Cat and Rose - Cat & Rose - Chapter 37 - The Second Law of Thermodynamics (6)

Chapter 37 – The Second Law of Thermodynamics (6)

“My fiancée is Ling Yi’s older sister.” Zheng Shu smiled, looking at Ling Yi. “Did you forget?”

Ling Yi nodded. “I only just remembered it.”

Back when he first boarded the ship, was that why Lin Si said that the first person he should trust was Lin Si himself, then the second person he should trust was Zheng Shu? At first, he had thought it was simply because Zheng Shu was Lin Si’s good friend.

On the spaceship, everyone seldom talked about Earth, or about their loved ones that were left behind there, as the past made them sorrowful.

Perhaps it was because of this reason that the identity of Zheng Shu’s fiancée had only been mentioned once, three years ago.

In their previous conversations, Tang Ning had also mentioned this fiancée. According to what he said, she did not obtain a ship ticket, and Zheng Shu had been missing her for a long time.

“That’s what I’m saying.” The Colonel paid no mind to these things, laughing, then said, “At a glance, I could tell that our little Ling Yi had received professional training. Your fiancée must be very good.”

Zheng Shu finished buttoning his black casual suit jacket and said, “Do you know Ling Jing?”

“Colonel Ling Jing?” The Colonel’s eyes widened. “Her?”

Zheng Shu nodded.

“She was at base two, never had any interactions with us, but we all heard of her—base two’s iron-blood beauty! She’s very strong!” 17

Zheng Shu smiled. In his eyes was a very gentle, wistful look.

He noticed Ling Yi was looking at himself and reached out a hand to ruffle his hair.

Ling Yi suddenly felt a little embarrassed and lowered his eyes.

Zheng Shu laughed. “Come with me.”

“Okay,” said Ling Yi.

Zheng Shu’s office was still the same. On his desk he had planted a delicate, beautiful green cluster of cat grass.

This kind of grass only had a life cycle of one or two months, so it needed to be changed out frequently, yet Zheng Shu had been planting it the whole time without stopping.

“She couldn’t raise a living being, but she liked them, then finally discovered this type of small grass that was beautiful, grew easily and she could also bring into her military dormitory.” Zheng Shu flicked the soft tips of the grass. “So I helped her plant a lot of them. When she came home for break every month, she would bring a new pot back.”

Ling Yi nodded.

“You would sometimes plant them with me too,” said Zheng Shu.

Ling Yi made an “ah” sound.

It meant that apart from Su Ting, Zheng Shu was another person who knew him back on Earth.

“You never told me that before,” he said.

“At that time, Lin Si thought it would be better if you grew up first. Because having none of your loved ones exist in this world is something very despairing.” Zheng Shu spoke slowly. “But since you already know about Ye Selin, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Mmn.”

“I heard a few days ago that it’s almost your eighteenth birthday. I didn’t have many things to give.” Zheng Shu pulled open his desk drawer. “But I thought I’d give this to you instead.”

He took out a poetry collection by some Irish poets, then flipped towards the pages near the middle in the latter half. A photo had been slipped in between those pages.

In the centre of the photo was a young woman wearing a white formal dress.

She had a pair of frosty blue eyes, her black hair was tied up and inserted with a few fragmented accessories, and she was smiling.

Her features were very good-looking, but also a little fierce, like a queen.

“Ling Jing looked like your father. Her personality resembled his too.” Zheng Shu’s hand hovered over her face, but he did not actually touch down. “You followed your dad around as you grew up, but your personality and looks resembled Ye Selin more.”

Ling Yi looked at the photo.

Linked around Ling Jing’s arm was Su Ting. She also wore a little formal dress, looking even younger than her current self, and was smiling sweetly.

The background was evening. On a brightly-lit lawn, large and small white round tables were placed, sitting at the table where some young people Ling Yi did not know. Some had relaxed expressions gathering together in groups of twos or threes, while some were more serious, with very proper standing and sitting posture, like they were from the military.

Behind the people, on the table in the centre, the corner of a multi-tiered cake could be seen.

“This photo was taken by me at our engagement banquet,” said Zheng Shu.

Afterwards, he noticed Ling Yi’s gaze had been wandering in between the crowds the whole time, and immediately knew what he was doing. He smiled, “Lin Si isn’t here. He had gone to Berlin for the second time.”

“Oh,” said Ling Yi, slightly disappointed.

Slightly unwilling to give up, he swept his eyes across the photo for another round, but all his attention was caught by the upper right corner of the photo.

That was the corner of an infrastructure further away, inside was lit with a warm yellow lighting. The light from the floor-to-ceiling window exuded out, appearing in front of the window were two shadows.

Because that part of the photo was very small to begin with—the size of one’s little fingernail, so the two shadows were indistinct, blurred into a group, and hidden inside the halo of the warm yellow lighting.

Maybe they were looking in this direction…they must’ve been looking in this direction.

“That’s your father and mother.”

Looking at their daughter.

Ling Yi’s gaze was glued there for a long time. He only opened his mouth to speak after a long while, and discovered that his throat was a little dry. “…Was I there?”

“It was very late back then, so Ling Jing made you go to bed.” Zheng Shu pointed at the infrastructure that looked like a small building. “You were there inside.”

His finger moved to the top of the engagement cake. “There were two little fondant people here originally, but Ling Jing cut them off so you could play with them.”

Ling Yi looked at that building, then looked at the cake that had its top cut off. He did not know what to say, only feeling a miraculous sentiment rise from his heart. It turned out he did truly exist on Earth before, had friends, and had family who loved him, even though he did not remember any of it.

He intercepted the photo from Zheng Shu’s hands and said, “Thank you.”

Zheng Shu smiled as he smoothed out his hair. “No need to thank me.”

***

“The possibility of transforming it into a portable weapon?” Lin Si looked at the giant spherical container with a twenty-centimetre diameter, frowning. “Am I having hearing difficulties? You only want it made into a portable weapon for the ship?”

Mr Lambert from Area 1 was a little guilty. “Is that not going overboard…?” 18

Area 1 had indeed been researching antimatter weaponry, and they really had produced a perfect container to store antimatter.

They combined many special metals to create this container’s outer shell. Inside the container was an absolute vacuum, and the special metals’ function was to invigorate and maintain a strong force field.

The bottom of the container was also attached with various types of force field and magnetic field generators. These fields affected each other, allowing the antimatter to be tightly bound to the container’s centre.

Theoretically, they only needed to set up a propulsion device that could shoot the antimatter out, then it would become a perfect, powerful weapon.

But the question was, how could they shoot it out?

The first way was to open the container and shoot out the antimatter.

Then, without even seeing the weapon’s effect, their own spaceship would be annihilated first.

The second way was to shoot the ball out, then open at its destination point.

But with the current amount of resources, they were not able to produce a second container. Many materials they had were simply found by coincidence within the vast universe, moreover——

“The density of the container material is really too high. Although it’s only twenty centimetres in diameter, it weighs over a hundred tons,” Lambert continued to mutter guiltily.

“Hm,” said Lin Si, “it’s very impressive that you haven’t crushed through the floor yet.”

“Therefore, because of its weight, it cannot be propelled very far. We also haven’t conducted any experiments yet, so we don’t know how strong it will be, or whether it will affect the spaceship too.”

That is to say, even if the container was shot out, it would be possible for the spaceship to be annihilated in the aftermath.

“So you made an overdraft and applied away all our resources just to make a one-time suicide weapon?” said Lin Si.

“That’s why we’re asking you to assess whether it’s possible to take it apart and make it into single-person handheld weapons where the power can be controlled,” Lambert grabbed at his hair. “Normal people can’t. Even if the container is shrunk to a size smaller than a yoyo, nobody will be able to pick it up. But it could be possible for your Skeletons.”

And so a long discussion began.

The magnetic fields and force fields all needed to be reconfigured within a very small physical range, the technical difficulties simply made one’s heart feel absolute despair.

Tang Ning was on the side, helping them create models of their various ideas, assessing their workability.

They could not make excessive moves, otherwise the Marshal or Madam would notice that many precious resources fell through only to create a suicide weapon… A scientific mishap, it would be an absolute scientific mishap.

It was a good thing, if they could really make it into a portable weapon for the Skeletons. However, there would also be hidden hazards, as the Skeleton’s power would increase exponentially. The Marshal would absolutely fear its consequences even more.

Once Lin Si became busy, a whole day passed.

When it was finally break time, his communication bracelet made a “meow” noise.

This was Ling Yi’s message notification sound.

“I studied physics, then fought a few rounds with Colonel and Svena, then played for a bit with Su Ting, then even received Zheng Shu’s birthday present. I’ll let you see when you’re back.”

Whenever the little one was not by his side, he would always obediently report the things he did today.

Lin Si smiled and replied, “I’ll be back immediately.”

Ling Yi told him, “I’m going to b79 to watch the stars.”

Lin Si wrote, “OK.”

***

Ling Yi crossed his legs as he sat on the transparent platform, his soft black hair draped over his shoulders.

He gazed for a while at the nebulae and stars within the star ocean, then took out that photo again.

These were all people he had met before, as well as his loved ones.

But…only Su Ting alone was still alive in this world.

He stared dazedly at those people, then lastly looked at his parents’ figures.

They all existed, but now they disappeared, vanished into the vast and endless sea of stars.

Were they watching him from within the void?

Ling Yi suddenly felt lost. He reached his hand out towards the faraway sea of stars, as if he would be able to touch something if he did that.

After another long while, he finally put away the photo.

However, he suddenly glimpsed the photo’s backside. Against the white paper colour, a line of words was written. It was a familiar handwriting—graceful, yet did not lack boldness.

It seemed to be a line from a poem.

“Before us lies eternity; our souls are love, and a continual farewell.”

Soft melancholy and sorrow were intertwined into the line of words.

While Ling Yi was looking at the poem, Lin Si arrived.

“Lin Si.” Ling Yi read out the line to him; the few words composed into a sentence with graceful rhythm. “What does this mean?”

“Hm?” Lin Si walked to his side.

“Why did she say that everyone’s love is a continual farewell?” Ling Yi looked at the line of words.

“I don’t understand literature,” said Lin Si.

Ling Yi pouted.

Lin Si looked at his perplexed expression, felt sorry for him, then thought he could use his own way to explain.

“Perhaps it’s like this.” He sat down on a nearby seat. Ling Yi lifted his head to look at him.

Lin Si thought for a while, then asked, “Do you know the second law of thermodynamics?”

Ling Yi nodded. “Entropy increase?”

“Mm-hm,” said Lin Si. “Entropy is the degree of disorder in an object. In a natural process, entropy will only increase, and will not decrease.”

Ling Yi nodded.

“Glass will break, supernovas will explode, stars will extinguish, black holes will evaporate—these are all forms of entropy increase. Entropy increase is the only eternal process in this universe, as the broken glass will never be put together, and an extinguished star will never light up again. Because entropy increase cannot be reversed, time will never flow backwards, the dead will never revive, and things lost cannot be retrieved. This is the law of physics. There are people that believe the law of entropy increase rules the universe, and is the sole truth that cannot be proven false.”

Ling Yi blinked. “And then?”

“That’s why, there will forever be more deaths than births, as metabolism and dynamic equilibrium do not exist on a universal level. Every day, the number of stars that extinguish would overweigh the number of stars that are birthed, so there will be a final day where there is nothing left to be destroyed, the entropy of the universe has reached its maximum, and within this thermal equilibrium, becoming an eternal, dead silence.”

“This is the heat death of the universe,” Lin Si said calmly, “the final destination that the second law of thermodynamics points towards.”

Ling Yi looked at the poem, a little stunned. “So she thinks all people who love each other will separate?”

Lin Si took the photo, and flipped it over.

Ling Jing, who was no longer in this world, was smiling, her diamond hair accessory gleaming under the light’s radiance.

*

The author has something to say:

The poem is Yeats’ “Ephemera”. Its Chinese name is Fu You.19 I changed up the line a bit.

Good afternoon ww

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