Three Body 1: Earth's Past

Chapter 8 The Age of Crazy
China, 1967.

The "Red United" attack on the headquarters building of the "April 200th Corps" has lasted for two days, and their flags are fluttering restlessly around the building, as if eager for dry wood. The commander of the "Red United" is very anxious. He is not afraid of the guards of the building. The more than 1966 "April [-]" fighters are compared with the "Red United" that was born in early [-] and has experienced a large review and a large series. Much younger.What he was afraid of were the dozens of large iron furnaces in the building, which were filled with high explosives and connected in series with electric detonators. He couldn't see them, but he could feel their magnetism. Those little red guards on April [-] had this kind of spiritual power.Compared with the first generation of Red Guards who had matured a lot in the wind and rain, the new rebels were like wolves on burning coals, crazy or crazy.

A petite figure appeared on the top of the building. That beautiful girl was waving a large "April 15" flag. Her appearance immediately evoked a burst of chaotic gunshots. The shooting weapons were various, including old American style Carbines, Czech machine guns, and [-]-caps, as well as brand-new standard rifles and submachine guns—the latter was stolen from the army after the "August Editorial" was published—along with cold weapons such as pikes and broadswords, constituted A condensed modern history... People who played the "April [-]" game played this game many times in front of them. People who stood up on the top of the building, in addition to waving flags, sometimes shouted slogans with megaphones or shouted to the audience. The leaflets were dropped, and every time they were able to escape the bullets, they earned lofty honors for themselves.The girl who came out this time obviously believed that she still had that kind of luck.She is waving the battle flag, waving her burning youth, the enemy will be reduced to ashes in this flame, and the ideal world will be born tomorrow in her boiling blood... She is intoxicated in this bright red dream, until she is captured A rifle bullet pierced through the chest. The [-]-year-old girl's chest was so tender. The bullet barely slowed down after passing through, and a chirp sounded in the air behind her.The young Red Guard fell from the roof of the building together with her flag, and her light body fell even slower than the flag, like a bird attached to the sky.In fact, compared to other people, she was lucky, at least she died in the magnificent passion of dedicating herself to her ideal.

Such hotspots are all over the city, like countless parallel computing CPUs, linking the "Cultural Revolution" into a whole.Madness is like an invisible flood, submerging the city and seeping into every tiny nook and cranny.

On the playground of the famous university on the edge of the city, a protest meeting attended by thousands of people has been going on for nearly two hours.In this age of factions, everywhere there are intricate opposing factions fighting.On campus, the Red Guards, the Cultural Revolution Working Group, the Worker Propaganda Team, and the Military Propaganda Team all broke out sharp conflicts with each other, and each faction split into new opposing factions from time to time, defending their respective backgrounds. And the program, a more brutal contest broke out.However, the reactionary academic authority being denounced this time is the target of the struggle that no one disagrees with, and they can only bear cruel blows from all sides at the same time.

Compared with other ghosts and ghosts, reactionary academic authorities have their own characteristics: when the attack first comes, they are often arrogant and stubborn, and this is also the stage with the highest casualty rate; some of them were beaten to death for not pleading guilty , and some chose to use suicide to maintain their dignity.

Those who survive this stage are numbed by the constant brutality of blows, a kind of self-protective spiritual shell that keeps them from a final breakdown.They often fall into a semi-sleep state at the criticism meeting, and only a threat can wake them up, mechanically repeating the confession that has been said countless times; then, some of them enter the third stage, the protracted criticism. Infused with quicksilver political images into their consciousness, and shattered their edifices of knowledge and reason, they truly believed themselves guilty, and truly saw the damage they had done to a great cause, and wept over it Runny nose, their confession is often much deeper and more sincere than those non-intellectual ghosts and ghosts.For the Red Guards, the objects of criticism in the last two stages are the most boring. Only the ghosts and snakes in the first stage can effectively stimulate their already overexcited nerves, just like the red cloth on the matador's hand, But there are fewer and fewer such objects, and there may be only one left in this university, and he was reserved for the final appearance of the criticism meeting because of his rarity.

Ye Zhetai has lived from the Cultural Revolution to the present, and has been in the first stage. He has not pleaded guilty, committed suicide, and is not numb.When the physics professor stepped onto the stage of criticism, his expression clearly said: Let the cross I bear be heavier!

The burden the Red Guards placed on him was indeed heavy, but it was not a cross.The tall hats worn by other targets of criticism are all framed with bamboo strips, but the one he wears is welded with a finger-thick steel bar, and the plaque he hangs on his chest is not hung by someone else. Instead of a wooden panel, an iron door from one of the laboratory ovens had his name boldly written in black, with a large red cross drawn diagonally.

The number of Red Guards who escorted Ye Zhetai to power was double that of other targets of criticism. There were six of them, two men and four women.The two young men walked steadily and vigorously, and they looked like mature young Bolsheviks. They were all seniors majoring in theoretical physics in the Department of Physics, and Ye Zhetai was their teacher; These little soldiers in military uniforms and armed belts surrounded Ye Zhetai like four green flames with compelling youthful vigor.The appearance of Ye Zhetai excited the crowd below, and the slogans that had been a little weak just now rose up again like a new wave, drowning everything.

After patiently waiting for the slogans to subside, one of the two male Red Guards on the stage turned to the object of criticism: "Ye Zhetai, you are proficient in various mechanics, you should see how powerful the great force you are resisting is, and be stubborn." It’s a dead end! Continue the agenda of the last conference today, so I won’t talk nonsense. Honestly answer the following question: In the basic courses of the [-]-[-] session, did you add a lot of relativity without authorization?!”

"The theory of relativity has become a classical theory of physics, how can it not be covered in basic courses?" Ye Zhetai replied.

"You're talking nonsense!" A female Red Guard next to her snapped. "Einstein is a reactionary academic authority. He was a mother if he had milk. He went to build atomic bombs for American imperialism! To establish revolutionary science, we must Down with the black flag of bourgeois theory represented by the theory of relativity!"

Ye Zhetai remained silent. He was enduring the pain caused by the iron hat on his head and the iron plate on his chest, so he fell silent on questions that were not worth answering.Behind him, his student also frowned slightly.The girl who spoke was the most talented among the four middle school Red Guards, and she was obviously prepared. I saw her reciting the manuscript before going on stage just now, but to deal with Ye Zhetai, she only had to rely on her few slogans It is not acceptable.They decided to show off the new weapons prepared for the teacher today, and one of them waved his hand to the audience.

Ye Zhetai's wife, Shao Lin, a professor of physics in the same department, stood up from the front row and walked onto the stage.She was wearing a very ill-fitting grass-green dress, obviously trying to get closer to the colors of the Red Guards, but people who knew Shao Lin always thought of her who used to wear delicate cheongsam to give lectures, and they always felt awkward.

"Ye Zhetai!" Shao Lin pointed at her husband and shouted, she was obviously not used to this kind of occasion, she tried her best to raise her voice, but even the trembling in it was amplified, "You didn't expect that I would stand up and expose you, criticize you! ? Yes, I was deceived by you before, you blinded me with your reactionary world view and scientific view! Now I wake up, with the help of the revolutionary young general, I want to stand on the side of the revolution, the side of the people!" She Turning to the audience, "Comrades, young revolutionaries, and revolutionary faculty and staff, we should recognize the reactionary nature of Einstein's theory of relativity. This nature is most clearly reflected in general relativity: the static universe model it proposes negates The moving nature of matter is anti-dialectics! It believes that the universe is limited, and it is a complete reactionary idealism..."

Listening to his wife's eloquent speech, Ye Zhetai smiled wryly.Lin, did I deceive you?In fact, you have always been a mystery in my heart.

Once, I praised your extraordinary talent to your father-he was lucky to go early and escaped the disaster-the old man shook his head and said that my daughter could not make any achievements in academics; then, he I uttered a sentence that was very important for the rest of my life: Linlin is too smart, but she must be stupid to engage in basic theories.

Over the years that followed, I continued to realize the profound meaning of these words.Lynn, you are really smart. As early as a few years ago, you sniffed out the political wind in the intellectual world and made some advanced moves. For example, you changed most of the laws and parameters of physics in your teaching. name, Ohm's law was renamed the law of resistance, Maxwell's equation was renamed the electromagnetic equation, and Planck's constant was called the quantum constant... You explained to the students: All scientific achievements are the crystallization of the wisdom of the working people, those bourgeois Academic authority simply steals this wisdom.But even so, you are still not accepted by the "revolutionary mainstream". Look at you now, you don't have the red armbands on your sleeves that "revolutionary faculty and staff" wear; you come up empty-handed, and you are not even eligible for a quotation …Who made you born in such a prominent family in old China, and your parents are such famous scholars.

When it comes to Einstein, you have more to say than I do. In the winter of 1922, when Einstein visited Shanghai, your father was arranged to be one of the escorts because of his good German.You told me many times that your father embarked on the path of physics under Einstein's personal teaching, and you chose physics major because of your father's influence, so Ai Weng can also be regarded as your indirect mentor, you I am extremely proud and happy for this.

I later learned that your father told you a white lie, and that he had only one extremely short exchange with Einstein.

It was the morning of November 1922, 11. He accompanied Einstein for a walk on Nanjing Road. He seemed to be accompanied by Yu Youren, the president of Shanghai University, Cao Gubing, the manager of "Ta Kung Pao", and others. A small stone-breaking worker stopped beside him, silently looked at this boy in tattered clothes in the cold wind, with dirty hands and face, and asked your father: How much does he earn a day?After asking Xiao Gong, your father replied: five points.This is the only communication he has with the master of science who changed the world. There is no physics, no theory of relativity, only cold reality.According to your father, after hearing his answer, Einstein stood there silently for a while, watching Xiaogong's numb work, and did not take a puff even after the pipe in his hand was extinguished.After recalling this incident, your father sighed to me: In China, any thought that transcends the sky will crash to the ground, and the gravitational pull of reality is too heavy.

"Lower your head!" a male Red Guard ordered loudly.This may be the sympathy left by his students for the teacher, and those who are criticized will bow their heads, but if Ye Zhetai wants to do this, the heavy iron hat will fall off. He put it on.But Ye Zhetai still held his head up, using his thin neck to support the heavy bundle of steel.

"Bow your head! You are a reactionary diehard!!" A female Red Guard next to her took off her waist belt and swung it at Ye Zhetai. The brass buckle hit his forehead, leaving a precise shape of the buckle there. But it was soon blurred into a black and purple mass by congestion.He wobbled a bit, then regained his footing.

A male Red Guard questioned Ye Zhetai: "In the teaching of quantum mechanics, you also spread a lot of reactionary remarks!" After speaking, he nodded to Shao Lin, motioning her to continue.

Shaolin couldn't wait to continue, and she had to keep talking without pausing to keep her faltering spirit from completely breaking down. "Ye Zhetai, you can't deny this! You have spread reactionary Copenhagen explanations to students many times!"

"After all, this is the currently accepted explanation that best fits the experimental results." Ye Zhetai said, after receiving such a heavy blow, his tone was still so calm, which surprised and frightened Shaolin.

"This explanation holds that external observations lead to the collapse of the quantum wave function. This is another manifestation of reactionary idealism, and it is the most rampant manifestation!"

"Does philosophy guide experimentation or experimentation guides philosophy?" Ye Zhetai asked, his sudden counterattack made the critics at a loss for a while.

"Of course the correct Marxist philosophy guides scientific experiments!" said a male Red Guard.

"This is tantamount to saying that correct philosophy falls from the sky. Opposing practice to produce true knowledge is exactly contrary to the Marxist principle of cognition of the natural world."

Shao Lin and the two university Red Guards were speechless. Unlike the Red Guards in middle school and society, it was impossible for them to be unreasonable.But the four young generals from the attached middle school have their own "invincible" revolutionary method. The girl who did it just now slammed Ye Zhetai's belt again, and the other three girls also picked up the belt and slapped Ye Zhetai. , they must appear more revolutionary, or at least equally revolutionary.The two male Red Guards did not intervene. If they were involved in this matter now, they would be suspected of being unrevolutionary.

"You still spread the Big Bang theory in your teaching, which is the most reactionary of all scientific theories!" A male Red Guard tried to change the subject.

"Maybe this theory will be overthrown in the future, but the two major cosmological discoveries of this century: Hubble's redshift and 3K cosmic background radiation make the big bang theory the most credible theory of the origin of the universe so far."

"Nonsense!" Shao Lin yelled, and continued to talk about the Big Bang, naturally not forgetting to deeply analyze its reactionary nature.But the super novelty of the theory attracted the brightest of the four little girls, who asked involuntarily:

"Even time started from that singularity!? What was there before the singularity?"

"Nothing." Ye Zhetai said, like answering any little girl's question, he turned his head and looked at her kindly. The iron hat and the serious injury he had suffered made this movement very difficult for him.

"What... nothing?! Reactionary! Totally reactionary!!" The girl yelled in horror, she turned to Shao Lin for help at a loss, and immediately got a response.

"This leaves room for the existence of God." Shaolin nodded to the girl as a reminder.

The little Red Guard's dazed train of thought immediately found a foothold, and she pointed at Ye Zhetai with her hand clenched on the belt, "Are you trying to say that there is a God?!"

"I do not know."

"What did you say!"

"I mean I don't know. If God refers to the superconsciousness outside the universe, I don't know if it exists. Science has not given definite evidence for both pros and cons." In fact, at this nightmarish moment , Ye Zhetai has been inclined to believe that it does not exist.

This outrageous remark caused commotion in the entire venue, and another wave of slogans erupted under the leadership of a Red Guard on stage.

"Down with the reactionary academic authority Ye Zhetai!!"

"Down with all reactionary academic authorities!!"

"Down with all reactionary theories!!"

……

"God does not exist, and all religions are spiritual tools fabricated by the ruling class to paralyze the people!" After the slogan subsided, the little girl said loudly.

"This view is one-sided." Ye Zhetai said calmly.

The little red guard who became angry immediately made a judgment, all words were meaningless to this dangerous enemy in front of him.She swung her belt and rushed up, and her three little comrades followed immediately. Ye Zhetai was very tall, and the four 14-year-old girls could only hit his head that refused to bow by swinging the belt upwards. After a few blows, the high iron hat that was able to protect his head was knocked off, and then the wide leather belt with copper buckles rained down on his head and body—he finally fell down, This encouraged the little red guards, they continue this "noble" battle more devotedly, they are fighting for their beliefs, they are fighting for their ideals, they are intoxicated by the glorious mission given to them by history, and they are proud of their bravery ...

"The highest instruction: fight with words, not fight!" Ye Zhetai's two students finally made up their minds and shouted these words. They rushed over at the same time and pulled away the four little girls who were already in a half-crazed state.

But it was already too late. The physicist was lying quietly on the ground, watching the bloodstain flowing from his head with half-closed eyes. Slowly crawling like a red snake, when it reached the edge of the platform, it dripped drop by drop on an empty box below, making a rhythmic "click" sound, like footsteps fading away.

A burst of strange laughter broke the silence. This sound was made by Shao Lin, whose spirit had completely collapsed, and it sounded terrifying.People started leaving and it turned into a rout where everyone wanted to get out of the place as quickly as possible.The venue quickly emptied, leaving only one girl standing under the stage.

She is Ye Zhetai's daughter Ye Wenjie.

When the four girls violently took their father's life, she wanted to rush to the stage, but the two old school workers beside her grabbed her tightly and told her not to take her own life in a low voice , the venue was already in complete madness at that time, and her appearance would only attract more thugs.She once cried hoarsely, but her voice was drowned in the crazy slogans and cheers at the venue. When everything fell silent, she couldn't make any sound herself, and just stared at her father's lifeless body on the stage. What was not cried and shouted pervades and dissolves in her blood, and will stay with her for the rest of her life.

After the crowd dispersed, she stood there, her body and limbs still maintained the posture when the old school worker grabbed her, motionless, as if petrified.After a long time, she put down her dangling arm, slowly got up and walked onto the stage, sat beside her father's body, held one of his cold hands, and looked into the distance with absent-minded eyes.When the body was about to be carried away, Ye Wenjie took something out of her pocket and put it in her father's hand. It was her father's pipe.

Wen Jie silently left the deserted playground and walked home.When she walked downstairs to the teaching staff dormitory, she heard bursts of silly laughter coming from her window on the second floor. This sound came from the woman she once called mother.Wen Jie turned around silently and walked away, letting her feet lead her elsewhere.

(End of this chapter)