180: Chapter 180: The Ghost of Possibility Will Come to Reality and Be Witnessed by You

"Quantum Mechanics..." Professor Leng frowned slightly and hurriedly asked, "The 'doppelgänger phenomenon' sounds like a new term in psychology. Do you mean that there exists someone in the world who looks exactly like me? The probability of that..."

"No." Jiang Zhe quickly interrupted him. "This isn't just a simple case of looking alike. There are currently no reports or journals worldwide about this. As of now, I am the only one who knows about this matter."

"According to non-public data I have investigated privately, reports of such 'encountering another self' incidents worldwide have increased by 3000% over the past five years. And all cases exhibit several eerie commonalities."

[1. The original and the doppelgänger are never observed in the same space-time simultaneously]

[2. Social media activity shows complementarity—when one side is active, the other is often silent]

[3. The doppelgängers all insist they are only children and possess complete, independent life trajectories]

On the big screen, the screen of Xiaoyu's mobile phone appeared.

In front of countless viewers, Jiang Zhe opened the social media homepage of that 'Paris doppelgänger' on an overseas website; the page was in French.

Since there was no translation function, he read the French while explaining, "Look here!"

"His birthplace: Su City, which is where I am located."

Then, Jiang Zhe opened Professor Leng Qingsong's online homepage. "And your homepage also lists Su City; you two are the same."

"Elementary school, both are Experimental Elementary School, just like you; and even this..."

He found a photo of a leg scar on the doppelgänger's social media, and then found a photo of a scar on Professor Leng Qingsong's social media.

"As you can see, even the shape and position of your scars match perfectly!" (PS: Case adapted; the event is true, but very extreme!)

Seeing this, Professor Leng, all the top students, and the audience held their breath.

"Look, your life trajectories began to diverge starting from high school."

"You were admitted to the Psychology Department of Jingda University, while he—"

Then, an old admission letter of the doppelgänger popped up. "...went to the Sorbonne University in France to study art history, and has lived in Europe ever since."

In the audience, many people subconsciously swallowed hard, their eyes filled with a sense of shock.

In the delegation areas for Huaqing University, Dabei University, and Shanghai, several students exchanged bewildered looks. "Holy crap!" xN

"Professor Leng, as you can see, the probability of nature giving birth to two people with completely identical genes is infinitely close to zero."

Jiang Zhe then opened the global genetic database and ran a quick query on the Paris doppelgänger and Professor Leng's doppelgänger to see if both had genetic profiles on file.

Fortunately, both were public figures, so their data existed in the genetic database. The files popped up.

Two different names, two identical files. The similarity comparison result flashed on the screen: [Genetic sequence similarity: 99.9%]

But below, there was a line of small text: [Sample A: Leng Qingsong, average telomere length: 7.42 kb: tested in 2023] [Sample B: Zhang Jianguo, average telomere length: 8.19 kb: tested in 2022]

Looking at the report, Professor Leng narrowed his eyes and asked, "Telomeres?"

"Yes, they are the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes. Every time a cell divides, the telomere shortens slightly, and the biological age increases slightly. It is the human body's aging clock."

Jiang Zhe explained unhurriedly, "Due to personal privacy, I have erased the last two characters of Sample B. You can see that the middle-aged or elderly man named Zhang in Sample B has longer telomeres than you, by about 7 years."

"In other words, that version of you sitting in a Paris café is 7 years younger than you in biological age."

At this moment, in the live stream chat, the viewers all felt it was incredible.

"100% similarity, a clone?"

"But the ages are different, and the surnames are different too. Clones should be the same age, right?"

"Parallel worlds?"

"Mommy, I've got goosebumps..."

Shortly after, Jiang Zhe's voice came again.

"Professor Leng, you and he are not twins. You are you, an only child, raised in Su City, teaching at Jingda University."

He opened that street-style art photo of the Paris doppelgänger.

"But have you ever thought about this question: That summer in 1978, at the very last moment when you filled out your college entrance exam preferences, did that version of you who 'wanted to go to France to study art' really disappear completely?"

"By common sense, yes. Because you chose psychology, that dream of going to study art should have been discarded; but Quantum Mechanics tells you: No. That version of you who 'wanted to study art' never disappeared at all."

Pausing for a moment after this explanation, he continued, "To put it in the simplest terms: your life is like a channel that is always broadcasting, but you can only see one screen."

"When you chose psychology, you switched to the 'Psychologist Leng Qingsong' channel; for you, this life channel has a clear picture and clear sound, and you live within this story."

"But please believe—that 'Art History Professor Leng Qingsong' channel is still broadcasting."

"It has always been there!"

"From the moment you made your choice in 1978, it has been on another frequency, simultaneously broadcasting 'another version' of your life."

"He grew up in Su City, has the same scar on his knee, but after high school, he went to France, drank coffee on the Left Bank, and taught at the Sorbonne... This channel is real; it's just that you usually can't receive its signal."

"This is what is meant by 'decoherence'..."

"As the name implies: every time you make a choice, a new world is created."

"And your world, Leng Qingsong, was not split; it's just that your receiver is locked onto the 'Psychology channel'."

"The other 'Art channel' is infinitely close to you on a physical level, but infinitely far away on an informational level, just like two radio stations playing side by side without interfering with each other—"

"This satisfies the premises 1 and 2 of the 'doppelgänger phenomenon':"

"[1. The original and the doppelgänger are never observed in the same space-time simultaneously]"

"[2. Social media activity shows complementarity—when one side is active, the other is often silent]"

On the big screen, two parallel timelines began to appear: one was Professor Leng's real life; the other was the Paris doppelgänger's social media footprint. The two lives moved forward in parallel, without interfering with each other.

"So the question arises—" Jiang Zhe asked, deep in thought, "What if you suddenly start missing that art channel you cut off with a madness?"

"What if you regret it day and night, dig out old sketches from decades ago, and repeatedly ask yourself 'What if back then...'? What would happen to reality when faced with such an extremely intense emotion?"

He paused for a few seconds to let the top students and the audience think, then continued.

"Yes, it will turn into a rule-breaking operation of forced searching!"

"It's because your 'regret' is too strong, too focused. Your brain starts brute-force scanning worlds of all frequencies, and so, at a certain moment—for example, the moment this photo was taken by someone else—you briefly and erroneously captured the signal of that 'Art channel'."

"Therefore, the person in the photo is not a hallucination, not a clone, and not a visitor from a parallel universe."

Having reached this point, Jiang Zhe gave his final answer:

"He is you yourself; he is the version of you that has always lived in the art channel and has never stopped broadcasting."

"But please understand this rule: you can only see him in a fleeting glance; you absolutely cannot locate him in reality."

"This means: you can completely and recklessly look at him in the online world, just like you are looking at his photos and homepage now; I would say there is no problem with that at all."

"But once you try to cross the line, find his phone number, pick up the phone to contact him, or buy a plane ticket to go find him..."

After a few seconds of silence, Jiang Zhe feigned regret as he continued:

"Then I am very sorry, but such a real-life contact is the most fatal observation of the 'Ghost of Possibility'!"

"At that time, you will find—the art-loving Professor Leng in France will begin to evaporate from the world, his files will start to disappear, your memories will start to blur; all evidence that could prove his existence will slowly recede before your eyes."

"The harder you search, the more completely he will be annihilated!"

"Until in the end, all your efforts will only prove one cruel fact to you!"

"That other life that you have regretted for half your life, under the rules of our current physical universe—never existed!"

"Of course, I am talking about the bad outcome; naturally, there is also a better outcome."

Professor Leng sat up straight, his expression exceptionally serious.

"What is the better outcome—it is that you truly find the French Professor Leng in reality, but after you land in France and find his house, when he opens the door, you will discover... he is nothing like you; he is identical to you in photos, but completely different in reality!"

"Yes, actually we are all the same. Every abandoned choice—the lover you didn't pursue, the job you didn't dare to quit, the city you regret not visiting—none of them have disappeared."

"Those 'possibilities' have always been on another frequency, living synchronously with our real selves."

"And 'decoherence' protects us, preventing us from hearing their noise—but extreme regret, obsession, and intense unfinished emotions, like a broken radio, will cause us to occasionally hear the sound of our own lives on another channel."

"And Professor Leng, have you recently turned the 'regret' knob a bit too hard?"

The moment the words fell, Professor Leng stiffened in the judge's seat. The color on his face vanished rapidly, turning deathly pale in the blink of an eye.

The studio fell into a deathly silence, so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Over three hundred audience members stared fixedly at Professor Leng.

After a full twenty-five seconds, Professor Leng finally laughed hoarsely and said, "I... when I was young, I did indeed have two dreams."

He took a deep breath, seemingly struggling internally. "One was psychology; because my father was a doctor, he hoped I would study medicine or a related discipline; the other was... fine arts!"

"In high school, my oil painting scores were in the top five in the province, and I was summoned by the master of Sinology Wang Haiyang... that is, the father of the current master Wang Chongyang."

"His father was a great master of modern landscape painting!"

"I had always wanted to go to France to study foreign art, but the college entrance exam was reinstated in 1978. It was a rare opportunity, and my family said there was no future in studying art, so I finally compromised and enrolled in the Psychology Department at Jingda University!"

Speaking of this, Professor Leng's expression was moved. "A year ago, when my wife was ill, I was organizing old belongings and dug out the sketches I had made back then, along with the draft application materials for the Sorbonne..."

"After my wife passed away, I suffered from insomnia for a long time. I kept thinking, if I had persisted back then and not chosen to study medicine, perhaps I wouldn't have met my wife, who died of depression because of me."

"In that case, our lives might have been different, and she might have lived twenty more years, perhaps freer and happier!"

Speaking of this, the smile on his face was somewhat forced.

"What I didn't expect was that my regret could actually drag 'another me' out into our current world."

"Hiss~" Someone in the audience gasped. Immediately, incredulous exclamations spread like a tidal wave.

A girl covered her mouth in shock, tears welling up in her eyes. "Does this mean that every choice we abandon will result in another set of 'us' appearing in the physical world we are in right now, who will never interact with us?"

Another boy gasped. "Then... those things we regret in the middle of the night, those 'what if back then's..."

Someone in the back row of the audience couldn't help but curse. "Holy shit, this is scarier than a ghost story!"

In the seating area for top students from the delegations of Huaqing University, Dabei University, and Shanghai, the top students instantly fell into a heated debate.