by Liu Cixin
“Yes, of course, how could Brother Wen forget your advice? Nowadays, he’s been actively contributing to society—he’s built four elementary schools in impoverished districts. He’s also dedicated to making progress in politics. The city has already elected him as its delegate to the National People’s Congress!” As she spoke, the visitor set the fruit basket onto the coffee table.
“Take that with you,” Chen Xufeng said, waving a hand.
“We would never bring anything too fancy, Chief Chen. We know how you’d hate it. This is just some fruit as a token of our gratitude. I suppose you haven’t seen the way Chief Wen tears up whenever he mentions you. He calls you our loving parents reborn, you know.”
Once the visitor left, Chen Xufeng shut the door and returned to the coffee table. He tipped all the fruit out of the basket, picked up the check at the bottom, and slid it in his pocket.
The Senior Official and Lu Wenming eyed Chen Xufeng coldly. Clearly they hadn’t known any of this. Wen Xiong was the director general of Licheng Group, an enormous corporation spanning dining, long-distance travel, and many other services. Its start-up money had come from drug profits from Wen Xiong’s crime syndicate, which had made this city into a crucial hub in the Yunnan-Russia drug-trafficking route. With Wen Xiong’s successful expansion into aboveboard commerce, his underground business, drawing nourishment from the former, grew even more rapidly. The result in the hinterland city was the proliferation of drugs and the decline of public safety. And Chen Xufeng, the backstage supporter, was a powerful safeguard for its continued survival.
“You took payment in dollars? It must have gone to your son,” Bai Bing said cheerfully. “The money that’s paying for his American college education all came from Wen Xiong, after all…. Speaking of which, don’t you want to see what he’s doing right now, on the other side of the planet? That’s easy enough. It’s midnight in Boston right now, but the last two times I saw him, he wasn’t sleeping yet.” Bai Bing sent the point of view up into space, twirled the Earth 180 degrees, then zoomed in on North America. He found the city splendid with lights on the Atlantic coast, then located the apartment building so quickly it was clear he must have searched it before. The point of view entered an apartment bedroom, exposing an awkward scene: the boy in his room with two prostitutes, one white and one black.
“See how your son’s spending your money, Chief Chen?”
Furious, Chen Xufeng tipped the monitor screen-side down onto the briefcase.
The deeply stunned group once again sank into a long silence. At last Lu Wenming asked, “Why did you spend all this time just running away? Didn’t you consider using more … conventional means to free yourself from this predicament?”
“You mean, report to Discipline Inspection? Excellent idea, yes. I had the same idea at first, so I used the digital mirror to run a search on the Discipline Inspection leadership.” Bai Bing raised his head to look at Lu Wenming. “You can guess what I saw. I didn’t want to end up like your old college buddy here. In that case, could I go to the public prosecutors or the Anti-Corruption Bureau? I’m sure Director Guo and Chief Chang process the vast majority of serious accusations strictly by the law, and very carefully tiptoe around a small portion. For what I’d report, they’d join you in hunting me down the moment I told them. Where else could I go? Could I get the press to run an exposé? I think you’re all familiar with those certain key figures in the provincial news media groups. After all, weren’t they the ones who came up with the Senior Official’s shining résumé? The only difference between those reporters and prostitutes is that they sell a different body part. It’s all tied together in one big web, not a strand safe to touch. I didn’t have anywhere to go.”
“You could go to the Central Commission,” the Senior Official said neutrally, closely observing Bai Bing for a reaction.
Bai Bing nodded. “It’s the only choice left. But I’m a nobody. I don’t know anyone. I came to see Song Cheng first to find reliable connections, pursuit or no.” Bai Bing paused, then continued, “But this decision wasn’t an easy one. You’re all smart people. You know the ultimate consequences of doing this.”
“It means that this technology will be revealed to the world.”
“That’s right. Every bit of the fog that covers history and reality will be swept away. Anything and everything, in light and darkness, past and present, will be stripped naked and paraded before the light of day. At that time, light and dark will be forced into a deciding battle for supremacy unlike anything in history. The world’s going to descend into chaos—”
“But the end result will be the victory of the light,” said Song Cheng, who’d been silent until then. He walked in front of Bai Bing and looked straight at him. “Do you know how shadows derive their power? It comes from their very nature of secrecy. Once they’re exposed to the light, their power is gone. You see that with most cases of corruption. And your digital mirror is the burning brand that will tear the darkness open.”
The Senior Official exchanged looks with Chen and Lu.
Silence fell. On the superstring computer screen, the atomic-level digital mirror of Earth hovered placidly in space.
The Senior Official put a hand on Bai Bing’s shoulder. “Why don’t you move the time slider in the simulation farther forward?”
Bai Bing, Chen Xufeng, and Lu Wenming looked uncomprehendingly at the Senior Official.
“If we can accurately predict the future, we can change the present and control the course the future will take. We’d control everything—young man, don’t you think this is possible? Perhaps, together, we can shoulder the great duty of shaping the history to come.”
Bai Bing realized what he was saying and gave a pained smile, shaking his head. He stood and walked over to the computer. He clicked and dragged the time slider bar, extending its length beyond Now into the future. Then he said to the Senior Official, “Try it for yourself.”
INFINITE RECURSION
The Senior Official leapt toward the computer, quicker than anyone had ever seen him move, bringing to mind the dark image of a hungry eagle spotting a baby chick on the ground. He moved the mouse with practiced motions, sliding the time past the Now. In the instant that the slider entered the future, an error window popped up.
Stack Overflow
Bai Bing took the mouse from the Senior Official’s hand. “Let’s run a debugging program and trace that step by step.”
The simulation software returned to the state it had been in before the error and began to run line by line. When the real Bai Bing moved the slider past the present, the simulation Bai Bing in the digital mirror did the same. The debugging program immediately zoomed in on the digital mirror’s superstring computer display, allowing them to see that, on the simulated screen, the simulated simulated Bai Bing two layers down was also moving the slider past the present. Then the debugging program zoomed in on the superstring computer display in the third layer…. In this way the debugger progressed layer after layer deeper, each layer’s Bai Bing in the process of moving the slider past the present time, an infinite Droste image.
“This is recursion, a programming approach where a piece of code calls itself. Under normal circumstances, it finds its answer a finite number of layers down, after which the answer follows the chain of calls back to the surface. But here we see a function calling itself without end, forever unable to find an answer, in infinite recursion. Because it needs to store resources used by the previous layer on the stack at every call, it created the stack overflow we saw earlier. With infinite recursion, even a superstring computer’s ultimate capacity can be used up.”
“Ah.” The Senior Official nodded.
“As a result, even though the course of the universe was decided at the big bang, we still can’t know the future. For people who hate the determinist idea that everything comes from a chain of cause and effect, this probably provides some consolation.”
“Ah …” The Senior Official nodded again. He
dragged out the sound for a long, long time.
THE AGE OF THE MIRROR
Bai Bing discovered that a strange change had overcome the Senior Official, as if something had been sucked out of him. His whole body seemed to be withering, swaying as if it had lost the strength to keep itself upright. His face was pale, his breathing rapid. He put both hands on the chair’s arms and lowered himself into the seat, the movement difficult and painstaking, as if he were afraid his bones would snap.
“Young man, you have destroyed my life’s work,” the Senior Official said eventually. “You win.”
Bai Bing looked at Chen Xufeng and Lu Wenming, finding that they were at a loss like himself. But Song Cheng stood straight-backed and unafraid among them, his face alight with victory.
Chen Xufeng slowly stood, drawing his gun from his trouser pocket.
“Stop,” said the Senior Official, not loudly, but with unsurpassed authority in his voice. The gun in Chen Xufeng’s hand stilled in midair. “Put the gun down,” the Senior Official commanded, but Chen didn’t move.
“Sir, at this stage, we have to act decisively. We can explain away their deaths, shot and killed while resisting arrest and attempting escape—”
“Put the gun down, you mad dog!” the Senior Official roared.
The hand holding the gun fell to Chen Xufeng’s side. He slowly turned toward the Senior Official. “I’m no mad dog. I’m a loyal dog, a dog who understands gratitude! A dog who will never betray you, sir! You can trust someone like me, who’s crawled step by step up from the bottom, to know right and wrong like a good dog toward the superior who made him into who he is today. I don’t think the slick thoughts of intelligentsia.”
“What are you trying to say?” Lu Wenming, who had long been silent, got to his feet.
“Everyone knows what I mean. I’m not like some people, taking a step only after making sure there’s two or three steps of retreat open. Where’s my road out? At a time like this, if I don’t protect myself, who will do it for me?!”
Bai Bing said calmly, “It’s useless to kill me. That’s the fastest way to expose the digital mirror technology to the public.”
“Even an idiot would have realized he’d take precautionary measures. You’ve really lost all reason,” Lu Wenming said quietly to Chen Xufeng.
Chen Xufeng said, “Of course I know the bastard wouldn’t be that stupid, but we have our own technological resources. If we put in everything we have, we might be able to completely wipe out the digital mirror technology.”
Bai Bing shook his head. “That’s impossible. Chief Chen, this is the era of the internet. Concealing and distributing information is easy, and I have the defender’s advantage. You can’t beat me at my game, not even if you put in your best tech experts. I could tell you where I’ve hidden the digital mirror software backups and how I plan to release them after my death, and you wouldn’t be able to do a thing. The initialization parameters are even easier to hide and distribute. Forget about that idea.”
Chen Xufeng slowly put the gun back into his pocket and sat down.
“You think you’re already standing on the summit of history, yes?” the Senior Official said tiredly to Song Cheng.
“Justice stands on the summit of history,” Song Cheng said solemnly.
“Indeed, the digital mirror has destroyed us all. But its power to destroy far exceeds this.”
“Yes, it will destroy all evil.”
The Senior Official nodded slowly.
“Then it will destroy all the corruption and immorality that comes short of evil.”
The Senior Official nodded again. “In the end, it will destroy all of human civilization.”
His words made the others take pause. Song Cheng said, “Human civilization has never beheld such a bright future. This battle between good and evil will wash away all its grime.”
“And then?” the Senior Official asked softly.
“And then, the great age of the mirror will arrive. All of humanity will face a mirror in which every action can be perfectly seen and no crime can be hidden. Every sinner will inevitably meet their judgment. It will be an era without darkness, where the sun shines into every crevice. Human society will become as pure as crystal.”
“In other words, society will be dead,” the Senior Official said. He raised his head to look Song Cheng in the eyes.
“Care to explain?” Song Cheng said, with the mocking note of a victor looking at a loser.
“Imagine if DNA never made mistakes, always replicating and inheriting with perfect fidelity. What would life on Earth become?”
While Song Cheng considered this, Bai Bing answered for him. “In that case, life would no longer exist on Earth. The basis of the evolution of life is mutation, caused by mistakes in DNA.”
The Senior Official nodded at Bai Bing. “Society is the same way. Its evolution and vitality is rooted in the myriad urges and desires departing from the morality laid out by the majority. A fish can’t live in perfectly clear water. A society where no one ever makes mistakes in ethics is, in reality, dead.”
“Your attempt to defend your crimes is laughable,” Song Cheng said contemptuously.
“Not completely,” Bai Bing said immediately, surprising the others. He hesitated for a few seconds, as if to steel his resolve. “To be honest, there was another reason I didn’t want to make the mirror simulation software public. I … I don’t much like the idea of a world armed with the digital mirror either.”
“Are you afraid of the light like them?” Song Cheng demanded.
“I’m an ordinary guy. I’m not involved in any shady business, but there are different kinds of the light you’re talking about. If someone beams a searchlight through your bedroom window in the middle of the night, that’s called light pollution…. I’ll give an example. I’ve only been married two years, but I’ve already experienced that … wearying of the aesthetics, so to speak. So I got … uh, involved with a coworker. My wife doesn’t know, of course. Everyone’s lives are good—better this way even I suspect. I wouldn’t be able to live this kind of life in the age of the mirror.”
“It’s an immoral and irresponsible life to begin with!” Song Cheng said, anger entering his voice.
“But doesn’t everyone live like that? Who doesn’t have some sort of secret? If you want to be happy these days, sometimes, you have to bend a little. How many people can be shining spotless saints like you? If the digital mirror makes everyone into perfect people who can’t take a step out of line, then—then what’s even fucking left?”
The Senior Official laughed, and even Lu and Chen, who’d been grim-faced all this time, cracked a smile. The Senior Official patted Bai Bing on the shoulder. “Young man, your argument might not be particularly high-minded, but you’ve thought far deeper than our scholar over here.” He turned toward Song Cheng as he spoke. “There’s no way we can extricate ourselves now, so you can put aside your hatred and thirst for vengeance toward us. As one so well-learned on the subject of social philosophy, surely you’re not so shallow-minded as to think that history is made from virtue and justice?”
The Senior Official’s words were a potent tranquilizer for Song Cheng. He recovered from the fever of victory. “My duty is to punish the evil, protect the virtuous, and uphold justice,” he said after a moment of hesitation, his tone much calmer.
The Senior Official nodded, satisfied. “You didn’t give a straight answer. Very good, it shows that you’re not quite that narrow-minded yet.”
Here, the Senior Official suddenly shuddered all over, as if someone had dumped cold water over him. He broke out of his daze. The weakness was gone; whatever vitality had deserted him earlier seemed to have returned. He stood, gravely buttoned his collar, and meticulously smoothed the wrinkles from his clothes. Then he said with utmost solemnity to Lu Wenming and Chen Xufeng, “Comrades, from now on, everything can be seen in the digital mirror. Please take care with your behavior and image.”
Lu Wenmin
g stood, his expression heavy. He attended to his appearance as the Senior Official had, then gave a long sigh. “Yes, from now on, Heaven watches from above.”
Chen Xufeng stood unmoving with his head hanging.
The Senior Official looked at everyone in turn. “Very well, I’ll be leaving now. I have a busy day at work tomorrow.” He turned toward Bai Bing. “Young man, come to my office tomorrow at six in the evening. Bring the superstring computer.” Then he turned toward Chen and Lu. “As for you two, do your best. Xufeng, keep your chin up. We may have committed sins beyond pardon, but we don’t need to feel so ashamed. Compared to them,” he pointed to Song Cheng and Bai Bing, “what we’ve done really doesn’t amount to much.”
He opened the door and left with his head held high.
BIRTHDAY
The next day really was a busy day for the Senior Official.
As soon as he entered the office, he summoned key officials in charge of industry, agriculture, finance, environmental protection, and more, one by one, to debrief them on their next orders of business. Though each meeting was short, the Senior Official drew on his ample experience to zero in on important aspects of the work and problems requiring attention. With his well-honed conversational skills, too, each official left thinking that this was only another typical work debriefing. They noticed nothing unusual.
At ten thirty in the morning, after sending away the last official, the Senior Official settled down to document his views on the province’s economic development, and problems he foresaw with large- and medium-scale province-owned enterprises. The compilation wasn’t long, less than two thousand characters, but it distilled decades of reflection and work experience. Anyone familiar with the Senior Official’s philosophies would be astonished reading this document—it differed considerably from his previous views. In his long years at the apex of power, this was the first time he expressed views unadulterated by personal considerations, solely coming from concern for the Party and the country’s best interests.
