing I’ve always wondered about—how can you be so sure that every future you see is real?”

Einstein, sitting across from him with his mask on, chuckled lightly. “Rhine, you know better than anyone that the future I see must be real. After all… if it weren’t, you wouldn’t have survived your first day in the Genius Club.”

Lin Xian couldn’t argue with that.

The first time he attended a Genius Club meeting, he had asked Einstein about his own death. Einstein gave a precise answer: 17 minutes and 21 seconds.

And it turned out to be true.

If Lin Xian hadn’t asked that question and had simply stayed home, Time Assassin No. 17 would have burst into his room and killed him. Based on the timing of that taxi pulling up to his apartment building, it would have taken roughly 17 minutes to reach him.

“But in the end, I survived,” Lin Xian continued, pushing further. “Which means that even if the future you saw was real at that moment, you yourself said the future isn’t set in stone. It can be changed by human actions.”

“Rewriting the future—that’s why the Genius Club exists and why we put in the effort we do. But what if, even after seeing a bright and perfect future, something changes? What if the butterfly effect kicks in and dooms humanity again? Are we supposed to regroup, hold more meetings, try to find the right path, and recover the bright future we lost? How many times can we keep going through this cycle?”

Lin Xian finished speaking, staring straight at Einstein, hoping to catch any small reaction that might give him insight.

But there was none. The old man remained as calm as ever.

Einstein slowly stood up, using his thin arms to push himself out of the leather chair. He looked down at Lin Xian, standing tall and composed.

“You’re overthinking this, Rhine,” he said. “The future will not change anymore. All possibilities have been exhausted. What we have now is…”

“The only future.”

With that, he made a gesture toward the door.

“The question-and-answer session is over. Rhine, you may leave now. As a member of the Genius Club, you’ve succeeded. You have no need to worry, doubt, or hesitate anymore. You’ve given humanity its most beautiful future—the title of savior is well-deserved.”

Lin Xian slowly got up from the chair. Einstein’s words were so firm and absolute.

It seemed… Einstein was confident. But Lin Xian was confident too.

He was glad he hadn’t asked directly about Zhang Yu Qian or Chu An Qing.

He didn’t believe the future couldn’t be changed. He didn’t believe Einstein’s claim that humanity’s future was locked in place.

If the future could really be fixed like that, then why did Yellow Finch sacrifice everything to come back to the past and teach him one last lesson? Why did Zhao Ying Jun become a white jade statue in Sky City, waiting for him for six hundred years? Why did Chu An Qing cry after touching the spacetime particles, yet still help him bravely?

They all fought so hard—all for the chance to change the future.

The meaning of the future is that it can be changed.

“Goodbye, Einstein,” Lin Xian said, turning and walking towards the golden hall outside.

When he reached the door, he looked back at the lonely, thin old man standing by the fireplace.

“Will we meet again in the future?”

This time, Einstein did not answer.

Lin Xian turned again and walked out, crossing the golden hall, pushing open the double doors, and stepping onto the soft, plush carpet.

He walked forward, eventually returning to the very place he first entered the Genius Club.

He raised his right hand, removed the VR headset, and returned… to reality.

The study was brightly lit, the Pomeranian VV’s snores came from the room next door, and a warm yellow light glowed from the kitchen, where hot milk was kept warm in a thermal box.

This was Zhao Ying Jun’s home. This was Lin Xian’s reality.

He walked into the kitchen, drank the hot milk, then returned to the study, ready to start thinking again.

“The chances of Einstein lying are low,” Lin Xian muttered, twirling a pen between his fingers. “You can’t fool so many brilliant minds just by lying. No one could keep up a deception for decades without being caught.”

“Instead…”

“Einstein might have seen a false future.”

He paused, his voice dropping even lower.

“But it’s hard to tell. The future Einstein saw wasn’t entirely false. Most questions asked by the Genius Club got accurate and truthful answers.”

“But when it comes to humanity’s fate and the final moments before the world’s end, what Einstein sees isn’t real.”

“Is it possible… that even Einstein was deceived? Could someone have hijacked his mind and fed him a fake future to mislead him?”

Lin Xian suddenly had an epiphany. It was possible.

If what Einstein saw was completely opposite to the truth, it meant that by following that misleading path, the Genius Club might only lead humanity further into destruction.

But what would be the point?

The Ninth Dream Lin Xian had seen showed that humanity seemed to be extinct. There were no aliens invading, no signs of war or conspiracy. Just extinction.

Why destroy humanity?

What would be the point?

“This is so confusing,” Lin Xian groaned, shaking his head. His thoughts felt more tangled than ever—like a jumbled ball of yarn, missing just one key thread to pull it all together.

What was that key?

“For now, I just need to try changing the future—make the timeline shift,” Lin Xian decided.

Einstein once said the future was set, that it couldn’t be changed. But Lin Xian wasn’t one to simply accept that. If he could shift the future, he’d prove Einstein wrong.

Lin Xian had spent so long searching the Ninth Dream—so long without any results—no people, no clues, no information. He realized there was no point in staying in that empty, useless dream any longer.

“I have to find a way to reach the Tenth Dream,” Lin Xian muttered, squinting his eyes in determination. Change meant progress. If nothing changed, they would be doomed. It was time to actively trigger a shift in the timeline.

The next day, Lin Xian took the 95% complete “Time Travel Machine Blueprints” to Liu Feng at the Rhine Joint Lab at Donghai University.

Liu Feng flipped through the blueprints on his computer, muttering in awe. “Genius, absolute genius! I can’t believe a human brain could come up with something like this. It’s not just once in a millennium—it’s a once-in-ten-thousand-years miracle!”

“That’s not important,” Lin Xian waved it off, urging Liu Feng to keep reading. “Can you fill in the remaining 5%?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Liu Feng replied, nodding confidently. “The core parts are described in detail, and the theory is solid. The last 5% is just the power module and energy transfer—we could use different options for that.”

Liu Feng’s expression darkened as he continued. “But the real problem is Astatine-339, an element that shouldn’t exist in our universe. From what you said, that comet from another dimension won’t reach Earth until 2234. So it doesn’t matter if we build the time machine tomorrow or two hundred years from now—it still won’t work.”

He pointed at the spacetime clock on his desk. “Even though we have the entangled spacetime particles, without the calibration module, the machine won’t function. That’s probably why the clock hasn’t moved and why the timeline hasn’t shifted.”

Lin Xian picked up the clock, turning it over in his hands. “So you’re saying that the anchor point hasn’t formed yet?”

Liu Feng nodded. “Seems that way. Without the comet in 2234, the time machine is just a pile of junk.”

But Lin Xian wasn’t convinced. He remembered something Einstein had said: “The future will not change anymore. All possibilities have been exhausted.”

Turning back to Liu Feng, Lin Xian spoke slowly. “Actually, there could be another reason. Maybe this timeline is so resilient that just creating a time machine isn’t enough to push it over the edge.”

Liu Feng blinked in surprise. “That’s one tough timeline—it’s not a spring; it’s a steel bar.”

After a pause, Liu Feng rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “But I guess it’s possible. If there’s some inevitable, overwhelming force in the future, then maybe nothing we do now will make a difference.”

“Exactly.” Lin Xian pulled up a chair and sat down. “That’s what I’m trying to say.”

Maybe Einstein was confident because he knew a super-catastrophe was coming in 2600—something that could wipe everything out. Of course, Einstein saw a thriving, highly advanced civilization, not a desolate Earth. But the principle was the same.

“There’s always a way to break through,” Lin Xian said, unwilling to give up. “If the time machine isn’t enough, then we’ll have to rely on Du Yao’s Brain Neural Electric Helmet. If that helmet works, we might be able to overcome the side effects of long-term hibernation. That could be enough to cause a major shift in the timeline.”

He stood, ready to leave for Du Yao’s lab. “You keep working on the blueprints. See if you can finish them,” he told Liu Feng before heading out.

Lin Xian took a car to Du Yao’s lab, where he found that progress was slow.

“Still working on it,” Du Yao said, shaking her head. Her hair was tied back, her lab coat spotless. “You need patience, Lin Xian. Science is like that—everyone can dream big, but making those dreams real is the challenge. Sometimes you need luck or a flash of inspiration.”

“I’m not rushing you,” Lin Xian replied. “I just wanted to see how things are going. Science doesn’t happen overnight. We’re already lucky to be standing on the shoulders of giants.”

For now, Lin Xian’s last hope lay with Du Yao. If her invention couldn’t cause a timeline shift, there really wouldn’t be any other way.

Time moved on. Lin Xian spent twelve hours a day dreaming, riding his motorcycle, exploring the Ninth Dream. But the more he searched, the more hopeless it felt. Dreams had always given him information and resources—even the Fourth Dream had offered him a way to break through.

But the Ninth Dream was different. With humanity extinct, there was nothing there to help him.

The Genius Club meetings were definitely over too. No matter what time he tried, even at midnight on the first of each month, his golden Genius Club badge yielded nothing. Einstein must have shut down the servers. There was no way to reconnect.

It was a terrible feeling—no information from the dreams, no way to shift the timeline, no contact with the other members of the Genius Club. It felt like he was at a dead end.

Autumn turned to winter. The bells of New Year’s Day, 2025, rang, and soon after, it was X Country New Year.

Zhao Ying Jun’s belly was getting bigger, and the time for little Yu Xi to be born was approaching. It was the only thing keeping Lin Xian going. Little Yu Xi was growing well, always moving inside Zhao Ying Jun.

“She’s got good genes for martial arts!” the ultrasound doctor joked, making Lin Xian and Zhao Ying Jun laugh.

When they got home, they started thinking about prenatal education.

“It’s better if she’s a bit calmer this time,” they agreed. “No more of the punch-and-kick types. Let’s play her some music—maybe she’ll grow up to be an artist or musician.”

February 1, 2025. Early morning. 12:42 a.m.

Lin Xian woke up from his dreams again. He’d spent another day riding his motorcycle, finding nothing. After three months of exploring the Ninth Dream, Lin Xian had come to accept humanity’s extinction there. But he still didn’t know how to save them or change anything.

There had been no progress on researching Universal Constant 42. Du Yao’s Brain Neural Electric Helmet had made no breakthroughs. Elon Musk was still searching for signs of Gauss, Newton, and Galileo but hadn’t found anything.

Everything was at a standstill.

Lin Xian sighed, getting up and going to his desk. He picked up a pen and started writing down each problem he faced:

“The major secret from 1952—can’t reach it without a time machine.”

“The comet in 2234—too far away to wait.”

“Cheng Qian reviving VV in 2482—even further, impossible to meet Cheng Qian.”

“Human extinction in 2624—can’t change it, can’t find the safe, no useful information.”

He clicked the pen shut, resting his head in his hands. Gradually, he fell asleep at his desk.

In the next room, with VV snoring beside her, Zhao Ying Jun woke up, feeling a kick from inside her belly. She rubbed her stomach, grumbling, “Little Yu Xi… just like your dad, awake all night.”

It really ran in the family.

She looked at the clock—3:21 a.m. But when she turned, Lin Xian wasn’t there. Surprised, she got up, put on her slippers, and went to the study, where the light was still on.

Inside, she found her husband asleep at the desk. She moved closer to wake him up, whispering, “It’s too cold to be sleeping here—you’ll catch a cold.” But then she saw the paper on the desk. The words he had written… she could see how much pressure he was under.

Quietly, Zhao Ying Jun bent down and hugged Lin Xian, feeling the chill in his body. “It’s okay…” she whispered softly, her voice full of warmth. “I’m here for you.”

This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation