Silent Ark

Chapter 47: The Key

The apartment is located in the family quarters outside the east gate of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Third floor, facing south, one bedroom and one living room.

Yao Chong stood at the door, taking out his keys.

He paused for a moment when he inserted the key into the lock.

It's not hesitation.

He was confirming whether the key could still open the door.

When was the last time he stayed here?

three years ago.

Before going to CERN.

He locked some things he couldn't take with him in the apartment, thinking, "I'll be back soon anyway."

Then the whale fall happened.

Then the Decameron.

Then Eden.

And then everything.

Three years.

He turned the key.

The door opened.

The room was dark.

The curtains were drawn.

There was a smell in the air that had been sealed for a long time—not a musty smell, but the smell of dust and dry paper mixed together.

Like a book that hasn't been opened in a long time.

He touched the switch on the wall and pressed it.

The lights came on.

The fluorescent tube flickered twice before stabilizing, emitting a cool white light.

He went to the restroom first.

The faucet was turned on, and there was a gurgling sound in the pipe before a stream of rusty-colored water flowed out, gradually becoming clear.

He scooped up some water and washed his face.

When he looked up, he saw himself in the mirror.

There was a thin layer of gray on the mirror surface.

He wiped it with his sleeve.

He froze for a moment.

It's not because I don't recognize myself.

It's because the changes were greater than he had imagined.

When he went to CERN three years ago, he was 1.82 meters tall but weighed only 128 kilograms.

She was as thin as an elongated telephone pole—her collarbones protruded, her wrists were so thin you could wrap your hand around them, her cheeks were sunken, and her eye sockets were as deep as two holes.

At that time, Rajeev, a colleague at CERN, said he looked like an elongated clothes rack. He just smiled and didn't say anything.

He didn't skip meals on purpose; he just forgot.

When conducting experiments, my mind is filled with data, and my body's needs are automatically relegated to the lowest priority.

But the person in the mirror is different.

The face is still the same face—deep features, high brow bone, straight nose, and a well-defined jawline.

But these features are no longer "angularity accentuated by thinness," but rather softened, normal, and aesthetically pleasing angularity after being filled with enough muscle and fat.

My shoulders have broadened.

It's not the kind of width you get from working out in the gym—it's that your frame is naturally wide, but you were too hungry to develop it properly before.

We've managed to hold on now.

My neck has gotten thicker, and my collarbone is no longer prominent; it's covered by a thin layer of muscle.

He looked down at his arm.

The muscles in his forearms are clearly defined—not bulging, but the kind that Rajeev would say, "Have you been secretly going to the gym lately?"

The fingers are still long, but the palms have become wider, the knuckles have become thicker, and you can see protruding blue veins on the back of the hand.

The physical enhancements gained after the Decameron are permanent.

It took him a long time to adapt to his new body—he became stronger, his reactions quicker, his stamina improved, and even his eyesight got better.

Things that I used to need glasses to see, I can now see clearly.

Stubble had sprouted on his chin.

He used to not have a beard—CERN's lab has a rule that long hair and beards must be tucked into a hairnet.

But CERN no longer exists.

My hair is longer than it was three years ago, sticking out in a messy, upright manner, with a few strands hanging down in front of my forehead.

My hair quality hasn't gotten worse—in fact, it's better than before. I wonder if it's a side effect of improved physical fitness.

He stared at himself in the mirror for three seconds.

Then he looked down at his hands.

My nails are cut very short.

This has always been his habit—people who conduct experiments cannot have long fingernails.

He turned off the tap.

The living room is not big.

A fabric sofa, a coffee table, and a television that wasn't turned on.

On the coffee table was a cup containing water from three years ago, which had long since evaporated, leaving a ring of light-colored limescale at the bottom.

Next to the sofa was a bookshelf filled with undergraduate and graduate textbooks.

Feynman Lectures on Physics, Landau Theoretical Physics, Introduction to Quantum Field Theory—the words on the spines are somewhat faded, and some are crooked, as if they had been pulled out and then casually stuffed back in.

The bedroom door was open.

He walked over.

There was no blanket on the bed, only a bare mattress.

The wardrobe door was half-open, and inside hung a few old clothes—clothes from before CERN.

A faded gray sweatshirt, jeans, and a black jacket.

He reached out and touched the cuff of his hoodie.

The fabric was dry and stiff, as if time had drained all its moisture.

He reached out and took out the gray hoodie.

The size from three years ago.

He gestured – his shoulders were noticeably narrower, and his chest felt tighter.

Before, when I wore this sweatshirt, the shoulders couldn't support it, and the sleeves were loose and baggy, making me feel like half of myself was swallowed up by the clothes.

Not anymore.

He then took out the jeans.

The waist fits perfectly, but it's a bit tight around the thighs.

He put the clothes back in the closet.

There is a small dressing mirror at the very back of the wardrobe, embedded in the inside of the wardrobe door.

He never used to look in this mirror—because he didn't want to see himself looking like he couldn't fit into any clothes.

He glanced at it now.

If you buy a gray sweatshirt now, you should at least go up one size.

He closed the wardrobe door.

Back in the living room.

He sat on the sofa.

The spring made a muffled thud.

Quiet.

There were no roars, no maniacal laughter, no distorted figures on the holographic projection, and no distant rumbling from the ventilation ducts.

The only sounds were the hum of the fluorescent lights and the occasional whistling of the wind outside the window.

He put his hand into his pocket.

I touched the brown paper envelope.

He took it out and placed it on the coffee table.

The edges of the envelope were somewhat worn.

Chen Dunli's handwriting was on the cover: "To Yao Chong".

Four words.

Neat and uniformly spaced.

There was no opening line like "If you see this letter."

It reads "To be opened personally by Yao Chong".

Just like him—no preamble, no explanation, just the conclusion.

Yao Chong picked up the envelope and hesitated for a second.

Then he took it apart.

A4 paper, two pages.

Page 1:

Yao Chong:

By the time you read this letter, I will probably be gone.

No, not just probably.

It is certain.

Because when I wrote this letter, I already knew how I would be gone.

You don't need to know how I found out. You just need to know—it was my choice.

I chose a path.

This road will make me disappear.

It's not death—death is too simple; death is merely the irreversible loss of information.

I did something more thorough than death.

I disassembled my information structure and embedded it into a larger system.

You could say I've "become" part of the system.

You could say I "died" twice—

One time it was as Chen Dunli, and the other time it was as anything that could be identified.

But I don’t intend to discuss that in this letter.

If you want to know, go find Zhou Muyuan.

He has my notes in his hand.

The notes contain a set of decay curves, with the initial condition being infinity.

He tried to guess for three years but couldn't figure it out.

You wouldn't be able to guess either.

But you will need it.

The second page:

This letter is not a suicide note.

The suicide note was written for the living, with the aim of easing their grief.

I don't intend to make you feel less sad.

It's normal for you to be sad.

Of course you're sad because your teacher is gone.

But while you're feeling sad, I hope you remember one thing:

The observer is also part of the system.

I said that the night of the whale fall.

It was also mentioned before the Tenth Night disappeared.

You're seeing it for the third time now.

Three times is enough.

It means that the universe you see, including yourself, is part of the same system.

You're not just standing outside watching.

You stand inside and look.

Your observation itself will change what you are observing.

This is not the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics.

This is something at a deeper level.

You'll understand later.

The key is for the locker I rented in Beijing.

The address is on the back of the envelope.

There are some things I've compiled over the years that may or may not be useful to you.

But I can't let it disappear with me.

Some things need to be preserved.

Not because they are important.

It's because someone has to remember.

Chen Dunli

December 2028, 3

Yao Chong placed the two sheets of paper on the coffee table.

2028 3 Month 14 Day.

Einstein's birthday.

Chen Dunli's choice of this date may not be a coincidence.

He put down the letter and turned the envelope over.

There is a line of small print on the back, which is the address and number of the locker.

The text is small, but very clear.

He placed the envelope on the coffee table and stood up.

He needs to move.

I've been sitting for too long.

My mind was filled with Chen Dunli's handwriting—those neat, evenly spaced, tiny characters, as if measured with a ruler.

He walked up to the bookshelf and casually flipped through it.

On the title page of the first volume of Feynman's Lectures is his name, which he wrote during his undergraduate years, next to a very ugly atomic model.

A train ticket was found tucked inside a page of Landau's fifth volume—from Beijing to Tianjin, 2019.

He took the books out one by one, wiped off the dust, and put them back.

There is no purpose.

It's just that the hands need to do something.

When he reached the bottom layer, his hand stopped.