Incidentes misteriosos que involucran a estudiantes universitarias

Capítulo 4

I frowned slightly. Why did he act as if I needed something from him? What kind of attitude was that?

"How did you find me?" Feeling a little dissatisfied, the tone of the question was not so polite.

"When I saw your post, it had been a while since you first posted it, and you registered on this website at an internet cafe, right?"

"Yes, what does this have to do with my question?" I discovered this website while browsing in an internet cafe during a business trip out of town. I never expected him to have even investigated this. I was quite surprised, but I didn't show it on my face.

“This is it. I missed you the first time I went online. I only found out your location when you went on that BBS again three days ago. Luckily, you were at home that time.” Zhang Ming’s face remained expressionless as he spoke, but I finally couldn’t help but show my surprise.

I did visit EYES three days ago, but only glanced at it briefly before closing the window—no more than five minutes. In those five minutes, Zhang Ming somehow managed to find my real address from my IP address, then confirmed my name and job through that address, and called my workplace. If no one had answered the phone on my desk, he probably would have called my cell phone or home phone.

No matter how skilled a hacker is, could they achieve this without data from the public security department? This seemingly ordinary Zhang Ming has considerable power behind him.

"Then could you tell me, sir, where you saw this picture?" Zhang Ming didn't care how surprising what he had just said, and went straight to the point to ask him the question he was concerned about.

The so-called "topics of concern" is just my guess, because when he asked this question, Mr. Zhang Ming did not change at all, whether in tone or in his eyes, just as calmly as if he were saying "the weather is nice today".

I've seen enough characters over the years, but I've never seen anyone portray the "pretending to be weak while actually being strong" person so perfectly as Zhang Ming.

He has already answered how he found me, so even though I still have many questions for him, I have to answer this question before I can ask him back. His calm words earlier carry a lot of weight, and I can't be too arrogant.

“A new batch of stone carvings has been discovered in Mahabalipuram, India. I suspect that these carvings have a special meaning, so I’m posting them on the website for everyone to see.”

"Is this all you see? What else is there?"

I'm a little annoyed. Even if you're assertive, I'm not someone some random guy can bully. Asking so many questions without explaining your intentions—do you think you're a superior interrogating a subordinate?

"No, there are a few pictures that are too blurry to see clearly." I won't reveal any other discoveries unless he explains his purpose.

"Oh, I see... thank you then." To my surprise, he actually wanted to leave like that.

"Wait, aren't you going to explain anything?" I called out to him, my face flushed with anger. How could someone be so unreasonable, trying to just walk away without even saying a few polite words?

"I'm really sorry, but there are some things I can't tell you." It was clearly an arrogant statement, but Zhang Ming said it as if he were being very sincere.

I thought he still had a lot of questions for me, and it didn't matter whether I told him first or he explained first. But when he found out that I found the picture in India, it was as if he had nothing more to ask, which made me furious.

I'm not the type to pester people, and given his attitude, I won't press him for answers. I can only accept my regret.

Zhang Ming had already stood up and thanked me again, but I wore my displeasure on my face and ignored him.

As he walked out of the private room, I couldn't help but ask, "Are you planning to go to India on your own?"

Zhang Ming thought for a moment, then answered, "Yes."

I snorted loudly, "You've really gone all the way with your 'crossing the river and burning the bridge' strategy."

Hearing what I said, Zhang Ming hesitated, then turned around and said, "Sir, I do have my own reasons for doing this. There are some things I think you shouldn't know."

I snorted again to show my disdain.

"Here's what I'll do: if I find anything in India that's suitable for you, I'll let you know."

I still ignored him. What does it mean to say "suitable"? He'll probably think nothing is suitable for me. Does saying that make any difference?

In the end, I had to pay for everything myself. Although it was a small amount of money, it deepened my dissatisfaction. Muttering this to myself, Zhang Ming walked to the entrance of Gengdu Garden and saw a little girl, about two or three years old, riding on her father's head, wailing loudly.

The waiter who was standing at the door opening the door for the guests saw me come out and said with a smile, "This little kid is really something, he hit your friend, but he's crying so hard."

I hurriedly asked what happened. It turned out that the girl riding on her father's shoulders was probably too happy. She had been waving her little hands around wildly all the way, and had hit Zhang Ming in the face as he came out of the door. Zhang Ming didn't react at all and walked away without stopping, but the child turned from laughing to crying, and she couldn't stop crying.

The father lifted his daughter off his shoulders, grabbed her hand to look at it, and scolded her, "I told you not to move around up there. You hit someone and then cried. What, does it hurt?"

He coaxed the child to keep walking, and I heard him say again, "It doesn't hurt? If it doesn't hurt, why are you crying?"

I was still angry at Zhang Ming's rudeness and didn't pay much attention to it, so I took a taxi home directly.

I raised my eyebrows, forcing my mouth, which had been turned away, back into place. The performance of this newbie next to me made me wonder if I had ever been this bad.

The unidentified flying object that streaked across the sky over Shanghai yesterday evening didn't actually attract much attention; I myself was completely unaware of it. Many cities have experienced similar events, but I recall Nanjing having the most. Very few people noticed it on the spot; most public interest stemmed from subsequent media reports.

Most of these incidents are unsolvable unless it's confirmed that a high-altitude balloon or spacecraft was recovered at the time. The reports are also all the same; the astronomers interviewed don't make any exaggerated claims, resulting in news stories with sensational headlines but bland content. This time, the newspaper's leadership took a small risk (in my opinion, it's very likely we'll be criticized by the city's propaganda department) by asking me to interview an astronomer passionate about searching for extraterrestrial civilizations and write a report that differs from other newspapers.

Such astronomers are like lone birds in the academic world. In recent years, the academic atmosphere has become more relaxed than it was decades ago, but there are still not many others flying alongside them, especially in China.

In Shanghai, there happened to be a lone bird. This Ye Tianjin, a council member of the Chinese Astronomical Society, sought support from an overseas foundation, and his research conditions were so good that they made mainstream astronomers in China envious.

I had dealt with Ye Tianjin a few times, and I thought we could have a relaxed chat over tea, but then a few new interns arrived at the last minute, and I was assigned to be one of their mentors.

This third-year journalism student from Shanghai was very eager to perform. She bombarded Ye Tianjin with a series of questions in a condescending manner. Her questions were neither relevant nor did she follow up on Ye Tianjin's answers. There was no interaction whatsoever, and she thought she was in control of the situation.

I quietly made a helpless gesture to Ye Tianjin, and then interjected a few words at the right time, otherwise I was afraid I wouldn't even know how to revise her manuscript when I got back.

After the interview, I told the intern to go home by herself. She seemed a little reluctant; she was inexplicably spoiled, and she wasn't even that good-looking.

Ye Tianjin smiled and brewed me another cup of tea. This time it was this year's new Longjing tea, and the aroma alone was so refreshing and comforting.

"What's this?" I asked, pointing to the changing screensavers on his computer. That's exactly why I kept them.

"These are the latest images sent back to NASA by Voyager 1."

"Voyager 1?" I asked in surprise, "We can still receive its signal?"

"Voyager 1's performance is astonishing. While continuously sending data back to Earth, it is also testing the limits of human spacecraft. It's truly a miracle, now in its 26th year since its launch in 1979. Currently, it has reached the edge of the solar system. Although the data it sends back is intermittent and the photos are becoming increasingly blurry, optimistically, we can maintain contact with it for the next ten years. This set of photos is of the solar system itself; for the first time, humanity has directly and relatively completely photographed its own galaxy. The original photos are not very clear, so these have been processed. I found them very interesting and used them as my screensaver."

Seeing that I was staring intently at the screen, Ye Tianjin smiled and said, "Isn't it beautiful? If you like it, I'll send you a copy later."

"I was interested in one of them, I just glanced at it briefly. Hmm, not this one, hmm..."

Ye Tianjin moved the mouse, and the screen returned to the desktop. He clicked into the folder where the screensaver pictures were saved and showed them to me one by one: "Which one is this?"

There were more than twenty pictures in total. When he pointed to the ninth one, I exclaimed, "This is it!"

"Do you think this one is particularly beautiful?" Ye Tianjin asked.

"It's not about whether it's pretty or not, it's...it's..." When I first glanced at it, I thought this star map of the solar system looked a lot like the one hanging in my study, if you replaced the symbols with stars. But now, looking at it again, I feel like there are some differences. The positions of a few symbols are similar to some of the planets in this picture, but overall, the two pictures can't be superimposed.

I sighed in disappointment and then showed the drawing to Ye Tianjin.

Every day when I get home, I can see this picture as soon as I look up. I believe that the redrawn version will not be too different from the original. Of course, I have replaced all the strange symbols with dots.

"What is this?" Ye Tianjin asked.

"I saw this picture by chance, and I don't know what it means. Don't you think it looks a bit like the one on the computer?"

Ye Tianjin compared them and said, "They do look somewhat similar, but so what? You can draw a few dots and find the corresponding places on a star map in the sky."

I was taken aback by what he said. That's right, there are billions of stars in the sky, and even the images of various animals can be associated with them, let alone a few dots drawn at random.

Ye Tianjin glanced at the drawing I made again and said, "Besides, there are nine planets in the solar system plus the sun, making a total of ten, but you only have nine on this drawing. Well, I won't include the newly discovered Quaor, since there's too much controversy surrounding this tenth planet of the solar system."

He made me feel dejected. I had thought I had found a clue, but it turned out to be a false alarm.

Seeing my dejected state, Ye Tianjin comforted me, saying, "I'm not saying that your picture is absolutely not a star map of the solar system. If Pluto had been discovered today, it wouldn't be considered the ninth planet. Some scholars only acknowledge that there are eight planets in the solar system. Maybe this is one of their simulations of the solar system. Where did you find it?"

I waved my hand: "It was found at an ancient Indian site."

Ye Tianjin chuckled and said, "Then how did you come to think of the solar system star map? I know that some ancient astronomical records of primitive tribes are surprisingly accurate, but before they left the solar system, it would have been impossible for them to observe the solar system itself."

I sighed. "I can't help but overthink things. But what's this about the controversy surrounding Pluto?"

"Have some tea, it's getting cold," Ye Tianjin said, taking a sip of tea himself. "Regarding the origin of short-period comets in the solar system, astronomer Cooper speculated that there is a ring-shaped region around the sun at the edge of the solar system. Since 1992, more than 10,000 asteroids have been discovered in this region, and the Cooper Belt has been confirmed to exist. Quaor is located in the Cooper Belt, so many people, including myself, believe that it is just a relatively large asteroid in the Cooper Belt, and perhaps there are many more and larger asteroids that have not yet been discovered. Pluto was discovered in 1930 and is also in the Cooper Belt, but at that time the concept of the Cooper Belt had not yet been proposed. If it were today, it would most likely be considered by most astronomers to be a member of the Cooper Belt asteroid group, just like Quaor. In that case, wouldn't the solar system only have eight planets?"

"Cooper tape?" A thought suddenly struck me. I had just converted all the symbols into dots, and the line in the diagram was omitted. Could that line represent the Cooper tape?

I filled in the missing line and asked, "Now, if we fill in this line representing Cooper Band, what do you think?"

Ye Tianjin smiled wryly and said, "It doesn't matter whether you fix it or not. The position of the planet changes every moment, and there are countless observation angles outside the solar system. I can use a computer to calculate billions of star charts of the solar system from various angles and at various times, and find out what's so special about the one that's similar to yours."

"Hey." I looked at Ye Tianjin and gave him a mischievous smile.

"What are you doing?"

"Don't you have access to the second quantum computer? Are you free lately?"

The Guangnao-2 is a supercomputer located in Shanghai's Zhangjiang High-Tech Park, ranking ninth in the world. It went into operation two years ago. The foundation that supports Ye Tianjin purchased a certain amount of resources from Guangnao-2 each year for Ye Tianjin to use for astronomical calculations.

"There hasn't been a lot of computational work lately, why are you asking?"

"I'll send you the original image when I get back. Could you help me calculate whether it's possible for it to completely overlap with a star map of the solar system at a certain point in time?"

When I made this request, I knew it was absurd to place my hopes on it, but after finding a direction for doubt, I couldn't help wanting to know the answer.

Ye Tianjin was shocked by my request. He opened his mouth wide and said, "Do you know how expensive it is to use the second quantum computer? Although I don't have to spend money, it's too wasteful to use it on this. Moreover, there are countless observation angles. Let alone that I only have a small part, even if I had the second quantum computer to use all its resources, it would take more than a day or two to compare them all."

A thought struck me, and I said, "What if I could provide an observation angle?"

"That would be simpler. Hmm... have I ever owed you anything? Why should I do you such a pointless favor?"

After weighing the options in my mind, I decided to betray Liang Yingwu.

"I'll tell you a top-secret message, in exchange for your help this time, how about it?"

"What top-secret information? What does it have to do with me?"

I know that Ye Tianjin has piqued my curiosity. In this respect, he is very similar to me, otherwise he would not be so dedicated to finding extraterrestrial civilizations.

"It's related to astronomy, but I'm sure 99.9% of astronomers wouldn't know."

"Tell me about it," Ye Tianjin said, seemingly indifferent.

Do you know what happened on December 26th last year?

"Ha, are you going to tell me about the Indian Ocean tsunami? You're not going to tell me which supernova explosion caused the tsunami, are you?"

Ye Tianjin's amused expression put my mind at ease. This meant he genuinely didn't know about high-energy particles; it seemed this was still a secret within the astronomical community.

"You must know about high-energy particles, right? Under what conditions can high-energy particles be produced in the universe?"

"This question has always been a mystery. There are a large number of high-energy particle beams in the universe, and most scholars believe that ion clouds emerge during the death of stars..."

"Will the Earth be created?" I interrupted his explanation and asked.

"How could that be!"

The fish has taken the bait. I relayed the news Liang Yingwu had told me with a smile, watching Ye Tianjin's mouth gape wider and wider.

"Is this for real? You're not kidding me, are you?"

"Of course it's true, I found out through special channels."

"Okay, tell me the angle."

"No rush, I'll send it to you along with that picture." In fact, I still don't know what angle it is.