Silence.
Not quiet. Silence. Every sound cut at once, as if someone had pulled a cable from the back of the world.
Emily Johnson's first thought was that she had gone deaf. A second ago, the library had its usual afternoon sounds: the quiet murmur of students studying, the hum of air conditioning, distant footsteps in the hallway, and beneath it all, the campus background noise filtering through the windows. That familiar soundscape of a university afternoon. Students chatting outside, doors opening and closing, the occasional bicycle bell. Now, all of it had been cut off by an invisible hand.
The vacuum-like silence lasted perhaps two or three seconds, then new sounds began to seep in, but wrong somehow. Muffled. Unfamiliar. She couldn't place what had changed, only that something fundamental had shifted.
Emily gripped the conference table and pulled herself to her feet, dizzy. The third-floor library seminar room looked like it had been shaken violently. Emergency lights flickered in one corner of the ceiling. Several books had fallen from the shelves onto the dusty floor. One corner of the projection screen had torn away from the ceiling and dangled loose. A crack ran from top to bottom across the floor-to-ceiling window beside her.
She stumbled to that cracked window and gripped its cold frame. Cool air seeped through the fissure, carrying scents she couldn't name. Wet earth, something floral, and underneath it a heaviness that smelled like a forest that had never been cut.
She forced herself to look outside.
Her breath locked. Her hands went cold on the window frame.
She could see familiar buildings with their gray tiles. The path where students usually gathered between classes, now eerily empty.
But they shouldn't be here.
These familiar buildings of twenty-first-century civilization sat like misplaced artifacts in a landscape that belonged to another age. Where the city should have stretched beyond the campus boundaries, dense forest pressed in. Unfamiliar trees tangled together in primordial chaos. Where other university buildings and city streets should have continued, she saw only wilderness. No buildings, no roads, no signs of human presence beyond their transported fragment of campus.
The entire university campus—or rather, part of it: the library, several dormitories and classroom buildings—looked like an irregular circular patch that had been surgically excised by divine hands from a modern city map and carelessly pasted onto a chart of some prehistoric landscape.
The impossible sight triggered her memory of the last normal minutes before everything changed.
The memory began with the Q&A session. She'd shot her hand up first, as always: "Professor William Zhang (Zhang Xiaoyu), your multiverse theory: is there any way we could actually test it? Any way at all?"
Professor Zhang had given her that familiar academic smile. She'd seen it in his courses before. "Well, multiverse theory remains purely hypothetical. Perhaps your generation will find a way to verify it."
The disappointment had been sharp but familiar. The most beautiful ideas always seemed locked away behind that word: hypothetical. She sat down, frustrated by the patronizing answer.
After Emily, Ahmed raised his hand and asked his question in English about whether sci-fi helped real science. While other students continued asking their questions, Ahmed leaned over and whispered to Emily, showing her his phone screen. "Emily, are you familiar with Professor Zhang? I just found his blog. He's published quite a few sci-fi book reviews. I'd really like to get to know him. Could you introduce me?"
Emily looked at the blog, scrolling through a few posts. "Sort of familiar," she said with a slight frown. "I've taken several of his courses, but we're not really close. Just the usual student-teacher relationship."
She paused, then brightened. "But actually, I heard he has another seminar tomorrow about sci-fi history and physics development. We could volunteer to help him organize materials. That would give us a chance to talk with him properly."
"Perfect," Ahmed nodded, pocketing his phone as Zhang answered another student's question.
Ten minutes later, after fielding more questions, Zhang wrapped up: "Alright, that's all for today. Happy anniversary celebration everyone!"
Students began filing out, chatting about which exhibits to visit next. Emily and Ahmed stayed in their seats, waiting. When the lecture hall had mostly emptied, leaving just the three of them, Emily pulled Ahmed along toward the podium where Zhang was packing his materials.
"Professor Zhang," Emily said quickly, "you have that seminar tomorrow about sci-fi history and physics development, right? My friend and I would like to help you prepare materials. What do you think?"
Zhang looked up from his papers, recognizing Emily. "Oh, you're in my courses. Emily, right?" He glanced at Ahmed, taking in his scholarly appearance. "And your friend is...?"
Ahmed stepped forward. "Ahmed Gad, Egyptian anthropologist. Very pleased to meet you, Professor Zhang."
"Well, this is perfect timing," Zhang said, shaking Ahmed's hand. "I was just thinking I needed help organizing materials. Thank you both."
The memory then shifted to the library's third floor, where they'd commandeered a corner table, books already piling up between them like fortification.
"Alright," Professor Zhang had said, clearly pleased to have eager assistants. "I need passages from these 17th to 20th century sci-fi works that show how authors imagined physics might evolve." He'd handed them a printed list.
Ahmed looked over the list. "I've read about a third of these: The Time Machine, Foundation, Star Maker. I can find the relevant passages from memory."
"Show-off," Emily muttered, but she was smiling. "I've read maybe a fifth. Let me start with the ones I know."
The worn pages of Wells's book had felt reassuringly solid under her fingers, but her mind kept circling back. "Professor Zhang," she'd said suddenly, "if physical laws really could be different in other universes, like, fundamentally different, then somewhere out there, time travel isn't just possible, it's easy, right? Somewhere, the impossible is normal?"
Zhang had looked up from his own book, and for a moment, his academic mask had slipped. "You know, Emily, that's exactly the kind of thinking that got me into physics. And science fiction." He'd paused. "But we're still stuck in this universe, with these laws."
"Unfortunately," she'd sighed.
That's when Ahmed had leaned back in his chair with that look. The one he got when he was about to say something he thought was profound. "Careful what you wish for, Em."
"Oh god, not this again."
"I'm serious!" But his eyes had been laughing. "The universe has a twisted sense of humor. You keep asking for the impossible, one day it might just..." He'd snapped his fingers.
"Right," Emily had said, throwing a pencil at him. "And I suppose you've got some mystical connection to the cosmos that warns you about these things?"
"Maybe I do." He'd caught the pencil, grinning. "Maybe I'm trying to save you from your own curiosity."
"Too late for that," she'd laughed, looking out at the disgustingly normal afternoon beyond the window. Students on the lawn, the city skyline hazed with pollution, everything exactly where it was supposed to be. "God, I wish something would just happen. Just once. Just to prove it's possible."
The moment those words left her lips—
Deputy Mayor Michael Li (Li Wei) smoothed the edge of his speech cards. Three minutes ahead of schedule. Perfect.
A doctoral student's cursor hovered over the backup button. Three months of simulation data. Just one more minute to finish this calculation first.
Oil bubbling at 375 degrees. Soup pots at full boil. Prep for 3,000 dinners, right on schedule.
"This is the last one, no more after this." Lily Wang (Wang Li) released her daughter's hand. Xiaoxiao ran laughing toward the souvenir stand.
Professor Liu tilted the beaker. "And when we add the catalyst—" The clear solution began to change color.
The basketball arced through the air. Perfect trajectory. Nothing but net.
Just a boundary marker for the event space. Xiaoxiao's sandal touched it—
The world skipped.
There was no other word for it. Like reality itself had hiccupped.
Emily was mid-laugh when her body went wrong. Not pain — wrongness. Every organ she'd never had reason to think about announced itself at once: stomach lurching, eardrums flexing against pressure that wasn't there, the book in her hands cycling through weight and weightlessness like a signal searching for a frequency.
At the podium, Michael Li heard his own voice stop. The microphone produced a sound no digital system should have been capable of — a shriek that belonged to old analog equipment, to feedback loops and copper wire. He gripped the podium's edge because the floor had just told his feet two contradictory things about which direction was down.
Lily Wang's sandal came down and the pavement was not pavement. For a quarter-second it was something yielding, almost warm, and then it slammed back into concrete so hard her knee buckled. Xiaoxiao's hand wasn't in hers. She grabbed for it and caught only air.
It lasted less than a second. Not enough time to form a thought, barely enough to flinch. But when it stopped, every person on the campus understood, in the way that the body understands before the mind catches up, that the world had changed its terms.
Emily blinked hard, the memory releasing her back to the impossible present. Her hands were still gripping the window frame so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Outside, a bird she didn't recognize. Too large, wrong colors, wrong song. It perched on what had been a campus bench.
Behind her, she heard Ahmed's sharp intake of breath. Then the scrape of a chair as Professor Zhang sat down heavily.
"Emily." Ahmed's voice cracked on her name. She turned to find him staring at her with an expression she'd never seen before. All his confidence, his humor, his mystical pretensions stripped away, leaving only naked incomprehension. "Your wish..."
"Don't." Her own voice sounded strange, too high.
"You wished for something to happen. You literally said..." He laughed, but it came out wrong, edged with hysteria. "Jesus Christ, Emily. You said it out loud. You said you wanted proof. And then — this." He waved a hand at the treeline, the empty sky, the wrong world outside. "Whatever this is, it answered."
Professor Zhang hadn't moved from his chair. He was staring at his hands as if he'd never seen them before, whispering under his breath. Equations, Emily realized. "F equals ma, E equals mc squared, entropy equals k log W..." The words came out flat and measured, like a man checking items off a list.
From somewhere outside—from the displaced buildings—came the sound of screaming.
Ahmed moved to the door before either of them spoke. He was gone less than a minute — Emily heard his footsteps on the stairs, then silence, then the stairs again. He came back to the doorway, slightly breathless. "Forest right up against the north side. Couldn't see a break in it. South, the dorms are still there — classroom blocks between here and them. Past the dorms, where the city should start, it's open. Grassland. No buildings, no roads." He looked at Zhang. "That's it. That's all there is."
The screaming was coming from everywhere.
Emily let go of the window frame. "We need to see what's happening out there."
"Emily, wait." Ahmed was already standing, but his voice carried a new gravity. "Whatever's out there, we go together."
Professor Zhang closed his laptop with deliberate care. "The scientific method applies to survival situations too. Observe first. Hypothesize second. Test carefully."
They moved toward the door together. The building around them was alive with noise: running footsteps, slamming doors, voices calling out in multiple languages. The controlled urgency of people who couldn't quite believe what they were seeing.
The stairwell was a river of confused movement. Students emerged from study rooms clutching laptops that no longer worked. Faculty members stood in doorways, their faces pale. A maintenance worker rushed past carrying a toolbox, muttering something about "the main breaker" in Chinese.
"Professor Zhang!" A graduate student appeared at Zhang's elbow, his face flushed with exertion. "All the lab equipment connected to the grid just stopped. But the backup battery systems are still..."
"Later," Zhang cut him off, not unkindly. "First we see what we're dealing with."
They reached the ground floor as the first emergency alarm began to wail: something local, high-pitched and urgent. Through the library's glass doors, Emily could see people streaming out of buildings across the campus. Moving quickly, following disaster protocols they'd never expected to use.
The air outside hit them. Not hot, cooler than it should be for September in Donghai, and cleaner than any air Emily had ever breathed in a Chinese city. The same scents from the cracked window, stronger now: wet earth, vegetation she didn't recognize, something ancient underneath.
"The power grid's completely down," Zhang said, his voice tight with concentration. He was looking at the emergency lights that should have kicked in. "But look." He pointed to the fountain in the campus's central plaza. "Gravity works. The sun's the same color. If this is a different universe, it operates on familiar physics."
Emily squinted up at the sun. It sat in the wrong half of the sky — north of overhead when every September of her life it had hung in the south. Her own shadow fell the wrong way beneath her, shorter than it should have been for the hour. She turned slightly, trying to reconcile what her feet knew with what her eyes were saying, and for a moment her body simply refused to accept either. The equations Zhang had recited could be argued with. This couldn't.
"Familiar physics don't explain that," Ahmed said quietly.
He was pointing beyond the displaced campus buildings, at the same impossible treeline Emily had seen from the third floor, now closer and more real at ground level.
"Dear God," Emily whispered.
It wasn't just the trees. She could see other displaced campus buildings scattered across the landscape like pieces from a child's game, each surrounded by its own pocket of familiar pavement and landscaping. The engineering complex sat about 200 meters away, its parking lot ending abruptly at the edge of grassland.
"Look," Zhang said, pointing toward various spots across the campus. "People everywhere."
Emily could see scattered groups, some in formal clothes from the anniversary event, others in casual wear. They weren't gathering or organizing, just standing in confused clusters or wandering aimlessly. Some sat on the ground in shock. A few were shouting names, looking for people.
"I think I see someone I know," Zhang said, spotting a figure in a suit among the confusion. "We should try to help somehow."
They began walking across the campus plaza, joining a stream of others moving in the same direction. The conversations around them were a babel of languages: Chinese, English, Arabic, what sounded like German. Emily caught fragments:
"...no cell service, landlines are dead..." "...told my wife I'd be home by seven..." "...physics department, do you know what..."
"Professor Zhang!"
The voice came from ahead. Zhang's eyes lit up with recognition as a figure broke away from the anniversary guest group and hurried toward them.
"Old Li!" Zhang called out. "Michael!"
The man approaching them looked disheveled despite his formal suit. His face was pale, and Emily could see his hands trembling slightly as he reached them.
"Old Zhang!" Michael grabbed Zhang's arm. "What the hell is happening? Where are we? This isn't Donghai anymore, is it?" The words came out in rapid Chinese.
Zhang shook his head helplessly. "I don't know any more than you do. This is Emily, my student, and Dr. Ahmed Gad, an Egyptian anthropologist. They were just helping me prepare materials for tomorrow's seminar when this happened."
Michael managed to shake their hands despite his obvious distress. "Li Wei, Deputy Mayor of Donghai." He pulled out his phone with shaking fingers, showing the dead signal. "Nothing works. No calls, no GPS. How do we even get help?"
"Deputy Mayor?" Emily said quietly.
"We need to think," Zhang said carefully. "Look around. We have students, guests, people with no survival experience. If someone wanders off into that forest..."
Michael pressed his palms against his eyes briefly. "Right. We should organize people somehow. Get them together." His voice steadied slightly as he focused on practical matters. "But there's no protocol for this."
"Maybe start by gathering everyone?" Zhang suggested. "Get people to one place at least."
Michael looked lost for a moment, then seemed to notice another familiar face approaching: a distinguished-looking older man who carried himself with the bearing of someone used to authority.
"Dr. Zhao," Michael called out, relief visible in his voice. "This is Professor Zhang from Physics. Dr. Martin Zhao (Zhao Ming). He ran the Third Affiliated Hospital."
Dr. Zhao nodded grimly as he joined them. "I was attending the medical innovation talk when..." He gestured helplessly at their surroundings. "Is this what I think it is? Like those transmigration novels, the ones where someone wakes up in the Tang Dynasty?"
"Those novels assume people want to time travel," Emily interjected in Chinese, her pronunciation clear and natural. "Nobody wants this."
Michael did a double-take, surprised by the fluent Chinese coming from the foreign student.
"Don't," Michael said to Dr. Zhao, recovering. "This isn't some web novel where we become heroes. If this is really..." He couldn't finish the sentence.
Zhang and Dr. Zhao exchanged a look.
"They need someone at the front," Dr. Zhao said. He was watching the scattered groups across the plaza — the wandering, the sitting, the ones who hadn't moved since the event. "Doesn't matter what you say. They need a face up there telling them someone's working on it."
"Are we?" Michael asked. "Working on it?"
Dr. Zhao looked at him for a long moment. "We will be. That's close enough for now."
They didn't plan so much as divide. Zhang said broadcast room and was already walking, talking to himself about backup generators and whether the PA system ran on building power or its own circuit. Michael and Dr. Zhao would take the plaza — find the other officials from the anniversary ceremony, the security detail, anyone with a title that still meant something.
"The dormitories," Emily said. She was thinking about the six-story blocks to the south, eight hundred students if the buildings had come through intact, and the crying she could already hear from the open windows.
Ahmed nodded toward the international residence. A hundred and fifty people, maybe, and most of them had just heard the world end in a language they didn't speak.
They separated without ceremony. Zhang's muttering faded east. Michael and Dr. Zhao moved west, two men in ruined suits walking fast toward a crowd that hadn't started forming yet.
Emily turned toward the dormitory complex. Through the open windows she could hear crying, shouting, a door slamming over and over. The sounds of people who hadn't yet looked outside. Or who had, and couldn't stop.
寂静。
不是安静——是寂静。所有声音同时切断，仿佛有人从世界背后拔掉了一根电缆。
Emily Johnson的第一反应是自己聋了。一秒钟前，图书馆里还是惯常的午后声响——学生低声自习的嗡嗡声，空调的运转声，走廊里远远传来的脚步声，以及窗外渗进来的校园底噪。那种大学午后特有的声场——学生在外面聊天，门开门关，偶尔一声自行车铃。然而此刻，这一切都被一只无形的手齐齐切断。
这种真空般的寂静持续了大约两三秒，然后新的声音开始渗入——但不对劲。闷闷的，陌生的。她说不上哪里变了，只觉得有什么根本性的东西发生了位移。
Emily扶住会议桌，摇摇晃晃地站起来，一阵眩晕。三楼图书馆的研讨室像是被人猛烈摇晃过。天花板一角的应急灯忽明忽暗。好几本书从架子上跌落在满是灰尘的地板上。投影幕布有一角从天花板脱落，耷拉着晃荡。她旁边的落地窗上，一道裂缝从顶部一路延伸到底部。
她踉跄着走到那扇裂了的窗前，抓住冰冷的窗框。凉风从裂缝中渗进来——裹挟着她叫不出名字的气味。湿润的泥土，某种花香，底下还有一股沉重的味道，像一片从未被砍伐过的森林。
她强迫自己看向窗外。
她的呼吸卡住了。双手在窗框上冰凉发僵。
她能看到那些熟悉的灰瓦建筑。学生课间聚集的那条小路，此刻空无一人，诡异得令人发毛。
但它们不应该在这里。
这些二十一世纪的建筑，像被错放的遗物，镶嵌在一片属于另一个时代的景观中。校园边界之外本该延伸开去的城市，被茂密的森林取代——陌生的树木纠缠在一起，原始而混沌。本该继续铺展的大学建筑和城市街道，只剩下荒野。没有建筑，没有道路，没有任何人类活动的痕迹——除了他们这块被移植过来的校园碎片。
整座大学校园——或者说，其中一部分：图书馆、几栋宿舍和教学楼——看上去就像一块形状不规则的圆形补丁，被某只神明之手从现代城市地图上精准切下，又随意粘贴到了某张史前地貌的图纸上。
眼前这不可能的景象触发了她的记忆，将她拉回一切改变之前的最后几分钟。
记忆从那场问答环节开始。她一如既往地第一个举手："张晓宇（William）教授，您的多元宇宙理论——有没有任何办法能实际检验它？哪怕一丁点可能？"
张晓宇教授露出了她熟悉的那种学者式微笑——她在他的课上见过无数次。"嗯，多元宇宙理论目前仍然是纯假说。也许你们这一代人能找到验证它的方法。"
失望是尖锐的，但并不意外。最美的理论似乎总被锁在那个词后面：假说。她坐下来，对这种敷衍的回答感到沮丧。
Emily之后，Ahmed举手用英语问了一个关于科幻是否促进了真正的科学发展的问题。其他同学继续提问时，Ahmed侧身凑过来，低声对Emily说，同时亮出手机屏幕。"Emily，你跟张教授熟吗？我刚找到他的博客——他发了不少科幻书评。我很想认识他，你能介绍一下吗？"
Emily看了看那个博客，滑了几篇帖子。"算认识吧，"她微微皱眉，"我上过他好几门课，但也不算很熟——就是普通的师生关系。"
她顿了顿，眼睛一亮。"不过，我听说他明天还有一场关于科幻史和物理学发展的研讨会。我们可以主动去帮他整理材料，这样就有机会好好聊聊了。"
"好主意，"Ahmed点头，收起手机，张晓宇正在回答另一个学生的问题。
十分钟后，又回答了几个问题，张晓宇收尾道："好了，今天就到这里。祝大家校庆愉快！"
学生们陆续离场，讨论着接下来去看哪个展览。Emily和Ahmed留在座位上等着。等报告厅差不多走空了，只剩他们三个人，Emily拉着Ahmed走向正在收拾资料的张晓宇。
"张教授，"Emily抢先开口，"您明天那场关于科幻史和物理学发展的研讨会，我和我朋友想来帮您准备材料，您看怎么样？"
张晓宇从文件堆里抬起头，认出了Emily。"哦，你是我课上的——Emily，对吧？"他看了一眼Ahmed，打量着他那副学者气质。"你朋友是……？"
Ahmed上前一步。"Ahmed Gad，埃及人类学家。很高兴认识您，张教授。"
"这可太巧了，"张晓宇说着握了握Ahmed的手。"我正发愁需要人帮忙整理材料呢。谢谢你们。"
记忆随后切换到图书馆三楼，他们占据了一张角落的桌子，书本已经在三人之间堆得像工事一样。
"好，"张晓宇教授显然很高兴有这么两个积极的助手，"我需要从这些十七到二十世纪的科幻作品中找出相关段落，看看那些作家是怎么想象物理学发展的。"他递过一份打印好的书单。
Ahmed看了看书单。"这里面我大概读过三分之一——《时间机器》、《基地》、《造星者》。相关段落我凭记忆就能找到。"
"显摆，"Emily嘟囔道，但嘴角带着笑。"我大概读过五分之一。我先从读过的开始吧。"
威尔斯那本书的旧页面在手指下触感踏实，但她的脑子一直在转。"张教授，"她忽然说，"如果物理定律在其他宇宙里真的可以不一样——比如，从根本上不一样——那某个地方，时间旅行不仅仅是可能的，而是很容易的，对吧？在某个地方，不可能的事就是日常？"
张晓宇从自己的书里抬起头，有那么一瞬间，他的学者面具卸了下来。"你知道吗Emily，正是这种思考方式让我走上了物理学的路。还有科幻。"他顿了顿。"但我们终究还是困在这个宇宙里，遵守这套规则。"
"可惜了，"她叹了口气。
这时候Ahmed往椅背上一靠，露出了那个表情——每次他觉得自己要说出什么深刻见解的时候都是这副模样。"小心你许的愿，Em。"
"天哪，又来了。"
"我说真的！"但他眼里全是笑意。"宇宙这东西幽默感很扭曲。你老是要求不可能的事，说不定哪天它就真……"他打了个响指。
"是是是，"Emily说着朝他扔了支铅笔。"我猜你大概跟宇宙有什么神秘的灵魂连接，能提前收到预警？"
"也许吧。"他接住铅笔，咧嘴一笑。"也许我正在试图拯救你于你自己的好奇心。"
"太迟了，"她笑着望向窗外那个令人厌烦地正常的午后——草坪上的学生，被雾霾模糊的城市天际线，一切都在它该在的地方。"天啊，我就希望能有点什么事发生。就一次。就为了证明那是可能的。"
这句话说出口的那一刻——
副市长李伟（Michael）理了理演讲稿的边角。比预定时间提前了三分钟。完美。
一个博士生的光标悬在备份按钮上方。三个月的仿真数据。再等一分钟，让这个计算跑完。
油温190度，翻滚着气泡。汤锅全开。三千份晚餐的备料，进度正常。
"最后一个了啊，不许再要了。"王丽（Lily）松开了女儿的手。笑笑笑着朝纪念品摊跑去。
刘教授倾斜烧杯。"当我们加入催化剂——"透明溶液开始变色。
篮球划出一道弧线。完美的轨迹。空心入网。
只是活动场地的边界标记。笑笑的凉鞋踩上去——
世界打了个嗝。
找不到别的词来形容。就好像现实本身突然错了一帧。
对于正在笑自己笑话的Emily来说，感觉像是有人把宇宙猛地横向一扯。她的内耳疯狂地发出矛盾的信号——在坠落、在旋转、又完全静止——同时。手里的书一瞬间失去重量，接着重如磐石，再一瞬间又失去重量。
对于李伟来说，讲台上的话筒尖叫了一声——一毫秒的啸叫，在这套数字系统上根本不应该出现。下一个字卡在喉咙里，因为他的身体不可思议地感觉到，重力在一个心跳的零头里改变了方向。
对于王丽来说，地面不在它该在的位置。她的脚踩下去，踩在坚实的路面上，但那路面瞬间像液体一样柔软，然后又硬得过分，仿佛脚穿过了维度。
不到一秒钟。就这么多。比眨一下眼还短。
但就在这一秒的碎片里，某种根本性的东西断裂了。他们认识的世界刚刚还在这里，然后就不在了，而他们现在身处的这个世界没有兴趣解释自己。
Emily使劲眨了几下眼，记忆松开了她，将她扔回这个不可能的当下。她的双手仍然死死抓着窗框，指节发白。窗外，一只她不认识的鸟——太大了，颜色不对，叫声也不对——落在一张原本属于校园的长椅上。
身后，她听到Ahmed猛地抽了一口气。然后是椅子的刮擦声——张晓宇重重地坐了下来。
"Emily。"Ahmed叫她名字的时候声音裂了。她转过身，看到他用一种她从未见过的表情盯着她——他所有的自信、幽默、神秘主义的做派全被剥去，只剩下赤裸裸的茫然。"你许的那个愿……"
"别说了。"她自己的声音也不对劲，太尖了。
"你许了个愿，希望有什么事发生。你原话就是——"他笑了一声，但那笑声走了调，边缘带着歇斯底里。"我的天啊Emily。你让宇宙证明不可能的事是可能的，然后它……它真的听进去了。"
张晓宇教授一动不动地坐在椅子上。他盯着自己的双手，像是从没见过它们似的，嘴里低声念叨着——是方程式，Emily意识到。"F等于ma，E等于mc²，熵等于k log W……"他在背诵基本物理定律，像在念祷文，像在确认它们还存在。
从外面什么地方——从那些被移位的建筑群里——传来了尖叫声。
尖叫声从四面八方传来。
Emily松开窗框。"我们得出去看看外面怎么回事。"
"Emily，等一下。"Ahmed已经站起来了，但他的声音多了一层从未有过的郑重。"不管外面是什么情况，我们一起去。"
张晓宇教授一丝不苟地合上笔记本电脑。"科学方法在生存情境中同样适用。先观察，再假设，小心验证。"
他们一起朝门口走去。整栋楼都活了过来——奔跑的脚步声、摔门声、各种语言的呼喊声。那种人们还不太敢相信自己所见的克制的慌乱。
楼梯间是一条混乱的人流。学生们从自习室涌出来，抱着已经没法用的笔记本电脑。教职工站在门口，脸色苍白。一个后勤人员扛着工具箱快步跑过，嘴里嘟囔着什么"总闸"的事。
"张教授！"一个研究生出现在张晓宇肘边，满脸涨红。"实验室设备——所有接市电的都停了。不过备用电池系统还——"
"等一下再说，"张晓宇打断他，语气并不粗暴。"先看看我们面对的是什么。"
他们到达一楼时，第一声警报开始响起——某种本地的应急警报，尖锐而急促。透过图书馆的玻璃门，Emily能看到校园各栋楼里人流涌出。动作很快，遵循着他们从未想过真的要用上的应急流程。
外面的空气扑面而来。不热——比九月的东海市应有的温度要凉，而且比Emily在中国任何一座城市呼吸过的空气都干净。和从裂窗渗进来的一样的气味，更浓烈了——湿润的泥土，她辨认不出的植被，底下是某种古老的味道。
"电网彻底瘫了，"张晓宇说，声音因专注而紧绷。他看着本应亮起的应急灯。"但你看——"他指了指校园中央广场的喷泉。"重力正常。太阳颜色一样。如果这是另一个宇宙，它运行的物理规则我们认识。"
"认识的物理规则解释不了那个，"Ahmed平静地说。
他指的是那些被移位的校园建筑之外的地方——Emily在三楼看到的那条不可能的林线，在地面看更近、更真实。
"我的天，"Emily低声说。
不仅仅是树。她能看到其他被位移的校园建筑散落在这片地貌上，像小孩游戏里掉出来的积木，每一栋都被自己的一小块熟悉的路面和绿化带包围着。工程楼群坐落在大约两百米外，它的停车场在草地边缘戛然而止。
"你看，"张晓宇指向校园各处，"到处都是人。"
Emily能看到零星的人群——有些穿着校庆活动的正装，有些穿便装。他们没有聚拢，没有组织，只是站在那里，三五成簇，茫然失措，或者漫无目的地走动。有些人坐在地上，处于震惊状态。少数几个人在喊名字，找人。
"我好像看到一个认识的人，"张晓宇说，在混乱中辨认出一个穿西装的身影。"我们应该想办法帮忙。"
他们开始穿过校园广场，汇入一条同方向移动的人流。周围的交谈是一锅语言的乱炖——中文、英语、阿拉伯语，还有听起来像德语的。Emily捕捉到一些片段：
"——没有手机信号，座机也打不通——" "——跟我老婆说好七点到家的——" "——物理系的，你知不知道到底——"
"张教授！"
声音从前方传来。张晓宇眼中闪过辨认的光芒，一个身影从校庆来宾群中脱开，急匆匆地朝他们走来。
"老李！"张晓宇喊道。"Michael！"
走过来的人尽管穿着正式的西装，看上去却很狼狈。脸色煞白，Emily能看到他伸过来的手在微微发抖。
"老张！"李伟一把抓住张晓宇的胳膊。"到底怎么回事？我们在哪？这已经不是东海了吧？"话像连珠炮一样蹦出来。
张晓宇无奈地摇头。"我知道的不比你多。这位是Emily，我的学生，还有Ahmed Gad博士，埃及人类学家。刚才他们正帮我准备明天研讨会的材料，就发生了这事。"
"副市长？"Emily听到李伟的头衔时低声惊讶了一下。
李伟尽管明显心神不宁，还是跟他们握了手。"李伟，东海市副市长，"他说。他用发抖的手掏出手机，亮出没有信号的屏幕。"什么都不能用。打不了电话，GPS也没了。我们怎么求救？"
"我们得想想，"张晓宇谨慎地说。"看看周围——我们有学生，有来宾，有完全没有生存经验的人。万一有人一个人跑进那片森林里……"
李伟双手捂了一下眼睛。"对。我们得把人组织起来。先集中到一起。"他的声音在转向具体事务时稍稍稳了下来。"但这种事没有预案。"
"先把大家聚到一起？"张晓宇建议。"至少让人都到一个地方。"
李伟一时有些茫然，然后似乎注意到另一张熟悉的面孔正走过来——一个气质儒雅的年长男人，举手投足间带着习惯了掌权的派头。
"赵医生，"李伟喊道，声音里听得出如释重负。"这位是物理系的张教授。赵明（Martin）医生——以前是第三附属医院的院长。"
赵明阴沉着脸加入他们。"我刚才正在听医学创新论坛，然后……"他对着周围的一切无力地比划了一下。"这是我想的那种情况吗？就像那些穿越小说——现代人一觉醒来到了唐朝？"
"那些小说里的人是自己想穿越的，"Emily用中文插了一句，发音清晰自然。"没人想要这个。"
李伟微微一愣，没想到这个外国学生中文说得这么溜。
"别，"李伟对赵明说，回过神来。"这不是什么我们都能当主角的网络小说。如果这真的是……"他说不下去了。
张晓宇和赵明交换了一个眼神。
"大家在找领导，"赵明压低声音说。"他们很害怕。他们需要有人告诉他们一切都会好起来。"
"那我们自己呢？"李伟问。"知道一切会好起来吗？"
"不知道，"赵明直截了当。"但他们现在还不需要知道这个。"
计划在零碎中拼凑起来。图书馆广场作为集合点——空旷、居中、视野好。张晓宇去试试校园广播室。赵明去找医护人员。李伟去找校庆活动中的其他官员。
"我去主宿舍楼群，"Emily说。那几栋六层建筑里住着八百个学生，如果他们都还在里面的话。
Ahmed去国际公寓——小一些，大概一百五十人，但他们需要有人能用英语解释一件任何语言都解释不了的事。
张晓宇已经朝行政楼走去，嘴里嘟囔着备用发电机和广播频率的事。李伟和赵明朝相反的方向走去，他们的声音渐渐消融在一片完全不像校园的校园噪声中。
Emily转向宿舍楼群。从敞开的窗户里，她能听到哭声、喊叫声、一扇门被反复摔上又拉开的声音。是那些还没往外看过的人发出的声音——又或者已经看了，却停不下来。