上部: 面壁者2 The Wallfacers |《三体2: 黑暗森林》双语小说在线阅读

“Not the ordinary kind. Defense against the atom bomb, but it’s obsolete now. Back in the day, you had to be someone special to get in here.”

“不是普通的，是防原子弹的，现在废了，当年可不是一般人能进来的。”

Shi Qiang led Luo Ji to one car, opened the door, and had him get in. The car was roomy, but the edges of its abnormally tiny windows revealed the thickness of the car’s body. A reinforced vehicle with tinted glass in its small windows, probably as an antibomb measure. The car door was ajar, and Luo Ji could hear Shi Qiang and the young man talking.

史强把罗辑带到了一辆车前，拉开车门让他进去。罗辑坐下后发现，这车虽然内部很宽敞，但车窗小得不正常，从窗的边缘可以看到厚厚的车壳。这是一辆加固型的车，窄小的车窗玻璃透明度很差，可能也是防弹的。车门半开着，罗辑能听到史强和年轻人的对话。

Shi Qiang led Luo Ji through the two lines of cars, with the young man close behind. The lamplight and red taillights shining though the gaps in the cars cast an ever-changing pattern of color on Shi Qiang’s body and reminded Luo Ji of the dim bar where he had met the woman.

史强带着罗辑在两排汽车间穿过，年轻人跟在后面，罗辑看着尾灯的红光和穿过车间缝隙照进来的灯光照在史强身上，使他的身影以不同的色彩时隐时现，罗辑竞想起了那个昏暗的酒吧，在那里他认识了她。

“Captain Shi, they called just now to say they’ve been over the route. All guard positions have been set up.”

“史队，刚才他们来电话，说沿路又摸了一遍，所有警戒位也布置好了。”

“The route is too complicated. We’ve only been able to do a couple of quick runs through the whole thing. Not enough for comfort. And about the guard positions — it’s like I said, you’ve got to think like them. If you were on their side, where would you be hiding? Consult with the experts from the People’s Armed Police again. Hey, what’s the plan for the handoff?”

“沿路情况太复杂，这事儿本来也只能粗着过几遍，很难让人放下心来。警戒位的布置。就按我说的，要换位思考，你要是那边的，打算猫在哪儿？武警这方面的专家多咨询一些……哦，交接的事怎么安排？”

Shi Qiang raised his voice. “Morons. They can’t leave such an important part up in the air.”

史强的声音高了起来：“你他妈的犯混啊，这么重要的事儿都没落实！”

“Captain Shi, it looks like the brass want us to follow along the entire way.”

“史队，照上级的意思，好像我们得一直跟着。”

“They didn’t say.”

“他们没说。”

“I can follow along my entire life, but since there’s got to be a handoff once we’re there, there needs to be a clear demarcation of responsibilities. There’s got to be a line. Anything that happens before it is on us, and afterward on them.”

“跟一辈子都行，但到那边肯定是有交接的，责任分段儿必须明确！这得有条线，咔！之前出事儿责任在我们，之后责任就在他们了。”

“Zheng, I know you’ve been feeling sorry for yourself since Chang Weisi got promoted. Hell, it’s like we don’t even exist to his former subordinates. But we should have some self-respect. Who the fuck are they? Have they been under fire, or have they ever fired at anyone? That crew used so many high-tech tricks in the last operation it was like a circus. They even brought out the airborne early warning system. But in the end, who did they use to find the meeting place? Us. That won us some cred. Zheng, it took a lot of convincing to get the lot of you over here, but I wonder if that might not end up causing you harm.”

“郑啊，我知道你就是他妈的有自卑感，常伟思高升了，他以前的那些手下看咱们更是眼睛长在天灵盖儿上了，不过咱们自个儿应该看得起自个儿。他们算什么？有谁对他们开过一枪，他们又对谁开过一枪？上次大行动，看那帮人儿，什么高级玩意儿都用上了。跟耍杂技似的，连预警机都出来了，可聚会地点的最后定位还不是靠我们？这就为我们争来了地位……。郑啊，我把你们几个调过来是费了口舌的，也不知是不是害了你们。”

“They didn’t say…” The young man sounded uncomfortable.

“他们没说……”年轻人似乎很为难。

“Captain Shi, you’ve really got to think about your illness. Didn’t the higher-ups schedule you for hibernation?”

“史队，你的病可得快考虑，上级不是安排你冬眠了吗？”

“Captain Shi, don’t say that.”

“史队，你别这么说。”

“I’ve got to get lots of things taken care of first. Family, work. And do you think I’m not worried about the lot of you here?”

“得把事儿都安排好了吧，家里的，工作上的，就你们这样儿我能放心吗？”

“It’s a troubled world. Do you get that? Morality isn’t what it used to be. Everyone foists their bad luck off onto other people, so you’ve got to be on your guard… I’m going on like this because I’m worried about how long I’m going to last. I’m afraid that all of it’s going to land in your lap.”

“这是乱世，乱世懂吗？人心可真是不古了，大家都把晦气事儿往别人身上推，所以防人之心不可无啊……跟你扯这些是我不放心，我还能待多久？以后这一摊子怕都放到体那儿了。”

“That’s nothing. I’ve got good luck. You should know. Three of the guns I’ve been shot at with were duds.”

“没事儿，我命大，这你是知道的，冲我开的枪，臭火的就有三次。”

The cars at one end of the hall were beginning to pull out. Shi Qiang got in and closed the door, and when the neighboring car started to move, their car followed. Shi Qiang pulled the curtains closed on either side, and the opaque divider between the back and front seats totally obscured Luo Ji’s view of the outside. As they rode, Shi Qiang’s radio chirped endlessly, but Luo Ji couldn’t make out the comments Shi Qiang was replying to in clipped sentences.

这时，大厅一侧的车辆已经开始鱼贯而出，史强钻进车里关上车门，当相邻的车开走后，这辆车也开动了。史强拉上了两边的窗帘，车内有一块不透明的挡板，把后半部分与驾驶室隔开，这样罗辑就完全看不到车外的情况了。一路上，史强的步话机叽叽哇哇响个不停，但罗辑听不清在说什么，史强不时简单地回应一句。

“Don’t worry about us. With your condition, you can’t put it off. Your teeth were bleeding out again this morning.”

“我们你尽管放心，你这病真的不能拖了，今儿早上你牙出血又止不往了。”

When they had ridden a short way, Luo Ji said to Shi Qiang, “Things are more complicated than you said.”

车开后不久，罗辑对史强说：“事情比你说的要复杂。”

“That’s right. Everything’s complicated now,” Shi Qiang said perfunctorily, his attention still focused on the radio. They spoke no more for the rest of the trip.

“是啊。现在什么都变得复杂了。”史强敷衍道，仍把注意力集中到步话机上，一路上两人再也没有说话。

The ride was smooth and unbroken, and after about an hour they came to a stop.

路似乎很顺，车子连一次减速都没有，行驶了大约一小时后停了下来。

When Shi Qiang got out of the car, he motioned to Luo Ji to wait inside, and then closed the door. Luo Ji heard a rumbling that seemed to come from above the vehicle. After a few minutes, Shi Qiang opened the door again and had Luo Ji get out, at which point he realized they were at an airport. The rumbling had turned thunderous. He looked up to see two helicopters hovering overhead, oriented in opposite directions like they were monitoring the open area. In front of him was a large aircraft that looked like a passenger plane, except that there was no insignia on any part he could see. An airstair stood in front of the car door, and Shi Qiang and Luo Ji took it up to the aircraft. When Luo Ji glanced back out the door after they entered, the first thing that caught his eye were the fighter jets lined up on a distant apron, which informed him that this wasn’t a civilian airport. Closer in, he saw the cars from their convoy and the soldiers that had exited their vehicles in a ring around the plane. The sun was setting, casting a long shadow down the runway ahead of the plane, like a giant exclamation point.

史强下车后示意罗辑待在车内，然后关上了车门。这时罗辑听到一阵轰鸣声，似乎来自车顶上方。几分钟后，史强拉开车门让罗辑下车。一出去，罗辑立刻知道他们是在一个机场，刚才听到的轰鸣变得震耳了。他抬头看看，发现这声音来自悬停在上方的两架直升机，它们的机首分别对着不同的方向，似乎在监视着这片空旷的区域。罗辑面前是一架大飞机，像是客机，但在他能看到的部分。罗辑找不到航空公司的标志。车门前就是一架登机梯，史强和罗辑沿着它登上飞机，在进入舱门前。罗辑回头看了一眼，首先看到的是远处停机坪上的一排整齐的战斗机，他由此知道这里不是民用机场。把目光移到近处，他发现同来的十几辆车和车上下来的士兵已在这架飞机周围围成了一个大圈。夕阳西下，飞机在前方的跑道上投下了长长的影子，像一个大惊叹号。

Luo Ji and Shi Qiang entered the cabin. Three men in black suits welcomed them and took them past the forward cabin, which was totally empty but resembled a passenger plane with four rows of seats. In the middle cabin, Luo Ji saw a fairly spacious office, and another suite through whose half-open door he glimpsed a bedroom. The furnishings were unremarkable but neat and orderly, and apart from the green safety belts on the sofa and chairs you wouldn’t have known you were on a plane. Luo Ji knew that there were very few charter planes of this kind in the country.

罗辑和史强进入机舱，有三名穿着黑色西装的人迎接他们，带着他们走过前舱，这里空无一人，看上去是客机的样子，有四排空空的座椅。但当进入中舱后，罗辑看到这里有一间相当宽敞的办公室，还有一个套间，透过半开的门，罗辑看到那是一间卧室。这里的陈设都很普通，干净整洁，如果不是看到沙发和椅子上的绿色安全带，感觉不到是在飞机上。罗辑知道，像这样的专机，国内可能没有几架。

Two of the three men who led them in vanished through a door to the rear cabin, leaving behind the youngest one, who said, “You can sit anywhere you like, but you need to buckle up, not just on takeoff and landing but throughout the entire flight. If you sleep, then buckle the sleep-belt too. Nothing that’s not fixed in place can be left out in the open. Stay in your seat or bunk at all times, and if you must move about, please inform the captain first. This is an intercom button. There’s one at every seat and every bunk. Hold it down to talk. If there’s anything you need, please use it to call us at any time.”

带他们进来的三人中，两人径直穿过另一个门向尾舱去了，留下的最年轻的那位说：“请你们随便坐，但一定要系好安全带，千万要注意，不只是在起飞降落时，全程都要系安全带，睡觉时也要把床上的安全睡袋扣好；不要在外面放不固定的小物品；尽量不要离开座位或床，如果需要起来活动，请一定先通知机长。这样的按钮就是送话器开关，座位和床边都有，按下后就能通话。有什么其他需要，也可以通过它呼叫我们。”

After Xiao Zhang left, Luo Ji and Shi Qiang sat on the sofa and fastened their seatbelts. Luo Ji looked about him. Apart from the round windows and the slightly curved walls they were set into, the room seemed so conventional and familiar that it felt a little strange to be wearing seatbelts in an ordinary office. But soon the noise and vibration of the engine reminded him he was aboard a plane taxiing down the runway, and a few minutes later the engine noise changed and the two of them were pressed back into the sofa. Then the ground vibrations disappeared and the office floor took on a slant. As the plane climbed, the sun, which had already dipped below the ground, returned through the window, just as the same sun had sent the day’s final rays of sunlight into the hospital room of Zhang Beihai’s father just ten minutes before.

小张走后，罗辑和史强坐到沙发上，各自系好安全带。罗辑四下看看，除了窗子是圆的，有窗的那面墙有些弧度外，一切都是那么普通和熟悉，以至于他们俩系着安全带坐在这问普通办公室里感觉怪怪的。但很快引擎的轰鸣和微微的震动提醒他们是在一架飞机上，飞机正在向起飞跑道滑行，几分钟后，随着引擎声音的变化，超重使两人陷进沙发中。来自地面的震动消失后，办公室的地板在他们面前倾斜了。随着飞机的上升，在地面已经落下去的夕阳又把一束光从舷窗投进来，就在十分钟前，同一个太阳也把今天的最后一束夕照投进章北海父亲的病房中。

Luo Ji looked in confusion at Shi Qiang, who said, “The plane may execute some special maneuvers.”

罗辑疑惑地看看史强，后者解释说：“这飞机有可能做特技飞行。”

The man nodded. “Correct. Please let me know if you have any problems. Call me Xiao Zhang. I’ll bring you dinner when we’re in the air.”

那人点点头，“是的，有事请叫我，叫小张就行，起飞后我会给你们送晚饭的。”

“What’s that got to do with us?” Wu Yue said coldly, his eyes sweeping from Tang to the last bits of sunset in the west.

“这与我们还有关系吗？”吴岳冷漠地回答，目光从“唐”号上移开，遥望着西天残存的那一抹晚霞。

As on their previous visit, Tang’s enormous frame was shrouded in the dim light of dusk. The showers of sparks on the hull didn’t seem quite as plentiful, and the lamps illuminating the ship had dimmed substantially. And this time, Wu Yue and Zhang Beihai no longer belonged to the navy.

像上次一样，“唐”号巨大的船体笼罩在刚刚降临的暮色中，船壳中国科上的焊花似乎不像上次那么密了，照在上面的灯光也暗了许多。而这时，吴岳和章北海已经不属于海军了。

“I heard the General Armaments Department has decided to terminate the Tang project,” Zhang Beihai said.

“听说，总装备部已经决定停止‘唐’号工程了。”章北海说。

“You’ve been in a bad mood since joining the space force.”

“自从进入太空军后，你的情绪一直很低落。”

By the time Luo Ji’s plane reached the coast, Wu Yue and Zhang Beihai were once again looking over the unfinished Tang, ten thousand meters below. This was the closest he would ever get to the two soldiers.

当罗辑所乘的飞机飞越海岸时，在他一万米的下方，吴岳和章北海再次注视着建造中的“唐”号。在以前和以后所有的时间里，这是罗辑距这两位军人最近的一次。

“You should know the reason. You can always read my thoughts, sometimes more clearly than I can, and then you remind me what it is I’m really thinking about.”

“你应该知道原因吧，你总是能轻易看到我的思想，有时候看得比我还透彻，经你提醒，我才知道自己真正想的是什么。”

Zhang Beihai turned to Wu Yue. “You’re depressed about joining what’s inevitably a losing war. You’re jealous of that final generation that will be young enough to fight in the space force at the end and be buried in the cosmos together with their fleet. Devoting a lifetime of effort to a hopeless endeavor is hard for you to accept.”

章北海转身直视着吴岳：“对于投身于一场注定要失败的战争，你感到悲哀。你很羡慕最后的那一代太空军，在年轻时就能战斗到最后，与舰队一起埋葬在太空。但把一生的心血耗尽在这样一个毫无希望的事业上，对你来说确实很难。”

Wu Yue dropped his cold mask and met Zhang Beihai’s gaze. “Beihai, you used to be a practical person. You opposed building Tang, and on multiple occasions, on the record, voiced doubts about building a blue-water navy, arguing that it was incompatible with our national strength. You believe that our naval forces ought to remain in coastal waters under the support and protection of shore-based firepower, an idea ridiculed as a turtle-shell strategy by the young hotheads, but you’ve persisted in it… So where do you get your confidence in a space victory from now? Do you really believe that wooden boats can sink an aircraft carrier?”

吴岳这时放下了冷漠的面具，迎接着章北海的目光：“北海，你以前曾经是一个很现实的人，你反对建造‘唐’号，曾经多次在正式场合对建立远洋海军的理念提出过质疑，认为它与国力不相符，你认为我们的海上力量应该在近海随时处于岸基火力的支援和保护之下，这种想法被少壮派们骂为乌龟战略，但你一直坚持……那么现在，你对这场星际战争的必胜信念是从哪儿来的，你真的认为小木船能击沉航空母舰？”

“No. Technofetishism and technological triumphalism are deeply rooted in your mind, and I learned long ago that I can’t change you. I can only try to minimize the harm that sort of thinking can cause. Besides, I don’t think it’s impossible for humanity to win this war.”

“没有，技术崇拜和技术制胜论在你的思想中是根深蒂固的，我早就知道改变不了体，只能尽力降低这种思想对工作造成的损害。另外，对这场战争，我并不认为人类的胜利是不可能的。”

“After independence, the newly founded navy used wooden boats to sink Nationalist destroyers. And even earlier, there were times when our army used cavalry to defeat tanks.”

“建国初期，刚刚成立的海军用木船击沉过国民党的驱逐舰；更早些，我军也有骑兵击败坦克群的战例。”

“Do you have any advice?”

“有什么要劝我的吗？”

“You can’t seriously think those miracles count as ordinary military theory.”

“你不至于把这些传奇上升为正常、普适的军事理论吧。”

Wu Yue nodded. “Not bad. People have tried it before. In the Second World War, the British did that as part of the effort to sink the Tirpitz, only they used a minisub. In the 1980s, during the Malvinas War, a few Argentine special forces soldiers took Italian limpet mines into Spain and attempted to blow up a British warship docked in the harbor at Gibraltar. You know what happened to them.”

吴岳点点头，“不错，有人试过的，二战中英国人为了击沉德军提尔匹兹号战列舰这么干过，只不过用的是一艘微型潜艇；上世纪八十年代，在马岛战争时期，有几个阿根廷特种兵带着磁性水雷潜人意大利。企图从水下炸沉停泊在巷口的英国军舰。不过结果你也都知道。”

“On this battlefield, terrestrial civilization won’t need to follow commonplace, ordinary military theory.” Zhang Beihai held up a finger. “One exception is sufficient.”

“在这场战争中，地球文明不需要正常的普适的军事理论，一次例外就够了。”章北海朝吴岳竖起一根手指。

Wu Yue shot him a mocking smile. “I’d like to hear how you’ll achieve this exception.”

吴岳露出讥讽的笑：“我想听听你怎么实现这次例外？”

“I don’t know anything about space warfare, of course, but if you want to compare it to a wooden boat versus a carrier, then I think it’s just a matter of having the courage to act and the confidence in a victory. A wooden boat could carry a small squad of divers who’ll wait in the carrier’s path. When the enemy draws near, they’ll dive in and the boat will leave. Then when the carrier comes close, they’ll attach a bomb to the bottom of the hull and sink the carrier… Of course this would be exceedingly difficult, but it’s not impossible.”

“我当然不懂太空战争，但如果你把它类比为小木船对航母的话，那我认为只要有行动的胆略和必胜的信心，前者真的有可能击沉后者。木船载上一支潜水员小分队，埋伏在航母经过的航道上，当敌舰驶至一定距离时，潜水分队下水，木船驶离，当航母驶过潜水分队上方时，他们将炸弹安置在船底……当然这做起来极其困难，但并非不可能。”

“Sometimes you’ve got a fantastic imagination,” Wu Yue said with a smile.

“有时候你是很有想象力的。”吴岳笑着说。

“But what we have is not just a small wooden boat. A one- or two-thousand-ton nuclear bomb can be made small enough for one or two divers to take underwater, and when it’s attached to the underside of a carrier, it won’t just sink it, it’ll blow the whole carrier to smithereens.”

“但我们有的不止是小木船，一枚一千至两千吨级的核弹完全可以制成一两名潜水员能够在水下携带的大小，如果把它贴到航母的船底，那就不止是击沉它，最大的航母也将被炸成碎片。”

“I’ve got confidence in our victory.” Zhang Beihai looked out at Tang, the distant shower of welding sparks reflected in his pupils like two small flames.

“我有的是胜利的信心。”章北海把目光移向“唐”号，远处的焊花在他的眸中映出两团小小的火焰。

Wu Yue too looked out at Tang, and a new vision took hold of him: The ship was no longer a ruined ancient fortress but a prehistoric cliff with a multitude of deep caves carved into it, and the scattered sparks were flickering firelight in those caves.

吴岳也看着“唐”号，这一次他对她又有了新的幻象：她不再是一座被废弃的古代要塞，而是一面更远古的崖壁，壁上有许多幽深的山洞，那稀疏的焊花就是洞中摇曳的火光。

After takeoff and all through dinner, Luo Ji refrained from asking Shi Qiang anything about where they were headed, or what exactly had happened, reasoning that if Shi Qiang was going to tell him anything, he would already have come out with it. Once, he unbuckled his seat belt and got up to look out the cabin window, even though he knew he would see nothing through the darkness, but Shi Qiang followed him and pulled down the window shade, saying that there was nothing to see out there.

飞机起飞后，直到吃过晚饭，罗辑都没有问史强诸如去哪儿、究竟发生了什么事这类问题，如果他知道并且可以告诉自己，那他早就说了。罗辑曾有一次解开安全带走到舷窗前，想向外面看，尽管他知道天黑后看不到什么，但史强还是跟了过来，拉上了舷窗的隔板，说没什么好看的。

“Sleep? So this is a long flight?”

“睡觉？看来要飞很长时间了？”

“Who cares? It’s a plane with beds. I say we take advantage of them.”

“管它呢，这有床的飞机，咱们还不得好好享用一下。”

“What are you complaining for? We’ve still got to make the return trip!” Shi Qiang grinned broadly, as if immensely pleased with himself. Cutting humor seemed to give him pleasure. But then he turned more serious: “I don’t know much more about your trip than you do. Besides, it’s not yet time for me to tell you anything. Take it easy. There’ll be someone at the handoff to explain things to you.”

“你抱怨什么，我们还得走回去呢！”史强咧嘴笑笑，对自己这话很得意，看来用残醋的幽默折磨人是他的乐趣。不过他接着稍微严肃了一点，“你走的这一趟，我知道的不比你多多少，再说也轮不着我对你说什么。放心，会有人对你把一切都交待清楚的。”

“I’ve been guessing for hours, but I’ve only come up with one possible explanation.”

“我猜了半天，只想出一个可能的答案。”

“Why don’t we chat for a while longer, and then go to sleep. What do you say?” asked Shi Qiang as he drew out a cigarette, then quickly put it back, remembering he was on a plane.

“咱们再聊会儿，然后去睡觉，好不好？”史强说，同时拿出烟来，但很快想到是在飞机上，又放了回去。

“Let me hear it, and let’s see if it’s the same as what I’m thinking.”

“说说看，看是不是和我猜的一样。”

“You’re only responsible for taking me to my destination, right?”

“你们只是负责把我送到目的地，是吗？”

“The woman who died was an ordinary person, so that means her social or family connections had to be something special.” Luo Ji didn’t know anything about her family, just like his previous lovers. He wasn’t interested, and forgot whatever they told him.

“她应该是个普通人，那只能是她的社会或家庭关系不一般。”罗辑不知道她的家庭，同前几个情人一样，就是她们说了他也不感兴趣记不往。

“Who? Oh, that lover of yours? Put her out of your mind, since you don’t care anyway. Or, if you want, why not compare her name and face to some famous figures?”

“谁啊，哦，你那个一周情人？还是别再想她了吧，反正你不在乎。不过想也可以，照你说的，你把她的姓和脸与大人物们—个个对对？”

Luo Ji’s mind flipped through comparisons, but nothing matched.

罗辑在脑子里对了一阵儿，没有对上谁。

“Do I need to bluff against someone?”

“我需要骗谁吗？”

“Luo, my man, can you bluff?” Shi Qiang asked. Luo had noticed a pattern in how he addressed him. When he was joking, he called him “my boy,” but when he was a little more serious, it was “my man.”

“罗兄啊，你骗人在行吗？”史强问，这之前罗辑发现了一个规律：他开玩笑时称自己为老弟，稍微认真时称为兄。

“Of course you do… So how about I teach you how to bluff? Of course, I’m not a master of it either. My work is more along the lines of breaking scams. Here, I’ll tell you a few tricks for the interrogation room. You might find it useful later to figure out what’s going on. Naturally, these are just the most basic, common ones. It’s hard to explain anything more complicated. We’ll start with the gentlest one, which happens to be the simplest: The List. That means drawing up a whole list of questions connected to the case, and then asking them one by one and recording the subject’s answers, and then starting over again from the top and recording those answers too. Questions can be asked repeatedly if necessary, and then you can compare the transcripts of the answers and find out if the subject is lying about something, since the answers will be different every time. The technique is simple, but don’t look down your nose at it. No one who hasn’t undergone training in counter-interrogation techniques will be able to pass it, so the most effective way of dealing with The List is simply to remain silent.” Shi Qiang fiddled unconsciously with his cigarette as he spoke, but then put it away again.

“当然需要了……那我就教教你怎么骗人吧，当然对此我也不在行，我的工作更偏重于防骗和揭穿骗局。这样，我给你讲讲审讯的几个基本技巧，你以后有可能用得着，到时知己知彼容易对付些。当然，只是最基本最常用的，复杂的一时也说不清。先说最文的一种，也是最简单的一种：拉单子，就是把与案子有关的问题列一个单子，单子上的问题越多越好，八竿子刚打着的全列上去，把关键要问的混在其中，然后一条一条地问，记下审讯对象的回答，然后再从头问一遍，也记下回答，必要时可以问很多遍，最后对照这几次的记录，如果对象说假话，那相应的问题每次的回答是有出入的你别看这办法简单，没有经过反侦查训练的人基本上都过不了关，对付拉单子，最可靠的办法就是保持沉默。”史强说着不由得又掏出烟来，但想起飞机上不能抽烟后又放回去。

“The next technique is only half-gentle. You can reach the ashtray — it’s fixed in place, you’ve just got to pull it up. Right. This technique is called Black and White. It requires the cooperation of lots of people and is a little more complicated. First, the bad cops come out, at least two of them on most occasions, and they’re really nasty to you. Some of them verbally and others physically, but they’re all mean. There’s a strategy to it: not just to make you afraid, but more importantly to make you feel alone, to make you feel like the whole world wants to consume you. Then the good cop comes out, just one, and he’s got a kind face, and he stops the bad cops and tells them that you’re a human being, that you’ve got rights, so how can they treat you that way? The bad cops tell him to beat it, that he’s affecting their work. The good cop persists, and says, ‘You can’t do this!’ The bad cops say, ‘I always knew you didn’t have the stones for this work. If you can’t handle it, then get lost.’ The good cop shields you with his body, and says, ‘I’m going to protect his rights, and protect justice under the law!’ The bad cops say, ‘Tomorrow you’re out of here, just you wait!’ Then they leave in a huff. So it’s just the two of you left, and the good cop wipes off your blood and sweat and tells you not to be afraid, and that you have the right to be silent! Then, as you can imagine, he becomes your one friend in the world, so when he draws you out, you aren’t silent anymore… This technique is most effective against intellectuals, but it differs from The List in that it loses its effect when you’re aware of it.”

“下一个，半文半武的。你能够着烟灰缸吧，固定着的，得拔下来，好。这一招叫黑白脸。这种审讯需要多人配合，稍复杂一些。首先是黑脸出来，一般是两人以上。他们对你很凶，可能动文的也可能动武的，反正很凶。这也是有策略的，不仅仅是让你产生恐惧，更重要的是激发你的孤独感，让你感觉全世界除了想吃你的狼就再没别的了。这时白脸出来了，肯定只有一个人，而且肯定长得慈眉善目，他制止了黑脸们，说你也是一个人，有人的权利，你们怎么能这样对待他？黑脸们说你走开，不要影响工作。白脸坚持，说你们真的不能这样做！黑脸们说早就知道你干不了这个，干不了走人啊！白脸用身体护住你说：我要保护他的权利，保护法律的公正！黑脸们说你等着，明天你就滚蛋了！然后气哼哼地走了。就剩你们俩时，白脸会替你擦擦汗呀血呀的，说别怕，有我在，他们不敢把你怎么样。不管我落到什么下场，定会维护你的权利！你不想说就别说了，你有权沉默！接下来的事儿你就能想得出了，他这时成了你在这个世界上唯一的最亲的人，在他进一步的利诱下，你是不会沉默的……这一招对付知识分子最管用，但与前面拉单子不同，你一旦知道了，它就失效了。当然，以上讲的一般都不单独使用，真正的审讯是一个大工程，是多种技术的综合……”

Shi Qiang had grown excited while speaking and seemed a little put out at Luo Ji’s interruption. It occurred to Luo Ji that he might be serious, or else he had an odd sense of humor. Shi Qiang pressed the red intercom button beside the sofa, and Xiao Zhang told him he could do what he liked. So the two of them lit up.

史强正说到兴头上，对罗辑打断自己的话有些恼火，罗辑惊奇地看到他似乎是很认真的，要不就是这人的幽默感太强了。史强按下沙发旁边的那个红色送话器按钮问了话，小张果然回答说请便。于是两人拿出烟抽了起来。

“Ask them. It’s a charter flight, so they ought to allow smoking,” Luo Ji said.

“你问问看，这是专机，应该能抽烟的。”罗辑对史强说。

He spoke animatedly and seemed about to take off his seat belt and stand up. Luo Ji was seized by dread and despair and felt as if he had fallen into an ice pit. Noticing his discomfort, Shi Qiang stopped.

史强眉飞色舞地说着，几乎想挣脱安全带站起来，但罗辑听着却像掉进了冰窟窿，绝望和恐惧再一次攫住了他，史强注意到了这一点，打住了话头。

“Well, then, let’s not talk about interrogation, even if it might be useful to you. You can’t take it in all at once. Besides, I was going to tell you how to trick people, so just remember this: Real shrewdness means not letting any shrewdness show. It’s not like in the movies. The truly astute don’t sit in the shadows all day striking a pose. They don’t show off that they’re using their brains. They look all carefree and innocent. Some of them are tacky and mawkish, others careless and unserious. What’s critical is not to let others think you’re a person of interest. Let them look down on you or dismiss you and they won’t feel you’re an obstacle. You’re just a broom in the corner. The pinnacle of this is to make them not notice you at all, as if you don’t exist until the moment right before they die at your hands.”

“好了好了，不谈审讯了，虽然这些知识你以后可能用得着，但一时也接受不了。再说我本来是教你怎么骗人的，注意一点：如果你的城府真够深，那就不能显示出任何城府来，和电影上看到的不同，真正老谋深算的人不是每天阴着脸装那副鸟样儿，他们压根儿就不显出用脑子的样儿来，看上去都挺随和挺单纯的，有人显得俗里俗气婆婆蚂妈，有人则大大咧咧没个正经……关键的关键是让别人别把你当回事，让他们看不起你轻视你，觉得你碍不了事，像墙角的扫把一样可有可无，最高的境界是让他们根本注意不到你，就当你不存在，直到他们死在你手里前的一刹那才回过味来。”

In the bedroom, Luo Ji took off his bulletproof jacket and wrapped himself in the safety sleeping bag. Shi Qiang helped him tighten the straps holding it to the bed, and then set down a small vial on the bedside cabinet.

进入卧室后，罗辑脱下那件防弹夹克钻进床上的那个安全睡袋，史强帮他把睡袋与床固定的安全扣扣好，并把一个小瓶放到床头柜上。

“Will I ever have the need or opportunity to become that sort of person?” Luo Ji broke in to ask.

“我有必要，或者还有机会成为这样的人吗？”罗辑终于插上一句。

Then they sat in silence watching the clouds of smoke curl upward to the ceiling, where they were sucked away into a crack.

他们沉默了，看着几缕青烟袅袅上升，最后被从天花板上的一个格栅孔吸走。

“Like I said, I know no more about this than you do. But I’ve got a premonition that you need to become such a person. Luo, my man, you’ve got to!” Shi Qiang grew excited again and clapped him on the shoulder with enough force to make him wince.

“还是那句话：这事儿我知道的不比你多，但我有预感。你必须成为这样一个人，罗兄，必须！”史强突然激动起来，他一手抓住罗辑的肩膀，很有力地抓着，让罗辑感到很疼。

“Sleeping pills. Take them if you can’t sleep. I asked for alcohol, but they said there isn’t any.”

“安眠药，睡不着就吃点，我本来想要酒的，可他们说没有。”

Shi Qiang reminded Luo Ji that he should notify the captain before getting out of bed, then turned to leave.

史强接着嘱咐罗辑下床长时间活动前一定要通知机长，然后向外走去。

“Screw it. Let’s hit the sack,” Shi Qiang said as he ground out his cigarette in the ashtray. He shook his head with a smile. “I’ve been going on like an idiot. When you think back on this, don’t laugh at me.”

“算了，睡觉吧。”史强在烟灰缸中掐灭了烟头说，他笑着摇摇头，“我居然跟你扯这些个，以后想起来可别笑话我啊。”

“Whatever it is, I’ve never seen someone who could stay calm in a situation like this. Forget all that stuff I said before. I just like to kid around about things.”

“不管怎么说，能在这种时候这么冷静的人我还真没见过。别在意我前面说的那些，我这人嘛，也只会拿人在这些方面寻开心了。”

At the door, Shi Qiang half-turned back to look at him. “I’m not any sort of cop. The police aren’t involved in this thing. Everyone calls me Da Shi.”

史强在门口回过头来：“我现在已经不是警察了，这事儿没有警察参与，他们都叫我大史。”

“Officer Shi,” Luo Ji called after him.

“史警官。”罗辑叫了一声。

“You’re one of the calmest people I’ve ever met.”

“你是我见过的最冷静的人之一。”

“Well then, Da Shi, when we were talking just now, I noticed the first thing you said. Or, I guess, the first thing you said in reply to me. I said, ‘the woman,’ and you didn’t realize for a moment who I was talking about. That means that she’s not a major part of this case.”

“那就对了，大史，刚才我们聊天时，我注意到你的一句话，或者说是对我的一句话的反应：我说‘她’，你一时竞没想起我指的是谁，这说明，她在这件事里并不重要。”

“What do you think I should think about now?”

“那你说我现在该朝哪方面想？”

“The calmness comes from cynicism. There’s not much in the world that can make me care.”

“这冷静来自于我的玩世不恭，这世界上很难有什么东西让我在意。”

“You’re just looking for something to hold my attention so that you can smoothly complete your mission.”

“体是想找到一件事情把我的注意力牢牢拴往，以顺利完成你的使命。”

“In my experience, any thinking is liable to go off the rails. You should just go to sleep.”

“以我的经验，朝哪方面都会想歪的，现在只该睡觉。”

“If I’ve set your imagination going, I apologize.”

“要是我让你乱想，那就很抱歉了。”

Then Luo Ji felt that it wasn’t an illusion, that the sound really was coming from some far-off place outside. He unbuckled the sleeping bag and crawled out, then pushed up the shade over the window by the bed. Outside, the moon was shining on a sea of clouds, a vast ocean of silver. Luo Ji realized that above the clouds were other things shining with a silver light, four ramrod-straight lines that caught the eye against the backdrop of the night sky. They were extending at the same speed as the plane, and their trailing ends faded out and blended into the night like four silver swords flying over the clouds. Luo Ji looked back at the tips and noticed that the silver lines were being drawn out by four objects with a metallic glint. Four fighter jets. It wasn’t hard to guess that another four were on the other side of the plane.

后来，罗辑觉得这不是幻觉，这声音好像真的有一部分来自外部很远的地方。他解开睡袋的扣子爬了出来，推开了床头舷窗上的隔板。外面，云海提满了月光，一片银亮。罗辑很快发现，在云海上方，还有东西也在发着银光。那是四条笔直的线，在夜空的背景上格外醒目。它们以与飞机相同的速度延伸着，尾部则渐淡地消融在夜空中，像四把飞行在云海上的银色利剑。罗辑再看银线的头部，发现了四个闪着金属光泽的物体，银线就是它们拉出来的——那是四架歼击机。可以想象，这架飞机的另一侧还有四架。

Shi Qiang left. After he closed the door, the room was dark except for a small red lamp at the head of the bed. The ever-present background rumble of the engine was particularly conspicuous, as if the infinite night sky on the other side of the wall was emitting a deep hum.

史强走了，门关上后，只有床头一盏小红灯亮着，房间里黑了下来。引擎的嗡鸣构成的背景声这时显现出来，无所不在，似乎是与这里仅一壁之隔的无边的夜空在低吟。

“Commander, before we report on our work, I’d first like to share some of my own views. I believe that the military leadership has not paid sufficient attention to political and ideological work among the forces. For example, the political department is the last of the six established departments to present its report at this meeting.”

“首长，在汇报工作之前，我想先谈一点自己的意见。我认为军领导层对部队的政治思想工作重视不够，比如这次会议，在已成立的六个部门中，政治部是最后一个汇报工作的。”

In the dead of night, the space force work meeting was still in progress. Zhang Beihai pushed aside the notebook and documents that lay on the desk in front of him and stood up, scanning the tired faces of the officers before turning toward Chang Weisi.

深夜，太空军的工作会议仍在进行中。章北海推开面前桌面上的工作簿和文件，站起身来，扫视了一下会场上面露倦容的军官们，转向常伟思。

Chang Weisi nodded. “I concur. The political commissars have not yet reported for duty, so it’s fallen to me to oversee political work. Now that we’ve finally begun work in all areas, it’s difficult to give it enough attention. For the bulk of the work, we’ll have to rely on you and the others who are in charge of specifics.”

“这意见我接受。”常伟思点点头，“军种政委还没有到职，政工方面的工作由我兼管，现在，各项工作都刚刚展开，在这方面确实难以太多顾及，主要的工作，还得靠你们具体负责的同志去做。”

Luo Ji pulled down the shade and burrowed back into the sleeping bag. He closed his eyes and willed his mind to relax. He didn’t want to sleep, but to wake up from his dream.

罗辑关上隔板，钻回捶袋，他闭上双眼努力放松自己的意识，不是想睡觉，而是试图从梦中醒来。

“Commander, in my opinion, the present situation is dangerous.” This remark drew the attention of several officers, and Zhang Beihai continued. “Please forgive me for speaking pointedly. For one thing, we’ve been in meetings all day and we’re all tired, so no one will listen if I’m not blunt.” A few people laughed, but the rest were still mired in their fatigue. “More importantly, I’m truly worried. The battle we are facing has a force disparity unprecedented in the history of human warfare, so I believe that for the indefinite future the greatest danger facing the space force is defeatism. Its threat can’t be overstated. The spread of defeatism will not only result in an erosion of morale, but may lead to the total collapse of space-based military power.”

“首长，我认为现在这种状况很危险。”这话让几个军官稍微集中了注意力，章北海接着说，“我的话有些尖锐，请首长包涵，这一是因为开了一天的会。现在大家都累了，不尖锐没人听。”有几个人笑了笑，其他的与会者仍沉浸在闻倦中，“更主要的是我心里确实着急。我们所面临的这场战争，敌我力量之悬殊是人类战争史上前所未有的，所以我认为，在相当长的一段时间里，太空军所面临的最大危险是失败主义。这种危险怎样高估都不为过，失败主义蔓延所造成的后果，绝不仅仅是军心不稳，而是可能导致太空武装力量的全面崩溃。”

Chang Weisi nodded again. “I agree. Defeatism is our greatest enemy at present. The military commission is acutely aware of this. It’s why political and ideological work in the services will be critical. Once the basic units of the space force are in place, the work will become more complex.”

“同意。”常伟思又点点头，“失败主义是目前最大的敌人，对这一点军委也有深刻的认识，这就使得军种的政治思想工作肩负重大使命，而太空军的基层部队一旦形成，工作将更复杂，难度也更大。”

“The source of this defeatism stems primarily from the worship of technology, and the underestimation or complete dismissal of the role of human initiative and the human spirit in war. It is a development and extension of techno-triumphalism and the ‘weapons decide everything’ theory that has cropped up in the armed forces in recent years. The trend is particularly pronounced among highly educated officers. Defeatism among the troops takes the following forms:”

“失败主义的思想根源，主要是盲目的技术崇拜，轻视或忽视人的精神和主观能动性在战争中的作用，这也是近年来部队中出现的技术制胜论和唯武器论等思潮在太空军中的延续和发展，这种思潮在高学历军官中表现得尤为突出。部队中的失败主义主要有以下表现形”

Zhang Beihai flipped open his notebook. “The work report follows,” he said, and began to read: “Since the establishment of the space force, our primary focus in political and ideological work among the troops has been to conduct a survey of the overall ideological status of officers and soldiers. Since the organization of this new branch is simple at the present time, with few members and few administrative levels, the survey was conducted through informal meetings and personal interaction, and a corresponding forum was set up on the intranet. The results of the survey are worrying. Defeatist thinking is prevalent and spreading swiftly among the troops. The mentality of a sizeable proportion of our comrades consists of terror toward the enemy and a lack of confidence in the future of war.

章北海翻开工作簿。“下面开始工作汇报。太空军成立伊始，在部队政治思想工作方面，我们所做的主要工作就是对指战员总体思想状况的调查了解。由于目前新军种的人员较少，行政层次少，机构简单，调查主要通过座谈和个人交流，并在内部网络上建立了相应的论坛。调查的结果是令人忧虑的，失败主义思想在部队普遍存在，且有迅速蔓延扩大的趋势，畏敌如虎、对战争的未来缺乏信心，是相当一部分同志的心态。

“One. Treating one’s duty in the space force as an ordinary job: despite working with dedication and responsibility, lacking enthusiasm and sense of mission and doubting the ultimate significance of one’s work.”

“一、把自己在太空军中的使命看作是一项普通的职业，在工作上虽然尽心尽职，认真负责，但缺少热情和使命感，对自己工作的最终意义产生怀疑。”

“Two. Passive waiting: believing that the outcome of the war depends on scientists and engineers; believing that prior to breakthroughs in basic research and key technologies, the space force is just a pipe dream, and subsequent confusion about the importance of its present work; being satisfied simply with completing tasks related to establishing this military branch; lacking innovation.”

“二、消极等待。认为这场战争的胜负取决于科学家和工程师，在基础研究和关键技术研究没有取得重大突破之前，太空军只是空中楼阁，所以对目前的工作重点不明确，仅满足于军种组建的事务性工作，缺少创新。”

“Three. Harboring unrealistic fantasies: requesting to use hibernation technology to leap four centuries into the future and take part in the Doomsday Battle directly. A number of younger comrades have already expressed this wish, and one has even submitted a formal application. On the surface, this is a positive state of mind, a desire to throw oneself onto the front lines, but it is essentially just another form of defeatism. Lacking confidence in victory and doubting the significance of our present work, a soldier’s dignity becomes the only pillar sustaining work and life.”

“三、抱有一种不切实际的幻想，要求借助冬眠技术使自己跨越四个世纪，直接参加最后决战。目前已经有几个年轻同志表达了这种愿望，有人还递交了正式申请。表面上看，这是一种渴望投身于战争最前沿的积极心态，但实质上是失败主义的另一种表现形式，对战争的胜利缺乏信心，对目前工作的意义产生怀疑，于是军人的尊严成了工作和人生中唯一的支柱。”

“Four. The opposite of the above: doubts about the dignity of the soldier, the belief that the military’s traditional moral code is no longer suitable for the battlefield, and that fighting to the end has no meaning; the belief that a soldier’s dignity only exists when there is someone to see it, and when a battle ends in defeat and no humans are left in the universe, then this dignity loses its significance. Although only a minority hold this notion, the abrogation of the very worth of the space force is exceedingly harmful.”

“四、与上一种表现相反，对军人的尊严也产生了怀疑，认为军队传统的道德准则已不适合这场战争，战斗到最后是没有意义的。认为军人尊严存在的前提是有人看到这种尊严，而这场战争一旦失败，宇宙中将无人存在，那这种尊严本身也失去了意义。虽然只有少数人持有这种想法，但这种消解太空武装力量最终价值的思想是十分有害的。”

The tiredness of the room was swept away and the attendees pricked up their ears. Everyone looked nervously at Zhang Beihai and then at Wu Yue, who gazed placidly back, the picture of calmness.

会场中的困倦顿时一扫而光，所有与会者都来了兴趣，他们紧张地看看章北海，再看看吴岳，后者显得很镇静，用平静的目光看着章北海。

Here Zhang Beihai looked out at the assembly and saw that although his speech had attracted some interest, it still hadn’t managed to shake the fatigue from the meeting hall. He was confident that what he had to say next would change the situation.

说到这里，章北海看看会场，发现他的这番话虽引起了一些注意，但仍然没有扫走笼罩在会场上的困倦，但他有信心在接下来的发言中改变这种状况。

“I’ll give you a specific example of a comrade who exhibits a typical form of defeatism. I am referring to Colonel Wu Yue.” Zhang Beihai held out his hand in the direction of Wu Yue’s seat at the conference table.

“下面我想举一个具体的例子，失败主义在这位同志身上有着很典型的表现，我说的是吴岳上校。”章北海把手伸向会议桌对面吴岳的方向。

“Wu Yue and I have worked together in the navy for quite some time and we know each other very well. He has a strong technology complex, and as a captain he is a technical type, or, if you want, an engineer. This in itself isn’t a bad thing, but unfortunately, his military thinking is over-reliant on technology, and while he doesn’t come out and say it, he subconsciously believes that technological advancement is the primary and perhaps sole determinant of combat effectiveness. He completely neglects the human role in battle, particularly in his lack of understanding of the unique advantages formed in our army by difficult historical conditions. When he learned of the Trisolar Crisis, he lost all confidence in the future, and once he joined the space force, this despair only became more pronounced. Comrade Wu Yue’s defeatist sentiment is so heavy and ingrained that we have no hope of pulling him out of it. We must adopt strong measures as soon as possible to arrest the spread of defeatism in the troops, and therefore I believe that Comrade Wu Yue is no longer suitable for work in the space force.”

“我和吴岳同志在海军中长期共事，相互之间都很了解。他有很深的技术情结，是一名技术型的，或者说工程师型的舰长。这本来不是坏事，但遗憾的是，他在军事思想上过分依赖技术。虽没有明说，但在潜意识中一直认为技术的先进性是部队战斗力主要的、甚至是唯一的决定因素，忽视人在战争中所起的作用，特别是对我军在艰苦的历史条件中所形成的特有优势缺乏足够认识。当得知三体危机出现时，他就已经对未来失去信心，进入太空军后。这种绝望更多地表露出来。吴岳同志的失败主义情绪是如此之重，如此根深蒂同，以至于我们失去了使他重新振作起来的希望。应该尽早采取强有力的措施对部队中的失败主义进行遏制，所以，我认为吴岳同志已经不适合继续在太空军中工作。”

The atmosphere turned tense. Several officers looked at the notebook in front of Zhang Beihai, wondering who else its contents might concern.

会场的气氛变得紧张起来，有几名军官看着章北海面前的那个工作簿，猜测起那里面还有关于谁的什么。

All eyes were on Wu Yue, who was now looking at the space force emblem on his hat lying on the table. He remained calm as before.

大家都把目光集中到吴岳的身上，他这时看着放在会议桌上的军帽上的太空军军徽，仍然显得很平静。

Wu Yue raised a hand requesting permission to speak, and at a nod from Chang Weisi, he said, “What Comrade Zhang Beihai has said about my mental state is accurate, and I accept his conclusion: I am no longer fit to serve in the Space Force. I will abide by whatever the organization arranges.”

吴岳举起一只手请求发言，常伟思点头后他说：“章北海同志所说的关于我的思想情况都属实，我承认他的结论：自己不适台继续在太空军服役，我听从组织的安排。”

One senior colonel in the air force got up and said, “Comrade Zhang Beihai, this is an ordinary work meeting. You ought to go through the proper organizational channels instead of bringing up issues like this. Do you think it’s appropriate to talk about this openly?”

一名空军大校起身说道：“章北海同志，这是普通的工作会议，像这样涉及个人的问题，你应该通过正常的渠道向组织反映，在这里公开讲合适吗？”

Throughout the course of his speech, Zhang Beihai had not even glanced in Wu Yue’s direction. He continued: “Commander, Comrade Wu Yue, and the rest of you, I ask for your understanding. I say this only out of concern for the present ideological state of the troops. Of course, I also hope to engage Wu Yue in face-to-face, frank, and open discussion.”

发言的过程中，章北海始终没有向吴岳所在的方向看一眼。他接着说：“请首长、吴岳同志和大家理解，我这番话，只是出于对部队目前思想状况的忧虑，当然，也是想和吴岳同志面对面进行公开的、坦诚的交流。”

Zhang Beihai said, “I know that my remarks violate organizational principles, and I am prepared to accept all responsibility. However, I do believe that I must, by whatever means, bring the seriousness of our current situation to your attention.”

章北海说：“我知道，自己的这番发言有违组织原则，我本人愿意就此承担一切责任，但我认为，不管用什么方式，必须使我们意识到目前情况的严重性。”

Chang Weisi raised a hand to prevent any other replies. “First, the sense of responsibility and urgency that Comrade Zhang Beihai has shown in his work must be commended. The existence of defeatism amongst the troops is a fact, and we must face it rationally. So long as a technology gap exists between our two sides, defeatism will not vanish. It is not a problem that can be solved through simple methods but will require long and painstaking work, as well as more interaction and discussion. However, I also agree with the suggestion proposed by the colonel: matters concerning personal ideology should be resolved primarily through communication and exchange, and if a report is necessary, it should be made through the proper channels.”

常伟思抬起手制止了更多人的发言：“首先，应该肯定章北海同志在工作中表现出来的责任心和忧患意识。失败主义在部队中的存在是事实，我们应该理性地面对，只要敌我双方悬殊的技术差距存在，失败主义就不会消失，靠简单的工作方法是解决不了问题的。这是一项长期细致的工作，应该有更多的沟通和交流。另外，我也同意刚才有同志提出的：涉及到个人思想方面的问题，以沟通和交流为主。如果有必要反映，还是要通过组织渠道。”

His words were immediately echoed by many of the other officers.

他的话立刻引起了众多军官的附和。

Imagining the boundless night sky above the cloud layer, Luo Ji struggled to collect his thoughts. Involuntarily, his mind drifted to thoughts of the woman: her voice and laughing face appeared in the dimness, and a sorrow he had never felt before weighed upon his heart. This was followed closely by self-reproach, a disdain he had felt on countless prior occasions, but never so intensely. Why was she on his mind now? Up to this point, his only reaction to her death apart from fear and astonishment had been self-absolution, and only now that he knew her role in the situation was negligible did he spare her any of his precious sorrow. What sort of a person was he?

罗辑想象着外面云层之上无边的暗夜，艰难地整理着自己的思绪。不知不觉间，他的思想集中到她身上，她的音容笑貌出现在昏暗中，一种前所未有的悲哀冲击着他的心扉，接踵而来的，是对自己的鄙视，这种鄙视以前多次出现过，但从没有现在这么强烈。你为什么现在才想到她？这之前，对于她的死你除了震惊和恐惧就是为自己开脱，直到现在你发现整个事情与她关系不大，才把自己那比金子还贵重的悲哀给了她一点儿，你算什么东西‘

The officers let out a sigh of relief. At this meeting, at least, Zhang Beihai would not be mentioning their names.

在场的很多军官都橙了一口气，至少在这次会议上，章北海不会提到他们了。

In his bed, the minute oscillations of the plane gave Luo Ji the feeling of being in a cradle. He had slept in a cradle as a baby, he remembered, and one day in his parents’ basement he had seen, covered in dust under an old kid’s bed, the rockers of a cradle. Now when he closed his eyes and imagined the couple rocking his cradle, he asked himself, From the day you left that cradle, have you ever cared about anyone else besides those two people? Have you ever made even a small, permanent bit of room in your heart for anyone else?

飞机在气流中微微起伏着。罗辑躺在床上有在摇篮中的感觉。他知道自己在婴儿时睡过摇篮，那天，在父母家的地下室，他看到了一张落满灰尘的童床，床的下面就安装有摇篮的弧橇。现在，他闭起双眼想象着那两个为自己轻推摇篮的人，同时自问：自你从那张摇篮中走出来直到现在，除了那两个人，你真在乎过谁吗？你在心灵中真的为谁留下过一块小小的但永久的位置吗？

But what could be done? That’s just the sort of person he was.

可没办法，我就是这么一个人。

Yes, he had made room, once. Five years before, the golden light of love had inhabited his heart. But that had been an unreal experience.

是的，留下过。有一次，罗辑的心被金色的爱情完全占据，但那却是一次不可思议的经历。

Everything had started with Bai Rong, an author of young-adult novels. She wrote them in her spare time but had gained enough of a following to bring her more in royalties than she made in salary. Out of all the women he had met, he had spent the most time with Bai Rong, and had even reached the point of considering marrying her. Their relationship was the ordinary sort, not particularly intense or unforgettable, but they felt it suited them to be relaxed and happy together. Despite a certain dread of marriage, they felt giving it a try was the responsible thing to do.

所有那一切都是由白蓉引起的，她是一名写青春小说的作家，虽是业余的但已经小有名气，至少她拿的版税比工资要多。在认识的所有异性中，罗辑与向蓉的交往时间是最长的，最后甚至到了考虑婚姻的阶段。他们之间的感情属于比较昔通常见的那类，谈不上多么投入和铭心刻骨，但他们认为对方适合自己，在一起轻松愉快，尽管两人对婚姻都有一种恐惧感，但也都觉得负责的做法是尝试一下。

At Bai Rong’s behest, he had read all of her work, and while he wouldn’t say he appreciated it, it wasn’t as torturous as the other works in the genre he had flipped through. She had an elegant style, and a mature lucidity that her peers lacked. But this style was not complemented by the novels’ content. Reading them was like looking at dewdrops on the undergrowth: pure and transparent, but distinguished from each other only by the way the light reflected and refracted through them and how they rolled about on the leaves, fusing together where they met and separating when they fell, until they evaporated entirely within the space of a few minutes after sunrise. Every time he read one of her books, beneath the graceful style he was left with one question: What do these people live on if they spend twenty-four hours a day in love?

在白蓉的要求下，罗辑看过了她的所有作品。虽谈不上是一种享受，但也不像他瞄过几眼的其他此类小说那么折磨人。白蓉的文笔很好，清丽之中还有一种她这样的女作者所没有的简洁和成熟。但那些小说的内容与这文笔不相称，读着它们。罗辑仿佛看见一堆草丛中的露珠，它们单纯透明，只有通过反射和折射周围的五光十色才显出自己的个性，它们在草叶上滚来滚去，在相遇的拥抱中融合，在失意的坠落中分离。太阳一升高，就在短时间内全部消失。每看完白蓉的一本书，除了对她那优美的文笔的印象外，罗辑只剩下一个问题：这些每天二十四小时恋爱的人靠什么生活？

“A whole novel?”

“一本？”

“That love you write about — do you think it exists in the real world?” he asked one day.

“你真相信现实中有你写的这种爱情？”有一天罗辑问。

On her birthday last year, she had asked him for a specific present: “Can you write a novel for me?”

在去年白蓉的生日，她向罗辑要求一个生日礼物。“你能为我写一本小说吗？”

“I do.”

“有的。”

Sometimes he would give her suggestions for the novels she was working on, or even help her revise them.

有时，罗辑对自蓉正在写的小说提出意见，甚至亲自帮她修改。

“It’s like you’re more talented than I am,” she said once. “You’re not revising plot, but character, and that’s the hardest thing to do. Every time, you’re adding the touches that make the characters most vivid. Your skill at creating literary figures is first rate.”

“你好像比我更有文学才华，你帮我改的不是情节，是人物，改人物是最难的，你的每一次修改对那些形象都是点睛之笔。你创造文学形象的能力是一流的。”

“You’ve got to be kidding. My background’s in astronomy.”

“开什么玩笑，我是学天文出身的。”

“With you as the protagonist?”

“以你为主人公吗？”

She squeezed his neck. “Either way, I’m telling you that it exists,” she said cryptically into his ear.

白蓉接着罗辑的脖子，对着他的耳根很神秘地说：“反正有的，我告诉你吧，有的！”

“Something you’ve seen, or something you’ve experienced yourself?”

“是你见过还是自己遇到过？”

“Well, at least fifty thousand characters long.”

“嗯……不少于五万字吧。”

“Wang Xiaobo studied mathematics, remember.”

“王小波是学数学的。”

“No. I saw a really interesting exhibition of paintings by male artists of the most beautiful women they could imagine. The protagonist of your novel should be the same. You can leave reality behind and create an angel based entirely on your dream of feminine perfection.”

“不，我看过一个很有意思的画展，都是男画家的作品，画的是他们想象中最美的女人。你这篇小说的主人公就是休心目中最美的女孩儿，你要完全离开现实去创造这样一个天使。唯一的依据是你对女性最完美的梦想。”

So he began constructing a character. He first imagined her face, and then designed her clothes, and then thought of her environment and the people around her, and finally placed her in that environment and had her move about and speak, letting her live. But this soon turned tedious, and he told Bai Rong about the difficulties he had encountered: “She’s like a puppet on a string. Every word and action arises from the design but lacks the spark of life.”

于是，罗辑开始构思这个人物。他首先想象她的容貌。然后为她设计衣着，接着设想她所处的环境和她周围的人。最后把她放到这个环境中，让她活动和说话。让她生活。很快，这事变得索然无味了，他向白蓉述说了自己遇到的困境。“她好像是一个提线木偶，每个动作和每一句话都来自于我的设想，缺少一种生命感。”

To this day he had no idea of the motivation for her request. Maybe she didn’t know herself. Thinking back now, it seemed her mood at the time had been a mixture of craftiness and ambivalence.

直到现在，罗辑也不知道白蓉这要求到底是什么用意。也许连她自己也不知道。现在回想起来，她当时的表情好像有些狡猾，又有些犹豫。

So he followed her advice. He threw out everything he wanted to write and instead imagined the character’s entire life and every detail of it. He imagined her nursing at her mother’s breast, her tiny mouth sucking energetically and burbling with satisfaction; chasing a red balloon tumbling down the street but making it just one step before falling to the ground, wailing as she watched the balloon drift away without realizing that she had just taken her first step; walking in the rain and impulsively folding up her umbrella to feel the raindrops; her first day at elementary school, sitting alone in a strange classroom, unable to see her parents through the windows or door, and nearly starting to cry, only to realize that her best friend from kindergarten was at a nearby desk, and crying in joy instead; her first night at college, lying on her dorm bunk and watching the shadows of trees thrown by streetlamps onto the ceiling… He imagined every one of her favorite foods, the color and style of every item of clothing in her dresser, the decorations on her mobile phone, the books she read, the music on her media player, the Web sites she visited, the movies she liked; but never her makeup, because she didn’t need makeup… Like a creator outside of time, he wove the different stages of her life together and gradually came to discover the endless pleasure of creation.

于是罗辑照白蓉说的做了，完全抛开自己要写的内容，去想象她的整个人生，想象她人生中的每一个细节。他想象她在妈妈的怀中吃奶，小嘴使劲吮着，发出满意的晤晤声；想象雨中漫步的她突然收起了伞，享受着和雨丝接触的感觉；想象她追一个在地上滚的红色气球，仅追了一步就摔倒了，看着远去的气球哇哇大哭。完全没有意识到她刚才迈出的是人生的第一步；想象她上小学的第一天，孤独地坐在陌生教室的第三排，从门口和窗子都看不到爸爸妈妈了，就在她要哭出来时，发现邻桌是幼儿同的同学，高兴地叫起来；想象大学的第一个夜晚，她躺在宿舍的上铺，看着路灯投在天花板上的树影……罗辑想象出她爱吃的每一样东西，想象她的衣橱中每一件衣服的颜色和样式，想象她手机上的小饰物，想象她看的书她的MP4中的音乐她上的网站她喜欢的电影，但从未想象过她用什么化妆品，她不需要化妆品……罗辑像一个时间之上的创造者，同时在她生命中的不同时空编织着她的人生。他渐渐对这种创造产生了兴趣，乐此不疲。

She said, “Your approach is wrong. You’re writing an essay rather than creating a literary figure. What a literary character does in ten minutes might be a reflection of ten years’ experience. You can’t be limited to the plot of a novel — you’ve got to imagine her entire life, and what actually gets put into words is just the tip of the iceberg.”

白蓉说：“你的方法不对，你是在作文，不是在创造文学形象。要知道，一个文学人物十分钟的行为，可能是她十年的经历的反映。你不要局限于小说的情节，要去想象她的整个生命，而真正写成文字的只是冰山的一角。”

He was taken aback: Had he told her to smile? The smile had already imprinted itself on his memory like a stain on ice, never to be wiped away.

罗辑很奇怪，我没让她笑啊？可那笑容已经留在记忆中，像冰上的水渍，永远擦不掉了。

The real turning point came the following night. The snow and wind picked up, temperatures plummeted, and he watched from the warmth of his dorm the bluster that blanketed the other sounds of the city, the buffeting of the snowflakes on the widow like the patter of sand. A huge carpet of snow covered everything outdoors. The city seemed to no longer exist, leaving the faculty dormitory standing on an infinite snowy plain. He went back to bed, but before he drifted off to sleep he had a sudden thought: If she were outside in this awful weather, she would be terribly cold. Then he reminded himself: It doesn’t matter, she won’t be outside unless you put her there. But this time his imagination failed, and she continued walking outside in the blizzard like a blade of grass that could blow away at any moment. She still wore that white coat and that red scarf, which was all he could make out, vaguely, through the swirling snow, like a tiny flame fighting against the storm.

真正的转机发生在第二天夜里。这天晚上风雪交加，气温骤降，在温暖的宿舍里，罗辑听着外面狂风怒号，盖住了城市中的其他声音，打在玻璃上的雪花像沙粒般啪啪作响，向外看一眼也只见一片雪尘。这时，城市似乎已经不存在了，这幢教工宿舍楼似乎是孤立在无际的雪原上。罗辑躺回床上，进入梦乡前突然有了一个想法：这鬼天气，她要是在外面走路该多冷啊。他接着安慰自己：没关系。

One day at the library, he imagined her standing by a row of shelves, reading. He put her in his favorite outfit, so her petite form would stand out more vividly in his mind. Suddenly, she looked up from the book and over at him, and flashed him a smile.

一天在图书馆，罗辑想象她站在远处的一排书架前看书，他为她选了他最喜欢的那一身衣服，只是为了使她的娇小身材在自己的印象中更清晰一些。突然，她从书上抬起头来，远远地看了他一眼，冲他笑了一下。

As his mind was sputtering to life, she came quietly, her small frame wrapped in a layer of cold from the outdoors, but with a breath of spring amid the chilliness. The snowflakes in her hair quickly melted into gleaming droplets as she unwrapped her scarf and put her hands to her mouth to blow on them. He folded her hands in his to warm the icy softness, and she looked at him with excitement and asked the question he was about to ask her: “Are you okay?”

罗辑再也不可能人睡了，他起身坐在床上，后来又披衣坐到沙发上，本来想抽烟的，但想起她讨厌烟味，就冲了一杯咖啡慢慢地喝着。他必须等她，外面的寒夜和风雩揪着他的心，他第一次如此心疼一个人，如此想念一个人。就在他的思念像火一样燃烧起来时，她轻轻地来了，娇小的身躯裹着一层外面的寒气，清凉中却有股春天的气息；她刘海上的雪花很快融成晶莹的水珠。她解开红围巾，把双手放在嘴边呵着。他握住她纤细的双手，温暖着这冰凉的柔软，她激动地看着他，说出了他本想问候她的话：“你还好吗？”

It was impossible for him to sleep. He sat up in his bed, then threw on some clothes and sat on the sofa. He wondered if he should have a smoke but, remembering that she detested the smell, instead made a cup of coffee and drank it slowly. He had to wait for her. The blizzard and the cold night weighed on his heart. This was the first time he had felt such heartache for someone, or such yearning.

你不让她在外面她就不在外面了。但这次他的想象失败了，她仍在外面的风雪中行走着，像一株随时都会被寒风吹走的小草，她穿着那件白色的大衣，围着那条红色的围巾，飞扬的雪尘中也只能隐约看到红围巾，像在风雪中挣扎的小火苗。

He could only nod dumbly. Then, as he helped her out of her coat, he said, “Come and get warm.” He rubbed her soft shoulders and guided her to the fireplace.

他只是笨拙地点点头，帮她脱下了大衣。“快来暖和暖和吧。”他扶着她柔软的双肩，把她领到壁炉前。

“It’s really warm. Wonderful…” She sat on the rug in front of the fireplace, laughing happily as she watched the firelight.

“真暖和，真好……”她坐在壁炉前的毯子上，看着火光幸福地笑着。

Damn it! What’s wrong with me? he said to himself, in the middle of the empty room. Wouldn’t it be enough to just come up with any fifty thousand words, print them on high-grade bond, Photoshop a gorgeous cover and flap, have it professionally bound, have it gift-wrapped, and then give it to Bai Rong on her birthday? Why had he fallen so deep into this trap? He was amazed to find that he had tears in his eyes. And then another realization: A fireplace? When the hell did I get a fireplace? Why would I think of a fireplace? But then he understood: What he wanted wasn’t a fireplace, but the glow of the fire, for it is in firelight that a woman is most beautiful. He recalled how she had looked just then against the glow of the fire…

妈的，我这是怎么了？罗辑站在空荡荡的宿舍中央对自己说。其实随便写出五万字，用高档铜板纸打印出来，PS一个极其华丽的封面和扉页，用专用装订机装钉好。再拿到商场礼品部包装一下，生日那天送给白蓉不就完了吗？何至于陷得这么深？这时他惊奇地发现，自己的双眼湿润了。紧接着，他又有了另一个惊奇：壁炉？我他妈的哪儿来的壁炉？我怎么会想到壁炉？但他很快明白了，他想要的不是壁炉，而是壁炉的火光，那种火光中的女性是最美的。他回忆了一下刚才壁炉前火光中的她……

No! Don’t think about her. It will be a disaster! Go to sleep!

啊不！别再去想她了，这会是一场灾难！睡吧！

Contrary to his expectations, he did not dream of her the entire night. He slept well, imagining the single bed as a small boat floating on a rosy sea. When he awoke the next morning, he felt reborn, like he was a candle that had been covered in dust for years before being lit by that tiny flame in last night’s snowstorm. He walked excitedly down the road to the classroom building, and though the air was hazy after the snowfall, he felt like he could see a thousand miles. There was no snow on the poplar trees lining the road, their bare branches poking up toward the cold sky, but to him they were more alive than in springtime.

出乎罗辑的预料，这一夜他并没有梦到她，他睡得很好，感觉单人床是一条漂浮在玫瑰色海洋上的小船。第二天清晨醒来时，他有一种获得新生的感觉，觉得自己像一根尘封多年的蜡烛，昨夜被那团风雪中的小火苗点燃了。他兴奋地走在通向教学楼的路上，雪后的天空灰蒙蒙的，但他觉得这比万里晴空更晴朗；路旁的两排白杨没有挂上一点儿雪，光秃秃地直指寒天，但在他的感觉中，它们比春天时更有生机。

He took the podium, and just as he had hoped, there she was again, seated in the back of the amphitheater, the only one in an empty row, at a distance from the other students. Her pure white coat and red scarf were on the seat beside her, and she was wearing a beige turtleneck sweater. She did not have her head down, flipping pages in her textbook like the other students. Instead, she watched him, and flashed him another snowy-sunrise of a smile.

罗辑走上讲台，正像他所希望的那样，她又出现了，坐在阶梯教室的最后一排，那一片空座位中只有她一个人，与前面的其他学生拉开了很远的距离。她那件洁白的大衣和红色的围巾放在旁边的座位上，只穿着一件米黄色的高领毛衣，她没有像其他学生那样低头翻课本，而是再次对他露出那雪后朝阳般的微笑。

He grew nervous. His pulse increased, and he had to leave through a side door to stand on the balcony and calm himself in the cold air. The only other times he had been in a similar state were during his two doctoral thesis defenses. In his lecture he did his utmost to show off, and his extensive citations and impassioned language won a rare burst of applause from the auditorium. She didn’t join in, but merely smiled at him and nodded.

罗辑紧张起来，心跳加速，不得不从教室的侧门出去，站在阳台上的冷空气中镇静了一下，只有两次博士论文答辩时他出现过这种状态。接下来罗辑在讲课中尽情地表现着自己，旁征博引，激扬文字，竞使得课堂上出现了少有的掌声。她没有跟着鼓掌，只是微笑着对他颔首。

After class, he walked side by side with her along the tree-lined avenue that offered no shade, listening to the crunch of her blue boots in the snow. The two lines of winter poplars listened in silence to their heartfelt conversation.

下课后，他和她并肩走在那条没有林荫的林荫道上，他能听到她蓝色的靴子踩在雪上的吱吱声。两排冬天的白杨静静地倾听着他们心巾的交谈。

“You lecture quite well, but I didn’t really understand.”

“你讲得真好，可是我听不太懂。”

“You’re not in this major, are you?”

“你不是这个专业的吧？”

“No, I’m not.”

“嗯，不是。”

“Do you often sit in on classes in other majors?”

“你常这样去听别的专业课吗？”

“Only the past few days. I’ll go into a lecture hall at random and sit for a while. I just graduated and will be leaving soon. I suddenly realized that it’s great here, and I’m afraid of the outside…”

“只是最近几天，常随意走进一间讲课的阶梯教室去坐一会儿。我刚毕业。

Over the next three or four days, he spent the majority of his time with her, although to others, it looked as if he was spending most of his time alone, strolling on his own. It was quite easy to explain to Bai Rong: He was thinking about her birthday gift. And indeed, this was no lie.

就要离开这儿了，突然觉得这儿真好，我挺怕去外面的以后的三四天里，罗辑每天的大部分时间都和她在一起。在旁人看来，他独处的时间多了。喜欢一个人散步，这对于白蓉也很好解释：他在构思给她的生日礼物，而他也确实没有骗她。

“Oh, look,” she exclaimed, pointing at the wine bottle with childlike excitement.

“呀，你看——”她指着葡萄酒瓶，像孩子般高兴起来。

“Look at it from here, where the candles shine through. The wine is lovely.”

“你到这边看嘛，蜡烛从对面照过来，这酒真好看。”

“What?”

“怎么？”

On New Year’s Eve, he bought a bottle of red wine, which he had never drunk before, returned to his dorm room, shut off the light, and lit some candles on the table next to the sofa. When all three candles were burning, she sat down wordlessly next to him.

新年之夜，罗辑买了一瓶以前自己从来不喝的红葡萄酒，回到宿舍后，他关上电灯，在沙发前的茶几上点上蜡烛，当三支蜡烛都亮起时，她无声地和他坐在一起。

He lay drowsily in bed and watched the candles still burning on the table. She had vanished from the candlelight, but he was not worried. So long as he was willing, she could reappear at any time.

罗辑晕乎平地躺在床上，看着茶几上即将燃尽的蜡烛，烛光中的她已经消失了。但罗辑并不担心，只要他愿意，她随时都会出现。

“Why not the eyes of dawn?”

“你怎么不说是朝霞的眼睛？”

“Why?”

“为什么？”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“是，是啊。”

“When twilight fades, you can see the stars. When dawn fades, all that’s left is…”

“晚霞消失后可以看星星，朝霞消失后，就只剩下……”

Shining through the wine, the candlelight was a deep, crystalline red, the stuff of dreams.

浸透了烛光的葡萄酒，确实呈现出一种只属于梦境的晶莹的深红。

They spoke about everything, sharing a common language in even the most trivial of things, until the bottle that had contained the eyes of twilight had been emptied into his stomach.

他们谈了很多，什么都谈，在最琐碎的话题上他们都有共同语言，直到罗辑把那一瓶“晚霞的眼睛”都喝进肚子为止。

“Like a dead sun,” he said.

“像死去的太阳。”罗辑说。

“Don’t think like that,” she said, with a sincerity that melted his heart. “I think it’s like… the eyes of twilight.”

“不要这样想啊，”她又露出那种让罗辑心动的真挚，“我觉得它像……晚霞的眼睛。”

“All that’s left is the harsh light of reality.”

“只剩下光天化日下的现实了。”

“I like twilight better.”

“我更喜欢晚霞。”

Then there was a knock on the door. He knew the knock came from reality and had nothing to do with her, so he ignored it.

这时响起了敲门声，罗辑知道这是现实中的敲门声，与她无关，就没有理会。

The door opened and Bai Rong entered. When she turned on the light it was like switching on the gray of reality. She glanced at the table with the candles, then sat down at the head of his bed and sighed lightly. “It’s still okay.”

门被推开了，进来的是白蓉。她打开了电灯，像打开了灰色的现实。看了看燃着蜡烛的茶几，然后在罗辑的床头坐下，轻轻叹息了一声说：“还好。”

“You haven’t gotten to the point of leaving a glass for her, too.”

“你还没有投入到为她也准备一只酒杯的程度。”

“What is?” He used a hand to block the harsh light.

“好什么？”罗辑用手挡着刺目的电灯光。

He covered his eyes but said nothing. She pulled away his hands, and then, looking straight at him, asked, “She’s alive, isn’t she?”

罗辑捂着眼睛没有说话，白蓉拿开了他的手，注视着他问：“她活了，是吗？”

He nodded and sat up. “Rong, I used to think that a character in a novel was controlled by her creator, that she would be whatever the author wanted her to be, and do whatever the author wanted her to do, like God does for us.”

罗辑点点头，翻身坐了起来：“蓉，我以前总是以为，小说中的人物是受作者控制的，作者让她是什么样儿她就是什么样儿，作者让地干什么她就干什么，就像上帝对我们一样。”

“Wrong!” she said, standing up and beginning to pace the room. “Now you realize you were wrong. This is the difference between an ordinary scribe and a literary writer. The highest level of literary creation is when the characters in a novel possess life in the mind of the writer. The writer is unable to control them, and might not even be able to predict the next action they will take. We can only follow them in wonder to observe and record the minute details of their lives like a voyeur. That’s how a classic is made.”

“错了！”白蓉也站了起来，在屋子里来回走着。“现在你知道错了，这就是一个普通写手和一个文学家的区别。文学形象的塑造过程有一个最高状态，在那种状态下，小说中的人物在文学家的思想中拥有了生命，文学家无法控制这些人物，甚至无法预测他们下一步的行为，只是好奇地跟着他们，像偷窥狂一般观察他们生活中最细微的部分，记录下来，就成为了经典。”

“So literature, it turns out, is a perverted endeavor.”

“原来文学创作是一件变态的事儿。”

“Just once,” she said simply, and dropped the subject. She grabbed his neck, and said, “Forget it. I don’t want that birthday present anymore. Come back to a normal life, okay?”

“也是只有一次。”白蓉简单地回答，然后迅速转移话锋，接住罗辑的脖子说，“算了，我不要那生目礼物了，你也回到正常的生活中来，好吗？”

“So you mean that I’ve become a writer of classic literature?”

“你的意思是我已经成了经典的文学家？”

“It was like that for Shakespeare and Balzac and Tolstoy, at least. The classic images they created were born from their mental wombs. But today’s practitioners of literature have lost that creativity. Their minds give birth only to shattered fragments and freaks, whose brief lives are nothing but cryptic spasms devoid of reason. Then they sweep up these fragments into a bag they peddle under the label ‘postmodern’ or ‘deconstructionist’ or ‘symbolism’ or ‘irrational.'”

“至少从莎士比亚到巴尔扎克到托尔斯泰都是这样，他们创造的那些经典形象都是这么着从他们思想的子宫中生出来的。但现在的这些文学人已经失去了这种创造力，他们思想中所产生的都是一些支离破碎的残片和怪胎，其短暂的生命表现为无理性的晦涩的痉挛，他们把这些碎片扫起来装到袋子里，贴上后现代啦解构主义啦象征主义啦非理性啦这类标签卖出去。”

“Hardly. Your mind is only gestating an image, and it’s the easiest one of all. The minds of those classic authors gave birth to hundreds and thousands of figures. They formed the picture of an era, and that’s something that only a superhuman can accomplish. But what you’ve done isn’t easy. I didn’t think you’d be able to do it.”

“那倒不是，你的思想只孕育了一个形象，而且是最容易的一个；而那些经典文学家，他们在思想中能催生成百上千个这样的形象，形成一幅时代的画卷，这可是超人才能做到的事。不过你能做到这点也不容易，我本来以为你做不到的。”

“Have you ever done it?”

“你做到过吗？”

“And if all this continues — what then?”

“如果这一切继续下去会怎么样？”

She studied him for a few seconds, then let go of him and shook her head with a smile. “I knew it was too late.” Picking up her bag from the bed, she left.

白蓉盯着罗辑研究了几秒钟，然后放开了他，笑着摇摇头：“我知道晚了。”说完拿起床上自己的包走了。

Then he heard people outside counting down, four, three, two, one. From the classroom building, which until then had been resounding with music, came peals of laughter. On the athletic field people lit fireworks. Looking at his watch, he saw that the final second of that year had just passed.

这时，他听见外面有人在“四、三、二、一”地倒计时，接着，一直响着音乐的教学楼那边传来一阵欢笑声，操场上有人在燃放烟花，看看表，罗辑知道这一年的最后一秒刚刚过去。

“It’s a holiday tomorrow. Where should we go?” he asked. He lay on the bed, but knew his character had already appeared beside the nonexistent fireplace.

“明天放假，我们出去玩好吗？”罗辑仰躺在床上问，他知道她已经出现在那个并不存在的壁炉旁了。

“You’re not taking her?” she asked in all innocence, pointing toward the still-open door.

“不带她去吗？”她指指仍然半开着的门。一脸天真地问。

“Then we’ll set out and see where we end up?”

“那我们就随便走，走到哪儿算哪儿？”

“No. Just the two of us. Where would you like to go?”

“不，就我们俩。你想去哪儿？”

She drank in the dancing flames in the fireplace and said, “It’s not important where we go. I think it’s a wonderful feeling just being on a journey.”

她人神地看着壁炉中跳动的火苗，说：“去哪儿不重要，我觉得人在旅途中，感觉就很美呢。”

“Excellent.”

“那样挺好的。”

The next morning, he drove his Accord off campus and headed west, a direction he chose purely because it avoided the headaches of having to traverse the entire city. He felt for the first time the wonderful freedom of traveling with no destination in mind. As the buildings outside slowly thinned out and fields began to appear, he cracked his window to let the cold winter air in. He sensed her long hair catching the wind, and strands of it blew over to tickle his right temple.

第二天一早，罗辑开着他那辆雅阁轿车出了校园，向西驶去，之所以选择这个方向，仅仅是因为省去了穿过整个城市的麻烦。他第一次体会到没有目的地的出行所带来的那种美妙的自由。当车外的楼房渐渐稀少，田野开始出现时，罗辑把车窗打开了一条缝，让冬天的冷风吹进些许，他感到她的长发被风吹起，一缕缕撩到他的右面颊上，怪痒痒的。

“Look, mountains.” She pointed off in the distance.

“看，那边有山——”她指着远方说。

“A classic northern scene,” he said.

“地道的北方景色。”罗辑说。

“Visibility is good today. Those are the Taihang Mountains. They run parallel to this road, and then bend around to form a block in the west, where the road goes into them. I’d say that right now we’re –“

“今天能见度好，那是太行山，那山的走向会一直与这条公路平行，然后向这面弯过来堵在西方，那时路就会进山，我想我们现在是在”

“The green is buried in the fields and is waiting for springtime. The winter wheat will sprout while it’s still very cold, then this will be a sea of green. Imagine, all this expanse…”

“绿色就埋在这田地里，等早春的时候，还很冷呢。冬小麦就会出苗，那时这里就是一片绿色了，你想想，这么广阔的一片……”

“This is the first time I’ve ever felt that land without the slightest bit of green could be beautiful.”

“我第一次觉得，没有绿色的大地也能很好看的。”

“No, no. Don’t say where we are! Once we know where we are, then the world becomes as narrow as a map. When we don’t know, the world feels unlimited.”

“不不，别说在哪儿！一知道在哪儿，世界就变得像一张地图那么小了；不知道在哪儿，感觉世界才广阔呢。”

“Okay. Then let’s do our best to get lost.” He turned onto an emptier road, and before they had gone very far, turned a second time. On both sides of them were now endless fields where the snow had not yet melted completely, the snowy patches and snow-free ground roughly equal. No green anywhere, although the sunlight was brilliant.

“那好，咱们就努力迷路吧。”罗辑说着，拐上了一条车更少的支路，没开多远卫随意拐上另一条路。这时，路两边只有连绵不断的广阔田野，覆盖着大片的残雪，有雪和无雪的地方面积差不多，看不到一点绿色，但阳光灿烂。

“It doesn’t need green. It’s beautiful right now. Look, doesn’t the land look like a big milk cow asleep under the sun?”

“不需要绿色嘛，现在真的就很好看，你看，大地像不像一只在太阳下睡觉的大奶牛？”

“What?” He looked in surprise, first at her and then through the windows at the patchy snow on either side of the car. “Oh, there really is a resemblance! So, what’s your favorite season?”

“什么？”罗辑惊奇地看了她一眼，又看了看两侧车窗外那片片残雪点缀的大地，“啊，真的有些像……我说，你最喜欢哪个季节，”

“Autumn.”

“秋天。”

“Why not spring?”

“为什么不是春天？”

“Spring… has so many sensations squashed together. It gets tiring. Autumn is better.”

“春天……好多感觉挤到一块儿，累人呢，秋天多好。”

He stopped the car and went out with her to the edge of the field to look at the magpies, which foraged on the ground until they got quite close, at which point they flew off to some trees in the distance. Then they went down a riverbed that was practically dried up, with only a thin stream of water flowing down the center. But it was a northern river all the same, and so they picked up small chilly smooth stones from the riverbed and pitched them in, watching the cloudy yellow water gush out of the holes they broke in the thin ice. They passed a small town and spent a while at the market there. She knelt down by a goldfish vendor, the fish in their glass bowls like liquid flames under the sun, and wouldn’t leave. He bought her two and put them, water and all, in plastic bags on the backseat of the car. They entered a hamlet, but found nothing that felt like the countryside. The houses and compounds were brand new, cars were parked outside of many of the gates, the cement roads were wide, and people were dressed no differently than in the cities — a few girls were even stylish. Even the dogs were the same long-haired, short-legged parasites found in the cities. More interesting was the large stage at the entrance to the village — they marveled at how such a small village could have such an immense stage. It was empty, so with some effort he climbed up and — looking down at his lone audience member — sang a verse from “Tonkaya Ryabina” about the slender hawthorn tree. At noon, they ate in another town, where the food was more or less the same as in the city, only the portions were about twice as large. After lunch, they sat drowsily in the warmth of the sun on a bench outside the town hall, and then drove onward with no direction in mind.

罗辑停了车，和她下车来到田边，看着几只喜鹊在地里觅食，直到他们走得很近了它们才飞到远处的树上。接着，他们下到一条几乎干涸的河床里，只在河床中央有一条窄窄的水流，但毕竟是一条北方的河，他们拾起河床里冰冷的小卵石向河里扔，看着浑黄的水从薄冰上被砸开的洞中涌出。他们路过了一个小镇，在集市上逛了不少时间。她蹲在一处卖金鱼的地摊前不走，那些在玻璃圆鱼缸中的金鱼在阳光下像一片流动的火焰。罗辑给她买了两条，连水装在塑料袋里放在阜的后座。他们进入了一个村庄，并设有找到乡村的感觉，房子院子都很新，有好几家门口停着汽车，水泥面的路也很宽，人们的衣着和城市里差不多，有几个女谈子穿得还很时尚，连街上的狗都是和城市里一样的长毛短腿的寄生虫。但村头那个大戏台很有趣，他们惊叹这么小的一个村子竟搭了这么高大的戏台。戏台上是空的，罗辑费了好大劲儿爬上去，面对着下面她这一个观众唱了一首《山楂树》。中午，他们在另一个小镇吃了饭，这里的饭菜味道和城市里也差不多，就是给的分量几乎多了一倍。饭后，在镇政府前的一个长椅上，他们在温暖的阳光中昏昏欲睡地坐了一会儿，又开车信马由缰地驶去。

Before they knew it, the road had entered the mountains, which were plain and ordinary in shape and devoid of vegetation apart from withered grasses and vitex vines in the crevices of the gray rocks. Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, the mountains, weary of standing, had lain down, sunken into flatness amid time and sunlight, and turned anyone walking among them just as indolent. “The mountains here are like old villagers basking in the sun,” she said, but they hadn’t seen any of those old men in the villages they passed through; none more at ease than the mountains. More than once their car had been stopped by a flock of sheep crossing the road. Beside the road there at last appeared the kind of villages they had imagined, with cave houses and persimmon and walnut trees and stone-tiled low buildings, roofs piled high with stripped corn cob. Even the dogs were larger and more fierce.

不知不觉，他们发现路进山了。这里的山形状平淡无奇，没有深谷悬崖，植被贫瘠，只有灰色岩缝中的枯草和荆条丛。几亿年间，这些站累了的山躺了下来，在阳光和时间中沉于平和，也使得行走在其中的人们感到自己变得和这山一样懒散。“这里的山像坐在村头晒太阳的老头儿们。”她说，但他们路过的几个村子里都没有见到那样的老头儿，没有谁比这里的山更悠闲。不止一次，车被横过公路的羊群挡住了，路边也出现了他们想象中应该是那样的村子——有窑洞和柿子树核桃树，石砌的平房顶上高高地垛着已脱粒的玉米芯，狗也变得又大又凶了。

They started and stopped as they went through the mountains, and before they knew it the entire afternoon was spent. The sun was setting, and the road had entered the shadows long ago. He drove along a dirt road pitted with potholes up onto a high ridge where the sun still shone, and they decided that this would be the terminus of their journey: They would watch the sun set and then head back. Her long hair blew in the light evening breeze, seemingly striving to seize hold of the last golden rays.

他们在山间走走停停，不知不觉消磨了一个下午，太阳西下，公路早早隐在阴影中了。罗辑开车沿着一条坑洼的土路爬上了一道仍被夕阳映照的高高的山脊，他们决定把这里作为旅行的终点，看太阳落下后就回返。她的长发在晚风中轻扬，仿佛在极力抓住夕阳的最后一缕金辉。

They had only just turned onto the highway when the car broke down. The rear axle had broken, meaning they had to call for help. A while later he was able to learn the name of the place from the driver of a small passing truck. He was comforted by the fact that his phone had a signal. When he gave his location to the person at the repair station, he was informed that the repair truck would take at least four or five hours to get there.

车刚驶回公路上就抛锚了，后轮轴坏了。只能打电话叫维修救援。罗辑等了好一会儿，才从一辆路过的小卡车司机那里打听到这是什么地方，让他感到欣慰的是这里手机有信号，维修站的人听完他说的地名后，说维修车至少要四五个小时才能到那里。

“No. Northern China is still in the interior. It just looks desolate, but it’s actually one of the most densely populated regions. Look at the road. A car drives past every two minutes, on average.”

“没有，这儿是华北，是内地，仅仅是看着荒凉，其实是人口最稠密的地区之一，你看就这条路，平均两分钟就有一辆车通过。”

The mountain air chilled quickly after sunset. After their surroundings began to grow dusky, he collected some corn stalks from a nearby terraced field and started a fire.

日落后，山里的气温很快降下来，当周围的一切开始在暮色中模糊时，罗辑从附近的梯田里收集来一大堆玉米秸秆，生起了一堆火。

“Nice and warm,” she said, gazing into the fire, as happy as she had been that first night in front of the fireplace. Again he was transfixed by her appearance in the firelight, drowned in emotions he had never felt before, as if he was a bonfire himself and the only purpose of his existence was to give her warmth.

“真暖和，真好！”她看着火，像那一夜在壁炉前那样高兴起来，罗辑也再一次被火光中的她迷住了，他被一种从未有过的柔情所淹没，感觉自己和这篝火一样，活着的唯一目的就是给她带来温暖。

“Are there wolves?” she asked, looking around at the growing darkness.

“这里有狼吗？”她看看周围越来越浓的黑暗问。

He paused and softly said, “Yes,” and when he looked beside him, there she was, feeding straw into the fire and smiling at the flames that lit up the area where they sat.

“……是。”罗辑低声说，再向旁边看。她正在把秸秆放进火中，她的微笑同蹿起的火苗一起使周围亮了起来。

Later — he didn’t know how much later — his phone rang. Bai Rong.

不知过了多长时间，罗辑的手机响了，是白蓉打来的。

“Now do you believe that the love I write about in my novels really exists?”

“现在你应该相信，我写在小说中的那种爱情是存在的吧？”

“No, I’m alone,” he said as he looked up. He wasn’t lying. He truly was by himself, next to a bonfire along a road in the Taihang Mountains. The firelight revealed stones around him, and overhead was only a starry sky.

“不，我一个人。”罗辑说着抬头看看，他没有骗谁。自己真的是一个人，在太行山中的一条公路边的一堆篝火旁，周嗣只有火光中若隐若现的山石，头上只有满天的繁星。

“I know you’re alone. But are you with her?”

“我知道你是一个人，但你和她在一起。”

When he said those four words, he immediately realized how great the distance between the two of them really was. They were silent for a long time, during which radio waves spun their gossamer strands through the mountains to sustain this final contact.

罗辑说完这四个字，立刻意识到自己和白蓉之间的距离也真的有实际的这么远了，他们沉默良久，这期间，细若游丝的电渡穿过夜中的群山，维系着他们最后的联系。

They said nothing more, but sat silently before the fire, occasionally feeding it another bunch of straw.

然后他们再也没有说话，在火边默默地坐着，不时把一把秸秆放进火堆中维持着它的燃烧。

“Yes, I believe it.”

“是，我信了。”

“Are you with her?” she asked gently.

“和她在一起吗？”白蓉轻轻地问。

“I was hoping you’d say there were wolves,” she said with a sweet smile, then looked off at the cloud of sparks flying off like stars into the night.

“我希望你说有狼的。”她甜甜地笑着，看着大群的火星向夜空中的星星飞去。

“Okay. There are wolves, but I’m right here.”

“好吧，有狼，但有我。”

He could hear her laugh softly. “Where else would he be?”

罗辑听到白蓉轻笑了一声：“还能在哪儿？”

“Well. Take it easy. Good-bye.” Bai Rong hung up, snapping the thread that stretched across the night sky and leaving the people at the two ends a little saddened, but nothing more than that.

“好了，早些睡吧，再见。”白蓉说完挂断了电话，那跨越漫漫黑夜的细丝中断了，丝两端的人都有些悲哀，但也仅此而已。

“Where is he now?”

“他现在在哪儿？”

He laughed too. “Yes, where else?”

罗辑也笑了笑：“是啊，还能在哪儿……’

“You have one of your own, don’t you?” he asked.

“你也有这样一个他，是吗？”罗辑问道。

“Yes. For a long time.”

“是，很早的事了。”

“It’s too cold outdoors. Let’s sleep in the car,” he said to her.

“外面太冷了，你到车里去睡好吗？”罗辑对她说。

Rather than returning to school, he drove straight to the psychologist.

罗辑没有回学校，开着车径直去看心理医生。

It was midnight by the time the repair truck arrived from Shijiazhuang. The repairmen were surprised to find him sitting beside a fire. “Sir, you’ve gotta be freezing. The engine’s not busted. Wouldn’t it be warmer to sit in the car with the heat turned on?”

从石家庄赶来的维修车半夜才到，那两个师傅看到坐在篝火边的罗辑很是吃惊：“先生，你可真经冻啊，引擎又没坏，到车里去开着空调不比这么着暖和？”

After the car was repaired, Luo Ji dashed home through the night, out of the mountains and back onto the plain, reaching Shijiazhuang by dawn. It was already ten in the morning by the time he got back to Beijing.

车修好后，罗辑立刻全速向回开，在夜色中冲出群山再次回到大平原上。清晨时他到达石家庄，回到北京时已是上午十点了。

She gently shook her head. “I want to be with you here. You like me by the fire, right?”

她轻轻摇摇头，“我要和你在这儿，你喜欢火边儿的我。是吗？”

“Are you under the impression that the object of everyone else’s love actually exists?”

“你是不是以为，别人所爱的对象都是真实存在的？”

“You may need a bit of adjustment, but it’s nothing serious,” the doctor said, after listening to his lengthy narrative.

“你可能需要一些调整，但没什么大事。”听完罗辑的漫长叙述后，医生对他说。

“Nothing serious?” Luo Ji opened his bloodshot eyes wide. “I’m madly in love with a fictional person from a novel of my own creation. I’ve been with her, I’ve traveled with her, and I’ve even broken up with my real-life girlfriend over her. Is that nothing serious to you?”

“没什么大事？”罗辑瞪大了满是血丝的双眼。“我疯狂地爱上了自己构思的小说中的一个虚构人物，和她一起生活，同她出游，甚至于就要因她和自己真实的女朋友分手了，你还说没什么大事？”

The doctor smiled tolerantly.

医生宽容地笑笑。

“Don’t you get it? I’ve given my most profound love to an illusion!”

“你知道吗？我把自己最深的爱给了一个幻影！”

“Sure. For the majority of people, what they love exists only in the imagination. The object of their love is not the man or woman of reality, but what he or she is like in their imagination. The person in reality is just a template used for the creation of this dream lover. Eventually, they find out the differences between their dream lover and the template. If they can get used to those differences, then they can be together. If not, they split up. It’s as simple as that. You differ from the majority in one respect: You didn’t need a template.”

“不是的，大部分人的爱情对象也只是存在于自己的想象之中。他们所爱的并不是现实中的她（他），而只是想象中的她（他），现室中的她（他）只是他们创造梦中情人的一个模板，他们迟早会发现梦中情人与模板之间的差异，如果适应这种差异他们就会走到一起，无法适应就分开，就这么简单。你与大多数人的区别在于：你不需要模板。”

“Is that even a question?”

“这有什么疑问吗？”

“Only in the way your girlfriend pointed out: You’ve got natural literary talent. If you want to call that a sickness, go right ahead.”

“只是像你的女朋友所指出的那样，你有很高的文学天赋，如果把这种天赋称为病态也可以。”

“So this isn’t a sickness?”

“这难道不是一种病态？”

“But isn’t imagining to this degree a little excessive?”

“可想象力达到这种程度也太过分了吧？”

“There’s nothing excessive about imagination. Especially where love is concerned.”

“想象力没有什么过分的，特别是对爱的想象。”

“So what should I do? How can I forget about her?”

“那我以后怎么办？我怎么才能忘掉她？”

“It’s impossible. You can’t forget her, so don’t make the effort. That will only lead to side effects, and maybe even mental disorders. Let nature take its course. Once more, for emphasis: Don’t try to forget about her. It won’t work. But as time passes, her influence on your life will decrease. And you’re actually quite lucky. Whether or not she really exists, you’re fortunate to be in love.”

“不可能，你不可能忘掉她，不要去做那种努力，那会产生很多副作用，甚至真的导致精神障碍，顺其自然就行了。我再强调一遍：不要去做忘掉她的努力，没有用的，但随着时间的推移，她对你生活的影响会越来越小的。其实你很幸运，不管她是不是真的存在，能爱就很幸运了。”

This was Luo Ji’s most deeply felt romantic experience, a love that only comes around once in a man’s life. After that, he took to an insouciant lifestyle, going where life took him, just like the day they had set out in the Accord. And like the psychologist had said, her influence in his life decreased. When he was with a real woman, she didn’t appear, and eventually she rarely appeared even when he was alone. But he knew that the most secluded part of his soul belonged to her, and she would be there for life. He even saw clearly the world she inhabited, a still snowscape where the sky was forever graced with silver stars and a crescent moon, the snow falling steadily. In the silence you could practically hear the snowflakes coming to rest on the ground like smooth white sugar. In her exquisite cabin in the snow, the Eve that Luo Ji had formed out of one of his mind’s ribs sat before an ancient fireplace quietly watching the dancing flames.

这就是罗辑最投入的一次爱情经历，而这种爱一个男人一生只有一次的。以后，罗辑又开始了他那漫不经心的生活，就像他们一同出行时开着的稚阁车，走到哪儿算哪儿。正如那个心理医生所说，她对他的生活的影响越来越小了，当他与一个真实的女性在一起时，她就不会出现。到后来，即使他独处，她也很少出现了。但罗辑知道，自己心灵中最僻静的疆土已经属于她了，她将在那里伴随他一生。他甚至能清晰地看到她所在的世界，那是一片宁静的雪原，那里的天空永远有银色的星星和弯月。但霄也在不停地下着，雪原像白砂糖般洁白平润，静得仿佛能听到雪花落在上面的声音。她就在雪原上一间精致的小木屋中，这个罗辑用自己思想的肋骨造出的夏娃，坐在古老的壁炉前，静静地看着跳动的火焰。

Now that he was alone on this ominous plane flight, he wanted to have her companionship, to guess with her what lay at the journey’s end. But she didn’t appear. He could still see her in a far-off region of his soul, sitting silently before the fireplace, never feeling lonely, because she knew her world was within him.

现在，在这凶险莫测的航程中，孤独的罗辑想让她来陪伴，想和她一起猜测航程的尽头有什么，但她没有出现。在心灵的远方，罗辑看到她仍静静地坐在壁炉前，她不会感到寂寞，因为知道自已的世界坐落于何处。

Luo Ji reached out a hand to the medicine bottle by the bed with the thought of using a sleeping pill to force himself to sleep, but the instant his fingers touched the bottle it flew off the cabinet and up to the ceiling, as did the clothing that he had flung onto the chair. They remained on the ceiling for a couple seconds. He felt himself leave the bed, but since the sleeping bag was attached, he didn’t fly away, and when the bottle landed, he fell heavily back into the bed. For a few seconds his body felt like it was being pressed down by a heavy object, and he couldn’t move. The sudden weightlessness and hypergravitation made him dizzy, a condition that continued for less than ten seconds before everything returned to normal.

罗辑伸手去章床头的药瓶，想吃一片安眠药强迫自己入睡，就在他的手指接触药瓶前的一刹那，药瓶从床头柜上飞了起来，同时飞起来的还有罗辑扔在椅子上的衣服，它们直上天花板，在那里待了两秒钟后又落了下来。罗辑感到自己的身体也离开了床面，但由于睡袋的固定投有飞起来。在药瓶和衣服落下后，罗辑也感到自己重重地落回床面，有那么几秒钟，他的身体感觉被重物所压，动弹不得。这突然的失重和超重令他头晕目眩，但这现象持续了不到十秒钟，很快一切恢复正常。

He heard the soft swish of footsteps on the carpet outside the door. A number of people were in motion, and then the door opened and Shi Qiang poked his head in. “Luo Ji, are you okay?”

罗辑听到了门外脚步踏在地毡上的沙沙声，有好几个人在走动，门开了，史强探进头来：

“Not even close. In the chaos just now, seven of the escort planes jettisoned their secondary fuel tanks.”

“嗨，别提了，就刚才乱那一下子，有七架护航机把副油箱抛了①。”（注：①歼击机在进入空中格斗状态时，要抛弃副油箱减轻重量。）

When Luo Ji said he was fine, he closed the door without coming in. Outside, a dialogue continued in low voices.

“罗辑，没事吧？”听到罗辑回答没事，他就没有进来，把门关上了，罗辑听到了门外低低的对话声。

“It looks like a misunderstanding during the escort change. Nothing to worry about.”

“好像是护航交接时出的一点误会，没什么事的。”

“How are we supposed to sleep in a state like this?”

“现在这状态，哪能睡呀！”

“What did the higher-ups say on the call earlier?” That was Shi Qiang’s voice.

“刚才上级来电话又说了什么？”这是史强的声音。

“The plan doesn’t mention this interruption, does it?”

“计划上没提这茬儿啊，”

“They said that the escort formation would require a midair refueling in half an hour, and that we shouldn’t be alarmed.”

“说是一个半小时后护航编队要空中加油，让我们不要惊慌。”

“Leave someone on watch. What good are you if you’re tired out? They may try to keep us on high alert all the time, but I maintain my own opinion of security work: When you’ve thought of everything you should, and done everything you need to, then let whatever happens happen. There’s nothing more anyone can do, you know? Don’t psych yourselves out.”

“留个人守着就行了，都这么耗着能干啥？不管上面怎么强调重要性，对安全保卫工作我有自己的看法：只要该想的想到了，该做的做到了，整个过程中要真发生什么，那也随它去，谁也没办法，对不对？别净跟自个儿过不去。”

“Why all the jumpiness? Forget it. You should go back to sleep. Don’t get too worked up.”

“干吗这么一惊一咋的？算了，你们去睡一会儿吧，别弄得太紧张。”

At the mention of “escort change,” Luo Ji reached over, opened the cover to the window, and looked outside. There was still a sea of clouds in the night sky. The moon was inclining toward the horizon, and he could see the trails of the fighter formation, now with an additional six lines. He inspected the tiny aircraft heading up those trails and noticed that they were a different model than the four he’d seen earlier.

听到了“护航交接”这个词，罗辑探起身打开了舷窗的隔板向外看，仍是云海茫茫，月亮已在夜空中斜向天边。他看到了歼击机编队的尾迹，现在已经增加到六根，他仔细看了看尾迹顶端那六架小小的飞机，发现它们的形状与前面看到的那四架不一样。

“There’s still time to sleep? How many hours have we been flying?”

“还有时间睡吗？都飞了几个小时了。”

“We’ve still got a few more hours. Go to sleep.” He closed the door and left.

“还得飞几个小时，你就睡吧。”史强说完关上门走了。

When Shi Qiang woke Luo Ji up, he had been sleeping dream-free for more than six hours and was feeling pretty good.

当史强把罗辑叫醒时，他已经无梦地睡了六个多小时，感觉很不错。

Luo Ji turned over in the bed and picked up the pill bottle. Shi had been thorough: It contained just one pill. He took it, looked at the small red light beneath the window, imagining it was the light of a fireplace, and drifted off to sleep.

罗辑翻身下床，拾起药瓶，发现大史真仔细，里面只有一片药。他把药吃了，看着舷窗下面的那盏小红灯。把它想象成壁炉的火光，渐渐睡着了。

The bedroom door opened and Shi Qiang poked his torso in to say, “Luo, my man, just a small issue. Don’t worry. Nothing else from now on. Go back to sleep.”

卧室的门又开了，史强探进来半个身子对罗辑说：“罗兄，一点儿小问题，别担心。往后没啥了，继续睡吧。”

Shi Qiang had Luo Ji wait in the office and went out himself. He brought back a man with a European face who was tall and immaculately dressed, and who seemed like a high-level official.

史强让罗辑在办公室等着，自己出去了。很快，他带了一个人进来，欧洲面孔，个子很高，衣着整洁，像是一位高级官员。

“We’re nearly there. Get up and get ready.”

“快到了，起来准备准备吧。”

“Is this Dr. Luo?” the official ventured as he looked at him. Noticing Shi Qiang’s difficulty with English, he repeated his question in Chinese.

“是罗辑博士吗？那位官员看着罗辑小心地问。发现史强的英语障碍后，他就用很生硬的汉语又问了一遍。

Luo Ji went to the washroom to wash up, and when he returned to the office for a simple breakfast, he became aware of the plane’s descent. Ten minutes later, after a flight of fifteen hours, the charter plane was resting on the ground.

罗辑到卫生间洗漱了一下。然后回到办公室简单地吃了早饭，就感觉到飞机开始下降。十多分钟后，这架飞行了十五小时的专机平稳地降落了。

When they shook hands, Luo Ji sensed that the man was incredibly experienced. So much was hidden behind his decorum, but the gleam in his eyes betrayed the presence of secrets. Luo Ji was fascinated by the man’s gaze, like a devil and an angel, like an atom bomb and an identical-size precious stone… In the complex information conveyed by those eyes, Luo Ji could make out just one thing: This moment was immensely important to the man’s whole life.

在握手时，罗辑感觉这人十分老成，把一切都隐藏在彬彬有礼之中，但他的目光还是把隐藏的东西透露出来。罗辑对那种目光感到很迷惑，像看魔鬼，也像看天使，像看一枚核弹，也像看同样大的一块宝石……在那目光所传达的复杂信息中，罗辑能辨别出来的只有一样：这一时刻，对这人的一生是很重要的。

“He’s Luo Ji,” answered Shi Qiang, and then briefly introduced the man to Luo Ji. “This is Mr. Kent. He’s here to welcome you.”

“他是罗辑。”大史回答。然后向罗辑简单地介绍说，“这位是坎特先生，是来迎接你的。”

“I am honored,” Kent said with a bow.

“很荣幸。”坎特微微鞠躬说。

“We’ve cut it that close?”

“时间卡得这么紧？”

“When does the session start?”

“会议什么时候开始？”

Kent turned to Shi Qiang. “You’ve done very well. Your segment was the most cleanly done. The others had a bit of trouble on their way over.”

坎特对史强说：“你们做得很好，你们的环节是最简洁的，其他人在来的过程中多少都有些麻烦。”

“In one hour.”

“一小时后。”

“Absolutely correct. In the present circumstances, minimizing the stages makes for maximum security. And now we’ll follow the same principle and head straight for the conference hall.”

“这绝对正确，在目前条件下，减少环节就是最大的安全，往后我们也遵循这一原则，我们直接前往会场。”

“We listened to our superiors. The principle we observed was to minimize the total number of stages,” Shi Qiang said.

“我们是照上级指示，一直遵循着最大限度减少环节的原则。”史强说。

“That’s pretty good. Shall we hand off, then?”

“这样是比较好。那么，我们可以交接了吗？”

“The start of the session is set by the arrival of the final candidate.”

“会议时间是根据最后人选到达的时间临时安排的。”

Shi Qiang was silent for a second or two as he looked at Luo Ji. Then he nodded. “As we’ve been getting acquainted with the situation over the past few days, our people have run into quite a few obstacles.”

史强沉默了两秒钟，看了看罗辑，点点头说：“前两天来熟悉情况的时候，我们的人员在行动上遇到很多麻烦。”

“I guarantee that nothing of the sort will happen from now on. You have the full cooperation of the local police and military. Well then,” Kent said, looking at the two men. “We can set off.”

“我保证这事以后不会发生了，本地警方和军方会全力配合你们的。那么，”坎特看了看两人说。“我们可以走了。”

“No. You are still responsible for the security of this one. Like I said before, you are the best.”

“不，这一位的安全仍然由你们负责，我说过，你们是做得最好的。”

It was still nighttime, Luo Ji realized as he stepped through the door of the aircraft. Thinking back to their takeoff time, he had a pretty good idea of which general area of the globe they were in. The fog was thick, and the lights shone a dim yellow as events from their takeoff seemed to be replaying before their eyes: the patrol helicopters in the air, only dimly visible through the fog as shadows with glowing lights; the plane quickly surrounded by a ring of military vehicles and outward-facing soldiers; and several officers with radios clustered in a group discussing something and occasionally throwing a glance in the direction of the airstair. A buzzing from somewhere overhead set Luo Ji’s scalp on fire, and even the imperturbable Mr. Kent covered his years. Looking up, they could see an indistinct light flying low overhead: the escort formation, still circling above them, its exhaust tracing a large circle in the air that was hazily visible through the fog, as if a cosmic giant had tagged the Earth with chalk at this very spot.

罗辑走出舱门时，看到外面仍是黑夜，想到起飞时的时间，他由此可以大概知道自己处于地球上的什么位置了。雾很大，灯光在雾中照出一片昏黄，眼前的一切似乎是起飞时情景的重演：空中有巡逻的直升机，在雾中只能隐约看到亮灯的影子；飞机周围很快围上了一圈军车和士兵，他们都面朝外围，几名拿着步话机的军官聚成一堆商量着什么，不时抬头朝舷梯这边看看。罗辑听到上方传来一阵让人头皮发炸的轰鸣声，连稳重的坎特都捂起耳朵。抬头一看，正见一排模糊的亮点从低空飞速掠过，是护航的歼击机编队，它们仍在上方盘旋，尾迹在空中划出了一个在雾里也隐约可见的大圆圈，仿佛一个宇宙臣人用粉笔对世界的这一块进行了标注。

When Kent said they had arrived, Luo Ji could make out a shape through the curtains, backlit by the even light from the building to its rear that cast its silhouette onto the curtain. He could never mistake such a distinctive shape: a giant revolver with a knot tied in its barrel. Luo Ji knew exactly where he was: the United Nations building in New York.

当坎特说已经到达时，罗辑注意到了透过车窗的帘子看到的一个形状，由于那个东西后面建筑物的一片均匀的灯光，它的剪影才能透过窗帘被看到。罗辑不会认错那东西的，因为它的形状太鲜明也太特殊了：那是一把巨大的左轮手枪，但枪管被打了个结。除非世界上还有第二个这样的雕塑，罗辑现在已经知道自己身在何处了。

The four of them boarded an obviously bulletproofed car waiting at the end of the airstair and sped off. The window curtains were drawn, but judging from the light that came in, Luo Ji knew that they were smack in the middle of a convoy. Silence reigned on the ride, a road to the ultimate unknown. Although it took only forty minutes, this part of the journey felt terribly long.

罗辑他们一行四人登上了一辆等在舷梯尽头的显然也经过防弹加固的轿车，车很快开了。车窗的窗帘都拉上了，但从外面的灯光判断，罗辑知道他们也是夹在一个车队中间的。一路上大家都沉默着，罗辑知道，他正在走向那个最后的未知。感觉中这段路很长，其实只走了四十多分钟。

He was surrounded as soon as he got out by people who seemed like security personnel: they were tall, and many of them wore dark glasses despite the night. He couldn’t make out his surroundings, but was pushed forward by the cluster, squeezed with such force that his feet practically left the ground, the scraping of footsteps the only sound that broke the silence. Just as the bizarre tension had pushed him almost to the breaking point, the men in front of him gave way. Light flashed before his eyes, and then the rest of them halted in their steps, leaving him, Shi Qiang, and Kent to continue forward. They were walking in a large quiet hall, empty but for a few black-clothed guards who spoke quietly into a handheld radio each time the three of them passed one of them. They crossed a hanging balcony in the direction of a stained-glass panel whose riot of colors and intricate lines described the distorted shapes of humans and animals. Turning left, they entered a small room. After the door closed, Kent and Shi Qiang exchanged a smile, and a look of relief came over them.

一下车，罗辑就被一群人围起来，这些人都像是保卫人员，他们身材高大，相当一部分在这夜里也戴着墨镜。罗辑没能看清周围的环境，被这些人簇拥着向前走，在他们有力的围挤下双脚几乎离地，周围是一片沉默，只有众人脚步的沙沙声。就在这种诡异的紧张气氛令罗辑的神经几乎崩溃之际，他前面的几名大汉让开了，眼前豁然一亮，接着其余的人也停住了脚步，只让他和史强、坎特三人继续前行。他们行走在一间安静的大厅中，这里很空荡，仅有的人是几名拿着步话机的黑衣警卫，他们每走过一人，那人就在步话机上低声说一句。三人经过了一个悬空的阳台，迎面看到一张色彩斑斓的玻璃板，上面充满了纷繁的线条，有变形的人和动物形象夹杂在线条之中。向右拐，他们进入了一个不大的房间。坎特在关上门后与史强相视一笑，两人一副如释重负的样子。

Luo Ji glanced around him and discovered that the room was fairly peculiar. The wall at one end was entirely covered by an abstract painting made up of yellow, white, blue, and black geometric shapes, which overlapped randomly and seemed suspended atop an ocean of pure blue. But the strangest thing was the large stone in the shape of a rectangular prism sitting right in the center of the room and illuminated by several weak lamps. A closer look revealed that the stone bore rust lines. The abstract painting and the stone were the only furnishings, and apart from them the room was empty.

罗辑四下打量了一下，发现这是个多少有些怪异的房间，它尽头的一面墙被一幅由黄白蓝黑四色几何形状构成的抽象画占满。这些形状相互问随意交叠，并共同悬浮于一片类似于海洋的纯蓝色之上；最奇怪的是房间中央一块成长方体的大石头。被几盏光线不亮的聚光灯照着，仔细看看，石头上有铁锈色的纹路。抽象画和方石，是这里仅有的两件摆设，除此之外，小房间里什么都没有。

“Dr. Luo, do you need to change clothes?” Kent asked in English.

“罗辑博士，你是不是需要换件衣服？”坎待用英语问罗辑。

“No,” said Shi Qiang with another shake of his head.

“不行。”史强再次摇头。

“The hall is only open to national representatives, not the media. It should be fairly secure.”

“会场不对媒体开放，只有各国代表，应该比较安全的。”

“I said no. If I’ve understood correctly, I’m in charge of his safety now.”

“我说不行，要是没理解错的话，现在他的安全是我负责吧。”

“But this is a formal occasion,” Kent struggled out in Chinese.

“这，毕竟是正式场合。”坎待用汉语艰难地说。

“What’s he saying?” Shi Qiang asked, and when Luo Ji translated, he shook his head firmly. “No, just wear this.”

“他说什么？”史强问，罗辑将坎特的话翻译后，史强坚决地摇摇头，“不行，就穿这件！”

Kent said, “Dr. Luo, all I can tell you is this: You are about to take part in an important meeting at which there will be an important announcement. And at this meeting, you do not need to do anything.”

坎特说：“罗辑博士，我能说的只是：您即将参加一个重要会议，会议要公布一件很重要的事情。另外，在会议上，您什么都不需要做。”

“Just say anything,” Shi Qiang said with a laugh.

“随便说些什么吧。”史强笑笑说。

Kent relented. “Very well. It’s not a big issue.”

“好吧，这都是小问题。”坎特妥协了。

“You really should give him a general explanation,” Shi Qiang said, jerking his head in Luo Ji’s direction.

“你总得对他大概交待一下吧。”史强向罗辑偏了一下头说。

“I’m not authorized to explain anything.”

“我没被授权交待任何事情。”

Then they were silent. The room was completely quiet. Luo Ji could clearly hear the beating of his heart.

然后三人都沉默了，房间里一片寂静，罗辑能清楚地听到自己心跳的声音。

Kent turned toward Luo Ji, his dignified face suddenly tense, and subconsciously adjusted his tie. Luo Ji then realized that he had been avoiding looking directly at him. He also noticed that Shi Qiang seemed like a different person. The ever-present smirk was gone, replaced by a solemn expression, and he looked at Kent in a rare posture of attention. Then Luo Ji knew that everything Shi Qiang had said to him before was correct: He really had no idea of the purpose of the visit.

坎特转向罗辑，脸色一下子紧张凝重起来，甚至下意识地整了整领带，罗辑这时才意识到，在这之前他一直避免和自己对视。他还发现，史强这时也像变了一个人，他那无时不在的调侃的傻笑不见了，代之以一脸庄严，并以他少见的姿势立正站着，看着坎特。这时罗辑知道大史以前说的是真话：他真的不知道送罗辑来干什么。

Shi Qiang nodded, then waved a hand at Luo Ji with a smile: “I’ll wait for you outside.” It warmed his heart. Right then Shi Qiang was his sole spiritual support.

史强点点头，对罗辑挥手笑笑说：“我在外面等你。”罗辑心里一热，这一时刻，大史是他唯一的精神支柱了。

This, he realized, was the Meditation Room. The centerpiece was a six-ton rock made of the purest raw iron, symbolizing timelessness and strength. It had been a gift from Sweden. But right now, far from wanting to meditate, he tried as hard as possible to think of nothing, convinced of what Shi had said: Any thinking is liable to go off the rails. He counted the shapes in the painting.

以后他才知道，这个房间就叫默思室，那块重六吨的石头是高纯度生铁矿石，用以象征永恒和力量，是瑞典赠送的礼物。但现在，罗辑不想默思，而是努力做到什么都不想，因为现在真的可以相信大史说过的话：怎么想都会想歪的。为了做到这一点，他开始数那幅抽象画上几何形状的数量。

The hall was full and the people seated in it buzzed with conversation. He didn’t attract attention at first when Kent led him up along the aisle, but heads began to turn once they got close to the front. Depositing him in an aisle seat in the fifth row, Kent went on ahead and sat down in the second row.

会议大厅中已经坐满了人，响着一片嗡嗡的说话声，坎特带着罗辑沿座间的通道向前走，一开始没有引起谁的注意，直到他们走得太靠前了，才使得几个人转头看了看。坎特安排罗辑在第五排靠通道的座位上坐下。自己继续向前走去，在第二排的边缘坐下了。

The door opened, and the head that poked in signaled to Kent, who then turned to Luo Ji and Shi Qiang: “Time to go in. No one knows Dr. Luo, so there won’t be any disruption if he and I go in together.”

门开了，有一个人探进头来对坎特示意了一下，后者转向罗辑和史强：“该进去了，罗辑博士没有人认识，我和他一起进去就可以，这样不会引起什么骚动。”

Then he followed Kent out of the Meditation Room and into the United Nations General Assembly Hall.

接着，罗辑随着坎特走出默思室，进入联合国大会堂。

Turning his attention away from the distant wall, he heard two people talking next to him. He couldn’t make out their nationality, but they were speaking idiomatic English.

罗辑把目光从远处收回，听到了邻座两人的对话，他们的英语都很地道，搞不清国籍。

Luo Ji looked around him at the place he had seen countless times on television. Based on these glimpses, he had been wholly unable to appreciate the meaning the building’s architects wanted to express. Straight ahead of him, the tall yellow wall inset with the UN insignia that served as a backdrop for the podium was tilted forward at an acute angle, like a cliff face that was liable to collapse at any time. The dome, built to resemble a starry sky, was structurally separate from the yellow wall and did nothing to stabilize it, acting instead as an immense weight bearing down from above, adding to the wall’s instability and lending the whole environment the overpowering feeling of being ready to tumble down at any moment. Under the present circumstances, however, it seemed as if the eleven architects who had designed the building in the mid-twentieth century had wonderfully predicted humanity’s present predicament.

罗辑抬头打量着这个他曾在电视上看到过无数次的地方，感觉自己完全无法理解建筑设计者要表达的意象。正前方那面高高的镶着联合国徽章的黄色大壁，作为主席台的背景，以小于九十度的角度向前倾斜着，像一面随时都可能倾倒的悬崖绝壁；会堂的穹顶建成星空的样子，但结构与下面的黄色大壁是分离的，丝毫没有增加后者的恒定感，反而从高处产生一种巨大的压力，加剧了大壁的不稳定，整个环境给人一种随时都可能倾覆的压迫感。现在看来，这一切简直就是上世纪中叶设计这里的那十一位建筑师对人类今日处境的绝妙预测。

“Do you really believe in the decisive role of the individual in history?”

“……你真的相信个人对历史的作用？”

“Well, I think it’s a question that can’t be proven or disproven, unless we restart time, kill off a few great men, and see how history proceeds. Of course, you can’t rule out the possibility that the course of history was determined by the rivers carved out and dammed up by those great figures.”

“这个嘛，我觉得是个无法证实也无法证伪的问题。除非时间重新开始，让我们杀掉几个伟人，再看看历史将怎么走。当然不排除一种可能：那些大人物筑起的堤坝和挖出的河道真的决定了历史的走向。”

“But there’s another possibility: Those great figures of yours might be no more than swimmers in history’s river. They may have left their names in history because of the world records they set and the praise and renown they won, but they had no effect on the river’s flow… Ah, with things the way they are, what’s the point of thinking about all that?”

“但还有一种可能：你所说的大人物们不过是在历史长河中游泳的运动员，他们创造了世界纪录，赢得了喝彩和名誉，并因此名垂青史，但与长河的流向无关……唉，事情已经走到这一步，想这些还有意思吗？”

“The problem is that throughout the entire decision-making process, no one thought about issues on this level. The countries are all tangled up in stuff like candidate equality and resource rights.”

“问题是在整个的决策进程中，始终没有人从这个层面上思考问题，各国都纠缠在诸如人选平衡资源使用权力这类事情上……”

The hall grew quiet as Secretary General Say walked to the podium. The administration of this Filipino politician had straddled the pre- and postcrisis eras. If the vote had come just a little bit later, she never would have been elected, because a refined Asian lady didn’t project the sense of power the world was looking for in the face of the Trisolar Crisis. Now her small frame seemed tiny and helpless against the sloping cliff wall. As she was ascending the podium, Kent stopped her and whispered something in her ear. She looked down, nodded, and then continued walking.

会场安静下来，联合国秘书长萨伊正在走上主席台，她是继阿基诺夫人、阿罗约之后，菲律宾贡献给世界的第三个美女政治家，也是在这个职位上危机前后跨越两个时代的一位。只是如果晚些投票，她肯定不会当选，当人类面临三体危机之际，她的亚洲淑女形象显然不具有世界所期望的力量感。现在，她那娇小的身躯处于身后将倾的绝壁下，显得格外弱小和无助。在萨伊走上主席台的中途，坎特起身拦住了她，在她耳边低声说了句什么，秘书长向下看了一眼，点点头，继续走上主席台。

On the rostrum, she surveyed the assembly, and then said, “The nineteenth meeting of the Planetary Defense Council has arrived at the final item on its agenda: the disclosure of the Wallfacer candidates and the announcement of the start of the Wallfacer Project.

主席台上，秘书长环顾会场后说：“行星防御理事会第十九次会议现在进入最后议程：公布最后人选的面壁者名单，并宣布面壁计划开始。

“Before we move on to that agenda item, I believe it is necessary to take a brief look back at the Wallfacer Project.

“在进入正式议程之前，我认为有必要对面壁计划进行一个简单的回顾。

“At the start of the Trisolar Crisis, the permanent members of the former Security Council held emergency negotiations and conceived the Wallfacer Project.

“在三体危机出现之际，原安理会各常任理事国就进行了紧急磋商，并提出了面壁计划的最初设想。

“The countries took note of the following facts: After the first two sophons appeared, burgeoning evidence demonstrated that additional sophons were constantly reaching the Solar System and coming to Earth, a process that continues even now. Therefore, as far as the enemy is concerned, the Earth is a completely transparent world. To them, everything is an open book, one they can read at any time. Humanity has no secrets at all.

“各国都注意到以下事实：在最初两个智子出现之后，已有越来越多的证据表明，更多的智于正在不断地到达太阳系，进入地球，这个过程到现在仍在持续中。所以，对于敌人而言，现在的地球已经是一个完全透明的世界，对于他们，这个世界的一切都像一本摊开的书那样随时可供阅读，人类已无任何秘密可言。

Luo Ji was certain that the secretary general had looked in the direction of his seat.

罗辑可以肯定，她看的是自己坐的方位。

“The international community has recently launched a mainstream defense program which, in both overall strategic thinking and the tiniest of technological and military details, is completely exposed to the enemy’s eyes. Every meeting room, every file cabinet, the hard drives and memory of every computer — there is nowhere the sophons do not see. Every plan, program, and deployment, no matter the size, will be visible to the enemy command four light-years away the moment they take shape on the Earth. Human communication in any form will result in leaks.”

“目前，国际社会已经启动的主流防御计划，无论是其总体战略思想，还是最微小的技术和军事细节，都完全暴露在敌人的视野里，在所有的会议室中，所有的文件柜里，所有的计算机硬盘和内存中，智子的眼睛无处不在。一项计划、一个方案、一次部署，不论大小，当它们在地球上出现之际，同时就会在四光年之外的敌统帅部显示出来，人类内部任何形式的交流都会导致泄密。”

“We should be aware of this one fact: Strategic and tactical tricks do not advance in proportion to technological progress. Precise intelligence has proven that the Trisolarans communicate through direct, open thoughts, making them highly deficient at tricks, camouflage, and deception, and giving human civilization a huge advantage over the enemy. This is one advantage we can’t afford to lose. The founders of the Wallfacer Project believe that a number of other strategic plans should proceed in parallel to the mainstream defense program, and that these plans should be secret, not transparent to the enemy. A number of proposals were put forward, but ultimately only the Wallfacer Project is feasible.”

“我们应该注意到这样一个事实：战略和战术计谋的水平并不是与技术进步成正比的。已经有确切情报证明，三体人是用透明的思维直接进行交流，这就使得他们在计谋、伪装和欺骗方面是十分低能的，这也使得人类文明对敌人拥有了一个巨大的优势，我们绝不能失去这个优势。所以，面壁计划的创始者们认为，在主流防御计划之外，应该平行地进行另外数项战略计划，这些计划对敌人是不透明的、是秘密。最初曾经设想过多种方案，但最后确定只有面壁计划是可行的。”

“One correction to what I just said: Humanity still has secrets, in the inner world that each of us possesses. The sophons can understand human language, and they can read printed texts and information on every kind of computer storage media at ultrahigh speeds, but they can’t read human thoughts. So long as we do not communicate with the outside world, every individual keeps things secret forever from the sophons. This is the basis of the Wallfacer Project.”

“应该纠正前面说过的一点：到目前为止，人类还是有秘密的，我们的秘密就是我们每个人的内心世界。智子可以听懂人类语言，可以超高速阅读印刷文字和各种计算机介质存贮的信息，但它们不能读出人的思维，所以，只要不与外界交流，每个人对智子都是永恒的秘密，这就是面壁计划的基础。”

“At its heart, the project consists of selecting a group of people to formulate and direct strategic plans. They will develop their plans entirely in their own minds, with no communication of any kind with the outside world. The true strategy of these plans, the necessary steps for completion, and the ultimate aims will remain hidden inside the brain. We shall call them the Wallfacers because that ancient Eastern name for meditators mirrors the unique characteristics of their work. As they direct the execution of their strategic plans, the thoughts and behaviors these Wallfacers present to the outside world will be entirely false, a carefully crafted mélange of disguise, misdirection, and deception. The subject of this misdirection and deception will be the entire world, both enemy and ally, until a huge, bewildering maze of illusions is erected to make the enemy lose its judgment, and to delay as long as possible the moment it works out our true strategic intent.”

“面壁计划的核心，就是选定一批战略计划的制定者和领导者，他们完全依靠自已的思维制定战略计划，不与外界进行任何形式的交流，计划的真实战略思想、完成的步骤和最后目的都只藏在他们的大脑中，我们称他们为面壁者，这个古代东方冥思者的名称很好地反映了他们的工作特点。在领导这些战略计划执行的过程中，面壁者对外界所表现出来的思想和行为，应该是完全的假象，是经过精心策划的伪装、误导和欺骗，面壁者所要误导和欺骗的是包括敌方和己方在内的整个世界，最终建立起一个扑朔迷离的巨大的假象迷宫，使敌人在这个迷宫中丧失正确的判断，尽可能地推迟其判明我方真实战略意图的时间。”

“To guarantee the continuity of the Wallfacer Project, the Wallfacers will take advantage of hibernation technology to bridge the centuries to the Doomsday Battle. When and under what circumstances they will awaken, and for how long, will be decided by the Wallfacers themselves. Over the next four centuries, the UN Wallfacer Act will exist under international law on a level equal to the UN Charter and will act in concert with the national laws to guarantee the execution of the Wallfacers’ strategic plans.”

“为了保证面壁计划的连续性，所有面壁者将借助冬眠技术跨越时间，一直到达最后决战的时代，这期间，在何时和何种情况下苏醒，每次苏醒期有多长时间，均由面壁者自行决定。在以后的四个世纪的时间里，联合国面壁法案将作为一项与联合国宪章同等地位的国际法存在，它将与各国制定的相应法律一起，保证面壁者战略计划的执行。”

“These Wallfacers will be granted extensive powers that will enable them to mobilize and exploit a portion of Earth’s existing military resources. As they carry out their strategic plans, the Wallfacers need not make any explanation for their actions and commands, regardless of how incomprehensible their behavior may be. Monitoring and control of the Wallfacer activity will be undertaken by the UN Planetary Defense Council, the sole institution granted the authority to veto Wallfacer commands under the UN Wallfacer Act.”

“面壁者将被授予很高的权力，使他们能够调集和使用地球已有的战争资源中的一部分。在战略计划的执行过程中，面壁者不必对自己的行为和命令做出任何解释，不管这种行为是多么不可理解。面壁者的行为将由联合国行星防御理事会进行监督和控制，这也是唯一有权根据联合国面壁法案最后否决面壁者指令的机构。”

Luo Ji, like the entire assembly, had been listening to the secretary general’s speech with rapt attention, and he held his breath for the announcement of the list of names. He wanted to find out what sort of person would be tasked with this unimaginable mission. His own fate was completely forgotten for the time being, because nothing that could happen to him would amount to more than a speck when measured against this historic moment.

罗辑被秘书长的讲话深深吸引了，同所有与会者一样，他屏住呼吸等待著名单的公布，想知道将是什么人承担这不可思议的使命，一时间，他把自己的命运完全抛在脑后，因为与这历史性的时刻相比，自己不管发生什么都是微不足道的。

“Now, on behalf of the United Nations, I will announce the final four Wallfacer candidates as chosen by the UN Planetary Defense Council.”

“下面，我将以联合国的名义，公布由联合国行星防御理事会最后选定的四位面壁者……”

“The Wallfacers are undertaking the most difficult mission in human history. They will truly be on their own, their souls closed off to the world, to the entire universe. Their only communication partner and sole spiritual support will be themselves. Shouldering this great responsibility, they will pass through the long years alone, so let me speak for all humanity and offer them our deepest respect.”

“面壁者所承担的，将是人类历史上最艰难的使命，他们是真正的独行者，将对整个世界甚至整个宇宙，彻底关闭自己的心灵，他们所能倾述和交流的、他们在精神上唯一的依靠，只有他们自己。他们将肩负着这伟大的使命孤独地走过漫长的岁月，在这里，让我代表人类社会向他们表达深深的敬意。”

“The First Wallfacer: Frederick Tyler.”

“第一位面壁者：弗里德里克·泰勒。”

When the secretary general uttered his name, Tyler stood up from his seat in the first row and walked with deliberate steps up to the rostrum, where he looked down at the assembly without expression. There was no applause as everyone sat in silence and stared at the First Wallfacer. Tyler’s tall, thin body and square-framed glasses were well known across the world. The recently retired US secretary of defense, he had exerted a deep influence on his country’s national strategy. His ideological focus was expressed in a book titled The Truth of Technology, in which he argued that small countries are the ultimate beneficiaries of technology, and that the unstinting efforts toward technological development on the part of larger countries was in fact paving the way for world dominance by the smaller ones. This was because technological progress rendered the population and resource advantages of larger countries unimportant, but provided small countries with leverage to move the world. One consequence of nuclear technology was that it allowed a country of just a few million people to pose a substantial threat to one with a hundred million, something that at one time had been practically impossible. One of his key points was that the advantages of a large country were only truly advantageous in low-technology eras and would ultimately be weakened by the swift pace of technological progress, which would meanwhile enhance the strategic weight of small countries. Some might experience a sudden rise, gaining world dominance like Spain and Portugal once did. There was no question that Tyler’s thinking provided a theoretic foundation for the United States’ global war on terror. But he was not just a strategist. He was also a man of action, and on multiple occasions had won popular acclaim for demonstrating courage and foresight in the face of major threats. Hence, as far as both the depth of his thinking and his leadership were concerned, Tyler made a worthy Wallfacer.

秘书长的话音刚落，泰勒从第一排座位上站了起来，步伐从容地走上主席台，目无表情地面对会场，没有掌声，所有人只是在一片寂静中把目光聚焦到第一位面壁者身上。泰勒身材瘦长，戴着宽框眼镜，这个形象早已为全世界熟悉。他是刚刚卸任的美国国防部长，是一个对美国国家战略产生深刻影响的人。他的思想集中体现在一本名叫《技术的真相》的着作中，泰勒认为，技术的最终受益者将是小国家。大国不遗余力发展技术，实际上是为小国通向世界霸权铺下基石。因为随着技术的发展，大国所拥有的人口和资源优势将不再重要，而技术对小国而言是一个可能撬动地球的杠杆。核技术的后果之一就是使一个人口只有几百万的小国有可能对一个人口过亿的大国产生实质性威胁，而在核技术出现之前，这几乎是不可能的。泰勒的一个重要论点是：大国的优势，其实只有在低技术时代才是真正的优势，技术的飞速发展最终将削弱大国的优势，同时提升小国的战略分量，有可能使得某些小周突然崛起，像当年的西班牙和葡萄牙那样取得世界霸权。泰勒的思想，无疑为美国的全球反恐战略提供了理论基础。泰勒不仅是一个战略理论家，同时也是一个行动的巨人，他在处理多次重大危机时所表现出来的果敢和远见，赢得了广泛的赞誉。所以，无论在思想的深度还是领导的能力上，泰勒作为面壁者是当之无愧的。

When this brown-skinned, stocky South American with a stubborn look in his eyes ascended the rostrum, Luo Ji was surprised: It was highly unusual for this man to even appear at the UN. But on second thought, it stood to reason. He even wondered why it hadn’t already occurred to him. Rey Diaz was the current president of Venezuela, which, under his leadership, had aptly demonstrated Tyler’s theory about the rise of small countries. He carried forward the Bolivarian Revolution instigated by Hugo Chavez: In a contemporary world ruled by capitalism and market economics, he promoted in Venezuela what Chavez called Socialism of the Twenty-First Century, founded on lessons drawn from the experience of the international socialist movements of the previous century. Surprisingly, he had achieved considerable success, boosting the country’s power across the board and — for a time — turning Venezuela into a city on a hill, a symbol of equality, justice, and prosperity for the world. The other countries in South America followed suit, and socialism briefly caught fire on the continent.

当这个棕色皮肤、体型粗壮、目光倔强的南美人登上主席台时，罗辑很是吃惊，这人现在能出现在联合国已经是一件很不寻常的事了。但再一想，罗辑觉得这也在情理之中，甚至奇怪自己刚才怎么没想到他。雷迪亚兹是委内瑞拉现任总统，他领导自己的国家，对泰勒的小国崛起理论进行了完美的证实。作为乌戈，查韦斯的继承者，雷迪亚兹继续由前者在1999年开始的“波利瓦尔革命”，在资本主义和市场经济已成为王道的今日世界，在委内瑞拉推行查韦斯所称的“二十一世纪社会主义”，在吸取了上世纪国际社会主义运动经验教训的基础上，出人意料地取得了巨大的成功，使国家各个领域的实力迅速提升。一时间，委内瑞拉成了世界瞩目的象征着平等公正和繁荣的山巅之城，南美洲各个国家纷纷效仿。一时间，社会主义在南美已呈燎原之势。

“The Second Wallfacer: Manuel Rey Diaz.”

“第二位面壁者：曼努尔·雷迪亚兹。”

Rey Diaz inherited not only Chavez’s socialist ideology but his strong anti-Americanism, which reminded the United States that its Latin American backyard could become a second Soviet Union if left unchecked. A rare opportunity presented by an accident and a misunderstanding gave the United States the excuse to launch a full-scale invasion of Venezuela that sought to overthrow the Rey Diaz government along the Iraq model. But with this war, the post-Cold War streak of victories by major western powers over small Third World countries had finally broken. When the US Army entered Venezuela, it discovered that the uniformed military was nowhere to be found. The entire army had been divided by squad into guerilla teams concealed among the people, and their sole combat objective was killing the enemy’s vital forces. Rey Diaz’s basic approach to warfare was built atop a single, clear idea: Modern high-tech weapons might be useful against point targets, but, for area targets, their performance is no better than conventional weapons and their cost and limited quantity make them essentially nonfactors. He was a genius at low-cost, high-tech exploits. At the turn of the century, an Australian engineer had built a cruise missile for five thousand dollars with the aim of boosting vigilance against terrorists, but Rey Diaz’s thousands of guerilla teams were armed with a total of two hundred thousand of them, mass produced for just three thousand dollars apiece. Although the missiles were made out of parts that were cheap and widely available on the market, they were fully equipped with a radar altimeter and GPS and could hit targets within a five-kilometer radius at an accuracy of within five meters. Their hit rate may have been less than 10 percent during the war, but they caused enormous destruction to the enemy. Other mass-produced high-tech gadgets, like proximity-fuse sniper rifle bullets, had a similarly brilliant track record during the war. During its short time in Venezuela, the US Army suffered casualties that approached Vietnam War levels, and it eventually had to withdraw. The defeat of the strong at the hands of the weak made Rey Diaz a hero for the twenty-first century.

雷迪亚兹不仅继承了查韦斯的社会主义思想，也继承了后者强烈的反美颂向，这使美国意识到，如果再任其发展，自己的拉丁美洲后院有可能变成第二个苏联。在一次因意外和误会产生的千载难逢的借口出现时，美国立刻发动了对委内瑞拉的全面入侵，企图依照伊拉克模式彻底推翻雷迪亚兹政府。但这次战争中止了自冷战结束以来西方大国对第三世界小国的战无不胜的势头。当美军进入委内瑞拉之际，发现这个国家穿军装的军队已经消失了，整个陆军被拆分成了以班为单位的游击小组，全部潜伏于民间，以杀伤敌军有生力量为唯一的作战目标。雷迪亚兹的基本作战思想建立在这样一个明确的理念之上：现代高技术武器主要是用于对付集中式的点状目标的，对于面积目标，它们的效能并不比传统武器高，加上造价和数量的限制，基本上难以发挥作用。雷迪亚兹还是一名少花钱利用高技术的天才。在本世纪初，曾有一名澳大利亚工程师，出于引起大众对恐怖分子的警惕的目的，仅花了五千美元就造出了一枚巡航导弹。到了雷迪亚兹那里，批量生产使其造价降到了三千美元，共生产了二十万枚这样的巡航导弹装备那几千个游击小组。这些导弹使用的部件虽然都是市场上便宜的大路货，但五脏俱全，具备测高雷达和全球定位功能，在五公里的范围内命中精度不超过五米。在整个战争中虽然只有不到十分之一的导弹命中了目标，但也给敌人造成了巨大的杀伤。雷迪亚兹还在战争中大量使用其他一些可以大批量生产的高科技小玩意儿，如装有近炸引信的狙击步枪子弹等等，同样取得了辉煌的战绩。美军在委内瑞拉战争中的伤亡在短时间内就达到了越战的水平，只得以惨败退出。雷迪亚兹也因此成为二十一世纪以弱胜强的英雄。

“The Third Wallfacer: Bill Hines.”

“第三位面壁者：比尔·希恩斯。”

A debonair Englishman ascended the rostrum, a picture of refinement next to Tyler’s coldness and Rey Diaz’s stubbornness. He gave the assembly a graceful salute. He, too, was well known to the world, although he lacked the aura of the other two men. Hines’s life was split into two entirely distinct stages. As a scientist, he was the only person in history to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in two sciences simultaneously for the same discovery. During research conducted with the neuroscientist Keiko Yamasuki, he discovered that brain activity for thoughts and memories operated on the quantum level rather than on the molecular level as previously believed. This discovery pushed brain mechanisms downward to the microstate of matter, rendering all prior research nothing more than superficial attempts that merely skimmed the surface of neuroscience. This discovery also demonstrated that the animal brain’s capacity to process information was several orders of magnitude higher than previously imagined, which lent credence to long-held speculation that the brain had a holographic structure. Hines was nominated for Nobel Prizes in both Physics and Physiology or Medicine for the discovery. Although his work was too radical for him to win either award, Keiko Yamasuki — who by this time was his wife — won the prize in Physiology or Medicine that year for her application of the theory to the treatment of amnesia and mental illness.

一位温文尔雅的英国人走上主席台，与泰勒的冷漠和雷迪亚兹的倔强相比，他显得彬彬有礼，很有风度地向会场致意。这也是一个为世界所熟悉的人，但没有前两者身上那种光环。希恩斯的人生分成泾渭分明的两个阶段。在作为科学家的阶段，他是历史上唯一一名因同一项发现同时获得两个不同学科诺贝尔奖提名的科学家。在他和脑科学家山杉惠子共同进行的研究中发现，大脑的思维和记忆活动是在量子层面上进行的，而不是如以前认为的那样是一种分子层面的活动。这项发现把大脑机制在物质微观层次上向下推了一级，也使得之前脑科学的所有研究成为浮光掠影的表面文章。这项发现也证明动物大脑的信息处理能力比以前想象的还要高几个数量级，因而使得一直有人猜测的大脑全息结构成为可能。①（注：①一种猜测中的大脑信息贮存方式。能通过大脑的任一局部恢复它所贮存的全部信息。希恩斯因此获得物理学和生理学两项诺贝尔奖提名，但由于这项发现太具革命性，这两个奖项他都没得到，倒是这时已经成为他的妻子的山杉惠子，因该项理论在治疗失忆症和精神疾病方面的具体应用而获得该年度诺贝尔生理学和医学奖。）

Seated in the very last row of the hall, Keiko Yamasuki, the world authority in neuroscience, gazed lovingly down at her husband on the rostrum.

此时，在会场的最后一排座位上，世界脑科学权威山杉惠子正含情脉脉地看着主席台上的丈夫。

The assembly remained silent as all waited for the announcement of the final Wallfacer. The first three, Tyler, Rey Diaz, and Hines, represented balance and compromise among the political powers of the United States, Europe, and the Third World, so there was considerable interest in the final selection. As he watched Say turn back to the paper in the folder, world-famous names flashed through Luo Ji’s mind. The final Wallfacer would be one of them. He looked ahead four rows and surveyed the backs of the first-row occupants. That’s where the first three Wallfacers had been before they ascended the rostrum, but from behind he couldn’t make out whether any of the people he had in mind were seated there. Still, the Fourth Wallfacer would definitely be there.

会场一片寂静，所有人都在等待着公布最后一位面壁者。前三位面壁者：泰勒、雷迪亚兹、希恩斯，是美国、第三世界和欧洲三方政治力量平衡和妥协的结果，最后一位则格外引人注目。看着萨伊再次把目光移到文件夹里的那张纸上，罗辑的头脑中飞快地闪过一个个举世瞩目的名字，最后一位面壁者应该在这些人中间产生。他的目光掠过四排座位，扫视着第一排的那些背影，前三位面壁者都是从那里走上主席台的，从背影他看不出自己想到的那些人中是否有人在座，但第四位面壁者肯定就坐在那里。