The Name of the Rose [Interstellar]

〖Death just means abandoning the remains, abandoning the appearance, and ascending to a star, to love, to one's own mission. --"little Prince"〗

Xue Yuan has imagined many times what it would be like if there was indeed a survivable world on the other side of the "wall".

Maybe it's a magical four-dimensional space, maybe it's a collapsing universe, maybe it's a planet erupting with magma everywhere.

But the reality is very different from what he imagined.

When he regained consciousness, he felt that there was something soft like sand under his body, with a rotten smell of soil.

When I opened my eyes, I saw the clear sky and the setting sun sinking into the horizon.

The most ordinary scenery on this earth seems to him like a lifetime away.For six years, as far as the eye can see, it is not the dark and boundless space, but the cold metal bulkhead.

Xue Yuan tried to sit up and found that he was indeed lying on a piece of ground.The soil is pure black, but not rough, as thick and smooth as melted chocolate, stretching in all directions, only his snow-white tight-fitting spacesuit is the only strange color in this thick blackness.The orange-red setting sun sank to the level of his sight, and some tiny rays of light danced on the soil.

Xue Yuan raised his hand and touched his head, the helmet of the space suit was still intact.Press the button on the wrist, the oxygen mask becomes a display, and a set of data appears:

[Current coordinates: unknown

Atmospheric composition: nitrogen 78%, oxygen 21%, carbon dioxide 0.03%, other components 0.97%

Atmospheric pressure: 0.8×10^5N/㎡

Surface gravity: 0.99G

Surface temperature: 26.5°C]

Almost exactly the same as the environment of the earth.

Could it be... this is the earth in another universe?

Xue Yuan looked around in bewilderment, surrounded by a black wilderness, empty of people.

He clearly remembered that a few seconds before entering the "Wall", the "Argo" detector and the "Lover" were within his sight range.But there was no sign of them here, only him alone.Turn on the radio, there is only a squeaking noise, no signal.

A red warning sign lights up on the visor: The spacesuit is running low on oxygen.

After hesitating for a while, Xue Yuan took off his gloves and tried to touch the air.There is a cool wind gently brushing against the skin, without any discomfort.He opened his mask and breathed carefully.

Air is normal.

This is a very reassuring thing.Xue Yuan took off his helmet and threw it aside, the gentle wind immediately came over, patting his cheek like a furry paw, lifting the blond hair on his shoulders.

The sky slowly dimmed, the darkness merged, and the stars gradually filled the night.

Looking up at the starry sky for a while, Xue Yuan quickly judged that this place could not be the earth, because no familiar constellations could be found in the sky.Neither the iconic Big Dipper in the Northern Hemisphere nor the Southern Cross near the South Celestial Pole can be seen.This celestial sphere is completely strange, full of bright and unknown stars.

To be on the safe side, he decided to stay where he was tonight and wait until dawn before looking for others.

I thought I would suffer from insomnia, but I didn't expect to sleep soundly that night.The smooth black mud was non-sticky and did not stick to the skin, making him feel as if he was sleeping on a large half-set chocolate jelly.

When he woke up again, it was already daylight.

Looking into the distance under sufficient light, Xue Yuan discovered some details that he hadn't observed yesterday: there was an undulating outline on the horizon in the distance, carefully identified, it seemed to be a volcano.Then, these black mud should be volcanic mud, no wonder it is very comfortable to lie on.

At the foot of the volcano, a golden spot caught his attention.Xue Yuan was shocked: With such a high reflectivity, the possibility of man-made objects is very high, and it is likely that the "Lover" crashed there.

He immediately set off towards that bright spot.It looks very close, but when you walk, you will find it is very far away.This planet is very desolate, there is no vegetation on the surface, and the scenery along the way is extremely monotonous.After walking for more than three hours, I was able to roughly see the environment around the bright spot.

To Xue Yuan's surprise, it seemed to be a farmland there.The ground is flat and tidy, divided into several orderly small squares by different colors, some are golden and some are green.

The light came from the top of a small building beside the field. The building looked strange, hemispherical, and the material looked like metal, but it was very old.

Obviously, this is a living place, and it should be built by humans.

Xue Yuan was a little disappointed.Although it is good to see the same kind in such a place, he wants to find out the whereabouts of "Lover" and "Argo".

After walking for another half an hour, he came to the hemispherical hut.The golden ones are wheat fields, and the green ones are vegetable fields.If the hut looked more classical, it would have the taste of a farmhouse with "a field of spring leeks and greenery, ten miles of rice and flowers".

In the vegetable field, there is a figure bending over to work, probably harvesting vegetables.

"Excuse me..." Xue Yuan subconsciously spoke Chinese.

The man straightened up and looked back.Xue Yuan couldn't help being surprised: that was actually Qi Lian.

What Qi Lian was wearing was not a pilot's driving uniform, but a very ordinary shirt and jeans.The sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, and the bare forearms were covered with mud.

Seeing Xue Yuan, he wasn't surprised at all, he just nodded his head slightly, as if Xue Yuan just went to another place and just returned home.

"You... what's wrong with you? Is something wrong?" Xue Yuan was a little incoherent for a while.He faintly felt something was wrong: Qi Lian seemed to have changed.

It's not that his appearance has changed, but his temperament.The person in front of him seems to be a twin brother who looks exactly like Qi Lian but has a completely different personality.The childlike clarity and liveliness was gone, replaced by a strange calmness.Only those who have been precipitated by the years can have this kind of tranquility.

Qi Lian wiped off the mud on his hands with a piece of cloth, got up and walked towards Xue Yuan: "When did you get here?"

"Yesterday... well, yesterday evening."

Qi Lian nodded, "Are you hungry? Let me make you something to eat."

Of course he was hungry, but that wasn't his main concern right now.Looking left and right, there was no sign of anyone else, Xue Yuan asked again: "Where is the Argo? Where did the five members of the expedition go?"

Qi Lian looked calm: "They are all dead."

"...Dead?!" Xue Yuan turned pale in shock, "Did the spaceship crash?"

"No." Qi Lian shook his head lightly, and said something that confused Xue Yuan: "They have lived their lives."

What kind of answer is that?Xue Yuan was puzzled.Isn't death the end of life?How is that any different than no answer?

Qi Lian pointed to the hemispherical hut next to the field, "This house was built with the materials of the Argo."

"How is it possible?" Xue Yuan was even more shocked than before, "Looking at the degree of wear and tear, this house should have been used for at least several decades, right?"

Qi Lian was silent for a while, and sighed: "There is one thing, I think it's better to let you know as soon as possible. ——Do you remember Voyager 1?"

"Of course, how could I not remember."

On the first day, in order to find the missing Voyager 1, Xue Yuan discovered the invisible wall by accident.The significance of that moment has not finally emerged until now: even if it is not about the survival of human beings, at least it has changed the direction of human history.

Qi Lian said: "It was carrying a piece of enriched uranium 238, which was found here."

The decay product of uranium 238 is lead 206.Geologists on the Argonaut expedition determined when Voyager 1 arrived here by measuring the ratio between the two.

"That time was," Qi Lian looked into Xue Yuan's eyes, "sixty-five million years ago."

"..." Xue Yuan thought he had heard wrong.

Sixty-five million years, that's the distance from the Jurassic to the century AD, from the age of the dinosaurs to the age of man.

However, the time Voyager 1 entered the "Wall" was obviously only three months earlier than them.

Qi Lianxu pointed to the sky: "This universe has an independent timeline. Compared with our original universe, the ratio of time velocity is 1 million to 8.267. One second of our original universe is about 8 here. years. The Argonaut was 0.6 seconds ahead of you, and I was [-] seconds ahead of you."

For half a minute, Xue Yuan was stunned and speechless.He tried his best to turn his brain around and digest what Qi Lian said just now: "2.6 million to 1 time rate...that is to say...the Argo has been here..."

"66 years." Qi Lian was still so calm, and finished the sentence for him, "It came here 66 years ago."

Xue Yuan finally understood what Qi Lian meant by "they have lived their lives".

One second outside the wall, eight years inside the wall.

Before Xue Yuan came in, including Anna, the five members of the expedition team had lived on this planet for more than half a century.

"They..." Xue Yuan felt his throat dry and it became difficult to make a sound, "How long did they live?"

"Anna lived to be 91 years old, and everyone else died before her."

Five years ago, Qi Lian came to this planet and met Anna in this hut.At that time, she was 89 years old and lived here alone.

She was only 28 when she came in. In 61 years, she changed from a blond girl to a gray-haired old woman.

For more than half a century, the expedition team used volcanic eruptions to improve the planet's atmospheric composition; cultivated farmland, used volcanic ash as fertilizer, and sowed the seeds of food crops brought by the "Argo".

Due to the difficult living conditions, members of the expedition team passed away one after another.Only Anna stubbornly waited day by day, fearing that she would miss Xue Yuan.

But she still didn't wait.

Anna died three years ago at the age of 91.On the day before leaving, she took Qi Lian's hand and confessed: "If one day in the future, he asks me what I will look like when I get old, don't tell him. No woman wants the person she likes to see her old age. appearance, not to mention that he was still young at that time."

Qi Lian agreed.

Anna smiled: "Killian, what a wonderful fate. At the beginning of your life, we were talking about him, but he didn't know it. At the end of my life, we were still talking about him, and he still didn't know it."

He was only 8 seconds late, but she waited her whole life.

Qi Lian led Xue Yuan around to the back of the house.

Xue Yuan was surprised to see that there was a small garden surrounded by a short white wall.The wall was obviously built by hand, not neat, as if crookedly hand-painted by immature children.When you get closer, you can vaguely see small patterns densely covered on the wall.It was only when I got to the front that I realized that those were not patterns, but the Chinese characters "Yuan" one by one.

Qi Lian pointed to the white wall and explained: "This wall has a name, and Anna called it 'Xue Qiang'. Split the '┐' on the right side of the character '墨' into two strokes, and the whole character is exactly ten strokes. Make a mark on the wall. That's how she keeps track of the days."

The expedition team calculated the revolution period of this planet, which is about 360 sidereal days, that is, there are 360 ​​days in a year.So Anna used a 6×6 dot matrix to represent a year, but each dot in the dot matrix is ​​a character "Yuan".While engraving, build a wall. In the past 66 years, there are 66 dots on the wall and more than 300 "Yuan" characters.

This wall stands in the lee, protected from weathering.Even the words originally engraved on it are still clearly visible today.

Xue Yuan caressed with his hands, but remained silent.

He didn't know what to say or what to say now.

Stars can die in an instant, let alone such a tiny living individual.All the ups and downs of all human beings, all the singing and crying of life and death are nothing but God's inadvertent blink of an eye in the vicissitudes of life.

The author has something to say:

☆, the little prince

In that small garden, Xue Yuan lingered for a long time.

All eyes are gorse, a large piece of bright yellow oriole.This kind of flower usually grows in arid places with strong sunlight, and can adapt to the environment of this planet. At this time, it is the summer of this planet, and the flower branches are luxuriant, swaying slightly under the sky with the background of volcanoes.

Xue Yuan thought of Leopardi's "Gorse" that he had translated.It was only three months ago, but it seems like a lifetime ago:

Fragrant broom, content with deserts

Fragrant gorse in the desert

here on the arid slope of Vesuvius, that formidable mountain,

Barren Vesuvius, the cruel destroyer

the destroyer, that no other tree or floweradorns,

You are on its barren hillside

you scatter your alone bushes all around.

Bloom lonely flowers.

When this poem was written, Leopardi lived alone at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. He was seriously ill and died soon.This lifelong pessimistic poet once sighed "If life is misfortune, why do we have to live until we die?" Did he get gentle comfort from the gorse in his last days?

Qi Lian knelt down and gently stroked those vibrant plants.

"I originally planted roses, but unfortunately they didn't survive in the end." He sighed with some distress, "The roses are too delicate and not suitable for living here."

It was also Anna's idea to open up this small garden.She learned how to make perfume from Xue Yuan, collected flowers, extracted essential oils, mixed them with alcohol, and put them in the "sweet redemption" bottle.

"I'm sorry, I used the original perfume in it without authorization. — Uh, you won't be angry, right?" Anna said so, still blinking her eyes playfully and innocently like a girl.

Of course Qi Lian would not be angry.He likes to do these things with Anna, listening to her talk about her past life: the schools she went to, the uniform she wore, the subjects she was good at, the subjects she hated, the senior she had a crush on...

Her original major was molecular biology. In order to solve the communication problem with her younger brother Andy, she turned to the study of psychology.

Looking back on the past, Anna shook her head and sighed: "My life is really a failure. I am obviously working as a psychiatrist in the fleet, but even the two most important men to me, Andy and Ivan, I have never been able to understand. , I will not understand until I die.”

Once, she complained to Xue Yuan: "I really envy you who do computers. If a program goes wrong, as long as you can find out the reason, there is always a solution. But we can't do anything about people. For a person with depression, even if they know that the cause of depression is related to serotonin, they still can't understand the other person's feelings and don't know what to do. I hate that feeling of powerlessness."

At that time, Xue Yuan answered her like this: "Computers can't always solve all problems. In the theory of algorithms, there is a large part of the content that specializes in the study of 'computability' and 'unsolvability'. The relevant problems are probably unsolvable, and there is no feasible algorithm.”

Looking back now, Xue Yuan suddenly felt that his answer back then was disgusting.Obviously, Anna didn't expect him to offer any constructive comments on her major, but she showed him tactfully: I hope to understand you.

——If you could go back to that moment, what would you say to her now?

Maybe say something like this: "This is not your problem, nor is it anyone else's problem. You see, human beings have experienced the end of the world together, but they still have their own way. I believe that the barriers between people will not be eliminated until death, but that It doesn't matter. Even if they don't understand each other, generations of people have come through like this, and they love each other and live together."

Talking to each other like this, they sat in the garden all day, like two ancient people looking back at the past in the courtyard.

The sun was setting low, and the sky gradually turned from rose red to deep purple.

Xue Yuan suddenly thought of a question: "Where is this planet?"

Qi Lian looked up at the starry sky and smiled: "We are in the rose."

This is not a metaphor, but a fact.

By comparing the star maps, the expedition team found out where this unnamed planet is located in the universe: it is a planet of a star in the open star cluster NGC2244, 5200 light-years away from Earth.Coincidentally, it was conceived in the "Rose Nebula".

The "Rose Nebula" is a huge area of ​​ionized hydrogen, which contains the material needed to form stars and is the womb of the stars.

Due to the effects of stellar wind and cosmic rays, the gas and dust cloud has formed a petal-like shape and color, like a rose blooming in the deep space of the universe.Astronomy enthusiasts have given it a moving name: Cosmic Love Flower.

Xue Yuan used the telescope to watch this distant and romantic celestial body countless times, never thinking that one day he would be in it.

A watch-like thing on Qi Lian's arm suddenly made a beep, and the watch cover popped up.He looked down, closed the watch cover, and said to Xue Yuan: "It's time for the moon to rise. Don't be afraid, it's fine."

I saw a huge semicircle rising below the horizon in the southeast direction.Rather, the uppermost fraction of a semicircle cut into an arc by the horizon.This bow is so long that it almost spans both ends of the horizon as far as the eye can see.

Soon, as the semicircle rose, the area of ​​the bow became larger and larger, covering the entire sky, and the light was as clear as ice and snow, reflecting the whole world in a clear light.Its three-dimensional sense is also highlighted: the smooth spherical "belly" bulges high towards the ground, as if it is within reach.

Due to the short distance, its relative speed to the ground is extremely high, and it is almost as if you can hear the wind and thunder of the wheels speeding.The visual effect is that a giant ball bigger than the sky is rolling over the head, as if to crush the whole world.If one were not mentally prepared to see such a scene suddenly, the three souls would be possessed and seven souls would come out of their bodies.

Xue Yuan stared at the bright sphere, identified the mountain topography above, and even found a shadow that looked very similar to the "Sea of ​​Tranquility".

He suddenly realized clearly: this is his world, his moon.

The second expedition team outside the "wall" will set off in 24 hours. At that time, the universe inside the "wall" has passed 70 years, and latecomers can only find their skeleton fossils in geological layers.

And, most likely, there will never be a second expedition.

The sun has become a silent black dwarf and will no longer devour humans.Although the fleet is still unable to leave the solar system, at least they can take a breath and look for asteroids that can temporarily migrate within the Oort Nebula.Unless their curiosity is too strong, there is no need for them to come to the "wall".

In this life, this is his and Qi Lian's planet.

Xue Yuan patted the ground beside him: "Killian, sit up a bit."

Qi Lian obediently complied.When Xue Yuan undressed him, he also behaved obediently.

On Xue Yuan's body, the "strawberries" left two days ago—for Qi Lian, five years ago—can still be clearly seen, and the traces are still there.Qi Lian stroked them gently, but neither spoke nor showed any expression.

Qi Lian like this is too strange.In the past, all his expressions were written on his face, and he didn't hide every frown and smile.The current him is like a pool of deep water that has lost its ripples, and there are no more waves.

Xue Yuan became worried, and touched his forehead: "Are you sick? Are you feeling uncomfortable?"

"No."

"Then why are you unhappy?"

Qi Lian was startled, and thoughtfully said to himself: "So that's the case. I also feel that I am a little different from before, but I can't figure out why. Now I understand the reason: I don't seem to feel happy anymore. "

Xue Yuan was stunned for a moment.He realized what happened: Qi Lian lost his feelings.

Anna once said that Qi Lian was born with "corticotropin releasing factor receptor deficiency" and would not feel anxiety.And now this scope has been further expanded: he feels neither sorrow nor joy.

This is his body's self-preservation.After three years of watching alone on an uninhabited planet, ordinary people may have lost their minds.The extreme loneliness triggered the "evolution" mechanism in his brain, which traded the loss of emotion for the chance of survival.

When the fox finally found the little prince he had tamed, the little prince lost his feelings and love|desire.

Xue Yuan couldn't help recalling Qi Lian's "father": he was an unusually taciturn person, he closed his heart to the outside world, and forever silently accepted everything that fate imposed on him, as if everything should be taken for granted.

The current Qi Lian is very similar to that person.Even when Xue Yuan felt that he was cruelly "eating" him, he still accepted it silently and calmly.

Xue Yuan didn't want to be too violent, but he didn't know what to do to make up for the inexplicably lost five years.For Qi Lian, the time they have been apart has been far longer than the time they have been together.

He really wanted to ask Qi Lian, do you still like me?

Or, simply ask more explicit|bone, do you love me?

But he dared not speak out.Qi Lian wouldn't lie, he was very afraid that he would answer frankly: "I don't feel it anymore." Then he would not be able to bear it.

So, give up those unnecessary questions.All he can grasp is the present moment.

━━━The dividing line at dawn (≧︿≦)━━━

If I summarize my 25 years and eight months of life in terms of the subject matter of the novel, it would roughly look like this:

The first ten years were a fairy tale;

The next ten years will be military literature;

The next five years and seven months are space opera;

Starting from this month, it will be farming texts from now on.

↑↑↑The above was summed up by Xue Yuan when he squatted in the kitchen peeling tomatoes.

That's right, squatting.

In the past, even if he was killed, he wouldn't make such a cold-hearted move.But now I don't have to care about the image at all.Even if he went out to run around naked every day, no one would stop him.

In the small two-person family formed by him and Qi Lian, Qi Lian is the outsider, Xue Yuan is the insider, and the men farm and the men weave.

The reason for this division of labor is simple: the planet's ground-level background radiation is somewhat higher than Earth's.Xue Yuan's body's ability to resist radiation is far inferior to that of Qi Lian, so it's safer to minimize outdoor activities, so he has no choice but to become a home cook and learn to cook.

Although the house transformed from a spaceship is small, it is clean and comfortable.Living electricity comes from the nuclear fusion engine of the "Argo".The shiny thing on the roof is a metal part of the "Lover", it is very conspicuous in the sun on sunny days, it is used as a signpost for people far away, and it can also be used as a lightning rod.

There was a small pot on the atomic stove, and the water boiled "gurglingly". Xue Yuan scooped the hot noodles into the plate with a strainer. ——This fence is made of an axial flow fan cover on the spaceship, and it really makes the best use of it.

While making the green salad, it was getting a little overcast.

Xue Yuan leaned out from the kitchen, built a pergola with his hands, and looked at the sky.Thick dark clouds billowed over the horizon, and it looked like it was going to rain.

Xue Yuan put down the lettuce he was cutting, and picked up all the bottles and cans he could find at home.

Qi Lian told him that the surface temperature of this planet is high and there are not many fresh water resources, but it is rainy all year round, so try to store as much water as possible when it rains.

Qi Lian is harvesting wheat in the field and storing food for the coming autumn and winter.After so many years of wind and sun, his skin has hardly been damaged at all, and his appearance has not changed.This is because his genes have been optimized, and the cycle of cell aging is much slower than that of ordinary people.

Xue Yuan looked at him from a distance, and felt that he was a small sculpture frozen in the quicksand painting, the sand of time would only wash away from his outside, and would not affect him.

As if feeling Xue Yuan's gaze, Qi Lian turned around and looked at him.Xue Yuan put his hands to his lips: "Go home and eat!"

He yelled this sentence very naturally, as if they had lived the life of an old man in a farm family for most of their lives.He couldn't see whether Qi Lian smiled, but he really felt the warmth rising in his heart.

No matter what purpose that high-dimensional civilization has and what it wants to do to human beings through this universe, it is irrelevant.He only wished that they would give this universe another 8 seconds so that he and Qi Lian could spend their lives here safely.

Thick clouds brewed for a day, and at night, heavy rain arrived as expected.

Because he was afraid that the wheat would be damaged by the rain, Qi Lian went to the threshing ground and ended up overnight.Xue Yuan didn't know how to do farm work, so he couldn't help, so he had to stay at home alone.After waiting for a long time, he fell asleep in a daze.

I don't know what time it was, a slight "dong dong dong" woke him up, and it came from the direction of the door.

Xue Yuan's first reaction was: Qi Lian is back.

Just as he was about to open the door, a flash of lightning flashed in his mind: No, it can't be Qi Lian.

The door of the house was modified from the hatch of the "Argo", and there was no lock or anything like that.The metal door panels are closed together under the action of electromagnetic force, and it will be opened automatically by pressing the button next to it.

If it was Qi Lian who came back, not only would he not knock on the door, but he would try his best to keep his movements light so as not to alarm Xue Yuan.

Then... Who will be outside the door?

A chill ran up Xue Yuan's spine.He remembered a science fiction novel with only one sentence: the last person on earth was sitting in a room, and suddenly there was a knock on the door.

He jumped off the bed and opened the drawer beside the bed silently.Inside is an old-fashioned military|pistol|pistol, a .1911 caliber Browning M[-], which is a private collection brought by a member of the expedition team.In order to prevent fire, it is usually disassembled and stored in a wooden box.

Xue Yuan quickly assembled the |gun.In fact, he suspects that there is something non-human outside the door, and the gun|arms may not be useful at all.But due to the habit of special soldiers, holding weapons in their hands will always make them feel a little more at ease.

The gun is loaded, and the mind is fully awake.Xue Yuan pressed the bullet into the chamber, and quickly moved close to the base of the wall to the window, holding the gun with both hands against the wall, looking sideways with minimal movements.From this angle, the doorway can be seen.

The author has something to say:

☆, the little prince

It was empty outside.

A small lamp above the door gave off a faint light, illuminating the raindrops falling in the dark night.A row of containers were neatly placed under the corridor, which Xue Yuan put there to catch rainwater during the day.Other than that, nothing else.

...It was the wind, the sound just now must have been the wind.Xue Yuan comforted himself like this.

Suddenly, a glass jar shook and fell to the ground with a bang, as if it had been accidentally kicked.

...Mist grass!It's the wind, it's the wind, it must be the wind! (≡д≡|||)

Then, the bottle stood up again, as if lifted by an invisible hand.

...It's the wind, it's the wind, it's the wind...Grandma, a bear, doesn't play like this! !I am most afraid of supernatural events, okay? ! (〒▽〒|||)

Gritting his teeth, Xue Yuan suddenly pressed the button by the door.The two metal doors swung open with a "hula", and the damp and cold air rushed in.He was holding his gun to confirm the movement around him, when a thunderbolt "clicked" in the air and fell.Startled, Xue Yuan repeatedly pulled the trigger near the jar like a conditioned reflex. There was a loud "bang bang bang" sound, the bottle burst, and glass shards and water splashed everywhere.

After a moment of silence, the fatal knock on the door sounded again.The sound source is so close that you can even feel the vibration of the door panel when the sound is transmitted.Only, this time the sound became extremely regular, repeating the same rhythm slowly and clearly, much like Morse code.

Xue Yuan forced himself to calm down, silently counting the frequency of long and short intervals in his heart:

...-.--.-.--.-

Vanya

Xue Yuan was stunned.

There are many people who call him "Vanya", but there is only one person who can communicate with him in Morse code like this.

"Father?" The title came out instantly.For him, this is a very unfamiliar word.

The knocking sound continued, and began to become distant and close, as if guiding him to go out.

Xue Yuan collected himself, put away the pistol, and followed the guidance of the sound to step out of the room.

The icy rain fell on him, but only for a moment.

He found that his perspective became strange: he was looking back at the room he was in just now from an angle he had never seen before.

When he was young, he often saw a kind of children's painting called "eye test" in pictorial magazines: all kinds of little people with different postures were laid out on a large picture, but there was no front and rear occlusion or near and far small Perspective relationship, you can see every detail.Kindergarten teachers always show this kind of picture to children, and ask them to compete who can find a certain character doing something in the picture first.

Looking at three-dimensional space from four-dimensional space is a bit like looking at this kind of painting from three-dimensional space.The usual perspective relationship disappeared, and each object was exposed naked in a peculiar way, losing the distinction between inside and outside.

He understood that this is a four-dimensional space, and he was in that extra dimension.

He cannot see the fourth dimension, just like a little man drawn on a piece of paper cannot see through the paper to see the three-dimensional space.But he could feel an indescribable depth.

The Buddhist "Vimalakirti Sutra" records that the room of the layman Vimalakirti is very small, with only the abbot's place, but "his room is vast and inclusive without hindrance."

Thinking about it now, the abbot's room might be a four-dimensional space, right?

Xue Yuan cautiously took a small step towards the house.The surrounding landscape returned to normal. He stood at the door of the room, and the rain fell on him.He knew that he exited the fourth dimension.

Then the knock came again, more urgently than before: Vanya, Vanya, Vanya.

Xue Yuan entered the fourth dimension again.

"Vanya, how are you?" someone said behind him.

Xue Yuan would never mistake that distinctive circumflex tone.One of my father's hobbies is poetry, and he often analyzed the rhythm at home, so that his mother laughed at him for "even speaking in iambic pentameter".

Looking back, he saw his father waving and smiling at him. "There are some points in this universe that can directly communicate with the four-dimensional space. I can't go to the three-dimensional space, so I have to call you in this way. I hope it doesn't scare you. What you see now is a data body, so I can appear three-dimensional."

"...data body?"

"Yes, I accepted 'Upload.' Well, that was about...a dozen years ago."

When he said the words "more than ten years", his father's tone was obviously full of uncertainty, as if the time span was a very strange concept to him.

He went on to explain this: "Sorry, my sense of time spans is blurred. I'm in a world where time doesn't exist."

"No time?" Xue Yuan found himself repeating his father's words all the time, and didn't know what else to say.

"Oh, that's not accurate." Father smiled, and that expression made Xue Yuan feel kind. "Time still exists, but it is not linear. This is a six-dimensional space-time, four-dimensional space plus two-dimensional time."

The human world is a four-dimensional space-time: three-dimensional space plus one-dimensional time.

Space can be extended in three directions (x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis) in front-back, left-right, and up-down directions, forming the world in which we live every day.

Time, on the other hand, has only one dimension (w-axis), and it always extends in one direction, never to return.Therefore, human history is linear, grasping a time axis, you can