Genius Club.

Chapter 451: Truth and Loopholes

Two days later, Donghai, Lingang New Area, Tesla Gigafactory, laboratory.

"Lin Xian, it has been confirmed."

Jask made way in front of the lab table to let Lin Xian come over and watch.

On the lab bench was a gold badge from the Genius Club that had been disassembled into its various parts using precision equipment.

……

Two days ago, when leaving the Swiss airport, Angelica was in a good mood. She hugged Lin Xian, rejected Jask's hug, and prepared to fly back to the United States.

She said she was going to Brooklyn to give a bouquet of flowers to Ji Xinshui and Ji Lin's tombstones, sweep the graves, and tell the old and young the good news of Copernicus' death.

"If there's a chance in the future...would you like to come over as well?"

At that time, Angelica looked at Lin Xian and said with a smile:

"Although I also know that you have a grudge against those two people, but... now Copernicus is dead, and they are both dead, so can many things be evened out?"

"However, it doesn't matter if you don't want to come. I just think that if Ji Lin knew that it was you who avenged his parents and could come to the tombstone in person to see it, he would be happy."

"talk later."

Seeing Angelica so happy and relieved, Lin Xian didn't want to spoil her fun, so he simply ignored her request.

just.

【Brooklyn】.

Lin Xian was particularly concerned about the name of this city.

The painting "Sad Einstein" was painted for Einstein by the painter Henry Dawson in Brooklyn in 1952.

How come Ji Xinshui, a Chinese citizen, was buried abroad, in Brooklyn, New York, after his death?

Doesn't he have a hometown?
Returning to one's roots is an obsession deep in the bones of every Dragon countryman, especially for old people from the old times like Ji Xinshui... Shouldn't they prefer to bury their bodies or ashes in the soil of their hometown?
"You buried them both in Brooklyn?"

Lin Xian asked:

"Is it your intention or their intention when they were alive?"

"That's what the old man meant."

Angelica opened her palms, grasped the waterfall of black hair behind her head, tied it into a ponytail casually, and continued:
"The old man likes Brooklyn very much. He goes to Brooklyn at the beginning of every year. He says that his best friends are there and he wants to pay tribute to them... It seems to be the case. I also heard Ji Lin complain."

"I don't know the specifics, and the old man rarely talks about it, so what I said just now might not be right. Ji Xinshui might not particularly like that city, but Brooklyn has unforgettable things and people for him, so he insists on visiting the graves every year."

Lin Xian nodded:
"So that's how it is. Do you know whose grave we are visiting and where we are visiting?"

"That's not clear."

Angelica spread her hands:
"I remember telling you that Ji Xinshui sent me to Hollywood to be a child star when I was very young, and I barely saw them once a year. I heard all this from Ji Lin."

"But I feel that Ji Lin is not very clear about it, because he doesn't care much about it. It is also possible that he asked Ji Xinshui, but Ji Xinshui didn't say anything... But I think this possibility is not high, because the old man is not as smart as Ji Lin, and Ji Lin can always get things out of him. To put it bluntly, Ji Lin is not curious about the old man's past."

"alright."

Lin Xian waved to Angelica:

"Bon voyage, see you later."

"You two too~"

Angelica smiled back at Lin Xian and Jask and entered the boarding gate.

"Hmm~"

Jask rubbed his stubble and snorted:
"Lin Xian is so lucky, I envy him so much."

"Haven't you recovered from the frivolousness of playing Fake Sk?" Lin Xian complained.

"No no no."

Jask shook his head:

"I think my acting skills are good enough to switch between the two. I just want to say that Angelica's smile was really beautiful. It was the kind of real happiness and joy that came from the heart."

"of course."

Lin Xian said softly:

"In her life, she experienced the destruction of her family twice and became an orphan twice... After the death of Ji Lin and Ji Xinshui, she was like a vengeful ghost, with no home and no peace."

"But now, after much persuasion, the culprit Copernicus has finally been killed. Angelica has finally fulfilled her greatest wish in life. She must be very happy and relieved."

"only……"

Lin Xian lowered his head and looked at Jask's chest pocket.

Inside was the golden badge of the Genius Club that was taken from Copernicus. In order to confirm whether the old man he had killed before was the real Copernicus... I'm afraid we have to wait until the golden badge is disassembled and analyzed before we can make a conclusion.

Seeing Lin Xian’s gaze.

Jask certainly knew what Lin Xian was thinking.

So he patted his shoulder and said with a smile:

"Don't worry, I won't be going back to the United States this time. Let's take my private plane back to Donghai. I'll go to the Tesla Gigafactory right after I get off the plane. There is a professional laboratory there. I'll call you right away after I study this badge thoroughly."

……

This is why Lin Xian came to Tesla's Gigafactory today. After receiving a call from Jask, he got on a special car and asked Xiao Li to take him here.

Jask pointed to the neatly arranged parts on the table and explained them one by one:
"It's nothing complicated. It's just a coil and an NFC encryption chip. The architecture and principle are very simple."

"The reason why I didn't cut it open but slowly ground it open was to ensure that the internal structure would not be damaged... But if you want to use this gold badge to replace Copernicus to attend the Genius Club gathering, it definitely won't work. The entire system has a strict identity verification mechanism. If you want to know more, I can tell you in detail."

Lin Xian scanned the disassembled parts on the table one by one and found that the ground waste did not seem to be real gold.

He picked up some crumbs and kneaded them:
"plastic?"

"It's not plastic, it's a more complex material that feels and weighs like metal, but it's not metal and it doesn't conduct electricity."

Jask, a science and engineering man, is very professional:
"That's for sure, Lin Xian. The principle of NFC is to use the NFC coil to obtain current. If the coil is surrounded by a metal shell, it will form a 'Faraday cage'. It is impossible for a potential difference and current to form inside."

"I see."

Lin Xian threw away the crumbs in his hand:
"At first I also thought it was incredible that a pure metal badge could be used to make NFC. I thought it was some kind of high-tech thing."

"Then tell me about the [identity authentication mechanism] for the Genius Club gatherings. I'm very interested."

Jas pulled a chair for Lin Xian to sit down on, and began to narrate:
"I learned from them that before 2004, the Genius Club had always adopted the offline gathering model. At the last gathering in 2004, Einstein gave the gold badge to the five of them."

"Oh, that's Copernicus, Newton, Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Gauss... There are only five of them in the genius club in 2004."

"Einstein said that from then on, they would use the golden badge and hold gatherings online, which would help members hide their identities. It is said that the early network structure was very simple, but I have never seen it, so I don't know what it looks like."

Lin Xian nodded:
"It seems that the wax seal of the original invitation to the Genius Club did not contain the gold badge. After that, Einstein must have replaced the remaining three invitations... and sealed the gold badge in the wax seal, waiting for the remaining three geniuses to find it."

“In fact, there was one at the beginning.”

Jask leaned back in his chair.
"It's just that the badge inside the wax seal of the invitation letter was a genuine gold badge, solid gold, without any NFC function, and naturally no identity verification function."

"To put it bluntly, many operations in the Genius Club are based on a rigid sense of ritual and tradition, such as this gold badge... In fact, the NFC device does not need to be made like this. For example, the mask on the VR avatar's face is superfluous... Forget it, I won't complain about this anymore. I'll continue to tell you."

"The key in this golden badge is unique and represents your identity. However, starting from the first time you use it to attend a party, the background system will collect all your biometric features, such as voiceprint, face, fingerprints, etc...."

"Of course, these collections are done silently, and you can't notice them. They are accumulated over many years, and not all of them can be collected. But voiceprints are definitely no problem. People's voiceprints are unique and special, just like fingerprints."

"But it should be possible to crack it, right?"

Lin Xian replied:

"Although it is technically difficult to forge a fake fingerprint and voiceprint, it is not impossible."

"Just listen to me."

Jask smiled:

"I just used voiceprint as an example, but in fact the identity verification system is very comprehensive, including intonation, face, accent, laughter... As you attend more and more parties, more and more characteristic passwords will be stored on the server."

"Every time you use the gold badge to join a party, doesn't it flash a waiting screen for a long time? That's the party program using various methods to determine your identity."

"If it was an early, more rudimentary system, I guess we could still find a way to bypass the verification, but... ever since Kevin Walker joined the Genius Club and redesigned the entire program and encryption logic, it's almost impossible to crack it."

"Don't say it's impossible to crack it. Any member of the Genius Club must have tried many ways to find the location of the Genius Club party system server in order to obtain information about other members from it."

"Without exception, they all failed. To be honest, I really don't like Kevin Walker, but putting aside my personal feelings, Kevin Walker's technical level is definitely far ahead of his time. He is truly worthy of the title of the strongest hacker on earth."

……

Lin Xian listened silently.

He also agreed with this point.

After all, even the super artificial intelligence VV can't find Kevin Walker's address and identity. This guy is definitely a genius among geniuses in the field of computer network technology. Perhaps there will not be a more powerful genius than him in the next few hundred years.

after all……

He quietly created the digital life.

The man deserves to be killed, but it is an indisputable fact that Lin Xian does admire Kevin Walker's technical level.

Lin Xian raised his head and looked at Jask:
"So, in your opinion, members of the Genius Club will never be impersonated."

"From a technical point of view, I don't think it's possible."

Jask affirmed:
“Unless you can find a genius better than Kevin Walker, but the premise is… I don’t know if Einstein would condone such a thing. After all, he is omniscient. If someone really pretended to be a member to attend the meeting, he would definitely know about it.”

Lin Xian rubbed his chin.

Lost in thought.

Be so sure.

Doesn't that mean...

Had they really killed Copernicus? And ended the scourge once and for all?
"Lin Xian, I know you are very cautious."

Jask said earnestly:
"But... there is really no need to be overly suspicious."

"Look now, the old man we killed had the same voice as Copernicus, fell into the trap we set, and was wearing an absolutely authentic Genius Club badge. There was advanced technology in the underground base, and he had arranged for a female secretary to be by my side from a long time ago. He almost stole the entangled space-time particles before..."

"Isn't all this evidence enough? I think it's now clear that—"

"[We did kill the real Copernicus! We avenge our grievances!]"

Lin Xian chuckled.

He heard it too.

Angelica and Jask both thought that they had gone crazy over the matter of Copernicus and refused to believe the fact that the assassination was successful. If he did not have the ability to dream about 600 years in the future, he would have believed it. After all, 99.99% of the facts confirmed that the dead old man was indeed Copernicus.

But the problem is...

He has experienced his first dream!
In the first dream, there was clearly no hibernation chamber, but someone still killed Big Face Cat’s father on time at 00:42 in the early morning.

This is clearly the work of Copernicus.

In other words, it is a Copernican style.

This was the fact that worried him most.

[Will there be a second Copernicus? ]

If so, where is he?
So if there is a second one, will there be a third and a fourth?
But in fact.

If we go into details, there is still one biggest doubt about the death of Big Face Cat's father in the first dream.

That is……

The big-faced cat daughter who died together!
There is no denying that Copernicus ruthlessly killed scientists and mathematicians for his own future plans.

But he did respect these people very much. Not only did he insist on letting them die at 00:42 to express his inexplicable respect, he also repeatedly emphasized that [innocent people should not be killed indiscriminately].

It is because of the iron rule that innocent people cannot be killed indiscriminately.

Only because of this can I live till now, and Ji Lin can live for more than 20 years.

Copernicus killed people based on certain principles.

But the murderer who killed Big Face Cat's father didn't seem to abide by the principles.

If Copernicus had followed his method, he would have killed the Big Face Cat father but let the Big Face Cat daughter survive, which would be in line with his arrogance and conceit.

Just like when the genius club meets...

Newton pointed at Copernicus' nose and cursed him, accusing him of killing scientists indiscriminately. Copernicus just smiled and didn't care and continued to curse.

But at the last party, he said that Copernicus killed his father and daughter. Copernicus got very angry and gave a long speech explaining his nobleness, saying that he would never kill innocent children. He immediately distanced himself from the incident and said it was not him.

It seems...

This groundless accusation was Copernicus's Achilles' heel and the bottom line of his principles.

Let’s analyze it this way.

It seems that the murderer who killed Big Face Cat's father and daughter was someone else.

[Like Copernicus, but not Copernicus. ]

……

There was silence for a long time.

Lin Xian sat up straight, changed his sitting position, and said softly:
"In fact, there is no point in us debating with each other here. If we really want to confirm whether Copernicus is really dead and whether the person we killed is the real Copernicus... Einstein is the most authoritative certification."

Thinking of the magical Einstein who was like a Tmall Genie, Lin Xian couldn't help but laugh:

"I still trust Einstein very much. If Einstein says Copernicus is dead, then I really believe that Copernicus is dead."

"Ha ha ha ha……"

Jask was also amused by this joke and shook his head slowly:

"That's impossible, Lin Xian. You should know the rules of questioning. You can't ask questions about members of the Genius Club, nor can you ask questions about the Genius Club itself."

"No, Jask, you're wrong."

Lin Xian waved his hand:
"This questioning rule has a [loophole]."

"Loophole?"

Jask narrowed his eyes:
"How is it possible... You are underestimating Einstein, the Genius Club, and the other members too much, aren't you?"

"This is a club for geniuses, not a club for idiots. The members who can join are all smart people. If there is any loophole, they would have discovered it long ago."

Lin Xian smiled:
"Well, actually, it's not really appropriate to call it a loophole. We can only say that it's a clever use of the rules."

"Of course I remember very clearly the three rules of questioning that Einstein mentioned. The first one is——"

"The questions you ask must not involve the identities, plans, actions, or privacy of other members of the Genius Club. Otherwise, you will be refused to answer and the opportunity to ask the question will be voided as a warning."

"So, did you get the point, Jask?"

"The rule is that questions asked cannot involve [other] members of the Genius Club, but it doesn't say they can't involve [yourself]."

"At the party where you disappeared, I asked him when I would die, and Einstein gave me the exact answer, even down to the minutes and seconds."

"Of course I know that if I ask any member present about their death date, Einstein will refuse to answer, but I can ask my own."

"hehe."

Jask chuckled and clapped his hands:

"That's great my good brother! Aren't you talking nonsense?"

"This rule itself is to protect everyone's privacy and safety. Who would take the initiative to ask questions about themselves in public and let Einstein tell everyone the answers?"

"I said the same thing again. Don't underestimate those geniuses, Lin Xian. It's true that you can control your questions, but you can't control Einstein's answers."

"If Einstein says one key sentence when you ask a question about yourself... it doesn't need to be much, even just one sentence, other geniuses will definitely be able to follow the clues to deduce your identity, position, plan, and goal."

"If you want to ask yourself questions about whether Copernicus is really dead, I advise you to be very careful; don't trust anyone in the genius club or anything they say."

"Including the seemingly innocent and silly Gauss, the approachable, warm and kind Leonardo da Vinci, and the righteous Newton... No one knows what kind of hypocrisy is hidden under their masks, and whether they are human or ghost."

Lin Xian nodded:
"Don't worry. There are still three days until the next Genius Club meeting on September 9st. I will think about it carefully."

"Of course, I certainly hope that you and Angelica are right. If it turns out that I was overthinking and it was a false alarm, there would be no better outcome than this. Then I will invite you to open the champagne."

Say it.

He stood up and prepared to leave:

"Then I'll go back first, Jask, we'll contact you anytime if there's anything."

Jask also stood up and shook hands solemnly with Lin Xian again:

"Although saying thank you may seem a little awkward, I really want to say this to you from the bottom of my heart..."

"Thank you, Lin Xian, thank you for telling me the information in time and saving my life."

He pounded his chest and assured Lin Xian:

"If there is a day when I can repay you, please don't be polite to me. I will do it even if it costs me my life."

……

Afterwards, Jask sent Lin Xian to the car and watched him leave.

Xiao Li, who was driving the Alpha, turned around:
"Boss Lin, where are we going now?"

"go home."

Lin Xian yawned:
"I haven't recovered from this jet lag. I haven't slept for a long time. I'm going home to take a long nap."

Ding-a-ling-ding-ling-ding-ling-ding-ling--

At this time, the cell phone rang.

Lin Xian picked up the phone and saw the caller ID...

Gao Yang?

We haven't been in touch for half a month since I hurriedly left my hometown in Hangzhou. What's the matter with you calling now?

"Hey?"

Lin Xian answered the phone.

"Hey hey hey!"

On the other end of the phone, Gao Yang was very excited:

"Come to my house tonight and watch the videotape!"

"What videotape?" Lin Xian asked casually.

"The video tape that Zhang Yuqian brought out of her coffin! You wouldn't have forgotten it, would you?"

"..."

Lin Xian closed his eyes and took a deep breath:

"How dare you tell me this? It's been months since you fixed the VCR issue? Why don't you invite me to your house to watch the VCR in 600 years?"

"Please don't accuse me of this!"

Gao Yang is confident:

"This videotape is a small model specially customized by Panasonic. It's really hard to find a dedicated video recorder. I took a lot of effort to get one for you from Sakura Country."

"Actually, the main reason is not this, but that the videotape is too badly damaged... You don't think the coffin is a time machine and time doesn't flow, do you? If you put the videotape directly into the machine, it won't be readable at all. I found a professional restorer to repair the videotape, and he just called me and said it's been repaired."

"alright."

Lin Xian changed his hand and held the phone:

"If you're not busy, I can go to your house now. There's no need to wait until the evening."

"Oh, the 4S shop is very busy right now, and I still have to go to the restorer to get the videotape. Let's do it in the evening. Come to my house at around or in the evening and we'll watch it together! I can't wait to see what's in this mysterious videotape!"

After saying that, Gao Yang hung up the phone.

Lin Xian closed his eyes.

Recalling Chu Anqing who disappeared into blue stardust,

Recalling the photo of Zhang Yuqian's smiling face in her coffin,

Recalling two girls who look exactly the same, with their lives misplaced for 24 years,

Recalling the strange code 1952 in the code diary...

He was indeed very curious and slowly opened his eyes:

"In Zhang Yuqian's videotape..."

"What exactly was recorded?"

(End of this chapter)