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Suddenly, the clock on the experiment table made a soft sound. Liu Feng spun around, startled. He rushed over, grabbing the spacetime clock with both hands. “Lin Xian! Look at this!” he shouted.

Lin Xian hurried over, his eyes widening as he stared at the clock.

The numbers on the spacetime clock… they were climbing! Rapidly!

0.0000210,

0.0000252,

0.0000294.

“It’s still going up!” Liu Feng exclaimed.

The two of them watched the clock, tension rising as the numbers kept changing. The spacetime clock, which had been calm for three months, was now climbing at a steady speed.

0.0001092,

0.0001134,

0.0001176.

“Oh my gosh,” Liu Feng gasped, blinking at the display. “The timeline… it’s climbed over twenty marks! What… what does that mean?”

He furrowed his brow, struggling to make sense of it. Every previous timeline shift had been tiny, just a few units at a time—around 0.0000042. Even the biggest shifts had only moved by ten marks. But now, in just a few seconds, it had jumped over a dozen marks!

“This…” Liu Feng scratched his head, bewildered. “This is such a big change. Is humanity—is the future—in trouble? Or is this something even more incredible happening?”

He shook his head, mumbling to himself. “How far will these numbers go? Could it actually cross into a whole number before the decimal? This is insane!”

Finally, the numbers stopped. They froze, locking in at—

[0.0001764]

Lin Xian pulled up a chair and sat down in front of the experiment table, staring at the absurd numbers. There was no doubt. The change in the spacetime clock meant that the spacetime curvature was shifting, the timeline was shifting, and the dream world was changing too.

From this moment on, the oppressive Eighth Dream was gone. Now, they were entering the Ninth Dream.

“What could be the reason for such a huge spacetime change?” Lin Xian wondered aloud.

Liu Feng grabbed a chair as well, sitting beside him. “Something important must have shifted, triggering a massive butterfly effect… Could it be that scientist you brought back from Africa? Did she finish the Brain Neural Electric Helmet?” �

“Probably not,” Lin Xian shook his head. “I’ve been keeping in touch with Du Yao. She only just set up the lab and equipment. She’s barely started.”

He added, “And she told me her original thesis was just a wild guess. Making a breakthrough in the lab isn’t going to be that easy.”

Those were Du Yao’s exact words. She had told Lin Xian that without that genius manuscript—the draft for the Brain Neural Electric Helmet—it would have taken her ages to find the breakthrough they needed. The manuscript practically gave her the final answer; all she had to do was align the process. But even so, it would take more than a few months.

“But just to be sure, I’ll give Du Yao a call.” Lin Xian picked up his phone and called her. As expected, there was no progress.

After hanging up, it was clear this major spacetime change had nothing to do with Du Yao. It had to be caused by something else.

Lin Xian’s thoughts drifted to a gentle, kind woman—Miss Da Vinci. The Eighth Dream had been guided by her vision of the future. If that timeline had now disappeared, it was probably related to her actions.

Two possibilities came to mind:

Miss Da Vinci might have listened to his advice and completely given up on the plan for mechanical humanoids, just as Elon Musk had abandoned his Mars colonization plan. The timeline could have shifted as a result.

Or… something had happened to Miss Da Vinci. Perhaps she was killed.

Lin Xian shivered at the thought. According to the original timeline, Miss Da Vinci was supposed to laugh until the end—at least surviving for hundreds of years. What had gone wrong? What had changed?

“Was it because I shared information with Miss Da Vinci after the gathering?” Lin Xian wondered.

Perhaps that was it. Normally, Miss Da Vinci wouldn’t have learned about what happened in 2624 while in 2024. If any other Genius Club members had asked, Einstein would have refused to answer. And Miss Da Vinci herself would never ask a question that would expose her. The only variable was Lin Xian.

He stood up, pacing back and forth as he tried to piece together the puzzle. If Miss Da Vinci was really dead, who could have killed her?

Analyzing each member of the Genius Club, Lin Xian realized that, apart from himself and Elon Musk, no one could be ruled out.

He remembered the end of their last gathering. When he asked Miss Da Vinci to stay behind, he had expected Galileo to make a snarky comment or even stick around to see what was happening. But surprisingly, Galileo had said nothing. He had only glanced at Lin Xian before silently disappearing from the VR hall.

Could Galileo be the culprit?

Lin Xian shook his head. He wasn’t sure. There just weren’t enough clues. He’d have to investigate the Ninth Dream and figure out what kind of future awaited them before making any conclusions.

“I’m heading out,” Lin Xian said, waving to Liu Feng. “Keep me updated if anything happens. If you can’t reach me, contact Ying Jun.”

With that, he left the lab, got into his car, and returned to Zhao Ying Jun’s home. He poured some dog food for VV, the Pomeranian, then washed up and got ready for bed.

The end of the Eighth Dream had come abruptly. Fortunately, 90% of the engineering blueprints for the time machine had already been copied, and the remaining 10% weren’t critical—they were low-priority and could be replaced. Anyway, the time machine wouldn’t be used until 2234, so missing a small part of the plans wasn’t a big deal.

What Lin Xian cared about now was: Who was leading the future in the Ninth Dream?

Would it be a better world or a worse one? Would he meet his old friends, allies, Emperor Gao Wen, or even Chen Heping again?

“No matter what, CC will be there,” Lin Xian thought, closing his eyes. “After the Eighth Dream, CC regained another fragment of her memory. She knows how important Emperor Gao Wen and Chen Heping are to me. If she comes to Donghai earlier this time, she could gather information about the aluminum alloy safe and build relationships with Gao Wen and Chen Heping, saving me time.”

“In any case, when in doubt, find CC. Once I enter the dream again, I’ll go to the most obvious spot in Donghai and look for her.”

He turned over and slowly drifted into sleep…

…

…

Hoo…

The familiar summer breeze returned. The blazing heat of the sun hit him instantly. It was hot—not the stifling heat of a city or the humid warmth of a jungle, but the searing heat of standing under the midday sun with no shade. Within moments, sweat started forming on his forehead.

It was eerily quiet. He could hear the endless drone of cicadas far off, but there were no sounds of human activity—no footsteps, no voices, no traffic, no announcements… nothing.

“What kind of world is this?” Lin Xian took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

Ruins, ruins everywhere—crumbling walls, muddy roads, weeds growing wildly. It looked like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie.

He looked around. The area was desolate, eerily so. “Where are the people? Where is the city?”

All he could see were ruins. Not a single tall building stood to block his view. The flat land stretched endlessly to the horizon, with no landmarks or buildings. It was as if…

As if someone had taken an eraser and wiped Donghai City right off the map.

Or like the time Gao Yang had used a sweeping kick to knock everything off the sofa, leaving nothing but bare ground.

“It seems the future has gotten worse,” Lin Xian muttered.

He started walking, trying to find a spot to escape the scorching sunlight. But to his dismay, all the ruins he found were no taller than his head—not enough to provide shade.

Lin Xian touched the ruins. It was reinforced concrete, with rusty rebar sticking out like twisted tentacles.

What kind of disaster could destroy a modern city so completely? It couldn’t have been the great catastrophe of 2400. If Donghai had been destroyed then, the rebars would’ve turned to rust by now. But holding them now, they were still sturdy. The city’s destruction hadn’t happened long ago.

“So, where are the people?” Lin Xian put aside his thoughts about the ruins. He needed to find someone alive to ask.

Despite the blazing sun overhead, he wiped away sweat and began running across the flat, desolate land.

Finally, he found the highest building remnant he could climb. He climbed up and scanned the distance.

Nothing. No sign of human life, no settlements.

“How am I supposed to find people?” Lin Xian found himself in a difficult situation.

After wandering for a while longer, he found no answers. “This is just too strange,” he muttered, scratching his head. “Where’s my good old buddy, the cat from the Millennial Stake?”

Not seeing CC didn’t worry him—she wasn’t from Donghai, after all. She was from Brooklyn in the U.S. If technology and transportation were backward, she might not make it across the ocean. But if he couldn’t find Big Cat Face either, that was a real concern.

From the first Dream to the Eighth, Big Cat Face had never missed a future.

But now, after scanning a ten-kilometer radius—nothing. No villages, no settlements. Was Big Cat Face underground?

“I need to find a way to explore farther,” Lin Xian decided. He needed a faster way to travel.

Wandering through the ruins, he guessed that an earthquake, tsunami, or massive disaster had struck. Otherwise, it was hard to imagine anything that could wipe out a city of reinforced concrete.

As he expanded his search, Lin Xian made some new discoveries. He found wild animals—rabbits, cats, dogs, rats—thriving among the ruins. This abundance of wildlife suggested a long absence of humans.

He also found remnants of human life: rusty bottle caps, decaying toys, cracked tires, even half a stainless-steel tray. Stainless steel proved its resilience once again.

“None of this is useful,” Lin Xian thought, ending the first day in the new Dream with nothing to show.

Day two, he returned at noon to continue searching.

Day three, day four…

He found valuable things. He had to take back what he said—”Stainless steel isn’t the king. Aluminum alloy is!”

After some digging, Lin Xian unearthed shiny micro nuclear batteries. The shells were made of aluminum alloy, making them incredibly stable—perfect for a post-apocalyptic world. By checking the production dates, he could roughly determine when the disaster happened.

The dates were 2401, 2533, 2574, and 2598. This said a lot.

If micro nuclear batteries were produced in 2401, then the great catastrophe of 2400 hadn’t happened. That was good news.

But the bad news was that disaster had only been delayed. Sometime after 2598, a similar or worse disaster had occurred.

If there were nuclear batteries here, there must be more valuable things.

Over the next two weeks, Lin Xian kept returning to this spot, digging like an archaeologist in a post-apocalyptic world.

Most of what he found was useless—rotted or rusted—and he didn’t have the tools to dig deeper. But he did find more batteries, including one from 2599.

But that was the most recent date he could find. Nothing produced after 2599.

“So…” Lin Xian narrowed his eyes. “Did the world end in 2600?”

If the disaster in 2600 wasn’t natural, then it must have been man-made—more destructive than anything before.

“Was it Galileo again?” Lin Xian wondered. “Or someone else?”

There were no clues. Lin Xian could only keep searching.

After much effort, he got lucky. He found a micro nuclear battery-powered motorcycle, still functional. It was an incredible stroke of luck. The motorcycle, produced in 2597, was intact.

But something puzzled him.

“In the Second Dream, people had flying motorcycles. Why were they still using regular ones in 2597?”

“Did human technology stop progressing?”

It didn’t make sense. Why had technology stagnated?

Lin Xian started the motorcycle, determined to find someone alive—or at least the gang led by Big Cat Face.

But after a month of exploration, covering hundreds of kilometers, he still found no human activity.

One day, after ten hours of riding at full speed, Lin Xian still found nothing.

Clang.

Lin Xian let the motorcycle fall. He stood alone in the empty land, the chill of night creeping in.

It wasn’t real. If there were people alive, there should have been signs.

“Could it be…” Lin Xian looked up at the night sky, staring at the unchanging stars. “Could it be that human civilization is really gone?”