Chapter 22
Chapter 22
The movie was an animated film, and it was actually quite good.
The plot followed a high school boy who meets his twenty-six-year-old self from ten years in the future. His future self tells him that he will soon fall in love with the female lead, but she is destined to die in an accident during an upcoming fireworks festival. To save his lover, the sixteen-year-old protagonist gets caught up in a world of real and virtual memories, experiencing a series of events beyond imagination.
“You created a world to save me, and I created a world to save you.”
After finishing the movie, Wen Miao followed Nan Mu out of the theater, sighing with emotion. “I really loved that ending. The twist came out of nowhere; it was such a pleasant surprise.”
Nan Mu looked thoughtful. “Do you think the technology in the movie is achievable?”
“Using code to build a virtual world to achieve mental synchronization for a person in a vegetative state, thereby helping them wake up?” Wen Miao thought for a moment. “Building code requires programmers, and research into brain death in vegetative patients requires doctors. I don’t really know much about those. However, I could certainly look into quantum technology-for instance, whether it’s possible to build a purely virtual dimensional world in the future that functions just like reality, where billions of people and countless organisms operate through autonomous replication. If that were truly possible, then a programmer’s code would certainly have a place to shine.”
As she spoke, something suddenly occurred to her. “But thinking about it that way is actually quite troublesome. If we could just invent a Time Machine to travel back to the past, wouldn’t that be much simpler?”
Nan Mu’s heart skipped a beat. “A Time Machine… can one be invented?”
“Actually…” Wen Miao paused noticeably, then spoke again after a long moment.
“In current physical theory, discussions about a Time Machine usually involve establishing a four-dimensional orthogonal space-time reference frame. Velocity can be seen as the rotation of the time dimension toward the direction of motion, with the speed of light acting as the scale of time. If you want to return to the past, you need a faster-than-light motion that causes the time dimension to rotate in a negative direction.”
“However, this theory is prohibited by the existing Special Theory of Relativity because it’s inconsistent with established principles. But I’ve been wondering if our thinking regarding the Time Machine has fallen into a narrow trap. Does a faster-than-light reversal actually take us back to the past, or does it make time flow backward? What if we don’t need time to flow backward, but simply need to jump back to a previous stage?”
Walking through the first floor of the mall, Wen Miao suddenly stopped and turned into a stationery and gift shop. She picked up a sample pen and a piece of paper from a display shelf.
She drew a straight line on the paper and marked two points, A and B, at either end.
“Look, assume this straight line is the normal direction of space-time progression. Now, I want to go from point B back to point A. Currently, the physics community generally believes you need a faster-than-light rotation to return from point B. But look…”
Wen Miao used an eraser to rub out the line between A and B. “Doesn’t this look like making time flow backward, erasing the progression of time from A to B?”
She redrew the line in the middle, then drew another line parallel to the first one, labeling the ends A1 and B1. “Let’s look at it from another angle. What if the Time Machine doesn’t rotate back, but instead jumps out of the original space-time, going from point B1 back to point A1, creating another parallel universe?”
She glanced at Nan Mu and saw his brow furrowed in concentration. She decided to try a different way of explaining it. “Think of it like a river. I’m on a boat in that river, and the boat has its own set speed and direction. If I want to go upstream from point B to point A, I need a speed that’s greater than the combined force of the river’s current and the boat’s own momentum. Only then can the boat move upstream. But what if I step onto the bank at that specific point? At that moment, the river’s current no longer affects me, right? Standing on the bank, the only speed I have to overcome is the momentum of the boat I was just on.”
“But because I’ve stepped onto the bank, my path back to point A creates another line parallel to the original river-from B1 to A1.”
Nan Mu had a sudden realization. “Is that a parallel universe?”
“Doesn’t it look like a river that suddenly stops flowing for some reason?” Wen Miao moved her pen to B1 and drew a solid line further out, marking the end as C1. “Have you ever seen a river change its course? In the plains, silt builds up until the riverbed is higher than the surrounding land. Eventually, the river breaches its banks and flows through the low-lying areas, forming a new channel. But if no measures are taken, the river will keep shifting. After many years, it might miraculously return to its original shape…”
“Space-time correction?” Nan Mu murmured.
“Exactly!” Wen Miao gave him an appreciative look. “My theory is that parallel universes can be artificially constructed and exist, but they only exist between specific points in time. If no one uses a time machine to continue influencing that segment of space-time, all parallel universes will eventually converge back into a single timeline.”
“So, will this timeline eventually converge at C or C1?”
“I think both are possible. Just like a river changing its course, where it ultimately flows depends on every interconnected factor within that space-time.”
When Wen Miao finished, she looked up to find Nan Mu staring at her silently, his dark eyes unmoving.
She instinctively brushed her bangs aside, her ears feeling strangely warm. “Why… why are you staring at me like that?”
Nan Mu lowered his gaze, his lashes fluttering slightly as he whispered something.
She didn’t catch it and instinctively asked, “What did you say?”
“I said… when you talk about physics, you’re like a brilliant, shining star.”
Wen Miao’s heart skipped a beat. She looked up, and her eyes met Nan Mu’s.
He was watching her quietly. His dark eyes caught fragments of light, looking like a silent, torrential downpour-an emotion she couldn’t quite decipher.
Wen Miao’s eyes crinkled into a smile. “I’ll take that as a compliment, then.”
With that, she set down the pen and was the first to walk out of the shop.
Nan Mu didn’t follow immediately. He stood there, watching her brisk, lighthearted steps.
A star that bright should stay hung in the sky, forever illuminating the world.
A star shouldn’t fall so bleakly.
He was going to save her.
He would never stand by and watch her fall like that again.