Mein wilder Geist

Kapitel 7

A perfect couple. The man was tall and slender, with a refined, scholarly appearance and fair skin that glowed with a rosy luster. The woman, holding his hand, had long, flowing hair and was exceptionally beautiful. However, after the shock they had just witnessed, this handsome couple, who would have attracted attention even on a bustling street, caused hardly a ripple in the small alleyway where gossip was most likely to circulate.

Then there was a young man in a crisp shirt, the kind who looked every bit the elite. If any son in the alley had that kind of air about him, it would be a source of great pride and conversation for that family.

She was another beauty, with bright eyes, a straight nose, and sensual, full lips. Her beauty had a wild quality to it, and even her steps were bouncy.

There was another young man who almost went unnoticed. If the neighbors hadn't been watching intently, their eyes fixed on the corner of the alleyway entrance, hoping for a new stranger, this young man would have been overlooked. Upon closer inspection, he was quite handsome, and although his clothes were a bit dark, the quality was absolutely top-notch. Yet, he remained quiet, like a neighbor who had lived in the alleyway for a long time, easily overlooked because of their daily interactions, blending into the remnants of old Shanghai's charm. The young man, as if he had never been so closely watched before, quickened his pace and hurried through the door.

This door is becoming increasingly mysterious in everyone's eyes.

The last person to enter was an ordinary middle-aged man, just like the Shanghainese in their forties and fifties on the street. He had a slightly scholarly air about him, and the old woman guessed that he might have some knowledge.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, plus the young homeowner who, according to the neighbors' inquiries, entered the house around four or five in the afternoon, making a total of nine. The half-closed door finally shut.

The neighbors, whose curiosity had been piqued, especially the men who had seen the woman who was so captivating, were initially hesitant about whether to go in and strike up a conversation or steal another glance. But now, all their fantasies were shut out.

However, this will soon become a classic topic, playing out for a long time in this small alley.

As the one who started this gathering, I never imagined it would leave so much to the imagination of my neighbors. Since I invited so many people and didn't want unrelated people to know what we were discussing, I couldn't choose a public place. And since my own home was too small, I chose this old house.

This two-story Shikumen house only has the second floor belonging to my family, but the residents on the first floor moved out last year, leaving the whole house empty, which is perfect for our secret rendezvous.

The time I wrote on the invitation was 8 o'clock.

Since some of the invitees are not in Shanghai, and it has only been a few days since the invitations were sent out, I was not sure how many people would attend. For example, there was Empress Wei, who had just returned from a gambling spree, and the Shui Sheng and Su Ying couple, who were living a carefree life somewhere.

They actually all came, and I suddenly felt a little proud of myself. However, this small sense of smugness was quickly wiped out by the heavy theme of the evening.

Everyone has arrived now.

The first to arrive was Master Minghui, a top figure in Chinese Buddhist studies; followed by Lu Yun, who inherited ancient illusionary techniques; Shui Sheng and his beloved wife Su Ying, who had fulfilled their dream of becoming human; my old classmate, Liang Yingwu, a researcher at Organization X; Ye Tong, the beautiful daughter of an ancient tribe from Qinghai; Wei Hou, a genius tomb raider; and Ye Tianjin, an astronomer and explorer of extraterrestrial civilizations. (Lu Yun's story has been detailed in *The Murderer*, Ye Tong's story can be found in *The Bad Seed*, and Shui Sheng and Su Ying's story will appear in *The Shapeshifter*.)

These people who attended the meeting were not only my friends, but their identities and abilities were also the reason I invited them. Only their shoulders could share the burden of that suffocating mystery that was weighing on me.

There were ready-made tea and drinks in the room for everyone to help themselves. The hall was about 60 square meters, and the nine people were scattered on chairs, not in a specific shape like a circle. But when I started to speak, everyone listened attentively.

Ye Tong, the most impatient and inquisitive of them all, already knew what was going on. Su Ying was even holding Shui Sheng's hand while sitting, looking every bit the devoted husband. The others were all thoughtful people. Some of them had known me for a long time, while others were new acquaintances who already knew me well. In the past, no matter what kind of danger I encountered, I would at most seek help from one or two friends, never extending such a solemn invitation to gather so many people from different fields, not even knowing each other. Therefore, they had already guessed that what I was about to say must be extremely important and extremely bizarre.

I began my story by recounting my trip to Mahabalipuram, and no one interrupted me; everyone listened quietly.

I made those four pictures into a slideshow, and when I talked about the Mahabalipuram ruins, I projected the first picture onto the wall. Obviously, these four pictures are quite important; everyone was staring at them, though of course they couldn't see anything special at that moment.

After I finished explaining how we explored the ruins, several people's eyes were already fixed on the Queen, because she had the two items we had retrieved from the temple. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask her to bring them when I sent out the invitations; I was so excited at the time that I was distracted at work.

When the topic of the high-energy particle beams in the Java Trench came up, Liang Yingwu frowned slightly. He was probably unhappy that I had so readily revealed the X Agency's secret files. I'm not one to keep secrets, and after so many years of friendship, Liang Yingwu assumed I must have a reason for saying this, so he didn't offer any further comment.

The events unfolded step by step, including the calculations of the mysterious Zhang Ming and Ye Tianjin, and Zhang Ming's emails.

I changed the slide and projected all four images onto the opposite wall.

Then I skipped the conversation with Ye Tong and directly stated Ye Tianjin's second calculation result.

This is not surprising. I think everyone here knew that my guess must be correct when I asked Ye Tianjin to do the first calculation.

At this point, I paused and involuntarily glanced at the completely dark sky outside the window.

"I really have to thank Ye Tong. Once a person's thinking is fixed, it is difficult to make a breakthrough. Five days ago, I discussed these four pictures with her. At that time, she did not know anything about the Mahabalipran, high-energy particle beams, or the solar system star map. So she offered a new insight into these four pictures."

"She is right."

"Oh," Wei Hou Shui Sheng and Ye Tianjin exclaimed in unison, both with low gasps of surprise. The calculations of the second quantum computer had already proven my solar system star map conjecture to be correct, but how could I have said...

"These are indeed four star maps of the solar system. This is Earth, this is Mercury, this is Jupiter..." I listed the eight planets and...

Yang Yi pointed out, paused for a few seconds, and said, "In this star system, the planet closest to the star is Mercury, which we'll call number 1. The second closest planet is Venus, which we'll call number 2."

"Ah!" Just as I was speaking, Liang Yingwu, who was usually calm and collected, suddenly exclaimed. His face had turned pale.

I glanced at him, continued reciting the numbers representing the eight planets, and then changed the slide. On this slide, the symbols that originally represented the eight planets had been replaced with Arabic numerals from 1 to 8.

As I spoke, everyone had already mentally assigned the numbers. When I said that the sun represented the operator and Cooper represented the equal sign, everyone except Su Ying's face changed.

"Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division," Shui Sheng said in a low, strained voice. He glanced at Su Ying and whispered a few words in her ear.

"How is this possible?" Su Ying exclaimed.

How could this be! This was the shared sentiment of everyone present.

I believe everyone feels the same way I do, with a chill in their heart.

Does God really exist in this world?

Could it be that this world was truly created by God?

"That's why I invited everyone here today." After saying that, I let out a long sigh.

"Brother Tianjin, are these calculation results correct? Does such a solar system star map really exist?" Liang Yingwu asked Ye Tianjin, who was sitting next to him, in a low voice.

Ye Tianjin only just realized what secrets the four diagrams he had calculated represented. Normally, if someone doubted his expertise like this, it would make him unhappy, but at this moment he was still in shock.

Everyone's attention was also focused on Ye Tianjin, hoping to hear from him that "there is an error in the calculation, and there is actually no such star chart."

Since Darwin, the myth of God creating man has been shattered. Although various denominations remain popular, most people only rely on a spiritual foundation, and even among believers, few take the various creation myths seriously.

People like Lu Yun, who inherited unimaginable secret traditions and possess extraordinary abilities, are even more convinced, because of their superiority, that everything has its own way and that everything can be controlled. In essence, they are the same as researchers like Liang Yingwu who dare to face and explore the world.

The entire solar system has spontaneously arranged itself into four arithmetic problems. What does this mean? Perhaps it's the work of some technologically advanced life form from countless ancient times—but what civilization could accomplish such a feat? With our current technology, it's unimaginable. Or perhaps it's a game of gods, all orchestrated by divine intervention. Regardless of the possibility, humanity's role in this is less than that of an ant. Our entire galaxy, home to our planet, has been arranged into these specific shapes, and we are completely unaware. Even if these arrangements predate humanity by billions of years, faced with such power, all of humanity's pride vanishes.

We're all toys. The difference is that I'm a toy that wants to know the truth about the world, Lu Yun is a toy that thinks it has mysterious powers, and Liang Yingwu is a toy that wants to master the laws of the world.

The feeling of discovering that you're actually just a toy is terrible. I felt that way, and people like Lu Yunliang and Yingwuwei, who previously thought highly of themselves, certainly felt even worse.

Ye Tianjin, on whom everyone had placed their hopes, finally shook his head sadly: "The calculations of the second-generation computer are not wrong. Moreover, there are four images. Is it possible to be wrong four times? In fact, if we want to verify the results, any home computer can do it. If needed, I can use my own computer to calculate it, or send you a small software program to calculate it yourselves."

"Could it be a coincidence? Isn't it said that if you give a monkey a typewriter and an infinite amount of time, it will eventually happen to type out a Shakespearean poem? And you just said that there are countless angles from which to observe the solar system. Is this just a low-probability event?" Su Ying asked.

I sighed. I had considered this possibility too. Just as I was about to answer, I heard a voice say softly, "It can't be a coincidence."

The speaker was Lu Yun. Under the lamplight, her face was somewhat pale, and the astonishing charm she usually exuded had diminished considerably. The source of her beauty was illusion, and the origin of illusion should be a mental force that modern science struggles to explain. At this moment, her mind was in turmoil, and perhaps the level of her illusion had temporarily decreased.

"It includes all four basic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The numbers representing the planets correspond one-to-one with the distances between the planets and stars. This cannot be explained by coincidence."

"Moreover, the four star charts appear in the same cycle, and even the time intervals between them are evenly distributed, which cannot be a coincidence," Ye Tianjin added.

"But even a monkey reciting Shakespeare's works can be accepted by probability theory. Low probability doesn't mean impossible. Speaking of which, it's hard to accept that the solar system was intentionally made like this. Why can't that be a low-probability event?" Su Ying asked.

“Su Ying, probability theory doesn’t always work,” Liang Yingwu said. “Let me ask you, is it possible for someone to jump from the tenth floor and not get hurt?”

"Such a thing is a miracle, but it is indeed possible."

"Is it possible for someone to jump from a height of 10,000 meters onto hard ground without getting injured?"

"That...of course not."

"If I were to jump from the tenth floor to ten thousand meters in one go, you might think it's impossible. But what if I added it centimeter by centimeter? If you think about it this way, you'll realize that, statistically speaking, the probability of jumping from ten thousand meters unharmed is extremely small, but not impossible. If you still find that hard to accept, consider the monkey typing example you mentioned earlier. In reality, if a monkey types out a Shakespearean quote, people would think it's a coincidence. If it types out a Shakespearean poem, people would find it hard to believe, but ultimately they could accept it—it's a low-probability event. But if a monkey types out all of Shakespeare's works, not a single word more or less, even the punctuation is exactly the same, would you still think it's just a coincidence?"

"That's impossible."

"Probability theory is a tool, but when the probability is small enough, this tool becomes useless and cannot help people make judgments. Just like a person who can jump from 10,000 meters without getting hurt, or a monkey that can recite a complete Shakespearean work, the probability is so small that we think it is impossible for such things to happen in reality. Once such things really happen, there must be something mysterious about them. No one would be so naive as to think that it is just a coincidence."

"I was too naive," Su Ying said, lowering her head.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. But… sometimes I really wish I could be a little more naive,” Liang Yingwu said.

Ye Tianjin's hair was a mess. He would unconsciously pull at his hair when he encountered a problem, and from the moment he started, his hands had been touching his head, making his hair even more tangled.

"Something's not right," he muttered.

"What's wrong?" I asked quickly after hearing his whisper.

"First of all, it's almost impossible for a civilization to develop to this level. The so-called three-tiered civilization classification is as follows: a Type I civilization can control the energy of a planet, a Type II civilization can control the energy of a star, and a Type III civilization can control the energy of a galaxy. Even the most advanced civilizations in this classification cannot do this. However, this may also be due to humanity's limited perspective, so let's leave that aside. But..." Ye Tianjin pulled at his hair again.

"But what is it? Tell me!" Ye Tong asked anxiously.

“Every action has its purpose, especially in a civilization that is so advanced. But I really can’t understand why they would do such a thing.”

"What's so hard to understand? It's like how humans like to erect monuments; the entire solar system is like a monument they've erected," Ye Tong said.

"Humans erect monuments, whether to establish authority or to commemorate, and whatever the reason, the content on the monument is never meaningless."

Liang Yingwu's eyes lit up: "You mean, there's no point in making the solar system like this?"

Ye Tianjin nodded and said, "Yes, making such a big move can't be a simple task. And the content is just basic arithmetic? You know, the metal plate that humans put in the Pioneer 11 spacecraft represents the molecular structure of hydrogen as a representation of human technology. If similar spacecraft are launched in the future, there may be other equations inside. In short, it can't be something as simple as basic arithmetic."

"Oh?" I hadn't thought of that.

"Generally speaking, when a civilization does this, it will inevitably leave behind content that matches that civilization. For example, the discovery of the essence of the universe, such as drawing the molecular structure of hydrogen, represents that humanity has a basic understanding of this world. This is knowledge that can be rewarding, but arithmetic operations... are the most basic mathematical logic and do not have scientific significance."

Hearing Ye Tianjin's explanation, everyone nodded slightly. Indeed, a civilization that had left its mark on space wouldn't choose such simplistic content. These symbols could easily represent simple physical equations or the structural diagram of a molecule.

If we rule out the possibility that it was done by an ancient interstellar civilization, then...

Shui Sheng voiced what everyone was thinking: "So, there really is a miracle?"

I glanced at Minghui, who had been keeping her head down and remaining silent, and asked, "Master Minghui, what do you think?"

Minghui shook her head: "At least in Buddhist scriptures and teachings, there is no similar record."

Liang Yingwu said, “If we follow Brother Tianjin’s line of thought, why would God do such a thing? In human records, those miracles are all related to humans; they are performed by God to demonstrate His power or proclaim His doctrines to humans. If God has such power, why doesn’t He just show it to humans directly, instead of playing these riddles?”

“That’s not quite right,” Minghui disagreed with Liang Yingwu’s statement. “Whether it’s Buddhism, Christianity, or the gods revered in other religions, countless miracles have been recorded. Whether those miracles actually happened or not, modern people have forgotten them. Non-believers don’t believe them, and even some wavering believers have doubts. Why? Because of time. Time erases everything; no miracle can last forever. But look at this solar system; such miracles can exist for billions of years. Once people discover them, no one will forget them.”

"You mean, this miracle is eternal proof of God's existence?"

Minghui nodded silently.

"Wait a minute, if God wanted to prove himself, why make it so complicated? Wouldn't it be more powerful proof to just make a statue of himself on a certain planet?"

Ye Tong's words startled Minghui. It was true; there were far better ways to leave evidence than four star charts with basic arithmetic operations. To use arithmetic to prove the existence of a god seemed rather ridiculous upon closer inspection.

What kind of god disregards his dignity like this?

Empress Wei has not spoken since then. He stares at the pattern projected onto the wall by the projector, his brows furrowing more and more tightly.

Suddenly, he relaxed his brows and said to me, "Na Duo, I've seen these patterns before."

"What?" Everyone turned to look at him.

“I’ve seen two of them before, but the symbols on those two pictures are different from the four you have. I just compared them with the pictures in my memory for a long time. The symbols are different, but the positions of the symbols should be the same.”

Where did you meet him?

"Three years ago, at Mount Tai. In Tianwai Village at the foot of the mountain, there were many vendors selling various rubbings, all of which were made from some historical sites on the mountain. I saw it on one of the rubbings, but since I was just passing by, I only glanced at it and didn't stop. But I think the original should be on Mount Tai."

“This is a clue.” I admired Wei Hou’s amazing memory. “I think I’ll go to Mount Tai to see for myself; maybe I’ll find something there.”

"I'll go with you," said the Queen.

“I’ll go too,” Ye Tong said immediately.