Genius Club

This novel is translated and hosted on Bcatranslation

April 17th.

Lin Xian heard the fateful date, and dizziness swept over him. Once again, fate had placed him at a crossroads.

If he wanted to avoid the virus and travel to the future, he wouldn’t even be able to hold his baby daughter or see her little face for the first time.

He pressed his lips together and softly asked, “Is the due date really that exact?”

“Of course, it’s not entirely precise,” Zhao Ying Jun replied with a small smile. “It could be a couple of days earlier or later, but the doctor said it’s unlikely to be late. Little Yu Xi is already measuring a bit bigger than usual.”

“We don’t know the exact day. It all depends on her and how smoothly things go. But the doctor said we should check in at the hospital by the 15th just to be safe. They’ve already reserved a private room for us.”

Lin Xian nodded but didn’t say anything.

He had waited so long for his daughter, but now, he felt torn—pulled between so many responsibilities that it was hard to find any joy.

“What’s wrong?” Zhao Ying Jun blinked, studying his face. “Is there… something going on?”

She had felt something was off about him since the beginning. At first, she had assumed he was just tired, worn out from everything he had been doing. But now… now it seemed more complicated than that.

She was Lin Xian’s wife, the person closest to him in the entire world, the one who knew him better than anyone. There was no way Lin Xian could hide his feelings from her.

She could see it immediately… Lin Xian was facing a very difficult situation, one that was hard to decide on.

“Did that person, Mai Mai, remember something important?” she asked softly.

Lin Xian nodded. “I wasn’t planning to hide it from you. This is something you should know.”

He looked up at her. “Do you remember that story, ‘Devouring Heaven Demon Emperor,’ I told you about before? Just as I suspected, it wasn’t fiction. It’s based on real events.”

Lin Xian explained everything that Mai Mai had said—how Gauss had created the Anti-Hibernation Virus, which would spread worldwide on April 17th, making hibernation impossible for two hundred years, and how Einstein and a group of other geniuses had sealed away the “World-Ending White Light,” setting humanity on a path toward extinction.

Zhao Ying Jun listened in silence, her face growing more solemn as he spoke.

When Lin Xian finally finished, they sat in silence for a long time. The only sound was the soft snoring of VV from the other room, rising and falling.

Zhao Ying Jun bit her lower lip, wanting to say something but hesitating. She could understand Lin Xian’s pain, understand his struggle.

Now, there were only six days left until the virus would break out, and it was too late to do anything about it.

If he stayed, he would inevitably be infected and lose his chance to go to the future—to use the Time Travel Machine, reach 1952, save the Millennial Stake, and prevent the apocalypse.

But if he chose to go into hibernation early, he would have to leave behind his family, his friends, this entire era. He wouldn’t even be able to see Yu Xi’s face before he left.

After April 17th, those inside and outside the hibernation chamber would be worlds apart—two hundred years later, when he awoke, everyone he knew would be long gone.

The times would be different. The world would be unfamiliar. He would be alone, with no friends or family. It would be like a sentence of “spatial-temporal isolation,” much like Zhao Ying Jun’s fate in the Third Dream, turned into a statue of white jade.

“So, what are you thinking?” Zhao Ying Jun finally broke the silence.

“I don’t know,” Lin Xian replied honestly.

He lowered his head, resting his elbows on his knees and covering his face with his hands. “I’ve thought of a lot of different options. Maybe I could let Elon Musk or Liu Feng take my place, use the Time Travel Machine to go to 1952, complete the mission for me—save Chu An Qing and ensure the future of humanity.”

“But that’s irresponsible. I made the promise to Chu Shan He. And they don’t have the ability to dream about the future 600 years from now. They would be too passive in gathering information.”

“I can’t risk everything on someone else. If even one part of the plan fails, the consequences are too great—irreparable.”

“I also thought about having Liu Feng hibernate until 2482, then find Cheng Qian, revive VV, and try to create a biological USB to send the antivirus back to 2025 using spacetime particles. That way, I could revive VV in this era and try to save the future world from the World-Ending White Light within my limited lifetime.”

“No, Lin Xian,” Zhao Ying Jun shook her head, immediately dismissing the idea. “How can you be sure Liu Feng will find Cheng Qian, create the antivirus, make the biological USB, and successfully travel back to 2025?”

“Your entire plan is based on everything going perfectly. The world has already shifted from what Einstein predicted, so none of his answers are reliable anymore. How can you guarantee that the entangled spacetime particle will still be intact in 2482 for Liu Feng to use?”

“Right now, not many people realize the importance of the spacetime particle, but in 2234, once the Time Travel Machine is invented, more people will learn about it and try to take it.”

“So how can you bet on something so uncertain? This battle isn’t a game. There’s no room for mistakes. The safest course is to use the particle the instant the Time Travel Machine is made, leaving no chance for anyone else to go back.”

“Otherwise, it won’t be Liu Feng who returns, but another terminator—another assassin from the future.”

“And that’s the problem,” Zhao Ying Jun said cautiously. “In 2234, the moment the Time Travel Machine is complete, Liu Feng will use the only entangled particle. But where should he go?”

“If he goes to 1952, maybe he can learn the truth about the Millennial Stake and Einstein’s secrets. Then, let’s say Liu Feng lives another seventy years and meets you in 2025, passing on everything he’s learned—but then what?”

“Can you really save Chu An Qing and prevent humanity’s extinction in just a few decades, especially after being infected? And that’s assuming everything goes smoothly. One mistake, and the whole plan collapses.”

Lin Xian sighed and nodded. “What you’re saying is exactly what I’m worried about. In fact, there’s an even bigger issue. For any of this to work, we have to wait until the ‘point of no return.’”

“What does that mean? It means we’ll get infected in this era, die, and then Liu Feng will wake up two hundred years later, visit our graves, and use the Time Travel Machine to meet me in the past.”

“The problem is that the Lin Xian and Zhao Ying Jun he meets won’t be us—they’ll be versions from another timeline. Just like Yellow Finch, who returned to our time but didn’t meet her Lin Xian, because… her Lin Xian was already gone.”

“If we leave our future to others, it means that we’ve already given up in this timeline. We’ve irresponsibly passed the burden to another version of ourselves.”

Lin Xian pressed his lips together. “That’s the contradiction.”

“Yellow Finch did the same thing, but she had no choice. She had to abandon her original world and place her hope in another timeline.”

“And before she died, she begged me not to leave Yu Xi.”

“Now, I have to choose between staying with Yu Xi and saving the future. It’s like having to choose between two things that are equally important.”

However, Zhao Ying Jun shook her head. “Lin Xian, think carefully…”

“Why did Yellow Finch come back?”

Lin Xian looked up, meeting her gaze.

This was the same question Chu An Qing had shouted at Yellow Finch when she hesitated during their mission to capture the spacetime particle.

“Did Yellow Finch come back just to tell you not to leave Yu Xi?”

Zhao Ying Jun held his gaze. “If it was just to stay with Yu Xi, Yellow Finch had no reason to come back. She could have stayed in her own world and watched Yu Xi grow up.”

“Losing her father is already hard enough for Yu Xi. But if Yellow Finch had stayed with her as her mother, she still could have given her warmth and love. Yu Xi wouldn’t have ended up being manipulated by Copernicus, turned into a time assassin.”

“But what did Yellow Finch choose?”

Her eyes were clear and soft. “Yellow Finch, until her very last moment, never gave up trying to guide you to save the world—to save humanity’s future.”

She took Lin Xian’s hand gently. “All this time, you’ve been so caught up in the words ‘don’t leave Yu Xi’ that you’ve missed Yellow Finch’s true intention.”

“I can even imagine, in her own time, when her Lin Xian was on his deathbed, he must have told her the same thing… ‘Don’t leave Yu Xi.'”

“But in the end, Yellow Finch broke that promise.”

“Broke her promise.”

Suddenly, Lin Xian remembered what Yellow Finch had once said to him.

“There’s one more thing I have to confess,” Zhao Ying Jun said quietly, her eyes soft as they met his. “In fact, the reason I said I wanted to come to Copenhagen was also a lie.”

Lin Xian’s brow furrowed, confusion flickering across his face. He waited, sensing there was more she needed to say.

“That man—he never breaks his promises,” she continued, her voice steady. “He always does what he says he will. So, when it came to the promise about going to Copenhagen—and many other promises—the one who broke them was me.”

Lin Xian’s eyes widened as a realization dawned on him. Could it be? Back then, standing on the shallow shore in Copenhagen, had Yellow Finch been trying to confess all the promises she had broken, just like Zhao Ying Jun had guessed?

He turned to Zhao Ying Jun, taking her hand gently in his. “Does this mean… we have to keep breaking those promises?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper. “Does that mean no one will ever be by Yu Xi’s side as she grows up?”

Zhao Ying Jun looked at him, her lips curving into a gentle smile as she shook her head. “Lin Xian, to be honest, I can’t bear for you to leave. I don’t want you to abandon me and Yu Xi, to go off alone into an uncertain future.”

She paused, her eyes glistening. “It’s selfish, I know. But as your wife, as the mother of our child, it’s only natural that I would want you here. The moment you started telling me all this, my first instinct was to keep you with us. To hold onto you and never let you leave.”

“I wanted you here with Yu Xi and me,” she continued, her voice trembling slightly. “I wanted us to watch Yu Xi grow, to grow old together.”

A silence settled between them, only the soft hum of the kitchen light breaking it.

“But if you were just an ordinary person, without any special abilities,” Zhao Ying Jun whispered, her gaze fixed on the floor, “I would let you stay. I would.”

She bit her lip, her words coming out soft but heavy. “But you’re not ordinary. You were meant to be extraordinary. You have the power to change everything, to save everyone. And if you, with all your abilities, don’t step up now… who will?”

Lin Xian felt his throat tighten, her words hitting him like a wave. Zhao Ying Jun stepped closer, looking up at him with fierce determination.

“Do you think Elon Musk doesn’t have family? Do you think Liu Feng doesn’t have dreams of his own?” she said, her voice steady. “If you even think for one second that someone else should take the risk for you… then you’re the one who should be carrying that burden.”

She took a deep breath. “Have you thought about it, Lin Xian? People always say they’re ready to sacrifice themselves for their country, that they’ll donate everything or fight on the front lines. But when the time comes, will they actually step up?”

Lin Xian swallowed, his voice hoarse. “I think they will. When it comes to defending their country, they will.”

“Exactly,” Zhao Ying Jun nodded, a small smile forming on her lips. “If they can do it, then so can we.”

She looked away, her gaze growing distant. “Since I met you, Lin Xian, I’ve always been afraid of being a burden to you. Even after you left MX Company, I knew you were involved in something dangerous. But I never disturbed you, never reached out to you. Even when you went to Copenhagen and America, I never contacted you.”

“Even when I knew about Yan Qiao Qiao, I kept it to myself because I didn’t want to add to your burden. I waited until you found out on your own.”

She paused, her voice steady but filled with emotion. “If my husband is meant to save the world, I can’t let myself make him mediocre. I can’t accept that.”

She took a deep breath, looking at the warm light spilling from the kitchen. “The peace and happiness we have now, we owe it to those who sacrificed their lives on the front lines. They were fathers, husbands, sons… They had families, and yet they gave everything to protect this world.”

“They built a wall of flesh and blood to keep us safe. Should we, with the power to save the future, turn our backs on humanity’s fate and do nothing?”

“The future of humanity,” Zhao Ying Jun continued, her voice soft, “is our future, Yu Xi’s future, the future of our children and their children.”

Lin Xian felt her words settle deep within him. He had never intended to give up or abandon his mission, but the thought of leaving behind the people he loved had always filled him with dread.

The memory of Yellow Finch’s hand brushing his cheek before she disappeared.

The way Yu Xi had hugged his neck, calling out “Daddy” before turning into blue snowflakes.

The image of Zhao Ying Jun, frozen in time like a statue of white jade, waiting for six hundred years in Rhine Sky City.

Zhao Ying Jun saw the struggle in his eyes. She stepped forward, facing him seriously. “Lin Xian, I want to ask you three questions. And I want you to answer me honestly.”

He looked at her, standing there in the dim living room, her face bathed in the warm glow of the kitchen light. He nodded.

“First question.” She paused. “If Yu Xi and I weren’t here, would you choose to hibernate and go to the future to save the world right now?”

Lin Xian nodded. “I would.”

“Second question,” Zhao Ying Jun continued, her eyes unwavering. “If you didn’t go to the future, and because of that, everything was lost… If you had to watch humanity face extinction, if Chu Shan He walked out of the hibernation chamber and didn’t see Chu An Qing smiling at him… would you regret it?”

Lin Xian pressed his lips together, his eyes closing briefly before he nodded. “I would regret it.”

Zhao Ying Jun exhaled deeply, her shoulders relaxing a little. “Third question,” she said, her voice softening. “If everyone begged you to stay, if they asked you to forget everything else and just enjoy your life now… could you live without guilt? Could you live the rest of your life with a clear conscience?”

Lin Xian looked at her, a long silence stretching between them. Slowly, he stood up from the sofa, facing Zhao Ying Jun. He shook his head. “To be honest, I can’t.”

A gentle smile spread across Zhao Ying Jun’s face. She reached up, cupping his cheeks in her hands, her warmth filling the space between them.

“Go,” she whispered. “I think you already know the answer.”

Tears filled Lin Xian’s eyes as he looked at her, and Zhao Ying Jun smiled through her own tears.

“And Lin Xian,” she continued, “you don’t need to feel guilty about Yellow Finch. You don’t need to break your promise to her because… I will fulfill it for you.”

Lin Xian’s eyes widened. “You mean…”

“Yes,” Zhao Ying Jun nodded. “I promise you, no matter what happens, I will never leave Yu Xi. I will stay with her, watch her grow up, guide her, love her—for both of us. I won’t let the past repeat itself. I won’t let you down.”

“So Lin Xian,” she said, her voice strong and unwavering, “go. Do what you really want to do. Do what you’re willing to dedicate your life to. Do what you would regret forever if you didn’t.”

She looked up at him, her eyes filled with warmth. “I’ll protect Yu Xi, and you… you protect the world.”

This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation