Chapter 1404: Chapter 48 Our Club_2

“Quick, quick, quick, don’t procrastinate, quickly paste the Golden Badge here. When Zhao Yingjun tested it before, he already had me scan your previous badge, and I have the previous key characteristics stored here. A comparison will tell me if it’s the same one.”

“Alright.”

Despite having plenty to complain about, I must thank Yingjun for being so foresighted.

Lin Xian easily pried the Golden Badge out of the wax block, then pasted it on VV’s rear…

Beep beep.

Two soft beeps.

VV nodded:

“Indeed, you’re right. These two Golden Badges are exactly identical, as if… they were copy-pasted, without a single difference.”

“I think, this also easily explains why in the Fourth Dreamland, Newton could clearly know you could travel to the future and laid in wait to capture you.”

“Yes.”

This was also something Lin Xian just realized in an instant.

He had always thought that by using a cheat method to get the invitation letter from the Mirror, only Einstein knew about it, and the other Genius Club members couldn’t figure it out.

After all…

Everyone deconstructed from the painting “The Sorrowful Einstein,” and eventually found the invitation letter somewhere in the world to join the Genius Club.

No one knew how others decrypted it or where they got their invitation, so no one suspected him.

But who would have thought!

The crafty Newton actually hid an invitation letter!

This led Newton and Copernicus to clearly understand that, counting Einstein, the Genius Club could have at most only 8 members and it was absolutely impossible to have a 9th member.

“I think the first time I appeared at the Genius Club meeting, Newton and Copernicus must have been very surprised.”

Lin Xian laughed:

“Even though they acted very calm on the surface, internally they must have been puzzled about where my invitation letter came from.”

“But at the same time, the secret that I could traverse the future and bring things back from the future must have been exposed at that moment.”

Thinking of this, Lin Xian suddenly understood:

“VV, I remember now.”

He narrowed his eyes:

“It was after I joined the Genius Club that Copernicus started questioning Einstein about time travel and the Time Shuttle Machine.”

“I see, this aligns a lot of clues together. Let’s sort it out.”

Lin Xian picked up a water pen from his bedroom desk, twirling it between his fingers before beginning to organize his thoughts on paper:

“First, it was not long after Einstein established the Genius Club that Copernicus and Newton were the first to find the hidden code in the ‘The Sorrowful Einstein’ painting, obtaining invitation letters, and they joined the Genius Club one after the other.”

“I guess the time was before 1980, because by 1980, Galileo and Da Vinci had already joined the club, and by then Copernicus and Newton had already started their double act.”

“Then, analyzing further, Copernicus and Newton monopolized access to Einstein, collaborating to uncover many secrets and truths, naturally including matters surrounding the cosmic constant 42. Eventually, the two decided to collaborate, acting as good cop and bad cop within the Genius Club, overtly and covertly synchronizing their plan.”

“But that wasn’t enough; they later found another painting and, as smart as they were, jointly cracked the code of this painting to obtain a brand new invitation letter.”

“This invitation letter, they could have given to others, perhaps to… [Ji Xinshui], or to other people who worked for them.”

The thought grew clearer as Lin Xian realized that even this extra invitation letter could tie into the plot of the Seven Sins.

“No.”

VV objected:

“Lin Xian, you overlooked one thing, the Genius Club only started using online VR meetings after 2004. This indicates that any invitations yet unfound were updated by Einstein after 2004.”

“According to our previous speculation, the original version of the invitation letter certainly did not include a Golden Badge; limited by the level of technological development, there was neither internet nor VR technology at that time, so the initial invitations must have purely been paper invitations, with all meeting information written inside by hand.”

“After 2004, when the club decided to switch to an online meeting mode, the invitations updated at that time would have a NFC Golden Badge sealed within the wax seal as an identity key to attend meetings.”

“Therefore, since the invitation Newton hid contains a Golden Badge, it must mean that Newton found the painting and this invitation after 2004… While in 2004, Copernicus had long been in contact with Ji Xinshui, and by then Ji Xinshui had already soared through the ranks, becoming a leading academic figure, and was the director of the Donghai University Research Institute.”

“However, we don’t know when Copernicus promised Ji Xinshui an invitation letter to the Genius Club; if he only dangled this carrot in front of him after 2004, your conjecture could make sense.”

“It’s just…”

VV extended a hafnium alloy clip and made a throat-slashing gesture:

“Judging from Copernicus’s attitude toward Ji Xinshui, and his indifference to his life and death, Ji Xinshui was entirely just a puppet, a clown, a pawn of no real consequence.”

“At least I think Copernicus never intended to bestow this valuable invitation letter to Ji Xinshui…”

“From the many successors in the future, Ji Xinshui was neither Copernicus’s first dog nor his last.”