汪翔： 《卢刚的裂变》（六之一）（中英）

《逻辑的祭坛：卢刚的裂变》

——一场心智内爆的悲剧诗篇

汪 翔 （美国）

第一乐章 · 常量的熔化

爱荷华大学物理系休息室，1991年11月。

室里弥漫着咖啡残渣和微波炉爆米花的焦味，狭小的空间被荧光灯的冷光切割得棱角分明。山林华倚靠在角落的一把塑料椅上，椅子微微后倾，抵着斑驳的灰色砖墙。膝头摊着本翻旧的《物理评论快报》，手指在公式上轻轻划过，指尖带着北京冬夜里粉笔留下的粗糙触感。眼镜有些蒙雾，蒸汽从手中的茶杯升起，映着门外自动贩卖机的微光。

窗外，秋天像幅未完成的画，枯叶在人行道上翻滚，追逐着，无忧无虑。

脸上带着种柔和，像是被岁月轻轻打磨过的少年。笑容总是恰到好处，能在系讨论会上让美国同学的笑话和国际学生的沉默找到微妙的平衡。三年前来时，带着只破旧行李箱，英语磕磕绊绊。

与卢刚的锋芒毕露不同，山林华的温和像盏低瓦的灯，温暖却不刺眼。然而，在平静目光深处，藏着一丝不安。他知道，在这里，外国学生往往被视为机器上的齿轮，运转得再好，也难逃被忽视的命运。

他看了眼墙上的钟：下午2:45。离研讨会开始还有十五分钟。

他想起早些时候在走廊里看到的卢刚，步伐急促，眼神像暴风雨前的天空，低声自语着什么。

他本想上前说点什么。也许是家乡的饺子，也许是爱荷华河的波光让他想起北京的护城河。

但卢刚的目光像一堵墙，隔绝了一切。

他停在那堵墙前，想起自己初来时的踌躇——那时，他也曾撞过这样的目光。后来他学会了微笑，用温和包裹所有拒绝。这种温和是某种更深的绝望。

他叹了口气，合上期刊，起身。

空气里似乎多了丝沉重，像某种未解的方程，在心头微微晃动。

 

没有风。雪从天上坠下，不旋转也不飘荡，只是笔直地落，像从无形之上坠下的一串串逻辑。没有温度也没有声音。落在地上时，连空气都不敢动。

凡·艾伦大楼像块巨大的白骨，嵌在雪地里。

窗户的反光是数学的光，细碎、精准，却毫无人性。

暖气的嗡鸣从墙体内部传来，像巨兽在梦中翻身。

卢刚坐在宿舍窗前，盯着那栋建筑出神。那是他的圣殿，也是他的坟墓。

桌上摊着论文，他的失败，印着导师冰冷的评语：“缺乏创造性。” 

五个字像被钉在额头上的方程式。纸张被手心的汗渍弄皱，墨迹晕开，形成一个模糊的椭圆，就像一个被世界删除的名字。

他抬起头。窗外的雪像光的尸体，在空气中堆积。屋内的灯光发出一种蓝白色的闪烁，照得墙上那张母亲的旧照片失去轮廓。他想起母亲的手，冬天总裂着口子，洗衣水结冰，她用温水泡破的手抚过他的额头。 那时的白，不冷。那是有呼吸的白，有米香、炉火、皮肤的味道。而现在，这白是冷的，它没有温度，也不属于任何生物。

空气变稠，时间开始静止。

 

钟表的秒针停止在“十二”。那是一个不合逻辑的时刻。他盯着它看，听见自己的血在体内滴答流淌。雪落在玻璃上，结成一层薄薄的晶体，像是他被拒绝的所有词语的集合。

合上论文，黑色封皮在光下反出一层硬质的冷。冷沿着指尖蔓延，钻入掌心。他觉得那是一种“概念的痛”。不是身体，而是结构上。像一个完美的函数图被突然抹去顶点，所有曲线同时失去意义。

“缺乏创造性。”导师的声音又一次在空中响起。

没有来源，像从光里泄出的命令。他低声重复那句话，仿佛要把它拆解成最小的逻辑单位。

 “创造……性。”

 “性”这个音节像钝器，撞击在他舌尖。他笑了一下。不是喜悦，是断裂。他感到自己体内的神经像被电流擦过。有金属的味道在舌根升起。

然而，在他的左小腹，一股近乎生理的痉挛突然卷起。不是“概念的痛”，是粗糙、动物性的绞痛，像一个被逻辑程序强行压制的人类的脏器在抗议。

他弓起背，指尖死死抠住桌沿，感觉到血管在皮肤下像蚯蚓般跳动。

 

他是一个被代码控制的完美机器，但机器的底座，他的肉身，正在拒绝服从。他嗅到自己汗水里那股淡淡的酸涩，恐惧和疲惫的化学残渣，是任何$Sigma$符号都无法归零的“低级变量”。

他被迫与这具躯壳里残存的、想要“活下去”的本能进行一场冷酷的搏斗，而逻辑的命令，正用冰锥刺穿这股温热的、无理性的挣扎。

他伸出手，指尖在空气中划出几何图形。

几何符号在空气中微微闪光。是从脑内逸出的粒子。是神的碎屑，是理性过热的副产品。它们开始旋转，绕着他的头。嗡嗡作响，像远处一架看不见的机器在启动。

 

他将钢笔悬停在笔记本上，试图写下最终的修正指令。光线在笔尖处折裂，照出一枚不请自来的光斑。不是实验室灯的反射，而是某种带着尘土味的暖黄。

光斑里，隐约有一块带褐色裂纹的老式肥皂，气味是北方冬天廉价的檀香。那气味忽然让他想起父亲在雪地里咳嗽，用烟草味的白雾取暖。

记忆在脑中卡成一枚不规则的碎片，像一段拒绝被计算的非欧几何。

“清除。” 他在心里重复指令。

可右手的食指，却不自觉地在纸上描摹那块肥皂的形状。不是完美的圆，也不是方形，而是一种被人反复摩擦过的卵形。

那一刻，他的心跳错开了节拍——咯——噔。

不是程序的运转，而是血液撞击金属的细响。

他明白，那并不是计算中的误差，而是理性结构里最后一丝尚未被格式化的“人意”。

他深呼吸，压低笔锋，让那片光重新溶进冷的坐标系。

然后，他继续书写，像什么都没发生过一样。

 

夜色更浓。窗外的大楼被雪遮去轮廓，只剩几处光的孔洞。坐在书桌前，把台灯移近，光像一根针直直刺在脸上。拿起实验笔记，手指轻轻滑过熟悉的公式。不在推导，而在祈祷。

每个符号都是他信仰的文字。

他在笔记页上写下一句：“如果世界错误，那么修正世界。”

停笔，微笑。觉得自己刚写下了一个等式的起点。

屋内温度上升。他嗅到一股焦糊味，是空气在燃烧。他看见粉笔灰从天花板慢慢飘落。

那灰，是知识的尸体。

“修正它。”

导师的声音在空气里响起。低沉、温柔，却带着命令的力度。他抬头，看见天花板裂开条缝。从缝隙中渗出一道蓝光。像液体，缓缓流下，在空气中凝结成几何体。

他伸出手去触碰。那几何体是冰冷的，却发出心跳的声响。

 “修正它。”声音再次出现。那一刻，他知道，那是理性本身在说话。他闭上眼，梦开始生长。

 

梦见回到家乡。雪仍在下，母亲坐在院门口，手上捧着一个空碗。她抬头对他说：“饭凉了。” 他走近，却发现那碗里盛的不是饭，而是一堆燃烧的符号。

母亲微笑：“孩子，吃吧，这是你做的。” 笑的温柔，但眼眶空空。他伸手去接，符号化为烫手的金属，灼伤掌心。他痛得几乎喊出声，却又忍住。想：这是必要的实验。

他看见天空裂开，雪变成一行行公式，从天而降。每个雪片都写着一个词：归零。

母亲的影子突然变成导师的脸。导师低头，用粉笔在他的额头上写字。粉笔的触感是冰冷的。他低声说：“修正它。”

卢刚张嘴，想喊“我不需要修正”，却发出了一连串无意义的字母： E, O, M, N…

不是人类语言，是机器的呼吸声。

他常常梦到母亲。梦里她不说话，只坐在炕边，边剥花生边哼着那首老歌。旋律太旧，连梦都记不全，只剩断句的节拍。听着听着，总觉得那歌里藏着什么未被计算的变量——温度、气味，或者只是人类最古老的犹豫。逻辑告诉他那是噪声。可每次梦醒，眼角都有一点潮。

梦醒时，房间里弥漫着同样的臭氧气味。桌上的灯还亮着。

墙壁上浮着淡淡的影子，像符号在颤抖。

 

步行街区静得出奇，只有脚下踩碎枯叶的沙沙声和远处公交车的低鸣。卢刚走过书店，橱窗里摆放着诗集与物理教材，像是对他的嘲讽。空气清冷，带着湿润的沥青味和克林顿街酒吧飘来的淡淡啤酒气。爱荷华城是个矛盾体：一座小镇，却因大学的雄心而膨胀，来自世界各地的学生与本地人擦肩而过，彼此的目光或好奇，或漠然。

卢刚的外套单薄，挡不住11月的寒意。那是一件在灰狗巴士站旁二手店买来的旧衣，袖口已经磨出毛边。他来爱荷华城时，满怀征服的梦想：让自己的名字登上期刊，让他的定理成为物理学的基石。但现实却像一堵冰冷的墙：实验室的深夜、退稿信的刺痛、系里会议上那微妙的疏远。他的口音似乎让空气变得更稠密。他想起去年春天的派对，一位教授拍着他的肩说：“干得不错，对于你们这些人来说。”那句话像一根刺，扎进他的记忆，隐隐作痛。

他在长椅旁停下，望向街角的爪哇屋咖啡馆（Java House），几个学生在笑闹，手中咖啡杯冒着热气。他们的轻松与归属感，像是他永远学不会的语言。他想起母亲，哈尔滨冬天的她双手皲裂，洗衣水结了冰，她却还在信中写：“让家里骄傲。”

家国的期望与这座陌生城市的压力交织，像两块巨石挤压着他。握紧手中的笔记本，公式是他最后的绳索。他迈步走向范·艾伦大楼，雪花开始坠落，像一张张未完成的答卷。

 

物理系会议室的气氛像一潭凝固的水，荧光灯下，教授们的脸庞被切割成冷硬的几何形状。卢刚坐在会议桌的末端，手中的笔在笔记本上划出一道道无意义的线。

讨论的是下一轮资助分配，但空气中弥漫着另一种无声的审判。冷战尚未完全散去，报纸上仍偶尔出现“中国间谍”的耸人听闻标题，系里的美国教授们虽不直说，却在提到卢刚时语气微妙地停顿，像在掂量他的存在是否安全。

论文被退稿三次，评语总是“缺乏原创性”，但他知道，真正的评判从他第一次开口，带着浓重的口音时就已经开始。

上周，他在咖啡馆无意听到两个本地学生低语：“这些中国人，太拼命了，抢了我们的机会。”那句话像一枚冰针，刺进他的耳膜。

他想起入境时海关官员的眼神，冷冷的，像在扫描一台可疑的机器；想起签证面试时被反复询问的“政治背景”，每个问题都像一块石头，压在他本就单薄的自信上。他低头，看见笔记本上的公式，那些数学符号，像一串串被困在纸上的鸟。他想飞，却发现翅膀早已被这座城市的寒风冻僵。

 

卢刚清楚，这里所有的温和都是表象。系里流传着一套不成文的“资源分配公式”。它从未被白纸黑字写下，却比任何数学定律都更精准地支配着他们的命运。

在这套公式里，“国际学生”是一个固定的衰减变量 λ?。λ? 在申请助教金、争夺导师署名权、推荐信环节持续起作用；它的数值与口音、肤色、社交网络成反比。

他能精确算出 λ? 在他身上引发的系统误差：它让他的贡献至少被低估十五个百分点。

系里流传着一句半玩笑：“若口音超过两秒，提问自动无效。”

没人笑，但公式照常运作。

山林华尝试用“和解的微笑”去抵消这个误差；卢刚则选择以小数点后六位的证明来暴力抵抗。

他失败了。

因为他攻击的不是科学，而是权力在数据里铸成的冰冷结构。

风从窗缝钻进来，纸张轻轻颤动，他听见逻辑的呼吸开始出现杂音。

 

爱荷华城的冬天来得太早，像一份提前到期的判决书。范·艾伦大楼前的草坪已被薄雪覆盖，远处公告栏上贴着一张褪色的通知：物理系因预算削减，实验室经费将减少百分之二十。卢刚站在大楼的阴影里，风从爱荷华河吹来，带着冰碴和工厂废气的味道。

他想起昨晚实验室的灯光，闪烁得像心跳。不是因为浪漫，而是因为电路老化，供电不足。1991年的美国，经济衰退像一张无形的网，勒紧了每个人的呼吸。系里的教授们私下议论，国家的钱都流向了冷战末期的军备，留给学术的不过是一些零碎。

点燃一根烟，烟雾在冷空气中散成细小的涡旋。想起一个月前，系里的一次会议，教授们讨论如何“优化资源”，言下之意是裁掉几个研究助理。他听见自己的名字被提到，又被迅速略过，像一个不重要的变量。国际学生，尤其是来自中国的，像他这样背负着家国期望的人，总是被要求证明自己——比本地学生更努力，比同胞更出色。

他的护照上盖着F-1签证的印章，冷战的气息让签证官多问了几个问题：“你会回国吗？”他点头，却知道回不去。家乡的信里，母亲的字迹越来越小，写满了对“美国梦”的期盼。

雪花落在他的烟头上，发出极轻的“嗤”声，像一个公式被擦掉的回音。他抬头，范·艾伦大楼的玻璃窗反射着天空，灰白，无边，像一张永远无法填满的答卷。他感到胸口一阵紧缩，不是愤怒，是某种更深的，被世界反复量化的疲惫。掐灭烟头，雪地上留下一小块焦黑，像未曾说出口的证明。

 

凌晨三点。窗外的雪被灯光照得像融化的玻璃。他在桌前写下最后一行笔记：“若常量失效，则我成为常量。”笔断了，墨洇开，化成一片黑。

黑中隐隐透出银色的光。他听见一阵极轻的嗡鸣，从体内传出。像心跳，又像机器的启动。

起身，穿上外套。空气中粉笔灰翻腾，像无数透明的生物在呼吸。

走到窗前，手指轻轻推开玻璃。冷气灌入，雪涌进来。雪落在掌心，瞬间融化，化成一滴水。水滚落到地上，发出极轻的“咯——噔”。

怔了一下。声音像是世界的回声。

听见远处凡·艾伦大楼的暖气机在夜里低鸣。声音带着某种安静的威严，像个巨大的神在呼吸。看着窗外。雪越下越大。天空不再是黑的，而是白的。

他忽然想起：雪，其实是坠落的光。当光失去温度，就成了雪。

他微笑，嘴角轻轻颤动。 “光坠落了，神沉睡了，该我醒了。”

关灯，房间陷入彻底的黑。窗外的白雪成了唯一的光源。那一刻，他感到所有噪音消失。时间像被折叠起来，压成一个点。空气中，粉笔灰仍在旋转。

 ∑ ， π， λ

它们缓慢地排列成一行文字：“Balance, Mr. Lu.”

伸出手，轻轻摸向那行字。符号碎裂成尘。尘落在地板上，和雪混在一起。

低头，轻声说：“我明白了。”然后静静坐下，等待黎明。空气里只剩那台老旧的暖气机，在夜的尽头，发出均匀的嗡鸣声，像宇宙最早的心跳。

（汪翔，2025年秋， 写于美国伊利湖畔）（转载请注明作者和来源）

The Altar of Logic: Lu Gang’s Fission A Tragic Poem of Inner Implosion

First Movement · The Melting of Constants

University of Iowa, Physics Department Lounge, November 1991.

The room is thick with the dregs of coffee and the burnt-skin smell of microwave popcorn. Fluorescent light slices the narrow space into hard angles. Shan Linhua leans back in a corner plastic chair, its legs tilted against a mottled gray brick wall. On his lap lies a dog-eared Physical Review Letters; his fingers trace the equations, rough with the chalk-dust of Beijing winter nights still clinging to the whorls of his skin. His glasses fog; steam rises from the teacup in his hand, catching the vending machine’s pale glow beyond the door.

Outside, autumn is an unfinished canvas. Dead leaves tumble along the sidewalk, chasing one another, carefree.

His face carries a softness, like a boy gently sanded by years. His smile is always just enough—able, in department seminars, to bridge the laughter of American classmates and the silence of international students. Three years ago he arrived with one battered suitcase and stumbling English.

Unlike Lu Gang’s razor edge, Shan Linhua’s mildness is a low-watt bulb—warm, never blinding. Yet behind the calm of his eyes lurks a faint unease. He knows that here, foreign students are gears in a machine: turn perfectly, and still be overlooked.

He glances at the wall clock: 2:45 p.m. Fifteen minutes until the seminar.

He recalls Lu Gang in the corridor earlier—stride hurried, eyes a storm front, muttering to himself.

He had meant to say something. Perhaps about dumplings from home, or how the glint on the Iowa River reminded him of Beijing’s moat.

But Lu Gang’s gaze was a wall, sealing everything out.

He halts before that wall, remembering his own early hesitations—how he, too, had once struck such eyes. Later he learned to smile, to sheath every refusal in mildness. That mildness is a deeper despair.

He sighs, closes the journal, and rises.

The air has grown heavier, like an unsolved equation trembling in his chest.

No wind. Snow falls straight from the sky—no spin, no drift—only plumb lines of logic. No temperature, no sound. When it lands, even the air holds its breath.

Van Allen Hall stands like a great white bone sunk in the snow.

Its windows reflect mathematical light—fine, exact, inhuman.

The building’s heating hums from within, a beast turning in its sleep.

Lu Gang sits at his dorm window, staring at the structure. It is his temple, and his tomb.

On the desk lies his paper—his failure—stamped with his advisor’s glacial verdict: Lacking originality.

Five characters nailed to his forehead like an equation. Sweat has buckled the page; ink bleeds into a blurred ellipse, a name the world has deleted.

He looks up. Outside, snow is the corpse of light, piling in the air. Inside, the lamp flickers blue-white, erasing the edges of his mother’s old photograph on the wall. He remembers her hands—cracked every winter, laundry water frozen, yet warmed to cradle his brow. That white was not cold. It breathed: rice steam, stove fire, skin. This white is cold; it has no temperature, belongs to no living thing.

Air thickens. Time stalls.

The second hand freezes at twelve—an illogical instant. He stares, hearing his own blood tick inside him. Snow crusts the pane in thin crystal, a lexicon of every rejected word.

He closes the paper. The black cover throws back a hard, cold gleam. Cold climbs his fingers, burrows into his palm. He feels conceptual pain—not flesh, but structure. A perfect graph with its apex suddenly erased; every curve loses meaning at once.

Lacking originality. The advisor’s voice rises again in the air—sourceless, a command leaking from light. He repeats it under his breath, parsing it into minimal logical units.

O-ri-gi-na-li-ty.

The syllable ty strikes his tongue like a dull blade. He smiles—not joy, but fracture. A current grazes his nerves; metal blooms at the root of his tongue.

Yet in his left lower abdomen a spasm erupts—raw, animal, not conceptual. A gut clamped by code, protesting.

He hunches, nails gouging the desk’s edge, veins writhing beneath the skin like blind worms.

He is a flawless machine governed by code, but the chassis—his body—refuses. He smells the faint acid of his own sweat, chemical residue of fear and fatigue no Σ can zero out: a low-order variable.

He is locked in cold combat with the remnant instinct to live, while logic’s ice pick pierces the warm, irrational struggle.

He lifts a hand; fingertips sketch geometry in the air.

Symbols flicker—particles escaping the mind, God’s shrapnel, byproducts of reason overheating. They spin around his head, buzzing like an invisible engine starting in the distance.

He hovers the pen above his notebook, poised to write the final correction. Light fractures at the nib, throwing an uninvited spot of dusty gold. Not lab fluorescence—something warmer, carrying the scent of cheap northern sandalwood soap.

In the glow: a cracked bar of old soap, brown fissures. The smell yanks him to his father coughing in snow, warming himself with tobacco fog.

Memory jams like an irregular shard, a patch of non-Euclidean geometry refusing computation.

Clear. He repeats the command inwardly.

Yet his right forefinger, unbidden, traces the soap’s outline on the page—not circle, not square, but an egg worn smooth by countless hands.

His heartbeat skips—klok—deng.

Not the machine’s rhythm, but blood striking metal.

He understands: this is no rounding error. It is the last unformatted trace of human intent inside the rational lattice.

He inhales, lowers the pen, dissolves the glow back into cold coordinates.

Then resumes writing, as if nothing happened.

Night deepens. Outside, the building’s silhouette is erased by snow; only a few lit holes remain. He pulls the desk lamp close; light needles his face. He lifts his lab notes, fingers gliding over familiar symbols—not deriving, but praying.

Each glyph is scripture.

He writes: If the world is in error, correct the world.

He pauses, smiles—feels he has just penned the origin of an equation.

The room warms. He smells scorch: air itself burning. Chalk dust drifts from the ceiling.

That dust is the corpse of knowledge.

Correct it.

The advisor’s voice—low, tender, imperative. He looks up: a seam splits the ceiling. Blue light seeps like liquid, pooling in air, hardening into geometry.

He reaches. The shape is ice-cold yet pulses with a heartbeat.

Correct it. The voice again. He knows: reason itself speaks. He shuts his eyes; the dream begins to grow.

He is home. Snow still falls. His mother sits at the gate, an empty bowl in her hands. “Dinner’s cold,” she says. He nears; the bowl holds no rice—only burning symbols.

She smiles, gentle, eyes hollow: “Eat, child. You made it.” He reaches; the symbols turn to scalding metal, searing his palms. Pain nearly tears a cry from him; he swallows it. Necessary experiment.

The sky splits. Snow becomes cascading formulae. Each flake bears one word: ZERO.

His mother’s shadow morphs into the advisor’s face. The advisor stoops, writes on his forehead with chalk—cold touch. “Correct it.”

Lu Gang opens his mouth to shout I need no correction—but emits only letters: E, O, M, N…

Not human speech—machine exhalation.

He often dreams of his mother. She says nothing, only shells peanuts on the kang, humming a tune so old the dream forgets the melody, leaving broken bars. Listening, he senses an uncomputed variable in the song—warmth, scent, or simply the oldest human hesitation. Logic labels it noise. Yet each waking, the corner of his eye is damp.

He wakes. The room reeks of ozone. The lamp still burns.

Faint shadows tremble on the walls, symbols quivering.

The pedestrian mall is unnaturally quiet—only the crunch of dead leaves underfoot and the low throb of a distant bus. Lu Gang passes the bookstore; its window displays poetry beside physics texts—an irony aimed at him. The air is sharp with wet asphalt and the faint beer drift from Clinton Street bars. Iowa City is a contradiction: a small town swollen by university ambition; students from everywhere brush past locals, eyes curious or indifferent.

His coat is thin against November. Bought second-hand near the Greyhound stop, cuffs frayed. He arrived dreaming conquest: his name in journals, his theorems bedrock. Reality is a wall of ice: late nights in the lab, sting of rejection letters, subtle distance at department meetings. His accent thickens the air. He recalls last spring’s party—an advisor clapping his shoulder: “Good work—for one of you people.” The phrase is a thorn, still aching.

He pauses by a bench, gazes at Java House on the corner. Students laugh inside, coffee steam rising. Their ease, their belonging—a language he will never master. He thinks of his mother—Harbin winters, hands cracked, laundry water frozen—yet her letters still plead: Make the family proud.

Homeland expectation and alien city pressure grind him between millstones. He clutches his notebook; equations are his last lifeline. He walks toward Van Allen; snow begins, each flake an unfinished exam.

The physics conference room is a pool of congealed water. Under fluorescent glare, professors’ faces are carved into cold geometry. Lu Gang sits at the table’s far end, pen scratching meaningless lines.

The agenda is next-round funding, but another silent trial hangs in the air. The Cold War has not fully thawed; newspapers still scream Chinese spy. American faculty never say it aloud, yet when Lu Gang’s name surfaces their voices pause, weighing whether his presence is safe.

His paper rejected thrice—always lacking originality—but he knows judgment began the first time he spoke, accent heavy.

Last week in the café he overheard two local students: “These Chinese—they try too hard, steal our spots.” The words pierced like an ice needle.

He remembers customs at entry—eyes scanning him like suspect hardware; visa interview, endless questions about political background, each a stone on his frail confidence. He looks down: equations on the page are birds trapped in ink. He wants to fly; wings are frozen by the city’s wind.

Lu Gang knows every kindness here is veneer. An unwritten resource allocation formula rules more precisely than any law of physics.

In it, “international student” is a fixed decay constant λ?. It acts in TA applications, battles for co-authorship, recommendation letters; its value inversely proportional to accent, skin tone, social network.

He has calculated λ?’s systematic error on himself: his contributions undervalued by at least fifteen percent.

Department joke: If the accent lasts two seconds, question auto-invalid.

No one laughs. The formula runs.

Shan Linhua tries to cancel the error with conciliatory smiles; Lu Gang counters with proofs to six decimal places.

He failed.

He did not attack science—he attacked power calcified in data.

Three a.m. Snow outside the window is molten glass under streetlight. He writes a final line: If constants fail, I become the constant. The pen snaps; ink floods into black.

In the black, faint silver glimmers. A soft buzz rises from within—heartbeat or ignition.

He stands, pulls on his coat. Chalk dust swirls like transparent creatures breathing.

At the window he eases the pane open. Cold rushes in; snow surges. A flake lands on his palm, melts instantly to a drop. The drop falls—klok—deng.

He startles. The sound is the world’s echo.

Far off, Van Allen’s heater murmurs in the night—quiet majesty, a vast god breathing. He watches. Snow thickens. The sky is no longer black but white.

He remembers: snow is fallen light. When light loses heat, it becomes snow.

He smiles, lips trembling. “Light has fallen. God sleeps. My turn to wake.”

He switches off the lamp. The room plunges into absolute dark. Outside, white snow is the only illumination. In that instant all noise vanishes. Time folds to a point. Chalk dust still spins in the air.

∑ π λ

They slowly align into words: Balance, Mr. Lu.

He reaches, brushes the letters. Symbols shatter into dust. Dust drifts to the floor, mingles with snow.

He lowers his head, whispers, “I understand.” Then sits in silence, awaiting dawn. Only the old heater remains, at the edge of night, humming evenly—the universe’s first heartbeat.