It was winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and the two rivers that had been running all year round had finally stopped and dried up temporarily. The great rivers in the high water season are magnificent, and the big rivers in the dry season are chic. The sediment-filled riverbed was exposed under the clear blue sky, and the river was criss-crossed, the loess was undulating, and it was covered with fine snow that had fallen from the sky the other day.

This year, the water level is low, and many winter migratory birds have flown away. In the golden sunshine, snow-white silver gulls walk leisurely on the tidal flats in groups of two or three. At the feet of the birds, the streams in the water are continuing to run towards the sea with the clear stream.

When the young man woke up, he found him in a hospital bed. Beside him was a snow-white curtain, and outside the curtain, there were not many leaves left in the branches of the trees by the window.

The young man's face was flushed, and his head was a little groggy. He didn't really want to move, so he continued to lie on the bed and pretend that he hadn't woken up.

At that time, there were two strangers in the ward, and the voices of the two were deliberately low, but they were full of energy and not sickly, and he guessed that they might be two nurses from this hospital.

The two men were discussing something unusual, about an astronomical anomaly that had occurred above the Earth.

It was something that had come into orbit on Earth not long ago, and it seemed to be both illusory and real. It did nothing, but upset the people of the earth.

One nurse was talking about media reports, and the other was gossiping. The change on the ground was frighteningly slow, and they did nothing but talk about it.

The young man didn't care much about it, he was more concerned about the air conditioner blowing on him. The hot smoky wind made his nose uncomfortable, and he sneezed, which disturbed the two guys who were talking about desertion.

"You're awake!"

The nurse walked past the curtain, first surprised, then smiling:

"Sure enough, yesterday's opening of the eyes and reaching out was not fake, it was real, hello!"

The nurse methodically began to tell him about his serious injuries and being found by his neighbors and taken to the hospital. He nodded thoughtfully, and then asked to be discharged. The attending doctor asked him to stay in the hospital for a little more observation to see if there were any sequelae. He politely declined.

The accident cost the young man all of his savings, including the financial compensation paid by the company for his dismissal.

He doesn't seem to have any family, and he just rents a house outside. Because the coma was not long, the house was just full of dust, and there was no water and electricity outside. The game that has been broken no longer wants to log in, the work report that is important in the career has also lost the need, the favorite hardware toy wants to pick up but can't find any interest, and after looking around, the things that were once thought to be necessary have lost their meaning, only the black and white photos on the shelves still make him cry.

By the time the house was swept away, the sun in the sky had set in the west, and the setting sun was burning quietly on the riverbank like a wildfire. He drank some hot water, leaned against the window on the second floor, and watched the cold wind in the winter bring up scattered leaves flying in the streets and alleys. At that time, the clear river was covered with thin ice, and the students were playing and chasing after class.

Younger people were walking on the road, and he thought it was time for him to go out too.

He washed himself, changed into thicker clothes, and went out to the book city of his teenage memory.

As a result, when the young people found out that the book store had closed its doors, the announcement said that it would be renovated and reopened at a later date. Billboards were hung here before the young man fell unconscious. He thought to himself that maybe it was more than just decoration, maybe it couldn't be opened.

He took a step back and went to the nearby bookstore. There is no business in the bookstore, and the owner opened it for nostalgia. He was cleaning the bookshelves. At that time, the middle-aged man was cleaning the shelves and counting every book that had been borrowed.

Young people ask:

"Are there any books on biology and consciousness?"

The boss said:

"Yes, but which one do you want?"

"What do you mean?"

He cautiously asked:

"Do you believe in anything?"

"Ah, me?" The young man said blankly, "I...... I believe that good people will be rewarded, and evil people will be rewarded. ”

"Haha, then I know."

The boss was relieved. He said that there have been a lot of religious activities among the people recently, and he has several pamphlets stuffed here. After chatting with young people, he selected some simple popular science books that were relatively close to the people. He hasn't read all the books, but most of the books he has entered have some impressions, and after reading the reviews and readers' feedback, he naturally has a classification of books in his heart, heavy, shallow, interesting, serious, professional, pastime, and can choose the right book after chatting with people.

The young man picked out a few pages of this month's new book and saw that an interesting experiment was written in it, saying that a group of people were using mouse neuronal cells to culture, and human stem cells were also used to differentiate to make an in vitro neural network, or it can also be called a brain in a vat.

It says that this in vitro neural network is currently used to play a retro table tennis video game, and compared to the hot electronic artificial intelligence of previous years, the neural network has a poor level of play, but it learns much faster. The experiment was a success.

Things are universally connected. There will also be some other kinds of phenomena in the process of complex experiments, which are worth mentioning as a by-product of the experiment. According to the book, the researchers found that when comparing several different game feedback patterns they set, neurons tended to catch more and refuse to re-serve, regardless of whether they gave feedback or not. Researchers believe that this is because catching the ball can eliminate more unknowns, and for neurons, their own predictions can be more consistent with reality.

On the other hand, the desire of animal neurons to eliminate the unknown may indicate the origin of the curiosity and desire to explore in living beings.

The young man was fascinated:

"Isn't this an animal instinct that has been passed down from generation to generation?"

The boss accosted:

"Probably, yes."

"What a statement?"

He asked, looking up.

"Fish will come to land, apes will come down to trees...... Aren't they all? ”

The young man was stunned.

The boss continued:

"Although there was a deterioration of the objective external environment at that time, the deterioration was measured in millions of years. Generations of species can continue to live in the sea and on trees on land. But in the end, they slowly detached themselves from the living environment they were familiar with, approached a more suitable living environment by natural selection, and gradually landed on unfamiliar land. Although the reason is not simple enough, it is indeed a kind of animal survival instinct, right? ”

"It's like...... Yes. ”

The young man nodded.

The boss was more relaxed to chat, and he continued:

"Actually, from this point of view, there is also a bit of a taste that eggs can't be put in one basket. Perhaps, from the perspective of survival of the fittest, it is precisely this kind of 'living organism' that has the desire to explore, so as to spread all fields and develop into a variety of possible worlds, that has the possibility of being 'more suitable', so that it can be more easily passed on to future generations and become the ancestors of later creatures. As for those who have not become, they have naturally become fossils and losers in the ground. The forest was in crisis, and the brothers of the beasts hid in the sea to breed. There is not enough oxygen in the sea, and the fish brothers are silently spreading their branches on land. ”

"And if we go back to the bottom line, all living things are descendants of the same kind of genes, and the genetic similarity between human genes and chimpanzees is as high as 96 percent, the genetic similarity with cats is as high as 90 percent, the similarity with mice comes from a common ancestor 80 million years ago and is more than 70 percent, and the similarity with insects or chickens is 60 percent. Plants and animals diverged hundreds of millions of years ago, but they are about 50 percent similar to humans...... Before differentiation, where would plants know that birds could fly in the blue sky? ”

The boss paused and said:

"So I've been thinking, what about genes, which are self-replicating, and some indispensable structure of it, which is infinitely distributed to the world around us?"

The young man nodded, then quipped:

"So, will humans go to the moon and say there is no other reason to go to the moon but because the moon is there?"

"This ...... No...... I don't dare say it! ”

The boss shook his head and remained silent about it. It was only later that the young man learned that this was the reason for the recent debate about whether or not to go to outer space to explore unknown creatures. As for the moon landing in the last century, there are also complicated political reasons, and the boss knows more than him, has his own opinions, and does not want to talk more about the things of the last century. He said that the country's steady lunar landing program was also disrupted as a result.

In the next few days, he came to the bookstore often.

The owner of the bookstore can open a bookstore, so he naturally has money and leisure, and his family has an industry, which is said to be a listed company. But young people soon learned that the stock market had recently crashed, that investment institutions were pulling out their capital, that the flow of social resources had changed, and that there had been temporary reforms to credit and tax policies for businesses. On the other hand, the supply of raw materials has contracted, the civilian market is still stable, but the price of materials in the industrial market has skyrocketed.

"For all these reasons, the company is naturally not good."

When he talked about it, there was no pain, but his eyebrows fluttered, and there was some ridicule in his tone, saying that his cousin was asking the Buddha to worship God, and to promote some Indian spirituality within the company, to communicate with the spirit dragon that stayed above the earth.

The young man was taken aback. The boss only said that there were many such rich people before, but now that there are real people, there are naturally more. He also said that because you have no money, you can only be rational, and you don't understand the pastime of rich people, but you don't understand your peace of mind, and you don't understand their current predicament, compared to a poor person like you, you don't know where the superiority is.

"What do you want to see today?"

The boss asked.

"I've heard on the Internet that there are many fragments of human genes, even more than just genes, and some parts come from other organisms, such as fish, such as excess tail vertebrae...... So I want to read some biology books. ”

Said the young man.

The boss went to choose a book, and while choosing, he also said:

"According to my shallow understanding, this is not accurate."

"What's the inaccuracy?"

"It's very simple, because man developed from other creatures! Humans naturally leave remnants of other living things. Other organisms have developed from earlier organisms, generation after generation, and if we continue to trace the lineage of this kinship, it is easy to find that all living things can be traced back to the genes of the beginning of the earth. From humans to amoebae, from mushrooms to bacteria, all living things, with the exception of a few viruses, have been shown to have originated from the small organic fragment of genes. These organic fragments then organize the bacteria, followed by more complex cells, which carry themselves with proteins and spread infinite life. ”

The boss is not a professional, more precisely, he is a business player who likes to brag, and sharing knowledge makes him happy. He flipped through the books of many creatures on his desk, and pointed out to the young people imaginary pictures of ancient fish, the microscopic picture of bacteria and eukaryotic cells, and the lineage of their observations by humans.

"There are organic fragments that follow the path of photosynthesis and are able to disassemble water molecules, which we call cyanobacteria. This bacterium has been living in cells and has been an organelle for more than a billion years. They are the ancestors of all plants and algae, and at the same time they are eternal, and there may be some genes in the human chromosome that are common to cyanobacteria, or they may be lost because the lineage is too far away. Some organic fragments are oxidative and metabolized, complete the respiration effect, and are now an essential part of the body of all animals and plants. There are also viruses, many ancient viruses are embedded in our genes, and they continue to live with an infinite variety of animals and plants. Therefore, I have always believed in a saying. ”

The young man couldn't help but ask:

"What's that?"

The boss said solemnly:

"Animals like humans are a small world. Each of us is a huge symbiosis. In our body, from bones, skin, flesh and blood to every functional area of the brain, from every organelle of cells to those probiotics that come purely from the outside world, they all have different origins, but their origins are the same. They come from the bifurcation of the same organic fragment, which over a long period of time become different things, and finally become one with each other, and together organize a higher life. ”

The young man nodded thoughtfully, and his mind was filled with many strange visions.

It was already dark, and the boss turned on a few more lights to make a refreshing tea for the only guest and himself. The water swayed in the cup, and the bright spots of light resembled stars in the sky.

The young man said:

"So what will become of humanity in the future?"

"What?"

The boss glanced at him.

He said:

"Since we are moving towards different fields and embracing these different unknown areas, according to your ideas, then we will also become different in the future, right? The trees that embrace photosynthesis and the fish that embrace the ocean are not the earth's ...... What will become of people in the environment? ”

The boss laughed:

"This is the content of fantasy novels, and the future is unpredictable, and it can only be left to your own imagination...... But I think no matter how strange these imaginations are, the reality must be stranger than you imagine. But in my personal opinion, maybe it's a machine. I have a family member with congenital heart disease who had mechanical heart surgery in the United States. ”

"Gears, chains, and steam machines......?"

"The gears are a bit bulky and backward. However, it may be possible to use it for larger objects such as hands or feet. This, I don't know. ”

When the boss said this, there was a noise in the street, as if two groups were fighting. The young man saw them holding strange signs, waving them wantonly in the air.

The boss's face turned pale, and he immediately called the police. Someone called the police earlier than he did, and the sound of sirens could be heard not far away. He hurriedly said that it was going to close, and the young man asked him what was wrong. He said that this is a revolution in space cognition, and that something new is about to begin, don't you feel it at all?

These words seemed extremely strange and intimately close to the ears of young people.

He walked out of the bookstore in a daze, avoiding the crowded broad avenue and going to a waterside path. There is a bridge on the water, and the lights in front and behind the bridge are as dazzling as if they are on fire. The winter night is deserted, the only visible planets of Venus and Jupiter have set, and the moon floats lonely in the night of the city, illuminating the quiet river.

A cold north wind blew beside him, and he heard the water of the creek whining softly. The river had dried up, the beach was bare, and a few puddles were covered with fine ice.

At that time, I don't know who stepped on the ice, and there was a crisp cracking sound. He looked where the sound had come from, and saw a girl standing there. He saw that she had a pair of rare gray eyes, and was observing Liuling in the water. And there were a few snowflakes falling on her collar and hair at some unknown point.

Her expression was extraordinarily focused, as if it was the first time she had seen Han Bing.

The young man walked over to her.

She also heard the young man's footsteps and turned her head to look at him. The young man's approach did not alarm her in the slightest, and she was troubled, naturally, as if she were speaking to an old friend:

"It's as if I've met you in a dream."

"Met?"

"It's hard for me to say. But what I want to ask is, do you believe in the memory of inheritance? I once heard a man say that he came to one world with memories of another world from his previous life. ”

The young man did not panic at all, and he said calmly:

"It's hard to talk about memory, it's like frozen ice in water, as if something has been preserved, and it's so blank that there's nothing left."

She listened quietly.

"It's better to think more about the future. After all, the river has to flow forward. For example, I'm curious, why are you looking at ice cubes here alone? ”

She replied:

"Because it's the second time I've seen it."

"Is there anything you saw for the first time?"

"Yes," she said, "stars." If I could, I heard that people were planning to go to the moon, and I wanted to sign up so I could see it higher than the sky. ”

"Ah, I have that idea too......"

They stood together and walked slowly along the path along the riverbank. The sparse snowflakes floated silently in the air, as if unwilling to fall to the ground. The distant lights of the city stretch along the riverbank, filling the entire horizon. A full moon hung over the dark blue zenith, tenderly touching the reflection in the water.

The sky, the city, the river, the moon, the stars, as well as day and night, cold and warm, everything makes people feel strange and intimate.

Before sunrise, the glowing red Mars had risen in the east.