Everything went smoothly.

Password expert CC didn't need to exert any effort to find the option to allow passage on the computer.

After confirmation…

The gate of the checkpoint slowly opened, and the stationary garbage trucks started one by one, forming a neat queue and driving out.

"Get up here quickly."

With Lin Xian's call, CC and he once again lurked into the gap below the garbage truck's hopper... and entered the urban area of Donghai City.

…

Along the way, the garbage trucks gradually drove away according to the set route.

In the end, only two garbage trucks continued to drive along the route in front of them towards Time Bank.

Squeak—

About 20 minutes later, the heavy garbage truck braked to a stop.

The inertia drove Lin Xian and CC together.

They quietly poked their heads out… and found that the garbage truck in front was parked right in front of the bank, and their truck was parked right behind it.

Looking up, the words "Time Bank" were written in large characters on the door, with a string of English below.

But perhaps because it had already closed down... these signs were not lit like the surrounding signs, but instead had a sense of dilapidation.

"We've finally reached our destination."

Lin Xian couldn't help but sigh at the bumpy journey.

CC blinked in confusion, looking at Lin Xian:

"Wasn't it very smooth? I even feel like it was unbelievably smooth."

"This was all built on a pile of my corpses..." Lin Xian said with a wry smile.

For CC, it was indeed almost like clearing the game in one life.

But from Lin Xian's perspective, starting from the garbage dump below, he didn't know how many times he had died before successfully reaching this place.

The two sat up, quietly jumped down, and stretched their heads out from behind the front of the truck to look at the bank entrance—

Several loading and unloading robots in front had already begun to work busily, transporting the hafnium alloy safes from the warehouse one by one, lifting them up, and loading them onto the trucks.

Robots and automation equipment completed all the work, and a man sitting next to them smoking a cigarette looked at everything with his legs crossed, presumably the person in charge of supervision.

"Gunshots are too loud, I'm afraid they will attract patrolling mechanical dogs."

CC took out the veterinary tranquilizer from his pocket:

"I'll knock him out."

"Okay, show me your performance."

Lin Xian was very confident in CC's skills.

He saw CC crouching down, quietly and silently getting out of the car, and then sticking close to the wall, approaching behind the man—

"Woof—!"

The man's mouth and nose were quickly covered! Then the veterinary tranquilizer was pressed against his neck!

After struggling for about twenty or thirty seconds... the man instantly lost his strength and slumped down.

But CC didn't let go, still maintaining control, until the man's eyes rolled back and he completely fainted, then he released his arm and helped him lean against the wall.

"As expected of a veterinary tranquilizer, the effect is really strong."

Lin Xian also came out when he saw it was safe.

In hospitals, during normal surgical anesthesia, apart from inhalation anesthesia being faster, injectable anesthesia takes a certain amount of time to take effect, and the dosage is well controlled.

But in veterinary medicine...

Perhaps it's just a large dose that creates miracles.

"Let's go."

The two quietly passed the automated equipment carrying the hafnium alloy safes and went directly to the bank warehouse.

Because this bank was in a state of bankruptcy and had been announced for a long time, most of the sundries inside had been moved away... after the announcement expired today, the safes in this warehouse became unclaimed garbage.

The automated handling equipment really didn't have an alarm function, and it would automatically avoid obstacles and pedestrians, which was quite humanized.

Soon, the two arrived at the warehouse filled with hafnium alloy safes.

"Long time no see."

Lin Xian looked at the warehouse full of shiny silver safes, feeling very nostalgic.

Before, in the first dream realm, he fought wits and courage with these things every day, and today he has returned to the original point.

Originally, these safes were embedded in the wall, but now they have been "dug" out and lay scattered on the ground.

The two ran directly to the innermost part.

Before long, they found the safe with Lin Xian's name on it.

"This is it!"

CC was very excited when he saw Lin Xian's name, and he squatted down and tried to turn the combination lock.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Lin Xian listened to the crisp sound of the combination lock turning, but the sounds that followed were all muffled sounds of the lock not opening.

CC tried many passwords, all of which were wrong.

"Let me try."

CC made way, and Lin Xian dialed the password to 29990203.

Take a deep breath…

Thump!

Press the lock button hard!

…

Didn't open.

"Hehe!"

Lin Xian laughed as expected.

How should I put it…

Although he had added so many layers of ideological steel seals to himself, in fact... he still didn't have much confidence.

After all, this safe had been tried so many times and hadn't opened, and no amount of confidence could erase that.

He also tried the password to Zhao Yingjun's office door, but it was also wrong.

He also tried all the passwords related to 42 that he could think of... but it was still wrong.

"Forget it, you try it."

Lin Xian gave way to CC again, sighing and looking at the safe.

Since the password 29990203 couldn't open the safe...

Then there are two possibilities.

1. This safe is not his.

2. The future self is unwilling to let the current self open this safe.

"The future me deliberately set a password that I can't open," Lin Xian thought.

If that's the case, then there's really no need to try this safe.

The person who knows you best is yourself.

If the future self really doesn't want the current self to open the safe, then with his thinking logic being completely seen through... it's impossible to open it no matter what.

As Zhao Yingjun said.

A password without any logic or meaning is the most difficult to crack, unless you use brute force.

But using brute force to crack an 8-digit password... with only a few tens of minutes each day spent wading through mountains and rivers to get here... I'm afraid it would take decades to exhaust all possibilities.

He suddenly looked at CC with a whimsical idea:

"Since this safe was left to you by the bearded man, shouldn't you first try your birthday, and dates related to you?"

CC chuckled:

"The first thing I tried was my birthday, and I even tried my birthday every year... It made me feel like I was being overly sentimental."

"Actually, it's unlikely to be a date related to me, because according to that man, he has put things in the safe for a long, long time, it doesn't seem like it was specifically stored for me."

"You continue to try here, I'll go find some information about this bank." Lin Xian said goodbye to CC and went directly to the second floor of Time Bank.

The second floor was basically all offices, but most of the things inside had been moved away, leaving only some dust-covered garbage.

Lin Xian felt that trying passwords one by one here was probably impossible to open, the probability was too small, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, it was better to look for clues from other places.

He searched through the sundries in the second-floor offices one by one, some were printed waste paper, some were bills, some were empty cardboard boxes...

He searched many offices

but didn't find anything useful.

It wasn't until the second-to-last office that he found a shredded speech draft in the trash basket.

It's quite amazing... I didn't expect that 600 years later, even though there is such advanced audio-visual equipment, leaders still like to read from drafts when they speak.

Probably a sense of formality from ancient times.

He picked it up, and it started with:

Since the establishment of Time Bank in 2023, it has gone through 600 years of ups and downs, in these hundreds of years...]

"2023?"

Lin Xian noticed this familiar year!

Isn't this the year he lived in in the real world?

He carefully looked through the speech again... there was no other useful information, it was probably just an emotional speech given at the bankruptcy ceremony, nothing substantial.

But the founding year of this Time Bank is indeed a very important year for Lin Xian.

"Since Time Bank was established in 2023... then if this safe is indeed mine, when should I have put things in it and set the password?"

Lin Xian wasn't sure if he was one of Time Bank's first users, but it seemed likely.

Lin Xian had previously searched the Internet and found no information about Time Bank.

That is to say...

Perhaps in the next few months, Time Bank will be established, but at the latest it will not exceed New Year's Day 2024.

"This may be a link to connect 600 years of time!"

Lin Xian had always thought about whether there was a way to hide items from 600 years ago somewhere and then take them out 600 years later?

But originally there were no common coordinates between the first dream realm and real life, and he couldn't find corresponding places at all, even if he dug a hole and buried them, it would be useless.

Not to mention the second dream realm, which is completely different from Donghai in real life.

But now it's different.

As long as Time Bank in 2023 is established in real life, he can go there to apply for a safe deposit box, and then easily transport materials from 600 years ago to 600 years later!

Although he couldn't think of anything that could still be useful after 600 years... it's better than nothing, having a link is better than not having one.

"If only there was a way to send things from 600 years later to 600 years ago, unfortunately... time cannot be reversed."

Lin Xian leaned against the dust-covered iron cabinet and began to think about his plans for the next period of time.

Currently, it seems that this safe will not be opened in a short time.

But Lin Xian didn't really care.

First, Time Bank will soon be established, and the answer will be revealed then.

Second, since the future self is unwilling to let the current self open the safe, there must be an important reason.

Lin Xian still firmly believed that the future self would not deceive himself, he must have his purpose, so he deliberately set a password that he could not guess no matter what.

"So, let's put the safe aside for a while and patiently wait for Time Bank to be established in 2023."

"The next focus should still be on the 'cat and mouse game' that Huang Que mentioned, and the 'invitation to the Genius Club'."

These two things.

One is the crisis he faces, and the other is the key to unlocking all the mysteries.

Equally important.

But at the same time, they are both clueless, and he doesn't know which step to take or where to go.

Obviously, that woman Huang Que definitely knows all the answers, everything she says is very certain, but she insists on being a riddler and says nothing.

Relatively speaking, Lin Xian cares more about the "cat and mouse game."

The cat and mouse game, in short, is hide-and-seek.

Since Huang Que reminded him of this

…

That means he is about to fall into, or has already fallen into, a certain danger.

In fact, Lin Xian is also aware of this to some extent.

If the cat refers to the murderer who killed Xu Yun...

Then they can easily follow the clues to find out the "relationship of interest" between him and Xu Yun.

Although these relationships of interest cannot directly prove anything, they at least represent that there are some unknown secrets between him and Xu Yun.

These secrets may be what those murderers care about most.

Fortunately, Xu Yun destroyed the manuscript he gave him a long time ago, so those murderers should not find any direct evidence that he helped Xu Yun with his research.

But this does not prevent them from treating him as a suspect.

What is their purpose for killing people?

Unknown.

If they want to kill him, will they also be on time at 00:42?

Uncertain.

"However... at least one thing is certain."

Lin Xian turned his head, looked at the robots outside the window that were constantly transporting safes to the garbage truck, and thought of the hide-and-seek game he played with his friends in the family compound when he was a child:

"Since it's hide-and-seek, then they will always come out to find me, right? They will always have some contact with me, right?"

He closed his eyes and began to recall the people who had appeared around him actively or passively during this period...

"Who could it be?"