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The surprise on his face quickly faded, replaced by a bitter smile. “This is impressive. Truly impressive,” he said. “I must admit, kids, this time… you actually managed to fool me. It seems that, sometimes, old age really does catch up with you.”

His eyes showed a touch of resignation. “I’m not as sharp as I was in my youth—unable to see through everything or think through every outcome.”

The old man leaned forward, trying to push himself up with his frail arms.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Lin Xian acted swiftly, shooting four precise shots—one at each of the old man’s elbows and knees. The shots were quick, the result of years of experience in his dream battles.

The gun Elon Musk had given Lin Xian was a large caliber, highly destructive. Four bursts of crimson sprayed out. The old man stumbled back into his chair, his thin arms severed below the elbows, leaving fragments on the ground. His left knee shattered, and his lower leg hung at an awkward angle.

“Ah… Aghh…”

His face turned crimson from pain, teeth clenched, unable to scream properly. Blood flowed freely.

Lin Xian had noticed something earlier—buttons on both sides of the swivel chair. He didn’t know what they were for, but from his years of battle in his dream world, he knew never to give the enemy a chance. Just like when he took out Kevin Walker—mercy to an enemy was cruelty to oneself. Allowing an enemy even one more word could mean giving them another chance to strike back.

“Copernicus,” Lin Xian stepped forward, his cold gaze locking onto the now limbless old man.

“As much as I’d love to settle things properly, every second you keep breathing is an insult to the departed.”

Lin Xian raised the large-caliber pistol, pressing it firmly against the old man’s forehead.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

One shot. Another. Then another.

Each name of a fallen loved one flashed through Lin Xian’s mind—Xu Yun, Tang Xin, Yellow Finch, Yu Xi—as he squeezed the trigger, each shot filled with pain and rage.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The old man’s head exploded like a watermelon, but even the sight of it couldn’t fully release Lin Xian’s pent-up sorrow and anger.

Click. Click.

Lin Xian kept pulling the trigger until the gun clicked empty. Only when the barrel became scorching hot, and the trigger softened did he finally lower the weapon.

The old man was now a headless corpse in the chair. Blood and brain matter splattered everywhere, even breaking apart the chair’s backrest. Bits of his skull were lodged in the wreckage—completely unrecognizable.

In the vast underground base, only the sound of dripping blood and the three of them breathing filled the silence.

“Letting him die like that… it was too easy for him,” Angelica muttered, stepping forward.

She discarded her red-framed glasses and removed her wig, standing side by side with Lin Xian as they looked at the gruesome sight before them.

“I’ve seen him before,” she said softly. “When I was a child, I saw him talking to Ji Xin Shui. He wasn’t this old then, but I never forget a face due to my almost photographic memory. I can remember facial details just from a single glance.”

She looked at Lin Xian. “I’m certain it’s him. It must have been about twenty years ago. He and Ji Xin Shui definitely met, but I have no idea what they talked about.”

Lin Xian pulled out his phone, glancing at the top right corner—no signal. This deep underground, it wasn’t surprising.

He had specifically instructed Liu Feng that if there were any changes to the time-space clock, any fluctuations in the timeline, he should inform him immediately. But now… he imagined Liu Feng would be yelling at him again for missing another call.

Lin Xian had anticipated this confrontation—he, Elon Musk, and Angelica against Copernicus—fully prepared for a timeline shift. Although they hadn’t yet finished copying the blueprints for the time-travel machine, building it had always been about destroying the entangled time particles—preventing Copernicus from stealing them and sending assassins from the future.

If they could kill Copernicus now, that would remove the root of the problem. Whether or not the machine was ever built wouldn’t matter as much.

Time travel had never truly interested Lin Xian. It wasn’t fear of the unknown that held him back—it was the uncertainty of being able to return. He had seen no successful cases of someone returning to their original timeline. Neither Lin Yu Xi nor Number 17 had made it “home” due to the changes in the timeline.

That made him wary. Especially now, with Ying Jun and their child on the way. Next year, they would be a complete family—he would be a husband and a father. The thought of traveling back in time, only to be stuck due to some mishap, terrified him. One wrong step, and he’d be lost forever.

So, killing Copernicus would be enough. Whether or not the machine was built, he would have no regrets.

Lin Xian put his phone away and looked at Angelica. “So, it’s confirmed—that was Copernicus?”

“No doubt about it,” she said.

Elon Musk stepped closer, nodding. “Both Angelica and I have spoken to Copernicus on the phone. The voice matches perfectly. Besides, our plan was flawless, and we didn’t slip up anywhere. You even used the real entangled time particles as bait. I can’t see where we could have gone wrong.”

“Neither can I,” Lin Xian said, shaking his head. “The plan was perfect, but…” He bit his lip, the rest of his thoughts left unsaid.

Something feels off.

First of all, everything had gone too smoothly. It wasn’t a logical problem—not every fight in life had to be challenging, with twists and turns. But still, killing Copernicus had felt almost… unreal, like it had been too simple.

He should have felt happy. After all, he’d avenged his friends, killed his enemy. But the uneasy feeling wouldn’t leave him, like he was forgetting something crucial.

Then, there was the mysterious old man in his fourth dream—he looked and sounded different from the Copernicus they’d just killed. Until today, Lin Xian had never actually heard Copernicus’s voice. Elon Musk and Angelica had spoken to him, but Lin Xian had nothing to compare it to.

The voice from the Genius Club was linked to virtual avatars. You could make your avatar any age, and the voice would match. Newton, for example, sounded young and vibrant, even though he was definitely old. Da Vinci was the same—she had a bright, young voice, though she was probably a grandmother.

Lin Xian had never taken the Genius Club’s appearances seriously. His voice there wasn’t his own either—the system altered it, making him sound like a gentle middle-aged man.

But hearing Copernicus’s real voice today—something wasn’t right. Lin Xian believed that future technology could alter appearances, but changing a person’s voice entirely?

The mysterious old man from his fourth dream, and the one he’d just killed, might both enjoy dry chuckles, but their voices were different—clearly not the same person. Unless someone could change their voice along with their face, the two were not the same.

There couldn’t be two Copernicuses in the world… right?

That was the second problem.

Lastly, there was the old man’s physical state. He was much weaker than Lin Xian had imagined—frail, barely holding on, at death’s door.

Could such a man truly survive another two centuries, to wake up stronger and continue thriving?

It wasn’t that Lin Xian didn’t believe in science—he did. It was precisely because he believed in it that he found it hard to imagine.

Perhaps in a future hundreds of years from now, technology will let a healthy young person live a few extra decades; but for someone already frail, with all their bodily functions failing… how could you possibly bring them back to life, bursting with energy?

From that perspective, Lin Xian truly doubted that this dying old man could ever have a second shot at life. Not in any way that mattered.

Moreover, as it stood, there was simply no way to avoid the memory loss that came with hibernation. Copernicus, if he wanted to make it two hundred years without losing his memories, would have to wake up for half a year every decade, just to keep his mind intact. But that kind of on-and-off hibernation was terribly harsh on the body.

For someone in his condition, Lin Xian guessed, the old man wouldn’t make it past the first decade.

And if he did forget everything, and just woke up two hundred years later… Would a few notebooks and recordings really be enough for him to remember who he was and stay true to himself?

In that future world, countless people had told Lin Xian: human memory is vast, intertwined with emotion. A couple of journals and video clips could never truly bring someone back to themselves.

It was a paradox.

So many things were, really.

…

Elon Musk seemed to sense Lin Xian’s hesitation, and clapped him on the shoulder.

“I know what you’re thinking. It does all seem a bit too smooth, but… why should that be a bad thing?”

“What, is it only natural for the enemy to wipe us out effortlessly, and if our plan actually goes well, then it’s a trap? That’s some twisted logic.”

“Sure, Copernicus is tricky—no one’s saying he isn’t. But we’re no pushovers either. If you hadn’t tipped me off about the mole… we wouldn’t have had the chance to turn the tables on him, would we?”

“And as for there being no security here, Lin Xian, that’s perfectly reasonable. Copernicus is so cautious—why would he let anyone know where he was hibernating? Honestly, I wouldn’t even be surprised if, if today it really was just my secretary and a body double, Copernicus wouldn’t have let them walk out alive.”

“Wait, look what I found.”

Angelica had been searching through the old man’s clothes and now pulled out a golden badge. On the front, it bore the Genius Club insignia—proof of membership and a key to their meetings.

Lin Xian took it, examining it carefully.

“It’s real. At least, I can’t see anything off about it. Looks just like mine.”

Elon Musk took it from him and looked it over.

“Real or fake, we’ll have to cut it open to be sure. Back when I had my double playing games in the office with VR glasses, I actually made a fake badge too. Unless you cut it open, you’d never tell the difference.”

“Honestly, I thought my secretary might use that badge to confirm my identity before trying to kill me. I was all prepared for it. But either she was overconfident, or maybe Copernicus didn’t trust her enough yet… He never told her about the golden badge.”

…

Listening to Elon Musk and Angelica’s analysis, Lin Xian nodded slightly. As things stood, there were still a lot of doubts, sure. But there was also plenty of evidence pointing to the fact that this old man really was Copernicus.

“Anyway, let’s get back to the surface,” Lin Xian said, closing the small fridge containing the entangled time-space particles and holding it close to his chest. He was still curious to know how Liu Feng’s readings were going, how many world lines had shifted.

Elon Musk moved to the computer in the underground base and started typing.

“I’ll have my team take over this place. Whether they find useful intel or manage to absorb some of the tech, it’s worth it. We can’t leave empty-handed after coming all this way.”

With that, the three of them left, winding through the passage until they emerged back into the castle above.

Lin Xian took out his phone, watching as the signal bars in the top-right corner shifted from “No Service” to full strength.

He braced himself for a barrage of missed calls, WeChat messages going off like crazy, and Liu Feng probably yelling his head off.

But instead…

Surprisingly.

The phone, now back in range, was calm as a still lake. Not a single ripple—no messages, no calls.

“Huh?”

Lin Xian frowned. That wasn’t right. Liu Feng should be glued to that time-space clock. And at this hour, in this country, there was no way Liu Feng would be asleep.

Maybe the phone was acting up?

Confused, Lin Xian dialed Liu Feng’s number.

“Hello? Are you in the lab?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

Liu Feng sounded like he never slept, always on call.

“Has the time-space clock changed at all?”

There was the sound of footsteps on the other end, and Liu Feng’s voice came back, calm.

“Nope. Still at 0.0000168. Compared to that chaos on July 1st, these past two months have been incredibly stable.”

“Weird,” Lin Xian muttered, genuinely puzzled. Copernicus was a big deal. How could his death not even make the time-space clock budge a little?

He was a menace to humanity. His death, even if it didn’t drastically alter humanity’s future… should’ve at least shifted the time-space curvature by 0.0000042, right?

Lin Xian frowned, feeling that something wasn’t adding up. Since the time-space curvature and world lines hadn’t changed, there were only four possibilities:

Copernicus’s death was insignificant—not even enough to break through the elasticity of time-space.

His death was already predetermined on the 0.0000168 world line. Since this was Da Vinci’s future, it didn’t matter when Copernicus died.

They hadn’t actually killed Copernicus; they’d killed the wrong person.

Copernicus was dead, but he wasn’t just one individual—maybe he was two people, or a whole group… So even if one Copernicus died, it didn’t affect their overall future plans.

Here they were again, with a familiar four-way choice. Which answer was it?

Lin Xian hung up and walked over to the castle wall, staring out at the distant horizon.

It was infuriating.

He was talking about Copernicus. Dead, but still managing to cause trouble. Killed, yet still making everyone uneasy, still getting under people’s skin.

To Angelica and Elon Musk, the evidence they had was enough to prove that the old man who just died was the infamous Copernicus.

Lin Xian didn’t deny it.

He just couldn’t find definitive proof.

Right now, the most pressing thing is figuring out if Copernicus truly is dead.

But how could they prove it?

With that old man’s death, every lead—everyone in the world who had anything on Copernicus—was gone.

Copernicus had vanished, evaporated from both history and the future.

“Wait a second…”

No, that wasn’t quite right.

Lin Xian blinked, his gaze following the flow of Lake Brienz as it stretched eastward, winding endlessly.

A long river.

It was like a river of history.

So very long, stretching on and on.

Even from now, in 2024, all the way to the distant endpoint in 2624, it spanned six hundred years.

Six hundred years.

It sounded casual when you said it, but it was an absurdly long stretch of time.

The breeze from the grasslands brushed against him as Lin Xian watched the waters of Lake Brienz trickle eastward. The lake had been here for at least six hundred years.

Would it care about one particular rainstorm in one particular year? Would it care about a flock of sheep stopping by for a drink one day?

Of course not, just like that six-hundred-year river of history.

At that moment, Lin Xian truly understood the future plans of the Genius Club members, and the battles between them spanned hundreds of years.

A game that lasts six hundred years—why bother over a few years, or a few decades?

If you considered the futures these geniuses were envisioning, the plans they were setting into motion, all of it lay centuries ahead. So who held a slight advantage in 2024, who was a step ahead—it was all meaningless.

Because the real battleground of this game wasn’t in 2024. It was in that distant future!

And with that in mind, the first thing these geniuses had to do was figure out how to survive long enough to see that future and complete their plans.

Staying alive was the only way to play. Longevity was the real key.

So then—how could you quietly lurk in the river of history, gathering strength, and wait for the perfect moment to leap out and secure victory?

Suddenly, Lin Xian remembered something he’d once said to Ji Xin Shui in the interrogation room, a lie he used to trick him:

“Ji Xin Shui, do you know why the Genius Club has managed to hide so well in the river of history, leaving no trace?”

“It’s because… the members of the Genius Club are history itself. They’ve already fused themselves with history, separated from the real world, so of course they leave no trace.”

“Any living person will leave a mark on history. But the dead are different… The dead don’t attract attention; they leave no real mark on this world. That’s how they can hide themselves, hide their organization within the river of history, subtly plucking the strings of the future.”

“Your final exam is to disappear from reality. To use a grand deception—a ‘fake death’—to completely erase yourself, silently influencing time and destiny.”

Lin Xian took a deep breath.

Those words had been pure nonsense, made up to get Ji Xin Shui to confess and accept the death penalty.

Any of the other Seven Deadly Sins would never have believed Lin Xian’s lies.

But Ji Xin Shui, paranoid and arrogant, took them to heart. He went willingly to meet his death, eagerly awaiting Copernicus’s applause.

Hiding within the river of history…

Plucking the strings of the future…

It had been a lie, just something he came up with off the top of his head.

But now, the more he thought about it, the more it felt real!

Fake death.

That phrase he’d used to deceive Ji Xin Shui…

The words were like a boomerang, circling back to him, echoing in his ears.

“No way…”

Lin Xian held his breath.

He turned, looking back towards the underground base.

In the center, on the mechanical swivel chair, lay a body—limbs broken, skull shattered, all the blood drained away.

Was this…

Could this really count as a ‘fake death’?

He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. He swallowed, his throat dry.

“No way it actually came true, did it?”