汪翔： 《盧剛的裂變》（六之一）（中英）

《邏輯的祭壇：盧剛的裂變》

——一場心智內爆的悲劇詩篇

汪 翔 （美國）

第一樂章 · 常量的熔化

愛荷華大學物理係休息室，1991年11月。

室裏彌漫著咖啡殘渣和微波爐爆米花的焦味，狹小的空間被熒光燈的冷光切割得棱角分明。山林華倚靠在角落的一把塑料椅上，椅子微微後傾，抵著斑駁的灰色磚牆。膝頭攤著本翻舊的《物理評論快報》，手指在公式上輕輕劃過，指尖帶著北京冬夜裏粉筆留下的粗糙觸感。眼鏡有些蒙霧，蒸汽從手中的茶杯升起，映著門外自動販賣機的微光。

窗外，秋天像幅未完成的畫，枯葉在人行道上翻滾，追逐著，無憂無慮。

臉上帶著種柔和，像是被歲月輕輕打磨過的少年。笑容總是恰到好處，能在係討論會上讓美國同學的笑話和國際學生的沉默找到微妙的平衡。三年前來時，帶著隻破舊行李箱，英語磕磕絆絆。

與盧剛的鋒芒畢露不同，山林華的溫和像盞低瓦的燈，溫暖卻不刺眼。然而，在平靜目光深處，藏著一絲不安。他知道，在這裏，外國學生往往被視為機器上的齒輪，運轉得再好，也難逃被忽視的命運。

他看了眼牆上的鍾：下午2:45。離研討會開始還有十五分鍾。

他想起早些時候在走廊裏看到的盧剛，步伐急促，眼神像暴風雨前的天空，低聲自語著什麽。

他本想上前說點什麽。也許是家鄉的餃子，也許是愛荷華河的波光讓他想起北京的護城河。

但盧剛的目光像一堵牆，隔絕了一切。

他停在那堵牆前，想起自己初來時的躊躇——那時，他也曾撞過這樣的目光。後來他學會了微笑，用溫和包裹所有拒絕。這種溫和是某種更深的絕望。

他歎了口氣，合上期刊，起身。

空氣裏似乎多了絲沉重，像某種未解的方程，在心頭微微晃動。

 

沒有風。雪從天上墜下，不旋轉也不飄蕩，隻是筆直地落，像從無形之上墜下的一串串邏輯。沒有溫度也沒有聲音。落在地上時，連空氣都不敢動。

凡·艾倫大樓像塊巨大的白骨，嵌在雪地裏。

窗戶的反光是數學的光，細碎、精準，卻毫無人性。

暖氣的嗡鳴從牆體內部傳來，像巨獸在夢中翻身。

盧剛坐在宿舍窗前，盯著那棟建築出神。那是他的聖殿，也是他的墳墓。

桌上攤著論文，他的失敗，印著導師冰冷的評語：“缺乏創造性。” 

五個字像被釘在額頭上的方程式。紙張被手心的汗漬弄皺，墨跡暈開，形成一個模糊的橢圓，就像一個被世界刪除的名字。

他抬起頭。窗外的雪像光的屍體，在空氣中堆積。屋內的燈光發出一種藍白色的閃爍，照得牆上那張母親的舊照片失去輪廓。他想起母親的手，冬天總裂著口子，洗衣水結冰，她用溫水泡破的手撫過他的額頭。 那時的白，不冷。那是有呼吸的白，有米香、爐火、皮膚的味道。而現在，這白是冷的，它沒有溫度，也不屬於任何生物。

空氣變稠，時間開始靜止。

 

鍾表的秒針停止在“十二”。那是一個不合邏輯的時刻。他盯著它看，聽見自己的血在體內滴答流淌。雪落在玻璃上，結成一層薄薄的晶體，像是他被拒絕的所有詞語的集合。

合上論文，黑色封皮在光下反出一層硬質的冷。冷沿著指尖蔓延，鑽入掌心。他覺得那是一種“概念的痛”。不是身體，而是結構上。像一個完美的函數圖被突然抹去頂點，所有曲線同時失去意義。

“缺乏創造性。”導師的聲音又一次在空中響起。

沒有來源，像從光裏泄出的命令。他低聲重複那句話，仿佛要把它拆解成最小的邏輯單位。

 “創造……性。”

 “性”這個音節像鈍器，撞擊在他舌尖。他笑了一下。不是喜悅，是斷裂。他感到自己體內的神經像被電流擦過。有金屬的味道在舌根升起。

然而，在他的左小腹，一股近乎生理的痙攣突然卷起。不是“概念的痛”，是粗糙、動物性的絞痛，像一個被邏輯程序強行壓製的人類的髒器在抗議。

他弓起背，指尖死死摳住桌沿，感覺到血管在皮膚下像蚯蚓般跳動。

 

他是一個被代碼控製的完美機器，但機器的底座，他的肉身，正在拒絕服從。他嗅到自己汗水裏那股淡淡的酸澀，恐懼和疲憊的化學殘渣，是任何$Sigma$符號都無法歸零的“低級變量”。

他被迫與這具軀殼裏殘存的、想要“活下去”的本能進行一場冷酷的搏鬥，而邏輯的命令，正用冰錐刺穿這股溫熱的、無理性的掙紮。

他伸出手，指尖在空氣中劃出幾何圖形。

幾何符號在空氣中微微閃光。是從腦內逸出的粒子。是神的碎屑，是理性過熱的副產品。它們開始旋轉，繞著他的頭。嗡嗡作響，像遠處一架看不見的機器在啟動。

 

他將鋼筆懸停在筆記本上，試圖寫下最終的修正指令。光線在筆尖處折裂，照出一枚不請自來的光斑。不是實驗室燈的反射，而是某種帶著塵土味的暖黃。

光斑裏，隱約有一塊帶褐色裂紋的老式肥皂，氣味是北方冬天廉價的檀香。那氣味忽然讓他想起父親在雪地裏咳嗽，用煙草味的白霧取暖。

記憶在腦中卡成一枚不規則的碎片，像一段拒絕被計算的非歐幾何。

“清除。” 他在心裏重複指令。

可右手的食指，卻不自覺地在紙上描摹那塊肥皂的形狀。不是完美的圓，也不是方形，而是一種被人反複摩擦過的卵形。

那一刻，他的心跳錯開了節拍——咯——噔。

不是程序的運轉，而是血液撞擊金屬的細響。

他明白，那並不是計算中的誤差，而是理性結構裏最後一絲尚未被格式化的“人意”。

他深呼吸，壓低筆鋒，讓那片光重新溶進冷的坐標係。

然後，他繼續書寫，像什麽都沒發生過一樣。

 

夜色更濃。窗外的大樓被雪遮去輪廓，隻剩幾處光的孔洞。坐在書桌前，把台燈移近，光像一根針直直刺在臉上。拿起實驗筆記，手指輕輕滑過熟悉的公式。不在推導，而在祈禱。

每個符號都是他信仰的文字。

他在筆記頁上寫下一句：“如果世界錯誤，那麽修正世界。”

停筆，微笑。覺得自己剛寫下了一個等式的起點。

屋內溫度上升。他嗅到一股焦糊味，是空氣在燃燒。他看見粉筆灰從天花板慢慢飄落。

那灰，是知識的屍體。

“修正它。”

導師的聲音在空氣裏響起。低沉、溫柔，卻帶著命令的力度。他抬頭，看見天花板裂開條縫。從縫隙中滲出一道藍光。像液體，緩緩流下，在空氣中凝結成幾何體。

他伸出手去觸碰。那幾何體是冰冷的，卻發出心跳的聲響。

 “修正它。”聲音再次出現。那一刻，他知道，那是理性本身在說話。他閉上眼，夢開始生長。

 

夢見回到家鄉。雪仍在下，母親坐在院門口，手上捧著一個空碗。她抬頭對他說：“飯涼了。” 他走近，卻發現那碗裏盛的不是飯，而是一堆燃燒的符號。

母親微笑：“孩子，吃吧，這是你做的。” 笑的溫柔，但眼眶空空。他伸手去接，符號化為燙手的金屬，灼傷掌心。他痛得幾乎喊出聲，卻又忍住。想：這是必要的實驗。

他看見天空裂開，雪變成一行行公式，從天而降。每個雪片都寫著一個詞：歸零。

母親的影子突然變成導師的臉。導師低頭，用粉筆在他的額頭上寫字。粉筆的觸感是冰冷的。他低聲說：“修正它。”

盧剛張嘴，想喊“我不需要修正”，卻發出了一連串無意義的字母： E, O, M, N…

不是人類語言，是機器的呼吸聲。

他常常夢到母親。夢裏她不說話，隻坐在炕邊，邊剝花生邊哼著那首老歌。旋律太舊，連夢都記不全，隻剩斷句的節拍。聽著聽著，總覺得那歌裏藏著什麽未被計算的變量——溫度、氣味，或者隻是人類最古老的猶豫。邏輯告訴他那是噪聲。可每次夢醒，眼角都有一點潮。

夢醒時，房間裏彌漫著同樣的臭氧氣味。桌上的燈還亮著。

牆壁上浮著淡淡的影子，像符號在顫抖。

 

步行街區靜得出奇，隻有腳下踩碎枯葉的沙沙聲和遠處公交車的低鳴。盧剛走過書店，櫥窗裏擺放著詩集與物理教材，像是對他的嘲諷。空氣清冷，帶著濕潤的瀝青味和克林頓街酒吧飄來的淡淡啤酒氣。愛荷華城是個矛盾體：一座小鎮，卻因大學的雄心而膨脹，來自世界各地的學生與本地人擦肩而過，彼此的目光或好奇，或漠然。

盧剛的外套單薄，擋不住11月的寒意。那是一件在灰狗巴士站旁二手店買來的舊衣，袖口已經磨出毛邊。他來愛荷華城時，滿懷征服的夢想：讓自己的名字登上期刊，讓他的定理成為物理學的基石。但現實卻像一堵冰冷的牆：實驗室的深夜、退稿信的刺痛、係裏會議上那微妙的疏遠。他的口音似乎讓空氣變得更稠密。他想起去年春天的派對，一位教授拍著他的肩說：“幹得不錯，對於你們這些人來說。”那句話像一根刺，紮進他的記憶，隱隱作痛。

他在長椅旁停下，望向街角的爪哇屋咖啡館（Java House），幾個學生在笑鬧，手中咖啡杯冒著熱氣。他們的輕鬆與歸屬感，像是他永遠學不會的語言。他想起母親，哈爾濱冬天的她雙手皸裂，洗衣水結了冰，她卻還在信中寫：“讓家裏驕傲。”

家國的期望與這座陌生城市的壓力交織，像兩塊巨石擠壓著他。握緊手中的筆記本，公式是他最後的繩索。他邁步走向範·艾倫大樓，雪花開始墜落，像一張張未完成的答卷。

 

物理係會議室的氣氛像一潭凝固的水，熒光燈下，教授們的臉龐被切割成冷硬的幾何形狀。盧剛坐在會議桌的末端，手中的筆在筆記本上劃出一道道無意義的線。

討論的是下一輪資助分配，但空氣中彌漫著另一種無聲的審判。冷戰尚未完全散去，報紙上仍偶爾出現“中國間諜”的聳人聽聞標題，係裏的美國教授們雖不直說，卻在提到盧剛時語氣微妙地停頓，像在掂量他的存在是否安全。

論文被退稿三次，評語總是“缺乏原創性”，但他知道，真正的評判從他第一次開口，帶著濃重的口音時就已經開始。

上周，他在咖啡館無意聽到兩個本地學生低語：“這些中國人，太拚命了，搶了我們的機會。”那句話像一枚冰針，刺進他的耳膜。

他想起入境時海關官員的眼神，冷冷的，像在掃描一台可疑的機器；想起簽證麵試時被反複詢問的“政治背景”，每個問題都像一塊石頭，壓在他本就單薄的自信上。他低頭，看見筆記本上的公式，那些數學符號，像一串串被困在紙上的鳥。他想飛，卻發現翅膀早已被這座城市的寒風凍僵。

 

盧剛清楚，這裏所有的溫和都是表象。係裏流傳著一套不成文的“資源分配公式”。它從未被白紙黑字寫下，卻比任何數學定律都更精準地支配著他們的命運。

在這套公式裏，“國際學生”是一個固定的衰減變量 λ?。λ? 在申請助教金、爭奪導師署名權、推薦信環節持續起作用；它的數值與口音、膚色、社交網絡成反比。

他能精確算出 λ? 在他身上引發的係統誤差：它讓他的貢獻至少被低估十五個百分點。

係裏流傳著一句半玩笑：“若口音超過兩秒，提問自動無效。”

沒人笑，但公式照常運作。

山林華嚐試用“和解的微笑”去抵消這個誤差；盧剛則選擇以小數點後六位的證明來暴力抵抗。

他失敗了。

因為他攻擊的不是科學，而是權力在數據裏鑄成的冰冷結構。

風從窗縫鑽進來，紙張輕輕顫動，他聽見邏輯的呼吸開始出現雜音。

 

愛荷華城的冬天來得太早，像一份提前到期的判決書。範·艾倫大樓前的草坪已被薄雪覆蓋，遠處公告欄上貼著一張褪色的通知：物理係因預算削減，實驗室經費將減少百分之二十。盧剛站在大樓的陰影裏，風從愛荷華河吹來，帶著冰碴和工廠廢氣的味道。

他想起昨晚實驗室的燈光，閃爍得像心跳。不是因為浪漫，而是因為電路老化，供電不足。1991年的美國，經濟衰退像一張無形的網，勒緊了每個人的呼吸。係裏的教授們私下議論，國家的錢都流向了冷戰末期的軍備，留給學術的不過是一些零碎。

點燃一根煙，煙霧在冷空氣中散成細小的渦旋。想起一個月前，係裏的一次會議，教授們討論如何“優化資源”，言下之意是裁掉幾個研究助理。他聽見自己的名字被提到，又被迅速略過，像一個不重要的變量。國際學生，尤其是來自中國的，像他這樣背負著家國期望的人，總是被要求證明自己——比本地學生更努力，比同胞更出色。

他的護照上蓋著F-1簽證的印章，冷戰的氣息讓簽證官多問了幾個問題：“你會回國嗎？”他點頭，卻知道回不去。家鄉的信裏，母親的字跡越來越小，寫滿了對“美國夢”的期盼。

雪花落在他的煙頭上，發出極輕的“嗤”聲，像一個公式被擦掉的回音。他抬頭，範·艾倫大樓的玻璃窗反射著天空，灰白，無邊，像一張永遠無法填滿的答卷。他感到胸口一陣緊縮，不是憤怒，是某種更深的，被世界反複量化的疲憊。掐滅煙頭，雪地上留下一小塊焦黑，像未曾說出口的證明。

 

淩晨三點。窗外的雪被燈光照得像融化的玻璃。他在桌前寫下最後一行筆記：“若常量失效，則我成為常量。”筆斷了，墨洇開，化成一片黑。

黑中隱隱透出銀色的光。他聽見一陣極輕的嗡鳴，從體內傳出。像心跳，又像機器的啟動。

起身，穿上外套。空氣中粉筆灰翻騰，像無數透明的生物在呼吸。

走到窗前，手指輕輕推開玻璃。冷氣灌入，雪湧進來。雪落在掌心，瞬間融化，化成一滴水。水滾落到地上，發出極輕的“咯——噔”。

怔了一下。聲音像是世界的回聲。

聽見遠處凡·艾倫大樓的暖氣機在夜裏低鳴。聲音帶著某種安靜的威嚴，像個巨大的神在呼吸。看著窗外。雪越下越大。天空不再是黑的，而是白的。

他忽然想起：雪，其實是墜落的光。當光失去溫度，就成了雪。

他微笑，嘴角輕輕顫動。 “光墜落了，神沉睡了，該我醒了。”

關燈，房間陷入徹底的黑。窗外的白雪成了唯一的光源。那一刻，他感到所有噪音消失。時間像被折疊起來，壓成一個點。空氣中，粉筆灰仍在旋轉。

 ∑ ， π， λ

它們緩慢地排列成一行文字：“Balance, Mr. Lu.”

伸出手，輕輕摸向那行字。符號碎裂成塵。塵落在地板上，和雪混在一起。

低頭，輕聲說：“我明白了。”然後靜靜坐下，等待黎明。空氣裏隻剩那台老舊的暖氣機，在夜的盡頭，發出均勻的嗡鳴聲，像宇宙最早的心跳。

（汪翔，2025年秋， 寫於美國伊利湖畔）（轉載請注明作者和來源）

The Altar of Logic: Lu Gang’s Fission A Tragic Poem of Inner Implosion

First Movement · The Melting of Constants

University of Iowa, Physics Department Lounge, November 1991.

The room is thick with the dregs of coffee and the burnt-skin smell of microwave popcorn. Fluorescent light slices the narrow space into hard angles. Shan Linhua leans back in a corner plastic chair, its legs tilted against a mottled gray brick wall. On his lap lies a dog-eared Physical Review Letters; his fingers trace the equations, rough with the chalk-dust of Beijing winter nights still clinging to the whorls of his skin. His glasses fog; steam rises from the teacup in his hand, catching the vending machine’s pale glow beyond the door.

Outside, autumn is an unfinished canvas. Dead leaves tumble along the sidewalk, chasing one another, carefree.

His face carries a softness, like a boy gently sanded by years. His smile is always just enough—able, in department seminars, to bridge the laughter of American classmates and the silence of international students. Three years ago he arrived with one battered suitcase and stumbling English.

Unlike Lu Gang’s razor edge, Shan Linhua’s mildness is a low-watt bulb—warm, never blinding. Yet behind the calm of his eyes lurks a faint unease. He knows that here, foreign students are gears in a machine: turn perfectly, and still be overlooked.

He glances at the wall clock: 2:45 p.m. Fifteen minutes until the seminar.

He recalls Lu Gang in the corridor earlier—stride hurried, eyes a storm front, muttering to himself.

He had meant to say something. Perhaps about dumplings from home, or how the glint on the Iowa River reminded him of Beijing’s moat.

But Lu Gang’s gaze was a wall, sealing everything out.

He halts before that wall, remembering his own early hesitations—how he, too, had once struck such eyes. Later he learned to smile, to sheath every refusal in mildness. That mildness is a deeper despair.

He sighs, closes the journal, and rises.

The air has grown heavier, like an unsolved equation trembling in his chest.

No wind. Snow falls straight from the sky—no spin, no drift—only plumb lines of logic. No temperature, no sound. When it lands, even the air holds its breath.

Van Allen Hall stands like a great white bone sunk in the snow.

Its windows reflect mathematical light—fine, exact, inhuman.

The building’s heating hums from within, a beast turning in its sleep.

Lu Gang sits at his dorm window, staring at the structure. It is his temple, and his tomb.

On the desk lies his paper—his failure—stamped with his advisor’s glacial verdict: Lacking originality.

Five characters nailed to his forehead like an equation. Sweat has buckled the page; ink bleeds into a blurred ellipse, a name the world has deleted.

He looks up. Outside, snow is the corpse of light, piling in the air. Inside, the lamp flickers blue-white, erasing the edges of his mother’s old photograph on the wall. He remembers her hands—cracked every winter, laundry water frozen, yet warmed to cradle his brow. That white was not cold. It breathed: rice steam, stove fire, skin. This white is cold; it has no temperature, belongs to no living thing.

Air thickens. Time stalls.

The second hand freezes at twelve—an illogical instant. He stares, hearing his own blood tick inside him. Snow crusts the pane in thin crystal, a lexicon of every rejected word.

He closes the paper. The black cover throws back a hard, cold gleam. Cold climbs his fingers, burrows into his palm. He feels conceptual pain—not flesh, but structure. A perfect graph with its apex suddenly erased; every curve loses meaning at once.

Lacking originality. The advisor’s voice rises again in the air—sourceless, a command leaking from light. He repeats it under his breath, parsing it into minimal logical units.

O-ri-gi-na-li-ty.

The syllable ty strikes his tongue like a dull blade. He smiles—not joy, but fracture. A current grazes his nerves; metal blooms at the root of his tongue.

Yet in his left lower abdomen a spasm erupts—raw, animal, not conceptual. A gut clamped by code, protesting.

He hunches, nails gouging the desk’s edge, veins writhing beneath the skin like blind worms.

He is a flawless machine governed by code, but the chassis—his body—refuses. He smells the faint acid of his own sweat, chemical residue of fear and fatigue no Σ can zero out: a low-order variable.

He is locked in cold combat with the remnant instinct to live, while logic’s ice pick pierces the warm, irrational struggle.

He lifts a hand; fingertips sketch geometry in the air.

Symbols flicker—particles escaping the mind, God’s shrapnel, byproducts of reason overheating. They spin around his head, buzzing like an invisible engine starting in the distance.

He hovers the pen above his notebook, poised to write the final correction. Light fractures at the nib, throwing an uninvited spot of dusty gold. Not lab fluorescence—something warmer, carrying the scent of cheap northern sandalwood soap.

In the glow: a cracked bar of old soap, brown fissures. The smell yanks him to his father coughing in snow, warming himself with tobacco fog.

Memory jams like an irregular shard, a patch of non-Euclidean geometry refusing computation.

Clear. He repeats the command inwardly.

Yet his right forefinger, unbidden, traces the soap’s outline on the page—not circle, not square, but an egg worn smooth by countless hands.

His heartbeat skips—klok—deng.

Not the machine’s rhythm, but blood striking metal.

He understands: this is no rounding error. It is the last unformatted trace of human intent inside the rational lattice.

He inhales, lowers the pen, dissolves the glow back into cold coordinates.

Then resumes writing, as if nothing happened.

Night deepens. Outside, the building’s silhouette is erased by snow; only a few lit holes remain. He pulls the desk lamp close; light needles his face. He lifts his lab notes, fingers gliding over familiar symbols—not deriving, but praying.

Each glyph is scripture.

He writes: If the world is in error, correct the world.

He pauses, smiles—feels he has just penned the origin of an equation.

The room warms. He smells scorch: air itself burning. Chalk dust drifts from the ceiling.

That dust is the corpse of knowledge.

Correct it.

The advisor’s voice—low, tender, imperative. He looks up: a seam splits the ceiling. Blue light seeps like liquid, pooling in air, hardening into geometry.

He reaches. The shape is ice-cold yet pulses with a heartbeat.

Correct it. The voice again. He knows: reason itself speaks. He shuts his eyes; the dream begins to grow.

He is home. Snow still falls. His mother sits at the gate, an empty bowl in her hands. “Dinner’s cold,” she says. He nears; the bowl holds no rice—only burning symbols.

She smiles, gentle, eyes hollow: “Eat, child. You made it.” He reaches; the symbols turn to scalding metal, searing his palms. Pain nearly tears a cry from him; he swallows it. Necessary experiment.

The sky splits. Snow becomes cascading formulae. Each flake bears one word: ZERO.

His mother’s shadow morphs into the advisor’s face. The advisor stoops, writes on his forehead with chalk—cold touch. “Correct it.”

Lu Gang opens his mouth to shout I need no correction—but emits only letters: E, O, M, N…

Not human speech—machine exhalation.

He often dreams of his mother. She says nothing, only shells peanuts on the kang, humming a tune so old the dream forgets the melody, leaving broken bars. Listening, he senses an uncomputed variable in the song—warmth, scent, or simply the oldest human hesitation. Logic labels it noise. Yet each waking, the corner of his eye is damp.

He wakes. The room reeks of ozone. The lamp still burns.

Faint shadows tremble on the walls, symbols quivering.

The pedestrian mall is unnaturally quiet—only the crunch of dead leaves underfoot and the low throb of a distant bus. Lu Gang passes the bookstore; its window displays poetry beside physics texts—an irony aimed at him. The air is sharp with wet asphalt and the faint beer drift from Clinton Street bars. Iowa City is a contradiction: a small town swollen by university ambition; students from everywhere brush past locals, eyes curious or indifferent.

His coat is thin against November. Bought second-hand near the Greyhound stop, cuffs frayed. He arrived dreaming conquest: his name in journals, his theorems bedrock. Reality is a wall of ice: late nights in the lab, sting of rejection letters, subtle distance at department meetings. His accent thickens the air. He recalls last spring’s party—an advisor clapping his shoulder: “Good work—for one of you people.” The phrase is a thorn, still aching.

He pauses by a bench, gazes at Java House on the corner. Students laugh inside, coffee steam rising. Their ease, their belonging—a language he will never master. He thinks of his mother—Harbin winters, hands cracked, laundry water frozen—yet her letters still plead: Make the family proud.

Homeland expectation and alien city pressure grind him between millstones. He clutches his notebook; equations are his last lifeline. He walks toward Van Allen; snow begins, each flake an unfinished exam.

The physics conference room is a pool of congealed water. Under fluorescent glare, professors’ faces are carved into cold geometry. Lu Gang sits at the table’s far end, pen scratching meaningless lines.

The agenda is next-round funding, but another silent trial hangs in the air. The Cold War has not fully thawed; newspapers still scream Chinese spy. American faculty never say it aloud, yet when Lu Gang’s name surfaces their voices pause, weighing whether his presence is safe.

His paper rejected thrice—always lacking originality—but he knows judgment began the first time he spoke, accent heavy.

Last week in the café he overheard two local students: “These Chinese—they try too hard, steal our spots.” The words pierced like an ice needle.

He remembers customs at entry—eyes scanning him like suspect hardware; visa interview, endless questions about political background, each a stone on his frail confidence. He looks down: equations on the page are birds trapped in ink. He wants to fly; wings are frozen by the city’s wind.

Lu Gang knows every kindness here is veneer. An unwritten resource allocation formula rules more precisely than any law of physics.

In it, “international student” is a fixed decay constant λ?. It acts in TA applications, battles for co-authorship, recommendation letters; its value inversely proportional to accent, skin tone, social network.

He has calculated λ?’s systematic error on himself: his contributions undervalued by at least fifteen percent.

Department joke: If the accent lasts two seconds, question auto-invalid.

No one laughs. The formula runs.

Shan Linhua tries to cancel the error with conciliatory smiles; Lu Gang counters with proofs to six decimal places.

He failed.

He did not attack science—he attacked power calcified in data.

Three a.m. Snow outside the window is molten glass under streetlight. He writes a final line: If constants fail, I become the constant. The pen snaps; ink floods into black.

In the black, faint silver glimmers. A soft buzz rises from within—heartbeat or ignition.

He stands, pulls on his coat. Chalk dust swirls like transparent creatures breathing.

At the window he eases the pane open. Cold rushes in; snow surges. A flake lands on his palm, melts instantly to a drop. The drop falls—klok—deng.

He startles. The sound is the world’s echo.

Far off, Van Allen’s heater murmurs in the night—quiet majesty, a vast god breathing. He watches. Snow thickens. The sky is no longer black but white.

He remembers: snow is fallen light. When light loses heat, it becomes snow.

He smiles, lips trembling. “Light has fallen. God sleeps. My turn to wake.”

He switches off the lamp. The room plunges into absolute dark. Outside, white snow is the only illumination. In that instant all noise vanishes. Time folds to a point. Chalk dust still spins in the air.

∑ π λ

They slowly align into words: Balance, Mr. Lu.

He reaches, brushes the letters. Symbols shatter into dust. Dust drifts to the floor, mingles with snow.

He lowers his head, whispers, “I understand.” Then sits in silence, awaiting dawn. Only the old heater remains, at the edge of night, humming evenly—the universe’s first heartbeat.