The Three-Body Problem

The abbot slowly waved his hand at me. “I told you, the two of us can’t talk about Buddhism. The existence of the Buddha is a kind of existence that you cannot comprehend. But the Lord she’s talking about exists in a way that you can understand.… I can say no more concerning this matter. All I can do is counsel you against leaving with her.”

“Why?”

“It’s just a feeling. I feel that behind her are things that you and I cannot imagine.”

I left the abbot’s room and walked through the temple toward my room. The night had a full moon. I looked up at it and thought it a silvery, strange eye that gazed down at me, the light suffused with an eerie chill.

The next day, I did leave with Shen—I couldn’t stay in the temple the rest of my life, after all. But I didn’t think that over the next few years, I would live the life of my dreams. Shen fulfilled her promise. I had a minicomputer and a comfortable environment. I even left the country several times to use supercomputers—not time-sharing, but having the whole CPU to myself. She had a lot of money, though I didn’t know where it came from.

Later, we got married. There wasn’t much love or passion, just mutual convenience. We both had things we wanted to get done. As for me, the few years after that could be described as a single day. My time passed peacefully. In her house, I was taken care of and did not have to worry about food or clothing, so that I could devote myself to the study of the three-body problem. Shen never interfered with my life. The garage had a car that I could drive anywhere. I’m sure she wouldn’t even have minded if I brought another woman home. She only paid attention to my research, and the only thing we talked about day to day was the three-body problem.

“Do you know what else Shen has been up to?” Shi Qiang asked.

“Just the Frontiers of Science. She’s busy with it all the time. Lots of people show up every day.”

“She didn’t ask you to join?”

“Never. She never even talks to me about it. I don’t care, either. That’s just the way I am. I don’t want to care about anything. She knows it, and says I’m an indolent man without any sense of purpose. The organization doesn’t suit me and would interfere with my research.”

“Have you made any progress with the three-body problem?” Wang asked.