Genius Club Chapter 557
Chapter 557: A Slight Error, A World Apart
(This novel is translated and hosted on Bcattranslation)
A distant worldline—
…
…
…
…
“The first time, it wasn’t until we captured the time travel machine that we discovered the existence of spacetime particles.”
“The second time, we failed even earlier. We never managed to identify who the enemy was.”
“The third time, it was our furthest progress yet, but in the end, we still failed because of our limited research on spacetime particles.”
“The fourth time, bound by the laws of spacetime, I am forced to avoid discussing it.”
Listening to Yellow Finch’s recount, the elderly Liu Feng, piloting the time travel machine, stayed silent.
“So this means… this is already the fifth time you’ve met me.”
“Moreover, what happened during the fourth worldline is now unspoken because of the elasticity of spacetime. This implies… we are even further behind this time, with less progress and fewer leads than the last.”
“Yes.”
Yellow Finch lay in the time travel machine, closing her eyes.
“But this isn’t your fault, Liu Feng. You don’t need to feel so guilty.”
“Even though I came with many clues and information, the laws of spacetime restrict me severely. The help I can offer is limited, like a riddle-speaker at best.”
“In hindsight, you might think all my hints and suggestions were obvious, but that’s hindsight for you. Deciphering a riddle when you already have the answer isn’t meaningful, is it?”
“Besides, every new crossing into another worldline escalates the stakes to new heights. As we gain more progress, we also encounter more dangers and unknowns.”
“Therefore, no one can guarantee steady progress with each crossing. Sometimes, the opposite happens—failing earlier, drifting further from success.”
Nearby, Liu Feng finished setting the time travel schedule and sighed deeply.
“This time, once again, we were defeated by an unseen, untouchable, untraceable mysterious organization.”
“Who are they? Who leads them? How are they so powerful? We share the same world, yet we know nothing about them. It’s as if they can completely erase all traces of their existence.”
“And Lin Xian… Lin Xian… sigh…”
Liu Feng’s eyes moistened, unable to continue.
“Don’t lose heart, Liu Feng.”
Yellow Finch lay quietly in the travel pod, her voice unwavering.
“It’s not all bad news. At least I’ll take these clues to find the next Lin Xian, the next you.”
“I believe your successors will understand my hints better.”
“If there were no laws of spacetime restricting me—if I could speak freely and communicate openly with you—everything would indeed be much simpler.”
“But that’s not possible. The laws are absolute. Instead of blaming the heavens, it’s better to think, act, and experiment more yourself.”
Buzz——
The time travel machine hummed as it finished warming up, ready for operation.
Liu Feng stepped forward, closing the pod hatch.
“Yellow Finch, or rather Zhao Ying Jun, our friend, we wish you a safe journey.”
Inside, the woman chuckled softly.
“Just call me Yellow Finch.”
Her voice lightened.
“From the moment I left my husband, my daughter, and my world…”
“I ceased to be Zhao Ying Jun.”
Click.
The pod door sealed shut. Liu Feng pressed the activation button.
In this failed worldline, Yellow Finch’s sixth time travel began.
Once more, she leapt into the past…
Striving to rewrite everything!
…
This time, progress was unprecedentedly smooth. She gathered many allies, ultimately uncovering the culprits behind the murder of scientists and mathematicians—
Two elderly men.
They called each other Copernicus and Newton, though Newton appeared much younger than Copernicus.
“You’ve lived far too long.”
Lin Xian raised his handgun, aiming at their heads.
“This time… even your hibernation pods won’t save you. Pay back what you owe this world.”
Bang! Bang!
Two bursts of blood, two lifeless bodies fell.
“Search the place.”
Lin Xian wiped the gun barrel, issuing an order.
“Although they’ve always hidden well, leaving us clueless about them, every trace leaves a mark. Search thoroughly in the house.”
As expected.
They found some diaries written by Newton. The team began to leaf through them.
However, the diaries contained no mention of the mysterious organization.
Or perhaps…
Newton used alternative codenames and cryptic methods to record his notes, making them indecipherable to others.
“Lin Xian! Come to the second floor, quick!”
From upstairs came Gao Yang’s urgent shout.
Lin Xian and Yellow Finch immediately rushed up. In a corner of the room, they discovered a small vacuum safe.
“Open it,” Lin Xian commanded tersely.
After some effort, the safe was unlocked, only to reveal nothing inside—except for a folded piece of red cardstock at the bottom, sealed with a wax stamp.
“What’s this?” Yellow Finch narrowed her eyes.
“Could this be an invitation to that mysterious organization?”
Lin Xian picked up the red cardstock and flipped it over.
“Genius Club”
Five golden-embossed characters stopped him in his tracks, leaving him stunned, as if waking from a dream.
“I… I’ve heard of this organization!”
“What?” Yellow Finch was visibly shocked.
“When did you hear of it? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
Lin Xian shook his head.
“It was a long, long time ago…” he said, closing his eyes and straining to remember.
“It’s been so long that I almost forgot. It was back in my earliest dreams. I used to wander aimlessly around a plaza in my dreams. One day, I ran into two people with peculiar names: Big Cat Face and CC.”
“They were like performers in a comedic duo. They spoke about a ragtag gang robbing a bank. I played along with them for two days before losing interest.”
“Back then, I thought my dreams were just that—dreams. They were inherently absurd. At one point, Big Cat Face mentioned that his father and daughter had been killed by the Genius Club… but I didn’t take it seriously.”
“After all, I was constantly bombarded with new information and stories in those dreams. Those two were just a fleeting part of it.”
“If I had known then that the Genius Club existed in real life, I would have investigated Big Cat Face and CC further. But… we only just discovered the Genius Club’s existence. How could I have cared back then?”
“Later, when the dreams changed, I never saw CC again. I did encounter Big Cat Face twice more, but in those encounters, both his father and daughter were alive and well, and he never mentioned the Genius Club again.”
Liu Feng walked over and took the invitation from Lin Xian’s hands, opening it.
“There’s nothing written on it.”
He shook the blank invitation.
“Not a single word.”
He then broke the wax seal, extracting a golden emblem from inside. The emblem was engraved with a logo of a right index finger pointing skyward.
“It looks like an old-fashioned NFC device,” Gao Wen observed as he adjusted his glasses and handed over a scanning tool.
“Try scanning it.”
Liu Feng pressed the NFC golden emblem to the scanner.
Beep, beep.
A soft sound indicated a connection. The screen displayed a web page—but it was blank.
“The server must have been shut down,” Liu Feng concluded.
Meanwhile, news came from the rest of the group. They had gone through all of Newton’s diaries but found no concrete information about the Genius Club.
Gao Wen sighed deeply.
“We came… too late again.”
Behind them, Yellow Finch clenched her fists, her teeth grinding in frustration. She shut her eyes tightly.
Too late.
Too late again.
If only Lin Xian had noticed the Genius Club sooner! If only…
Tap.
A pair of warm hands rested on her shoulders.
“This isn’t your fault,” Lin Xian reassured her. He had already noticed her self-blame.
“To be honest, even if you had found me earlier and told me about the Genius Club, I wouldn’t have been able to join.”
“I’m well aware of my limits. I’ve never been particularly smart or talented. I’d never pass the Genius Club’s exams—unless…”
He pointed at the invitation in Liu Feng’s hand and squinted.
“Unless we figured out a way to cheat and sneak that genuine invitation into my hands.”
But…
Yellow Finch shook her head.
“That’s impossible, Lin Xian. The time travel machine can’t transfer metal. Even if we could send the paper invitation back, we’d never be able to bring this golden emblem into the past.”
“And without that golden emblem, the blank invitation is meaningless.”
For a moment, silence engulfed the room.
Lin Xian turned around, facing the group.
“Don’t give up so easily,” he said firmly.
His gaze was firm:
“Even though we discovered the Genius Club too late this time, we at least discovered it. There is still a long time before the World-Ending White Light arrives in 2624. We still have hope!”
As the group lifted their heads, Lin Xian raised a single finger.
“Big. Cat. Face.”
He enunciated each word deliberately.
“The fact that he mentioned the Genius Club in my earliest dream means there must be something, some event, or someone around him connected to the Genius Club.”
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. While we missed the earliest opportunity to learn about the Genius Club, we can reverse our approach… start from the most recent point and trace back their intelligence.”
“But,” Yellow Finch said anxiously, “your current dreams no longer have Big Cat Face in them.”
“Then we’ll find a way to alter the worldline,” Lin Xian declared decisively. “If I still can’t find Big Cat Face in my dreams… then we’ll push forward and search for him in reality!”
…
In the year 2400, a sudden super catastrophe swept across the globe.
Liu Feng used all his strength to push Gao Wen to safety.
“Professor Liu!!” Gao Wen cried out in anguish.
“You’re smarter than I am…” Liu Feng choked out, blood pouring from his mouth as he endured the pain. “You must continue researching the Universal Constant 42… I’ve always believed… this is the true key…”
“Professor Liu!!!!”
Gao Wen clutched Liu Feng’s severed body, wailing in despair.
…
Time passed.
At the end of 2583, a baby boy was born in a small village on the outskirts of Donghai City.
That night, the village’s chickens, ducks, cows, and sheep all let out low, mournful cries. The elders, observing this strange phenomenon, marveled, convinced that this child was destined for greatness.
Years later.
An elderly Gao Wen pushed open the door to a laboratory.
Inside, a middle-aged Lin Xian, his hair streaked with gray, sat deep in thought. Standing silently beside him was Yellow Finch, who remained youthful and beautiful, her face untouched by the passage of time.
Time itself seemed to have stopped for her.
“We finally found Big Cat Face,” Gao Wen sighed.
“It was incredibly difficult. You gave me so few clues—no real name, no specific age, no details about his family or where he lived. All I had was his nickname, Big Cat Face. It was so hard to track him down.”
“But in the end, we did. In an eastern village, there was a boy with a face full of excess flesh. The adults nicknamed him Big Cat Face, and the name stuck. Even his family started calling him that. Hardly anyone remembers his real name anymore.”
Lin Xian opened his eyes slowly from his rattan chair and nodded slightly.
“Is there anything noteworthy around him? Anyone particularly unusual? There has to be. Otherwise, how could he have come into contact with the Genius Club?”
“Especially since he once told me in my dream that his father and daughter were killed by the Genius Club. Let’s set aside the daughter for now—it’s still far too early. What about his father?”
Gao Wen pulled up a chair and sat down, rubbing his knees.
“That’s exactly what I came to report, Lin Xian.”
“Big Cat Face’s father, Chen Heping, caught my attention after some observation. Though he appears disheveled and works as a humble elementary school math teacher, I reviewed his after-class notes and draft papers. He is an incredibly sharp thinker!”
“In fact, I can say without exaggeration…”
Gao Wen’s tone grew heavier, his expression serious.
“Chen Heping is a true genius!”
…
Lin Xian and Gao Wen traveled together to the remote village.
Their first step was to communicate with the village chief.
The chief was friendly and offered to guide them himself.
“Chen Heping is a great person. Everyone in the village likes him. I’m getting old, and I plan to pass the role of village chief to him in the future,” the chief said warmly.
He pointed to a modest home in the distance.
“That’s Chen Heping’s house.”
The villagers were kind and approachable, and after some brief pleasantries, Gao Wen handed a book to Chen Heping.
“Introduction to the Universal Constant.”
“This is a work written centuries ago by a great mathematician,” Gao Wen said, his voice tinged with sorrow as he thought of Liu Feng.
“Your mathematical talent surpasses all of ours. I believe… perhaps only you can unravel the truth behind Universal Constant 42.”
“And…” Gao Wen added, taking out a hefty stack of documents.
“These are all the results of my solo research after Liu Feng’s passing. While they diverge from his book in some ways, they share the same starting point. You might find them helpful.”
Before leaving, Lin Xian handed Chen Heping a small note.
“If you make any discoveries or need help, feel free to contact us at this address.”
With that, the two left.
…
Six months later.
A frantic woman arrived at their laboratory, pleading for help.
“Please, you must help Heping!” she cried desperately.
“What’s happened?” Lin Xian, Yellow Finch, Gao Wen, and Gao Yang were taken aback.
“He’s gone mad!”
The four of them followed the woman back to the village without delay.
When they arrived at the house, they saw Big Cat Face playing with two other children in the dirt outside. Lin Xian followed the woman upstairs.
Bang, bang, bang!
Bang, bang, bang!
“Heping! Open the door!” the woman shouted anxiously, pounding on the door.
But there was no response from inside.
“Stand back,” Gao Yang said, rolling up his sleeves.
“Let the professional handle this!”
He took a deep breath, puffed out his chest, and charged forward.
“Body Slam Impact!”
Crash!
With a thunderous crack, the wooden door splintered, and Gao Yang tumbled into the room along with the shattered remains of the door.
Lin Xian and Yellow Finch were the first to enter the room to investigate.
“Hiss…”
They both gasped in shock.
The entire room—ceiling, floor, walls, even the curtains—was covered in meticulously written, perfectly aligned 42s.
Every 42 was drawn with a calligraphy brush, and each one was a perfect square, identical in size and proportions. The numbers were stacked neatly like bricks or replicated as if by a computer. It was impossible to imagine how Chen Heping could have achieved such precision by hand without the use of tools.
Countless identical 42s filled the room, lined up in rows and columns, creating an eerie sense of being surrounded by an endless sea of blocks.
“This… What does this even mean?” Yellow Finch asked, her eyes wide.
Lin Xian stepped closer to the wall and examined it carefully.
Each 42 was about the size of a hand, and the precision of their alignment made it feel as though the room was wrapped in an infinite grid of uniform blocks.
Looking down, he saw Chen Heping sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall. He was staring silently at the opposite wall, also covered in those impeccably neat 42s.
Lin Xian crouched down beside him.
“Mr. Chen Heping, could you tell us now… what is Universal Constant 42?”
Chen Heping lowered his head and began to speak.
“Half a year ago, shortly after you left, I finished reading all the materials you provided and officially began my research. While Mr. Liu Feng’s ‘Introduction to the Universal Constant’ was brilliant, Mr. Gao Wen’s research materials offered me a more direct inspiration.”
“After two months of calculations and exploration, I delved deeper into the microcosmic scale of the Universal Constant. Eventually, I discovered that the smallest possible distance in the universe and spacetime is far smaller than the Planck length. In other words, the smallest ‘gap’ in the universe and spacetime is—”
“42.”
He paused before elaborating.
“This is not an Arabic numeral or a unit of measurement. 42 is an exact descriptor, a concept that exists exclusively in the microscopic world and cannot be replicated in our observable universe.”
“Why not?” Gao Wen asked.
“Because the smallest measurable unit in our universe is the Planck length. It cannot be any smaller.”
Chen Heping lifted his head, scanning the faces of everyone in the room.
“The smallest in the macroscopic world is what people commonly understand as the smallest; the smallest in the microscopic world is beyond human comprehension.”
“These are two entirely different concepts,” Chen Heping explained. “Unless we can create two micro-scale objects with different Planck lengths, theoretically, 42 cannot be produced in the macroscopic world.”
Lin Xian waved his hand dismissively.
“Let’s not worry about whether it can be created. That’s something to consider later.”
“What we want to know now is… since 42 represents the smallest gap in the universe and spacetime, what can we do with this concept? What kind of power can it give us?”
Unfortunately, Chen Heping shook his head.
“I haven’t fully figured that out yet. I only have a preliminary hypothesis.”
“Let’s start with the idea of a gap. Since there’s a smallest gap, it means that the universe and spacetime are not continuous—they have ‘loopholes.’”
“And if loopholes exist, then something must be able to pass through them. Even if physical objects can’t pass, we might at least be able to ‘see’ through them.”
Chen Heping, realizing his explanation might sound abstract, looked around for a visual aid and eventually pointed at the door broken by Gao Yang’s Body Slam Impact.
“Look at that door. Even if there’s just a narrow crack left open, you can see the entire room through that gap.”
“You don’t even need a crack. A keyhole alone is enough to reveal everything inside a room.”
“Pinhole imaging,” Lin Xian murmured.
“A simple physics experiment where a small hole flips the image, allowing for clearer observation… albeit inverted.”
“But it proves that tiny gaps don’t prevent us from observing what lies beyond. I think I understand what Mr. Chen Heping is getting at.”
“Simply put, beyond these smallest gaps—these 42s—there must be other worlds. If we can observe through these gaps, perhaps we can glimpse other universes, other timelines.”
Chen Heping nodded in agreement.
He leaned against the wall to stand, dusting himself off.
“That’s about right, though my idea is a bit more complex.”
“What if these tiniest gaps, these 42s, are not just about other worlds but represent alternative perspectives?”
“If we could harness this power, I believe we could use the 42s to observe every detail of existence—every nuance of the universe and spacetime!”
“This is what is called… a higher-dimensional perspective!”
In that instant, Gao Wen felt as if he had been struck by lightning, a revelation crashing through him.
This was the very line of thought he had been following in his years of research on Universal Constant 42, but he had never conceptualized it so vividly until now.
He was enlightened.
Spinning quickly, he scanned the room at an incredible pace. Surrounding him were the perfectly aligned, uniformly sized, and systematically arranged 42s—a sea of identical numbers from every angle, yet each offering a unique perspective.
“This is… dimension!”
Gao Wen blinked sharply, feeling as though he were standing amidst the vastness of the universe. Above him loomed the largest galactic clusters, while beneath his feet lay the tiniest 42 gaps.
As he looked down, on the other side of the 42 gaps, he glimpsed another universe—broader, yet every detail crystal clear.
“This is…”
“Higher-dimensional space!”