The Light Cone press conference was over, and night had fallen. A Maybach cruised along the road back to the Helix Craft workshop. Outside the window, the radiant nightscape of the Luofu flowed past like brilliant ribbons of light.
Inside the car, Vill-V leaned back comfortably in the modified plush seat. Her slender feet, clad in black thigh-high boots, rested casually on the edge of the console, swaying rhythmically. With the autopilot engaged, she glanced at the exquisitely crafted small robot beside her, her lively voice filling the cabin. "Silly apprentice, you've been silent this whole time. What are you pondering?"
Screwllum snapped out of his contemplation, his voice as steady as ever. "While browsing the web just now, I noticed a rather interesting topic."
The punk beauty turned her head with interest. "What is it?"
"It's a classic thought experiment about exponential growth. The question is: if a standard sheet of printing paper could be folded in half 103 times, would its thickness exceed the diameter of the current observable universe?"
Vill-V chuckled. "Why don't you just calculate it yourself? It's not a difficult problem for you."
"The answer is yes," Screwllum displayed the calculation results. "Assuming the initial thickness of a standard sheet of paper is about 0.1 millimeters, and the diameter of the observable universe is about 93 billion light-years; after calculation, the theoretical thickness of the paper folded 103 times is about 1.15 times the diameter of the universe."
"That's exponential growth caused by multiple overlaps. Like a loaf of bread that keeps dividing, its quantity doubles each time. The second before it fills the entire universe, a full half of the universe is still empty," Vill-V shrugged, her tone teasing. "But this is just a thought experiment, meant to show how astonishing the growth rate of an exponential function is. You're not actually considering its feasibility, are you?"
"I was just thinking, if there truly existed some substance in the universe whose structure was tough enough to withstand such extreme folding without being destroyed," Screwllum's reply was tinged with a hint of longing, "what a complex and magnificent spectacle the structure formed after 103 folds would be."
"A very romantic idea. But first, whether this 'paper' folded 103 times can maintain its own stability is a huge problem," Vill-V spread her arms dramatically. "Think about it, compressing a mass greater than the observable universe into such a tiny space, what level would the internal pressure reach? I bet it would go 'poof' and instantly collapse into a super-dense singularity or worse, unable to bear its own absurd mass and gravity."
"Then... what if it could continuously plunder matter and energy from the outside?" Screwllum sank deeper into thought. "Continuously drawing a large amount of matter and energy from the space outside itself, using it as the cornerstone to maintain its structural stability and balance the terrifying internal pressure?"
"That would be even more incredible," Vill-V leaned forward, her eyes shining with the light of someone who has encountered an interesting problem. "If it could really do that, then every particle of this 'paper'—let's just call its basic constituent units 'particles' for now—the mass density of each of these particles would probably be comparable to, or even far exceed, that of a black hole in a regular universe. The slightest leakage of mass or energy would be a disaster for the surrounding environment."
She paused to take a sip of water, then threw out a key question. "But this creates a new paradox. What allows this 'paper' to confine these lively particles, each equivalent to a black hole, and make them stay put instead of going out and wreaking havoc on the entire universe?"
"Perhaps it requires a more fundamental force, one that transcends the 'paper' itself, and even all the laws we know?" Screwllum suggested. "And the role of this force would be to maintain its form without fundamental change."
"An interesting hypothesis. Cantor's diagonal argument states that the concept of infinity itself has different levels. A lower-order infinity is just a little brother in front of a higher-order infinity," Vill-V said, her words as rough as her logic. She tilted her head and looked at her disciple playfully. "But speaking of which, Screwllum, have you been spending too much time on weird sci-fi forums lately? You've got this whole box-stacking theory down pat."
But she naturally wouldn't discourage her apprentice's precious desire for exploration. Instead, she guided him along. "But since we're on the topic of box-stacking, we can indeed extend our discussion... For example, what kind of thing would meet the conditions to become this 'super paper'? Or, where might the mysterious force that causes the 'paper' to fold come from?"
Encouraged, Screwllum's thinking became more active. "Teacher just mentioned lower-order and higher-order infinities. In that case, let's make a bolder assumption—what if the solar system we are in, with its countless parallel worlds, is itself the 'paper' waiting to be folded?"
He elaborated, "The countless parallel worlds derived from a single planet or star system are theoretically infinite, but they are also clearly contained within a larger multiverse—this itself is a classic example of the relationship between lower and higher-order infinities."
"You mean, 'folding' our entire solar system, along with the infinite parallel spacetimes it has spawned, as a whole?" Vill-V stroked her chin. "According to the previous deduction, once this 'folding' reaches a certain critical scale, the effective mass or energy density of every fundamental particle in the solar system will reach an extremely terrifying level. At that time, theoretically, every individual within it, including you and me, could be considered a humanoid black hole or an observable universe singularity."
"And following this hypothesis, the existence capable of 'folding' an entire galaxy is terrifyingly powerful!" she couldn't help but exclaim, a hint of awe in her voice. "It would need to maintain the structural stability of the folded spacetime with its own power, while also perfectly suppressing the terrifying mass and leakage effects of every particle within it."
"Not only that, it would also have to continuously plunder energy from the multiverse outside the solar system to maintain the operation of this folded spacetime, and do it in a way that we, who are inside it, are completely unaware of any abnormality, still able to live our lives day by day as we are now..."
"Conclusion: a multiversal cancer that sweeps across three thousand worlds."
"That's for sure. Hey! Nice phrasing, Screwllum!" Vill-V slapped him on the back. "Then you might as well think about this: if such an existence really exists, what is its motive for going to all this trouble?"
"There are many possibilities," Screwllum analyzed calmly. "Perhaps the folding itself does not possess will as we understand it, and is merely a macro-scale convergence phenomenon that naturally occurs when the multiverse develops to a certain stage, like gravity causing a nebula to condense into a star. Or perhaps its original purpose was not this, but some unexpected change occurred during the process, leading to the current result, and it itself may have become unable to act freely."
"Setting aside 'unable to act freely', infinite overlapping will sooner or later fix the future completely, causing the originally branching network of possibilities to converge into a single line. At that time—huh?" Vill-V muttered, about to continue.
"Alas..." Just then, a faint sigh, as if from the depths of the universe, pierced the soundproof barrier of the car and entered the sharp senses of the master and apprentice.
The tide rises, the tide falls;
In a trance, the sound of waves crashing on a non-existent shore seemed to echo at the edge of consciousness.
The tide rises, the tide falls;
In an unknown corner of the multiverse, a brilliant supercluster of galaxies spanning hundreds of millions of light-years vanished as if erased by an eraser.
The tide rises, the spear comes;
A silvery-white holy lance descended from the heavens, plucking the ethereal threads of fate.
The tide rises, the moon falls;
The mark of death materialized on the surface of a planet, bringing the end to all things in the world.
---||---
The Light Cone press conference was over, and night had fallen. A Maybach cruised along the road back to the Helix Craft workshop. Outside the window, the radiant nightscape of the Luofu flowed past like brilliant ribbons of light.
Inside the car, Vill-V leaned back comfortably in the modified plush seat. Her slender feet, clad in black thigh-high boots, rested casually on the edge of the console, swaying rhythmically. She glanced at the exquisitely crafted small robot beside her, her lively voice filling the cabin. "Silly apprentice, you've been silent this whole time. What are you pondering?"
Screwllum snapped out of his contemplation, his voice as steady as ever. "It's just that while browsing the web just now, I noticed a rather interesting topic."
The punk beauty asked with great interest, "What is it?"
"It's the Vatican's ambassador to Andorra, the famously meticulous Mr. Sunday. He held a press conference," Screwllum said. "He solemnly clarified the rumors circulating about Miss Robin and Mr. Fuli, emphasizing that they were completely baseless speculation."
"That winged idiot. Doesn't he know that the more seriously you deny something, the more the gossip-mongers will believe it's true?" Vill-V shook her head helplessly, returning with her disciple to the Helix Craft workshop's residence on the Luofu.