Letters Sent Back to Earth (Part 3)
...themselves are the laws.
The ancients used to say that immortals could live as long as heaven and earth, enduring through the ages. It seems this was no idle boast. They have become one with the universe—as long as the universe endures, they will not perish.
Ever since they transformed into laws, they dictated everything about the cosmos. From that moment on, the universe began to acquire order. In other words, the universe was merely executing their will. Humanity was born within the laws, grew within the laws, and reached the boundaries within the laws. Honestly, when you think about it, it's quite absurd—we're like a colony of ants kept in a glass tank, feeling our way forward in the dark, believing we can reach the stars, but the farthest we can ever touch is the glass wall itself.
Sylvia, I shouldn't be telling you all this—these are classified matters. Perhaps it's because I've been so lonely aboard the Paper Kite, and I just wanted to share something from the heart, so I ended up pouring it all out to you. I hope you won't be troubled by any of this, or feel weighed down by it. After all, living happily is what matters most.
That is my only wish for you.
Best wishes.
August 19, 2018.
4
Dear Sylvia, I think it's time for us to say our final farewell.
I just received a message from headquarters. The major powers have reached a consensus—the plan proceeds as scheduled. I am to stand by for orders.
In these final moments, I've actually grown calm. No longer so anxious. It's like when I was a child and had to get a shot—the nurse would swab my skin with an alcohol cotton ball, round and round, and that was the most nerve-wracking part. Once the needle went in, it wasn't so bad. Ha.
The waiting is what's unbearable—especially the waiting of longing. Sylvia, I truly regret not asking you out for coffee, or taking in a movie together. But now, anything I say is too late.
Perhaps even after reading my letters, you'll feel nothing for my devotion. What captures your interest might instead be the true purpose of the Paper Kite's voyage. If that's how you feel, I don't blame you. The hardest thing in this world to find is mutual affection—and besides, we shared only a single encounter.
You may think my feelings are nothing but a childish game, but only I know how real they are. Ever since that interview, through every day and night of the month that followed, your smile has been etched into my bones like a brand that can never be erased.
I know that interview was just your job. But still, I ask your forgiveness for not telling you the true purpose of the Paper Kite's voyage. Now, I could be activating the plan at any moment. There is no longer any point in keeping secrets. If this is to become known to the whole world, I want you to be the first person to spread the word.
Consider it my little effort for love.
You were right at the time—the Paper Kite's launch was not a routine manned space experiment. It carried a grave mission. Its launch was meant to shatter the cage that the physical world has built around humanity. In my last letter, I told you that a highly advanced god-tier civilization exists in the universe, one that has transformed itself into laws, into the very rules governing the cosmos—allowing us to understand this universe while simultaneously setting boundaries on what we can touch. They are like amber, sealing humanity inside like a tiny grain of sand.
If humanity refuses to be locked in, then this seal must be broken.
Sylvia, I imagine you've already guessed the Paper Kite's true intention, but you can't be certain—because it sounds too absurd. The purpose of my voyage is to defy the Creator. Since they have already become the laws, then what I must do is shatter those laws!
The 1.4-megaton nuclear explosion will produce consequences far beyond the catastrophic damage to Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field. The high energy released by the blast, finding no effective medium for dissipation in the vacuum, will instantaneously generate a powerful force field. Any matter passing through this field will decay under the pressure—including light.
Light is the fastest substance in the universe, and the speed of light remains constant in a vacuum because photons have no mass.
And now, we are going to give photons mass.
That's right—everything I've done has been to break one of the foundational principles of the theory of relativity: the "principle of the constancy of the speed of light"!
From time immemorial, light has been sacred. No one can change light. The constancy of the speed of light is a fact, not a conclusion—like 1+1=2, it simply is what it is, with no "why." But today, we will launch our assault on the prison that was set for humanity. We will shatter this invisible barrier! Through a violent explosion, I will slow down light!
From this point forward, "the constancy of the speed of light" will become a joke. Once the constant speed of light is broken, all the physical laws built upon it will collapse wholesale—relativity, the laws of thermodynamics, Newton's laws of motion, even quantum mechanics and Hubble's law will suffer a collective implosion. They will come apart like a tower of blocks with its foundation knocked out, crumbling in an instant.
The laws and rules governing the operation of this universe will become absurd and chaotic. Every barrier and constraint imposed upon us will dissipate like smoke! From now on, humanity will no longer be subject to any limitation—we will be free to develop without bound, guided only by our own will.
O gods who inhabit the laws—this time, I will destroy you with my own hands.
This universe will end the era of the "Great Silence." Civilizations of different races and forms of life will spring up like bamboo shoots after rain, flourishing across the vast expanse of time and space. What humanity faces will no longer be a lifeless universe, a universe that never responds—it will become vibrant, alive with vigor, a thousand species vying under the frosty sky. The universe will no longer belong to one alone—it will belong to all!
Now you know why I didn't tell you these things back then. If I had, you would have thought I was insane.
But the plan is about to be activated. You can write all of this in the newspaper now. Sylvia, this story will make you the most influential journalist in human history. Telling you all this is a violation of my confidentiality agreement, but consider it my final parting gift to you.
As long as you live happily, I am satisfied.
Best wishes.
September 3, 2018.
5
Sylvia, this is the final letter I will write to you.
The order from headquarters has come through. I am about to activate the nuclear device. The control panel is right in front of me—I only need to input a six-digit code and the bombs will detonate in an instant. But I must confess, many people would want to slap me right now—at this most critical moment, after entering five digits, I was suddenly overwhelmed by an irresistible thought of you, so I decided to pause and finish writing this letter first.
At this final crossroads, I take up my pen and find I have a thousand words but don't know what to say—only a jumble of emotions. Although I'm about to reach the end, I still don't know what my fate will be. As I told you, in the space environment, the probability of successfully initiating the nuclear device is less than ten percent. The other ninety percent means the activation fails. Even if the bombs don't explode, I still can't return—the Paper Kite's energy will soon be depleted, and then, like a kite with its string cut, I will lose all contact with Earth, endlessly orbiting in high Earth orbit until I die naturally, or am shattered by some passing meteor.
In that case, this experiment would be quickly forgotten by humanity, and my image would be frozen forever in that article you wrote.
But even with only a ten percent chance, we have to try, don't we? Humanity is a strange species—like moths drawn to flame. And love is no different.
I'm suddenly reminded of a passage from the Bhagavad Gita: "I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Of course, those words weren't directed at humanity—they were meant for the god-tier civilization. At this moment, it's those lofty beings who should be trembling, not us humans.
Alright, Sylvia, farewell. No matter what, you must live well. If there is a next life, we will meet again.
Best wishes.
September 8, 2018.
6
Sylvia, I wrote this letter, but I don't know who to send it to.
Because Earth is no more.
That ten percent probability came to pass. I successfully detonated the nuclear device, and in an instant I was reduced to ash and scattered. All I remember is the shockwave surging upward, swallowing me in an instant—and to be honest, I don't even know how I died.
I awoke amid a cloud of dust—dust from the shattered remnants of Earth.
I could hardly believe my eyes. The blue planet was gone, torn apart by the immense gravitational field, its fragments floating in space like particles of foam. Another portion had been captured by Mars, becoming a ring of dust that orbited around it.
They told me everything that happened after I died, and what Earth looked like as it disintegrated. Yes, I met them—or rather, it wasn't meeting so much as knowing... In any case, this was a sense humans have never experienced before, and I don't know how to describe it to you.
If you were still here, you'd certainly want to know what they truly are. Actually, they are like humans—they too value their own existence. In that sense, there's no fundamental difference between us. At the instant the nuclear bomb detonated, they suffered a catastrophe unlike anything they had ever experienced. This civilization had been too comfortable in the cosmos for far too long, nearly lulled into hibernation—they never imagined that beings as insignificant as dust, as humans, would do something so devastatingly self-destructive. With no time to formulate any contingency, they could only frantically alter the physical constants in the vicinity of Earth: vacuum density, photon mass, the law of inertia, and the coefficients of entropy law—all transformed in a single instant. The natural laws we thought would never change were upended in a heartbeat. If Earth's scientists could have witnessed this, their jaws would have dropped—but they would never see it. The cascade of changing physical constants triggered gravitational fluctuations. The massive gravitational field, like peeling an orange, tore Earth apart in an instant.
They escaped their own annihilation in haste, but destroyed the entire Earth in the process. However, they told me not to grieve—because Earth was obliterated in an instant. No living thing suffered. I don't know whether to feel relieved or devastated.
I asked them what the meaning of humanity's existence truly was. They didn't mock me—perhaps they haven't figured out the meaning of their own existence, either. They simply told me that humanity is not alone. In the universe, there are many forms of life like ours—only, we have no way to contact each other. The universe is not silent—it's just that we cannot hear each other's voices.
Every civilization has its barriers—even they are no exception. They set barriers for each civilization only because they wanted to understand their own barriers. Just as humans experiment on lab mice to study themselves, the universe has become an infinitely vast laboratory, and every one of us is a test subject—including themselves, the ones who built the laboratory.
When you think about it, it really does feel rather pointless. All of humanity's efforts from birth to the present day have been in pursuit of the meaning of our own existence. But even the Creator has no answer.
I am indeed dead, but not entirely gone—it's a very strange state, one in which I can still communicate with them. They've kept me in this state because they're curious about my suicidal act. They asked if I had any last wishes. I said I wanted to write one more letter to Sylvia.
Sylvia, life inherently has no meaning. The meaning of life lies in our striving to give it meaning—isn't that so?
I believe you would agree with me.
Alright, I won't say more. My time is up. I've decided to join them—to become part of the laws of the universe.
However, I've applied for a new law of my own: when one life deeply longs for another, the other will be able to feel it.
I don't know whether this is a law that bears the imprint of humanity, but I think the entire universe would understand.
Sylvia, my longing for you will endure forever,
Until the end of time.