I control the AI ​​empire thanks to the geniuses in my group.

"Killed?"

"He was killed with a single stab to the throat in the woods outside his hometown village. This time he's truly dead."

Su Zhou sighed and said, "It's Charona again."

Newton sat back in his chair and said, "He is indeed ruthless. His men must have discovered our whereabouts, so they eliminated Gibbons first."

"This person is more dangerous than I thought."

Su Zhou fell silent.

Night had completely enveloped London outside the window, and the faint sound of ship horns could be heard from the Thames in the distance.

Peck's accusations can be described as a forced confession by torture.

Gibbons died, and that connection was severed.

Regarding the physical evidence, Charonnay made thorough cuts; the people below only knew Mr. Chandler, but they had no idea who Mr. Chandler actually was.

However, as long as his plan works, then nothing is a problem!

"It's okay," Su Zhou said confidently.

Newton looked at him.

"The Gibbons route is blocked, which means that Charona had already taken precautions against our original approach to evidence collection. Since a direct attack won't work, we'll stick to my plan."

"Now, this may be our only chance."

Newton looked at the young man in front of him.

This group member of his was exceptionally intelligent, far surpassing anyone he had ever met before.

Looking across the entire European continent, whether it was Leibniz or Hooke, Newton never felt that anyone could intellectually inspire him to awe or even revere him.

But in front of Su Zhou, this scientific giant had to admit that in terms of understanding human nature and strategizing, facing this young man from the mysterious chat group was like facing a chess player who could see the whole game.

His extraordinary brain, capable of calculating the trajectories of celestial bodies and unraveling the mysteries of the universe, could only vaguely glimpse the tip of the iceberg in the face of Su Zhou's intricately linked schemes.

"Your plan..." Newton looked at Su Zhou, "can it really make that cunning old fox willingly walk into the trap?"

Su Zhou stood with his back to the light, pretending to be deep in thought, and said, "Charona is indeed an extremely shrewd liar, but you have to believe that he will eventually make a mistake."

Newton didn't understand, but he was impressed.

……

Newgate Prison, Day 3.

Footsteps came from the end of the corridor. Charona's eyelids twitched, but she didn't open them.

A hand reached through the gap in the iron bars and slipped a folded piece of paper into the pile of straw at his feet. The footsteps then faded into the distance and disappeared into the depths of the corridor.

Charona stretched leisurely, as if he had just woken up, then bent down to tidy up the straw beneath him before pinching the note.

Unfold.

The note contained only one line: "Gibbens is dead. Hall and the others are hunting him down."

After reading it, Charona crumpled the note into a ball, stuffed it into his mouth, chewed it, and swallowed it without changing his expression.

He closed his eyes and exhaled a long breath.

Gibbons is dead, and Hall and the others probably won't live much longer either.

The other small fry can't cause any trouble.

He was best at two things in his life: first, lying; second, cutting off all his tracks before being caught.

I feel so refreshed.

Charonna felt he had won again.

How many times has he escaped Newton's clutches unscathed?

He couldn't remember.

That so-called scientific genius, who could calculate stars, the moon, and gravity, couldn't out-calculate a conman who crawled out of a London slum.

Thinking of this, he almost burst out laughing.

However, there was one person who caught his attention.

That Asian man.

Charona pondered for two days the gesture of speaking up for him at the inauguration ceremony, but still couldn't understand it.

Logically speaking, with Su Zhou having captured Peck and Peck's identification, this was the best time to take him down in one fell swoop. No normal person would defend their opponent at this time.

Unless Su Zhou needs something from him.

Charona thinks this is the most likely!

Perhaps Su Zhou is new to London and his foothold is not yet stable. He needs to rely on his connections and resources in certain gray areas. After all, although he, Charona, is a conman, his network of relationships in the London underworld is much wider than that of the honest blacksmiths at the mint who spend all day forging iron in front of the furnace.

Once I get out of prison, I must find an opportunity to talk to Su Zhou privately.

If they really need his help, then it's easy to handle; it's mutually beneficial. He, Charona, loves doing business with smart people.

Having sorted out his thoughts, Charona turned his attention to the other people in the cell.

In the past few days, more people have been gradually moving into the prison cells.

Theft, fighting, debt, smuggling—all sorts of people, from the most humble to the most voracious.

Charona has been busy these past few days. With his mouth that can make the dead speak, he has already figured out most of the details about everyone in the cell.

This group of people have one thing in common: they are all desperately poor, bold, not very bright, but quick-witted. The key is that they have virtually no understanding of legal provisions.

In other words, they are the perfect targets for exploitation.

No, they're the perfect partners.

Charona no longer had a counterfeit money network, but he couldn't stop. It took him ten years to climb from the bottom to the top of society and go back to poverty.

dream!

So he needs a new path, and he has already figured out that path.

Lottery.

Counterfeit lottery tickets.

The London lottery of 1697 was quite a remarkable thing.

In order to raise money for war—yes, war again. It seems that European kings had no other hobbies besides war—the English government created a national lottery called the Millionaires' Lottery in 1694.

This name has a lot of soul. "Million Dollar Adventure"—buying lottery tickets is indeed an adventure, but the million belongs to the house, the adventure is yours.

Each lottery ticket is worth ten pounds.

What does ten pounds mean?

In other words, buying a lottery ticket is equivalent to an average wage earner spending more than half a year's salary on a gamble.

But the prize money is too tempting!

The top prize is £1,000, and there are also prizes of £500, £100, and £50. Most importantly, even if you don't win, your lottery ticket is a kind of bond, and you can receive an annuity every year, which is a fixed income, for sixteen years!

So this thing went viral as soon as it was released.

Londoners rushed to buy them, out-of-towners asked others to buy them for them, and even the French tried every means to get a few.

And the best part is that lottery tickets can be transferred and traded.

This means that as long as you can make a realistic enough replica, you can sell it on the market!

Moreover, unlike counterfeit money, the anti-counterfeiting technology of lottery tickets is far less advanced than that of coins. Coins can be identified by physical indicators such as weight, material, and edge teeth, but a lottery ticket is just a piece of paper!

A piece of paper with a pattern, a stamp, and a number.

This is a golden opportunity for Charona!

Charonna stood up.

There were seven or eight people in the cell. Some were squatting in the corner picking their toes out of boredom, some were lying in a pile of straw staring blankly at the ceiling, and some were using their fingernails to carve words on the stone wall to pass the time.

Charona clapped his hands, not loudly, but loud enough to draw everyone's attention.

"Brothers."

"Do you want to make money?"

A burly, bearded man was the first to look up, scoffing, "Want some? Who the hell doesn't? But look where we are, Newgate Prison! You want us to set up a bread stand in here?"

Several people laughed along.

Charona laughed too.

"How much can you make from bread? I mean a lot of money, like a few hundred pounds a year."

The laughter stopped abruptly.

A few hundred pounds?

A young man with a dark complexion peeked out from the corner, his eyes darting around: "You're just bragging. We're mostly illiterate, what can we do?"

"It's precisely because you don't need to be literate that this job is suitable for you. What I need are errand runners, people who dare to go out on the streets, people who are thick-skinned, bold, and quick!"

"Explain yourself, what exactly do you want?" The bearded man's tone had changed from disdain to curiosity.

Charona looked around to make sure no guards were passing by in the corridor, then lowered his voice.

"You guys know about lotteries, right?"

"The national lottery? The one that costs ten pounds a ticket?"

"Yes, I have a way to make fake lottery tickets that are exactly the same as the real ones, the kind of perfect imitations that even the ticket checkers at the prize redemption window can't tell the difference!"

Everyone in the cell was staring at him.

Then a voice rang out. It was a middle-aged man wearing a tattered hat in the corner. He hadn't said much since he came in, but now he gave a cold snort.

"Anyone can brag. You say you can fake lottery tickets, I could say I can fake a king. Who do you think you are? You've only been here a few days and you already want to be the boss and make empty promises? Are you trying to trick us into doing dirty work for you while you reap the benefits?"

Several people nodded in agreement, clearly skeptical of Charona's words.

Charona wasn't flustered at all.

He even laughed.

He had seen this kind of scene far too many times.

The rules of the lower class are actually quite similar to those of the upper class. What you say is not important; the key is who you are.

If you're just an unknown nobody, no one will believe you no matter how eloquently you speak. But if you have a strong enough reputation, even your farts will sound delicious to them.

Have you ever heard of Mr. Chandler?

The atmosphere in the cell had changed.

The bearded man's eyes widened suddenly, and the dark-faced young man straightened up.

"Mr. Chandler?" The man in the tattered hat, who had been silent until now, suddenly spoke, his voice changing. "You mean Mr. Chandler?"

"Is there another Mr. Chandler in London?" Charonna asked rhetorically.

The man in the tattered hat sat up straight abruptly, his coldness and wariness vanishing, replaced by an almost fanatical expression.

"Of course I've heard of it! Who hasn't?"

"Mr. Chandler's counterfeit shillings were so precise that even the bank's coin examiners couldn't detect any problems; his die precision was comparable to that of the mint!"

He became more and more excited as he spoke, almost like a fan introducing his idol.

"Those small counterfeit money workshops in Southwark use all secondhand dies that left over from Mr. Chandler—the kind that's been handled countless times and are considered defective. Yet, they can still produce counterfeit money that fools most people in the market! You can imagine how amazing the original dies he used must have been!"

"I think Mr. Chandler is the real genius! Newton and universal gravitation are all nonsense! Could Newton turn an apple into gold? Mr. Chandler could! Mr. Chandler is the true genius of this era!"

Charona's smile stretched almost to his ears.

Everyone needs to be recognized, even scammers.

Or rather, especially scammers.

Now, in this stinky cell, Charona has met his soulmate!

His fans!

Vanity surged up from my chest like bubbles, a tingling, addictive feeling.

"Since you admire Mr. Chandler so much, can you guess who Mr. Chandler actually is?"

The man in the tattered hat was taken aback: "Who?"

Charona opened his arms, bowed slightly, and made an exaggerated gentlemanly gesture.

"Far away, yet right before my eyes."

The man in the tattered hat stared at him blankly, then exploded.

"You?! You're Mr. Chandler?!" The man in the tattered hat jumped up.

"Nonsense!" The skinny young man's first reaction was disbelief. "If you're Mr. Chandler, what are you doing here?"

The burly, bearded man said, "You'd better produce some evidence. Anyone can talk the talk."

That's exactly what Charona was waiting for.

"Evidence? No problem."

He walked to a corner of the cell, squatted down, and started drawing on the damp floor with his fingernails.

He painted the obverse of a shilling, a profile portrait of William III.

The number of jewels on the crown, the curvature of the nose, the thickness of the lips, the patterns on the shoulder armor, and the designs on the genuine coin are almost identical.

No one spoke in the cell.

Because everyone saw that the speed and precision with which he drew that shilling pattern was something that no ordinary person could do.

That kind of control over details, that kind of effortless confidence, can only be possessed by someone who has actually counterfeited money.

The man in the tattered hat stared blankly at the pattern on the ground, then looked up at Charona: "You really are... Mr. Chandler, the counterfeiter?"

"Genuine, no doubt about it." Charona stood up and dusted off his hands.

"The tin-lead ratio used in that batch of counterfeit shillings was 7:3. This formula was never told to anyone, including the mold maker. He was only responsible for engraving the mold. I personally adjusted the metal ratio. You can verify it."

"A 70/30 ratio of tin to lead?" The dark-skinned young man gasped. "No wonder those counterfeit coins felt almost exactly like the real ones!"

"That's why I said," Charona interrupted him with a smile, "counterfeiting is a science, not something you can just do by finding any blacksmith and setting up a furnace."

"Now you know who I am. I can give you some information: the counterfeit money route is temporarily off, but the lottery is a completely new blue ocean. I have the technology and the channels; all I lack is manpower."

He stretched out a hand.

"Once you get out, work for me, and you'll get at least two hundred pounds a year. How about it?"

Just as he was about to explain the specific benefits, a voice suddenly rang out.

"Mr. Chandler."

It was the man in the tattered hat.

But his tone changed, and the previous fanatical worship disappeared.

Charona was slightly taken aback.

Then he saw the man in the tattered hat stand up straight and raise his voice.

"Your Honor, Your Honors, now you have all heard what Mr. Charona said."

There was a loud bang.

The wall on the side of the cell, the wall that Charona thought was a solid brick wall, had actually cracked in the middle.

It turned out that it wasn't a wall at all, but a carefully disguised hidden door.

Behind the hidden door was a brightly lit room.

A row of people were sitting in the room.

The judge, dressed in a black robe, sat upright with paper and pen spread out in front of him, covered with notes.

Several members of parliament sat on either side of the judge, their expressions serious.

A stenographer was writing furiously, the pen scribbling as he recorded every word Charona had just said.

Every single word.

This includes his own admission that he is Mr. Chandler.

This includes his detailed description of mold carving techniques.

This includes the 70/30 tin-lead formula he revealed.

Including his rambling scheme to swindle lottery tickets, which he just described.

Charona's face changed visibly, from red to white, from white to blue, and from blue to an ugly gray.

He turned his head sharply!

The prisoners in the cell were no longer the desperate criminals they had been moments before.

The burly bearded man abandoned his rugged demeanor and stood ramrod straight, while the dark-faced young man, no longer huddled in the corner, crossed his arms and coldly stared at Charona.

The others also took their positions, subtly sealing off every exit of the cell.

They are not criminals.

They were never prisoners.

Charona's brain short-circuited at that moment!

Then he heard a voice.

A person walked out from behind the hidden door.

Black hair, black eyes, wearing a well-tailored dark coat, and a smile on his face.

It's Su Zhou.

He stood in front of the hidden door, looking at Charona in the cell, and said, "Mr. Charona, it's been a long time."

Charona stared intently at him and immediately understood everything before her!

He was actually fooled by this Asian!

He was sent to prison to lower his guard in this carefully decorated cell; all the prisoners who were sent in one after another were arranged by Su Zhou.

And Charona, that self-proclaimed smartest conman in all of London, willingly and step by step, revealed his entire secret!

"You said before that true gold is not afraid of fire and that the innocent will prove themselves innocent. Now it seems that this gold is not very genuine. It melted before the fire had even properly tested it."

Charona's chest heaved violently. He tried to open his mouth, but found his mind blank.

Because he suddenly realized something even more terrifying.

From the very beginning, from the moment he was brought into Newgate Prison, or even earlier, from the moment Su Zhou spoke up for him at the inauguration ceremony, the other party was setting a trap!

He assumed Su Zhou was an Easterner who was new to London and didn't understand the rules of the game.

But in reality, the whole scheme was set up by Su Zhou!

He got it.

Charona's incredibly fast-thinking mind finally pieced together everything that had happened in the past few days.

Su Zhou knew he was inherently suspicious; if forced into a corner and interrogated, he would rather be beaten to death than utter a single word. Therefore, Su Zhou did the opposite, locking him up in prison to make him believe he could escape punishment as before.

Charona's gaze swept over the other prisoners.

What a brilliant layout!

Instead of arranging a group of fools who would only agree, Su Zhou arranged for skeptics, mockers, and even a fanatical fan who madly worshipped his true identity!

Su Zhou understands him so well!

Su Zhou knows him better than he knows himself!

As a conman who climbed up from the bottom, what Charona craved most was never money, but recognition!

It's that kind of vanity that puts you above everyone else!

Outside, he had to keep a low profile and conceal his identity as Chandler; but in this dark and seemingly safe cell, when faced with a group of admirers from the lower classes, his suppressed desire to confide and show off, which he had held back for ten years, burst forth like a flood!

There was no torture, no coercion or bribery.

Su Zhou merely set up a stage, without lifting a finger, and made this most cunning swindler in all of London, like a clown jumping around, stand before the judge and councilors, gesticulating wildly and confessing his crimes until he was completely exposed!

Su Zhou had actually calculated every single one of his moves!

That's absolutely terrifying!

He was like a pawn from beginning to end, completely at Su Zhou's mercy!

Charona suddenly charged towards Su Zhou.

He had completely lost his mind; his eyes were bloodshot, like a trapped beast driven to the brink of despair, and he let out incoherent roars.

He only took half a step forward.

"Bang!"

The two prisoners acted simultaneously, grabbing his shoulders from both sides and kicking him in the back of the knee, swiftly pinning him to the ground.

Charona's face was pressed against the cold, damp stone floor, his roar turned into a beastly howl, and he struggled desperately with his limbs, but the two men held him down like nails, not moving an inch.

"Let me go! Let me go!!"

His voice grew increasingly shrill and distorted, eventually transforming into a bizarre sound somewhere between laughter and screams.

The most cunning conman in all of London was now writhing on the ground like a venomous snake whose vital spot had been stepped on, his ugly face exposed.

Su Zhou stood still, without even taking a step back.

From the room behind the hidden door, the judges and members of parliament filed out.

The stenographer held a thick stack of recording papers, the ink still wet, densely filled with every word of Chalona's confession.

Written in black and white, a personal confession, in front of judges and members of parliament.

If this case can be overturned, then England's judicial system might as well shut down.

Congressman Hawkins approached, saying urgently, "If it weren't for Mr. Su Zhou's plan, we would still think Charona was a good citizen who cared deeply for his country!"

"We almost actually followed his advice to reform the mint. Thinking about it now, it's truly chilling!"

"It's more than just chilling," another member of parliament chimed in, his voice trembling with emotion. "A counterfeit money ringleader has come to Parliament to teach us how to prevent counterfeiting! If we actually follow his plan, what will become of our dignity?!"

"We really owe it all to Mr. Su!"

"Indeed, Mr. Su's scheme is truly eye-opening!"

"Without Mr. Su, we would have completely lost face!"

Su Zhou was delighted by the praise, but on the surface he remained humble and said, "You flatter me, everyone. I was just doing my duty."

Charona turned his head to the side and looked up at Su Zhou.

From this angle, Su Zhou's figure was illuminated by a blurry halo of light shining from behind the hidden door, making him appear high above and unreachable.

"Who exactly are you?" Charona asked, unwilling to give up.

Su Zhou had no intention of paying attention to his defeated opponent. Just as he was about to leave the cell, a voice rang in his mind.

[Isaac Newton's wish has been fulfilled.]

[Wish: To bring counterfeiter William Charona to justice.]

[Completion rate: 100%]

[We are about to return to our original timeline. Countdown begins!]

【10, 9, 8...】

Su Zhou paused for a moment.

coming.

He turned around and took one last look at the scene behind him.

The judge was reading out the formal arrest warrant for Charona. Charona was being dragged up from the ground by two men. He was still struggling and cursing.

The councilors huddled together, discussing something in hushed tones, their voices filled with passion.

Then his gaze passed through the crowd and landed on a figure at the end of the corridor opposite the hidden door.

Newton.

【3, 2, 1!】

Everything around me started to slow down.

Charona, who was still being held up, opened and closed his mouth more and more slowly, and finally his hoarse curse was drawn out into a long cry.

The sound grew farther and farther away, becoming increasingly indistinct, as if it were coming through a thick curtain of water.

The light began to distort, and the walls began to blur.

Newton's figure gradually faded in the field of vision, becoming transparent, and finally, like a mark on the beach washed away by the sea, it dissolved little by little in the white light.

The stone slabs beneath their feet disappeared.

Newgate Prison has disappeared.

London in 1697 has vanished.

Su Zhou felt a strong wave of dizziness, as if an invisible hand had grabbed him by the back of his collar and pulled him out of the water!

Then, he stepped onto solid ground.

Su Zhou shook his head, and the scene in front of him gradually became clearer from a white light.

This is his room!

Su Zhou immediately went to his desk, pressed the power button on his phone, and the screen lit up.

He left at 11:47 p.m., and it is now 11:48 p.m.

One minute.

He spent nearly twenty days in 17th-century London, while only one minute passed in the real world.

As Su Zhou was marveling at the wonders of time and space, a message notification suddenly popped up at the top of his phone screen.

Upon closer inspection, he realized it was group number 42.

Su Zhou opened the chat interface, and then a notification suddenly popped up in the group chat.

Congratulations on receiving two exclusive red envelopes from Isaac Newton!