Genius Club

Click.

Lin Xian felt the searing heat of a gun barrel pressed against his forehead and sighed in resignation. Big Cat Face was proving to be a monumental fool.

The situation had quickly spiraled out of control. Cornered, CC had bluffed in a desperate attempt to extract information from Big Cat Face. To everyone’s surprise, he had taken the bait.

CC didn’t actually know what was inside the safe or Big Cat Face’s true intentions. Yet, in a moment of pressure, he blurted out, “An invitation! Is the safe holding an invitation to the Genius Club?”

His slip-up was glaring, exposing his involvement. Considering his father was a Fields Medal laureate, his lack of sharpness was shocking. Following his inadvertent revelation, Big Cat Face seemed to freeze up.

Meanwhile, CC, while appearing to surrender with her hands behind her head, was stealthily reaching for the gun concealed in her hair bun, prepared to end the standoff.

“Go ahead, shoot,” Lin Xian urged, weary. His plan had crumbled; any further delay seemed futile.

“You’re the most reckless person I’ve ever met,” CC declared from behind her Ultraman mask. “First, you impersonated me, got into his car, and now this mess. Aren’t you afraid of dying?”

“Enough talk. Just do it,” Lin Xian said, closing his eyes, resigned to his fate, but then added, “But I still want an answer to my question. Since you’re about to kill me, can’t you let me die knowing?”

“What do you want to know?” CC inquired, still aiming her gun at him.

“I need to understand if there’s any connection between us,” Lin Xian said, opening his eyes to look into hers. “It’s obvious we’ve met before, right? There must be a reason you haven’t killed me yet. If you kill me now, I won’t complain. So, can you tell me honestly—” his gaze fixed intensely on CC, “Have we met before?”

CC lifted her gun slightly, eyeing him seriously. “No.”

Bang!!!

The gunshot echoed loudly. The sharp scent of gunpowder filled the air, and a ringing noise engulfed Lin Xian’s ears. Pain surged through his ear—but just his ear?

Lin Xian’s eyes flew open… He wasn’t in his familiar bedroom; he was still in the warehouse surrounded by safes. The gun had shifted at the last moment, the bullet grazing his ear and embedding in the wall behind him. Blood trickled from his ruptured eardrum.

“You still won’t kill me?” Lin Xian was baffled. After all his provocations, she had killed Big Cat Face without hesitation. Why spare him?

This seemed like a scene from a martial arts drama—perhaps this villainess harbored a secret love for him!

“Leave. Don’t interfere with my work,” CC said as she turned away, holstering her gun, and resumed working on the safe.

Lin Xian stood silently… Soon, a click signaled the main power had been restored.

Wah! Wah! Wah! Wah! The alarms blared. Frustrated, CC punched the still-unopened safe.

Lin Xian stepped closer. “I have a question.”

“Why so many questions!” CC snapped, clearly annoyed.

“Just one more,” Lin Xian insisted, raising a finger and forcing a smile, feeling slightly guilty for misjudging her intentions, even in such a surreal scenario.

“Is there really an invitation to the Genius Club in that safe?”

Amid the blaring alarms, CC walked towards a hole in the wall, not looking back.

Boom!!! Boom!!! Boom!!! A blinding white light engulfed everything, reducing it all to ashes.

…

Sigh…

Lin Xian lay in his bed, the quilt unusually heavy, pressing down on him.

Why did his encounters with CC always leave him with mixed feelings? He wished all his dream characters were clear-cut villains, easily justifiable targets. He enjoyed dealing with ruthless individuals like Big Cat Face and his unscrupulous lackeys.

But CC was different. “What’s going on…” Lin Xian rubbed his eyes, drained from the day’s work and these vivid, unsettling dreams. His imagination impressed him; if it were a novel, it would surely be a bestseller.

“Time to sleep, got work tomorrow.” Lin Xian turned over for a dreamless night.

…

The next day.

At the reception, Lin Xian met a colleague from the production department. “Lin, your sample of the Rhine Cat plush toy is ready. Here’s the first one.”

The colleague handed him a meticulously crafted toy, its fluffy tail particularly charming.

“It’s excellent,” Lin Xian praised, promising to collect more for his office later.

“Hey, Lin! Heading to Zhao’s office?” the receptionist called out.

“Yes.”

“A lady left an invitation for Zhao this morning. Could you take it?”

“Sure.”

Lin Xian accepted the dark red card, sealed with red wax, its intricate seal impressive.

“Is Zhao invited to a wedding?” he wondered. Turning the invitation over, a chill ran through him as he remembered Gao Yang’s words: “What’s so strange about seeing things from reality in your dreams?”

“Wait until something from your dreams appears in reality. That’s when it really gets interesting!”

With a sense of foreboding, Lin Xian read the embossed golden words on the back of the card—Genius Club Invitation.