Chapter 62: M-Theory, Butterflies, and Divine Miracles

"What happened to the Zhurong rover?"

As Lin Xu's voice fell, the look in Bai Mo's eyes changed instantly.

"You shouldn't be asking."

"You don't have the clearance to ask such a question..."

"Forget about clearances and permissions."

Lin Xu glanced at his watch.

"The doomsday catastrophe will happen in 29 minutes. By then, your entire world will be destroyed."

"I will remain here the entire time, and all the information you provide cannot be leaked in any way."

"If you don't feel secure, you can lock me up right now!"

"But I must know the answer. This is of the utmost importance!"

Bai Mo began to cough violently. The medical personnel beside her immediately stepped forward to support her, but she waved them away with a gesture.

"If the apocalypse is going to happen in 29 minutes, what is the point of you knowing the answer?"

"I don't belong to this world."

Lin Xu laid his cards on the table.

"The destruction of your world has nothing to do with me, but the information I get from you can save my world!"

".......Lin Xu, have you lost your mind?"

"You should know that the doomsday theory spread by Planetary Reincarnation is completely untrustworthy!"

"We have indeed found a large amount of anomalous astronomical evidence, and we have even discovered phenomena that are inexplicable by physics, but not a single phenomenon can deduce an 'apocalypse'."

"That's just a rumor spread by the coerced populace, no different from the rumors about the 2012 apocalypse we heard when we were kids!"

"Don't believe Jiang Xingye... Although she never admits to being the leader of the Planetary Reincarnation organization, her actual impact is greater than that of the real leader!"

"She's just a cult leader, and a traitor to boot!"

"You..."

"Stop wasting time."

Lin Xu directly interrupted Bai Mo.

"The Zhurong rover also entered the higher-dimensional space that you once entered!"

"You saw it in that higher-dimensional space, and you saw Mars as well!"

As soon as these words were spoken, Bai Mo froze in place.

"You... how could you possibly know??"

"I said, I don't belong to this world."

Lin Xu stared straight into Bai Mo's eyes.

"In another world, you told me personally everything about that space."

"When a three-dimensional living being ascends to a higher dimension, what it sees is merely a two-dimensional plane formed by the intersection of the circular cross-section at the base of the visual cone with the three-dimensional world."

"Do you remember these words??"

"M-theory."

Bai Mo suddenly grew quiet.

"AdS/CFT correspondence."

"Higher-dimensional information encoded onto a lower-dimensional boundary via the holographic principle."

"You are a higher-dimensional butterfly born from negatively curved spacetime."

"I believe you now."

Bai Mo's lips trembled slightly.

"Butterfly."

"No wonder you thought the passphrase was butterfly..."

Bai Mo muttered to herself, then collapsed limply into her wheelchair.

Her lips turned purple almost instantly, and the medical staff around her swarmed forward, beginning emergency resuscitation procedures.

Standing to the side, Lin Xu was utterly dumbfounded.

There were only twenty-something minutes left.

Are you seriously kicking the bucket now?!!

What kind of dramatic plot twist is this?!

"Give her adrenaline, fast!"

Lin Xu shouted anxiously:

"Give her whatever drug is the strongest!"

"She doesn't need to live much longer! Twenty-four minutes is enough!"

"Trust me! Listen to me..."

"Shut up!"

A security guard nearby frowned and barked the order. Lin Xu wished he could instantly summon the skull-headed entity to charge in and kill everyone useless, but sweeping his gaze around, he spotted a close-in weapon system concealed beneath a rooftop bunker.

Damn it!

A naval gun deployed on land, what kind of rogue setup is this?!

He could only wait anxiously on the side, his mind racing as he rapidly processed the information Bai Mo had provided.

M-theory?

He knew this theory.

In essence, M-theory is an extension of string theory, a "conjecture" aimed at describing the theory of everything as closely as possible.

Yet, according to Bai Mo...

This conjecture seemed to be coming true?

Butterfly?

What was that??

Negatively curved spacetime?

What on earth was that??

Good grief.

At least finish explaining before you die!

Watching the seconds tick away, Lin Xu several times nearly failed to restrain himself from rushing forward to pinch Bai Mo's philtrum.

And right at that moment, Bai Mo finally regained consciousness.

"Adrenaline, atropine, coramine," she told the medical personnel nearby, speaking rapidly.

"Administer the maximum allowable dose."

"I need to stay conscious for at least 20 minutes!"

She then turned to Lin Xu and continued:

"The Zhurong rover passed through a higher-dimensional spatial 'vacuole'."

"We call that space a 'vacuole', but in all likelihood, it is not shaped like a vacuole at all."

"It is a fusion channel—a narrow conduit formed when countless lower-dimensional three-dimensional spaces break through spatial boundaries and fuse together for reasons temporarily unknown."

"The Zhurong rover did not record anything, nor did it suffer any damage."

"Even after it was successfully recovered, for a very long time, no one knew what had happened to it..."

"Wait!"

Lin Xu interrupted Bai Mo.

"If even you didn't know, why would the people from the Planetary Reincarnation organization know?"

"They attacked the return capsule at a tremendous cost; they must have possessed some kind of evidence!"

"Is it possible they understand the Zhurong rover better than you do?"

"In other aspects, Planetary Reincarnation may hold more information," Bai Mo shook her head decisively.

"But on the matter of the Zhurong rover, they do not!"

"They only knew the Zhurong rover possessed special properties because within their organization, those who experienced the 'Oracle' saw the Zhurong rover in higher-dimensional space!"

"Just like I did!"

"Yet I used science to explain my experience, while they pinned their hopes on so-called faith and deities."

"Never mind that! That's not important at all!"

"The Zhurong rover!"

"If you truly believe that the doomsday catastrophe is coming, and if you genuinely want to resolve this disaster, the Zhurong rover is undoubtedly the most crucial clue!"

"Listen carefully!"

"Two years after recovering the Zhurong rover, we finally discovered its anomaly."

"Remember what I told you earlier: in M-theory, higher-dimensional information can be encoded on lower-dimensional boundaries."

"But what if a lower-dimensional object enters higher-dimensional space directly?"

"What would happen?"

"It continuously breaks through countless lower-dimensional boundaries, so theoretically, it should have been encoded countless times!"

"And that is precisely the case."

"In its physical form, the Zhurong rover is indistinguishable from any matter we know."

"Yet when we observe it from a microscopic perspective, we find that this probe—or rather, the matter composing this probe..."

"Is utter chaos."

"What kind of chaos?" Lin Xu asked eagerly.

"Chaos of forces."

"The four fundamental forces are completely chaotic within the matter that makes it up—I cannot explain too much to you, because this is not my specialty!"

"But you should know what this means."

"It is not only the potential horn of the apocalypse, but also the starting point of a divine miracle!"

"We might be able to use it to unify the four fundamental forces and truly complete the theory of everything!"

"That is why it is so important!"

"Understood..."

Lin Xu glanced at his watch.

"One minute left."

"Last question."

"You entered that space as well, so you..."

"I am going to die soon," Bai Mo said at a breathless speed.

"But not everyone who enters that space dies."

"The chaos of the four fundamental forces can exhibit baffling characteristics at times."

"Some people even... return from the dead, growing youthful once more!"

"Now do you understand why Planetary Reincarnation is so terrifying?"

"Because at certain moments, they are indeed creating so-called 'divine miracles'!"

"Except that those are miracles of physics!"

In that instant, Lin Xu felt as though a great light had dawned upon him.

Everything finally made sense.

The last ten seconds.

Lin Xu looked at Bai Mo and said:

"Thank you."

"I will come back."

"Give me a passphrase that will make you trust me instantly the next time I see you."

"I cannot enter the MRI machine! That sentence is enough to make you trust me!"

With those words, Bai Mo turned to the guards. At that moment, a blinding white light erupted from the void.

"Guards! Give him your access passphrase!"

At the very last moment before his consciousness dissolved, Lin Xu heard a guard nearby shout:

"Purple Mountain!"