Subtitle of this chapter: Who is the future man?

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"Mr. Yuan, is there anything else you would like to say to the American people?"

It was Miss Emma Pulitzer who asked the question, and it seems that it was this "priestess" who understood the "fool" and simply threw a straight ball to our Master Yuan.

It's a pity that Yuan Yanqian is not convenient to play a home run this time. Offending the future US imperialist commander is not a big problem, but offending the current US Imperial Secretary of State is a big problem.

"Oh, of course I have." Master Yuan smiled and said, "I wrote an article in my cell last night, I hope everyone will like it......"

"A Day in Prison" is a short science fiction story published by Mr. Yuan Yanqian in the newspaper Le Monde on March 7, 1921, and according to the author himself, he spent only one night from conception to completion, and that night he spent in a cell at the Fort Myerburg police station. In this article, the protagonist, Mr. Y, is sentenced to a time sentence for a crime. The form of punishment was to stay forever on March 6, 1921. And that was the day Mr. Yuan was arrested for violating Prohibition. ”

"The Garden of Crosspaths is a science fiction film written by Jorge Luis Borges in the forties, and the protagonist is a Chinese. It tells the story of Yu Zhun, the protagonist who worked as a spy for Germany in Britain during World War I, when his companions were arrested and he was hunted down, he did not hesitate to kill the sinologist Albert in order to inform his German superiors of important information. The story is told in the form of Yu Zhun being imprisoned after his arrest, and the postponement of a major event in the history of European warfare is the starting point, which can be called clever. ”

What these two books have in common is that they both take time as the theme, and their central ideas are similar, that is: time and space are inexhaustible, and time and space are infinite, like the multiplying golden ring of kings in the hands of Zeus. The world is a mess, time is cyclical, space is coexisting, full of endless contingencies and possibilities. Living in the world is like walking into a prison or a labyrinth, with no purpose and no way out. ”

"Time may be an insurmountable prison, or it may be a garden of intersecting paths."

"Yuan Yanqian and Borges have been pen pals since 1921, and according to Borges, Mr. Yuan is his literary and artistic leader, or the 'Bole' of his literary creation. Although the two are only five years apart, Borges has always regarded Mr. Yuan Yanqian as his teacher. And "The Garden of Cross Paths" was also named and dedicated to Mr. Yuan. ”

"Borges once said that in the world, time is the ultimate god who rules everything. And the passage of time becomes synonymous with death. In fact, it is not that time is passing, time is just an illusion brought about by our own disappearance. Time flows from the past, present, and future in a single dimension, making time a river that cannot be stepped on twice. We are always changing, we are always throwing ourselves forward, like throwing a stone and then walking to the place where the stone lands. Rebellion, then, against the tyranny of time, perhaps, is the inner intention and desire of all great souls. ”

"The first to carry the banner of rebellion against the tyranny of time was Mr. Yuan Yanqi, who depicted a non-linear time world for the first time in One Day of Prisoner. Of course, he himself admits that there are some logical flaws in this article, but Mr. Yuan proposed a 'parallel universe theory' on this basis. And this theory has succeeded in solving the 'grandfather paradox', at least making time travel less obviously illogical. ”

In April 1921, Mr. Einstein arrived in Washington, D.C., and he was also very interested in Mr. Yuan's theory of parallel worlds. Because general relativity allows people to go back in time, its theoretical basis is the wormhole theory, which simply means that we can travel through time and space through a tunnel similar to a wormhole. So Albert Einstein once said that the theory of parallel worlds explains why we don't see future people who have returned from the future to the present, and maybe our world is a world where future people have never appeared. ”

However, Mr. Yuan Yanqian had a different opinion on this, and he told Einstein that if we see future people, it is very likely that we will not realize that we are seeing future people. For example, Mr. Einstein, you are very likely to be a person of the future, otherwise how could you come up with such a breakthrough discovery as the theory of relativity? ”

Although, the famous British science fiction writer Herbert George Wells published "The Time Machine" in 1895, and was the first to propose the concept of time travel; And the first book to cross "Connecticut in King Arthur's Court" was written by Mark Twain. However, the first writer to take the literary theme of time travel seriously was Mr. Yuan Yanqian. ”

"In 1923, as soon as he set foot on his hometown land that had been absent for five years, he published his first Chinese novel, to be exact, "Ruling the World". It is said that a young Chinese intellectual in the twenties traveled to the Northern Song Dynasty during a car accident and was called a generation of traitors from a villager...... Well, the story of the name. ”

Many of the historical views in this book were very novel, and many people did not accept them at the time, but they also had to admit that these views had a credible historical basis, so Mr. Yuan Yanqian became a recognized historian with such a book. Moreover, the observation angle in "Ruling the World" is very in line with the viewpoint of historical materialism, so the descendants of the Heavenly Devil can't put down this book, and once said that as long as you are a communist, you must read "Ruling the World" and "Dream of Red Mansions" again. ”

"In addition to its academic success, it caused a huge sensation in China at the time, with the claim that 'where there is well water, there is talk of slaughter'. Both intellectuals and ordinary people are attracted by the wonderful and twisty storyline, and they are also inspired by the protagonist's spirit of striving for progress, of course, what they look forward to the most is the rich and powerful democratic Northern Song Dynasty. (Author's note: the original text is where there is well water, that is, it can sing willow words)

""Dominating the World" is so successful that it naturally has a large number of followers. So much so that almost all of the Chinese literary scene in the twenties and thirties was occupied by the time-travel, but their achievements were not as high as those of Mr. Yuan Yanqi......"

——Excerpt from "Crossing, Starting from Him"

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By the way, Murong has built a book list, called "Mu Tui Rong Tu", and welcomes the attention of patients. I try my best to push a few unpopular niche books and spend the book shortage with everyone.