Huang Que.

Lin Xian watched the woman walking towards him.

She always appeared so unpredictably. This was the second time she had startled him by showing up so suddenly.

*Does she walk without a sound? Is she a ghost?*

*Or...does she know exactly when and where I'll be, and waits for me here ahead of time?*

*That's terrifying!*

Lin Xian suddenly realized that Huang Que seemed to pinpoint his location at times that had a common factor...

*They're all related to Zhao Yingjun.*

*The first time they met was at the Donghai Chamber of Commerce's New Year's Eve banquet, the night Zhao Yingjun first told him her office password.*

*The second time, though he didn't see her in person, Zhao Yingjun was at the restaurant during his blind date with Su Su, but she left midway.*

*The third encounter, broadly speaking, was now. Zhao Yingjun knew about his cooperation with Donghai University early on, helped a lot with it, and knew about Liu Feng's existence and that he was picking Liu Feng up from the airport today.*

This...

Lin Xian was increasingly confused.

What was the relationship between Huang Que and Zhao Yingjun?

If Huang Que really was a time traveler, Zhao Yingjun from the future who traveled to the present, then the fact that she and Zhao Yingjun looked completely different was inexplicable.

But to say there was no connection... they gave off a strangely similar feeling, an indescribable similarity that was very intriguing.

Lin Xian stared at Huang Que as she walked up to him.

"Are you Zhao Yingjun?"

He asked bluntly.

Huang Que stopped, lowered her head, and smiled.

"I'm sorry, Lin Xian, I'm not here to answer your questions today. I hope you understand, it's not that I don't want to answer, but that I can't. So, don't ask me any questions, either. If I could say it, I would have told you long ago."

"To this day, you still haven't understood the concept of 'temporal elasticity' (shikong tanxing), which is a bit slower than I expected. But fortunately...it doesn't seem too far off."

As she spoke, Liu Feng squeezed past Lin Xian and stood in front of him, looking at Huang Que.

"What...what did you mean by what you just said? Can we really find a reference point outside of space-time?"

"That's impossible. From the perspective of a reference frame, anything that appears in this space-time must have entered our current observed reference frame. So, no matter where it comes from, once it arrives here, it must obey the rules of this universe and be built on the basis of the current Planck constant."

However...

Huang Que just smiled and didn't answer him directly.

"Liu Feng, this is something you need to consider yourself. You're very smart. Even if I don't tell you today, you'll understand this point soon enough. You are the scientist closest to the truth of the 'universal constant' (yuzhou changshu) in the world. In that regard alone, you are even closer to the truth than Einstein."

"To this day, you have faced a lot of negativity, but you have also received a lot of affirmation from Lin Xian. Right and wrong are always intertwined, and who can know the real right and wrong before the final verdict is made?"

"So I think you don't need to worry too much about the issue of right and wrong. Just continue your research according to your own ideas and your own thinking, and one day you will get the answer you want."

……

Liu Feng frowned, listening in confusion.

Was this woman speaking Chinese?

It sounded fluent, and it seemed to make sense, but on closer analysis, it seemed to have no content at all. It was like she said something, but said nothing at all.

She didn't answer his question at all.

But...

"Look, Lin Xian."

Liu Feng turned to look at Lin Xian.

"This shows that my 'space-time clock' (shikong zhong) is correct, at least in terms of theory and design. It's just that my horizontal curvature coordinates aren't calibrated yet."

Lin Xian smiled wryly, not knowing how to respond.

This Huang Que was always so annoying, never giving you any definite answers, neither yes nor no.

If you tried to guess what she was saying, you might end up in a dead end.

Zheng Chenghao was a good example...

Obviously, the hint Huang Que wanted to give him was not the answer he finally figured out, which led to a completely different and wildly wrong outcome.

So now, Lin Xian was too lazy to analyze what Huang Que said.

He had eyes, he had a brain, and he could judge for himself what was right and wrong.

Even without Huang Que, he could have discovered the cat-and-mouse game.

Even without Huang Que, he could have realized the unusualness of Zheng Chenghao.

Even without Huang Que, he would have learned about the Genius Club from Ji Lin.

So...

What Huang Que said was always nonsense.

What she could tell you were things you would know sooner or later anyway, which would not affect the original course of history and the future...

Hmm?

Suddenly, Lin Xian's eyes widened.

Wait a minute.

He seemed to have caught the last straw that had been eluding him!

*Doesn't affect the original course of history and the future.*

This was a very important characteristic. Then, thinking about Huang Que's repeated emphasis on "I can't say," the laws of time and space, temporal elasticity (shikong tanxing)...

Could it be that...

She really was a time traveler, but she also had to abide by certain laws of time and space, so because of the existence of the time-space paradox, she couldn't say those things that would affect the original course of history and the future?

In other words, time travelers cannot interfere with established history?

Lin Xian didn't know if this theory was correct.

In terms of time travel, there was a very famous "grandfather paradox," which meant that if you traveled back decades and killed your grandfather, would you still exist decades later?

This was an unresolvable dead end.

For this reason, many physicists denied the possibility of time travel, believing that logically speaking, time travel was impossible, unrealistic, and illogical.

In short, the grandfather paradox was an insurmountable mountain.

If a person could really travel back to the past and kill his grandfather, then theoretically his existence should also be erased simultaneously. Decades later, there would be no such person, and naturally there would be no opportunity to travel back and kill his grandfather... This was a self-contradictory hypothesis.

Then what if...

Just as he thought.

In the laws of time and space, there was a law that time travelers could not interfere with history?

For example, someone like Huang Que, in this era, not only couldn't say many things, but perhaps there were many things she couldn't do - like killing her grandfather.

This idea seemed fine at first glance.

But it couldn't stand careful scrutiny.

In fact, as long as a person existed, how could there be any claim that it wouldn't affect the direction of history and the future, or create a butterfly effect?

If it didn't affect the big things, it would affect the small things.

Huang Que wore high heels every day, and who knew how many ants she had stepped on.

What's more, although Huang Que didn't provide him with too much useful information, knowing the information about the Genius Club earlier still gave him a great advantage.

This was a fact.

Huang Que did influence the history from her perspective and the future from his perspective to some extent.

To some extent...

Lin Xian's thoughts became clearer and clearer.

To some extent.

Could it be...

That a certain extent was elasticity?

Elasticity!

Temporal elasticity (shikong tanxing)!

"Within the range of elasticity..." Lin Xian muttered softly, stroking his chin.

"Does that mean that within the allowable range of elasticity, many things can be done and many things can be said? But outside of the elasticity is not allowed... unless you can further expand the elasticity, or directly change the range of the elasticity."

Then.

What would happen if you forcibly did things beyond the scope of elasticity, forcibly changing the course of history and the future?

Lin Xian looked at Huang Que, who had been smiling without saying a word.

Since Huang Que was so cautious and careful...

Perhaps it indicated that the cost of doing so was very high, too high to bear, too afraid to try to violate the laws of time and space; or rather, that the laws of time and space could not be violated at all.

But then again...

What about himself?

If this theory was applied to himself, it wouldn't make sense and wouldn't be applicable.

He didn't know how many times he had changed history already.

The future world 600 years later was like his Lego tower, knocked down and rebuilt, knocked down and rebuilt.

Sometimes it was a slum, sometimes it was a sky city; sometimes the father of hibernation was named Mai, sometimes the father of hibernation was named Xu...

History, the future, and time and space had all become little girls to be dressed up in his hands.

Could it be...

Was it because he wasn't a time traveler that he wasn't bound by these laws of time and space?

It was hard to say.

Lin Xian wasn't sure if his situation could be considered time travel.

But...

He didn't think he was so powerful that he could transcend the laws of time and space.

In fact, he had been screwed over by the space-time butterfly effect countless times.

The principle that space-time changes are uncontrollable had caused Lin Xian to fall several times, costing him more than he gained. The shadow of the hafnium alloy safe was still hanging over his head.

Lin Xian looked up.

He looked straight into Huang Que's blue eyes.

"Since you won't tell us anything, and you don't plan to answer us anything, what are you here for today? Are you here to increase elasticity? Or are you here to change the elasticity?"

However...

Huang Que still just smiled and didn't speak.

But in her eyes.

There seemed to be a flash of approval, a hint of... about time.

"This is something you should consider."

She was as usual, brushing off all the questions and not answering.

Then, she took out a folded piece of paper from the pocket of her brown trench coat and placed it on the experimental table next to her.

"If you figure out what to do, come to this place and find me, and I will provide you with help."

With that, she put her hands in her pockets, turned around, and strode towards the door.

"Oh, right."

She suddenly stopped, turned her head and smiled at Lin Xian.

"I forgot to congratulate you on winning the game of hide-and-seek. You won quite beautifully."

"It's nothing to celebrate." Lin Xian replied faintly.

In this cat-and-mouse game, many people, both good and bad, had died.

And the real mastermind was still hidden in the darkness.

He didn't think it was anything to be happy about. Even if he won, he didn't feel like he had won beautifully.

If he couldn't catch Copernicus behind Ji Xinshui;

If he couldn't figure out the true purpose and nature of the Genius Club;

This blood-soaked history of 600 years would never end;

Either it was permanently stagnant technology, or 100-meter-high walls separating the world, or sewage falling from 2,000 meters in the sky, forever unhealable purulent wounds.

He still didn't think that an organization that had been hidden in the long river of history for 600 years, and even put its emblem logo on the moon, was a righteous organization.

More like they claimed to be righteous.

But even if they claimed to be righteous, Lin Xian didn't think they had done anything beneficial to humanity or the world.

The Copernicus who ordered Ji Xinshui to kill people, the tragic state of radiation sickness in the future world, the Genius Club must know about these things unless they were all blind.

Knowing it, but doing nothing, acquiescing to everything.

Lin Xian didn't think this was so-called justice, even if they had thousands of reasons for doing so.

From the last time he met Huang Que until now.

Several months had passed.

Lin Xian felt that his mentality and thoughts had changed a lot.

On that terrifying night in Zhao Yingjun's office, he was still in a state of confusion, hesitation, helplessness, and hiding.

But now.

He just wanted to become stronger!

To uproot the black hand lurking in history and execute them in the sunlight!

"It's too early to congratulate me now."

Lin Xian looked at Huang Que.

"Congratulate me when I've taken down the Genius Club in one fell swoop."

"That's what I wanted to tell you."

Huang Que looked at Lin Xian.

"Look in the mirror more often, Lin Xian."

The crystalline blue in her pupils seemed to flow.

"In the mirror... there is what you want. "