Chapter 427: Shattered Jade and the Whole Tile

The night was deep, and a starless sky hung over Donghai University’s Rhine Lab. The darkness felt heavy, pressing down upon the empty corridors of the university, the quiet only broken by the occasional rustle of leaves outside.

Lin Xian pushed open the lab door, his briefcase in hand. Liu Feng had been waiting for him for quite some time. As soon as he saw Lin Xian, Liu Feng stood up, looking both anxious and excited.

“Look at this,” Liu Feng said, pulling Lin Xian towards the central lab bench. He gestured to the time-space clock on the table. Its reading was steady, displaying:

[0.0000168]

It was still a multiple of 0.0000042, but this time, the negative sign had vanished.

“In other words,” Liu Feng continued, “since I called you earlier tonight, the worldline has shifted from -0.0000042 to 0.0000168.”

Lin Xian’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the clock. The change wasn’t just numbers—it was proof that reality itself had shifted.

“How exactly did it change?” Lin Xian asked, his voice tense. “Tell me everything in detail.”

Liu Feng checked his watch and nodded. “At 1:18 a.m., the reading on the time-space clock dropped dramatically, falling all the way from 0.0000336 to -0.0000042. I kept calling you, but you wouldn’t pick up. By the time you finally answered, more than twenty minutes had passed. Even then, the reading stayed at -0.0000042, showing no signs of change.”

Lin Xian nodded slowly. He knew why it had changed this time.

At 1:18 a.m., he had been in a meeting with the Genius Club. The club president—an old man wearing an Einstein mask—had officially given him the title “No. 9 Rhine.” Everyone had stood up, applauding as Lin Xian was welcomed into the club.

Elon Musk, wearing a Tesla mask, had clapped the loudest.

Everyone knew it was Elon Musk; he wasn’t even trying to hide it. Lin Xian recognized him immediately and went up to shake his hand.

But at that very moment, Elon Musk vanished.

The exact time was 1:18 a.m.

Lin Xian was sure of it now. This shift in the worldline, this fluctuation in time-space—it must have been caused by something Elon Musk did.

He thought about it carefully. Elon Musk, having discovered there was a traitor among them, wouldn’t just sit and wait to be taken down. He must have used the “Prince for a Leopard Cat” trick—a substitution.

So Elon Musk, who should have died, survived. The imposter took his place instead, and the worldline shifted accordingly.

As the leader of the Mars Migration Project, Elon Musk—whether the real one or the fake one—was influential enough to cause a shift in the worldline. There was no doubt about it.

And when Lin Xian last spoke to him, Elon Musk had hinted that he had more plans beyond just swapping places.

That must have been why the worldline curvature shifted so drastically.

But it also meant something else—

Lin Yu Xi had recovered her memories at that moment.

But why?

Was it because, during the worldline drop, it briefly passed through the 0.0000000 point, where Lin Yu Xi was? Or was it because in the -0.0000042 worldline, there was another Lin Yu Xi?

Lin Xian felt the second possibility was more likely.

Lin Yu Xi knew the blue-eyed girl from Number 17; they were clearly quite familiar.

This suggested that Lin Yu Xi must have played some part in the -0.0000042 worldline.

One thing was certain:

The -0.0000042 worldline and the 0.0000000 worldline were closely connected. Their worldviews and future visions must have been very similar.

So perhaps they could assume that the blue-eyed girl from Number 17 had traveled from the -0.0000042 worldline, using entangled time-space particles to do so.

If that was the case, then in this worldline, the time-space police, time-space courts, and time machines were all real, and the world was still under Copernicus’s rule.

Lin Xian pointed at the time-space clock and asked again, “What happened after that? When did the clock change again?”

“At 2:14 a.m.,” Liu Feng responded promptly.

Lin Xian had explicitly instructed Liu Feng to record every instance of time-space fluctuation precisely. He had even set up a surveillance camera to monitor the clock around the clock.

“At 2:14 a.m., the reading began to climb. The worldline moved from negative to positive,” Liu Feng continued. “It climbed steadily, passing through 0.0000000 and eventually reaching 0.0000168, where it stabilized. After that, there was no change. It stayed that way until you arrived.”

Lin Xian glanced at his watch, his mind recalling the time. 2:14 a.m.

That was when Lin Yu Xi transformed into her blue quantum form, and the blue stardust exploded across Donghai City, obliterating the time-space assassin and the blue-eyed girl from Number 17.

There was something strange about that moment.

It was as if Lin Yu Xi had suddenly remembered something important. She had hugged Lin Xian, called him “Dad” in a voice that broke his heart, and then—in a burst of blue snow—sacrificed herself to save him.

Lin Xian was sure of it.

That action must have been triggered by a regained memory.

Before that, during their many encounters with the blue-eyed girl, Lin Yu Xi had always been at a disadvantage, pushed into desperate situations.

The pressure from Number 17 had been overwhelming; they had no chance of winning. Especially when Number 17 ripped a V12 engine straight out of a Ferrari’s trunk with one hand, it felt like the end.

Until that moment, Lin Yu Xi had shown no signs of sacrificing herself.

The biggest evidence was when Lin Xian had rushed over to her, cradling the injured Lin Yu Xi. He distinctly remembered seeing a flash of blue in her eyes—just for a brief moment. Half a second, at most.

Considering the frequency of the time-space clock’s shifts, it also happened every half-second.

Lin Xian had good reason to believe that when the clock crossed the 0.0000000 point again, Lin Yu Xi had regained her memory of becoming a blue bomb.

...

Seeing Lin Xian fall into deep thought, Liu Feng walked to the lab’s corner and patted the white mini-fridge on the table. “That’s all the updates about the time-space clock. Now, about the entangled time-space particles... Come have a look.”

Hearing Liu Feng, Lin Xian walked over quickly. Liu Feng tapped in the password, opening the fridge door to reveal—

Rotation, rotation. The first thing he saw was two particles, orbiting one another endlessly, just as when Lin Xian had first seen them. Each particle was wrapped in streaks of lightning, pulsating violently, spinning around each other, with their inner charge balls smashing aggressively into their blue cores.

These were fully intact entangled time-space particles. Brimming with energy. Full of life.

“When did they recover like this?”

“The exact moment the blue snow disappeared,” Liu Feng explained. “At 2:14 a.m., when those blue stardust flakes fell all across Donghai City, disappearing within seconds. Right after that, the white fridge beeped. I opened it, and this entangled particle had recharged. Not just visually—I tested it myself before you got here. This particle’s energy is completely restored, not a bit depleted. It’s in its most complete, original state. Of course, it’s inert now, which is why it can be confined to the fridge, instead of jumping around the sky, ignoring all physical laws.”

Lin Xian crouched down, leaning in closer to the particles. Indeed, they spun tirelessly, just like a binary star system in the cosmos. Constant, steady, unchanged for eternity.

Now, though, what caused the particles to recharge?

Lin Xian shook his head. In truth, the reason wasn’t important. What mattered was confirming that these particles could indeed be recharged.

And all of the trouble—every nail-biting, heart-pounding issue—had been caused by these particles being able to recharge.

Lin Xian sighed softly, patting the mini-fridge. “This thing... really is trouble.”

“Huh?” Liu Feng looked puzzled. “This is a treasure!” he protested. “Maybe ordinary time-space particles aren’t that valuable, but these—these are entangled time-space particles! Their existence alone is a miracle... The fact that Elon Musk was able to capture them was even more so!

“And now, after losing their energy, these particles have somehow recharged! I’ve been staring at them all night in awe. How can you call them trouble?”

Lin Xian shook his head again. “Liu Feng... you don’t understand. You know that the greatest value of these particles lies in their ability to facilitate time travel. Sure, it’s amazing. That’s why Yellow Finch came here, after all.

“But have you considered that if good people can travel through time, bad people can, too? If someone can come from the future to help us, someone can come back to kill us. It’s just like in Terminator—the enemies from the future tend to be more powerful than the allies. After all, it’s much easier to kill someone than to protect them.

“Otherwise... why do you think Elon Musk, who cherished these particles so much, ultimately chose to destroy them? It was because he knew he couldn’t protect them. So, he decided to destroy them rather than let the enemy have them.

“But we all miscalculated. We never imagined that, unless they’re completely destroyed, these things could recharge and become viable for time travel again.”

“That—is a problem. We used to think that a depleted time-space particle was useless, something only fit for research. But now we know that even ‘dead’ time-space particles are as important as live ones. Anyone who figures out how to recharge them can essentially use them indefinitely.”

“Imagine that—an endless supply of entangled time-space particles, repeatedly sending super-powerful ‘Terminators’ from the future to kill us... Not even gods could endure that.”

Suddenly—Liu Feng understood. He began pacing quickly around the lab, gesturing with his fingers. “You’re right. This really is a problem.

“Sure, they can’t build a time machine anytime soon, and the enemy won’t be stealing these particles... but in the long run, we can’t predict what technology will be like in a few decades, let alone a few centuries. Many problems we can’t solve today might be solved by then.”

He paused, looking at Lin Xian. “But there’s still a problem. How are we supposed to destroy these particles completely?

“If they were still active, that’d be one thing. Just touching or colliding with them would’ve been enough to deactivate them. Once they turned invisible, only someone like Chu An Qing could see them.

“And once they lose their activity—no one can even see them anymore, much less capture them again. But now...

“Whether they’re in the fridge or a rice cooker, they’re completely inert. Even if you throw them into the ocean or into a volcano, they can still be detected.

“Of course, throwing them into the ocean or a volcano would make them hard to recover, but not impossible. Who knows what technological advancements could happen in the coming decades or centuries.”

“Like you said, depleted time-space particles are essentially the same as fully charged ones to someone who knows how to recharge them—just an empty battery that needs a recharge.”

“So, how do we completely destroy them now that they’ve gone inert?”

Suddenly, an idea struck Liu Feng. “I have a solution!” He looked at Lin Xian, eyes wide. “You could ask Elon Musk for his rocket. Send the particles out into space, like Voyager One—just let them fly out of the solar system. Humanity wouldn’t have the technology to chase them down. And by the time technology advanced enough to catch up, the particles would be several light-years away—too far for detection or retrieval.

“Wouldn’t that solve the problem entirely?”

Lin Xian smiled and pulled out a chair, sitting down at the lab bench. “You’re right; that’s definitely one solution—but it’s the last resort.

“Entangled time-space particles are a hot commodity. No one realizes how precious, how unique, how utterly game-changing they are. I can already foresee a future where, once time machines are perfected, a fierce battle over these particles breaks out.”

“Exactly!” Liu Feng looked confused. “Which is why we should get rid of them now! Send them into space! No more problems.”

Lin Xian shook his head. “Let me finish. These particles are too precious to just throw away. Plus, there’s another, better way to solve the problem.

Lin Xian looked up to meet Liu Feng’s gaze, “We’ll use them.”

Liu Feng’s eyes widened as he took a deep breath. “W-what? Use them up? But... how? We don’t even have a time machine!”

Snap. Lin Xian opened his briefcase, slamming a stack of manuscripts onto the lab bench. Liu Feng leaned in for a closer look—Theories on Time-Space Travel, and Blueprint for the Time Machine.

“Holy crap!” Liu Feng exclaimed. “Where did you get this?!”

“That’s not important,” Lin Xian waved his hand dismissively. “What matters is that we build a time machine as soon as possible and use these particles once and for all.”

Liu Feng straightened up, looking at Lin Xian. “Are you saying...”

“Exactly.” Lin Xian nodded firmly.

In the future, in other timelines, two family members had traveled back through time for him. Yellow Finch had led him from a confused boy to a responsible man. Yu Xi had turned him from an immature man to a steadfast father.

This time, it was his turn.

Lin Xian locked onto Liu Feng’s gaze, speaking each word with certainty:

“I’m going to be the first person in human history to use these entangled time-space particles for Time Travel.”