Reality Programming Association

Chapter 147 -61: The Prophecy of the Great Flood

Wen Xiao’s words left Yu Xian feeling a profound sense of unreality.

Multiple equations. Fitted curves. Constraint conditions. Had these two girls—one wielding mysticism and the other writing code—actually managed to deconstruct the concept of “fortune-telling” using hardcore mathematical logic?

Viewed this way, fortune-telling was like solving a massive system of simultaneous equations. Every past fact was a known condition. When enough known conditions were gathered, that singular “function curve”—the truth of fate—would surface.

According to their reasoning, the underlying logic of so-called mystical predictions was astonishingly akin to experimental data fitting in physics and algorithmic regression in computer science. They seemed to arrive at the exact same destination.

If that were truly the case, the credibility of the trigram Shao Yiyi had calculated—*endless days of tribulation, Land Sinking into the Sea for untold years*—was likely far higher than he had ever imagined.

“What’s wrong, Brother Cos? Are you spooked by our AI fortune-telling?” Shao Yiyi waved a hand in front of Yu Xian’s face, noticing he had been silent for a while.

Yu Xian snapped back to reality. He tore his gaze away from the curtain of rain outside the window and looked at the three people in front of him. Shi Zuozhou was still fiddling with his bracelet, Wen Xiao was staring intently at her computer screen reading something unknown, and Shao Yiyi was looking at him with sheer curiosity.

“I’m not spooked,” Yu Xian shook his head, speaking in a deep voice. “I just think that if your theory holds up, then the events that have unfolded at the School of Physics over the past few days might have a reasonable explanation.”

He sat up straight, his tone solemn. “I think there are some things you all need to know.”

Next, using the calmest and most objective tone he could muster, Yu Xian laid out every incident that had occurred at the School of Physics over the past few weeks for the two girls.

He detailed everything, from Professor Gao Jiguo’s suicide and that inexplicable opposing vote to the desperate message left on the blackboard reading, “I have failed all of humanity.” He recounted Professor Shu’s research group abruptly announcing that all its members were going abroad for academic exchange, followed by their laboratory being cleared out overnight and several large trucks loaded with precision instruments disappearing to an unknown destination. Finally, he described last night’s events—Professor Ning Qikun’s pale face illuminated by the screen, and the “final lecture” he delivered on the podium that sounded terrifyingly like a dying declaration.

“Dead, fled, or taken away,” Yu Xian said softly. “These are the fates of three top physics professors at JCU. And all of this happened in the span of just two weeks.”

Wen Xiao hugged her knees, her face turning slightly pale. Shao Yiyi opened her mouth but couldn’t make a sound.

“Why would anyone do this? They’re just teachers…” Wen Xiao looked at Yu Xian, her eyes filled with panic.

“Old Shi and I discussed three possibilities earlier,” Yu Xian said, glancing at the silent Shi Zuozhou beside him. “The first is a technological blockade, just like the Sophon in Three-Body. The second is that someone has deemed physics as ‘heresy’ and is carrying out an intellectual purge of burning books and burying scholars. But now, based on your scientific fortune-telling and the trigram we calculated earlier…”

“What trigram?” Shi Zuozhou was taken aback.

“Endless days of tribulation, Land Sinking into the Sea for untold years,” Shao Yiyi murmured, as if realizing something.

Yu Xian stood up and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows. The glass reflected his somewhat exhausted face. Behind the pane, the entire city of Jiangcheng was enveloped in a curtain of rain, its lights flickering like candle flames.

“Therefore, I’m leaning toward the third hypothesis.” Yu Xian turned around to face the three of them. “Physicists are the people who best understand the laws governing this world. If some kind of unfathomable catastrophe is about to befall us…” He pointed at the pouring rain outside the window. “Then they would undoubtedly be the very first to ‘see’ it.”

“Are you saying they were…” Wen Xiao bit her lip.

“Yes. The compliant ones were drafted and taken away to build Noah’s Ark. As for the disobedient ones, in order to prevent panic and cover up the truth, they had to be…” Yu Xian’s gaze landed on Shao Yiyi. “When you look back at your trigram now, you realize…”

Shao Yiyi shuddered.

“Science and mysticism might just point toward the exact same conclusion…” Yu Xian took a deep breath. The sensation of being shrouded by a massive shadow left him slightly suffocated. “The Great Flood.”

The lounge plunged into deathly silence once again. The four of them exchanged bewildered glances. That abnormal weather phenomenon, dubbed an “artificial rainstorm caused by a physics experiment”—a natural disaster that even meteorological experts were still endlessly debating and trying to explain away as an “El Niño effect”—had, at this very moment, transformed into a fatalistic certainty.

Shi Zuozhou lowered the Enoch Bracelet in his hands. His eyes, which usually held a constant hint of laughter, were now dull and lifeless.

“Endless days…” he murmured, repeating the words. He turned to look at the rain-swallowed window. “Old Yu, are you serious?”

Shi Zuozhou’s voice was a bit dry. He twitched the corners of his mouth, seemingly trying to ease the tension with his usual bantering tone, but the smile froze on his face, looking worse than a wince. “Are you guys saying that… this rain isn’t going to stop? That it will keep pouring and pouring until it floods Jiangcheng… no, until it drowns the whole world?”

Yu Xian didn’t speak; he simply looked at Shi Zuozhou in silence. Sometimes, silence itself was the most deafening answer of all.

Shi Zuozhou took deep, heavy breaths, as if trying to expel the stifling air from his chest. He abruptly stood up, paced around the lounge for a couple of steps, and then frustratedly ruffled his hair.

“But that doesn’t make any scientific sense!”