Silent Ark

Chapter 18: Taking on a Critical Mission

Liu Pan continued, "Infection destroys the information structure. Weaving maintains the information structure."

"The seven deadly sins are the entropy-increasing aspect of the universe—they cause matter to slide from order to disorder, from complexity to simplicity, and from 'structured' to 'unstructured'."

"The Five Constants are the order of the universe—they allow matter to emerge from disorder into order, from simple assembly into complexity, and from 'no structure' to 'structured'."

"They are not human moral constraints. They are physical."

"Physics is more fundamental than gravity, more fundamental than electromagnetism, and more primitive than the strong and weak nuclear forces."

Shen Ruozhi stood up after Liu Pan finished speaking.

Her movements were slow—not hesitant, but a deliberate slowness, a slowness that allowed her thoughts room to process.

After the whale fell, she developed this habit: wait three seconds before taking any action. Because the laboratory and the accident area were so close, time was no longer reliable in that area; three seconds could have been two or four seconds, but at least it gave her prefrontal cortex a chance to process the information.

"I have a question," she said.

"explain."

"You say the seven deadly sins are infection, and the five constant virtues are weaving. Infection is unidirectional and destructive. Weaving is... constructive?"

"That's roughly how it can be understood."

"And what about the whale fall itself?" Shen Ruozhi walked to the whiteboard, picked up a pen—the surface tension of the whiteboard in the affected area had changed after the whale fall, causing the marker to bleed slightly, like writing on rice paper. "The whale fall is the 'removal' of the laws of physics. The laws of physics are 'old clothes' woven by the Five Constants. So—was the action of removing those clothes done by the Five Constants or by the Seven Deadly Sins?"

Liu Pan did not answer.

"If the Five Constants (Standards of Civil Rights) have woven together the laws of physics, then they should uphold those laws. They shouldn't actively shed them."

"If the seven deadly sins disrupt the structure of information, their instinct should be to tear apart the laws of physics. But whale fall is not tearing apart—the laws of physics are 'stripped away,' not completely shattered. Tearing apart and stripping away are two different things. Tearing apart is violence, stripping away is—being affected as it is now, but parts still remain."

She paused for a moment and wrote one word on the whiteboard: 脱 (tuō, meaning to undress).

"Taking off clothes is a deliberate, directional, and sequential action. It's not destruction, it's replacement."

She turned around.

"Whale fall is neither a higher-dimensional attack of the seven deadly sins, nor a retreat of the original laws of the five constant virtues."

"Whale fall is an operation jointly performed by twelve higher-dimensional beings."

The meeting room fell silent.

"They're changing clothes," Shen Ruozhi continued, offering a somewhat impolite but insightful observation. "The old laws of physics—the set woven by the Five Constants—are no longer suitable. Not because they're broken. It's because the 'body' wearing them has grown up. Children can't wear last year's clothes anymore. Not because the clothes are torn. It's because their bodies have changed."

"Five constants weave old clothes. The seven deadly sins—"

She stopped.

"The seven deadly sins are not an infection. Or rather—infection is not their goal. Infection is a side effect of them shedding their old clothes."

"Just like when you take off a piece of clothing close to your body, the clothing takes away some cells, hair, and sweat from your skin. These are 'shedding products'—not the purpose of taking off clothes, but the collateral damage."

The "infection" of the Seven Deadly Sins is those shed materials. They are not attacking us. They are falling out from the fibers of old clothes. As the old clothes are taken off, the cross-sections of the Seven Deadly Sins that were originally woven into the fibers—those non-smooth manifold projections—scatter from the gaps in the warp and weft of the clothes into our space.

"Like shaking out a dirty garment. The dust falls out. The dust isn't the garment's purpose. The dust is the trace of how the garment has been worn."

Shen Ruozhi looked at Liu Pan.

"So your stone—the one on the outer shell of Arc Four that was 'infected by arrogance'—wasn't attacked. It was just covered in dust from old clothes."

Something appeared in Liu Pan's eyes.

Like two puzzle pieces finally fitting together.

"And what about the new clothes?" he asked.

Shen Ruozhi didn't speak because she didn't know the answer.

But Yao Chong knew.

He stood up from his seat.

When he stood up, he bumped into the iced Americano on the table—he hadn't drunk from it, and no one had touched it; the condensation had formed a perfect circular water stain on the table.

"This new garment of physics—" Yao Chong said, "is not for us."

"What do you mean?" Dr. Stark, the project leader, asked the first question after listening for a while.

"Old clothes—the physical laws woven from the five constants—are for the old version of us. Three-dimensional, physical, living in linear time."

"The new clothes—if there are any—are for the new version of something."

He walked to the whiteboard and wrote another character next to the character "脱" (tuō, to remove) that Shen Ruozhi had written: 穿 (chuān, to wear).

"Who's wearing it?"

"Higher dimensions exist on their own, commonly known as the soul."

"The laws of physics are not the rules of the universe. The laws of physics are projections of higher-dimensional existences onto our dimension. Just like the shadow of a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional plane—the shadow is not the object itself, but the shape of the shadow is determined by the object."

"Old laws of physics = old projections".

"The Big Rip = the higher-dimensional existence has changed its posture, the old projection has become invalid, and the new projection has not yet been fully formed."

"What we see as the 'infection' of the Seven Deadly Sins and the 'weaving' of the Five Constant Virtues—is not two camps fighting—"

"It is the same higher-dimensional being changing its posture, and cross-sections of different parts of its body sweep across our space in sequence."

"Seven non-smooth parts—the seven deadly sins—are swept over first. Because they are more 'protruding' topologically. Like when a person bends over, the knees and elbows touch the door frame first."

"The five smooth parts—the five constants—are swept last. Because they are topologically flatter. Like bending over to pass through a door frame, the torso follows."

Yao Chong drew a picture on the whiteboard.

A person is walking through a door.

The door frame represents three-dimensional space.

Humans represent higher-dimensional existence.

When a person passes through a door frame, their knees and elbows—seven protruding, angular joints—bump against the frame, leaving seven scratches.

The human torso—five smooth, angleless limbs—makes five large-area contact with the door frame when passing through it.

Scratches = infection of the seven deadly sins.

Large-area contact = the weaving of the five constants.

"We are not fighting against twelve gods." Yao Chong put down his pen.

"We are the door frame."

Something is passing through us.

"And there are only two things a door frame can do—"

"Give Way."

"or--"

Yao Chong glanced at Liu Pan, and the two understood each other without saying a word. At this moment, the prototype of the Silent Ark Project was born.

"Transform into a shape it can't pass through."

This is why they were able to survive when they faced multiple high-dimensional, non-"water-stained" spaces.