CAT Chapter 38: Second Law of Thermodynamics (7)

Lin Si recognized her.

“Ling Jing,” he said, “Did Zheng Shu give this to you?”

Ling Yi replied, “Mm… Zheng Shu said this counts as a birthday gift.”

Lin Si held the photo and examined each person in it.

“Only Su Ting and Ye Selin boarded the spaceship,” he said, “They either died in the Berlin virus incident, or they didn’t get a ticket.”

Ling Yi asked, “Didn’t Ling Jing board the spaceship?”

“No,” Lin Si replied, “Ye Selin never mentioned her, and her name isn’t on the spaceship’s list.”

Ling Yi remained silent, but a hint of doubt rose in his mind.

Did Ling Jing not board the spaceship?

But the handwriting on the back of this photo was exactly the same as the handwriting he had seen in Zheng Shu’s poetry collection.

If this person wasn’t Ling Jing, it must have been Ye Selin.

But why would Ye Selin write such a sad poem on the back of a photo taken so casually during Zheng Shu and Ling Jing’s engagement?

And besides, Ye Selin would never have written such a sentence in her notes…

Ling Yi clearly remembered the words he saw in the notes: “Why is Lin Si on the spaceship? He shouldn’t be there!”

This couldn’t have been Ye Selin. Ye Selin knew exactly why Lin Si was on the spaceship, and she even encouraged him.

So the handwriting could only belong to Ling Jing, his sister… But Lin Si said Ling Jing didn’t board the spaceship. Could there be someone else who knew Lin Si and was very close to Zheng Shu?

Ling Yi couldn’t figure it out.

His mood dropped a little.

Lin Si, unaware of his thoughts, finished looking at the photo and handed it back to Ling Yi.

“Half a month after their engagement party, the virus broke out in the Berlin laboratory,” he said softly, “That morning, Adelaide wasn’t feeling well, so I arrived a little late at the lab.”

Ling Yi looked at him.

“On the way, I suddenly received a message from a colleague,” Lin Si continued, “It was very short, ‘Don’t come to the lab.’”

No one would send such a message without a reason, especially in that kind of environment.

At that time, Lin Si immediately realized something had gone wrong at the lab.

“A workgroup’s sample mutated into a highly infectious gene virus, and the staff immediately assessed the risk. By the time I arrived, the area within a five-kilometer radius around the lab was already sealed off and under martial law.”

“At that time, no one understood the virus’s characteristics. They took the strictest protective measures, but still couldn’t stop the virus from spreading,” Lin Si looked up at the stars. “At that time, the neighbors asked me how to protect themselves from infection, and I could only suggest they go to another country.”

“You didn’t leave?” Ling Yi asked.

“The best gene research facilities in the world were in the Berlin lab. To fight the gene virus, we needed them, but no one could go in. Two days later, Ye Selin established the Wilkins lab, and only then did we have proper research facilities. After I completed my quarantine, I went there.”

Ling Yi widened his eyes slightly: “If Adelaide hadn’t gotten sick that day, would you have been infected with the virus too?”

“Possibly,” Lin Si replied. “But at that time, I wasn’t a very diligent person… If I had arrived on time, I would have encountered the martial law as well.”

Ling Yi continued asking, “Did anyone survive in the lab?”

“Everyone who was already in the lab before the martial law was confirmed to have been infected,” Lin Si said.

The Berlin lab housed the world’s leading researchers in gene science, the most advanced equipment and devices, as well as many unpublished papers and near-completed results.

And then all of a sudden—everything was gone.

To combat the virus, what was most needed were these very things.

It wasn’t until Ye Selin established the Wilkins lab that they were able to barely gather the resources needed to start studying the virus.

Ling Yi looked at Lin Si. He hadn’t gone through those things, but he could still imagine, to some extent—the urgent research, the anxious atmosphere, and the widespread death.

He thought back to the Second Law of Thermodynamics Lin Si had mentioned earlier and asked, “Is death also entropy increase?”

Lin Si smiled slightly, “Entropy increase is on a microscopic level, while death is on a macroscopic one.”

Ling Yi pouted.

Lin Si saw his expression and added, “To be imprecise… it could be considered the same.”

“Does the entropy increase law mean that no matter what, everything will eventually disappear?” Ling Yi asked. “Then, will we disappear too?”

“Of course, we will all physically die,” Lin Si replied.

“What about our civilization?”

Lin Si looked out the window. “Look at those stars.”

Ling Yi obediently said, “Mm.”

“Every star you can see is a sun, and each star is surrounded by countless other celestial bodies.”

Ling Yi looked at the ocean of stars in the sky and imagined that each star was a massive sun, surrounded by countless other stars like the planet he was on.

—At that moment, he felt the ship’s insignificance more than any other time he had looked at the stars before.

“So, our civilization is also very small,” Lin Si said. “From a romantic perspective, we’re trying hard to resist the second law of thermodynamics, trying to keep ourselves from fading away.”

Outside the porthole, infinite space was filled with eternal silence.

This infinity and silence brought an indescribable sense of awe and fear. In this silence, the universe was born, flourished, and then died, returning to the eternal heat death. This process was grand, but even something so vast ultimately pointed to a hopeless conclusion.

Ling Yi looked at the endless starry sea, stood up from the ground, and joined Lin Si, resting his body against him.

“I’m a little scared.” He buried his face in Lin Si’s shoulder, breathing in his scent.

Because they were so close, separated only by a thin white shirt, he could feel the slight vibrations from Lin Si’s chest when he spoke. This intimate feeling made the back of his head tingle in a way he couldn’t explain.

“Mm,” Lin Si said. “That’s normal. We all fear it.”

“And we will all die in the end, our civilization will, and this universe will die too,” Ling Yi said. “Then what’s the meaning of us living and trying to develop our civilization?”

“You’ll have to find that out for yourself,” Lin Si said. “I can’t help you, I’m only giving you a coming-of-age gift.”

Ling Yi wasn’t sure how the topic had shifted to his coming-of-age gift again, but he was undoubtedly looking forward to it, so he set aside his previous question and looked at Lin Si.

Lin Si took out a small rectangular box, about the length of a palm. The box was black, which made Lin Si’s long, cold, white fingers look even more elegant.

Wait, why was he staring at Lin Si’s hands again?

He quickly shifted his attention and began to wonder what could be inside such a box.

Ling Yi considered many possibilities, but the item was still a surprise—glasses.

More specifically, they were gold metal-framed, slightly rounded glasses—an odd gift, since Ling Yi didn’t wear glasses due to nearsightedness or as a personal accessory. Why would he be given this?

Lin Si took the glasses out of the box and placed them in Ling Yi’s hands. “I made these with Zheng Shu. They’re for you to try.”

Ling Yi opened the glasses and put them on. Before doing so, he thought that even though they looked ordinary, anything Lin Si gave him must have its reason.

But the next moment, he held his breath.

The vast, endless starry sea, and the very spot he was standing on, had completely transformed!

It was no longer a black backdrop speckled with faint golden stars, but a soft, shimmering, colorful display.

The largest spiral nebula appeared in a dreamy, layered blue-purple hue. The dust clouds emitted soft, hazy purple and white light, and he could even see the different-colored particles of dust flowing and interacting.

The bright, deep red Crab Nebula¹ hovered at his feet, exuding an aggressive and imposing presence.

Stars twinkled in countless subtle hues, creating an indescribable impact on those who looked at them—so beautiful that it made one forget to breathe.

“Every element has its own color. The naked eye can’t see it, but if you add a small spectrometer, you can. This is what I wanted to show you today,” Lin Si said slowly. “It’s hopeless, but also beautiful.”

Author’s Note:

 These beautiful astronomical images are taken like this~ In the real universe, the naked eye can only see an enlarged version of the night sky, which can be even more desolate because those colors aren’t in our visible light range, but with a sci-fi little device, it’s possible to see.

The process of raising the little one has completed a major stage, and tomorrow we begin a new chapter focusing on the main storyline~ Merry Christmas ^ ^