At the end of March this year, just before this work was completed, I was invited by Nanjing Normal University to participate in an event in Nanjing. During a break in the activities, I arranged one final meeting with Zhao Bowen.
Old Zhao was always busy, hurrying about. He still wore his signature tortoiseshell-framed glasses and dark trench coat, though different from before, he now had on a blue surgical mask. During this time, the return of the southern weather brought continuous rain and low temperatures. He had buttoned his coat up high and carried a black umbrella as he sat down across from me.
“Oh my, oh my, it just won’t settle down, this cursed epidemic coming in waves,” Zhao Bowen muttered. “When will it ever end?”
“How’s Nanjing doing recently?” I asked.
“Getting by, not as severe as Shanghai.” Zhao Bowen sat down in his chair, removed his mask, and casually poured himself tea from the pot. We were old acquaintances, so there was no need for formalities.
We met at a restaurant by the roadside in Xinjiekou. Sitting near the entrance, around six in the evening, a fine drizzle began to fall outside, and soon the street filled with umbrellas of various colors.
After exchanging pleasantries and discussing the recent situations of Bai Zhen, Wang Ning, and others, Zhao Bowen mentioned that these old fellows were all living quite comfortably, completely unaffected. Old Bai was still focusing his efforts on renovating his house in Lulou Town, returning regularly to supervise the construction. Wang Ning had recently been recruited as an epidemic prevention volunteer, working until his legs cramped, constantly grumbling. His superiors had indicated they wanted to promote him, but he declined—after this ordeal, Old Wang had gained a very clear understanding of his capabilities. He knew he wasn’t cut out to be a department director, so he recommended Little Zhu for the position instead.
As for Zhao Bowen himself, he remained tight-lipped about his recent work. When I asked if there were any follow-ups to the matter, he just smiled mysteriously, a smile full of meaning.
Seeing this expression, I understood immediately—there were major projects underway, but they weren’t for outsiders to know about. Whatever news we might see in the future shouldn’t come as a surprise.
“Here, this is the manuscript, take a look and review it,” I pulled out a thick stack of printed papers from my backpack and tossed them on the dining table. “If you have any opinions or thoughts, feel free to share them.”
Zhao Bowen picked it up and flipped through it, shaking his head: “No need to show me this, I’ve been following your serial releases all along. I read each chapter as you posted it, and I’ve even left comments in your comment section.”
“Which one are you?” I asked.
“That’s a secret,” Old Zhao said.
“So do you have any suggestions?” I asked.
“No suggestions, I don’t understand literary creation, my opinions would just be an amateur guiding a professional,” Old Zhao smiled and patted the manuscript papers on the table. “I’m impressed you could write so meticulously and still keep everything consistent. What if readers are misled to go dredging for time capsules in Yueya Lake? After all, the capsule isn’t there.”
“Yueya Lake is so big, they won’t find anything.”
“Will you use this for publication?” Old Zhao pointed at the papers on the table. “Are you planning any major revisions?”
“Yes, I’ll use this, no changes.”
“So… you finally decided to name her Banxia?”
“Yes, she needs a name, doesn’t she? Or are you not satisfied with this name?”
“No, no, no, I’m very satisfied. It’s a beautiful name. At the command center, we always used code names, Yang Yang and the others called her Young Miss, and others gave her names too, but none as nice as yours,” Zhao Bowen said. “She deserves a good name.”
“In a world with only two people or even just one person left, what meaning does a name have?” I said.
“A name is your anchor in people’s memories, evidence that you existed in this world,” Zhao Bowen said. “People without names are like the wind, gone in a breath.”
“Time flies, almost two years have passed,” I said. “According to the timeline, that girl should have been born by now.”
Zhao Bowen thought for a moment and nodded:
“Yes, she was 19 in 2040, born in 2021, so she might be just one year old now.”
“Teacher Zhao.”
“Hmm?”
“Is she still alive?”
“I believe she is, though it’s impossible to verify, but I choose to believe. Information shapes reality in the process of transmission, Teacher Tianrui. This is also why we commissioned you to write this book. Now our future has returned to the black box, she will have a different future, or rather, we can create a different future for her.” Zhao Bowen’s gaze was distant. “This has always been what we hoped for, what we’ve been striving for.”
“A heavy responsibility lies ahead.”
“Everything in this world, including our entire material world, can be viewed as information at its most fundamental level. Information isn’t an abstract concept; it can influence the world around us. In physics, there’s a concept called work, and information can perform work,” Zhao Bowen said. “We shouldn’t separate the transmission of information from physical changes. From our perspective, what the future looks like depends on the results we observe. When we lose the only observer, those unobserved black boxes contain infinite possibilities.”
“Are you completely confident?” I asked.
“I’m thirty percent confident.”
“What will the future become?” I asked.
“Nobody knows.”
“From your perspective, Teacher Zhao, give me an answer, no legal liability,” I said.
Zhao Bowen thought for a moment, then smiled and shook his head:
“This is the complexity of the world. Even the most precise theories are just approximations of reality. I can’t give you a definite answer, but I see hope… At least we know the cause of doomsday’s arrival, and knowing it makes it possible to become history’s switchman.”
“The source of Black Moon?”
“Yes, Black Moon and Daoke have now become two dark clouds hanging over modern physics, just like Lord Kelvin’s speech in 1900, when he said the edifice of physics was complete, with only some touch-up work remaining, except for two dark clouds overhead. And we all know what happened afterward,” Zhao Bowen said. “We’re about to enter another era of great transformation, and as someone in physics, I’m luckier than my predecessors.”
“Both Black Moon and Daoke transcend the framework of modern physics. We previously believed information couldn’t travel faster than light, but the characteristics of Daoke and Black Moon are instantaneous, even non-local. When I discover you, you discover me too, which general relativity can’t explain. It’s equivalent to being able to detect targets outside the light cone from within… Ah, whenever we think we’ve grasped all the universe’s truths, something strange always barges in to tell us that what we know is just a drop in the ocean.”
Zhao Bowen sighed.
“The center of the Milky Way is 26,000 light-years from Earth, and what we see is from 26,000 years ago. Doesn’t this mean they detected us over twenty thousand years ago?”
“You could understand it that way—they’re predicting the future,” Zhao Bowen nodded. “Time means something different to us than it does to Black Moon. To us, time is the universe’s base code, unreadable, inoperable, even invisible and intangible, but to Black Moon, time might just be a progress bar… Let’s just say they’re higher-dimensional programmers with a better understanding of the operating system than we have.”
“Humans are very weak.”
“Humans are also very strong,” Old Zhao said. “Even with something as powerful and terrifying as time, we have ways to overcome it.”
“What ways?” I asked.
“Burying time capsules,” Old Zhao answered.
Hearing this answer, I burst out laughing.
“Don’t laugh, I’m serious,” Old Zhao said. “We can bury a time capsule, wait a full twenty years, and then precisely deliver it to someone’s hands. Although it’s just a small boat, it will eventually reach its destination after crossing the ocean, and no storm can overturn it. This is humanity’s way of resisting time. No matter how long time passes, some things remain indelible. Time, cities, history, everything can change…”
“But love is eternal.”
The rain outside grew slightly heavier. We sat digesting our meal, having just finished eating. It was just past dining hours, and outside the door, the crowd flowed like a stream, men and women, young and old, all carrying umbrellas, with car horns sounding back and forth.
For a long time, we didn’t speak, quietly turning our heads to look outside, surrounded by the buzzing of voices.
Zhao Bowen looked down at his phone, “Teacher Tianrui, it’s getting late, we should…”
He suddenly froze.
I froze too.
We looked at each other, and “Whoosh!” we jumped up from our seats and rushed outside, startling the other dining customers.
Was it an illusion?
Was it a hallucination?
Or purely coincidence?
When we squeezed out of the restaurant and rushed into the rain, that faint voice, like a mother soothing her child, seemed to still linger in our ears:
“Little, oh little Banxia… grow up quickly…”
“Where? Where is she?” Zhao Bowen shouted in the rain, soaking wet, spinning around, “Where is she?”
I stood dumbly under the streetlight, turned my head, and saw thousands of raindrops falling from the sky, pitter-patter, the road surface blooming with flowers of all colors.
March 30, 2022.
Cloudy turning to light rain, Xinjiekou’s lights were just coming on, crowds of people flowing.
Nanjing was still the same Nanjing.
But this time I knew,
We were living in the same Nanjing.
(The End)