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“Quick, get in,” urged Lin Xian. He and CC squeezed under the dumping section of a garbage truck, heading towards Donghai City.

As they progressed, the garbage trucks veered off the planned route. Eventually, only two trucks continued towards the Time Bank.

Screech—

After about 20 minutes, their heavy truck came to a sudden stop. The force of the stop pushed Lin Xian and CC together. They peeked out; the truck ahead was stopped right at the bank’s entrance, theirs just behind. Above, the large sign reading “Time Bank” loomed, with some English beneath. The sign was off, unlike the other illuminated signs around, adding a neglected feel to the scene.

“We’re finally here,” Lin Xian sighed after their rough ride.

CC blinked, puzzled. “Wasn’t that smooth? It actually went really well.”

“It cost me countless lives to get here,” Lin Xian said with a dry laugh.

For CC, it was a straightforward task. But for Lin Xian, starting from the garbage dump, he had ‘died’ many times to finally reach this point.

They climbed out quietly and peeked from behind the truck towards the bank’s entrance. In front of them, several robots were busy moving aluminum alloy safes from a warehouse, loading them onto other trucks. A man, likely the supervisor, sat smoking nearby, his legs crossed.

“The gunfire would be too loud; it might draw the patrol mech dogs,” CC whispered, pulling out a tranquilizer dart from his pocket. “I’ll take care of him.”

“Okay, show me what you’ve got,” Lin Xian said, confident in CC’s abilities.

CC crouched and moved silently, sticking close to the walls as he approached the smoking man from behind.

“Mm—!” In a swift motion, CC covered the man’s mouth and nose and pressed the tranquilizer dart against his neck!

After about twenty or thirty seconds, the man’s body slackened. CC held him until he was completely unconscious, then gently laid him against the wall.

“No wonder this tranquilizer is so potent,” Lin Xian remarked as he joined CC.

In hospitals, surgical anesthesia, except for the inhaled type, usually takes time to take effect, and the dosage needs careful control. But with animal tranquilizers, high doses seemed to do the job quickly.

“Let’s go,” said Lin Xian.

They sneaked past the robots loading the safes and entered the bank’s warehouse. Since the bank had been bankrupt for some time, most valuable items had already been removed. After today, the remaining safes were essentially unclaimed.

The robots, lacking an alarm system, automatically avoided obstacles and people, showing advanced user-friendliness. They quickly reached the area filled with safes.

“Long time no see,” Lin Xian murmured, looking at the gleaming safes. He felt nostalgic; he had dealt with these daily in his first dream. Today, he had come full circle.

Originally, these safes were embedded in the walls, but now they lay scattered on the floor. They made their way to the back of the warehouse, and soon, they found the safe labeled with Lin Xian’s name.

“This is it!” CC exclaimed, crouching to work on the combination lock.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Lin Xian listened to the sounds of the lock, but each attempt ended with a thud—the lock refusing to open. CC tried numerous combinations, all to no avail.

“Let me try,” Lin Xian offered, taking over.

He set the combination to 29990203, took a deep breath…

Thud!

He pressed down hard on the lock!

…

It didn’t open.

“Huh?” Lin Xian chuckled, unsurprised.

Well, despite all his efforts, he was not confident. He had tried this safe so many times unsuccessfully, his confidence had dwindled. He tried the password for Zhao Ying Jun’s office door as well, but to no avail. He also tried every password related to 42 he could think of… still no success.

“Forget it, your turn,” Lin Xian stepped aside, letting CC try as he watched the safe.

If 29990203 couldn’t open it, there were two possibilities: either this wasn’t his safe, or his future self didn’t want his present self to open it.

“The future me must have set an unbreakable password,” Lin Xian mused. If that was the case, further attempts were pointless. The person who knew him best was himself. If his future self really didn’t want his present self to open the safe, with all his thoughts laid out… it would be impossible.

As Zhao Ying Jun had said, a password without any logical pattern is the hardest to crack, unless brute force is used. But to brute-force an 8-digit password, with only a few minutes each day after an arduous journey, could take decades.

Lin Xian suddenly had an idea and turned to CC: “Since this safe was left for you by that bearded man, why not try your birthday or related dates first?”

CC chuckled, “I tried my birthday right away, even every year’s… made me feel overly sentimental.”

“It’s unlikely to be a date related to me, because according to him, he put the stuff in the safe a long time ago, not specifically for me.”

“You keep trying here, I’ll look for the bank’s records,” Lin Xian said, heading upstairs to the second floor of Time Bank. The second floor housed mostly offices, but most things had been cleared out, leaving only dusty remnants.

Lin Xian knew trying the passwords one by one was a long shot, like finding a needle in a haystack. It was better to look for clues elsewhere. He rummaged through the office trash bins, finding some printed waste paper, some bills, some empty boxes…

He searched many offices but found nothing of value until the second-to-last office, where he found a torn draft of a speech in the trash. Surprisingly, despite the advanced audiovisual tech 600 years later, leaders still preferred reading from scripts, perhaps for the sense of formality.

He picked up the speech, and the beginning read:

“Since Time Bank was founded in 2023, it has endured 600 years of ups and downs…”

“2023?” Lin Xian noted the familiar year!

Wasn’t that the year he lived in the real world?

He read the speech again carefully but found no other useful information, just sentimental words from the bankruptcy ceremony. However, the founding year of Time Bank was crucial.

“If Time Bank was founded in 2023… when did I store things in the safe and set the password?”

Lin Xian wasn’t sure if he was one of Time Bank’s first customers, but it was a possibility. Lin Xian had searched the internet before but found no information about Time Bank.

That means maybe in the coming months, Time Bank will be established no later than New Year’s Day 2024.

“This might be the link that connects 600 years of time!”

Lin Xian had always wondered if there was a way to hide something from 600 years ago and retrieve it 600 years later. But in the first dream and real life, there were no common coordinates, no corresponding places. Even if he buried something, it would be in vain. The second dream was even more different from the real Donghai.

But now it was different.

As long as Time Bank was founded in 2023, he could open a safe there, easily transporting items from 600 years ago to 600 years later! Though he couldn’t think of anything that would be useful after 600 years, having a link was better than none.

“If only there was a way to send something from 600 years in the future back 600 years, but… time doesn’t flow backward.”

Lin Xian leaned against a dusty metal cabinet, pondering his next steps.

For now, the safe couldn’t be opened. But Lin Xian didn’t mind.

One, Time Bank would be founded soon, and the answer would be revealed. Two, if his future self didn’t want his present self to open the safe, there must be a good reason. Lin Xian believed his future self wouldn’t deceive himself; he must have a purpose, so he deliberately set an unbreakable password.

“So, I’ll put the safe aside for now and patiently wait for Time Bank to be established in 2023.”

“The focus now is on the cat-and-mouse game Yellow Finch mentioned and the Genius Club invitation.”

These two things. One was a crisis he faced, the other was the key to solving all mysteries. Both were equally important. But both were also without any leads, not knowing where to go or what to do next.

Clearly, Yellow Finch knew all the answers. She spoke with certainty but chose to be cryptic.

Of the two, Lin Xian was more concerned about the cat-and-mouse game. A cat-and-mouse game, essentially, is hide-and-seek. Since Yellow Finch gave him this hint, it meant he was about to, or already, fall into some danger.

Lin Xian was somewhat aware of this.

If the cat referred to the person who killed Xu Yun, they could easily trace the “interest relationship” between him and Xu Yun. Although these interests didn’t directly prove anything, they indicated some undisclosed secrets between them. Those secrets might be what the killers cared about most.

Fortunately, Xu Yun had destroyed the manuscript he gave Lin Xian, so the killers shouldn’t find direct evidence of his research assistance. But that wouldn’t stop them from suspecting him.

Why did they kill Xu Yun? Unknown.

Would they kill him at 00:42 too? Uncertain.

“But at least one thing is certain,” Lin Xian thought, looking out the window at the robots loading safes onto the garbage trucks. He recalled the hide-and-seek games he played with friends in the residential complex as a child. “Since it’s hide-and-seek, they’ll come out to find me, right? They’ll have some contact with me?”

He closed his eyes, recalling the people who had recently appeared around him, either actively or passively.

“Who could it be?”