Two days later, the cask, its aged surface covered in shells, was placed in the villa’s living room. Luo Ji took out a tap with a twist drill specially made for wooden casks, which he found in the cellar, and carefully drilled it into the side to pour out the first glass. The liquid was a tempting emerald green. He sniffed it, and then put the glass to his lips.
两天后，那桶酒摆到了别墅的客厅，古旧的桶面上嵌着许多贝壳。罗辑拿出一个从酒窖中弄来的木酒桶专用的带螺旋钻头的金属龙头，小心翼翼地把它钻进桶壁，倒出了第一杯酒，酒液呈诱人的碧绿色。他嗅了嗅后，把酒杯凑到嘴边。
And thus, the Wallfacer Project produced a second idiom after the “Wallfacer smile.” Anything that was clearly absurd but which had to be done anyway was called “part of the Wallfacer plan,” or simply, “part of the plan.”
这样，继“对面壁者的笑”之后，面壁计划又创造了一句成语。凡是明知荒唐又不得不干的事，就被称做“面壁计划的一部分”。简称“计划的一部分。”
“Doctor, is this part of the plan too?” Kent asked softly.
“博士，这也是计划的一部分？”坎特不动声色地问。
“That’s right. It’s part of the plan.” Luo Ji was about to drink, but seeing the people present in the room, he said, “All of you, out.”
“不错，是计划的一部分。”罗辑说完，接着要喝酒，但看了看在场的人，“你们都出去。”
“Sending you out is part of the plan too. Out!” He glared at them. Kent gently shook his head and led the others out.
“让你们出去也是计划的一部分，请！”罗辑瞪着他们说，坎特轻轻摇摇头，领着其他人走了。
Kent and the rest of them did not move.
坎特他们站着没动。
Deeply exhausted, he lay in bed watching his IV drip, and an intense loneliness seized him. He knew that his recent leisure was merely the weightlessness of tumbling into the abyss of loneliness, and now he had reached the bottom.
罗辑浑身无力地躺在床上，看着吊瓶中的药液滴滴流下，无比强烈的孤独感攫住了他，他知道，这几天的悠闲不过是向着孤独的深渊下坠中的失重，现在他落到底了。
Luo Ji took a sip. Although he did his utmost to convince himself that the flavor was heavenly, in the end he did not have the guts to take a second sip.
罗辑喝了第一口，极力说服自己尝到了天籁般的滋味，但终于还是没有勇气再喝第二口。
But that one sip didn’t let him go unscathed. That night he was sick out both ends until he spat up bile the color of the wine and his body was so weak he couldn’t get out of bed. Later, after doctors and experts opened the cask lid, they found that it had a rather large brass label on the inside wall, as was the custom in those days. Over time there had been some sort of reaction between the normally peacefully coexisting copper and the wine, and some sort of substance had dissolved into the wine… When the cask was carried off, Luo Ji could see the schadenfreude on Kent’s face.
但就这一小口酒也没有放过他，当天夜里他就上吐下泻，直到把和那酒一样颜色的胆汁都吐了出来，最后身上软得起不来床。后来医生和专家打开酒桶的上盖才知道，桶的内壁有一块很大的黄铜标签，那时确实习惯把标签做在桶里面，漫长的岁月中，本来应该相安无事的铜和酒却起了反应，不知产生了什么东西溶解到了酒里……当酒桶搬走时，罗辑看到了坎特脸上幸灾乐祸的表情。
But he had anticipated this moment, and he had been prepared. He was waiting for someone, and then the next step of the plan would begin. He was waiting for Da Shi.
但罗辑早预料到了这一时刻，他对这一切都有所准备，只等一个人来，计划的下一步就可以开始了。他在等大史。
Tyler stood holding an umbrella against the Kagoshima drizzle. Behind him, two meters away, stood defense chief Koichi Inoue, whose umbrella remained unopened. The past two days he had maintained the same separation from Tyler, both physically and mentally. They were at the Chiran Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots, and in front of them was a statue of a special attack unit next to a white plane, call sign 502. A light layer of rain painted the surface of the statue and the aircraft and made them deceptively lifelike.
泰勒打伞站在鹿儿岛的细雨中，身后是防卫厅长官井上宏一。井上带着伞但没有打开，站得距泰勒有两米远，在这两天，不论在身体上还是在思想上，他总是与面壁者保持一定的距离。这里是神风特攻队纪念馆，他们的面前是一尊特攻队员的雕像，旁边还有一架白色的特攻队作战飞机，机号是502。雨水在雕像和飞机的表面涂上了一层亮光，使其拥有了虚假的生机。
“I strongly advise you not to speak of this to the media. It will cause trouble.” Koichi Inoue’s words were as icy as the rain.
“我还是劝您在媒体面前也别谈这些，会有麻烦的。”井上宏一的话像雨水一般冰冷。
“Is it still that sensitive, even today?”
“到现在了，这些仍然敏感吗？”
“Isn’t there any room for discussion of my proposal?” Tyler asked.
“难道我的建议连讨论的余地都没有吗？”泰勒问道。
“What’s sensitive isn’t the history, but your proposal to restore the kamikaze special attack units. Why don’t you do it in the US or some other place? Are the Japanese people the only ones in the world who can die out of duty?”
“敏感的不是历史，而是您的建议，恢复神风特攻队，为什么不在美国或别的什么地方做？这个世界上难道只有日本人有赴死的责任？”
“In interplanetary war, does this mode of attack really have any significance? You should realize that victories for those special attack units were limited, and they didn’t turn the tide of battle.”
“在星际战争中，这种攻击方式真有意义吗？要知道，当年的特攻作战战果是有限的，并没能扭转战局。”
“Commander, sir, the space force I have established is a fleet of fighters equipped with super hydrogen bombs.”
“长官阁下，我所组建的太空力量是以球状闪电为武器。”
Tyler closed up his umbrella and drew closer to Koichi Inoue, who — although he didn’t recoil — seemed to have a force field surrounding him that prevented Tyler from getting close. “I’ve never said that the future kamikaze forces would be made up only of Japanese members. It’s an international force, but since it originated in your great country, isn’t it only natural to revive it here?”
泰勒把伞收起来。井上宏一向他走近了些。前者虽然没躲开，但周围似乎有一种力场阻止井上宏一继续靠近：“我从来就没有说过未来的神风特攻队只由日本人组成，这是一支国际部队，但贵国是它的起源地，从这里着手恢复不是很自然的吗？”
“Why do you need humans? Can’t computer-controlled fighters get close enough to attack?”
“为什么非要用人呢？电脑不能控制飞船抵近攻击吗？”
This question seemed to give Tyler the opportunity he was waiting for, and he grew exited. “That’s exactly the problem! Today’s computers are unable to replace human brains, and advancements in fundamental theory would be necessary for quantum and other next-gen computers. But that’s been locked up by the sophons. So four centuries from now, computing intelligence will still be limited, and human-controlled weapons will be indispensable… To tell you the truth, reviving the kamikaze squads only has moral significance now, because it will be ten generations before any of them go to their death. But establishing that spirit and faith means starting now!”
这个问题似乎使泰勒找到了机会，他兴奋起来：“问题就在这里！目前在战斗机上，计算机并不能代替人脑，而包括量子计算机在内的新一代计算机的产生，依赖于基础物理学的进步，而后者已经被智子锁死了。所以四个世纪后，计算机的智能也是有限的，人对武器的操纵必不可少……其实，现在恢复的神风特攻队，只具有精神信念上的意义，十代人之内，没人会因此赴死，但这种精神和信念的建立，必须从现在开始！”
As Tyler walked in the sea breeze, his mind returned to a sentence from a suicide note from a kamikaze pilot to his mother that he had seen in the exhibit:
泰勒走在夹着雨的海风中，脑海中不时回响着一句话，那是他刚才从陈列室中的一位即将出击的神风队员写给母亲的遗书上看到的：
Koichi Inoue turned around to face Tyler for the first time. His wet hair was plastered against his forehead and the raindrops on his face looked like tears. “That approach violates the basic moral principles of modern society: Human lives come first, and the state and the government can’t require any individual to take up a death mission. I seem to remember a line Yang Wen-li said in Legend of the Galactic Heroes: ‘In this war lies the fate of the country, but what does it matter next to individual rights and freedoms? All of you just do your best.'”
井上宏一转过身来，第一次面对泰勒，他的湿头发紧贴在前额上，雨水在他的脸上像泪水似的：“这种做法违反了现代社会的基本道德准则：人的生命高于一切，国家和政府不能要求任何人从事这种必死的使命。我还大概记得《银河英雄传说》中杨威利的一句话：国家兴亡，在此一战，但比起个人的权利和自由来，这些倒算不得什么，各位尽力而为就行了。”
Mom, I’m going to be a firefly.
“妈妈，我将变成一只萤火虫。”
Tyler sighed. “You know what? You have thrown away your most precious resource.” Then he snapped open his umbrella and turned and walked angrily away. When he reached the gate of the memorial, he looked back and saw Koichi Inoue still standing in the rain before the statue.
泰勒长叹一声说：“知道吗？你们丢弃了自己最宝贵的东西。”说完他砰一声撑开了伞，转身愤然而去。一直走到纪念馆的大门处，他才回头看了一眼，井上宏一仍淋着雨站在雕像前。
“Totally different from today’s nuclear bombs. Constructing its mathematical model might be more than a hundred times more complicated than today’s bombs. This is an enormous undertaking.”
“与现在的核弹完全是两回事，建造它的数学模型，复杂度可能是现在的上百倍，这是一个巨大的工程。”
“William Cosmo?”
“威廉·科兹莫？”
“What do I need to do?”
“需要我做什么？”
“What’s he going to do?”
“那你要他做什么？”
“But he’s… he’s…”
“可他是个，是个……”
“An astrophysicist. An authority on stars.”
“天体物理学家，研究恒星的权威。”
“That’s what I’m gonna tell you. To your mind, a nuclear bomb is detonated and then explodes, but the actual process is more like burning. The greater the yield, the longer the combustion. A twenty-megaton nuclear explosion, for example, has a fireball that can last for over twenty seconds. The superbomb we’re designing is two hundred megatons, and its fireball will burn for several minutes. Think about that. What will it look like?”
“这正是我今天要对您说的。在您的印象中，核弹触发后是爆炸，但事实上那个过程更像一种燃烧，当量越大，燃烧过程越长。比如一颗2000万吨级的核弹爆炸时，火球能持续二十多秒钟；而我们正在设计的超级核弹，就以两亿吨级来说吧，它的火球可能燃烧几分钟，您想想看，这东西像什么？”
“Yes.”
“是他。”
“It’s worse than I imagined,” Allen said to Rey Diaz. They were standing next to a black obelisk made of lava rock, the monument marking ground zero of humankind’s first atom bomb.
“事情比想象的难。”艾伦对雷迪亚兹说，他们站在一座黑色的火山岩尖石碑旁，这是人类第一颗原子弹爆心投影点的标志。
“Is its structure really that different?” Rey Diaz asked.
“它的结构真的有很大的不同？”雷迪亚兹问。
“Cosmo’s on your staff, right? Get him to come to my lab.”
“科兹莫在你的参谋部中，是吗？把他弄到我的实验室来。”
“A small sun.”
“一个小太阳。”
“Don’t be limited by planetary defense. Me and my colleagues in the lab are scientists, after all. Besides, this thing is not without practical significance. So long as you input the appropriate parameters, the star could be a model for our sun. Think about it. It’s always useful to have the sun in your computer memory. It’s the biggest presence that’s close to us in the cosmos, but we could take more advantage of it. The model may have many more discoveries lying in wait.”
“不要总是局限于地球防御，我和实验室的同事们毕竟是科学家。再说这事也不是全无实际意义的，只要把适当的参数输入，这颗恒星就变成了太阳！您想想，在计算机内存中拥有一个太阳，总是有用的。对于宇宙中距我们最近的这么一个巨大的存在，我们对它的利用太不够了，这个模型也许能有更多的发现。”
“Correct! Its fusion structure is very like that of a star, and it reproduces stellar evolution over a very abbreviated period. So the mathematical model we need to construct is essentially the model of a star.”
“很对！它的聚变结构与恒星很相似，并在极短的时间内重现恒星的演化过程。所以我们要建立的数学模型，从本质上说是一颗恒星的模型。”
White sands stretched out in front of them. In the moments just before dawn, the details of the dark desert couldn’t be made out. As they gazed at the scenery, they were involuntarily reminded of the basic setting of Three Body.
在他们面前，白沙靶场的荒漠延伸开去，这时正值日出前的黎明，荒漠黑乎乎的看不清细节。两人看到这景色时，都不由想起了《三体》游戏中的基本场景。
“I’m very excited, Mr. Rey Diaz. Please forgive me for our lack of enthusiasm at the start. Looking at the project now, the significance far exceeds the construction of a superbomb itself. Do you know what we’re doing? We’re creating a virtual star!”
“我很激动，雷迪亚兹先生，请原谅我们开始时缺少热情，现在看来这个项目的意义远远超出了建造超级核弹本身，知道我们在做什么吗？我们在创造一颗虚拟的恒星！”
Rey Diaz shook his head in disapproval. “What does that have to do with the defense of Earth?”
雷迪亚兹不以为然地摇摇头：“这与地球防御有什么关系？”
The rising sun was now just peeking its head over the horizon. The desert in front of them came into focus like a developing photograph, and Rey Diaz could see that this place, once blasted by the fires of hell, was now covered in sparse undergrowth.
这时，朝阳从地平线处露出明亮的顶部，荒漠像显影一般清晰起来，雷迪亚兹看到，这昔日地狱之火燃起的地方，已被稀疏的野草覆盖。
Rey Diaz said, “One previous use of the sun is what brought humanity to the brink, and brought you and me to this place.”
雷迪亚兹说：“上一次对太阳的应用，把人类逼到了绝境，也使你我有缘站在这里。”
“But new discoveries might bring humanity back. So today, I’ve invited you here to watch the sunrise.”
“可是新的发现却有可能使人类摆脱绝境，所以我今天请您到这里来看日出。”
“Oppenheimer said that when he watched the first nuclear explosion. I think it’s a quote from the Bhagavad Gita.”
“这是奥本海默在看到第一颗核弹爆炸时说的一句话，好像是引用印度史诗《薄伽梵歌》中的。”
“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” Allen exclaimed.
“我正变成死亡，世界的毁灭者。”艾伦脱口而出。
“What?” Rey Diaz whipped his head around, as if someone had shot him from behind.
“什么？！”雷迪亚兹猛地回头看艾伦，那神情仿佛是有人在他背后开枪似的。
The wheel in the east expanded rapidly, casting light across the Earth like a golden web. The same sun was there on that morning when Ye Wenjie had tuned the Red Shore antenna, and even before that, the same sun had shone upon the dust settling after the first bomb blast. Australopithecus a million years ago and the dinosaurs a hundred million years ago had turned their dull eyes upon this very sun, and even earlier than that, the hazy light that penetrated the surface of the primeval ocean and was felt by the first living cell was emitted by this same sun.
东方的光轮迅速扩大，将光芒像金色的大网般撒向世界。叶文洁在那天早晨用红岸天线对准的，是这同一个太阳；在更早的时候，在这里，也是这轮太阳照耀着第一颗原子弹爆炸后的余尘；百万年前的古猿和一亿年前的恐龙用它们那愚钝的眼睛见到的，也都是这同一个太阳；再早一些，原始海洋中第一个生命细胞所感受到的从海面透人的朦胧光线，也是这个太阳发出的。
In the east, the sun rose in overarching solemnity, as if declaring to the world, “Everything is as fleeting as a shadow before me.”
东方，太阳以超越一切的庄严冉冉升起，仿佛在向世界宣布，除了我，一切都是过隙的白驹。
“What are you talking about?” Rey Diaz said. Watching the rising sun, his breathing became ragged.
“休在说些什么？”雷迪亚兹说，他看着升起的太阳，呼吸急促起来。
“I’m thanking you, Mr. Rey Diaz, because from now on we’re not sons of bitches.”
“我在感谢您，雷迪亚兹先生，因为从此以后，我们不是婊子养的了。”
Allen went on, “And then a man called Bainbridge followed up Oppenheimer’s statement with something completely nonpoetic: ‘Now we are all sons of bitches.'”
艾伦接着说：“当时一个叫班布里奇的人紧接着奥本海默说了一句没有诗意的话：现在我们都成了婊子养的。”
“Go, go to the car,” he said weakly. He turned his head in the direction opposite the sun, and he raised his other hand to block the sunlight. He was unable to get up. Allen tried to assist but couldn’t budge his stocky body. “Drive the car over…” Rey Diaz wheezed out, while pulling his hand back to cover his eyes. When Allen drove over to him, he had fallen to the ground. With difficulty, Allen helped him into the backseat. “Sunglasses. I need sunglasses…” He half-reclined into the backseat, his hands clawing at the air. Allen handed Rey Diaz a pair of sunglasses he found on the dashboard. After he put them on his breathing grew smoother. “I’m all right. Let’s get out of here. Quickly,” he said feebly.
“去，去车里。”雷迪亚兹虚弱地说，他的头转向日出的反方向，没有撑地的那只手向前伸出，试图遮捎阳光。他此时已无力起身，艾伦要扶他起来，但扶不动他那魁梧的身躯，“把车开过来……”雷迪亚兹喘息着，同时收回那只遮挡阳光的手捂住双眼。当艾伦把车开到旁边时，发现雷迪亚兹已经瘫倒在地，艾伦艰难地把他弄上车的后座。“墨镜，我要墨镜……”雷迪亚兹半躺在后座上，双手在空中乱抓，艾伦从驾驶台上找到墨镜递给他，他戴上后，呼吸似乎顺畅了些，“我没事，我们回去吧，快点。”雷迪亚兹无力地说。
“What’s the matter, Mr. Rey Diaz?” Allen saw that Rey Diaz had fallen into a crouch, one hand on the ground, and was convulsing in dry heaves. His face had turned pale and was covered in a cold sweat, and he had no strength to move his hand from the clump of thorns it was pressing on.
“你怎么了，雷迪亚兹先生？”艾伦看到雷迪亚兹蹲了下去，一手撑地呕吐起来，但什么也没有吐出来。艾伦看到他变得苍白的脸上布满冷汗，他的手压到一丛棘刺上，但已经没有力气移开。
“Uh… when did you start having this sort of reaction?”
“这……您从什么时候开始有这症状的？”
“Just now.”
“刚才。”
“Yeah. You’ll never find a plane as comfortable as that one we were on,” Shi Qiang said as he appraised his surroundings.
“是啊，哪有咱们坐的那架那么舒服。”史强说，同时打量着四周的环境。
“Can’t you be any more romantic?”
“你就不能浪漫点儿吗？”
“It’s awful,” Shi Qiang said, shaking his head. “Woods on three sides, so it’s easy to hide close to the house. And there’s a lake. With the shore this close to the house, it would be difficult to defend against divers coming from the woods on the other side. But the surrounding grassland is pretty good, and provides some open space.”
“不好。”史强摇摇头说，“三面有林子，隐藏着接近别墅很容易：还有这湖岸，离房子这么近，很难防范从对岸树林中下水的蛙人；不过这周围的草地很好，提供了一些开阔空间。”
“Not bad, eh?”
“这地方不错吧？”
“What on earth happened? What’s wrong?”
“您到底怎么了？哪里不舒服？”
“I’m here to work, my boy.”
“老弟，我是来工作的。”
“It’s romantic work I’m thinking of.” Luo Ji led Shi Qiang into the living room. He surveyed it, but did not seem much impressed by the luxury and elegance. Luo Ji poured him a drink in a crystal goblet, but Shi Qiang turned it down with a wave of his hand.
“我正是打算交给你一件浪漫的工作。”罗辑带着大史来到了客厅，后者简单打量了一下，这里的豪华和雅致似乎没给他留下什么印象。罗辑用水晶高脚杯倒上一杯酒递给史强，他摆摆手谢绝了。
The peculiar phobia for the sun that afflicted Rey Diaz pushed him to the edge of mental and physical breakdown whenever he saw it and kept him confined indoors from then on.
从此以后，雷迪亚兹患上了这种奇怪的恐日症，一见到太阳，身心就接近崩溃。
“It might be the sun.”
“好像因为太阳。”
“Was the flight very long? You look like you don’t have any energy,” was the first thing Luo Ji said after Shi Qiang arrived.
“坐飞机的时间太长了吧？你看上去无精打采的。”罗辑看到刚来的史强时说。
“She’s, well, she’s Asian, so let’s say Chinese.” As Luo Ji spoke, he took out a paper and pencil. “Her face is like this. Her nose, like this. And her mouth… geez, I can’t draw. And her eyes… damn it, how can I draw her eyes? Do you have one of those things, a piece of software that will let you pull up a face and then adjust the eyes and nose and so on according to the eyewitnesses description to come up with an accurate depiction of the person the witness saw?”
“她是一个，嗯，东方女孩，就设定为中国人吧。”罗辑说着，拿出纸和笔画了起来，“她的脸型，是这个样子；鼻子，这样儿，嘴，这样儿，唉，我不会画，眼睛……见鬼，我怎么可能画出她的眼睛，你们是不是有那种东西，一种软件吧，可以调出一张面孔来，按照目击者描述调整眼睛鼻子什么的，最后精确画出目击者见过的那人？”
Luo Ji sipped his brandy and sat down next to him. “Da Shi, I’m asking you to do me a favor. In your old job, did you ever have to look across the entire country for a particular person, or even around the world?”
罗辑啜了一口酒，坐到史强身边：“大史啊，我求你帮个忙。在你以前的工作中，是不是常常在全国甚至全世界范围找某个人？”
“Okay, so long as you know what she looks like.”
“我说还好，这样至少你知道她的长相了。”
“At finding people? Of course.”
“找人吗？当然。”
“Great. Help me find a person. A woman in her early twenties. This is part of the plan.”
“那好，帮我找一个人，一个二十岁左右的女孩儿，这是计划的一部分。”
“Were you good at it?”
“你对此很在行，”
“What?”
“什么？”
“Nationality? Name? Address?”
“国籍、姓名、住址？”
Luo Ji nodded. “Daydreams, too.”
罗辑点点头，“包括白日梦。”
“None. The possibility that she even exists in the world is low.”
“都没有，她甚至连在这个世界上存在的可能性都很小。”
Shi Qiang looked at him, and after a few seconds said, “You dreamed her?”
大史看着罗辑，停了几秒钟说：“梦见的？”
“I can’t drink right now… Tell me of this romantic work of yours.”
“我现在不能喝酒了……说说你的浪漫工作吧。”
“Yes.”
“是。”
Shi Qiang nodded, too, then said something Luo Ji had not expected him to say. “Okay.”
大史也点点头，说了出乎罗辑预料的两个字：“还好。”
“It’s thirty-year-old aged brandy.”
“这可是三十年的陈酿白兰地。”
“Then get it out and let’s draw!”
“那你去拿来，我们现在就画！”
“Sure. I’ve got one right here on my laptop.”
“有啊，我带的笔记本里就有。”
Something in Luo Ji’s mind caught fire, and he stood up and began to pace restlessly in front of the fireplace. “She… how should I put it? She came into this world like a lily growing out of a rubbish heap, so… so pure and delicate, and nothing around her can contaminate her. But it can all harm her. Yes, everything around her can hurt her! Your first reaction when you see her is to protect her. No, to care for her, to let her know that you are willing to pay any price to shield her from the harm of a crude and savage reality. She… she’s so… ah, I’ve got a clumsy tongue. I can’t say anything clearly.”
罗辑体内的什么东西好像被点燃了，他站起来，在壁炉前躁动不安地来回走着：“她……怎么说呢？她来到这个世界上，就像垃圾堆里长出了一朵百合花，那么—那么的纯洁娇嫩，周围的一切都不可能污染她，但都是对她的伤害，是的，周围的一切都能伤害到她！你见到她的第一反应就是去保护她……啊不，呵护她，让她免受这粗陋野蛮的现实的伤害，你愿意为此付出一切代价！她……她是那么……唉，你看我怎么笨嘴笨舌的，什么都没说清。”
“It’s always like that,” Shi Qiang said with a laugh. His laugh, which had seemed crude and silly the first time Luo Ji heard it, felt full of wisdom now, and it soothed him. “But you’ve been clear enough.”
“都这样，”大史笑着点点头，他那初看有些粗傻的笑现在在罗辑的眼中充满智慧，也让他感到很舒服，“不过你说得够清楚了。”
Shi Qiang stretched out on the sofa and situated himself comfortably. “Not necessary. You don’t need to draw her. Just keep talking. Put aside her appearance, and first talk about what sort of person she is.”
大史在沙发上舒展一下身体，让自己坐得舒服些：“没必要，你也不用画了，继续说吧，长相放一边，先说她是个什么样的人。”
Shi Qiang calmed him with a wave. “Forget it. Just talk about what happens when the two of you are together. The more detailed the better.”
大史挥挥手让罗辑平静下来：“算了，就说你和她在一起的事儿吧，越详细越好。”
Luo Ji’s eyes widened in amazement. “How did you know about the two of us?”
罗辑吃惊地瞪大了双眼：“和她……在一起？你怎么知道？”
Shi Qiang laughed again. Then he looked around. “There wouldn’t happen to be any cigars in this place, would there?”
大史又呵呵地笑了起来，同时四下看了看：“这种地方，不会没有好些的雪茄吧？”
“Yes, there are!” Luo Ji grabbed an elegant wooden box from the mantel, took out a thick Davidoff, and used an even more elegant guillotine-style cigar cutter to slice off the end. Then he passed it to Shi Qiang, and lit it for him with a cedar strip specially designed for cigars.
“有有！”罗辑赶忙从壁炉上方拿下一个精致的木盒，从中拿出一根粗大的“大卫杜夫”，用一个更精致的断头台外形的雪茄剪切开头部，递给大史，然后用点雪茄专用的松木条给他点着。
“Okay. Well, I’ll go on, then. She… but what am I saying? No matter what I say, I can’t express what she’s like in my heart.” He grew irritated, and seemed to want to tear out his heart to show to Shi Qiang.
“好吧，那我接着说，她……可，可我怎么说呢？怎样描述都表现不出我心中的那个她。”罗辑显得急躁起来，仿佛要把自己的心撕开让大史看似的。
Shi Qiang took a puff and nodded his head, pleased. “Go on.”
大史抽了一口，惬意地点点头，“说吧。”
Luo Ji overcame his earlier language barrier and grew garrulous. He described how she had come alive for the first time in the library, how she appeared in his classroom during lecture, how the two of them had met in front of the imaginary fireplace in his dormitory, the beauty of the firelight shining onto her face through the bottle of wine like the eyes of twilight. He recalled with pleasure their road trip, describing every last detail: the fields after the snow, the town and village under the blue sky, the mountains like old villagers basking in the sun, and the evening and bonfire at the foot of the mountain…
罗辑一反刚才的言语障碍，滔滔不绝起来。他讲述了她在图书馆中的第一次活现，讲述他与她在宿舍里那想象中的壁炉前的相逢，讲她在他课堂上的现身，描述那天晚上壁炉的火光透过那瓶像晚霞的眼睛的葡萄酒在她的脸庞上映出的美丽。他幸福地回忆他们的那次旅行，详细地描述每一个最微小的细节：那雪后的田野、蓝天下的小镇和村庄、像晒太阳的老人的山，还有山上的黄昏和篝火……
After he finished, Shi Qiang stubbed out his cigar. “Well, that’s about enough. I’ll guess a few things about the girl, and you see if I’m right.”
大史听完，捻灭了烟头说：“嗯，基本上够了。关于这个女孩儿，我提一些推测，你看对不对。”
Luo Ji nodded. “Yes, yes. She’s knowledgeable, but not to the point where it calcifies her. It only makes her more sensitive to life and to the world.”
罗辑点头，“是的是的，她有知识，但那些知识还没有达到学问的程度去僵化她，只是令她对世界和生活更敏感。”
“She was probably born into a highly educated family and lived a life that wasn’t too rich but more affluent than most families. Growing up she enjoyed her parents’ love, but she had little contact with the community, particularly the lower rungs of society.”
“她应该出生在一个高级知识分子家庭，过的不是富豪的生活，但比一般人家要富裕得多。她从小到大享受着充分的父爱母爱，但与社会，特别是基层社会接触很少。”
“Now, if any of the following speculations are wrong, let me know. She likes to wear — how would you put it — simple, elegant clothing, a little plainer than other women her age.” Luo Ji nodded dumbly, over and over. “But there’s always something white, like a shirt or a collar, that contrasts sharply with the dark colors of the rest of the outfit.”
“下面的推测就是猜测了，错了你告诉我——她喜欢穿那种，怎么说呢，素雅的衣服，在她这种年龄的女孩子来说，显得稍微素了些。”罗辑呆呆地连连点头，“但总有很洁白的部分，比如衬衣呀领子呀什么的，与其余深色的部分形成挺鲜明的对比。”
“Great!”
“好的好的！”
“Education: She’s got at least a bachelor’s, but less than a doctorate.”
“她的文化程度，应该是大学以上博士以下。”
“Right, absolutely right! She never told me about her family circumstances, or actually anything about herself, but I think that ought to be the case.”
“对对，极对！她从没对我说过家里的情况，事实上从未说过任何关于她自己的情况，但我想应该是那样的！”
“Da Shi, you’re…” Luo Ji said, admiration in his eyes, as he watched Shi Qiang speak.
“大史啊，你……”罗辑用近乎崇敬的目光看着大史说。
Luo Ji was ready to fall on his knees before Shi Qiang. “Da Shi, I throw myself on the ground before you. You’re the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes!”
罗辑像要给史强跪下似的，“大史，我五体投地！你，福尔摩斯再世啊！”
Brushing him aside, Shi Qiang went on, “Finally, she’s not tall, one hundred and sixty centimeters or so, and her body is… well, I guess you could say slender, as if a gust of wind could blow her away, so she doesn’t seem so short… I can come up with more, of course. Not far off, is it?”
史强挥手制止他说下去，“最后一点：她个子不高，一米六左右吧，身材很……怎么形容来着，纤细，一阵风就能刮跑的那种，所以这个儿也不显得低……当然还能想出很多，应该都差不离吧。”
That night, he brought the computer to Luo Ji. When the woman’s portrait appeared onscreen, Luo Ji stared, not moving a muscle, like he had been struck by a curse. Shi Qiang had evidently expected this, and retrieved another cigar from the mantel, clipped it with the guillotine, lit it, and began to smoke. When he had taken a few puffs, he came back to find Luo Ji still staring at the screen.
当天晚上，大史带着笔记本电脑来找罗辑。当屏幕上显示出那张少女的画像时，罗辑像中了魔咒似的一动不动盯着看。史强好像早就预料到这个，到壁炉那边又取了一根雪茄，在那个小断头台上切了口，点燃抽起来，抽了好几口后回来，发现罗辑还盯着屏幕。
Shi Qiang stood up. “Now I’ll sketch her on the computer.”
大史站起来，“那我去电脑上画了。”
“Tell me what’s off and I’ll adjust it for you.”
“有什么不像的地方，你说我调整。”
“Dream lovers are basically the same for men of a certain type.”
“但每类男人的梦中情人大体上是相同的。”
“I thought so,” Shi Qiang said, and closed the computer.
“我想也是。”史强说着，关上电脑。
With difficulty, Luo Ji tore his gaze from the screen, stood up, and walked to the window, where he watched the moonlight shining on the distant snow peak. He murmured, dreamlike, “Nothing.”
罗辑艰难地从屏幕上收回目光，站起身走到窗前，看着远方月光下的雪峰，梦呓似的说：“不用了。”
Shi Qiang sat down on the sofa, exhausted. “There’s nothing supernatural about it. We’re both men.”
大史很疲惫地坐到沙发上：“没那么玄乎，都是男人嘛。”
“Remember, you told me a lot of stuff.”
“你不是还对我说了那么多嘛。”
Luo Ji turned to him. “But every man’s dream lover is quite different!”
罗辑转身说：“可每个男人的梦中情人是大不相同的啊！”
“Still, getting it so close should be impossible!”
“那也不可能搞得这么像！”
Still gazing into the distance, Luo Ji uttered a phrase that others had used to evaluate Shi Qiang: “Da Shi, you’re a devil.”
罗辑仍看着远方，说了一句别人也用来评价过史强的话：“大史，你真是个魔鬼。”
Luo Ji walked over to the computer and opened it up again. “Send me a copy.” Then, as Shi Qiang worked on copying the image, he asked, “Can you find her?”
罗辑走到电脑旁，又打开它，“给我拷一份。”他边忙活边问，“你能找到她吗？”
“All I can say now is that it’s quite likely. But I can’t rule out not finding her.”
“我现在只能说有很大的可能，但也不排除根本找不到。”
“What?” Luo Ji’s hands stopped their movements and he turned to look at Shi Qiang in astonishment.
“什么？”罗辑停下了手中的操作，转身吃惊地看着大史。
“With this sort of thing, how can you guarantee one hundred percent success?”
“这种事，怎么可能保证百分之百成功嘛。”
“No, that’s not what I mean. The total opposite, in fact. I thought you would say that it’s practically impossible, but you wouldn’t rule out a random, one-ten-thousandth of a percent chance of finding her. And if you had said that, I’d have been satisfied.” He turned back to the picture on the screen, and murmured again, “Can such a person really exist in the world?”
“不，我不是这个意思，正相反，我以为你会说几乎没有可能，但也不排除万分之一的偶然找到了，其实你要是这么说我也满意了！”他转头看着再次显示出来的画像，梦呓似的说：“世界上怎么可能存在这样的人儿。”
Shi Qiang smiled scornfully. “Dr. Luo, how many people have you seen?”
史强轻蔑地一笑：“罗教授，你能见过多少人？”
“Not as many as you, of course, but I know that there’s no perfect person in the world, much less a perfect woman.”
“当然无法与你相比，不过我知道世界上没有完美的人，更没有完美的女人。”
“Like you said earlier, I’m often able to find a particular individual out of tens of thousands, and I can tell you from the experience of most of my life that there are all kinds of people out there. All kinds, my boy. Perfect people, perfect women. You just haven’t met them.”
“就像你说的，我常常从成千上万的人中找某些人。就以我这大半辈子的经验告诉你：什么样的人都有。告诉休吧，老弟，什么样的都有，包括完美的人和完美的女人，只是你无缘遇到。”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard anyone say that.”
“我还是第一次听人这么说。”
“It’s because someone who’s perfect in your mind isn’t necessarily perfect in the minds of others. This girl of your dreams — to me, she’s got obvious, well, imperfections. So there’s a good chance of finding her.”
“因为嘛，你心中完美的人在别人心中不一定完美，就说你梦中的这个女孩儿，在我看来她有明显的……怎么说呢，不完美的地方吧，所以找到的可能性很大。”
“Tell them that it’s an important part of the Wallfacer Project and must be taken seriously.”
“告诉他们，这是面壁计划的重要部分，必须认真对待。”
“What? The PDC needs to find him…?” Kent groped for the Chinese term. “A dream lover? The guy’s been indulged too much. I’m sorry. I can’t pass along your request.”
“什么？让PDC为他找……”坎特艰难地寻找着那个中文词，“梦中情人？这个家伙已经被惯得不成样子了！对不起，我不能向上转达你这个请求。”
“But directors can search for an ideal actor out of tens of thousands of people and not find them in the end.”
“可有的导演在几万人中找一个理想的演员，最后都找不到。”
“Those directors can’t match our professional search capabilities. We’re not just looking at tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands or millions of people. The tools and techniques we use are more sophisticated than any director’s. The computers at the police analysis center, say, can find a match out of upwards of a hundred million faces in just half a day… The only catch is that this is beyond the scope of my duties, so I’ll need to report to the higher authorities first. If they approve and assign the task to me, then of course I’ll do my best.”
“我们的专业搜寻能力是那些个导演没法比的，我们可不只是在几万人中找，甚至不只是在几十万和几百万人中找，我们使用的手段和工具比什么导演要先进得多，比如说吧，公安部分析中心的那些大电脑，在上亿张照片中匹配一个面孔，只用半天的时间……只是，这事儿超出了我的职责范围，我首先要向上级汇报，如果得到批准并把任务交给我，我当然会尽力去做。”
“Then you are in violation of the Wallfacer Project principle: No matter how incomprehensible a Wallfacer’s order is, it must be reported and executed. Any veto belongs to the PDC.”
“那你就违反了面壁计划原则：不管面壁者的指令多么不可理解，都要报请执行，最后否决是PDC的事儿。”
Shi Qiang chuckled opaquely and then took his leave.
史强暖昧地嘿嘿一笑，起身告辞了。
Shi Qiang shook his head. “I don’t know.” He raised a hand to stop Kent from arguing. “However, sir, that’s just my ignorance, not the opinion of our superiors. This is the biggest difference between you and me: I’m just someone who faithfully carries out orders. You, you’re someone who always has to ask why.”
史强摇摇头，“我不知道。”他抬手制止了坎特下面的争辩，“但，先生，只是我个人不知道，不是上级的看法。这就是你我之间最大的不同：我只是个命令的忠实执行者，而你呢，什么都要问个为什么。”
“It’s not about right or wrong. If everyone had to be clear about why before they executed an order, then the world would have plunged into chaos long ago. Mr. Kent, you do outrank me, but when you get down to it, we’re both people who carry out orders. We ought to understand that some things aren’t for people like us to think over. It’s enough to do our duty. If you can’t do that, then I’m afraid you’ll have a rough time.”
“没什么对不对的，如果每个人都要先弄清楚为什么再执行命令，那这世界早乱套了。坎特先生，你的级别是比我高些，但说到底，我们都是执行命令的人，我们首先应该明白，有些事情不是由我们这样的人来考虑的，我们尽责任就行了，做不到这点，你的日子怕很难过。”
“But we can’t use society’s resources to allow a person like him to live the life of an emperor! Mr. Shi, we haven’t been working together long, but I really respect you. You’re an experienced and insightful man, so tell me the truth. Do you really think Luo Ji is carrying out the Wallfacer Project?”
“那也不能用人类社会的资源为这种人过帝王生活服务！史先生，我们共事不长，但我很佩服你，你是个很老练又很有洞察力的人，那你实话告诉我：你真的认为罗辑在执行面壁计划？”
“Is that wrong?”
“这不对吗？”
“Even if there were a template for a Wallfacer, Luo Ji is not entirely inconsistent with it.”
“就算面壁者真的应该有样子，那罗教授也不是一点儿都不像。”
“What should a Wallfacer look like?”
“面壁者应该是什么样子？”
“But he’s so… I mean… if he’s just carefree like that, how does it relate to the Wallfacer Project?”
“可他这么……怎么说……”逍遥下去，面壁计划呢？“
“That I am.”
“我还真看到些。”
“What?” asked Kent, a little taken aback. “You’re not saying that you see a certain amount of quality in him?”
“什么？坎特有些吃惊，”你不会是说竟然能从他身上看到某些素质吧？“
“Well, damn it, what do you see?”
“那就见鬼了，你说说看。”
Kent was speechless for a moment.
坎特一时语塞。
“That’s right. But Luo Ji’s carefree. Nothing bothers him. Kent, old fellow, do you think what he’s doing is easy? Open-mindedness, is what this is, and anyone who wants to do great things needs to be open-minded. Someone like you won’t accomplish great things.”
“这不就对了，可罗辑在逍遥着，什么事儿没有似的。老坎先生，你以为这简单吗？这就叫大气，这就是干大事的人必备的大气！像你我这样的人是干不成大事的。”
Shi Qiang clapped a hand to Kent’s shoulder. “You, for example. If the Wallfacer mantle descended upon you, you would be an opportunistic hedonist just like him.”
史强把手搭到坎特肩上：“比如你吧，假如把面壁者这个身份套到你身上，你会像他这样借机享乐吗？”
“I’d have broken down long before now.”
“我早崩溃了。”
“I’m already having a rough time! We just wasted gobs of money buying that sunken wine. I just think… look, does he look like a Wallfacer at all?”
“我的日子已经很难过了！上次耗巨款买下沉船中的酒，我就想……你说，这人有一点儿面壁者的样子吗？”
Kent stared at Shi Qiang for a long moment, and at last shook his head, unsure whether or not he understood that last sentence. “Fine. I’ll make the report. But can you let me see that dream lover of his first?”
坎特看了史强好一会儿，最后还是摇摇头，不能确信自己理解了他最后那句话：“好吧，我向上汇报，不过能先让我看看那个梦中情人吗？”
“I’ve been explaining it all this time and you still don’t get it? I said that I don’t know. How do you know that what the guy’s doing right now isn’t part of the plan? Once again, this isn’t something for you or I to judge. Taking a step back, even if we’re correct in what we think,”– Shi Qiang drew close to Kent and lowered his voice –“some things require time.”
“说了半天我怎么就跟你拎不清呢？我说过我什么都不知道，你怎么知道人家现在做的不是计划的一部分？再说一遍，这不应该由我们来判断。退一万步，就算我们想的是对的，”史强凑近坎特压低了些声音，“有些事，还是要慢慢来。”
When he saw the woman on the screen, Kent’s old face grew gentle for an instant. He rubbed his jaw and said, “Oh… my god. I don’t believe for a moment that anyone like that exists, but I hope you find her soon.”
看到屏幕少女的画像，坎特的老脸顿时线条柔和起来，他摸着下巴说：“唔……天啊，虽然我不相信她是人间的女孩儿，但还是祝你们早日找到她。”
“Colonel, do you find it a little abrupt for me to inspect the political and ideological work of your military in my capacity?” Tyler said when he met Zhang Beihai.
“大校，以我的身份，来考察贵军的政治思想工作，您是不是觉得有些唐突？”泰勒见到章北海时间。
“No, Mr. Tyler. There’s precedent for it. Rumsfeld once visited the Central Military Commission’s Party School when I was studying there.” Zhang Beihai lacked the curiosity, caution, and distance that Tyler had observed in the other officers. He appeared sincere, and that made the conversation easier.
“不是的，泰勒先生，这是有先例的，拉姆斯菲尔德曾访问过军委党校，当时我就在那里学习。”章北海说，他没有泰勒见到的其他中国军官的那种好奇、谨慎和疏远，显得很真诚，这使谈话轻松起来。
“That’s right. The US Space Force drew an even larger proportion from the navy than we did.”
“是的，美国太空军中来自海军的比例比我们还高。”
“You’ve got good English. You must be from the navy.”
“您的英语这么好，您是来自海军吧？”
“I’m quite interested in your political and ideological work. I was hoping I could do some in-depth investigation.”
“我对贵军的政治思想工作很感兴趣，希望进行一些深入的考察。”
Zhang Beihai clearly did not agree, but he laughed graciously. “The same soul is found throughout the different branches of the military. In every country’s nascent space force, the military culture bears the imprint of its various branches.”
章北海显然不同意他的观点，但只是宽容地一笑置之：“对于一支军队的不同军种，灵魂应该是相通的，即使是各国新生的太空军，在军事文化上也都打上了各自军队的烙印。”
“That venerable old branch of the services would never have imagined that its warships would be sailing into space… I’ll be frank. When General Chang Weisi introduced you as the finest political cadre in the space force, I thought you would be army, because the army is the soul of your military.”
“这个古老的军种不会想到，他们的战舰要航行在太空……坦率地说，当常伟思将军向我介绍您是贵军最出色的政工干部时。我以为您来自陆军，因为陆军是你们的灵魂。”
“Not a problem at all. My superiors have instructed me to hold nothing back, within the scope of my work.”
“没有问题，上级指示，在我的工作范围内，对您无所保留。”
“Thank you!” Tyler hesitated before going on. “My purpose in this trip is to obtain an answer. I’d like to ask you first.”
“谢谢！”泰勒犹豫了一下说，“我此行的目的是想得到一个答案，我想先就此请教您。”
“A wide range of time, from perhaps ancient Greece through the Second World War. What’s key is the spiritual commonalities I mentioned: duty and honor above all, and, in time of need, to unhesitatingly lay down one’s life. You may have noticed that after the Second World War, this spirit vanished from the military in democratic and authoritarian countries alike.”
“时间上的范围很大，可能从古希腊直到二战，关键是在我所说的精神上有共同点：责任和荣誉高于一切，在需要的时候，毫不犹豫地牺牲生命。你想必注意到，在二战后，不论是在民主国家还是专制国家，这种精神都在从军队中消失。”
“Of course. Go ahead.”
“不客气，您说吧。”
“What do you mean by ‘past’?”
“您指的过去是什么？”
“Colonel, do you believe that we can restore the spirit of armies of the past?”
“大校，您认为，我们有可能恢复具有过去精神的军队吗？”
“The army is drawn from society, so it would mean that the past spirit you speak of would need to be restored throughout society.”
“军队来自社会，这需要整个社会都恢复您所说的那种过去的精神。”
Zhang Beihai considered this for a moment, then said, “This is a profound question, but I think that society has grown up and can never return to its childhood. In the four hundred years that led to the formation of modern society, we see no cultural or mental preparation for this sort of crisis.”
听到这话，章北海思考了一会儿说：“这是个很深刻的问题，但我认为已经成年的人类社会不可能退回到童年。现在看来，在形成现代社会的过去的四百年中，没有对这样的危机和灾难进行过任何思想和文化上的准备。”
“Our views agree on this point.”
“这点我们的看法相同。”
“But, Mr. Tyler, that is impossible.”
“但，泰勒先生，这是不可能的。”
“Why? We have four hundred years. In the past, human society used exactly that amount of time to evolve from the era of collective heroism to one of individualism, so why can’t we use the same amount of time to evolve back?”
“为什么？我们有四百多年时间，在过去，人类社会正是用了这么长时间从集体英雄主义时代演化到个人主义时代，我们为什么不能用同样长的时间再变回去？”
“Didn’t you just say we have four hundred years? If we can’t go backward, then we must move resolutely forward.”
“您不是说过还有四百多年吗，如果我们不能向后走，就坚定地向前走。”
Tyler passed a sentry as he left the space force headquarters. When their eyes met, the sentry greeted him with a shy smile. It was something he hadn’t seen in other countries’ militaries, whose sentries stared intently straight ahead. Looking at the young man’s face, Tyler once again repeated that line to himself:
从太空军总部出来时，泰勒路过一个哨兵身边，他和那个士兵目光相遇时，对方有些羞涩地肘他微笑致意，这在其他国家军队是看不到的，那些哨兵都目不转睛地平视前方。看着那个年轻的面孔，泰勒再次在心里默念那句话：
Zhang Beihai’s answer was opaque. Tyler obtained nothing else from the ensuing conversation but a feeling that the man’s thoughts went deeper than a brief visit could reveal.
章北海的回答很模糊，但进一步谈下去，泰勒也没有从他那里得到更多的东西，只是感觉这人的思想很深，一眼看不透。
“Then from what do you draw your confidence? As far as I’m aware, you are a committed triumphalist. How will a space fleet brimming with defeatism face a powerful enemy?”
“那您对胜利的信心从何而来？据我所知，您是一个坚定的胜利主义者，可是，像这样充斥着失败主义的太空舰队，如何面对强大的敌人呢？”
It began to rain that evening for the first time since Luo Ji had arrived at the estate, and the living room was quite cold. He sat beside the unlit fireplace and listened to the rain outside, feeling that the house was located on a lonely island in the middle of a dark ocean. He wrapped himself in the boundless solitude. With Shi Qiang gone, he had been restlessly waiting, and this lonely wait was itself a kind of happiness. Then he heard a car pull up to the porch and caught snatches of conversation. The soft, gentle voice of a woman saying “Thank you” and “Good-bye” jolted him like an electric shock.
这天傍晚下起了雨，这是罗辑到这里后第一次下雨，客厅里很阴冷。罗辑坐在没有火的壁炉前，听着外面的一片雨声，感觉这幢房子仿佛坐落在阴暗海洋中的一座孤岛上。他让自己笼罩在无边的孤独中，史强走后，他一直在不安的等待中度过，感觉这种孤独和等待本身就是一种幸福。就在这时，他听到汽车停在门席的声音，隐约听到几声话语，其中有一个轻柔稚嫩的女声，说了谢谢、再见之类的。这声音令他触电一般颤抖了一下。
Mom, I’m going to be a firefly.
“妈妈，我将变成萤火虫。”
Two years ago, he had heard the same sound day and night in his dreams. The ethereal sound, a wisp of gossamer floating through the blue sky, brought a fleeting sunshine to the gloomy evening.
两年前，在白天和黑夜的梦中他都听到过这声音，很飘渺，像蓝天上飘过的一缕洁白的轻纱，这阴郁的黄昏中仿佛出现了一道转瞬即逝的阳光。
Then there was a light knock at the door. He sat stiffly in place and only after a long while did he finally open his mouth and say, “Come in.” The door opened. A slender figure floated in on a breath of rain. The sole light in the living room was a floor lamp with an old-fashioned lampshade that cast a circle of illumination beside the fireplace but lit the rest of the room only dimly. Luo Ji couldn’t make out her face, but noticed that she wore white trousers and a dark jacket that stood in stark contrast to her white collar and made him think of lilies.
接着响起了轻轻的敲门声，罗辑僵坐在那里，好半天才说了声请进。门开了，一个纤细的身影随着雨的气息飘了进来。客厅里只开着一盏落地灯，上面有一个旧式的大灯罩，使得灯光只能照到壁炉前的一圈，客厅的其余部分光线很暗。罗辑看不清她的面容，只看到她穿着白色的裤子和深色的外套，一圈洁白的领子与外套的深色形成鲜明对比，使他又想起了百合花。
“Hello, Mr. Luo,” she said.
“罗老师好。”她说。
“Hello,” he said, standing up. “Is it cold outside?”
“你好。”罗辑说着站了起来，“外面很冷吧？”
“Not in the car.” Although he couldn’t see her clearly, he knew she was smiling. “But here”– she looked around her –“here it’s a little cold… Er, I’m Zhuang Yan, Mr. Luo.”
“在车里不冷的。”虽然看不清，但罗辑肯定她笑了笑，“但这里，”她四下看了看，“真的有点儿冷……哦，罗老师，我叫庄颜。”
“Hello, Zhuang Yan. Let’s light the fireplace.”
“庄严你好，我们点上壁炉吧。”
And so Luo Ji knelt down and put some of the neatly stacked fruitwood into the fireplace. He said, “Have you ever seen one before? Here, come have a seat.”
罗辑于是蹲下把那整齐垛着的果木放进壁炉中，同时间道：“以前见过壁炉吗？哦，你过来坐吧。”
She came over and sat on the sofa, still in the shadows. “Oh… only in the movies.”
她走过来，坐到沙发上，仍处于暗影中：“嗯……只在电影上见过。”
Luo Ji struck a match and lit the fire-starter under the wood pile. The flame stretched like it was alive, and the woman gradually took shape in its soft golden glow. Luo Ji gripped tightly to the match with two fingers as it burnt down. He needed the pain to tell him this wasn’t a dream. It was like he had ignited the sun, which now shone on a dreamworld-turned-reality. Outside, the sun could remain forever hidden by clouds and night, so long as his world had her and the firelight in it.
罗辑划火柴点着了柴堆下的引火物，当火焰像一个活物般伸展开来时，她在金色的柔光中渐渐显影。罗辑的两根手指死死地捏着已经烧到头的火柴不放，他需要这种疼痛提醒自己不在梦中，他感觉自己点燃了一个太阳，照亮了已变为现实的梦中的世界。外面那个太阳就永远隐藏在阴雨和夜色中吧，这个世界只要有火光和她就够了。
Da Shi, you really are a devil. Where did you find her? How the hell were you able to find her?
大史，你真是个魔鬼，你在哪儿找到的她？你他妈的怎么可能找到她！
Luo Ji looked away, back into the fire, and tears came unbidden to his eyes. This made him a little scared to look at her, until he realized there was no reason to hide — she would probably think it was the smoke that made him cry. He rubbed his tears away with a hand.
罗辑收回目光，看着火焰，不知不觉泪水已盈满双眼，开始他怕她看到。但很快想到没必要掩饰，因为她可能会以为是烟雾使他流泪，于是抬手擦了一下。
She smiled at him. “My name is the ‘yan’ that means color, not dignity.”
她对他微笑：“我是颜色的颜。”
Looking at her innocently holding the wineglass stirred the most delicate parts of his mind. She drank when invited. She trusted the world and had no wariness about it at all. Yes, everything in the world was lying in wait to hurt her, except here. She needed to be cared for here. This was her castle.
看着她捧着酒杯那天真的样子，罗辑心中最柔软的部分被触动了。让她喝酒她就喝，她相信这个世界，对它没有一点戒心，是的，整个世界到处都潜伏着对她的伤害，只有这里没有，她需要这里的呵护，这是她的城堡。
“It’s not…” He thought about her name. “It’s not ‘dignified’ enough for you?”
“这里不够……”罗辑想起了她的名字，“不够庄严是吗？”
“It’s not the same.”
“是不一样。”
“It’s not the same as you imagined?”
“这里与你想象的不一样？”
“Why is it like this?” She looked up and glanced around the dim living room a second time.
“怎么是这样儿的？”她抬头又打量了一下暗影中的客厅。
“Oh, I see. Perhaps you think there ought to be lots of maps, and a large screen, and clusters of uniformed generals, and I’d be here pointing at things with a stick?”
“哦，我知道了……你是不是觉得这里应该是这样的：有许多地图和大屏幕，有一群戎装的将军，我拿着根长棍指指点点？”
Her words and her smile made Luo Ji’s heart tremble.
这话和她的微笑又让罗辑的心颤动了一下。
She nodded. “Okay.” She accepted the goblet with a quiet “Thank you,” and took a small sip.
“好的。”她点点头，接过高脚杯时轻轻地说了声谢谢，然后喝了一小口。
“That’s it exactly, Mr. Luo.” Delighted, her smile blossomed like a rose in bloom.
“真是这样儿，罗老师。”她的微笑变成开心的笑容，像一朵玫瑰绽放开来。
Luo Ji stood up. “You must be tired from the journey. Have some tea.” He hesitated. “Or would you care for some wine? It’ll ward off the cold.”
罗辑站起来：“你一路上很累吧，喝点儿茶吧，”他犹豫了一下，“要不，喝杯葡萄酒？能驱驱寒。”
“It’s really warm, and nice…” she said with a smile as she watched the flames.
“真暖和，真好……”她看着火光微笑着说。
“I really don’t know where we are. The land looks like Scandinavia. I could call and ask right now.” He reached for the phone next to the sofa.
“我真的不知道这是哪儿，看地貌像北欧，我可以马上打电话问。”罗辑说着伸手去拿沙发旁的电话。
“What did you study?”
“你学的什么？”
He sat down and looked at her, and then said, as calmly as he could, “What did they tell you before you came?”
罗辑坐了下来，看着庄颜，尽量从容地说：“来之前他们是怎么对你说的？”
“Traditional painting, at the Central Academy of Fine Arts.”
“国画，在中央美术学院。”
“Ah. Have you graduated?”
“哦，毕业了吗？”
“That I’d be coming to work, of course.” She flashed him that innocent smile that dashed his heart to pieces. “Mr. Luo, what will I be working on?”
“当然是让我来工作了。”她再次露出那种令他心碎的天真，“罗老师，我的工作是什么呢？”
“Yes. I just graduated, and have been looking for work while I prepare for grad school.”
“嗯，刚毕业，边考研边找工作。”
She nodded and chuckled to herself, clearly not believing him.
她点点头，自己暗笑了一下，显然不相信罗辑的话。
“I don’t know. There was a lot of fog when I came from the airport, and then it got dark, so I couldn’t see anything… Mr. Luo, where is this?”
“我不知道，从机场来时雾很大，后来天又黑了。什么都看不见……罗老师，这是哪儿呢？”
“I don’t know either.”
“我也不知道。”
Luo Ji considered this for a while, but he couldn’t come up with anything for her to do. “Well, as for work, we’ll talk about that tomorrow. You must be tired. First you must sleep well… Do you like it here?”
罗辑想了半天，实在想不出她在这里能干什么。“嗯……工作的事，我们明天再谈吧，你肯定累了，先好好休息一下吧……喜欢这儿吗？”
“The eyes of twilight, no?”
“晚霞的眼睛是吗？”
The next morning, after the rain had cleared, Luo Ji felt as if God had washed out this Garden of Eden to prepare for Zhuang Yan’s arrival. When she saw its true appearance for the first time, what Luo Ji heard was not the squeals and fussing and exclamations that young women like her usually made. No, in the face of such a magnificent vista, she fell into an awed and breathless state and was unable to speak even one word of praise. He could tell that she was far more sensitive to natural beauty than other women.
第二天早晨，雨后初晴，在罗辑的感觉中，仿佛是上帝为了庄颜的到来把这个伊甸园清洗了一遍。当庄颜第一次看到这里的真貌时，罗辑没有听到一般女孩子的大惊小怪的惊叹和赞美，面对这壮美的景色，她处于一种敬畏和窒息的状态，始终没能说出一句赞美的话来。罗辑看出，她对自然之美显然比其他女孩子要敏感得多。
My god, he exclaimed to himself.
天啊，罗辑在心里说。
All of a sudden, she exclaimed, “Mr. Luo, look at how lovely the wine is in the firelight.”
她突然有了惊喜的发现，很孩子气地说：“罗老师，那葡萄酒在火光中真好看。”
“Why?”
“为什么？”
“Well, I think it looks like eyes.”
“嗯……我想起了眼睛。”
“What do you think it looks like?” he asked nervously.
“你觉得它像什么？”罗辑紧张地问。
The wine, soaked in the light of the fire, shone with a glistening crimson found only in dreams.
浸透了火光的葡萄酒，呈现出一种只属于梦境的晶莹的深红。
“Once you know, the world turns narrow.”
“一知道在哪儿，世界好像就变小了。”
“Dawn or twilight? You prefer twilight, do you?”
“朝霞和晚霞，你也是喜欢后者吗？”
“The eyes of twilight? That’s a marvelous way to put it, Mr. Luo.”
“晚霞的眼睛，罗老师你说得真好！”
“That’s right. How did you know? I love painting the twilight.” Her eyes shone crystalline in the firelight, as if asking, What’s wrong with that?
“是啊，您怎么知道？我最喜欢画晚霞了。”庄颜说，她的双眼在火光中十分清澈，像在说：这有什么不对吗？
“No, don’t, Mr. Luo. It’s nice not knowing.”
“不不，罗老师，不知道也挺好。”
“Why’s that?”
“为什么？”
She stared speechless at the distant snow peak, and it was some time before she recovered her senses. “Oh, yes. But if I’d grown up here, I probably wouldn’t.”
庄颜呆呆地凝视着远方的雪山，好半天才回过神来：“啊，是的，不过，我要是在这儿长大的话，也许就不喜欢了。”
“So you really like to paint?” he asked.
“你本来就喜欢画画吗？”罗辑问。
“That’s true. When the beauty in your imagination becomes reality, it’s really…” He trailed off, and glanced at Zhuang Yan against the sunrise, the angel who had stepped out of his dream. The happiness in his heart rippled like the waves on the lake sparkling in the light. The UN and the PDC never imagined that this would be a consequence of the Wallfacer Project. If he died now, he wouldn’t care.
“是啊，想象中的美一旦在现实中找到，那真是……”罗辑说，他看了一眼朝阳中的庄颜，这个从他梦中走来的天使，心中的幸福像湖面上的那片广阔的粼粼波光荡漾着。联台国，PDC，你们想不到面壁计划是这样一个结果，我现在就是死了也无所谓了。
“I’ve imagined lots of wonderful places, and when I paint them it’s like I’ve been there. But this place has everything from my dreams and imagination, so what would a painting do?”
“我想象过那么多美好的地方，画出来，就像去过一样，可在这儿，想象的，梦见的，已经都有了，还画什么呢？”
“Mr. Luo, if it rained so much yesterday, why hasn’t the snow on that mountain been washed away?” she asked.
“罗老师，昨天下了那么多雨，为什么雪山上的雪没被冲掉呢？”庄颜问。
“The rain fell below the snowline. That mountain has snow year-round. The climate here is very different from back in China.”
“雨是在雪线以下下的，那山上常年积雪。这里的气候类型同我们那里有很大差别。”
“What about work?” Zhuang Yan tore her eyes from the mountain and looked at Luo Ji.
“可工作呢？”庄颜把目光从雪山上收回，看着罗辑。
“Then let’s go.”
“那我们去。”
“Well…” She tilted her head, giving his heart a jolt. The naïve expression was one he had seen on her countless times before. “Mr. Luo, I’ve got to know what it is I’m doing.”
“那……”庄颜的头歪一歪，罗辑的心也随着动一动，这种稚气的表情和眼神他以前在那个她的身上见过无数次了，“罗老师，我总得知道我的工作啊？”
“Great! Then we should be off, shouldn’t we?”
“好的！那我们快些走，好吗？”
“Really? When?” she exclaimed in excitement.
“真的吗？什么时候？”她惊喜地叫起来。
He looked into the distance and thought for a few seconds, then said with finality, “I’ll tell you when we’ve reached the mountain.”
罗辑看着远方，想了几秒钟，用很坚定的口气说：“到雪山后就告诉你！”
They walked to the end of the pier. Luo Ji noted that the wind was favorable, so they could take the sailboat. The direction would change at night so they would be able to catch it again coming back. He took her by the hand to help her into the boat. It was the first time he had touched her, and her hands were exactly like the ones he had first clasped on that winter night in his imagination, so soft and cool. She was pleasantly surprised when he raised the white spinnaker. When the boat left the pier, she plunged a hand into the water.
他们走到栈桥尽头，罗辑说风很顺，可以乘帆船，晚上风向会变，正好可以回来。他拉着庄颜的手扶她上了一只小帆船。这是他第一次接触她，她的手同那个想象中的冬夜他第一次握住的那双手一样，是那种凉凉的柔软。她惊喜地看着罗辑把洁白的球形运动帆升起来，当船离开栈桥时，把手伸进水里。
She nodded.
“嗯。”她重重地点点头。
“We can set off now. There’s a simple roadway that runs to the foot of the mountain, and if we go now, we can be back by evening.”
“现在就可以动身啊，有一条简易公路通向山脚，现在去，晚上就可以回来。”
“Right. It’s easier if we take the boat to the other side of the lake and then drive from there.”
“好，从这里坐船到湖对岸，再开车方便些。”
“No. I haven’t been here very long.” He noticed that the girl’s eyes never left the mountain. “Do you like snowcaps?”
“没有，我来这里的时间也不长。”罗辑注意到，女孩子的眼睛一直没有离开雪山，“你喜欢雪山吗？”
“Have you been to the mountain?”
“您去过雪山那边吗？”
“Work can be set aside for now. You just arrived,” he said perfunctorily.
“工作先不忙吧，你刚来。”罗辑敷衍道。
“The lake water is very cold,” he said.
“这湖里的水很冷的。”罗辑说。
“Mr. Luo, are you aware of the difference between traditional painting and oil painting? Oil paintings are brimming with rich colors. A master once said that in oil painting, white is as precious as gold. But it’s different with traditional painting. There’s lots and lots of blank space, and blank space forms the painting’s eyes. The scenery is just the border for that blank space. Look at that snowy peak. Doesn’t it look like the blank space in a traditional painting?” This was the most she had ever said to him. She lectured the Wallfacer, pouring out words and turning him into an ignorant schoolboy, without any sense of being out of line.
“罗老师，你知道国画和油画的区别吗？油画让浓浓的色彩填得满满的，有位大师说过，在油画中，对白色要像黄金那样珍惜；可国画不一样，里面有好多好多的空白，那些空白才是国画的眼睛呢，而画中的风景只不过是那些空白的边框。你看那雪山，像不像国画中的空白。”这是她见到罗辑后说的最长的一段话，她就这么滔滔不绝地给面壁者上课，把他当成一个无知的学生，丝毫不觉得失礼。
“I like traditional painting.”
“我喜欢国画啊。”
“What’s that got to do with snowcaps?”
“国画和雪山有什么关系吗？”
Like your eyes, he said to himself. “Why do you like snowcaps?”
像你的眼睛，罗辑心里说，“你为什么喜欢雪山呢？”
You’re like the blank space in a traditional painting: pure, but to a mature appreciation, infinitely appealing, he thought as he looked at her.
你就像画中的空白，对一个成熟的欣赏者来说，那是纯净但充满美的内容。罗辑看着庄颜想。
“But it’s so clean and clear!”
“可这水好清好清啊！”
The boat docked at a pier on the opposite shore, where an open-top Jeep was parked next to the trees. The driver who had parked it there was gone.
船停泊在湖对岸的栈桥上，有一辆敞篷吉普车停在湖岸的林边，把车开来的人已经离去了。
“Is this a military car? I saw troops around when I arrived, and had to go past three sentry points,” she said as they got into the car.
“这车是军用的吧？来的时候我看到周围有军队，过了三个岗哨呢。”庄颜上车的时候说。
Everything about their surroundings was completely remote from Mount Taihang and the snowy northern China plains, but his dreams from that trip were so seamlessly connected to today’s reality that he found it hard to believe that it was actually happening to him.
现在周围的一切与那时的冬雪后的华北平原和太行山已恍若隔世，那时的梦想却与现在的现实无缝连接，罗辑始终难以置信这种事发生在自己身上。
“That doesn’t matter. They won’t bother us,” he said, starting the engine.
“没关系，他们不会打扰我们的。”罗辑说着发动了车子。
He turned to look at Zhuang Yan and found her looking back at him. She had been for a long time, it seemed. The look in her eyes was one of slight curiosity mixed with goodwill and innocence. Sunbeams flickered over her face and body. When she saw Luo Ji looking at her, she did not turn away.
罗辑转头看了庄颜一眼，发现她也在看着自己，而且似乎已经看了好长时间，那眼神中略带好奇，但更多的是清纯的善意。林间的光束从她脸上和身旁一道一道地掠过，看到罗辑在看自己，她的目光并没有回避。
The road passing through the forest was narrow and rough, but the car drove smoothly on it. In the forest, where the morning mist had not yet lifted, the sun penetrated the tall pines with shafts of light, and even through the engine sound they could hear the calls of birds in the trees. A sweet breeze whipped up Zhuang Yan’s hair and tossed it about on Luo Ji’s face, and the itching made him think of the winter road trip two years ago.
这是一条穿越森林的很窄的简易公路，但车子行驶在上面很稳，林中未散的晨雾把穿透高大松林的阳光一缕缕地映出。即使在引擎声中，也能清晰地听到林问的鸟鸣。清甜的风把庄颜的长发吹起，一缕缕撩到他的睑上，痒痒之中，他又想起了两年前的那次冬日之旅。
“Mr. Luo, do you really have the ability to defeat the aliens?” she asked.
“罗老师，你真的有战胜外星人的本领？”庄颜问道。
“But why were you chosen?”
“但为什么选中你呢？”
He was completely overcome by her childlike nature. The question was one that no one but her would ever ask a Wallfacer, and they had known each other so briefly.
罗辑被她的孩子气完全征服了，这是一个除了她之外无人可能向面壁者提出的问题，而且他们才认识很短的时间。
That question was even more abrupt and outrageous than the previous one, but it sounded natural coming from Zhuang Yan’s lips, because in her transparent heart, every sunbeam was transmitted and refracted with crystalline clarity.
这个问题比前面那个更唐突更过分，但从庄颜嘴里说出来就显得很自然，在她那透明的心中，每一束阳光都能被晶莹地透过和折射。
“That’s your duty.”
“这是你们的责任啊。”
“Zhuang Yan, the core meaning of the Wallfacer Project is to encapsulate humanity’s real strategy in the mind of one person, the only place in the world that’s safe from sophon spying. They had to choose a few people, but that doesn’t mean those people are supermen. Superman doesn’t exist.”
“庄颜，面壁计划的核心意义，就在于把人类真实的战略意图完全封装在一个人的思维中，这是人类世界中智子唯一不能窥视的地方。所以总得选出这样几个人，但这并不意味着他们是超人，世界上没有超人。”
Luo Ji slowed the car to a stop. She looked at him in surprise as he stared straight ahead at the patches of sun on the roadway.
罗辑把车缓缓地停了下来，庄颜惊奇地看着他，他则看着前方阳光斑驳的路。
“Wallfacers are the most untrustworthy people in history. The world’s greatest liars.”
“面壁者是有史以来最不可信的人，是最大的骗子。”
She nodded. “Mr. Luo, please continue. I believe you.”
庄颜点点头，“罗老师你说吧，我相信。”
He nodded. “But, Zhuang Yan, I’m going to tell you the truth. Please believe me.”
罗辑点点头，“但，庄颜，我下面对你说的是真话，请你相信我。”
He was silent for a long while, increasing the weight of the words he then uttered. “I don’t know why I was chosen.” He turned to her. “I’m just an ordinary man.”
罗辑沉默了好久，以加重他说出的话的分量：“我不知道为什么选中我，”他转向庄颜，“我是个普通人。”
She nodded again. “It must be very hard.”
庄颜又点点头，“那一定很难吧？”
They drove on in silence, until the trees grew sparse and the deep blue sky emerged overhead.
罗辑说着，又开动了车子。以后他们一路沉默，直到林术渐渐稀疏，碧蓝的天空露了出来。
Those words and Zhuang Yan’s look of innocence again brought tears to his eyes. It was the first time he had received such an acknowledgement since becoming a Wallfacer. The girl’s eyes were his paradise, and in that clear gaze he saw no trace of the expression that everyone else directed at the Wallfacers. Her smile was paradise for him, too. It wasn’t the Wallfacer smile, but a pure, innocent smile, like a sun-drenched dewdrop falling softly into the driest part of his soul.
这话和庄颜那天真无邪的样子让罗辑的眼眶又湿润了。成为面壁者后，他第一次得到这样的问候。女孩儿的眼睛是他的天堂，那清澈的目光中，丝毫没有其他人看面壁者时的那种眼神；她的微笑也是他的天堂，那不是对面壁者的笑，那纯真的微笑像浸透阳光的露珠，轻轻地滴到他心灵中最干涸部分。
“It’ll be hard, but I’d like to make it easier… That’s all. Here endeth the truth. We now return to the Wallfacer state,” he said, as he restarted the engine.
“应该很难，但我想做得容易些……就是这样，真话到此结束，恢复面壁状态。”
“I got irradiated on a previous mission and then got ill last year.”
“以前执行任务时受了核辐射，去年才犯的病。”
“Fine. Excellent. Wonderful. Thank you!”
“好，很好，太好了，谢谢你！”
“And that over there looks like deer!” He pointed, fast enough to distract her attention, because he knew that the object in the sky wasn’t an eagle but a circling sentry drone. This reminded him of Shi Qiang. He took out his phone and dialed.
“那面好像还有只鹿呢！”罗辑向前方一侧指着，他之所以快速转移庄颜的注意力，是因为他知道天上出现的不是鹰，而是盘旋的警卫无人机。这使得罗辑想起了史强，他拿出手机，拨通了他的号码。
“Final mission? Where are you?”
“最后？你在哪儿？”
“That’s good. So it turns out I’ve completed my final mission.”
“那就好，我总算是完成了最后一项任务。”
“With this sort of thing, delay isn’t relevant. Who knows what medicine will be like in the future?”
“这事嘛，有什么耽误不耽误的，谁知道未来医学是怎么回事儿？”
“Back home. I’m getting ready for hibernation.”
“在国内，要睡长觉了。”
“Er… when did this happen?”
“这……什么时候的事啊？”
Luo Ji slammed his foot down on the brakes and stopped short. Zhuang Yan yelped. He looked at her in concern, but, seeing that nothing was wrong, he resumed talking to Shi Qiang.
罗辑刹住了车，这次停得很猛，庄颜轻轻地惊叫了一声，罗辑担心地看看她，发现没事后才和史强继续说话。
“Mr. Luo, look at that eagle!” Zhuang Yan shouted.
“罗老师，看天上那只鹰！”庄颜喊道。
“My god! I didn’t delay you, did I?”
“天啊！我没耽误你吧？”
Shi Qiang answered. “Hey, brother Luo. So now you remember me, eh? First, tell me: How’s Yan Yan doing?”
电话里传来史强的声音：“哇，罗老弟，现在才想起我来吗？先说，颜颜还好吗？”
“What?”
“什么？”
“I’ve got leukemia. I’m going to the future to cure it.”
“我得了白血病，到未来去治。”
After a lengthy silence, Shi Qiang said, “‘Three things are unfilial, and having no issue is the greatest.’ Brother Luo, the lineage of the Shi family four hundred years from now is in your hands.”
史强沉默良久，说：“不孝有三，无后为大，罗兄，我史家四百多年后的延承，就拜托你了。”
“He said you were doing the most important thing in the world, and he asked me to help you.”
“他说你在干世界上最重要的事情，让我帮你。”
“Please.”
“你说吧。”
“You were talking to Uncle Shi?” Zhuang Yan asked.
“你是给史叔叔打电话吗？”庄颜问。
“Oh… Did he say anything to you?”
“哦……他对你说过什么吗？”
“I’m truly sorry, Da Shi.”
“真的对不起，大史。”
Now the forest had entirely disappeared, leaving only grassland between them and the mountain. In silver and green, the composition of the world had turned simple and pure, and, to Luo Ji’s mind, more and more like the girl sitting beside him. He noticed a hint of melancholy in her eyes, and he became aware that she was sighing softly.
这时，森林已经完全消失了，雪山的前面只剩下草原，在银白和嫩绿两种色彩中，世界的构图显得更加简洁和单纯了，在罗辑的感觉中，面前的大自然正在变得越来越像身边这位少女。他注意到，庄颜的眼中这时透出一丝忧郁，甚至觉察到她的一声轻轻的叹息。
“Oh, it doesn’t matter. It’s all part of the job. I didn’t bother you about it because I figured we would be able to meet again sometime. But I’d like to tell you something in case we can’t.”
“没什么，都是工作嘛。我段再打扰你，是想着咱们以后还有可能见面，不过要是见不着了，那你就听我一句话。”
“Yes. Did you meet him?”
“是，你见过他？”
The call disconnected. Luo Ji looked up at the sky, where the drone had disappeared. The empty blue wash of the sky was his heart.
电话挂断了，罗辑看着天空，那架无人机已经消失，如洗的蓝天空荡荡的，就像他这时的心。
“I met him. He’s a nice man. The day I left he accidentally broke the skin on his hand and it wouldn’t stop bleeding. It was pretty scary.”
“见过，他是个好人，我走的那天，他不小心把手弄破了，那血止也止不住，好吓人的。”
“I don’t think they appreciate beauty.”
“我觉得，他们感受不到美。”
“My dad said that people who are sensitive to beauty are good by nature, and if they’re not good, then they can’t appreciate beauty.”
“爸爸说过，对大自然的美很敏感的人，本质上都是善良的，他们不善良，所以感受不到美。”
He was about to say that the possibility of that was practically nil, but he controlled himself, and said, “Could I what?”
罗辑想说后一种的可能性几乎为零。但又不忍心说出来：“能怎么样？”
“Perhaps.”
“也许吧。”
“Yan Yan, their approach to humans is a rational choice. It’s the responsible thing to do for the survival of their species, and has nothing to do with good or evil.”
“颜颜，他们对人类的政策，是一种理性的选择，是对自己种族生存的一种负责任的作法，与善良和邪恶无关。”
“It’s such a beautiful world, but when you think about how someday there may be no one here to see it, it’s quite sad.”
“想一想，这样美的世界。很多年后可能没有人看了，很难过的。”
“That’s the first I’ve heard of it. Mr. Luo, you’re going to see them, aren’t you?”
“我第一次听人这样说呢……罗老师，你将来会见到他们的，是吗？”
“Why do you have to drive them out into space to die? Give them a plot of land, and let them coexist with us? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“能不能不把他们赶到宇宙中去，那样他们都会死的，给他们一块地方，让他们和我们一起生活，这样多好啊。”
“Won’t the aliens be here?”
“外星人不是人吗？”
“Why?”
“为什么？”
“If they’re really like you say, and you defeat them in the Doomsday Battle, then, well, could you…” She tilted her head to look at him, and hesitated.
“如果他们真的像你说的那样，而你们在末日之战中又打败了他们，嗯，那你们能不能……”庄颜歪头看着罗辑，犹豫着。
“Yan Yan, what’s wrong?” he asked. It was the first time he had called her that, but he thought, If Da Shi can call her that, why can’t I?
“颜颜，怎么了？”罗辑问，他第一次这样称呼她，心想既然大史能这么叫她，我也能。
Zhuang Yan looked up nervously. “Oh, right. There must be tons of sophons around us.”
庄颜也紧张地看看天空：“啊……是的，我们周围一定飞着很多智子！”
“It might have been the Trisolar High Consul himself who heard you.”
“也可能这时听你说话的，是三体文明的最高执政官。”
“You, except that you’re not enough. Or, rather, there aren’t enough people like you. If a third of humanity was like you, then Trisolaris might negotiate with us about the possibility of coexisting on the world. But now…” He let out a long sigh.
“是你，只是你太少了，哦，我是说你这样的人太少了，如果人类有三分之一像你，三体文明真的有可能和我们谈判，谈共同生活在一个世界的可能性，但现在……”他也长叹了一声。
Luo Ji dealt silently with his emotions for a moment, then pointed up to the sky and said, “Yan Yan, I’m not the only one who heard what you just said.”
罗辑在感慨中沉默了好一会儿，才指指天空说：“颜颜，你刚才的话不是只有我在听。”
“Me?” She burst out laughing.
“我吗？”庄颜笑起来。
“And you’re all laughing at me, aren’t you?”
“你们都会笑我的吧？”
“No. Yan Yan, do you know what I’m thinking right now?” He had a strong impulse to take hold of her slender left hand, which was lying next to the steering wheel, but he controlled himself. “I’m thinking that the person who might actually have a chance of saving the world is you.”
“不，颜颜，你知道我现在在想什么吗？”罗辑这时有一种握住她的手的强烈愿望，她那纤细的左手也就在方向盘旁边，但他还是克制住自己，“我在想，其实真正有可能拯救世界的，是你。”
Zhuang Yan flashed a helpless smile. “Mr. Luo, it hasn’t been easy for me. Going out into the world after graduation, I was like a fish swimming into the sea, where the water was muddy and I couldn’t see anything at all. I wanted to swim to clearer waters, but all that swimming got tiring…”
庄颜无奈地笑笑：“罗老师，我挺难的，都说毕业后走向社会，就像鱼儿游进了大海，可大海很浑，我什么郭看不清，总想游到一处清清的海，游得好累……”
The road began to climb the mountain, and as the altitude increased, the vegetation grew sparse, exposing the naked black rock. For one stretch of road, they seemed to be driving on the surface of the moon. But soon they crossed the snowline and were surrounded by white, and a crisp chill filled the air. He grabbed down jackets from the travel bag in the backseat, and they put them on and continued ahead.
公路开始上山，随着高度的增加，植被渐渐稀疏，出现了裸露的黑色岩石，有一段路，他们仿佛行驶在月球表面。但很快，汽车开上了雪线，周围一片洁白，空气中充满着清冽的寒冷。罗辑从车后座上的一个旅行袋中找出羽绒服，两人穿上后继续前行。
The sun had started its descent, casting shadows around them on the snowy slope. The pure snow was pale blue in color, almost weakly fluorescent. The jagged peaks in the distance were still lit and shone silver in all directions, a light that seemed to issue from the snow itself, as if it was this mountain and not the sun that had been illuminating the world all along.
这时太阳已经西斜，周围的雪坡处于阴影中，纯净的雪呈现一种淡蓝色，似乎在发着微弱的荧光，而远方如刀锋般陡峭的雪峰仍处于阳光中，把灿烂的银光撒向四方，这光芒完全像雪自己发出的，仿佛照亮这世界的从来就不是太阳，而只是这座雪峰。
Before long they reached a roadblock, a conspicuous sign in the middle of the road that warned, DANGER: AVALANCHE SEASON. ROAD AHEAD CLOSED. So they got out of the car and walked to the snow at the roadside.
没走多远就遇到了一个路障，道路正中的一个醒目的标志牌上有这样的警示：这个季节有雪崩危险，前方道路封闭。于是他们下车，走到路旁的白雪中。
I wish I could help you swim to those waters, he said to himself.
但愿我能帮你游到那个海域……罗辑在心里说。
Zhang Yan drank in the white world around her. “Mr. Luo, I actually did do a painting like this once. From a distance, it was a white sheet of paper, almost entirely blank, but closer in you would see fine reeds in the lower left corner, and in the upper right the traces of a disappearing bird. In the blank center, two infinitesimally tiny people… It’s the painting I’m proudest of.”
庄颜欣喜地看着这洁白的世界：“罗老师，我真的画过一幅这样的画！远看就是一张白纸，画幅上几乎全是空白，近看会发现左下角有几枝细小的芦苇，右上角有一只几乎要消失的飞鸟，空白的中央，有两个小得不能再小的人儿……这是我最得意的作品。”
“Okay, now the painting’s entirely blank,” he said, sweeping his hands about him.
“好了，现在画里都是空白了。”罗辑伸开双手转了一圈说。
She nodded, but looked anxious.
庄颜点点头，很紧张的样子。
She nodded nervously. “Yes, I understand.” Then she laughed and shook her head. “I mean, I get it.”
庄颜紧张地点点头：“嗯，我理解，”她又笑着摇摇头，“呵，不不，我是说我知道。”
“You know about the Wallfacer Project, and you know that its success relies on its incomprehensibility. At its highest level, no one on Earth or Trisolaris, apart from the Wallfacer himself, understands it. So, Zhuang Yan, no matter how inexplicable you find your work, it definitely has meaning. Don’t try to understand it. Just do it as best you can.”
“你知道面壁计划是什么，它的成功依赖于它的不可理解，面壁计划的最高境界，就是除了面壁者本人，地球和三体世界都无人能够理解它。所以，庄颜，不管你的工作多么不可思议，它肯定是有意义的，不要试图去理解它，努力去做就是了。”
“I can imagine it. It must be magnificent… So, Zhuang Yan, now that we’re in this blank world, are you interested in learning about your job?”
“能想象出来，那画儿一定很美的……那么，庄颜，就在这空白世界里，你有兴趣知道自己的工作吗？”
Looking at her amid the snow, the whiteness lost all dimension, and the world faded around her, leaving her its only presence. Two years before, when the literary image he had created had come to life in his imagination, he had tasted love. Now, in the blank space of this grand natural painting, he understood love’s ultimate mystery.
罗辑看着雪中的庄颜，在这纯洁雪白几乎失去立体感的空间中，世界为她隐去了，她是唯一的存在。两年前，当他创造的那个文学形象在想象中活起来的时候，罗辑体会到了爱情；而现在，就在这大自然画卷的空白处，他明白了爱的终极奥秘。
“Zhuang Yan, your work is to make yourself happy.”
“庄颜，你的工作就是：使自己幸福快乐。”
Her eyes widened.
庄颜睁大了双眼。
Luo Ji grew animated. “Whatever you want to! Tomorrow, or when we go back tonight, you can go wherever you want and do whatever you wish, and live life as you please. As a Wallfacer, I can help you realize all of it.”
罗辑显得兴奋起来：“随你怎么做啊！明天，或是我们回去后的今天晚上，你就可以去你想去的地方，做你想做的事，过你想过的生活，作为面壁者，我会尽可能帮助你实现一切。”
“You must become the happiest woman on Earth. This is part of the Wallfacer plan.”
“你成为世界上最幸福最快乐的女孩儿，是面壁计划的一部分。”
The light of the peak that illuminated their world was reflected in her eyes, and complex feelings drifted across the purity of her gaze. The snowy peak absorbed all sound from the outside world, and he waited patiently in the silence, until finally she said, in a voice that seemed to come from a great distance, “Then… what should I do?”
庄颜的双眸中映着那照亮世界的雪峰的光芒，在她纯净的目光中，种种复杂的感情如天上的浮云般掠过。雪山吸收了来自外界的一切声音，寂静中罗辑耐心地等待着，终于，庄颜用似乎来自很远的声音问道：“那……我该怎么做呢？”
“That’s not possible. Everyone needs something! Aren’t young people always chasing after something?”
“怎么会呢？谁都需要些什么的！男孩儿女孩儿们不都在拼命追逐吗？”
“But I…” She looked at him helplessly. “Mr. Luo, I… I don’t need anything.”
“可我……”女孩儿看着罗辑，显得很无助，“罗老师，我……不需要什么啊。”
She laughed, as if Luo Ji had turned into a foolish child. “Mr. Luo, I paint for myself. I’ve never thought about that stuff.”
庄颜笑了起来，好像罗辑变成了一个无知的孩子，“罗老师，我画画是给自己看的，没想过你说的那些。”
“Ah, yes. A carefree young woman like you might not need to. But you’ve got to have a dream, at least. You like painting, so have you ever thought of having an individual exhibition at the world’s largest gallery or art museum?”
“是，你是个风清云淡的女孩儿，但总是有梦想的，比如，你喜欢画画儿，难道不想到世界上最大的画廊或美术馆去举办个人画展？”
“Have I ever chased after anything?” She slowly shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“我……”追逐过吗？“庄颜缓缓摇摇头，”好像没有的。“
“Well then. You must have dreamed of love,” he said without hesitation. “You’ve got the means now, so why not go find it?”
“好吧，你总梦想过爱情吧？”罗辑毫不犹豫地说出了这话，“你现在有条件了，可以去寻找啊。”
“True.” He calmed himself down and nodded. “Then, how about this: Don’t think long term, just think about tomorrow. Tomorrow, you know? Where do you want to go tomorrow? What do you want to do? What will make you happy tomorrow? You’re able to come up with something, surely.”
“那倒是。”罗辑冷静下来，点点头，“那么，我们这样吧：不考虑长远，只考虑明天，明天，明白吗？明天你想去哪里，干什么？明天你怎样才能快乐？这总能想出来吧。”
The sunset was draining its light from the snowy peak. Zhuang Yan’s eyes darkened, and her expression softened. She said gently, “Mr. Luo, that’s not something you can go in search of.”
夕阳正在从雪峰上收回它的光芒，庄颜的眸子暗了一些，目光也变得柔和起来，她轻声说：“罗老师，那是能找来的吗？”
“Of course. Tell me.”
“肯定行，你说吧。”
She thought earnestly for a while, and finally said, hesitantly, “If I tell you, can you really make it happen?”
庄颜认真地想了很长时间，终于犹豫地问：“我要说了，真的能行吗？”
“Then, Mr. Luo, can you take me to the Louvre?”
“那，罗老师，你能带我去卢浮宫吗？”
When Tyler removed the blindfold, his eyes weren’t adjusted to the light and he had to squint. Despite the bright lights affixed to the rock walls of this mountain cave, it was dark here — quite dark, in fact — because the light was absorbed by the walls. He smelled antiseptic, and noticed the cave was set up like a field hospital, with lots of open aluminum cases containing neatly packed drugs, as well as oxygen tanks, small UV disinfectant cabinets, mobile shadowless operating lamps, and several portable medical devices that looked like X-ray machines and defibrillators. It looked like it had just been unpacked and could be re-boxed at any time. Tyler saw two assault rifles hanging on a rock wall, but their similarity in color to the rock behind made them easy to miss. A stony-faced man and woman walked past him. They weren’t in white lab coats, but they were definitely a doctor and a nurse.
当泰勒眼睛上的蒙布被摘掉时，他并没有因不适应光亮而眯眼，这里很暗，其实即使有很亮的灯，这里仍是暗的，因为光线被岩壁吸收了，这是一个山洞。泰勒闻到了药味，并看到山洞里布置得像一个野战医院，有许多打开的铝合金箱子，里面整齐地摆满了药品；还有氧气瓶、小型紫外线消毒柜和一盏便携式无影灯，以及几台像是便携式X光机和心脏起搏器的医疗仪器。所有这些东西都像是刚刚打开包装，并随时准备装箱带走的样子。泰勒还看到挂在岩壁上的两支自动步枪，但它们和后面岩石的颜色相近，不容易看出来。有一男一女两个人从他身边无表情地走过，他们没穿白衣，但肯定是医生和护士。
Tyler spat inwardly. “Damn it to hell. How did it come to this?”
泰勒暗自啐了一口，妈的该死，你怎么能这样想！
Man truly was a peculiar animal.
人真是个奇怪的东西。
The bed, near the cave entrance, was a sea of white: the curtains behind it, the old man under the bedsheets, the old man’s long beard, the scarf around his head, and even his face — all white. The light in that area was more like candlelight, obscuring some of the whiteness and casting a weak golden sheen across the remainder, turning the place into a classical oil painting of a saint.
病床在山洞的尽头，那里是一片白色：后面的帷帐、床上的老人盖着的床单、老人的长胡须、他头上的围巾，甚至他的脸庞，都是白色的，那里的灯光像烛光，把一部分白色隐藏起来，另一部分镀上弱弱的金辉，竟使得这景象看上去像一幅描绘圣人的古典油画。
As he walked over to the bed, he tried to overcome the pain in his hip and inner thigh by adopting a stately, steady pace. He stopped at the bedside, before the man that he and his government had dreamed of finding for so many years. He could hardly believe he was real. He looked at the old man’s pale face, and it was like the media always said: This was the kindliest face in the world.
他向病床走去，努力克服胯骨和大腿内侧的疼痛，使步伐有尊严地稳健。他在病床前站住了，站在这个这些年来他和他的政府都朝思暮想要找到的人面前，有点不敢相信现实。他看着老人苍白的脸，这果然像媒体上说的，是世界上最和善的脸。
“I’m honored to meet you,” Tyler said with a slight bow.
“很荣幸见到您。”泰勒微微鞠躬说。
“As am I,” the old man said politely. He didn’t move, but while his voice was reed-thin, it could render power inert but never snap, like spider silk. The old man gestured to the end of the bed, and Tyler sat down gingerly, not knowing whether or not it was intended as kindness. There was no chair, after all. The old man said, “You must be tired. Was it your first time on a mule?”
“我也很荣幸。”老人礼貌地说，没有动，他的声音细若游丝，但却像蛛丝一样柔韧，难以被拉断。老人指指脚边的床沿，泰勒小心地在那里坐下，他不知道这是不是一种亲近的表示，因为床边也确实没有椅子，老人说：“路上受累了，第一次骑骡子吧？”
The old man slowly shook his head. “Surely you can see that I don’t have long to live.” A playful light suddenly entered his deep eyes. “You’re about the least likely person to want me to die of illness. I am truly sorry.”
老人缓缓地摇摇头，“你想必也能看出来，我活不了多久了。”他那双深邃的眼睛突然透出一丝顽皮的光芒，“我知道你是这个世界上最不希望看到我病死的人之一，真的很对不起。”
“Ah, no. I rode one when I visited the Grand Canyon.” Although his legs hadn’t hurt so much back then. “Are you doing well?”
“哦，不，以前游览科罗拉多大峡谷时骑过一次。”泰勒说，但那次腿可没磨得这么痛，“您的身体还好吗？”
The irony in this last sentence pricked Tyler, but it was the truth. One of his greatest fears had once been that the man would die of illness or old age. The secretary of defense had prayed on many an occasion that an American cruise missile or Special Forces bullet would drop on the man’s head before he died of natural causes, even if it happened just a minute before death. Natural death would be the man’s greatest triumph, and mark the failure of the war on terror. Even now, the man was edging close to glory. There had been opportunities, of course: Once a Predator drone had snapped his picture in the courtyard of a mosque in the mountains of northern Afghanistan. Simply crashing the drone into him would have made history, not to mention the fact that it had been carrying Hellfire missiles that day. But the young officer on duty lacked the courage to make a unilateral decision once he made the positive ID. Instead, he had reported it up the command chain, and when they checked again the target was gone. Tyler, roused from his bed, had erupted in anger and shattered a precious piece of Chinese porcelain he had at home.
后面这句话中的讥讽意味刺痛了泰勒，但说的也确实是事实。泰勒以前最恐惧的事情就是这人病死或老死。国防部长曾经不止一次地祈祷，在这人自然死亡之前，让美国的巡航导弹或特种部队的子弹落到他头上，哪怕是提前一分钟也好啊！自然死亡将是这个老人最终的胜利，也是反恐战争惨重的失败，现在这个人正在接近这个辉煌。其实以前机会也是有的，有一次，一架“食肉动物”无人机在阿富汗北部山区一所偏僻的清真寺院落里拍到了他的图像，操纵飞机直接撞上去就能创造历史，更何况当时无人机上还带着一枚“地狱火”导弹，可是那名年轻的值班军官在确认了目标的身份后，不敢擅自决定，只好向上请示，再回头看时目标已经消失了。当时被从床上叫起来的泰勒怒火万丈，咆哮着把家里珍贵的中国瓷器摔得粉碎……
With effort, the old man reached out a hand as thin as kindling and plucked out the bottommost volume. “Ah, I’ve only read the first trilogy. I had someone buy the others, but I never had the time to read them, and then I lost them… Excellent, thank you. I like them very much.”
老人用瘦如干柴的手吃力地抽出最下面的那一本：“哦，我只看过前三部曲，后面的当时也托人买了，可没有时间看，后来就弄丢了……真的很好，哦，谢谢，我很喜欢。”
The same playful light returned to the old man’s eyes. “Oh? What do I need to do?”
那种顽皮戏谑的光芒又在老人眼中出现：“哦？我该怎么做？”
Tyler wanted to avoid the awkward subject, so he brought out his briefcase and set it on the bed. “I have a small gift for you,” he said, opening the case. He took out a set of hardcover books. “This is the latest Arabic version.”
泰勒想转移这尴尬的话题，就把随身带着的手提箱放到床沿上：“我给您带了一份小礼物，”他打开手提箱，拿出一套精装的书籍，“这是最新阿拉伯文版的。”
The old man set the book gently to one side and smiled. “Let it stay a legend. You have your wealth and technology. Legends are all we have.”
老人把书轻轻地放下，微微一笑：“传说就让它永远是传说吧，你们有财富和技术，我们只有传说了。”
“Let your organization be preserved.”
“让您的组织保存下来。”
“There’s a legend that says you named your organization after these novels.”
“有这么一种传说，据说您是以这套小说为自己的组织命名的？”
“Preserved until when?”
“保存到什么时候？’
Tyler picked up the book the old man had set down, and faced him like a pastor holding a Bible. “I’ve come to make you into Seldon.”
泰勒拿起老人刚放下的那本书，像牧师拿《圣经》似的对着他：“我这次来，是想让您成为谢顿①。”（注：①美国科幻作家区萨克·阿西莫夫名作《基地》中的主人公。）
“Until four centuries from now. Until the Doomsday Battle.”
“保存四个世纪，保存到末日之战。”
Tyler stood up excitedly from the bed. “That depends on what you need. So long as you can ensure the preservation of your organization, I can give you anything.”
泰勒兴奋地从床上站了起来：“那要看你们需要什么了，只要能使您的组织存在下去，我能提供你们需要的一切。”
“Yes, if it continues to develop. Let its soul and spirit permeate the space force so that your organization will be part of it forever.”
“如果它不断发展自己，是可能的，让它的精神和灵魂渗透到太空军中，您的组织最后也将成为太空军的一部分。”
“And you think that’s possible?”
“您认为这可能么？”
“And you value that so highly because?” The sarcasm in the old man’s voice grew stronger.
“是什么让您这么看重它？”老人话中的讽刺色彩越来越重了。
“Because it’s one of the few armed forces available to humanity that uses lives as a weapon. You know, fundamental science has been frozen by the sophons, and this imposes corresponding limitations on advances in computer science and artificial intelligence. In the Doomsday Battle, space fighters will still be piloted by humans, and that requires an army who possesses that spirit. Ball lightning requires a close-range attack.”
“因为它是人类少有的能用生命作为武器打击敌人的武装力量。您知道，人类的基础科学已经被智子锁死，相应的，计算机和人工智能的进步也是有限的，末日之战中，太空战机还得由人来操纵，球状闪电武器需要抵近攻击，这只有拥有那种敢死精神的军队才能做到！”
“What else have you brought with you besides those books?”
“那您这次来，除了这几本书，还给我们带来了什么，”
The old man motioned for Tyler to sit down. “I sympathize with you. After so many years, you still don’t know what our needs truly are.”
老人挥手示意泰勒再坐下：“我很同情您，这么多年了，您竟然不知道我们真正需要的是什么。”
“You can tell me.”
“您可以说说。”
“Weapons? Money? No, no. What we need is far more precious. The organization doesn’t exist because of Seldon’s ambitious goals. You can’t get a sane, rational person to believe in and die for that. It exists because it possesses something, something that’s its air and blood, and without which the organization would wither away immediately.”
“武器？金钱？不不，那东西比这些都珍贵，组织之所以存在并不是因为有谢顿那样宏伟的目标，你没办法让一个理智正常的人相信那个并为之献身，组织的存在就是因为有了那东西，它是组织的空气和血液，没有它，组织将立刻消亡。”
“As for Seldon, I’d say his plan is an impossible one.”
“至于谢顿，他的计划应该也是不可能成功的。”
Tyler was silent.
泰勒沉默了。
“What’s that?”
“那是什么？”
“Hatred.”
“仇恨。”
Tyler remained silent.
泰勒仍然说不出话来。
“On the one hand, thanks to our common enemy, our hatred of the West has faded. On the other, the human race that the Trisolarans want to wipe out includes the hated West, so to us, perishing together would be a joy. So we don’t hate the Trisolarans.” The old man spread his hands. “You see, hatred is a treasure more precious than gold or diamonds, and a weapon keener than any in the world, but now it’s gone. It’s not yours to give back. So the organization, like me, does not have long to live.”
“一方面，由于有了共同的敌人，我们对西方的仇恨消退了；另一方面，三体人要消灭的全人类也包括我们曾经仇恨过的西方，对于我们来说，同归于尽是一种快意，所以我们也不仇恨三体人。”老人摊开双手，“你看，仇恨，这比黄金和钻石都宝贵的财富，这世界上最犀利的武器，现在没有了，您也给不了我们，所以，组织和我一样。也活不了多久了。”
Tyler let out a sigh and sat back down on the bed. “You mean you’ve read the ending?”
泰勒长叹一声，坐回床沿上：“这么说，您看过后面的部分？”
“Ah, the wise always die young. May he find heaven, whichever one it is…”
“愿他上天堂。哪一个都行……唉，睿智的人都死得早。”
The old man raised an eyebrow in surprise. “No, I haven’t read it. That’s just what I think. What? Does the Seldon Plan fail in the book? The author is an exceptional man, if that’s the case. I’d imagined he wrote a happy ending, may Allah protect him.”
老人惊奇地一扬眉毛：“没有，我真的没有看过，只是这么想。怎么，书中的谢顿计划也失败了吗，要是那样，作者是个了不起的人，我原以为他会写一个大团圆的结局呢，愿真主保佑他。”
For most of the way back, Tyler was not blindfolded, giving him the opportunity to see the steep, barren mountains of Afghanistan. The young man who led his mule even trusted him enough to leave his assault rifle hanging from the saddle, right next to Tyler’s hand.
在回程中，泰勒大部分时间没有被蒙上眼睛，使他有机会欣赏阿富汗贫瘠但险峻的群山，给他牵骡的年轻人甚至信任地把自己的自动步枪挂在鞍上，就靠在泰勒的手边。
“Have you killed anyone with that gun?” he asked.
“你用这支枪杀过人吗？”泰勒问。
“Asimov’s been dead for many years.”
“阿西莫夫死了好多年了。”
Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan walked toward the main entrance of the Louvre at ten P. M. Kent had advised them to visit at night to facilitate more convenient security.
罗辑和庄颜是在夜里十点钟走进卢浮宫大门的，坎特建议他们在晚上参观，这样在安全保卫方面好安排一些。
The young man looked up questioningly at Tyler. He had no beard on his childlike face, and his eyes were as clear as the blue sky of western Asia.
那年轻人仍抬头疑问地看着泰勒，他没有蓄须，一脸稚气，目光像西亚的蓝天一样清澈。
The young man didn’t understand, but an older, unarmed man riding next to them answered for him. “No. There hasn’t been any fighting for a long time.”
那年轻人听不懂，旁边一名也骑骡但没带武器的年长者替他回答：“没有，好长时间没打仗了。”
The first thing they saw was the glass pyramid, shielded from the nighttime din of Paris by the U-shaped palace building, and standing quietly under the watery moonlight as if it were made of silver.
他们第一眼看到的就是玻璃金字塔，U形的官殿屏蔽了夜巴黎的喧嚣，金字塔静静地立在如水的月光下，像是银子做的。
“Mr. Luo, don’t you get the feeling that it flew in from outer space?” Zhuang Yan asked, pointing to the pyramid.
“罗老师，你有没有觉得它是从天外飞来的？”庄颜指着金字塔问。
“At first it feels a little out of place, but the more you look at it, the more it seems to be an integral part of the place.”
“把它放在这儿，开始怎么看怎么别扭，可看多了，它倒成了这里不可缺少的一部分。”
“Everyone has that feeling,” Luo Ji said.
“谁都有这种感觉，而且你看，它只有三个面。”罗辑说完最后那句就后悔了，他不愿在现在谈那个话题。
Their first destination was the largest exhibition hall. It was two hundred meters long and softly lit, and their footsteps echoed down the emptiness. Luo Ji quickly realized that it was only his footsteps echoing, for Zhuang Yan walked lightly on catlike steps, like a child in a fairy tale who enters a magic castle and is afraid of waking what slumbers there. He slowed his pace — not for the artwork, which didn’t interest him at all, but to let the distance between them grow and allow him to appreciate her among this world of art, gazing upon the beauty of this Eastern woman along with the full-figured Greek gods, angels, and the Blessed Virgin in the surrounding classical oil paintings. Like the glass pyramid in the courtyard, she soon blended into the environment and became part of the sacred realm of art. Without her, this place would be missing something. In a reverie or a dream or a vision, he let time pass by quietly.
他们首先走进的是卢浮宫最大的展厅，有二百米长，这里光线柔和，脚步声在空旷中回荡。罗辑很快发现只有他的脚步声，庄颜在轻轻地走路，猫一样无声，如同一个初人童话中神奇宫殿的孩子，怕吵醒这里沉睡的什么东西。罗辑放慢脚步，与庄颜拉开了一段距离，他对这里的艺术品没有兴趣，只是欣赏着艺术世界中的她。那些古典油画上体形丰美的希腊众神、天使和圣母，从四面八方与他一同看着这位美丽的东方少女，她就像庭院中那座晶莹的金字塔，很快融为这艺术圣境中的一部分，没有她，这里肯定少了什么。罗辑陶醉在这如梦如幻的意境中，任时间静静地流逝。
The meeting of two vastly different worlds, Luo Ji thought, but did not say.
这就是两个差异巨大的世界的融合，罗辑想，但没有说出来。
Then the whole pyramid lit up, turning from moonlit silver to a brilliant gold. At the same time the fountains came on in the surrounding pools, sending tall columns of water and light skyward. Zhuang Yan glanced at Luo Ji in alarm, unsettled by the Louvre’s awakening at their arrival. Accompanied by water sounds, they made their way down the pyramid into the Hall Napoléon, and then into the palace.
这时，金字塔里的灯全亮了，它由月光下的银色变得金碧辉煌，与此同时，周围水池中的喷泉也启动了，高高的水柱在灯光和月光中升起，庄颜惊恐地看了罗辑一眼，对卢浮宫因他们的到来而苏醒感到很不安。就在一片水声中，他们走进了金字塔下面的大厅，然后进入了宫殿。
“Really.”
“真的。”
“I know,” was her simple reply, but her eyes said, What should I do? Then she turned her attention to the paintings. In all this time she had seen only five of them.
“我知道。”庄颜简单地回答，眼神仿佛在说：那我该怎么办呢，然后又转身凝神看画了，这么长时间，她只看到第五幅。
“No. But I went to the Centre Pompidou when I came to Paris three years ago. At first I thought you would be more interested in going there.”
“没有，不过三年前来巴黎时去过蓬皮杜艺术中心，我本来以为你对那里更感兴趣的。”
“I don’t like it too old. I just like the paintings of the Renaissance.”
“太旧的我不喜欢，只喜欢文艺复兴时期的画儿。”
“It doesn’t matter, Yan Yan. I can look at them with you every night for a year.” The words slipped out.
“没关系的，颜颜，我可以陪你看一年，每天晚上。”罗辑情不自禁地说。
“I’ve heard that with a trained eye, it would take you a whole year to see all of the pieces here,” he said.
“听说，如果专业地欣赏，看完这里的所有东西要一年时间。”罗辑说。
She turned to look at him, visibly excited. “Really?”
听到这话庄颜又转身看着罗辑，显得很激动：“真的吗？”
“Well… Mr. Luo, have you ever been here before?”
“那……罗老师，你以前来过这儿吗？”
She shook her head. “I don’t like modern art.”
庄颜摇摇头：“我不喜欢现代艺术。”
“Then, all this –” He glanced around at the gods, angels, and Blessed Virgin. “You don’t think it’s too old?”
“那这些，”罗辑看着周围众多的神、天使和圣母，“你不觉得太旧了吗？”
After a time, Zhuang Yan finally remembered Luo Ji’s presence and flashed a smile back at him. His heart quaked at what felt to him like a bolt of light sent to the mortal realm from a painting of Mount Olympus.
不知过了多久，庄颜才想起罗辑的存在，回头对他笑了一下，罗辑的心随之一动，他感到这笑容仿佛是从画中的奥林匹斯山投向尘世的一束光芒。
“You mean, in the Trisolar Crisis?”
“你是说在三体危机中？”
“But they don’t feel old to me. Those painters were the first to discover human beauty, and they painted God as a pleasing person. Looking at these works, you can sense their joy in painting, the same joy I felt when I first saw the lake and the snow peak.”
“可我感觉不旧，那时的画家们第一次发现了人的美，他们把神画成了很美的人，你看这些画儿，就能感觉到他们画的时候那种幸福，那感觉就像我那天早晨第一次看到湖和雪山一样。”
She smiled a smile tinged with sadness, clearly understanding the meaning behind Luo Ji’s consoling words. “I’m just thinking: After doomsday, what will happen to these paintings and artworks?”
庄颜笑了笑，那笑容有些凄惨，她显然领会到了罗辑善意的安慰：“我只是在想，末日之后，这些画儿。这些艺术品会怎么样？”
Looking at her innocent eyes, he smiled wryly to himself. Silly kid, you talk about art, but if humanity does manage to survive, regressing to a primitive society would be a small price to pay. But he said, “When that time comes, there may be a second Renaissance, and you could rediscover forgotten beauty and paint it.”
看着庄颜那天真的目光，罗辑暗自苦笑了一下—傻孩子，还谈什么艺术，如果真能生存下来，人类即使退回到原始社会也是一个很小的代价。但他还是说：“到那时，也许会有第二次文艺复兴，你可以重新发现已经被遗忘的美，把她面出来。”
“Those are pretty old, too.”
“那也很旧的。”
“That’s good, but the humanistic spirit pioneered by the Renaissance masters has become a stumbling block.”
“很好，不过文艺复兴的大师们开创的人文精神，现在成了一种碍事的东西。”
“And art will enter a long winter’s night, right?”
“那艺术也就进入冬天和黑夜了，是吗？”
“Yes. You must have seen what’s been happening lately. Four centuries from now, the post-disaster world might return to the Middle Ages, with humanity once again subjected to extreme repression.”
“是的，你肯定也看到了最近发生的事。四个世纪后，灾难后的人类世界可能会退回到中世纪的状态，人性将再次处于极度的压抑之下。”
“You’re worried about that?” he asked. When she mentioned doomsday, his heart ached, but if his last attempt at comfort had failed, he was confident that he would succeed this time. So he took her hand and said, “Come on, let’s go to the Asian Art exhibit.”
“你担心这个？”罗辑问，女孩儿轻轻地说出末日二字，他的心痛了一下，但如果说刚才的安慰是失败的，这一次他相信自己能成功，于是托起庄颜的手说，“走，我们到东方艺术馆去。”
Before the pyramid lobby was built, the Louvre was a giant maze. Getting to any particular gallery meant a long and winding detour. But now you could go directly from the Hall Napoléon beneath the pyramid to any point in the museum. Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan returned to the entrance hall, followed the signs leading to the Arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas, and wound up in an entirely different world from the galleries of classical European paintings.
在修建金字塔人口前，卢浮宫是个大迷宫，在其中要到某个厅室可能要绕行很远，但现在可以从金字塔大厅直接去各个位置。罗辑和庄颜回到人口大厅后，按标识进入了东方艺术馆，与欧洲古典绘画展区相比，这里完全是另一个世界。
Luo Ji pointed out the sculptures, paintings, and old documents from Asia and Africa, and said, “These were taken by an advanced civilization from a backward one. Some were looted, others were stolen or defrauded, but look at them now: They’re all well preserved. Even during the Second World War, these objects were transferred to a safe place.” They stood before a Dunhuang mural sealed in a glass case. “Think about how much turmoil and war that land of ours has seen since the time Abbot Wang gave these to the Frenchman. If the murals were left there, can you be certain they would have been this well preserved?”
罗辑指着那些来自亚洲和非洲的雕塑、绘画和古文卷说：“这就是一个先进文明从落后文明那里弄来的东西，有的是抢来的，有的是偷来或骗来的，但你看看，现在它们都保存得很好。即使在二战时期，这些东西也都被转移到安全的地方。”他们在挂于密封玻璃柜中的敦煌壁画前站住了，“想想当年王道士把这些东西送给法国人以后，我们那块土地上又有过多少动荡和战乱，如果这壁画留在原处，你肯定它们能保存得这么好？”
“No, what?”
“什么？”
“Because they said we’re bugs? But that’s not what that means. Yan Yan, do you know what the greatest expression of regard for a race or civilization is?”
“就因为他们说我们是虫子？不是这么回事，颜颜，你知道看重一个种族或文明的最高表现形式是什么？”
“Do you know who I’m thinking of here?” Luo Ji stood beside a glass case containing the golden mask of a mummified pharaoh and tried out a lighter topic of conversation. “Sophie Marceau.”
“在这儿你知道我想到了谁？”罗辑站在那具放在玻璃柜中的法老木乃伊的黄金面具旁，想找到一个轻松些的话题，“苏菲，玛索。”
They passed silently through the twenty-four galleries housing Asian art, walking through the distant past while imagining a gloomy future. Without realizing it, they reached the Egyptian Antiquities gallery.
接下来，两人沉默着穿行于东方艺术馆的二十四个展厅间，走在遥远的过去中想象着灰暗的未来。不知不觉，他们来到了埃及艺术馆。
“Annihilation. That’s the highest respect a civilization can receive. They would only feel threatened by a civilization they truly respect.”
“斩尽杀绝，这是对一个文明最高的重视。”
For some reason, right or wrong, Luo Ji sensed traces of jealousy and offense in her voice.
不知是不是错觉，罗辑感觉到她的话中有一丝嫉妒和委屈。
“Because of Belphegor, Phantom of the Louvre, right? Sophie Marceau is gorgeous. She’s got Eastern looks, too.”
“你是说那部《卢浮魅影》吧？玛索确实很美的，长得还很东方呢。”
“Yan Yan, she’s not as beautiful as you. That’s the truth.” He also wanted to say, One might be able to find her beauty among these works of art, but yours eclipses them, but he didn’t want to come off as sarcastic. The hint of a shy smile flitted across her face like a cloud, the first time he had seen this smile he remembered from his dreams.
“颜颜，她不如你美，真的。”罗辑还想说，她的美也许能从这些艺术品中找到，但你的美使这些东西都失色了，但还是不想让自己太酸了。他看到一丝羞涩的微笑像浮云般掠过女孩儿的脸庞，这也是他第一次看到。
“But will the Trisolarans preserve humanity’s cultural heritage? They have no regard for us at all.”
“可三体人会保存人类的文化遗产吗，他们根本不看重我们的文明。”庄颜说。
“I’m one of the great uncultured.”
“我就是这些俗人中的一员。”
“All of us?”
“我们？”
They arrived at the mysterious smile, which was behind a thick wall of protective glass and much smaller than Luo Ji had imagined. Even Zhuang Yan didn’t seem particularly excited.
来到那神秘的微笑前时，罗辑感觉这幅画比想象中的要小很多，而且处于厚厚的防弹玻璃后面，庄颜对它也没有表现出特别的兴奋。
“Let’s go back to the oil paintings,” she said softly.
“我们还是回去接着看油画吧。”庄颜小声说。
“Because tourists come for those two objects but have no interest in less famous but equally great works of art.”
“那些游客就冲着这两样东西来，对这里名气不那么大、却同样伟大的艺术品却不感兴趣。”
They returned to the Hall Napoléon, but forgot which entrance to use. The most visible signs pointed to the three jewels of the palace: the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory.
他们再次回到金字塔大厅，但忘记了第一次的人口。罗辑看到，这里最醒目的标志是卢浮官的的『三件镇宫之宝：蒙娜丽莎、维纳斯和胜利女神。
“Why was that?”
“为什么？”
As they headed in that direction, she said, “Our teacher said that after he visited the Louvre, he was a little disgusted with the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo.”
在他们朝那个方向走的途中，庄颜说：“我们老师说，他到过卢浮宫后，对蒙娜丽莎和维纳斯都有些反感了。”
“Seeing her reminds me of all of you,” she said, pointing at the figure in the painting.
“看到她，我想起了你们。”庄颜指着画中人说。
“Let’s see the Mona Lisa,” he suggested.
“我们去看蒙娜丽莎吧。”罗辑提议。
“What’s she got to do with the Wallfacers?”
“她和面壁者有什么关系？”
“The Wallfacers, of course.”
“面壁者啊。”
“Well, I wonder — and this is just speculation, so don’t laugh — I wonder whether we could find a form of communication that only humans can comprehend, but which the sophons never will. That way, humanity can be free of sophon monitoring.”
“嗯，我是这样想的——只是想想，你不要笑我啊——能不能找到一种交流方式，只有人类才能相互理解，智子永远理解不了，这样人类就能够摆脱智子的监视了。”
“So is it possible to create a language of expressions and then speak with the face and the eyes?”
“那能不能创造一种表情语言，用表情和目光说话？”
Luo Ji looked at her for several seconds, and then stared at the Mona Lisa. “I get what you mean. Her smile is something that the sophons and the Trisolarans will never understand.”
罗辑看着庄颜思考了几秒钟，然后盯着荣娜丽莎看：“我明白你的意思了。她的微笑是智子和三体人永远理解不了的。”
“That’s right. Human expressions, and people’s eyes in particular, are subtle and complex. A gaze or a smile can transmit so much information! And only humans can understand that information. Only humans have that sensitivity.”
“是啊，人类的表情，特别是人类的目光，是最微妙最复杂的，一个注视，一个微笑，能传达好多信息呢！这信息只有人能够理解，只有人才有这种敏感。”
Luo Ji thought this over seriously, then shook his head with a smile. He pointed at the Mona Lisa. “We can’t even read her expression. When I stare at her, the meaning of her smile changes every second and never repeats itself.”
罗辑很认真地想了想，笑着摇摇头，指着蒙娜丽莎说：“她的表情，我们自己也理解不了啊……我盯着她看时，那微笑的含义一秒钟变化一次，而且没有重复的。”
“True. One of the biggest problems in artificial intelligence is identifying facial and eye expressions. Some experts even say that computers may never be able to read the eyes.”
“是，人工智能最大的难题之一就是识别人类的表情和眼神，甚至有专家说，对于眼神，计算机可能永远也识别不了。”
Zhuang Yan jumped up and down excitedly, like a child. “But that means that facial expressions really can convey complex information!”
庄颜高兴得像孩子那样跳了一下：“这不正说明表情能够传达很复杂的信息吗？”
“And if the information is: ‘The spacecraft have left Earth, destination Jupiter’? How would you convey that using facial expressions?”
“那这个信息：飞船从地球出发，目的地木星。怎样用表情表达？”
“Well, let’s try to convey a simple meaning through facial expressions.”
“那……我们先试着用表情表达一个简单的意思？”
“Okay!” She nodded her head excitedly. “Here, let’s each think of a message, and then exchange them.”
“嗯！”庄颜兴奋地点点头，“那这样，我们每人先想一个信息，然后互相表达？”
Zhuang Yan thought for a much longer time, and then nodded. “Then let’s begin.”
庄颜却想了更长的时间，然后也点点头，“那我们开始。”
“When primitive man began to speak, surely it was only to convey simple meanings. It may even have been less complex than birdcalls. Language gradually grew in complexity after that.”
“原始人开始说话时，肯定也只能表达很简单的意思，说不定还不如鸟叫复杂呢，语言是以后才慢慢复杂起来的！”
Luo Ji paused for a moment. “I’ve thought of mine.”
罗辑停顿了一下说：“我想好了。”
“My message was, ‘Tonight I’d like to invite you to have supper on the Champs-Élysées,'” he said.
“我的信息是：今晚想请你去香榭里舍大街吃夜宵。”罗辑说。
They stared at each other, but held that pose for less than half a minute before they burst out laughing at practically the same instant.
他们开始互相凝视，只坚持了不到半分钟，就几乎同时大笑起来。
“These are grave matters concerning the fate of humanity, so we ought to remain serious,” Luo Ji said, holding in his laughter.
“关系到人类命运的大事，我们必须严肃起来。”罗辑忍住笑说。
She doubled over with laughter. “Mine was, ‘You… need to shave!'”
庄颜也笑得直不起腰来：“我的信息：你……你该刮胡子了！”
The dam in Luo Ji’s soul had sprung a tiny leak, and this trickle eroded it, expanding the tiny fissure into a turbulent stream. He grew afraid and strove to patch the crack in the dam, but was unable to. A collapse was inevitable.
罗辑心灵的堤坝上渗出了涓涓细流，这细流冲刷着堤坝，微小的裂隙渐渐扩大，细流也在变得湍急，罗辑感到了恐惧，他努力弥合堤坝上的裂隙，但做不到，崩溃是不可避免的。
And so it was that the Wallfacer and the young woman stood, gazes locked, in front of the smile of Mona Lisa in the Louvre in the dead of night.
面壁者和少女就这样相互凝视着，在深夜的卢浮宫，在蒙娜丽莎的微笑前。
“This time, no laughing allowed!” she said, as serious as a child redefining the rules of a game.
“这次谁也不许先笑！”庄颜说，像一个重新确定游戏规则的燕子那样郑重。
They stood back to back, each thinking of a message, and then turned around and locked eyes once again. Luo Ji felt the urge to laugh and strove to suppress it, but the task soon became much easier, for Zhuang Yan’s clear eyes had begun to pluck at his heartstrings again.
他们背靠背站着，各自又想好了一个信息，然后转身再次相互凝视。罗辑在开始时又有了笑的冲动，他努力抑制着，但很快，这种抑制变得容易起来，因为庄颜清澈的目光再次拨动了他的心弦。
Then he felt like he was standing on a towering cliff top, and the girl’s eyes were the vast abyss beneath, covered in a pure white sea of clouds. But the sun shone down from all directions and turned the clouds into a brilliance of color that surged endlessly. He felt himself sliding downward, a very slow slide, but one he could not arrest under his own power. In a panic, he shook his limbs to try to find a place to hold on. But beneath his body was nothing but slick ice. His slide accelerated, until, finally, with a burst of vertigo, he began to fall into the abyss. In an instant, the joy of falling reached the upper limit of pain.
此时，罗辑感到自己站在万仞悬崖之巅，少女的眼睛就是悬崖下广阔的深渊，深渊上覆盖着洁白的云海，但阳光从所有的方向撒下来，云海变成了绚丽的彩色，无边无际地涌动着。罗辑感到自己向下滑去，很慢很慢，但凭自己的力量不可制止。他慌乱地移动着四肢，想找到一个可以抓踏的地方，但身下只是光滑的冰面。下滑在加速，最后在一阵狂乱的眩晕中，他开始了向深渊的下坠，坠落的幸福在瞬间达到了痛苦的极限。
The Mona Lisa was deforming. The walls were deforming, melting like ice as the Louvre collapsed, its stones turning to red-hot magma as they fell. When the magma passed over their bodies, it felt cool as a clear spring. They fell with the Louvre, passing through a melted Europe toward the center of the Earth, and when they reached it, the world around them exploded in a shower of gorgeous cosmic fireworks. Then the sparks extinguished, and in the twinkling of an eye, space became crystal clear. The stars wove crystal beams into a giant silver blanket, and the planets vibrated, emitting beautiful music. The starfield grew dense like a surging tide. The universe contracted and collapsed, until at last everything was annihilated in the creative light of love.
蒙娜丽莎在变形，墙壁也在变形，像消融的冰。卢浮宫崩塌了，砖石在下坠的途中化为红亮的岩浆，这岩浆穿过他们的身体，竞像清泉般清凉。他们也随着卢浮宫下坠，穿过熔化的欧洲大陆，向地心坠去，穿过地心时，地球在周围爆发开来，变成宇宙间绚烂的焰火；焰火熄灭，空间在瞬间如水晶般透明，星辰用晶莹的光芒织成银色的巨毡，群星振动着，奏出华美的音乐；星海在变密，像涌起的海潮，宇宙向他们聚集坍缩……最后，一切都湮没在爱情的创世之光中。
“I have the feeling that the observations in progress right now are actually private work that you astronomers are doing on the side.”
“我怀疑现在的观测是你们天文学家在偷着干私活儿。”
“We need to observe Trisolaris right now!” General Fitzroy said to Dr. Ringier. They were in the control room of the Hubble II Space Telescope, a week after its assembly was completed.
“我们需要立刻观察三体世界！”斐兹罗将军对林格博士说，他们在哈勃二号太空望远镜的控制室中，望远镜在一星期前最后装配完成。
“General, I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“将军，可能不行。”
“You’re working for the military. Carrying out orders is all you need to do.”
“你们在为军方工作，只需执行命令。”
“I’d have done my own work if it were possible, but Hubble II is still in the testing phase.”
“私活儿要能干我早干了，哈勃二号现在还在测试中。”
“Let’s have a look at how you’re saving it, then. I just found this on your computer,” Fitzroy said as he brought a hand out from behind his back. He held a printout of a photograph, an overhead shot of a group of people looking upward excitedly. They were recognizably the crew from this very control room, Ringier in their midst, along with three women in sexy poses who might have been the girlfriends of some in the group. The location of the photo was evidently the roof of the control room building, and the photo was very clear, as if it had been shot from ten or twenty meters above. Where it differed from an ordinary photograph was in the complicated numbers overlaid atop it. “Doctor, you’re standing on the highest point of the building. It doesn’t have a rocker arm like a movie set, does it? You’re telling me that rotating Hubble II thirty degrees costs money. Well, how much does it cost to rotate it three hundred sixty degrees? Besides, that ten-million-dollar investment wasn’t made so you could snap photos of you and your girlfriends from space. Should I add that sum to your bill?”
“那就看看你们是怎么省的吧，这是我刚从你们的电脑上发现的。”斐兹罗说着，把背着的手拿到前面来，手中拿着一张上面已经打印出图像的纸，那图像是一张照片，是从上方俯拍的，有一群人在兴奋地向上仰望，很容易认出他们就是现在控制室中的这批人，林格站在正中间，还有三位搔首弄姿的外来女士，可能是他们中某三位的女朋友。照片中人们站的位置显然是控制室的楼顶，图像十分清晰，像是在十几米高处拍的，与普通照片不同的是，这幅照片中叠印着一大堆复杂的参数标注。“博士，你们站的是楼顶的最高处了，那里不会有一个那种拍电影的摇臂吧？如果说把哈勃二号转动30度要花钱。那你们转动360度要花多少？况且这一百多亿的投资好像不是用来从太空为你们和女朋友拍写真的，要不要我把这笔钱算到各位的账单上？”
“No one here is military apart from you. We’re following NASA’s testing plan.”
“这里除您之外没有军人，我们只按NASA的测试计划执行。”
The general’s tone softened. “Doctor, can’t you just use Trisolaris as a test target?”
“博士，你们不可以就用那个目标做测试吗？”将军的口气软了下来。
“Test targets have been carefully selected according to distance and brightness classes, and the test plan has been formulated to be maximally economical, so that the telescope completes all tests after just one rotation. In order to observe Trisolaris now, we would need to rotate through an angle of nearly thirty degrees and back, and spinning this bad boy uses up propellant. We’re saving the military money, General.”
“测试目标是经过严密选择的，有各种距离和亮度种类，测试计划是按照最经济的方式制定的，使得望远镜的指向只旋转一趟就可完成全部测试，而现在观察三体世界，就需要把指向转动近30度角再转回去。将军，转动那个大家伙是要耗费推进剂的，我们在为军方省钱。”
“This is what the telescope sees?” asked the general.
“这就是望远镜看到的吗？”将军问。
Coordinate data was quickly called up from the target database. In space, the enormous cylinder, over twenty meters in diameter and more than a hundred meters long, slowly started to turn, panning across the starfield displayed on the screen in the control room.
目标数据库中的坐标数据被很快调出，太空中，那个直径二十多米长上百米的圆柱体开始缓缓转动，控制室中的大屏幕上，星空的图像开始平移。
“Yes. Now the images are being processed.”
“是的，现在观测图像正在传辅处理中。”
“General, your order must of course be carried out,” Ringier said hastily, and the engineers immediately went to work.
“将军，您的命令当然是必须执行的。”林格赶紧说，工程师们也立刻忙了起来。
“No, this is just the image returned by the positioning system. The telescope returns still photos that need to be processed before they’re viewable.”
“不，这只是定位系统传回的图像，望远镜传回的是静态照片，需经处理后才能看到。”
In surprise, Fitzroy asked, “What? Is it done?”
斐兹罗惊奇地问：“怎么，已经完成了？”
Five minutes later, the panning stopped. The control system reported that positioning had been achieved, and after another five minutes, Ringier said, “Good. Now return to the test position.”
五分钟后，星空的平移停止了，控制系统报告定位已经完成。又过了五分钟，林格说：“好了，返回原测试位置吧。”。
“Can’t you take a few more?”
“不能多拍几张吗？”
“General, we’ve captured two hundred ten images at multiple focal lengths.” At that moment the first observation image finished processing, and Ringier pointed to the screen. “Look, General. There’s the enemy world you want to see so badly.”
“将军，已经在不同的焦距范围内拍摄了210张。”这时第一张观测图像处理完成，林格指着显示器说，“将军，看吧，这就是您渴望看到的敌人的世界。”
“Of course we can’t. Even when the hundred-meter Hubble III is finished, we’ll only be able to observe Trisolaris at a very few set positions, and we’ll only be able to make it out as a dot, with no detail at all.”
“当然看不到，即使将来直径百米的哈勃三号建成，也只有在三体行星运行到少数特定位置时才能观测到，而且能分辨的只是一个点，没有任何细节。”
“So we really can’t see the planet.” Fitzroy couldn’t hide his disappointment.
“看来真的看不到行星了。”斐兹罗掩盖不住自己的失望。
Fitzroy saw nothing but a group of three halos against a dark background. They were diffuse, like streetlights through fog. These were the three stars that would decide the fate of two civilizations.
斐兹罗只看到一片漆黑的背景上的三团光晕，很模糊，像雾夜中的街灯，这就是决定两个文明命运的那三颗恒星。
“But there’s something else here, Doctor. What do you think this is?” asked one of the engineers, pointing to a spot close to the three halos.
“但还真有些别的东西，博士，你看这是什么？”一名工程师指着图像上三团光晕的附近说。
Fitzroy leaned in but saw nothing. It was so faint that only an expert could catch it.
斐兹罗凑过去看，但什么也没看到，那团东西太暗了，只有专业人员才能觉察到。
“It’s got a diameter larger than a star,” an engineer said.
“它的直径比恒星还大。”工程师说。
After enlarging the area several times, the thing covered the entire screen.
那片区域被连续放大，直到那个东西占满了整个屏幕。
“It’s a brush!” shouted the general in alarm.
“刷子！”将军惊叫道。
The layman always comes up with better names than the expert, which is why when experts name things they, too, work from an outsider’s perspective. And thus “brush” became the figure’s name, because the general’s description was accurate: It was a cosmic brush. Or, to be more precise, a set of cosmic bristles without a handle. Of course, you could also see it as hair standing on end.
外行往往更适合给专业对象命名，其实专家在进行这种命名时也总是从外行的视角进行的，“刷子”这个名称就这样固定下来，将军的描述很准确，那就是宇宙中的一把刷子，更准确地说只有刷毛，没刷柄。当然，也可以把它看做一排竖起的头发。
“It must be a scratch in the coating! I mentioned in the feasibility study that a paste-up lens would cause problems,” Ringier said, shaking his head.
“是贴面划痕！在可行性研究阶段我就提出，镜片的粘贴组装方式必然出问题。”林格摇摇头说。
The frozen formation abruptly turned into excited activity. The snatches of dialogue Fitzroy picked up were a bit too technical for him.
定格在那里的人们突然都兴奋地活动起来，他们下面的对话对于斐兹罗而言有些太专业了。
“All the coatings have been through stringent testing. A scratch of this sort wouldn’t happen. And it’s not generated by any other lens flaw, either. We’ve already returned tens of thousands of test images, and it’s never come up before,” said an expert from Zeiss, the lens’s manufacturer.
“所有贴面都经过严格检验，不可能存在这样的划痕，也不可能是镜片的其他瑕疵产生的，在已经传回的几万张测试图像中，从来没有出现过这个。”镜片制造方蔡司公司的专家说。
A hush fell over the control room. They all gathered to stare up at the image on the screen until it got so crowded that some of them called up the image on other terminals. Fitzroy sensed the change in the room’s atmosphere: People who had grown lazy from the fatigue of lengthy tests were anxious now, like they had been hit by a curse that rooted everything in place but their eyes, which grew ever brighter.
控制室陷入沉默中，人们都聚集过来盯着那幅图像看，由于人太挤，一些人到另外的终端上调出图像细看。斐兹罗明显感觉到气氛的变化，因漫长测试的疲劳而显得懒散的人们同时紧张起来，像中了魔咒似的僵在那里，只有他们的眼睛越来越亮。
“God!” exclaimed several people at the same time.
“天啊——”几个人几乎同时发出这个感叹。
“Any opinions on the effect of high-speed impact?”
“对于其中出现的高速冲击效应各位有什么看法？”
The computer needed four or five minutes to complete every calculation, but there were a number of errors, so it was half an hour before the results were ready.
每次计算都要进行四五分钟，其间还出了几次错，半小时后结果才出来。
“The wake diffuses the dust to a maximum diameter of two hundred forty thousand kilometers, or twice the size of Jupiter,” the astronomer running the mathematical model said.
“尾迹的最后扩散直径约二十四万公里，是两个木星的直径了。”操纵数学模型运算的天文学家说。
The general nodded, and then bent over a terminal and began counting.
斐兹罗点点头，伏到一个终端屏幕前散了起来。
With the experts busy, Ringier stood next to Fitzroy. “General, can you try your best to count the bristles in the brush?”
在学者们忙碌时，林格对站在一边的斐兹罗说：“将军，你能不能干些力所能及的事，数数刷子上有几根毛？”
“No need. I completed that item. Observing the absorption of the background stellar radial movement, there’s an absorption peak at two hundred millimeters. It may be a carbon microparticle, F-class density.”
“不用，我做过那个课题，观测它对旋臂运动背景的吸收，发现有二百毫米的吸收峰，可能是碳微粒，密度在F级。”
“That’s a conservative figure… For the impact cross section, use… Right, that’s right. That’s just about it. Just a rough estimate.”
“这已经有些保守了……冲击截面就按……对对，这个就差不多，只是大概估计一下吧。”
“Any dust around the target’s position? Check it –“
“是目标周围的尘埃带位置吧，查一下……”
“Yes. One moment… Here it is. Impact speed?”
“有的，等一下……这就是了，冲击速度？”
“A hundred times third cosmic velocity.”
“一百个第三速度吧。”
“The wake diffuses along the impact axis, but the diffusion scope… Do we have a model of that?”
“尾迹沿冲击轴线扩散是肯定的，但扩散范围……有数学模型吗？”
“Is it already that high?”
“现在已经达到那么高了吗？”
“Knock it off, Harris. You’re not the only skeptic here. It’s hard for everyone,” someone said.
“行了哈里斯，这里不只有你一个怀疑主义者，大家心里都不好受。”有人说。
“That makes sense,” Ringier said. He raised his arms and looked up at the ceiling, as if looking through it to the heavens. “And that confirms it.” There was a tremble to his voice, and then, as if to himself, he said, “So it’s been confirmed. Nothing wrong with that.”
“那就对了。”林格抱起双臂抬头望着天花板，仿佛在透过它遥望星空，“一切都证实了！”他说这句话的声音有些颤抖，然后，像是对自己喃喃道，“证实了也好，有什么不好呢？”
The young man, Harris, lifted his teary eyes and said, “I know skepticism is just a way to comfort myself, but I wanted to live out my life in comfort. God, now I’m not even lucky enough for that.”
叫哈里斯的年轻人抬起泪眼说：“我知道怀疑只是一种安慰而已，但我想在这安慰中过完这一生……上帝，我们连这点幸运都没有了。”
Silence returned.
然后又是沉默。
Silence fell over the control room again, heavy and oppressive this time. Fitzroy wanted to ask a question, but at the sight of the solemn, bowed heads, he couldn’t open his mouth. After a while, he heard gentle sobs and saw a young man trying to hide his tears.
控制室再次陷入沉默，这次带着重重的压抑。斐兹罗想问，但看到人们垂首肃穆的样子，又不好开口。过了一会儿，他听到一阵轻轻的呜咽声，看到一个年轻人在掩面哭泣。
At last Ringier remembered Fitzroy. “General, let me explain. The three stars are surrounded by interstellar dust. Previously, a number of bodies moving at high speed crossed that dust, and their high-speed impact with the dust left behind a wake. The wake continued to expand and has now reached a diameter twice that of the planet Jupiter. There are only subtle differences between the wake and the surrounding dust, so they are undetectable at close range. Only here, four light-years away, are they observable.”
林格终于注意到斐兹罗：“将军，我大概解释一下吧：那三颗恒星周围有一片星际尘埃，这之前，有一批高速运动的物体穿过了这片尘埃，它们的高速冲击在尘埃中留下了尾迹，这尾迹不断扩散，现在其断面直径已经扩散到两个木星大小，尾迹与周围的尘埃只有细微的差别，所以在近处是看不到的，只有在我们这四光年远的位置，它才能被观察到。”
Hubble II’s discovery, the final confirmation of the reality of the Trisolaran invasion, extinguished the last of humanity’s fantasies. The descent of a new round of despair, panic, and confusion ushered the human race into life under the Trisolar Crisis. Then the hard times began. With a rocky change of direction, the vehicle of time veered off along a new track.
哈勃二号太空望远镜的发现最后证实了三体入侵的真实性，也熄灭了人类最后的幻想。在新一轮的绝望、恐慌和迷茫之后，人类真正进入了面对三体危机的生活。艰难时世开始了，历史的车轮经历了转向的颠簸之后，开始沿着新的轨道前进。
“Of course. That number confirms our intelligence reports. General, we’re looking at the Trisolaran Fleet.”
“当然，肯定是这个数，将军，我们看到了三体舰队。”
“I’ve counted the bristles. There are about a thousand,” General Fitzroy said.
“我数了，约有一千根。”斐兹罗将军说。
The only constant in a world of tremendous change is the swift passage of time. Five years passed like a blur.
在巨变的世界中，不变的只有时间流逝的速度，恍惚间，五年过去了。
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