After listening to An Ying’s account, my heart remained unsettled. The sea breeze against my face felt damp and salty.
“Xiao Fei, do you still remember what you told me about your father before?” An Ying asked.
I nodded.
“Actually, I think your father didn’t want you involved in this matter, not because he was afraid you’d trouble the Guangming Society, but because he didn’t want you to come into contact with the Suihou Pearl,” An Ying said.
She was right. If things were as she described, my father wasn’t afraid of me seeking revenge for him back then, but rather didn’t want me to encounter the Suihou Pearl.
“What exactly is the Suihou Pearl?” I asked.
An Ying fell silent. The sea breeze gently lifted her long hair, the strands dancing in the air.
After a moment, she finally spoke, “I don’t know how to answer that question. In fact, I’m very eager to know what it truly is. Based on the information I have, that pearl doesn’t belong to this world.”
“Doesn’t belong to this world? What do you mean?”
An Ying gazed at the sky. “It’s highly likely it originated from somewhere else, perhaps another galaxy.”
I was taken aback, feeling my mind struggling to keep up. Another galaxy?
“You’re not going to say it was left by aliens, are you?” I found the idea almost comical.
An Ying shook her head. “I don’t know… However, what’s certain is that the radioactive elements emitted by the Suihou Pearl are unique, at least not found in our world.”
If it wasn’t An Ying, someone who could achieve immortality, telling me this, I would have surely thought she was mad.
Her immortality had already shattered my perceptions. Given that, what was so unacceptable about the notion of the Suihou Pearl being extraterrestrial material?
Despite what I told myself, the thought of these things caused my internal worldview to fiercely resist.
I tried my best to persuade myself to accept it, gradually calming my emotions.
“Why do you believe your immortality is related to the Suihou Pearl?” I asked.
An Ying replied, “Because the Suihou Pearl, like me, is undergoing a process of entropy reduction.”
“Entropy reduction?” I was confused.
“Yes. You can think of entropy as the degree of internal disorder,” An Ying explained. “There’s a law in the universe called symmetry. For instance, Maxwell’s equations, the Schrödinger equation, relativity – they are all symmetric. Only one thing is an exception…”
She paused here. “That exception is time, because it always flows in one direction, from past to future. In physics terms, this is called the arrow of time. And the fundamental law of the arrow of time is the law of entropy increase.”
I listened, feeling rather bewildered, and couldn’t help but ask, “What does this have to do with you being immortal?”
“The law of entropy increase is the ultimate evolutionary principle of the universe. All life and non-life evolutionary processes adhere to this law. In an isolated system, without external work, its disorder will continuously increase.”
An Ying continued, “Energy is never converted with 100% efficiency; a portion is forever lost to the universe. This energy is irreversible and cannot be reused, and it’s always increasing… As time progresses, all matter will eventually transform into this form of unusable energy. It’s like how the sun will eventually extinguish, protons will decay, black holes will evaporate, and all matter will disappear, including life… The universe will become a dead silence, known as heat death, and this is entropy increase.”
My mouth felt dry. I swallowed, listening to her explanation with a sense of partial understanding.
Judging by An Ying’s expression, she didn’t seem to expect me to grasp everything.
“The Suihou Pearl and I are both in a state of entropy reduction, do you understand?” An Ying looked at me and asked.
I still didn’t understand, my gaze filled with confusion.
An Ying smiled slightly. “You could say that I have transcended the mortal realm and am no longer bound by the constraints of the five elements.”
“Then you’ve essentially become an immortal?”
“Perhaps,” she chuckled.
I shook my head, feeling a severe headache. Being bombarded with so much information at once had completely surpassed my comprehension.
The issue was, she’d explain her immortality from a scientific perspective one moment, and then veer into mythology the next, making it impossible for me to follow.
“I know this is difficult to understand, but this is the best explanation I can offer right now,” An Ying said. “The Suihou Pearl’s characteristics are the same as mine, which is why I believe my current state is closely related to the Suihou Pearl.”
“Then why did you give the Suihou Pearl to the Guangming Society?” I asked.
An Ying replied, “Because our goals align. They need to understand the secret of immortality, and I wish to discover why I have become this way.”
I let out a breath, looking at the distant sea, pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and took a long, hard drag. “One more question, how can your memories be restored through antiques?”
“Antiques carry the traces of time, and by tracing these temporal imprints, I can recover my lost memories.”
“Alright…” I said with a wry smile. “I don’t understand any of what you’re saying. What are you going to do next?”
“There are two paths to understanding what has happened to me: either by deciphering the secrets of the Suihou Pearl, or by recovering my original memories. Only then can I understand how long I’ve lived and how I became this way,” An Ying stated.
“Is there anything I can do to help you?” I asked.
“This is also why I’m telling you all this,” An Ying said with a smile. “I know your family possesses an ancestral secret manual called the ‘Seven Stars Nine Arts Profound Void Secret,' which can induce entropy reduction in antiques.”
“How do you know about the ‘Seven Stars Nine Arts Profound Void Secret’?” I was taken aback.
She smiled, not answering my question directly, but I largely guessed that she must have learned about this manual from my father.
I exhaled a plume of smoke. “Can I understand your so-called entropy reduction as repairing antiques?”
“You can understand it that way,” An Ying replied. “By repairing antiques, the traces of time are reduced, allowing past moments to become more precise. This, in turn, will help me recover the memories I seek.”
“Then what do you want me to help you repair?” I asked.
“It’s not time yet,” she smiled. “You haven’t fully studied your family’s secret manual yet.”
“Are you saying I should first study this ancestral secret manual of mine? And then, once I’ve mastered it, you’ll ask for my help?” I inquired.
An Ying nodded. “Yes, but I don’t know if you’re willing to help me?”
“I am willing,” I said softly. “Thank you for telling me about my father…”