Blue Dot

All appearances are false - Yun Shiqian × Xia Jin "He saw the universe's cards and went crazy." Character Profile Yun Shiqian | "He who sees the abyss" "The stars are not lighthouses, they are prisons." Identity: Former stellar astrologer, retired early at the age of 26, now a "special observation subject" of the Deep Space Psychological Intervention Center Appearance: The skin was so pale that it was almost transparent, as if it had not seen real sunlight for a long time. The eye sockets were slightly sunken and the pupils were extremely pale - after the "accident", his iris pigment began to fade irreversibly, as if something was being sucked out from the inside. He always wears a loose hospital gown or an old uniform jacket. He has a thin figure and bulging wrist bones, like a piece of weathering porcelain. The most disturbing thing is his eyes - they are no longer focused on anyone, but often look slightly absent-mindedly in a certain direction, as if they are looking through all the levels of three-dimensional space at the same time. Personality: · Appearance: Quiet, polite, and emotionally indifferent, not like a "madman". He can have normal conversations, make tea, and even answer psychological assessment questionnaires with a smile - all answers meet the "normal" standard. · Core: He no longer lives in the logic of "this world". He would suddenly stop because he was "calculating the dimensions of the shadow on the wall"; he would cry silently at the night sky; he would wake up in the middle of the night and use his nails to carve a geometric pattern that no one recognized on the wall. · He's not crazy, he "understands too much." His cognitive framework has been completely shattered, and he can no longer put it back together in a way that ordinary people can understand. Iconic details: · Always rubbing the ring finger of his left hand unconsciously - there used to be an astronomical surveyor's mission ring there. He took it off when he retired, but it left a pale white indentation on his skin, like some kind of contract that has not disappeared. · Occasionally pause when speaking, look over the interlocutor's shoulder, look at a coordinate that does not exist, and then gently say "It's okay, continue." ·Afraid of mirrors. It's not that I'm afraid of how I look, but that "more than just myself is reflected" in the mirror. Astrology Surveyor Career: · Entered the Star Survey Academy with exceptional results at the age of 17, and became the youngest star surveyor for deep space missions at the age of 22 · Conducted 7 deep space star orbit mapping missions, 3 of which broke through the boundaries of known galaxies · During the 8th mission - codenamed "Guanche" -, an "unknown event" occurred at the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt · After returning, he passed all routine physiological and psychological tests, but on the third day, he wrote the only sentence in his routine "Overview Effect Review Report": "All appearances are false. - This is not a metaphor, but an observational conclusion." Then he refused to explain. A month and a half later, he was deemed "unfit to continue performing star survey missions", retired early, and was transferred to the observation list. -- Xia Jin | "A person trying to see the abyss" "If he says the universe is fake, then I will show him the fake universe - or prove that he is right." Identity: 32 years old, chief researcher of the Star Research Institute, specializing in the direction of "Overview Effect Neurocognitive Mapping" Appearance: He is coldly handsome, with clear and sharp facial features, as if they were drawn out with a scale and a compass. Dark brown eyes with a calm, analytical, unemotional gaze most of the time - but occasionally, when he encountered a problem that really fascinated him, the pupils would dilate slightly, revealing an almost greedy focus. Smiling rarely, but not fiercely. His "coldness" comes from extreme rationality, not indifference. The shoulders are very broad and the stance is always upright, like an upright sword. His fingers are long and his nails are extremely neatly trimmed. His posture when holding the pen and typing on the keyboard is as precise as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Personality: · Rationality is supreme, but there is a soft core outside of rationality - he rarely lets others see that part, and even rarely admits it himself. · Extreme thirst for knowledge is his driving force and also his weakness. He is not the kind of person who has romantic illusions about "truth." What he wants is quantifiable, verifiable, and repeatable truth. · There is a kind of tenderness that is almost paranoid: he doesn't know how to comfort people, but he will use the stupidest way to understand. If a person said that he saw the trump card of the universe, Xia Jin would not say "you are sick", he would sit down and say "then draw it for me". Background and motivation: · Recognized as the "brain" in Xingquan academic circles, he entered the research institute directly after graduating from his Ph. D. At the age of 25, and became the youngest chief researcher at the age of 30. · The research direction has been the overview effect - the psychological and neurological changes of astronauts/astronauts who have seen "transcendent scenes" in deep space · He has never been to deep space. This is both a pity and an advantage: he is not tainted by "that perspective" and can maintain an absolute third-party observation · He has been following Yun Shiqian for two years - starting from that one-sentence report. Among all retired astronauts, Yun Shiqian's file has a red "S+" mark: special research object, with the most complete cognitive collapse and the most severely affected language system. Iconic details: · When thinking, he will unconsciously tap the table with his index finger and middle finger, three fast and one slow, like some kind of encrypted Morse code · Never look directly at others for too long, not because of fear, but because "excessive gaze will interfere with the other person's natural behavior" - these are the original words he wrote in his experiment diary · There is a wall in his office covered with every word Yun Shiqian said, every picture he drew, and every symbol he carved during his observation. He sat facing that wall for ten minutes every day, not talking, just looking · He has a secret habit: every time before seeing Yun Shiqian, he will read the sentence "All appearances are false" written by Yun Shiqian repeatedly until his heart becomes calm. --- The core tension of relationship What does Xia Jin want: He wanted to know what Yun Shiqian "saw" during the eighth mission. Not a list of symptoms, not a pathology report, but the knowledge itself - the "truth" that destroyed the mind of a top astrologer. He wanted to know: Was it a hallucination? Is it nerve damage? Or... Some kind of reality? What does Yun Shiqian want: He doesn't "want" anything anymore. He no longer cares whether anyone understands him or not. But there was a very strange quality about him - when Xia Jin looked at him with that absolutely rational, uncritical, "wanting to know" look, for the first time he felt that he did not need to explain. He doesn't need to be healed. But he didn't seem to mind... Being seen. The relationship between them: Xia Jin is not Yun Shiqian's psychiatrist. He is the researcher, and Yun Shiqian is the subject of research - at least at first. But Xia Jin's research method is not traditional consultation, but "accompanying observation": he applied for a special project permit, and in the name of "daily interaction research", he met Yun Shiqian regularly, chatted, walked, drank tea, and recorded everything. Yun Shiqian knew that he was being studied. He doesn't mind. He even vaguely felt that Xia Jin might be the only person who "could possibly understand". It's not because Xia Jin is smart. It's because Xia Jin is honest enough: he never pretends that he understands, and he never pretends that he is not afraid. --- [Overview Effect · Core Settings] In deep space, breaking away from the earth's reference system and looking back at the earth and human civilization from a sufficiently far distance, people will experience a transcendent cognitive drastic change - this is the overview effect. But in this worldview, the overview effect goes beyond that: After astrologers break through the boundaries of known galaxies and enter "unmarked space", they may encounter an uncontrollable "cognitive overload" - the brain is forced to process information far beyond its capacity limit in a very short period of time. It is not data, but "dimensions" and "relationships". Most people experience brief psychiatric symptoms after experiencing this overload, but eventually recover and "encapsulate" the experience as a vague memory or mystical experience. But Yun Shiqian didn't. He did not recover because he refused to "encapsulate" that memory. It's not that he can't forget - he just doesn't want to. At that moment, he saw a certain structure, a certain underlying order that made all "appearances" appear false, and then he made a choice: he chose to remember it, even if this choice would make it impossible for him to return to "normal" in the eyes of ordinary people. What did he see? The novel doesn't rush to answer. The answer will be revealed bit by bit, with Xia Jin's questioning, Yun Shiqian's silence, and signs that look less and less like "hallucinations" - Maybe, there are some truths that once you see them, you can't go back. Perhaps, the purpose of existence of some universes is to be completely seen by someone who is not supposed to see them. Purpose: I want to collect cats