Chapter 58 The First Snow in History

When First Uncle Wang Xiangbing designed this set of New Year welcoming calisthenics for the Operations Workshop, he probably never imagined that one day he would perform it at the base's New Year gala, right in front of the base commander and political commissar, and directly under the spotlight of the entire world. Had he known such a day would come, he probably would have asked Wang Feng if he could sing just a couple fewer songs.

With two months still remaining before the Lunar New Year, it seemed somewhat premature to begin preparations for the holiday just yet, but the officers of the Propaganda Department were already in full swing. Swarming out of their offices and splitting into multiple teams, they went door to door with great enthusiasm—tallying headcounts, printing spreadsheets, setting up group chats, and recruiting people for the stage. Most personnel in the propaganda department only got to do their actual jobs during this time of year; for the rest of the time, they were loaned out to other departments as beasts of burden.

Shang Lu readily agreed to the request for the Operations Workshop to put on a performance. In previous years, the Operations Workshop had always contributed a show. Among the three main units in the workshop system, the Construction Workshop had a large and formidable workforce of exclusively grown men with robust lung capacities and booming voices, performing a chorus of "The Country" on stage year after year. The Labor-Accounting Workshop had both men and women who frequently sang and danced, boasting a few fellows with some genuine vocal talent who could belt out Jay Chou's "Blue and White Porcelain" with such deep, resonant emotion that they practically turned porcelain into hafnium carbide ceramics. By comparison, the total headcount of the Operations Workshop didn't even match the number of fingers on someone else's hand, making it quite a challenge for them to come up with any flashy acts. Last year, Wang Xiangbing and Li Wenxuan self-directed and performed a crosstalk piece titled "The Killer."

The year before last, Wang Xiangbing and Li Wenxuan self-directed and performed a crosstalk piece titled "Speed."

The year before that, it was still the two of them self-directed and performing a crosstalk piece titled "Stealing a Police Car."

This year, Wang Xiangbing planned to once again self-direct and perform with Li Wenxuan, this time titled "Undefeated," with plans for "Reincarnation and Rebirth" next year. But then Shang Lu arrived and announced that he intended to give everyone a minor shock.

Bai Shu sat in a chair peeling an apple, carefully maintaining a thin, continuous ribbon of peel that curled downward without breaking, pushing the back of the blade slowly forward with her thumb.

"Director, you're dressed so lightly. Aren't you cold?" she asked.

Shang Lu had his sleeves rolled up, wearing only a single layer of clothing. Even inside the office, it was cold after late night.

"If you're cold, make sure to tell me," Bai Shu said. "I'll give you something to wear."

"Do you have spare clothes?" Shang Lu turned his head to look at her.

"I don't have spares, but I can give you what I'm wearing." Bai Shu tugged at the collar of her sweater. "I have two layers on underneath."

Shang Lu shook his head, looked away, and refocused his gaze on Wang Xiangbing, who was practicing his spins.

"I can just ask First Uncle for one."

"They're all covered in sweat, they reek!" Bai Shu said. "My clothes smell great!"

"Big sister, can you please stop being so coy?" Wang Xiangbing was diligently practicing his ballet. He stamped heavily on the floor with his heavy Type-07 combat boots, his tall, sturdy frame spinning like a top. "What's the point of dropping hints every single day? If you've got the guts, drag the director back to your bed tonight."

"By tomorrow, you'll be promoted to Red Lotus's grandmother," Li Wenxuan added.

"Damn it, what business is it of yours?" Bai Shu's face darkened. "Do you want this apple or not?"

She placed the peeled apple onto a clean plate, stabbing the fruit knife heavily straight into the center of the apple with a murderous aura.

Shang Lu clapped his hands. "First Uncle, Wenxuan, Zhang Chong, take a break. Come eat some apples."

"You guys eat, I'll have the apple peel." Bai Shu stuffed the peeled skin into her mouth, chewing, and pushed the plate of apples forward. "The peel is the most nutritious part."

Shang Lu used the knife to cut the apple evenly into five portions.

"Our conditions aren't quite that dire yet."

"No, no, I genuinely love eating apple peels," Bai Shu said. "Really."

Looking at her bright, sparkling eyes, Shang Lu suddenly recalled this girl once telling him that she survived the Great Evacuation by eating banana peels, watermelon rinds, and apple peels. How could he have forgotten? Shang Lu still inserted toothpicks into the apple pieces and handed them to Bai Shu.

Today's rehearsal ended at eleven o'clock at night. Nearing midnight, a fine drizzle unexpectedly began to fall outside, mixed with snowflakes.

This was the final rain before the arrival of winter.

It was also the first snow in history, and it grew heavier by the minute.

· · ·

Chongqing before the Great Collapse was a city that practically had no winter; it was as scorching, fiery, and blazing with the midday sun as hot pot base. However, the earth-shattering explosion of the Seraph not only sank the North American continent but simultaneously altered ocean currents and atmospheric circulation. Thermal exchange within the Earth's atmosphere was never the same again, and as a result, Chongqing's temperatures began to drop year after year along a steady curve heading toward zero degrees Celsius, until Chongqing finally had a winter of its own.

The first snow of Chongqing in 2016 fell on the night of November 27th. This was the first heavy snowfall of 2016, and also the very first heavy snowfall in recorded history. People could be certain that such weather had never occurred in the main urban area since records began. Perhaps climatic conditions for snowfall had finally been met, and once the snowflakes dropped below an altitude of two thousand meters, they no longer melted. Thus, the first heavy snowfall in history arrived silently.

Before leaving, Shang Lu inspected Cave 110 once more, then stood at the entrance of the cave gazing up at the sky, waiting for the fine ice pellets to turn into goose-down flakes. Watching the snow fall heavier and heavier, he thought that the world perhaps truly was different now; after the descent of angels, everything had turned upside down, to the point that even Chongqing was beginning to snow.

The rolling expanse of Nanshan Mountain sat silently in the dark night. It should have remained forever youthful, but this year's sky had turned its head white overnight. If one were to gaze out from a high vantage point, it surely would have been a magnificent view. Regrettably, this was a fractured world. Shang Lu thought that a shattered world possessed its own beauty as well, much like a diamond smashed to pieces, reflecting a brilliant, multicolored radiance.

In the distance, a long queue of trucks halted by the roadside. The dull, roaring engines began to hum in low gasps. Soldiers of the automobile battalion opened their doors and leaped out, their young, agile bodies weaving through the headlights. Braving the night's wind and snow, they ripped the rainproof tarps off the trucks and unloaded the cargo with brisk efficiency.

The snow continued to fall, but let it fall—we remained who we were.

Shang Lu suddenly noticed a slender figure standing beneath the streetlight across the plaza, holding an umbrella.

Those two words almost slipped past his lips—so warm, so leisurely, so familiar, so wonderful—as if calling them out would cause her to turn her head. But in the end, Shang Lu did not call out. Hesitating, he looked closer and realized it was merely the shadow of a tree; there was no one beneath the streetlight.

Shang Lu leaned against the doorframe, shivering slightly in the cold wind.

A few young on-duty soldiers ran past across the plaza, happily crunching through the snow all the way.

When work resumed the next day, everyone was overjoyed by the heavy snow.

Except for Shang Lu, who had caught a cold and was running a fever because this unlucky fellow had dressed too lightly and caught a chill outside the previous night.

· · ·

Shang Lu had no choice but to ask Old Man Ji for leave, staying behind in the dormitory for bed rest. Chen鱼 measured his temperature for him before heading out in the morning, and upon seeing the thermometer read 38.9°C, she hastily called the base medical department. A military doctor came by, prescribed some cold and fever medication, and instructed him to keep warm, drink plenty of hot water, and ensure adequate rest. Yet, after taking the medicine, he showed no signs of improvement. Shang Lu ran a fever continuously for several days, feeling utterly weak with a persistent cough. Members of the Operations Workshop formed a queue to visit him, and Bai Shu even stewed rock sugar and pears for him, delivering them every single day.

To prevent a pulmonary infection, the medical department prescribed additional antibiotics. Wrapped up heavily, Shang Lu curled up in bed to sweat it out, lying there from morning until afternoon without eating, drinking, or moving. Chen鱼 wanted to take leave to look after him, but was refused; Shang Lu shook his head, saying it was nothing and he would be fine once he sweated it out.

That afternoon, lying alone in his dormitory in a drowsy, dizzy, half-asleep state, he vaguely sensed a cool hand pressing against his forehead.

Who is it?

Shang Lu thought blankly, struggling to open his eyes as that soft, cool hand touched his cheek once more.

"So hot."

The voice was very familiar.

"I'll go boil some water for you. Where is your dormitory's thermos..."

When did she arrive? Shang Lu thought in a daze, his brain too stiff to function properly. While part of him was wondering why she was even here, another part had already forgotten who she was. Damn it, how did he manage to get a fever anyway... Who on earth was this person again? This really sucks, the human body is so fragile... My head hurts so much... As he thought about it, Shang Lu fell asleep again, slowly sinking into the dark depths of the water.

When he woke up again, he had no idea how much time had passed. Opening his eyes, he was greeted by a splitting headache and the glaring lights of the room. As Shang Lu grimaced and tried to push himself up, the girl by the bedside hurriedly rushed over to help.

It was Bai Shu.

"Bai Shu?"

"Director, do you want some hot water?" The young girl unscrewed the lid of the thermos flask, poured a cup of hot water, and handed it over. "It's very hot, be careful."

She carefully helped Shang Lu finish drinking the hot water. Leaning back against the head of the bed, he clutched his forehead, breathed a sigh of relief, and asked, "Why are you here?"

"First Uncle and the others told me to come take care of you, Director. Haven't you eaten yet?" As Bai Shu spoke, she carried over a large package, wrapped tightly in a cotton overcoat. Opening it revealed a lunchbox wrapped in tin foil. She tested the temperature with her hand. "Hungry? I went to the cafeteria to get this for you, it's still warm. Eat it quickly while it's hot."

Shang Lu pushed the lunchbox aside and managed to climb out of bed.

"My stomach hurts, I need to use the restroom first..."

"I'll help you!"

With a half-smile, Shang Lu pointed toward the inner part of the dorm room. "It's just a few steps. I'm not crippled yet."

"You still need help!" Bai Shu draped the overcoat over his shoulders, wrapped her arm around Shang Lu's without any room for argument, and escorted him into the dorm's restroom. Judging by her meticulous, all-inclusive attitude, Shang Lu figured that if she had been strong enough to carry him on her back, she would have done so. The young girl even hesitated at the restroom door, presumably pondering whether Shang Lu required assistance with using the toilet.

Shang Lu quickly shut the door.

Through the frosted glass door, Shang Lu sat on the toilet and asked, "How long have you been here?"

"Not long. I got my dinner and rushed right over, sprinting down the road like a wild dog," Bai Shu said from outside the door, humming softly. "Good thing I ran fast, otherwise the food would have gone cold."

"When you got here, was anyone else in the room?"

"No."

"Was the hot water boiled by you?" Shang Lu asked.

"No, the thermos was already sitting on the table when I arrived," Bai Shu replied. "Someone had already boiled the water and left it there."

Shang Lu touched his own forehead, then felt his cheek.

Standing outside, Bai Shu chattered away, reporting the work progress of the past few days, flitting from one thought to another. Regarding the upcoming focal direction for the MEG-BCI system, Bai Shu harbored quite a bit of dissatisfaction. From her perspective, she believed that learning emotions and moods might not enhance the BCI system's sensitivity as significantly as Shang Lu anticipated. No one had ever conducted such experiments or training prior to this; how could such a logic hold? How could algorithms mimic human emotions? So-called emotional learning—it was nothing more than a pretext for personal gain. Not Shang Lu using his position for personal gain, but Shen Jiang using her position for personal gain; that woman simply wanted to use the opportunity to have more contact with the Director, humph.

"Emotion and mood are forms of pre-consciousness; they exist prior to specific thought. Only when an AI comprehends the pilot's emotional shifts can it accurately utilize a priori predictive algorithms," Shang Lu explained slowly. "I spent a very long time studying numerical relativity and Riemannian geometry, and subsequently realized that the inherent complexity of this theoretical toolset is something ordinary people cannot comprehend, let alone apply—let alone apply at extremely high speeds to solve complex problems under non-ideal conditions, problems that concern the life and death of all humanity."

Bai Shu remained silent.

"The environment and the complexity and difficulty of the problems faced by mecha pilots may be unprecedented in human history. It's not a simple matter of an opponent throwing a punch at you, and you deciding whether to dodge left or right. In combat against the angels, you might need to determine within seconds whether that punch maintains its structure through gravitational or electromagnetic force, what its Schwarzschild radius is, and if it momentarily expands and collapses into a black hole, where the edge of its event horizon lies," Shang Lu continued. "Because no one has the capacity to assist her, we can only place our hopes in the AI. The MEG system isn't predicting whether the pilot should step on the accelerator or turn the steering wheel next; rather, it's helping her establish a numerical relativity calculation model at maximum speed and output the result."

Shang Lu stated that during combat, the complexity of a mecha pilot's brain activity was likewise unprecedented. Shen Jiang was capable of calculating Christoffel symbols while simultaneously performing tensor contractions and taking derivatives in an affine connection space. To outsiders, her brain at that moment was like a boiling cauldron infused with a massive volume of mathematical and physical symbols. Compared to predicting such phenomena, understanding human emotion might actually prove to be a simpler task.

Yet, according to Shang Lu's consciousness-segmentation theory, only by comprehending pre-consciousness could the AI possibly make predictions regarding subsequent brain activity.

Emotion is the pre-consciousness of all thought.

Bai Shu thought for a moment and asked:

"Can the MEG system achieve that?"

Shang Lu sighed:

"It's difficult, but with your help, I believe there's a possibility of success... Has the OPMS arrived?"

"OPMS?" Bai Shu pondered carefully for a moment before realizing what he was talking about. "Oh, oh, oh, you mean that optically pumped magnetometer helmet? It just arrived from Science City today. It's currently in the office, haven't had time to calibrate it yet."

Shang Lu nodded.

"Once I recover, I'll go install it."

"Director," Bai Shu called out suddenly.

"Hmm?"

"Aren't you done pooping yet? You've been squatting in there forever. If you stay squatting like that any longer, you're going to get hemorrhoids."