When a poor novelist portrays a new character, he or she habitually starts with the description of appearance, and in the description of appearance, the most intuitive parameter is height.

This kind of writer can only write in vain, so it is clumsy.

……

The total amount of matter on Earth is finite.

The total amount of matter in the solar system is similarly limited.

The sun will continue to burn for another four billion years, but the time left for mankind is much shorter.

It is assumed that mankind has never been able to master the key technologies of star navigation, such as stellar mass energy extraction, cryonics, non-working fluid flight, and controlled nuclear fusion, but it has reached the point where it has to forcibly migrate to another planetary system.

And if humanity had to build an eco-cycle spacecraft propelled by working fluid engines, it would be possible to cross the 4.2 light-year distance between Earth and Proxima Centauri. The spacecraft must also carry enough technology and materials to help at least 160 people take root on planets with unknown environments.

At the same time, the migrants must be able to survive in an enclosed space from generation to generation until they take root.

Then the spaceship carrying the flame of civilization will be unimaginably large, and it will consume unimaginable energy and mass to propel it to stagger over a distance of 4.2 light years like a snail.

Could it have been possible to build such a spaceship in the lifetime of human civilization?

Will this spaceship exhaust all the metals in the solar system and exhaust the last productive force of the entire human civilization to grit its teeth and move forward?

But what if the height of a human being was reduced to one-twentieth of the current height and reduced to the size of a mouse?

Four hundred times less difficult?

……

Zhou You, height 172.9cm, gender male, age 24 years old, bachelor's degree.

He is an ordinary person who is bound to be drowned on the spot if he is thrown into a pile of people.

The height of less than 1.73 meters is not crippled, but in today's era, it is almost half disabled.

It may be that the more people lack something, the more they care about something.

He didn't understand why the genes of the 1.83-meter-old father and the 1.67-meter-old mother would condense the 1.73-meter-old self.

If it weren't for the stubble and mild natural curly hair inherited from his father, and the gray hair inherited from his mother and grandfather at a young age, these two points proved that the bloodline was pure, and he really wanted to sneak in to do a paternity test to verify whether he was biological.

It is out of his obsession with height that Zhou You has developed a habit since he was sixteen years old, measuring his height every day after getting up.

He longs for miracles, for encountering the legendary secondary development.

But in a blink of an eye, he had graduated from college, was over twenty-four years old, and the miracle did not happen.

Since he passed the growth period and was admitted to university at the age of nineteen, his height has not increased by even 1 millimeter.

Still, he has maintained the habit to this day.

That morning, he woke up early, washed his hair, dried his hair, and prepared to walk out of the room and go to the office with full enthusiasm.

By the way, although he is only an undergraduate student who has just graduated and worked for less than a year, this house is his own.

In his junior year, his traveling father came to Rongcheng with 430,000 yuan, made a down payment of 50% and bought this 90-square-meter small set of three in the warm water area of the satellite city, which is 15 kilometers away from Rongcheng, at a total price of 860,000 yuan.

The decoration of this house cost 160,000 yuan, and he did the whole decoration process by himself, including design, buying materials, finding workers, supervising and accepting.

While traveling in his senior year, he often rode a battery car to run the construction site, tossing back and forth in July and August, and was able to rush to complete the project three months before graduation, but he just graduated and moved in.

Decoration may be a problem for ordinary college students, but as long as you are willing to use your brain, be willing to check the information by yourself, run a few more decoration companies and building materials shops, and talk about a few rounds in a pretentious manner, you can always grab the information you want, and then integrate this information with a table, analyze it in detail, integrate your thinking, and then go online to see more decoration experience shared by self-media people, and you can always get it.

That's what Zhou You is good at.

For Zhou You, who has been very independent since childhood, just decoration is nothing, after all, he has been away from home since he was eleven years old to study in other places, and he was born too early to be self-reliant, and he is too precocious to speak, and it is impossible to say whether it is lucky or unlucky.

So far, he has lived there for nearly a year, and he has no other defects except for a slightly longer commute to work.

Before going out, Zhou You's head twisted and saw the vertical height scale next to the changing mirror at the door.

This thing has been listed on his second-hand website.

If it weren't for the buyer's knife technique being too ruthless, it would have been couriered out yesterday.

True, he was already desperate.

He decided to let go and calmly accept the tragic fate of the five short figures.

Forget it, for the last time.

Zhou You gritted his teeth and secretly made up his mind.

From now on, I will never measure my height again.

He took off his shoes and socks, stood on the platform again, picked up the height ruler, raised it above his head, and slowly pressed it down, until he flattened his hair.

Then, he didn't even want to look up at the data.

Undoubtedly, it's still 172.9.

It has been like this since four years ago.

What's the suspense? What's the difference between seeing and not seeing?

But the long-standing habit still made him raise his eyelids slightly.

Well?

There are changes.

But why 172.8?

Zhou You's fingers pressed the height ruler tightly, and shook his head fiercely, thinking that he had seen it wrong, and after calming down a little, he stared again.

Instead of growing taller, he lost even a millimeter.

Something must have gone wrong!

Usually Zhou You is actually a very calm person, and he can always deal with things properly and methodically.

He also has a very careful plan for his life, and so far every step has been steady, but only for height, because of his parents, he has become his own obsession, and he can't get rid of it or throw it away.

Now he has made up his mind to quit his only vice, but he never thought about it, but he was beaten up.

This was really incomprehensible to him, and he couldn't let go of it for a long time.

In the end, before going out, Zhou You sighed and thought to himself, maybe it was an accidental error, and he would measure it tomorrow.

He took the scale off the second-hand website.

Fifteen minutes later, the traveling car drove out of the neighborhood and then stopped on the side of the road.

As soon as it stopped, the passenger door opened, and a girl with a ponytail sat in.

The girl today is wearing a white lace collar shirt, black slim pants, and a pair of red running shoes on her feet.

Her name is Shen Ling, not Zhou You's girlfriend, but a colleague.

After Shen Ling got into the car, she rubbed up first, and put a large square box behind her from the gap between the driver's seat and the passenger seat.

Zhou You squinted his eyes, and said while starting the car: "Oh, business is booming!" This sent another one. Ooh! 3080Ti！ Flagship card, no less earning, right? ”

Shen Ling fastened her seat belt and raised her eyebrows, "Of course, who called the recent mining disaster, it is inevitable that there will be overturns when you buy a mining card, and there is no warranty, so you will go to the wall at every turn." I'm here to help these people solve their problems. ”

"Besides, I don't use my spare time to earn some money, how can I support you?" While talking, Shen Ling took out her mobile phone again, transferred 200 yuan to Zhou You's WeChat, and then said: "I'll transfer you, remember to receive it on WeChat when you go back." ”

"Pull it down!" Zhou Youlian rolled his eyes, "This is the fare!" It's the sharing economy, the sharing of oil money! What do you call me raised. ”

"Friend, you are an extended-range hybrid, burning electricity, only a dime per kilometer, less than ten yuan a day back and forth, I will give you a round."

Zhou You said with a smile: "Last month, I said that I would accept you for one hundred months, but you have to give two hundred yourself." It's too late to go back. ”

"I'm kidding you, taking the bus to the subway, you have to pay 16 yuan a day, and it costs more than 300 a month. It's faster to take your car, and I'm embarrassed to only give a hundred. ”

"Even if you have a conscience," Zhou You hummed and asked again: "By the way, Shen Ling, did you say that it is difficult to repair the graphics card?" ”

"Why, you want to eat this too?" Shen Ling shook her head, "It's not difficult, it's easy." ”

Zhou You: "Actually, I sometimes wonder why you like to do this, you say that you are a lesbian, and you are not studying this major." ”

Zhou You's words are actually not all.

Although Shen Ling has always been plain-faced, she has a height of nearly 1.7 meters, and her facial features are also exquisite.

What's even more outrageous is that although Shen Ling is the same age as Zhou You, she is an academic animal who has completed her undergraduate studies in three years and graduated from graduate school in two years.

I heard that she was still planning to get a doctorate at the University of California, but she would go abroad to study again in two years.

Shen Ling seemed to recall something, and said with a smile; "Because of my dad, he also liked to toss radios, televisions, washing machines and other things when he was a child, and he wanted to fix any broken machine by himself. My mom used to joke with him, saying that he shouldn't have been in the office at the bank, he should have done chips or something. With his right-hand man, maybe my country will overcome the blockade of foreign chips! ”

Zhou You was also happy and asked, "Then how did your father answer?" ”

"Him!" Shen Ling also laughed, "My dad said that men are afraid of entering the wrong line, isn't this just entering the wrong line, it's all because grandpa messed up the mandarin duck spectrum back then." My mother immediately asked him if he was implying something, and the next sentence was if the woman was afraid of marrying the wrong man. The two of them had a quarrel. ”

"It's fun."

In the workshop, the two of them chatted casually from time to time.

Zhou You drove the car, while Shen Ling looked down at her mobile phone and talked from time to time.

Recently, there have been a little rumors in the company, saying that the two are in love.

Of course, both Zhou You and Shen Ling knew that things were not the same.

Zhou You felt that at least there was no good feeling between men and women between the two of them, they could only be regarded as friends, and there was no transgression. He is open and fearless, and he can be chewed by others.

This is not to say that Shen Ling is not beautiful and attractive, nor that he has no desire to travel around and has become a Buddha, but Zhou You feels that rabbits don't eat the grass next to the nest.

Besides, fate is not very clear.

If he really wants to fall in love and find a girlfriend, it's not difficult.

Zhou You didn't know what Shen Ling thought about this, so he didn't ask.

He doesn't care.

Halfway through the car, Shen Ling suddenly said, "This article is really interesting." ”

"What does the article say?"

Shen Ling pointed to the screen of the mobile phone, "The article made an assumption, saying that the development degree of the human brain is less than ten percent anyway, so less than one billion neuronal cells can carry all the thinking of human beings, even if the volume of the human brain is reduced to one-tenth or even one-twentieth of the current size, people are still as smart." ”

Zhou You shook his head, "Isn't this nonsense?" Those patients with brain atrophy have something to say, dementia, memory loss, behavioral disorders, etc., are these not a problem? ”

Yes, but the author of the article cites a lot of specious theories to support it. He believes that human thinking and memory have quantum characteristics, rather than simple chemical properties. In the microscopic physical world at the quantum level, there are still many unsolved mysteries, and the human brain is one of them. Human intelligence cannot be summed up simply by the size of the brain and the number of cells. For example, the brain of a whale is larger and heavier than a human brain, but it does not have the same intelligence as a human. ”

Zhou You continued to shake his head, "But there are more than 10 billion neurons in the cerebral cortex alone, and counting the number of neurons inside, the total amount reaches 100 billion, and the whale only has 20 billion. The reason why whales have larger brains but fewer neurons is because whales have larger individual neurons. In short, there is something special about the human brain, which is the fundamental reason that distinguishes us from ordinary animals. ”

Shen Ling thought for a while, "That's right, so this article does have loopholes." At least a billion neurons is not enough, and the author is only holding half of it and running. But let's think about it another way, let's assume that the human neuronal cell is also a bacterium in nature, and in evolution, it is possible for organisms to evolve and become smaller and smaller. If in the future, human neurons evolve in the direction of smaller size, becoming ten or even dozens of times smaller than they are now, but the total amount remains the same, then human beings can indeed carry all their memories with a fingernail or even a pea-sized brain. You know, the smallest bacteria are only 50 nanometers in diameter, which is smaller than many viruses. ”

Zhou You also thought for a moment and said, "That's right, you can't deny this possibility." ”

"Hey, if that's the case, what do you think the future of humanity will be?"

Zhou You said with a smile, "First of all, if the brain is also smaller, then human beings naturally no longer need such a large body size, and in addition, I am sure that people's thinking and reaction speed will become faster." ”

Shen Ling snorted, "Yes, the size is smaller, the transmission path of nerve signals is also shortened, and the speed of information transmission is accelerated." ”

Zhou You: "Just like the computer chip manufacturing process, the smaller the process, the stronger the computing power, but the lower the energy consumption. ”

Shen Ling suddenly became a little fascinated, "Then this is a good thing for the current human race." ”

Zhou You: "Ha, it's not good for us. We are the first to lose our jobs. ”

"It's the same, we're doing environmental protection. The essence of the so-called environmental pollution is that human activities have too much impact on the natural environment, threatening the balance and stability of the entire ecological environment. This is especially true for domestic wastewater, but the same is true for industrial wastewater. If the size of the human body shrinks, the consumption of materials and the production of additional materials such as garbage, waste water and exhaust gas will also be reduced in equal proportions, and we will naturally lose our jobs. ”

Another red light turned green, Zhou You stepped on the accelerator, the motor of the extended-range hybrid started smoothly, and the car continued to move forward, but Zhou You thought of a question, "According to this reasoning, then mice may actually become intelligent life." ”

"How do you know that rats have no intelligence?" Shen Ling became interested again, "How do you know what the rat thinks?" Perhaps, in the eyes of mice, humans are just non-intelligent beings like elephants. It's just that humans are more dangerous to rats than elephants are to humans. Humans have more means to endanger the lives of rats. But humans can also provide resources to rats, such as rats that have managed to hide in barns and personify their minds. They must think that these stupid big human beings will bring us food. ”

"It's really possible." What the rats lack may be a complete language system and words. ”

Shen Ling: "Yes, from the perspective of rats, we can completely regard some human rodent extermination behaviors as natural disasters and normal natural behaviors. Even if he accidentally ingested rat poison put by humans and died, the logic of this matter can be attributed to the laws of nature. Anyway, with the super reproductive ability and survival ability of mice, they will never be completely extinct by humans. As long as species don't go extinct, they can be justified. ”

Zhou You: "I bet that if there is another mass extinction caused by a meteorite impact on the earth, all medium- and large-sized animals will be wiped out, and after tens of millions of years, the next generation of intelligent life on the earth will have to be mice." ”

Shen Ling also began to check the information, and said while checking: "Don't say it, if the mouse really gets a more complex brain structure in the future, it will become an intelligent life on the premise of maintaining its current size." With the rats' ability to reproduce, and the lower individual consumption, I think they have more potential than we do. Assuming that the earth can only support a maximum of 20 billion human beings, this number would have to be increased by at least four or five hundred times to 1 trillion when converted into mice. So how many scientist rats are there? ”

Zhou You snorted, "Also, with the consumption of rats and the ability to evolve hibernation, as long as it can reach the current total social productivity of human beings, it will be able to immediately exhaust the existing resources and build an ecological spaceship that can carry the lowest population and fly to the constellation Centauri in about a thousand years, even if it is just using the power system on Tianwen-1." ”

"Hey, look at what you said, I'm envious of the mice."

……

The two of them chatted like this, and forty-five minutes later, they arrived at the company.

This kind of small talk made Zhou You forget about his height.

During the day, Shen Ling was still busy, and in the afternoon, Shen Ling came to the workstation and asked first: "What happened to the feasibility study report on the transformation of Fuyuan pig farm?" ”

Zhou You replied: "I passed the trial in the morning, and I finished my work." ”

Shen Ling: "Then you don't have anything to do lately, right?" ”

Zhou You pointed to the computer monitor.

On the screen was a paper titled "Research Progress on Microbial Pharmaceutical Wastewater Treatment Technology".

He shrugged his shoulders and said: "The business department is talking about the wastewater treatment and renovation project of a pharmaceutical factory in Miancheng City, and it is colluding, and it will probably let me go on a business trip next week to explore the site, and then I have to get busy." This time, Mr. Zhong plans to let me be fully responsible for the one-stop work from the feasibility study report to the process flow to the engineering design and on-site construction guidance. ”

Shen Ling hesitated, "Uh, are you busy this week?" ”

"I'm just putting the finishing touches on this week, I'm not busy, what's wrong?"

Shen Ling seemed to hesitate, "In the past two days, Lao Liang, the vice president of the business department, wanted to take me on a business trip to Yicheng City to find out the production and discharge of each section of Yicheng Paper's papermaking wastewater. Yicheng Paper wants to invest 80 million yuan to renovate the sewage treatment station, and we are responsible for the design. There is a laboratory over there, and after the on-site sampling is taken, the test is done there, and the results are available on the spot, so it has to be overnight. I said I couldn't do it alone, and I wanted to get someone to go with me. You're all about the assay and the paper company, so ......"

Zhou You raised his head, stretched his neck to look at the office of the deputy general manager of the business department in the distance of the hall, and gave Shen Ling a second-understanding look.

"Okay, I'll go talk to Mr. Zhong. Yicheng Paper, big list, I'll drink soup with you. ”

Shen Ling secretly breathed a sigh of relief, "That's good." But I've already asked Mr. Zhong, and he said that he has no problem there, and it mainly depends on your own opinion. After all, you have been quite busy recently, and you have just become the backbone of the business, and it is not the project manager who does the work of the manager. Speaking of which, you are also quite good, it is really rare for undergraduates who have just joined the company for less than a year to be able to lead projects independently. ”

"Teacher Zhong is still a good person, willing to teach, and does not hide his selfishness. You don't know, in the first two months since I came, I sprayed Mr. Zhong every day. ”

"That's because Teacher Zhong really treats you as a closed disciple, and of course you learn quickly."

"If you don't repair the graphics card, don't be a graphics card repairer at Station B, you can learn faster than me," Zhou You suddenly lowered his voice, "Since Mr. Zhong knows that I am busy, but he is still willing to lend me to you, it must be that he also knows the urine nature of Mr. Liang." ”

"I guess so."

"Forget it, don't think so much, and don't be afraid. This kind of person belongs to students who have no guts, have a pit in their brains, make good money, and go to study art and film and television, isn't it fragrant? It's risky, it's not expensive, and it's okay to live. I have to do these weird things in the company, what about neurosis, if something happens one day, sooner or later I will be assigned to go to other provinces to expand business. ”

"Be quiet, be quiet, in fact, Mr. Liang didn't treat me well. I don't think that's necessarily the case, maybe it's a misunderstanding. ”

Zhou You shook his finger, "You don't understand, man." Oh yes, I did you a favor this time. Originally, I had to have at least five or six thousand project commissions for this kind of work, but Mr. Liang definitely had to give me a knife at most three thousand, and you can help me get a cheap 3070 mining card compensation another day, and I still use the 960 I bought in college, and I can't take the 3A masterpiece anymore. ”

"Okay, okay! Can't I give you one for free! ”

"Covered with a white cloth?"

"Well, really."

"You......"

"But I connected an external capacitor board and rescued it, but no one wanted it, it didn't look good, but it was definitely good, and it definitely wouldn't burn the motherboard, wouldn't I give you a warranty?"

"Deal."

……

In the evening, Zhou You first sent Shen Ling to the gate of her community, then turned left and left again, and returned to the gate of his own community, but the parking pole that should have been automatically raised was broken.

Zhou You honked the horn, rolled down the window, and shouted, "Please open the door." ”

Lao Wei, the doorman in the sentry box at the door, stretched his neck to take a look, and saw that it was Zhou You, and while pressing the switch, he smiled and said: "Yo, Xiao Zhou, when will you take your girlfriend home, it's not appropriate for the girl's family to stand there and wait for you early in the morning." ”

"Shut up, how many times have you said that it's not my girlfriend, colleague! Colleague only! ”

"Hey, I'm a colleague now, but I can't say for sure in the future. I think you're a good match. A handsome man and a woman are very suitable, seize the opportunity. ”

"Go, go, open the door."

At the beginning, Zhou You was engaged in decoration by himself, and he often led the decoration team in and out here, and he was quite familiar with the doorman Lao Wei, and he could joke from time to time.

Lao Wei is a good person, once Zhou You bought a computer desk by himself, which was too big to fit into the elevator, or Lao Wei helped Zhou You and the porter to take the stairs to the third floor.

However, the good mood of traveling all day cracked in the first moment after returning home.

Scales, measuring height.

169.3 cm.

Zhou You walked to the balcony, looked up at the starry sky, and his mind was full of confusion.

He didn't understand.

His view of science was shaken by a tremendous impact.

Of course, he knows that people's height will change in the morning and evening, and when he gets up in the morning, he will be about 2~3 cm taller than before going to bed.

But after a whole day, I lost a full 3.5 centimeters.

It's not scientific.