Chapter 32: Lin Yun's Past: Quantum Life_1

After making arrangements for Wu Yue, Lin Sen and Logic went to meet their three aces: Ding Yi, Wang Miao, and Elvan Marcus.

Although Ding Yi still looked somewhat rakish and unrestrained, he showed considerable respect for Logic, which was rare. Presumably, he was impressed by Logic's performance at the Wallfacer hearing and today's mobilization meeting.

Wang Miao had always been gentle and refined. Some said he was timid and cowardly, but perhaps this was in comparison to someone like Da Shi, who was a tough and intelligent man. Who could remain calm when a countdown suddenly appeared in their eyes and the universe flashed before them? To them, it was more terrifying than discovering aliens; it could shatter all of a person's beliefs.

After realizing that it was an alien civilization behind it, Wang Miao, though greatly shocked, also seemed relieved. The universe was still the one he knew, and he even participated in designing the operation that sliced Evans's Doomsday's Ship into more than forty pieces. Could such a person be cowardly and weak?

Marcus was a tech nerd and business fanatic, whose obsession and pursuit of technology were admirable. His accomplishments in business were on par with his technical achievements. The observant would notice that the profits he drew from his business ventures were all reinvested into new technological research—he was the type of person you would think is a business genius, but in reality, he was a scientist hindered by business.

Logic didn't speak much in general settings, primarily serving to support and provide a platform for Lin Sen. Now, no one could tell whether their plans were Logic's or Lin Sen's, not even the ever-watchful Sophon could understand—their understanding was just between them.

Lin Sen: "Hello, Mr. Ding Yi, I heard you were Dr. Yang Dong's fiancé!"

Replied Ding Yi politely: "Hello, Mr. Lin Sen. I was Yang Dong's fiancé. She was a good girl; I just neglected her too much and still feel guilty about it."

Noticing that Ding Yi seemed not to have moved on, Lin Sen teased him intentionally, "Hey, how could you forget my cousin so quickly? She even mentioned you to me."

Ding Yi, looking baffled, asked in surprise, "Your cousin is?"

Lin Sen replied, "She is Lin Yun… I know she sacrificed herself, but I can't find any information related to her. I heard you were involved in that incident, could you tell me her final story?"

The other two were also curious about the relationship between Lin Sen and Ding Yi; they wanted to know the story of Ding Yi's former love as well.

Ding Yi had a rather good impression of Lin Sen, who seemed to have a kind of magic about him. In Lin Sen's presence, you could be infected by his spirit, never fall into despair, and always feel hope.

Although Lin Yun's case was still confidential, as Wallfacer's Assistant, it was easy for Lin Sen to learn about it, and there was no need for the PDC to hide it. However, Lin Sen still wanted to hear about Lin Yun from Ding Yi's perspective.

"Your cousin was rated as a 'martial battle goddess' by the military, but I know she was strong on the outside but fragile inside. I met her at a banquet. She grew up in the military; at six years old, her mother was killed by enemy-released killer bee weapons during a combat mission, her body grotesquely disfigured. This darkened her heart forever. She loathed war and everything to do with it, yet this made her passionately involved with it.

Someone could have changed her, and that person was her fiancé, Jiang Xingchen. Unfortunately, his death became the last straw that broke her hope, the thread that tethered this danger-courting young eagle snapped.

For me, it might have been admiration, or perhaps a desire for care and recognition, a love for poetry and distance, or maybe her understanding of love was simply to be needed. And perhaps my love for her was born from pity."

Her inner pursuit never changed, nor did it ever pause for anyone. The discovery of Ball Lightning thrilled her beyond measure, and she researched it relentlessly, a weapon that could change the entire world.

While studying Ball Lightning, she repeatedly broke through the constraints of ethical boundaries, persistent and unyielding, until she finally sacrificed herself, showing the world the terrifying power of Macro-Fusion Weapons. Seeing the power of Ball Lightning, Country A's military operations ceased, and the war ended.

That experiment destroyed a third of the nation's electronic chips, with the explosion affecting nearly half of the country's territory. Perhaps that was also why Tyler sought to study Ball Lightning, hoping such a weapon could be used against the Trisolarans.

I couldn't truly understand her heart at the time, unable to unlock it. I wasn't like Jiang Xingchen, who could recognize what was in her heart.

In the end, she probably also hoped that I could understand her, support her, and provide her with a harbor for her soul, but I couldn't give that to her. I even kept my distance from her. Ultimately, it was all irretrievable. This stubborn woman also forever occupied a very important place in my heart. How much I wished she could have paused for me."

Ball Lightning could quantumize material objects, with quantumized matter existing as a probability cloud, oscillating between excited and collapsed states. Even life could be struck by excited spherical lightning and quantumized, and such quantum life would also exist in between excited and collapsed states, between existence and nonexistence.

The very nature of quantumized things changes fundamentally on a material level, but Quantum Space remains a world where causality still applies, which is also the basis for the existence of quantum life.

A critical feature of quantum life is the observer effect. As soon as it is observed, the probability cloud collapses. Lin Yun can exist because quantum life itself maintains self-observation, a much more complex process that is currently unexplainable.

Where and when quantum life appears, how long it exists, and in what state are all uncertain events. Tyler relied on such an army of Quantum Ghosts to combat the Trisolaran fleet, valuing the Quantum Ghosts' army for this very nature; it can't be killed again, and there's a certain probability that it could appear inside a Trisolaran Warship, causing damage from within.

However, Lin Sen believed that quantum-state matter itself was just a cloud of probability, which would ultimately dissipate in the vast universe, making it hard to say whether it still had the potential for attack.

Whether quantum life still possesses attacking capability, the original work describes two instances:

One is when Lin Yun and Ding Yi, mourning Zhang Bin (one of the Macro Electronics Researchers), accidentally discovered the mathematical model of a macro atomic nucleus engraved by the quantum state Zhang family on their tombstone.

The second is when Lin Yun left a photo for Ding Yi. The photo included children who had been quantumized at the nuclear power station, presumably showing Lin Yun and these children living in a quantum form within this world's Quantum Space.

And lastly, appearing in Dr. Chen's (the protagonist of Ball Lightning) room, placing a Quantum Blue Rose in Dr. Chen's vase.

In fact, upon careful analysis, the original text has already provided us with the answer—quantum life does not possess attacking capability. There is no example in the entire book of successful quantum-state attacks; quantum life's existence has a negligible impact on the real world.

Lin Yun wished to become quantum life and enter Country A's aircraft carrier in quantum state, but the attempt failed. Tyler hoped to rely on a quantum army to counter Trisolaris, to which the Trisolarans were indifferent. Quantum life may only exist in a Quantum Space that sits between reality and illusion, likely without much impact on reality. (To be continued)