44: Chapter 44 The Riemann Code

On the private plane heading to the Deep Space Technology orbital assembly plant, Lin Shen closed his eyes to rest, but his brain was running at high speed.

The interface of the technology tree system unfolded in his consciousness, and the [Quantum Spacetime Sensing Array] branch was emitting a soft blue light.

Beside it was a long string of equations waiting to be solved—that was the "Spacetime Stable Structure" mathematical model sent by the lunar ruins.

Nuwa had already completed seventy percent of the analysis, and the remaining part required human intuition to break through.

"Dr. Lin, the latest decoding results from Xichang." Su Ting handed over the tablet; she seemed to never need rest. "The ruins sent new information twenty minutes ago, and this time it's... mathematical function images."

The screen displayed a two-dimensional chart.

The horizontal axis was the real numbers, and the vertical axis was the complex numbers, with countless points distributed along a vertical critical line.

Some points were dense, some sparse, forming a mysterious and regular distribution pattern.

"This is..." Lin Shen sat up straight.

"The distribution map of the non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function." Nuwa's voice came from the tablet's built-in speaker. "More accurately, it is the precise location of the first ten thousand zeros. But compared to the distribution recorded in standard mathematical literature, this chart has... five extra points."

The chart was magnified, and five isolated red dots fell outside the critical line—according to the Riemann Hypothesis, these should not exist.

The Riemann Hypothesis is one of the most famous unsolved mysteries in mathematics.

It asserts that all non-trivial zeros of the zeta function lie on the line with a real part of 1/2 on the complex plane.

If the hypothesis holds, it will uncover the deepest laws of prime number distribution; if the hypothesis is falsified, the entire number theory system will need to be rebuilt.

And these five red dots, if they are real, mean one thing: the Riemann Hypothesis is wrong.

"Has it been verified?" Lin Shen asked.

"It is being calculated using jiuzhang-2." Nuwa replied, "But even with the speed of a quantum computer, it will take at least six hours to fully verify ten thousand zeros. However, I have compared the first thousand points—they match the known precise calculation results perfectly, with an error of within 10^-15."

In other words, this chart is absolutely accurate for at least the first thousand points.

Then, those five red dots at the end...

Lin Shen stared at the screen.

This was not a random math lesson, but some kind of test, or... some kind of guidance.

"Nuwa, convert the coordinates of the five anomalous zeros into physical dimensions." He said, "Use Planck length as the unit."

The calculation results were displayed quickly: after the dimensional conversion of the five coordinate values, they exactly corresponded to five fundamental physical constants—the speed of light, the Planck constant, the gravitational constant, the vacuum permittivity, and... an unknown sixth constant.

"The last conversion result does not correspond to any known physical quantity." Nuwa said, "It is a pure number: 137.035999084."

"The reciprocal of the fine-structure constant." Lin Shen whispered.

The fine-structure constant, a dimensionless constant describing the strength of electromagnetic interaction, is approximately 1/137.

It is one of the fundamental parameters of the universe, and why its value is this number remains the greatest mystery in physics to this day.

And this ruin has linked the anomalous zeros of the Riemann zeta function with the fine-structure constant.

"It is telling us," Lin Shen felt a wave of dizziness, "that mathematics, physics, and spacetime structure... are different sides of the same coin."

Just then, the private plane landed.

Deep Space Technology orbital assembly plant, 3:00 AM.

The factory building was large enough to fit an entire football field, with a dome fifty meters high.

On the central assembly rack, the main structure of the Kuafu probe had already taken shape—it was not as small as a traditional probe, but more like a miniature spacecraft, about eight meters long and three meters at its widest point.

The surface was covered with silver-gray composite armor, and six deployable solar panels were installed on the sides.

But the most striking feature was its "head": a complex polyhedral structure composed of twenty identical equilateral triangular panels, with tiny quantum sensor arrays embedded on each panel.

A Platonic icosahedron.

It was exactly the structure sent by the lunar ruins.

"Dr. Lin!" A middle-aged man in work clothes approached. He was Wang Zhenguo, the chief engineer of the assembly plant.

There were bloodshot eyes from staying up late, but he was high-spirited. "The spacetime curvature monitoring array has been installed, but we have encountered trouble with the quantum entanglement particle source..."

He led Lin Shen to an independent workbench beside the assembly rack.

On the table was a silver-white device the size of a refrigerator, with complex cooling pipes on the surface.

Through the observation window, one could see a crystal array suspended inside, emitting a faint blue light.

"According to the new parameters you sent back from Hefei, we manufactured the topological quantum memory chipset." Wang Zhenguo pulled up the monitoring data.

"In a laboratory environment, the coherence time can reach fifty-five minutes, which perfectly meets the standard. But once connected to the probe's overall system, inexplicable quantum decoherence occurs—the time shortens to less than ten minutes."

Lin Shen leaned over to observe the inside of the device: "Have you done the system electromagnetic compatibility test?"

"We did it three times, and everything is normal." Wang Zhenguo smiled bitterly, "It's like... it's like the probe itself is 'interfering' with the quantum state. But we checked all the components and didn't find any source that could cause such interference."

Lin Shen was silent for a few seconds, then said: "Turn off all external power and use only internal battery power. Nuwa, scan the overall mass distribution of the probe."

A 3D model appeared on the console.

The mass distribution map of the Kuafu probe was rendered in color, with a gradient from blue (low density) to red (high density).

The overall distribution was uniform, except for...

"Here." Lin Shen pointed to an area in the middle of the probe, where there was a faint, almost invisible "depression"—the mass distribution was 0.0007% lower than the surrounding area. "What part is this?"

Wang Zhenguo pulled up the design drawing: "It's the docking interface of the payload bay, a pure mechanical structure with no electronic components."

"But the spacetime curvature around it..." Lin Shen pulled up the data from the Hefei experiment.

"Nuwa, calculate this: if there is a mass anomaly near the center point of a Platonic icosahedron structure, what impact will it have on the spacetime stable field of the entire structure?"

The calculation took thirty seconds.

"The result is out: the mass depression will cause a 0.3% distortion in the spacetime curvature at the vertices of the icosahedron. This distortion will oscillate at a specific frequency, and this frequency..." Nuwa paused, "happens to overlap with the resonance frequency of the topological quantum bits."

"So our structural design itself is interfering with the quantum state?" Wang Zhenguo was shocked.

"No, the design is incomplete." Lin Shen re-pulled up the mathematical model sent by the ruins.

"The ruins gave us the geometry of the icosahedron, but didn't give us the correction formula for when there is mass distribution inside. It is testing us—to see if we can complete this equation ourselves."

He walked to the console and began to derive it manually.

On the screen, complex differential equations unfolded like running water.

Lin Shen's fingers danced on the virtual keyboard, pausing from time to time, frowning in thought, and then continuing.

This was not a job that computers could completely take over.

It required that kind of fuzzy human intuition, the ability to find hidden connections in seemingly unrelated information.

Fifteen minutes later, he added a correction term to the equation.

It was a complex expression containing the coupling of the mass distribution tensor and the curvature tensor.

"Recalculate." Lin Shen said.

Nuwa executed the calculation.

A new mass-curvature distribution map emerged; the original distortion had disappeared, and the icosahedron structure exhibited perfect symmetry.

"Predicted quantum decoherence value?" Lin Shen asked.

"If the correction is correct, the coherence time should recover to over fifty-two minutes." Nuwa replied. "It is recommended to verify experimentally immediately."

Wang Zhenguo had already directed the team to start adjustments.

Ten minutes later, the quantum entanglement particle source restarted.

The coherence time curve on the monitoring screen began to climb: twenty minutes, thirty minutes, forty minutes...

"Fifty-one minutes! It's stable!" a young engineer shouted.

Brief applause rang out in the assembly plant, but it quickly subsided.

Everyone knew that this was just the first step of a long journey.

"Dr. Lin," Wang Zhenguo said in a low voice, "even if the quantum communication module works properly, Kuafu will need at least seventy-two hours to reach lunar orbit. And the Imperial Alliance's Zeus Station..."

"Launching in forty hours, and arriving at the moon in three days." Lin Shen continued, "We have a time window, but it's very narrow."

He looked at the huge countdown clock hanging high in the factory: 37:22:11.

In thirty-seven hours, ares-7 will ignite.

At the same time, inside the conference room of the Imperial Alliance Joint Space Command Center.

A debate was raging.

"I'll say it again, the risk of launching early is too great." The speaker was Mission Safety Officer Richard Wu, a Chinese-American engineer known for his rigor.

"The life support system of Zeus Station has not completed its final long-cycle closed-loop test, and the redundant design of the radiation protection module has only been verified by eighty percent. If we insist on moving it up by fifty days, the probability of mission failure will increase by at least twelve percentage points."

"But the cost of waiting may be greater." Rebutting him was the head of the scientific advisory team, astrophysicist Dr. Elaine Rodriguez.

"The anomalous changes at the lunar south pole are accelerating. Our orbiter observed that the surface albedo of the target area has dropped by 3% in the past forty-eight hours."

"What does this mean? It means that volatile substances might be seeping out from underground—it could be water ice, or it could be something else. If we arrive late, the samples might already be contaminated or gone."

"What about the Dragon Kingdom side?" Richard pulled up another report.

"Their guanghan-1 probe has been observing that area continuously for half a month. If we suddenly launch early, how will they react? Diplomatic friction? Technological confrontation? Or worse?"

There was silence in the conference room for a few seconds.

Finally, the old man sitting in the main seat spoke.

He was the highest advisor of the Joint Command, James Calder, a legendary figure who had worked in the aerospace field for fifty years.

"Gentlemen," his voice was hoarse but powerful, "I know what you are worried about. Risks, uncertainties, international relations. But have you thought about one question: why does the Dragon Kingdom want to invest so many resources in that remote, dark, and cold lunar south pole? Why do their probes continue to observe a seemingly ordinary impact crater?"

He pulled up a set of comparison images.

On the left was the publicly released mission goal of the Dragon Kingdom's guanghan-1: lunar water ice resource exploration.

On the right was the equipment list analyzed by the intelligence department—on that list, two-thirds of the instruments were not suitable for water ice exploration at all, but were specifically used to monitor... spacetime anomalies.

"They are looking for something else." Calder said, "And we might know what that is."

He opened an encrypted file.

The cover of the file was printed with an ancient symbol: an equilateral triangle nested in a circle, which was the logo of a secret research project in the twentieth century.

"Project 'Daedalus', 1969 to 1977." Calder said slowly.

"During the Apollo program, we received abnormal electromagnetic signals on the far side of the moon. The signals had highly structured mathematical characteristics, lasted for eight years, and then suddenly disappeared."

"At the time, analysis suggested it might be a natural phenomenon, or interference from the Soviet Union. But declassified files in 1992 showed... the location of the signal source was exactly near the lunar south pole."

Dr. Elaine gasped: "You mean, there might be... non-natural structures on the moon? And the Dragon Kingdom has already found it?"

"Or rather, they are about to find it." Calder closed the file, "So we must move it up. No matter how big the risk, no matter how high the cost. Because if that thing really exists, the civilization that makes contact with it first will obtain the key to the next evolutionary leap."

He looked at everyone in the conference room: "History will remember this moment. Either we become the ones who open a new era, or we become bystanders watching others open a new era. The choice is clear, isn't it?"

Richard still wanted to say something, but finally fell silent.

The countdown continued: 36:18:47.

Deep Space Technology assembly plant, 6:00 AM.

The final check of the Kuafu probe was underway.

Lin Shen stood on the observation platform, watching the busy engineers below.

The quantum communication module had passed all tests, and the coherence time was stable at fifty-three minutes—enough to establish a real-time quantum channel between the Earth and the Moon.

But there was still one problem.

"Dr. Lin," Nuwa's voice sounded in his ear—through bone conduction headphones, only he could hear, "According to the Riemann zero distribution map sent by the ruins, I have made a new discovery. The coordinates corresponding to those five anomalous zeros, if projected onto the Solar System..."

A 3D star map unfolded in Lin Shen's augmented reality glasses.

The five red dots fell on: the lunar south pole, the Tharsis Plateau of Mars, the Alpha region of Venus, under the ice of Europa, and... the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean on Earth.

"These are all areas known or suspected to have geological anomalies." Nuwa said, "More importantly, their positions form a perfect projection of a five-dimensional hypercube in three-dimensional space—a high-dimensional geometric structure."

Lin Shen felt his heart skip a beat: "You mean, these points are not isolated. They are part of a... system?"

"A monitoring network spread throughout the Solar System, or an anchor system." Nuwa's voice was calm, but the content was shocking, "If this hypothesis holds, then the 'awakening' of the lunar ruins may not be an isolated event. It may trigger a chain reaction."

Just then, an emergency communication from Xichang came in.

"Dr. Lin," Chen Xuan's voice trembled slightly, "the lunar ruins... it has started to actively send gravitational wave signals. The intensity is very weak, but the frequency is steadily rising. And... and the modulation pattern of the signal has a 0.7% similarity with the curvature ripples of the Reapers civilization."

0.7%. It seemed small, but in this level of signal analysis, it was already a significant correlation.

The lunar ruins and the approaching Reapers civilization shared some kind of technological feature.

"It is preparing something." Lin Shen whispered, "Just like taking a deep breath, preparing to wake up."

The countdown clock showed: 35:05:33.

Thirty-five hours until launch.

The distance to the start of the unknown chain reaction, perhaps even closer.

Lin Shen opened the communicator: "General Liu, I need to mobilize the maneuverability of the Tiangong space station. If the situation gets out of control, we must have the ability to establish a quarantine zone in lunar orbit."

"It is already being deployed." General Liu's reply was concise and powerful, "Three 'Tenglong' cargo spacecraft are being converted into interception platforms, equipped with non-kinetic interference weapons. But Lin Shen, tell me the truth—if the ruins really wake up, do these methods of ours make sense?"

Lin Shen was silent for a long time.

"It's like primitive people using torches to fight a thunderstorm." He finally said, "It might be useless, but at least... we are trying to understand what the thunderstorm is. And understanding is the first step to coping."

He looked at the Kuafu probe that was about to be completed below.

This spacecraft, named after the giant in mythology who chased the sun, might now be going to chase an ancient entity that is currently waking up.

And all of them were racing against time.

Racing against a countdown that might have started millions of years ago.