you come from the sky

I knew the ending from the very beginning, and I chose the path I wanted to take, which is the only path for the future.I followed the path, full of joy, maybe full of pain.

-- Ted Chiang, "Story of Your Life"

12 Nonviolent Noncooperation

Fang Haochen didn't expect Bian Yu to really go on strike.

He originally thought that Bian Yu was just dissatisfied with his concealment, and it was enough to let him dry.

But the next day's morning meeting, Bian Yu was absent, and for the make-up meeting in the afternoon, Bian Yu still didn't show up.Director Yao of the Data Research Department saw this and said he would go to Bian Yu's for a while, but he didn't expect Director Yao to come directly to the Material Research Department that night.

Director Yao Zhixing wears a pair of thick plastic glasses, is a little bald, speaks unhurriedly, and rarely loses his temper. He is a typical old intellectual.

Yao Zhixing is not only the leader of the Mathematical Research Office, but also the research backbone of 201. Fang Haochen has always respected him. Seeing Yao Zhixing coming, Fang Haochen immediately stood up.

"Director Fang." Yao Zhixing hesitated for a while before saying, "I'm really sorry, if it wasn't for the incident at my family a while ago, I wouldn't bother you to go to the Chinese Academy of Sciences."

Director Yao's mother passed away some time ago, and the 201 project itself was led by the Physical Research Department, so the matter of finding someone fell on Fang Haochen.

Regarding the organizational arrangements, Fang Haochen didn't mind, and replied briefly: "It's nothing, it should be."

And if he didn't go, he wouldn't encounter Bian Yu.

Hearing what Fang Haochen said, Yao Zhixing pushed down his glasses, and Fang Haochen realized that something was wrong. People in 201 have always spoken directly, but now Yao Zhixing showed embarrassment.Fang Haochen looked at him and said, "Director Yao, what can you tell me?"

Yao Zhixing nodded, and smiled a little embarrassedly: "Director Fang, are you familiar with Dr. Bian?"

"Bian Yu?" Fang Haochen paused slightly, "What? He hasn't reported to the office yet?"

"Yes." Yao Zhixing replied, "A few colleagues from our department went to his dormitory together in the afternoon, and he said that he had diarrhea after eating something bad at the foot of the mountain."

"Did he eat badly?" Fang Haochen asked.

Yao Zhixing looked at Fang Haochen in surprise for a moment, and then replied: "It should be just an excuse, don't you think you are all fine?"

"That's not necessarily true. People's physiques are different." Fang Haochen said.

Yao Zhixing smiled: "Director Fang, going down the mountain once is a bit different. It seems that we will go down the mountain more often in the future."

"Is there?" Fang Haochen asked with a frown.

Yao Zhixing just smiled and didn't answer, and said, "Director Fang, I think Dr. Bian is still a bit resistant to coming to work in 201. Why don't you go to see him at night? Also persuade him. It stands to reason that this is our job. I shouldn't bother you about the Department of Mathematical Research, but after all, he was brought back by you, so you should get to know him better..."

Fang Haochen thought for a while, finally nodded and replied: "Okay, I see, I'll go see him later."

After sending Yao Zhixing away, Fang Haochen sat at the table and glanced at his watch. It happened to be time for dinner, so Fang Haochen stood up and took a few rice bowls from the cabinet. He looked at the dark blue color printed on the white porcelain rice bowls. In boldface, "National Development Physics Research Center of China No. 20 Research Institute"—this is the original name of 201—slightly twitched the corners of his mouth and smiled, leaving work early for the first time.

"Director Fang, are you here?" Fang Haochen, the aunt in the cafeteria, was always enthusiastic.

"Or one steamed bun, one egg, one fried vegetable and one potato shreds?" asked the aunt.

Fang Haochen nodded, and then he very rarely looked at the large pots of vegetables in the cafeteria window: "Is there any meat today?"

"Yes." The aunt said, "Everyone has already snatched up the rest. The ones in this small bowl are specially reserved for you directors."

"Then give me two yuan." Fang Haochen asked, "Do you have noodles?"

"Yes." The aunt said with a smile, "I just made the hand-rolled noodles last night, would you like some?"

"Okay." Fang Haochen continued to look at several vegetable pots, "One serving of kidney beans, and one serving of cauliflower, oh, and one more egg, do you have pancakes? Come also. Well, give me another bowl of soup."

"Director Fang, how many people are eating?" the aunt asked.

Fang Haochen lowered his head without answering, took out the meal ticket and meat ticket from his pocket, and handed them to his aunt silently.

The canteen aunt took it over, narrowed her eyes and smiled.

Director Fang is a little different today.She thought, at least it was different from before.

She likes Fang Haochen very much, after all, she was already here when Fang Haochen came to 16 at the age of 201.

At that time, Fang Haochen was very thin, and his complexion revealed a kind of sick yellow sickness that was common at that time, except for a pair of black eyes that were shiny.He was not very old, but he was very stable. At that time, whoever just came to 201 rushed to the window like a hungry wolf as soon as the cafeteria opened, but Fang Haochen was not.

When queuing up, he always kept his head down and concentrated on reading. He didn't know he was cut in line. He even stood in front of the window a few times and suddenly shouted "I got it!" The cafeteria doesn't show up until late or the next day.

Only later did my aunt know that this person was the new operator brought back by Dean Cheng, the youngest operator in 201.Later she knew that Fang Haochen's mother was the former Director Fang, the legend of 201.

With some difficulty, Fang Haochen grasped the prepared meal in both hands, and briefly said goodbye to his aunt.But just two steps away, Fang Haochen turned back again, and said to his aunt: "These days there is a man named Bian Yu, who doesn't have a work permit yet, and the relationship between food and oil has probably not been changed. If he comes to cook, he will be credited to me first." .”

After thinking about it, Fang Haochen instructed: "He's easy to recognize. He's tall, with deep eyebrows and deep eyes. He's wearing a suit. He's very conspicuous. You can tell it at a glance."

"Okay, don't worry, Director Fang." The aunt said with a smile, "I'm sure I won't be hungry for your people."

Fang Haochen nodded, and finally left with peace of mind.

He did eat a little too much.Standing in front of Bian Yu's door, Hao Chen thought.Both hands were occupied, so that there was no hand to knock on the door.

Fang Haochen first kicked the door lightly twice, but nothing happened.

"Bian Yu?" He called Bian Yu's name again, but nothing happened.

how?Nonviolent noncooperation?Fang Haochen called the door twice again, but there was no movement, he frowned, turned his body sideways, and tried to open the door with his arms and go in.

As a result, Bian Yu's door opened at this moment, and when Fang Haochen bumped into him like this, he bumped into Bian Yu's body. Fortunately, Bian Yu reacted quickly and supported Fang Haochen with both hands, so that the two of them didn't feel like they were on a train again. It was just as embarrassing as last time.

Being supported by Bian Yu, Fang Haochen only felt a gust of heat coming through his shirt, and when he raised his head, he saw Bian Yu staring at him intently.

Fang Haochen breathed a sigh of relief: "Are you washing your hair?"

"En." Bian Yu replied, his hair was still wet, the water dripped down his cheeks and then crawled down his neckline, all the way to an invisible hidden area.

Fang Haochen felt his face was a little hot, but he only said, "No wonder you didn't hear me just now."

Seeing that it was him, Bian Yu was not as indifferent to the resistance work as Fang Haochen expected. He looked at Fang Haochen with a little surprise in his eyes: "I didn't expect you to come."

"Come and see you." Fang Haochen said, he subconsciously wanted to say "come and see why you didn't report for duty", but before he said it, Fang Haochen suppressed the words and asked Bian Yu, "Have you eaten yet?"

Bian Yu glanced at the food in Fang Haochen's hand, laughed, shook his head, and asked, "Are you here to fulfill our promise to eat once a week?"

Fang Haochen nodded.Without evasion or ambiguity, he took two steps back, bypassing Bian Yu and putting the rice on the black coffee table.

Bian Yu seemed in a good mood, walked over and sat opposite Fang Haochen.

Fang Haochen laid out all the meals he had ordered in front of Bian Yu. He didn't know what Bian Yu liked to eat, so he ate a lot. In fact, Bian Yu didn't know, Fang Haochen came here at a trot all the way——his rice bowl didn't have any insulation The effect is that if you walk slowly, the food will be cold.

But the food on this table could not attract Bian Yu's attention, even if Fang Haochen pushed the hand-rolled noodles and braised pork in front of his eyes, he just stared at Fang Haochen.

"Let's eat." Fang Haochen said, opened the rice bowl, took a few mouthfuls of steamed buns, picked up vegetables while eating, and occasionally drank a couple of mouthfuls of soup. He ate seriously and focused, completely ignoring the person opposite.

Seeing Fang Haochen's eating, Bian Yu laughed lightly: "Director Fang, are you hungry?"

"It's okay." Fang Haochen added some stew to Bian Yu's hand-rolled noodles, which Fang Haochen bought specially. He heard that eating noodles in a certain place meant to entangle people.

After dialing the chopsticks, Fang Haochen handed the chopsticks to Bian Yu. "Don't you want to eat with me? Eat it quickly." Fang Haochen said, feeling like a monster, who specially coaxed the traveler to eat his drugged meal. After eating, the traveler could never leave his Pansi Cave .

Bian Yu smiled helplessly and shook his head, still not moving his chopsticks: "I want to eat, not like this."

"How do you eat that?" Fang Haochen asked.

"Eat slowly." Bian Yu said, after thinking for a while, he added, "Talk more."

"Oh." Fang Haochen said this, and reached out to take an egg, but he really couldn't find a word to talk to. After thinking for a long time, he said, "What do you think about Goldbach's conjecture?"

However, Bian Yu was rather shameless: "I don't want to talk about it."

Fang Haochen was silent for a while, and then asked: "Do you have any ideas about the personnel structure of the research team?"

Bian Yu raised his eyebrows: "No, and I don't want to talk about it."

Fang Haochen had no choice, he straightened up, looked around Bian Yu's room, tried his best to find a topic, and finally found it, like a leader caring about a new subordinate, he asked: "Where is the place where I live?" satisfied?"

"Not satisfied." Bian Yu smiled, and his tone was somewhat cheerful.

Fang Haochen smashed the egg on the table: "Why are you not satisfied?"

"Too far from you."

Fang Haochen paused, and still lowered his head to chop the eggs. Today he was very careful to chop the eggs, peeling off the eggshells one by one, as if the eggs were the hands of a girl who had soaked in milk bath. There is a little bit of damage.

Naturally, it was very slow.

After Bian Yu finished speaking, he waited for Fang Haochen for a long time without any reply, so he continued, "I don't like the decorations in the room either."

Now Haochen raised his head: "What don't you like?"

"Look at this room." Bian Yu said, but he didn't look at the room himself, he just stared at Fang Haochen, staring at him while listening to him while eating eggs, "White walls and black floors, white window lattices and black hangers, white teacups and black tables, White sheets and black bed rails, and the words 'hard and simple' pasted on the head of the bed are also in black and white. This doesn't look like a human residence."

"What does that look like?" Fang Haochen asked.

Bian Yu pouted and said curtly, "Like a crematorium."

Fang Haochen was choked all of a sudden, he quickly put down the half-eaten egg in his hand, and took a sip of soup.

Seeing Fang Haochen smile like this, Bian Yu teased, "You are so anxious to eat slowly, are you going back to work soon?"

"Yes, there is still some work to be done." Fang Haochen answered truthfully.

This sentence immediately made Bian Yu lose most of his interest. He sighed and leaned on the chair: "Director Fang, if you are busy with work, you don't need to come to me specially, and I don't really need your company that much."

After hearing this, Fang Haochen chewed the egg in his mouth and swallowed it, straightened up, looked at Bian Yu who was sitting opposite him: "Your work is more important than my current job."

"Director Yao asked you to come?" Bian Yu asked.

"Yes." Fang Haochen replied truthfully.

Now the little interest left was gone, Bian Yu put his arm on the armrest of the chair, neither spoke nor looked at Fang Haochen.

"So..." Fang Haochen looked at his fingers, the silence at this moment made it difficult for Fang Haochen to deal with himself, he even faintly suspected that he had done something wrong, and was restless because of this suspicion, "When do you plan to report for duty?"

Bian Yu sneered and raised his eyebrows: "Isn't it to see you?"

"Look at me?"

"That's right." Bian Yu answered it as a matter of course, "It depends on when you answer my question."

Seeing that Fang Haochen was still puzzled, Bian Yu said, "It seems Director Fang doesn't know the answer."

Then he walked to the door, opened the door of the room, and asked someone to leave: "Okay, Director Fang, it's getting late, I think you have finished eating, if you have nothing else, go back and get busy Bar."

Fang Haochen walked to the door and became serious: "Bian Yu, don't mess around. The 201 project is different from your game."

"Sorry, I just like playing games." Bian Yu said.

Fang Haochen also lost his temper: "Then if I can't answer your questions for the rest of my life, you will spend the rest of my life with me?"

"It won't take forever." Bian Yu said, "Didn't we agree before? If you can't answer in a week, you will let me go."

"Are you really going?" Fang Haochen couldn't believe it, "Bian Yu, I don't understand why you are so resistant to the research on the unified field."

"There are so many things you don't understand." Bian Yu sneered, "You can't even answer my questions, and you still want to understand me?"

After Bian Yu finished speaking, he closed the door mercilessly, keeping Fang Haochen outside.

The entire corridor of the dormitory was pitch black, only the light from Bian Yu's room came through the crack of the door, and Fang Haochen felt an unspeakable sense of loss for no reason.