Chapter 404 346: Invitation to the Time Club and Publishing 'Star Sea

Seven o'clock in the evening.

Divine Land Jinling.

Z Company Headquarters.

Inside the CEO's office.

"Ah Zhu!" Lin Xia gave Chu Bamboo, who had removed his disguise, a huge hug. His voice then turned into a grit-toothed hiss. "You can't be so reckless anymore! Do you have any idea how worried I was...?"

Even though he knew everything was under Chu Bamboo's control, the moment he saw all that news coming from the White-headed Eagle's territory, he still felt like he was about to explode from the pressure—especially when Chu Bamboo would pass through certain areas and block his own signal, leaving him unable to contact him even through Z...

Zhao Shao nodded slightly, his gaze drifting toward Chu Bamboo every so often, a dazed look on his face. Having learned the details through Z, he knew exactly what Chu Bamboo had been facing... For Chu Bamboo to have escaped so quickly and unscathed was just unbelievably absurd.

To put it bluntly, he felt that if you dropped some special forces hero from the movies into this situation, they would be torn to shreds.

'Perhaps only a blatant cheater like Captain White-headed Eagle, someone who doesn't even pretend he's not hacking, could have possibly broken through... Wait, and he had Z's help? But this ridiculously overpowered version of Z was also made by Chu Bamboo, so in reality, Chu Bamboo is... a combination of Iron Man and Captain White-headed Eagle?!'

Zhao Shao's mind was racing, a chaotic jumble of thoughts. Until Chu Bamboo actually walked into the company and revealed his true identity, he had been convinced it would take him at least a week or two to get back, and only with the security team they sent to Mexico!

If anything had gone wrong, he might not have come back at all.

'I mean, seriously? Are you kidding me? The one with a warrant out for your arrest is the undisputed hegemon of this planet! Even if they've slipped a little lately... the problem is, you were in their own damn backyard!'

Forget an individual—even if their country threw everything it had into it, it was not guaranteed they could snatch someone from the White-headed Eagle's jaws.

"Alright," Chu Bamboo said with a somewhat helpless smile, then turned to the still-uneasy Huo Yuan. "Miss Huo, as for what you'll do next..."

"I... I don't..." Huo Yuan bit her lower lip.

"She's going to continue her studies!" Hodges cut in, his face dark as he scolded his daughter. "Don't you put on that act! You think you can just skip school because you got into trouble? Dream on! You're going to have to work even harder to catch up on what you missed... I think I've been too lenient with you! That's why you ended up hanging around with those unsavory characters, and that's why..."

"...They weren't unsavory! We were just... traveling..." Huo Yuan retorted stubbornly, but her voice lost its conviction as she spoke. To be fair, Huo Yuan felt that compared to her classmates from Europe and America who were constantly partying and even doing drugs, her hobby was actually very wholesome... But there was no getting around it; she had really screwed up big time.

Usually, her rebellious streak would have compelled her to argue earnestly with her father, but now, a thousand arguments dissolved into a single phrase: "...I'm sorry."

Hodges choked, staring at his daughter, dumbfounded. 'She actually apologized?' Good heavens, he knew his daughter was deep in her rebellious phase... For a moment, a complex mix of emotions washed over Hodges. He let out a sigh.

"Alright! As for school, I'll get in touch with Principal Li at Jinling University in a bit!" Zhao Shao, seeing that Chu Bamboo wanted Huo Yuan to leave, quickly took over the conversation. "When the time comes, Mr. Huo, you can have a good chat with Principal Li... and then we can see about arranging a transfer!"

"Thank you." Hodges nodded gratefully. Of course, his gratitude was primarily for Chu Bamboo, as he knew full well that Zhao Shao's helpful attitude was mainly because of him.

"Z, could you please get my... uh, what's the name of that new female secretary I just hired? Never mind, just call her over! Have her spend some time with Miss Huo," Zhao Shao said, clearing his throat.

He used to only have male secretaries, but he couldn't help it; he was just too busy now. After a rapid expansion, he now had over a dozen secretaries on hand, so a couple of them happened to be women. Of course, it had nothing to do with Zhao Shao himself... he couldn't even recognize all the names of these new hires.

Chu Bamboo casually pulled over a chair and sat down, waiting quietly. Only after Huo Yuan had left and just the four of them remained did he speak up. "Z, activate highest alert mode!"

"Activated," Z's voice replied, as monotone as ever.

Squinting, Chu Bamboo let his gaze sweep past Lin Xia before settling heavily on Zhao Shao and Hodges.

"Is it time now?" Lin Xia asked suddenly.

"Mhm." Chu Bamboo nodded slightly, then took a deep breath. His eyes burned with intensity as he spoke softly, "Lao Zhao, Old Huo, I am officially extending you an invitation... I hope you will formally join the Time Club!"

"...The Time... Club?" Zhao Shao murmured. He wasn't the least bit surprised; he'd had a feeling about this for a while. 'How could there not be some organization backing Chu Bamboo?' He even suspected that Chu Bamboo's trip to North America had something to do with handing things over to this organization!

He just didn't understand why it had turned into such an absurd mess...

"Yes..." Chu Bamboo's gaze grew distant. "To overcome that desperate future! For our future... the future of humanity."

The room fell silent for a moment.

Zhao Shao: "!!"

Hodges: "???"

Wait, how did this suddenly escalate to the future of humanity? The topic had taken a rather abrupt and unsettling turn.

Of course, Chu Bamboo didn't reveal everything—even if his good brother had already tested it dozens of times in the diary while he was away in North America.

In the diary, he had recruited Zhao Shao and a surviving Hodges into the Time Club. And judging by the dates, it seemed like no major problems had occurred afterward. Even though large portions of the diary were deleted, at least Lin Xin Bamboo hadn't left a specific warning.

Even so, Chu Bamboo felt he needed to leave himself enough leeway.

After all, in the main timeline, he could not afford the price of a mistake.

Chu Bamboo collected his thoughts and, with extreme caution, explained that the future would hold a great cataclysm, one that would wipe out human civilization...

In the next era, human civilization would have to start over. However, the enemy hadn't completely vanished from the shadows... The enemy might be an alien civilization! Of course, there were other possibilities... he couldn't be one hundred percent certain.

As for Chu Bamboo's own future experiences, Nuwa No. 17, or how exactly he came to know all this information about the future... Chu Bamboo naturally said nothing about any of that.

...

「A moment later.」

"...How could something like this... happen?" Zhao Shao felt a chill run down his spine. A thousand words were stuck in his throat, but he didn't know what to say.

He suddenly remembered the nonsense Chu Bamboo was spouting with Lin Xia before he left. He whipped his head around to stare at the silent Lin Xia, then back at Chu Bamboo, his eyes filled with astonishment. 'No way... were you two being serious back then?!'

He'd had many theories about Chu Bamboo in the past... but no matter what he guessed, he could never have guessed *this*.

Zhao Shao didn't doubt Chu Bamboo's words. After partnering with him, he had seen too many anomalies...

In fact, because of what Chu Bamboo had said to Lin Xia before leaving Jinling for North America... he had once suspected Chu Bamboo had a robot cat from the future at home. He only dismissed the idea because something involving the future seemed too impossible.

But now, the answer was staring him right in the face. No matter how hard it was to accept, no matter how unbelievable... he had no choice but to accept it.

Hodges' expression shifted constantly—from shock and daze, to trembling at some unknown thought, to a flicker of being moved, and finally, to a bitter, wry smile. "Mr. Chu, you have too much... faith in me! I don't even trust myself that much... You! I..."

"It's fine!" Chu Bamboo waved his hand magnanimously. "Ever heard of the Men in Black? If you cause any problems in the future... don't worry, you definitely won't remember any of this!"

'As for how to erase memories—even if the Dream World's memory-wiping method can't be used, if worse comes to worst, I can just have my good brother work hard on developing it... The Memory Divine Techniques definitely have potential in that area! My poor brother will just have to suffer a little more...'

Hodges: "..."

'Well, thanks a lot for that!'

"Wait a minute!" Zhao Shao exclaimed, a beat behind, sucking in a sharp breath. "Holy shit, so you're saying... there really isn't some massive organization behind you? All of Z's ridiculous code! And all that other stuff from before... you really did it all by yourself???"

After guessing part of the truth, Zhao Shao didn't feel that Chu Bamboo was any less impressive just because Z's 'ascension' was due to future information and not created from scratch by Chu Bamboo's own power. On the contrary—he found it even more mind-boggling!

Because he already knew... it was fundamentally impossible for one person to have developed all this stuff! No matter how much of a genius he was, it shouldn't be possible to be *this* absurd...

And even if Chu Bamboo could obtain future information somehow, to accomplish all this by himself—

Zhao Shao felt as if he'd been struck by a sledgehammer.

He was completely stunned!

'How did he do it? Huh?! Even if he could learn future knowledge, to build an AI that's ahead of its time all by himself? It's insane! He's practically a superman... No, he's a god!'

It was precisely because he was an industry insider that he understood just how massive the workload was... not to mention, Chu Bamboo still had the spare energy to develop his skills in all sorts of other areas.

This was a perfect example of how an outsider might listen to the whole story and think Chu Bamboo was just a copycat, thinking, 'I could do that too.' But for him, an insider... listening to the whole story felt like an ant staring up at the heavens.

One could only say that the more powerful you were and the more you knew, the better you understood its true value, and the more awe you felt...

Noticing Zhao Shao's stare and guessing what he was thinking, Chu Bamboo's eye twitched, but he didn't bother explaining things like Nuwa or memories.

"So!" Lin Xia stepped forward, taking his cue. During the time Chu Bamboo was in North America, he had chatted with him from time to time and learned a lot... so he knew what he needed to do right now.

He logically proposed the core internal law of the Time Club: when Chu Bamboo is saving the future and it is not appropriate to disclose information, he holds absolute dictatorial power! Because he will inevitably be correct.

"...I haven't even agreed to join yet!" Zhao Shao's eye twitched. Then he saw Chu Bamboo's cold, eerie gaze land on him and immediately threw his hands up with an awkward smile. "I'm kidding... Of course I'll join! I agree with that point, too..."

Hodges, on the other hand, was direct. "What do you need me to do?"

"Let's put that aside for now." Chu Bamboo shook his head. With a strange expression on his face, he pulled out dozens of thick notebooks from a briefcase. "First, I'm issuing my first directive as the head of the Time Club... help me publish a book."

"???" Zhao Shao almost thought he'd misheard. 'No way, are you serious?'

Then, Zhao Shao heard Chu Bamboo clearly articulate the book's title—

"*Star Sea*."