Genius Club

This novel is translated and hosted on Bcatranslation

On November 2, 1952, at precisely 12:37 PM, in a secluded house on Marshall Street, Princeton, Albert Einstein had gone without sleep for an entire day and night. For a man in his seventies, staying awake for over 24 hours was nothing short of a challenge to death itself.

Yet, he couldn’t stop.

For the past 24 sleepless, foodless hours, Einstein remained seated at his desk in the study, motionless. The sound of a fountain pen scratching against paper echoed in the room as he scribbled furiously. Sheets of draft paper, already filled with calculations, lay scattered across the floor. Even now, another piece fluttered to the ground, discarded from his desk.

“The… cosmological constant…” Einstein murmured hoarsely, licking his dry, cracked lips that hadn’t tasted water in hours.

He was overwhelmed with excitement.

Thrilled beyond measure.

Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined revisiting and making progress on a topic he had once proposed and dismissed.

His sharp eyes were glued to the lines of derivations on the paper before him.

Now, as he reviewed his calculations, everything seemed to fit. The cosmological constant, the concept he had once doubted, truly existed!

With this fresh approach, the calculation process flowed smoothly, devoid of any obstacles. The beauty of the equations, their symmetry, and elegance assured Einstein of one thing: only a correct path could yield such exquisite precision.

It was unimaginable.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

He might actually be on the brink of calculating the cosmological constant!

“What could the value of the cosmological constant be?” he whispered.

Tossing aside yet another sheet filled with equations, he began anew on a fresh page, advancing his derivations step by step.

Closer.

Closer.

The equations grew ever more concise, and the final result seemed imminent. What was the cosmological constant? What did it signify? What unique power did it hold? Questions that had haunted him for half his life might soon find answers.

Closer.

Closer.

The pen’s scratching sound filled the room as Einstein’s latest draft quickly filled with calculations. Only one corner of the page remained blank, and there, the ultimate equation, now simplified to its purest form, awaited resolution.

Einstein’s breath quickened.

His eyes widened in disbelief.

“A… whole number?”

Though the exact answer wasn’t yet written, he had already calculated it mentally. The cosmological constant, astonishingly, was an integer!

“No, that’s impossible!”

A wave of panic washed over him.

According to his original hypothesis, the cosmological constant should have been an infinitesimal number, so small it was negligible even on a galactic scale. It should have approached zero—infinitely close to nothing.

But now…

Why was it an integer?

“Could I have made a mistake?”

Shaking his head, Einstein instantly dismissed the notion.

The calculations had progressed too flawlessly, as if guided by inevitability itself. There could be no error.

Even if the result defied conventional wisdom.

Mathematics, after all, was absolute. The answer had to be correct.

Tossing aside the current draft, Einstein inhaled deeply and focused on a fresh sheet of paper.

Lifting his pen, he poised its tip over the blank surface.

With two quick strokes, he wrote the final value of the cosmological constant:

42.

Buzz~~~~~

The instant his pen left the paper, the space behind him began to ripple, as if a stone had been dropped into a pond. Waves of distortion radiated outward, accompanied by a high-pitched hum that seemed to slice through the air.

Then, without warning, two apple-sized, crackling blue electric orbs emerged from the rift. Their azure glow filled the room, painting everything in shades of eerie blue.

Einstein, sensing something amiss, spun around abruptly.

But it was too late.

One of the glowing orbs darted toward him with blinding speed. In the blink of an eye, it fused into his chest, silent and seamless.

Boom…

Einstein’s mind exploded with a singularity of light, engulfed in pure whiteness. His vision faded to nothingness; every thought vanished, replaced by an all-consuming void. His body went limp, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed, unconscious. His head struck the desk, landing squarely on the draft paper where the number 42 was scrawled.

The second blue orb didn’t linger.

With calculated precision, it zipped out of the house in a series of bright flashes, heading eastward into the sky—

…

At the same time…

On the rooftop of the Williamsburg Savings Bank clock tower, Lin Xian leaned against the railing, locking eyes with CC just a few steps away.

Below them, out of sight, the massive clock face ticked steadily. The hour hand strained toward one, the minute hand had just passed eight, and the second hand circled tirelessly, fulfilling its unending duty.

A brisk winter wind swept across the open platform above the clock, stirring the hems of Lin Xian and CC’s clothes.

“You lied to me?” Lin Xian blinked in mild surprise.

“About what?”

CC clasped her hands behind her back, shifting uneasily.

“Do you remember the first time we met? When you stole that newspaper from the little Black kid and asked me to pay for it, only for us to realize I didn’t have any money either, so we both had to run away?”

Lin Xian nodded.

“Of course, I remember. That was when I’d just arrived in Brooklyn. I didn’t know anyone or anything, so I swiped a newspaper to get my bearings.”

“But we resolved that, didn’t we? Later, after earning some money at the balloon stand, we went straight to find that kid and paid him back for the newspaper. We even gave him extra, and he seemed pretty happy about it.”

“So, what exactly did you lie about? I don’t get it. You didn’t have any money on you at the time, so even if you wanted to help pay for the newspaper, you couldn’t. That’s why we ran.”

CC bit her lip and looked up, meeting Lin Xian’s gaze.

“That’s what I need to apologize for, Lin Xian. I lied back then. The truth is…”

“I did have money. I just didn’t want to use it.”

She paused, hesitating before continuing.

“When the orphanage grandma passed away, she knew the place would close down, and the kids would be sent away. She worried about us, especially the older ones like me. Families might adopt the younger kids because they’re small, cute, and easier to grow attached to. But teenagers like me? No family wants to take in someone my age. For kids like me, the only road ahead was the streets.”

“Grandma was scared for us older kids. Before she passed, she called each of us to her bedside and gave us advice—told us to stay safe, avoid bad people, know right from wrong, be kind, and never stray into crime.”

“At the very end… she gave each of us twenty dollars. It was the last money she had. She said the war had taken her husband and children, and she’d leave this world with nothing but her worries for us. She called it ‘emergency money.’ Money to keep us from starving on the streets.”

“She made us promise we’d never spend it unless we absolutely had no other choice. It was her final way of helping us.”

“For all these years, I’ve kept that twenty dollars stitched into the pocket of my undershirt. I’ve never touched it—not once. No matter how hungry, desperate, or hopeless I felt, I never dared to even think about using it.”

“I’ve never been sure what counts as an ‘absolute emergency’—but I’ve always been too scared to spend it. That twenty dollars feels more important than life itself.”

CC stepped closer, her voice softening.

“So, Lin Xian… that day we first met, I lied to you. I did have money. I could’ve pulled out some change to help you pay for the newspaper. But… I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

“That’s what’s been weighing on me all this time. You’ve done so much for me, been so good to me, taken care of me in every way, and made sure all my dreams come true.”

“Even when you got money, your first thought was me. You spent almost all of it on me. And yet…”

Her voice trembled as she looked down, biting her lip.

“And yet, when it was my turn, I couldn’t even spare two cents to help you. I’ve felt so guilty about it ever since.”

Hearing her confession, Lin Xian exhaled in relief.

So that was it?

All this tension and nervousness, and it turned out to be something so minor.

“This is nothing,” Lin Xian said with a chuckle.

“It’s such a small thing, not worth mentioning. And honestly, I completely understand why you did what you did. Back on October 28, we’d just met. We didn’t even know each other. We were total strangers.”

“You’re not Jesus, and you’re not the Virgin Mary. Why would you use the emergency money your grandma left you to help a stranger? It wouldn’t make any sense.”

“Now that we’re friends, of course, helping each other out is natural. But back then? I was just some guy who stole a newspaper. No one in their right mind would spend their own money to help me.”

“Honestly, even if it were me in your position, I probably would’ve done the same thing. It’s just common sense. So there’s nothing for you to feel guilty about, CC. The fact that you helped me run and shared the church’s free meal with me was more than enough.”

Lin Xian completely understood CC’s decision.

This scrappy girl from Brooklyn had learned to calculate every move, make every penny count, and stretch every dollar as far as it could go.

Why would she risk spending her grandma’s emergency money to help a stranger? There was no fault in her choice.

“Well, that may be true…”

Hearing that Lin Xian didn’t blame her, CC’s tone lightened, and her familiar smile returned to her face.

“But you’ve been so good to me. I need to repay you somehow!”

“Even if you don’t blame me for the newspaper incident, I can’t just accept your kindness without doing something in return. So… that’s why I deliberately didn’t go with you to see the fireworks shop owner this morning.”

She glanced at Lin Xian, mischief in her eyes.

“As soon as you left the inn, I got up, washed up, and went to Brooklyn Heights’ commercial street.”

“Why did you go there?” Lin Xian asked, puzzled.

CC giggled and took another step forward, narrowing the distance between their eyes to less than half a meter.

“Do you remember the day you took me to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade? On the way, you stared at the watch store window for a long time. You said you really needed a watch and even mentioned you used to wear Rolexes.”

“Now that you’ve got more money and can buy whatever you want, I thought the one thing I could give you, the one thing you lack right now, is a watch.”

For the first time, CC brought her hands out from behind her back.

In her delicate right palm rested a white square gift box. She held it carefully with both hands and extended it toward Lin Xian’s chest.

“I’m sorry I can’t afford a Rolex. The money I had… was just enough to buy the cheapest watch there.”

Lin Xian stared at the tiny box, his breath catching in his throat.

Twenty dollars.

He remembered clearly—the cheapest watch in that store cost exactly twenty dollars.

Twenty dollars, CC’s everything, the life-saving money her grandmother had left her, was now gone. She had spent it all to buy him a watch.

Lin Xian reached out, his arm trembling.

Even though he now had enough money to buy a hundred Rolexes or even the most expensive watch in the world, none of them could weigh as heavily as the twenty-dollar watch before him.

“Eh?”

CC suddenly looked past Lin Xian, her eyes wide with surprise.

“What’s that?”

She blinked, certain she wasn’t imagining things.

A small blue orb of light, like a cannonball, was speeding toward them.

It was impossibly fast.

In the blink of an eye, it was right behind Lin Xian.

“Huh?”

Lin Xian froze, trying to turn around to see what was behind him—

“Lin Xian, watch out!”

CC’s face went pale.

She used all her strength to push Lin Xian aside, throwing herself in the path of the “blue cannonball” instead.

“CC!” Lin Xian shouted.

He watched helplessly as the orb—a spacetime particle—collided with CC.

It wasn’t just an orb. It was charged with violent electricity, glowing with an eerie blue light, radiating both energy and life.

The spacetime particle brushed past Lin Xian’s ear as he stumbled, only to be intercepted by CC, who dove forward. The particle plunged straight into her body.

In an instant, CC’s body turned an ethereal, transparent blue, almost blending into the blue sky behind her.

“CC!”

Lin Xian scrambled to his feet, reaching out to catch her.

But his hands grasped at nothing.

CC’s entire form had become intangible, like air. No matter how much he reached, he couldn’t touch her.

“Lin Xian…” CC’s voice trembled as she stared at him, her gaze fixated.

“Your eyes…”

Lin Xian turned toward the nearby glass, catching his reflection.

His pupils—once a deep black—had turned a brilliant, glowing blue, sparkling like galaxies. They were identical to Yellow Finch’s eyes.

At the same time, his face began to change.

His cheekbones rose. His sharp face became square and rugged. His nose grew taller, and his eye sockets deepened.

Spacetime rejection.

The dreaded spacetime rejection was happening.

The laws of spacetime, the spacetime particle, the Millennial Stake, the blue eyes—Lin Xian immediately understood what was going on.

“CC!!”

He spun around.

But all he saw was—

Whoosh.

Whoosh.

Whoosh.

CC’s nearly transparent body dissolved into a burst of stardust, scattering like sand in the wind.

“CC!” Lin Xian lunged forward, his hands clawing desperately at the air, but he caught nothing.

The stardust floated further and further away until it vanished into nothingness.

Thud.

The white gift box containing the twenty-dollar watch fell to the ground and popped open, the watch tumbling out.

Lin Xian lowered his head, staring at the slightly crude watch face.

The hour, minute, and second hands pointed to a familiar time—

12:42.

Converted to Dragon Country’s time, it was exactly 00:42.

“Ah…”

Lin Xian clenched his fists, his heart breaking.

Inside the white gift box, he noticed a folded piece of handwritten paper, faint black ink showing through the folds.

His heart pounded as chaos swirled in his mind.

Suppressing the storm of emotions within him, Lin Xian picked up the note and unfolded it.

The handwriting was delicate, the words playful:

“Starting tomorrow, daylight saving time ends. Don’t forget to set your watch back an hour~”

Thud.

Lin Xian punched the ground, gripping his head as chills coursed through his body.

He had seen it all too clearly—

The spacetime particle that had turned CC into stardust wasn’t meant for her.

If CC hadn’t pushed him aside, the particle would have hit him instead.

“Which means…”

Lin Xian’s voice trembled.

He realized, even his voice was no longer his own. The spacetime rejection had altered his appearance and even his voice, leaving him entirely unrecognizable.

“The one who should have been hit by that spacetime particle, the one who should have turned into a Millennial Stake, the one who should have dissolved into stardust…”

Lin Xian took a deep, shuddering breath, his teeth clenched tight.

“…was me.”