Then what about the people here who were friendly to him?
An Zhe's nose prickled a little. He felt guilty, but before he could make any further choices, someone knocked on the door.
It was the boy from yesterday. He was holding a tray containing breakfast, and on the tray were a steaming enamel cup and bowl.
"You didn't wake up in the morning, and we didn't call you," the boy said. "Uncle Shu made potato soup again. You must drink it."
An Zhe gave his thanks.
With that, the boy put the tray on the table. An Zhe looked down at the bowl of rich soup. Small pieces of potato bobbed up and down in the soup, giving off a tender fragrance together with the shreds of cured meat. The fragrance, mixed in with the white steam, spread throughout the room in curling wisps.
Strangely, he no longer thought of leaving.
Life at the research institute was by no means as orderly as that of the base. The people had no fixed duties or positions, but they had spontaneous divisions of labor. The research institute took him in, so he knew he had to give back. He wanted to work hard and do a bit of something, and the people of the research institute were all very welcoming.
At the very beginning, he would go out and gather edible plant roots with the boy in a relatively safe area. Later, his body could not withstand the cold wind, so he could only remain at the base and help plant things or cook. And even later, he couldn't do even this kind of work. The people of the research institute all thought he suffered from some sort of unidentified illness. This was a common occurrence. In this world, all kinds of illnesses could occur, and even the whole world itself was incurably ill.
That day, Pauli came to see him. From that day on, An Zhe started living with Pauli Jones in the white building to the west of the main building. Although his body was gradually weakening, his mind was still lucid enough that he could be a competent assistant. In Pauli's laboratory, there was also a quiet Indian man working as an assistant. He was good at maintaining the various pieces of equipment, and his name was Kedar.
This was a high-security laboratory, with machines all around. Screens were connected to the machines, and the largest one—its optical cable ran from the laboratory into the ground and was connected to a device called a "Simpson cage" outside.
The main components of the Simpson cage were four five-meter-high mechanical towers that were just like miniaturized versions of the two white towers outside the research institute. And as for the shape of those two white towers—after looking at them for a long time, An Zhe confirmed that they had many similarities with the base's massive artificial magnetic pole. He then recalled that the Highland Research Institute was the place where the artificial magnetic poles were first developed.
The four towers formed a rectangle more than ten meters long and twenty meters wide. When the Simpson cage started up, the cuboid space they enclosed would be flooded with a scorching red light similar to high-frequency lasers, and it'd resemble a scarlet sea of flames. Everyone at the research institute knew to not walk into the activated Simpson cage, or else they'd die a horrible death.
From the laboratory's manual, An Zhe learned that the Simpson cage was the most cutting-edge masterpiece in the field of high-energy physics from when human science was at its peak. It directly contributed to the success of the artificial magnetic poles.
"To this very day, we don't know the cause of the geomagnetic field. Some people have speculated that it's because of the circulation of molten iron in the earth's liquid core while others believe it's the spinning of the electrical layer in the earth's mantle, but there isn't strong enough proof for either one. We don't know the reason for its existence, so we are also unable to learn the reason for its disappearance. It exceeds the boundaries of our knowledge. Likewise, we are also unable to replicate the electromagnetic field unless we create a magnet half the size of the earth," Pauli explained to him. "But one of the laws of physics we know is that magnetism is generated by electricity. The movement of electric charges produces a magnetic field."
“One of the Simpson cage's contributions was that it could show the fluctuating force fields between elementary particles, thereby analyzing how they interact and then reproducing some phenomena. As a result, we obtained inspiration for the artificial magnetic poles—you lack physics knowledge, so I can't explain more deeply. To put it simply, the two artificial magnetic poles emit pulses with special frequencies, leading to the resonance of charged particles in the solar winds. It's like we're holding a loudspeaker and telling them 'please go that way.' As a result, the resonance and motions of the particles produce a magnetic field, and the earth is thus protected."
An Zhe nodded. He understood, but only just. His work did not require him to master advanced physics knowledge. He only needed to look after the instruments.
Sometimes, Pauli would be outside adjusting the Simpson cage's frequency with the other assistant following him, which left only An Zhe in the white building. As he sat there, the night sky loomed outside the window. The machines hummed monotonously, and the spectrometer connected to the Simpson cage drew intricate curves. An Zhe did not know what it was recording.
The curves were messy and tangled together, lacking any patterns whatsoever. For no reason, he thought of the chaotic and horrifying lines Si Nan had drawn on his paper in the Garden of Eden. Upon closing his eyes, he felt the increasing intensity of that formless wave and the day-by-day passing of his own life. He was afraid, but sometimes he also felt that he was gradually approaching eternity.
Pauli came back and began to analyze the chaotic curves. An Zhe exerted great effort to pick up a nearby thermos, then poured a cup of warm water for him.
"What are you doing?" he finally asked.
"I wish to find that thing," Pauli said.
Looking at the screen, An Zhe asked, "… What thing?"
"The thing that led to this world changing."
"It must be omnipresent. If it is in this world, then it must also be in the Simpson cage," he said.
An Zhe frowned slightly.
"A month ago, I also believed that the cause of infection and mutation had to be searched for starting from biology. It wasn't until the distortions occurred that I realized the root of the problem lies in this world's physics laws. Thus, I restarted the Simpson cage." Pauli picked up a nearby compass. "We'll never be able to see the magnetic field, but the direction of the compass can tell us that it exists. It's the same with the other invisible things in the world. Our knowledge is too superficial, so we can only pursue the facades they project onto the world."
"Look here." Pauli highlighted a steady curve. "Everything in the world is interacting, and there's a lot of information in the traces of these interactions, such as this line. Just like the compass, it represents the magnetic field."
"We assume that the changes currently happening in this world are because of some massive thing that is slowly approaching… But the magnetic field can resist it to some extent—since the magnetic field can resist it, then it must have a similar representation to the magnetic field." Pauli's gray-blue eyes avidly gazed at the scribble-covered screen. "It's vast, surpassing our knowledge. What it's changing is the very essence of this world, but it's right in here. I think there must exist a specific receiving frequency that can see the shadow it casts on the real world."
An Zhe asked, "And then?"
Pauli slowly shook his head. "We must first know what it is before we can think of ways to respond to it."
But could it really be found?
Perplexed, An Zhe looked at the screen.
As though he knew what An Zhe was thinking, Pauli spoke.
"It's very uncertain, but…" His voice trailed off, and he sighed softly. "After all, we have also created many masterpieces that defied humankind's imagination in the past."
An Zhe sensed the fluctuation in his tone of voice and echoed his last sentence. "Masterpieces that defied humankind's imagination."
Then he saw the faint glimmer of light in Pauli's eyes gradually dim.
Pauli Jones looked out the window at the infinite wilderness and the haze-filled sky. The howls of wild animals came from all directions, and within those sounds were strange waves that could not be deciphered by the human sound spectrum.
"Only with regard to humankind," he murmured. "Before we were shattered, we believed that we had comprehended the entirety of the world."
At that moment, An Zhe saw in his eyes a loneliness that transcended time itself.