December 24, morning, seventh pill.
"We often regard taking medicine as a means of 'healing.'" The professor walked around the lecture hall. "The purpose of healing is recovery. It is the harmonious unity of the soul and the body."
“What about mental illness?”
"One more than a disease. Refers to the unity between the individual soul, the body, and the external world."
Yi Wan took the seventh pill in front of the bathroom. He stood in front of the mirror and carried out the habit he had started to maintain in the past few days - waking up every morning and observing himself in the mirror. He regarded himself in the mirror as an object, observing himself as he had observed the outside world in the past. Eyes, eyebrows, life, it reminded him of what made him up. So his soul returned to his body, and he achieved a harmonious unity between his soul and his body.
The room was quiet, still without any sound. Yi Wan came out of the bathroom, and the dining table was empty. When he turned around again, Yu Rongshi had already walked out of the kitchen, carrying two bowls of porridge and placing them on the dining table.
"Have you packed it?"
"Um."
"Breakfast?"
"Um."
He sat opposite Yu Rongshi and drank porridge. Where he had just stood was a wall of photos of the two of them. There were photos of them graduating from high school, graduating from college, and recently going out to the park and skiing. Yu Rongshi asked, "Where do you want to go today? Go out, or stay home?"
Yi Wan said: "Come with me."
Yi Wan rarely asked others to follow him to do something. Yu Rongshi just said, "Okay. Come to think of it, tonight is Christmas Eve."
The dining table was empty again. Yi Wan sat in the dining room, waiting for Yu Rongshi to put the dishes in the sink. He heard Yu Rongshi say, "Yi Wan, we were busy recently. There's a lot of dust in the kitchen. How about we do a big cleaning today?"
Yi Wan said, "Pick it up when you get back."
Yu Rongshi said, "Okay. There's a lively Christmas party at my teacher's house. Shall we go together tomorrow?"
Yi Wan said: "Okay."
Yu Rongshi said: "Did you see the news about the new discovery of the DNA helix this morning? What do you think about this?"
Yi Wan said, "Let's talk about it on the way."
Yu Rongshi finally came out of the kitchen. He was wearing a black coat and a white scarf, and looked as clean as Yi Wan. The clock pointed to "10" and they left the apartment. Yi Wan stood by the door, waiting for Yu Rongshi to lock the door. They had always done this.
But at this moment, the door was wide open. Yu Rongshi stood at the door, craning his neck to look inside, without moving for a long time. Yi Wan asked him, "What's wrong?"
Yu Rongshi said: "We are running out of tissue paper at home. I will go to the supermarket to buy some the day after tomorrow."
Yi Wan said: "Okay."
Yu Rongshi said, "Did you see the glass wind chime on the window? We bought it when we went to the flea market together."
Yi Wan said: "I know, there are traces of you everywhere in this house."
Yu Rongshi finally lowered his head and smiled. This smile was very light, and Yi Wan only caught a little arc from the side. Yi Wan stood between the elevator and the apartment door and said, "... You don't want to go out, right?"
"It's too cold at the end of the year." Yu Rongshi said, "Yi Wan. I really want to stay at your house."
"… "
Yi Wan didn't move. Until the crisp sound of the door being locked was heard. Yu Rongshi walked past him and pressed the elevator button. He said, "Today is Christmas Eve. Yi Wan."
…
They walked around the university campus in the morning. The college, shrouded in mist, had once carried Yi Wan's dreams and the most important part of their youth. At least, they did learn something here in the end, regardless of whether that was the original intention of the university.
They finally got a casserole in the small cafeteria. The final exam was approaching, and the cafeteria next to the library was very busy. Yi Wan sat opposite Yu Rongshi, looked at them and said, "It's like this every year at this time."
Yu Rongshi said, "Yes. These are your junior students. Maybe there will be a few assistants who want to do the same research as you among them."
Yi Wan said, "I don't care. As long as my works have been read, it doesn't matter if they are thrown into the waste paper pile later."
Yu Rongshi said, "That's great. You have become more determined and will never feel lonely about this kind of thing again."
Yi Wan stared at the students around him intently. The young students tried hard to pretend to be mature, but they could not hide their childish idealism. He thought, this is also good, they are the pride of this era.
They and he seemed to be one. In a trance, he saw himself walking among these children. These children were him, and he was the child of the future. So this world became four-dimensional in his four-dimensional world. He and these children, and he who walked at every point in time, and he who filled the cafeteria, were one.
Grand unification... ...reduction to a theorem. A law that transcends the timeline and is at the four-dimensional level. Three-dimensional creatures have the ability to peek into higher-level laws because they have achieved absolute perfection and freedom.
He unconsciously stirred the bottom of the casserole with chopsticks. At the peak time in the cafeteria, it was obviously inhumane to occupy seats like this. But someone pushed a cup of hot water in front of him. Yi Wan looked up and said to Yu Rong when he saw him, "You haven't taken your medicine yet, right?"
Yu Rongshi's hand had been holding the water cup, with no intention of letting go. Yi Wan hesitated for a long time, and finally took out the medicine from his pocket. After his hand also held the water cup, Yu Rongshi finally let go.
When he put the medicine in his mouth, he heard Yu Rongshi say casually: "I was wondering, if I handed the medicine to you every time, would you be reluctant to swallow it because of my behavior?"
The pill had already slid down his throat along with the water. Yi Wan asked, "What happened?"
"I'm going to the bathroom." Yu Rongshi didn't look at him. He lowered his eyes and said calmly.
One person can't occupy a table all the time, especially when he keeps saying "someone is here" to students who are trying to share a table with their plates. After several attempts, Yi Wan finally walked outside the cafeteria. He sent a message to Yu Rongshi, telling him that he was waiting for him outside the building.
The sky is very white in winter. Yi Wan created fog by breathing under the gray sky, thinking about the law of unity that had just flashed in his mind, a breakthrough in the world. Students in the cafeteria and the canteen came and went... and came and went. The students in the library gradually filled up, and the bicycles parked at the entrance of the cafeteria dwindled one by one. When the canteen started to steam the third steamed buns of the afternoon, Yi Wan finally realized something:
Yu Rongshi may never appear again.
Students were still walking around, but the world suddenly lost its sound in Yi Wan's eyes. But he was still very quiet. He walked three times in the cafeteria, and then walked three times in the school, from the library where he studied to the bench by the lake where they kissed.
"Another person coming here?" The lady who was cleaning the floor greeted him.
Yi Wan left the school by car. He returned to the middle school where he studied. His photo at the entrance of the school had been replaced with the photo of last year's top scorer in the college entrance examination. I wonder if the principal has ever thought about the fact that they also had a top scorer many years ago, and wondered what kind of life he is leading now.
He went to middle school and high school here. In those years of loneliness or envy, Yi Wan was quietly sheltered by another person here. He taught him what expression looks like, told him not to look at short-term loneliness, but to pursue long-term goals... Even in the long run, it is still loneliness.
Yi Wan saw himself in this school as a teenager again. A guard looked at him curiously or warily, wondering why this young man was standing there motionless. He suspected that Yi Wan was going to break into the school, but Yi Wan did not stop and left.
There was also a primary school nearby… the place where Yi Wan had been bullied. He saw that the statue of David was gone from the square. It was exposed to the wind and sun, and he had been thrown into the garbage dump by the school. Children lined up in it, and Yi Wan knew that the bestial evil of bullying, loneliness and innocence was still happening. They chose bestial aggression, and he chose bestial non-integration and dissatisfaction.
He still didn't climb over the wall.
The only time he climbed over the wall was yesterday, near the library reading room. Yi Wan climbed in through the small window on the first floor, walked past the empty bookshelves and dust, and came to the old desk that had not been moved away. The setting sun shone lonely through the window, and he lay on the desk and fell asleep.
Before going to bed, he remembered what the old lady in the library said to him: "Xiao Yiwan, you always come to the library alone. There are very few children who can be as quiet as you. They all like to play with their good friends."
…
People call the phenomenon that will produce the same result after repeated practice a theorem.
For example, when he opened his eyes from the table, he saw Yu Rongshi again.
Yu Rongshi held his chin up and tilted his face. The sun shone on the back of his head, and his face was facing the dark study room. His image had a sense of illusion and unreality, and only his gloomy eyes were real.
Yi Wan said: "... Rong Shi?"
"Um."
"Where have you been?"
"… I thought about it for a long time, and I still feel that I should come back to find you." Yu Rongshi said, "Let's go. While it's just getting dark, we can go to see the stars."
He first climbed out of the library, as light as a swallow, without shaking off a speck of dust. He stood under the window and held out his hand for Yi Wan to hold—Yi Wan held the windowsill with one hand and held his with the other.
After one, two, and finally, he flipped out in a somewhat embarrassing manner.
Yu Rongshi held his hand and walked along the river bank in the setting sun, just like they did in their childhood and youth. There were jingling bicycles and cars of various colors passing by. But there was also the river, flowing gently as it had long ago.
"Merry Christmas Eve!" When passing by a milk tea shop, a girl in a reindeer costume handed Yi Wan a red apple. Yi Wan took the apple without saying a word.
They walked for a long time. Three hours? Or five hours? The hustle and bustle of human voices disappeared. It was deadly quiet. There was no one around. The air was filled with the scent of water and silence. Only at this time, without the light pollution of the city, would the stars come out.
The sky is dark, and the twinkling stars are right here.
They sat on the grass at the end of the river. Yu Rongshi sat next to Yi Wan and put his hand in his arms.
"We first met in front of the library, and you were being bullied. You were obviously just a little kid, but you had so many thoughts that made me think you were a mystery. At first, I thought you were an objective mystery. I wanted to solve you, but in the end, it was my own feelings that I couldn't solve. I thought, I must raise you to be the most perfect person you can be."
"When I was in middle school, I often walked and chatted with you along the riverbank. You usually didn't talk, so as the only one who could hear your point of view, I felt possessive and honored."
"I often brought you here in high school and college. There was no one at the end of the river. I'm glad we can always be together. You were always daydreaming, and I always wanted to monopolize you. I wanted to know what you were looking at, but I also wanted you to only have me in your eyes. Sometimes I felt that the reason you only had me in your eyes was because you couldn't actually fit a 'person' in your eyes. So, I was lucky to be that one. Your love for me only relies on the fact that other people didn't have the opportunity to enter your life. Because you don't need, and you have no interest in analyzing them."
"We made love for the first time here. I was very nervous that day, but I was very excited during the process. I felt that there was nothing better in the world. Only at this moment, every reaction of yours was because of me and only me. I felt a little guilty afterwards. Because it was like I took advantage of your misfortune, and became the bad person who deceived you and made you use me as a placebo when you were vulnerable."
"Later, you were studying for your doctorate and we lived together. Those were truly the best days of my life. I filled your life little by little. I even wished you were weak so you could always rely on me. I think such thoughts are very dark. I also envied your strength and wanted to know what scenery you would eventually see. I have never wanted to be happy alone so much."
"Then, I handed the medicine to you twice on purpose, out of selfish desire to use some shameful tricks, like this, so that you would feel more guilty and would not take the medicine."
“But I lost.”
When Yi Wan looked at Yu Rongshi, his lips trembled slightly and he could not say a word. Yu Rongshi lowered his head and smiled, saying, "I remember it now. When we were in junior high school, we sat here and you asked me to be a model so that you could identify the expressions on people's faces... What did it look like? What was this expression of mine...?"
More than ten years ago, Yi Wan said, "You like me."
Now.
"You hate me." Yi Wan said.
"I love you." After a while, Yu Rongshi said softly, "Your guilt towards me has overwhelmed your objective judgment. Yi Wan, you are starting to think from a subjective perspective."
"But I kind of hate you... but I have to love you more."
"Are you really just my fantasy?" Yi Wan said.
This time Yu Rongshi stared at him for a long while, then he smiled and said, "So what. Yi Wan, we all know that you have decided to move forward. You have grown up, Yi Wan. Snakes grow up and shed their skins, butterflies grow up and break out of their cocoons. When people grow up, they always take the initiative to throw away the things they once treasured, such as cowardly fantasies. Yi Wan, when you choose to grow up, you will not be able to see me in this world."
Because you know that this always gives people the opportunity to feel at ease and become weak, and the temptation is like drug addiction, like the abyss.
Just like a bed, when you are tired, you can just lean on it with your phone and you can never get up again.
They are all good. You just can't choose.
Tears began to flow, and the camera in front of him began to blur. The wind blew through the night and the stars. Yi Wan gritted his teeth, his shoulders twitching, but he put the pill into his mouth with the most determined attitude.
He learned for the first time that chewing a pill dry was like eating chalk. Very bitter.
Yu Rongshi's figure under the starlight was like chalk dust falling on a blackboard. He began to break, blur, and disappear... Yi Wan looked at him, and kept looking at him.
“… You killed me again.” Yu Rongshi said the most heartbreaking words in the calmest tone.
"… "
"But you cried for me again, that's so nice...your tears." He said calmly, "Just cry for me, okay?"
Yi Wan gasped and nodded. He said, "... I am a bad person."
There was a cry in his voice.
Until this moment, the darkness that had been growing deeper and deeper in Yu Rongshi's eyes finally disappeared.
He seemed to have suddenly figured it out.
"Loving yourself is the beginning of a lifelong romance." Yu Rongshi smiled, "You haven't become a... self-centered bad person. You just became a romantic."
"You have finally become a free and romantic idealist."
The last syllable disappeared into the air. Yi Wan reached out to hug something, but got nothing.
His longest-time and best friend disappeared on Christmas Eve.
In fact, there was no Yu Rongshi at the beginning.
When he was bullied, lonely, suffocated by anxiety, and confused about his dreams, he did not receive comfort from the outside world, nor did he rely on the outside world's assurance to keep going when he lost his faith. He should be more proud and greater about this: because he has come to this day entirely by his own strength. A lonely walker.
In fact, life can also have two solutions. As long as he believes that Yu Rongshi exists, he can always exist in his life, just like a beautiful dream, and he can continue to exist from now on. But he chose another solution.
He finally recognized himself and became a more powerful being.
But he is like a part of his spirit, how can he not love him.
Yi Wan lay on the lawn until the sky turned pale. At eight o'clock in the morning, he received a call from Yang Huan.
"Senior, have you taken those medicines?"
"Yeah." Yi Wan said.
"Actually, after thinking about it, I still think I should tell you... Those drugs have no actual mental effects, but are placebos that supplement nutrition." Yang Huan said, "Your psychological problems are very tricky. If you have achieved something, it must be that you have defeated yourself..."
He paused on the other end of the phone and said a little panickedly: "Why are you crying?"
I recovered in my own world, but finally became ill in the world of others.
The most sober person is the most insane.
"I am finally free. In any world." This was Yi Wan's last ambiguous sentence in this call, "Because, I set myself free."
Yang Huan was a little panicked: "Senior, where are you going next?"
To other people, this kind of talk would usually be a sign of death. But Yi Wan said, "I'm going to the supermarket downstairs to buy tissues, tidy up the cupboards by myself, and read the news about DNA."
Life often ends and begins in the same sentence. If there is a place where the story should stop, it is here.
…
"Riemannian geometry was not taken seriously until the birth of relativity."
"After it was proved, Brouwer's fixed point theorem did not prove its usefulness. It was not until decades later that it became a cornerstone of game theory and economics: proving the existence of equilibrium."
"99% of mathematical theorems are useless when they are first proved. They may be useless ten years later, twenty years later, hundreds of years later, or even never."
"Just like every decision in our lives, every action dream that is not noticed and does not belong to the 'protagonist' and 'mainstream'."
“But even so, those who hear the truth in the morning will always walk on the road of freedom and uselessness.”
Yi Wan sat next to the station.
This is a white station, where trains carrying souls arrive every day. He is a silent old man with white hair and glasses sitting on a bench.
An impatient ticket seller stood beside him. He was supposed to be responsible for guiding Yi Wan to the next train. On the first day, he asked the people on the train: "How is today?"
The people on the train said, "Normalization theory? That mathematical game with a beautiful proof?"
The next day, he asked the people on the train, "How was your day?"
The people on the train said, "Normalization theory? That useless thing?"
On the third day, he asked the people on the train, "How was your day?"
The people on the train said, "Normalization theory? What is that?"
The fourth day, the fifth day, the sixth day… It was the same all the time. Sometimes the people who got on the bus were dressed in suits, sometimes they were poor and weak. The people who came gave the same answer for many days.
On the nth day, he asked the people on the train: "How was your day?"
The person on the train said, "Hey, I'm not interested in having fun with you. Instead of asking me about reality, why not tell me a story, a dirty one."
The people on this train all had broken arms and legs. It seems that a new era of war has begun in the human world and will continue. One of the people who lost his chin could not shut up because of losing his chin, so he said: "Mathematical theorem? You know, more than 200 years ago, a mathematical theorem was proved. The mathematician was a rich kid who had nothing to do. After he came up with this mathematical theorem, he found out that there was no Nobel Prize in mathematics, and his thing was useless, so he went back to his family to eat, drink, have fun and pick up girls... Oh, I don’t mean to pick up girls. I want to say that 200 years later, that mathematical theorem was useful! Someone used it to make a weapon. It was really exciting. The electromagnetic force could blow up a continent. That’s how my chin didn’t fall off."
Another person was more kind: "You will be busy these days. Many cars of people will be sent here every day. Moreover, because they were damaged by the bombing, their size has become smaller, so each car will have to carry more people."
He looked back at Yi Wan, but the old man was telling a story to a little girl who had lost her hand on the train - a fairy tale about the nightingale and the rose. The young man was shocked. He said, "Aren't you the ones who care about truth and reality the most?"
Yi Wan said: "Yes, but sometimes life also needs a little imagination and fairy tales. Such a little thing is not enough to make people lose their freedom."
The young man had to deal with canned sardines for several days. Yi Wan told stories to the children on the train every day, sometimes about the Little Mermaid, sometimes about the Swallow and the Happy Prince. After more than 20 days, complete people finally began to appear on the train. He then complained to Yi Wan: "You bunch of damn mathematicians. What's the use? I dare say that your theorems are useless. Or they will also be used to make such weapons. You might as well tell stories every day."
Yi Wan said: "I don't want to do anything, I just want to sit here."
The young man said, "You are talking nonsense. You must want an answer to satisfy your vanity."
Yi Wan continued to droop his eyelids. Peace lasted for a few more days, and the trains finally began to pick up strange-looking people again. Someone told them: "It's an invasion of higher life forms from outer space."
"We can't defeat them! All methods are blocked unless we exceed the speed of light and reach a higher dimension." said another person.
The young man said, "I think the day is coming when I will be laid off."
He also didn't remember asking Yi Wan that question. Although Yi Wan didn't ask him to help him ask, he just wanted to drive him away.
Trains continued to arrive one after another, with heavy casualties. Finally one day, a train arrived. The leader was smiling. The young man asked him, and he said, "We are going to win!"
"The birth of high-dimensional spaceships has saved mankind from the fate of extinction. All this is thanks to a theorem found in a book more than a hundred years ago. Because of the limited computing power at the time, that person was unable to complete the second half of the calculation. An equally brave mathematician completed the second half of the calculation. He did not devote his life to it because the computing power had reached the limit. In the end, we obtained high-dimensional spaceships based on it—and the subsequent high-dimensional weapons."
"That theorem is called the normalization theorem. The person who created it is called Yi Wan. He was a mathematician who lived a very lonely life. When he was alive, he seemed to be of no use. He was just a passerby in the glorious history."
"Not bad." After those people left, the young man said to Yi Wan.
Yi Wan said: "Escape to a higher dimension. A tool for escape? That's quite appropriate."
The young man saw that he showed no joy at all.
A person has been waiting here for so long, but still doesn't want to change trains. The young man couldn't understand. He asked: "Why do you have to wait here?"
Yi Wan: “Because of freedom.”
"Well, I don't understand," the young man admitted.
The trains still come one after another. Sometimes there is peace, sometimes there is war, and there is even a devastating cosmic war that resets the earth back to its original state, and a new era of civilization is born. From underwater life, to cells, to walking humans, Neanderthals, Homo sapiens, giraffes... Over and over again, after the eighth era, no one comes to the train anymore. The universe is heat dead, and the train finally stops running.
The young man was laid off and left.
Only Yi Wan was still sitting and waiting.
Finally, in the whiteness between half-sleep and half-wakefulness, he saw another train coming towards him.
The train opened its doors and was empty. But Yi Wan knew it was for him. He got on the train and it ran along another track. At that moment, he regained his youthful appearance.
A voice came from the train: "Long time no see, Yi Wan."
It was a female voice, plain, quiet, yet gentle. It said, "Why did you know I would come?"
Yi Wan said: "I didn't know you would come. People need real life, but life still needs some fairy tales and beautiful stories. I once survived by making up a story for myself. Even though it was followed by 70 years of sadness."
The voice said, "But this is not real enough."
Yi Wan said: "80% of the reality, 15% of the story, a story will not hinder my freedom. Because I am the one who listens to the story and tells the story, not the story that controls me. Moreover, what comes from the story is my reality, which is the me that I need to accept. What I should see is me. There is no need to escape or leave. Chaos and contradictions, delusion and reality, have always been a part of life. Life needs some good stories to guide the direction in which reality can move forward."
And life belongs to me.
For my soul is always useless, always giving up, always free.
This is a freedom that cannot be changed no matter where you are. It’s okay to pursue a little excitement and happiness.
The voice said, "What about the remaining 5?"
Yi Wan said: "Add a little more love."
The voice said, "You used to scoff at this."
Yi Wan said: "It's like a flower in winter. You can see snow in winter, but it's not bad to have a few flowers."
The white clouds faded away, and the train was running under the starry sky. Yi Wan leaned against the train car and spoke.
"I have always had a question. He said that I killed him again. That's why I'm waiting here." Yi Wan said, "Now, you are finally here."
"I have verified my last guess. I have waited quietly for hundreds of millions of years. Now, do you want to cry?" said the voice.
"I promised someone." Yi Wan said hoarsely, "I will never cry for anything other than him again."
The train stopped by a lake.
"Yes. In your real life, he has also come based on your fantasy."
"… "
"If you could do it all over again, would you still choose such sadness? Yi Wan."