Zhang Zian was pushed from behind. He staggered and fell into the seemingly dangerous and strange whirlpool. He instinctively covered his head and face, closed his eyes, and had goosebumps all over his body, bracing for the coming impact.
Countless possibilities flashed through his mind in an instant. Whether the vortex was cold or hot, whether it was hard or soft, even if it looked as soft as water but was actually as sharp as a blade and could grind him to pieces like an airplane engine, he thought of all of them.
However, he didn't touch anything.
He easily passed through the whirlpool, as if it was just an invisible phantom.
After a false alarm, he stood still and opened his eyes again, only to see an even more incredible scene.
It was difficult to accurately describe what he saw with any words. Everything around him was distorted, and everything was gray. He was clearly in the pet shop, but he could see the inside and outside of the pet shop at the same time.
It wasn't that the walls didn't exist, or that the walls had become transparent. The walls were still walls, but he could see everything outside the shop through the walls. He could also see the inside of the walls, the inside of the bricks, and the inside of the cement that bonded the bricks together …
All the details of the pet shop were clearly visible in front of him, and no secrets could be hidden. It was as if he had countless pairs of eyes, and he could observe the pet shop from all possible angles at the same time. He even saw that a silver ring that his mother had lost was actually stuck in the gap of a wardrobe drawer, and he also saw an envelope taped to the bottom of the drawer. He saw through the envelope that there were a few notes of different amounts in the envelope, which might be his father's private money that he had hidden to buy alcohol.
Not only the pet shop, but everything on the street outside was also the same. Everything that he could see, he could observe everything from the inside to the outside from all angles.
This was probably equivalent to a person being able to observe the whole picture of an A4 paper at a glance.
He didn't know why, but the edges of these fixed objects were very blurry … They weren't exactly blurry, and he could see them very clearly, but they were like the afterimages left by the wings of a hummingbird flapping its wings at high speed.
People. Of course, there were people on the street, although there were only a few pedestrians who got up early.
Their appearances were even stranger. Every one of them resembled a thousand-armed and thousand-eyed Guanyin … No, it was even more than that. It should be a thousand-armed, thousand-eyed, thousand-legged, thousand-headed, thousand-mouthed … The word "thousand-armed" was far from sufficient to describe their numbers.
If it was someone with a weak will who saw this strange world, they would have fainted on the spot.
He stared blankly at the unfamiliar surroundings and muttered an English word, "Tesseract …"
"That's right, tesseract."
He turned around and saw that the girl was already standing quietly behind him. She said with a smile, "The first time I came into contact with this term was when I watched 'Interstellar' with my dad. That was also my introduction to the five-dimensional space and time. By the way, after watching it three times, I barely understood the content of the movie. Other children of the same age were still watching the remake of 'Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf'."
Zhang Zian was stunned. Was there a remake of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf? He really didn't know.
In the surrounding gray background, only he and she maintained their original colors.
The word "tesseract" was a key factor in understanding the movie "Interstellar." There was no accurate Chinese translation. Generally, it would be translated as "hypercube," but this was not very accurate. If it had to be translated, it should be translated as "the expansion of a three-dimensional cube in a four-dimensional space." If the axis of "time" was taken into account, then one more dimension would be added.
He was in the pet shop, and at the same time, he was in the recliner of the pet shop, and at the same time, he was in every wood fiber of the recliner, and he could see everything inside and outside at the same time. Why?
Just like Schrodinger's cat in the black box was in the quantum superposition state of life and death, what he was seeing now was the superposition state of infinite space. Space was superimposed on each other. The wood fiber, the recliner, the pet shop, the street … Superimposed together, there was no inherent boundary, so he could see through it at a glance.
She breathed a sigh of relief. "Fortunately, you understood it, otherwise it would be really troublesome to explain."
He was suddenly enlightened. When he looked at everything around him again, he didn't feel strange anymore. Instead, he was full of curiosity, excitement, and infinite admiration, because this was not something that ordinary people could see in their lifetime.
The state of a thousand hands and a thousand eyes that people showed in this five-dimensional space and time was actually the trajectory of a person's life. Everyone's long life was reflected in this long trajectory, and the people seen in the normal four-dimensional space and time were just projections of this trajectory at a certain moment.
In mathematical language, the five-dimensional space and time was the collection of all the four-dimensional space and time, and the four-dimensional space was just an element in the five-dimensional space and time.
As for the blurred shadows of those fixed objects, it was because no object would exist forever. The recliner would fall apart one day, and the pet shop would be demolished one day. Those shadows were the entire evolution process from existence to nothingness.
Most people who have seen "Interstellar" will be puzzled by the plot of the hero entering the bookshelf after passing through the wormhole and being able to see his daughter's life from childhood to adulthood. The audience who didn't want to understand it would only think of it as a montage in a movie, but they didn't understand the subtle design inside.
Of course, this was indeed the method of expression in the movie. Under the premise of not losing hardcore science, it took into account artistry and beauty. Otherwise, when the audience saw the daughter with a thousand hands and a thousand eyes, they were afraid that they would pee on the spot in the theater. It was much more terrifying than any horror film.
He stared at the bug in her palm. "We … have entered a wormhole?"
"Yes." She nodded.
He looked around again and remembered the question about free will and determinism that Zhuang Xiaodie asked him to ask, but there was no need to ask this question again. Everyone's life was shown on each trajectory, from birth to death, from the cradle to the grave. What else was there to ask?
Of course, because he entered the five-dimensional space and time, he couldn't see himself in the four-dimensional space and time. He couldn't see his own fate, just like a fortune-teller who never knew his own fate.
If this was a wormhole, he had vaguely guessed how she was going to help him.
"Come on."
She took one of his hands and took a step toward the angle of the bug's head.
With just one step, he went from the first floor of the pet shop to the corridor on the second floor of the pet shop.
He stared at the insect without blinking. Humans could only perceive the three-dimensional space, and there was no organ that could perceive the four-dimensional space. Due to the infinite superposition of space, even if ordinary people accidentally entered the four-dimensional space, they would still get lost. She was no exception, and this insect was obviously her guide. It could find the right direction in the chaotic four-dimensional space.
"Next, you should know what to do, right?" she said.
In the corridor on the second floor, there was also a translucent vortex suspended.
"If I go there, won't there be two of me at the same time?" he asked.
She smiled. "Who says it isn't?"
"What about the conservation of energy …"
There seemed to be a cold snort from somewhere. "What a blockhead!"
His whole body was cold … Why did it sound like Zhuang Xiaodie's voice?
She quietly squinted her eyes and said, "The conservation of energy, quantum mechanics, and other theorems will not be overturned in the future, but they are limited to three-dimensional space. They are not applicable in four-dimensional space, just like the scope of application of Newton's mechanics is limited to the macroscopic scale, so you don't have to worry."
Zhang Zian had no time to think about it for the time being. He could only accept this explanation. He pointed to the vortex and said, "Are you going with me?"
"No, I can't go." She laughed. "I will wait here for you to come back. Go quickly."
"Okay …"
He closed his eyes and walked toward the vortex.
Boom!
The sound of thunder made him instinctively open his eyes.
The surroundings were very dark, and the thunder seemed to explode above his head. The wind was howling outside, and the closed windows were rattling.
"Master, do you have mahjong here? I'm just bored. Let's play a few rounds? "
Li Kun's voice came from downstairs. It was mixed with the thunder and seemed very vague.
Zhang Zian turned his head and looked. The translucent vortex was behind him.
There was a faint light coming from the half-closed bedroom door. The only light source on the second floor came from the bedroom desk. A half-lit candle stood there, flickering in the breeze blowing through the window.
Pi sat at the desk with its back to the bedroom door, holding the mouse and clicking on the laptop screen. It was busy saving unfinished documents on the hard drive.
This laptop was a little old, and it didn't run as smoothly as a new computer. In addition, it automatically switched to power-saving and low-frequency mode when the power was cut off, so its response was even slower.
Next to the laptop, there was his mobile phone.
Because the "Pet Hunter" game was running on the mobile phone, he knew the importance of the mobile phone. When he was outside, the mobile phone was always with him. Even when he was taking a shower, he would put the mobile phone in several layers of waterproof bags and bring it into the bathroom.
Even when he was at home, he was very careful. But didn't Pi need to share the hotspot for a short time?
Yes, the Internet was disconnected at that time. He opened the hotspot and shared it with the laptop, then left the mobile phone on the second floor and went downstairs.
So now, there was another him on the first floor, being pestered by Wang Qian and Li Kun for mahjong cards. Little Celery was at the cashier doing homework.
This was what happened yesterday. He remembered it clearly.
He already knew what he was going to do, so he pushed the door and walked into the bedroom.
Pi didn't look back. Listening to the footsteps, it knew it was him. It also knew that he was busy dealing with the typhoon.
Looking at Pi's back, his eyes were sore. He wanted to rush over and hug it a few times, but he held himself back.
Sihwa's noisy voice came from the bathroom. She claimed that she wanted to open the eyes of the netizens and broadcast the typhoon for them to see, but it seemed that she had encountered a network problem. The sound and picture of the live broadcast began to be intermittent, which made her very annoyed.
Vladimir had left the pet shop to help the stray cats, and the other elfins were downstairs waiting for the upcoming typhoon.
Everything was so familiar, but it almost made his tears fall.
He wanted to rush downstairs and shout to the elfins about what was going to happen, but he couldn't do that, because history didn't happen like that. History was the only one. Tampering with history would lead to a space-time paradox, and the consequences would be unimaginable.
He forcibly calmed his emotions and stabilized his breathing.
He couldn't delay any longer. After his other self found out that Vladimir wasn't there, he would soon go up to the second floor to look for him, so he had to finish what he had to do as soon as possible and leave.
He walked to the desk and picked up his phone — his old phone.
Pi turned its head to look at him, then continued to stare at the laptop screen.
The room was very dark, and the only emergency light was placed on the cashier downstairs for Little Celery to do her homework. The sound of the storm outside was as loud as a helicopter landing. Pi didn't notice his abnormality — there was nothing unusual about him. It was still him. The same voice, the same smell, the same clothes, and the same face. The only difference might be his demeanor, but it was perfectly covered by the darkness.
On the screen of the original phone, there was the icon of the "Pet Hunter" app.
He suppressed his excitement and took out the phone that he had brought with him. This phone had just been charged for a while. Under the effect of the fast charging app, it was charged to 63%, which was exactly the same as the original phone's current battery. Both phones were at 63%.
He turned off the hotspot of the original phone, held it in his hand, and turned on the hotspot of the mobile phone that he had brought with him. He put it back next to the laptop.
This time, Pi didn't even turn its head. It had its own things to do, and he picked up the phone and looked at it. What was there to make a fuss about? This was his phone in the first place.
The other him downstairs seemed to have noticed that something was missing in the shop and was looking everywhere. He ignored Wang Qian and Li Kun's invitation to play mahjong, and soon realized that Vladimir was missing. He would find the second floor in a while.
Zhang Zian listened to Sihwa's noisy voice and looked at Pi's back. His lips moved, and he said silently, "I will find you guys, I promise."
He left the bedroom, holding the all-important phone in his hand.
After he finished reading the notification given by the game, he didn't cross it out. He just had to pull down the notification bar to see it.
Tomorrow morning, after the other him found out that the elfins had disappeared en masse, he would take out the phone from under his pillow and see the notification. He would tremble with anger and fall into unimaginable despair, and he would be given a glimmer of hope by the recovered galaxy. Then, Little White would visit the pet shop, and then Wang Qian and Li Kun would come to work and comfort him. Finally, he would meet a mysterious girl with a worm, who would lead him on an incredibly wonderful journey back to the past.
And he would return to the future with this phone that was still running the "Pet Hunter" game.
It was a closed loop.
Whether it was today or tomorrow, it would be the same him.
He didn't change anything, just like the hero in "Interstellar" didn't change anything. History was destined to run this way. He and he were just being led by the will from the future to realize their own destinies.
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