Low probability event
Shen Huaiming's extremely brief email was like a piece of abnormal code suddenly piercing a stable operating system, causing the air in the entire laboratory to freeze instantly. Shen Zhiyan stared at the screen, his jawline tense, his gaze behind his glasses as sharp as a scalpel. He didn't reply immediately, but instead checked the live surveillance footage of the conference room on the first floor of the laboratory—it was empty; Shen Huaiming had not yet arrived.
"I'll go down with you." Jiang Mo's voice broke the silence, her hand still gently holding his forearm, conveying silent support.
Shen Zhiyan shook his head, his movements subtle yet firm: "He's asking for 'one person.' This is his test, and also his rule. Violating the rule will allow him to occupy the moral high ground, making subsequent negotiations more difficult." He analyzed calmly, as if processing a set of complex data, "You stay here and keep the encrypted channel open."
He stood up, straightened his perfectly wrinkle-free shirt, his movements composed, as if he were simply attending an ordinary academic discussion. But Jiang Mo caught a fleeting, extremely complex emotion in his eyes before he turned away—guardedness, resolve, and perhaps a barely perceptible hint of the heaviness a son feels when facing his father.
After Shen Zhiyan left, the laboratory fell into an anxious wait. Researcher Zhou and Xiao Chen had obviously guessed what was going on, and they gathered around Jiang Mo, the atmosphere heavy.
"Will Teacher Shen... be alright?" Xiao Chen asked worriedly.
“That’s his father.” Researcher Zhou sighed, his tone complicated. “But sometimes, the person who knows you best is the one who makes the most…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but everyone understood the unspoken meaning.
Jiang Mo didn't participate in the discussion. She walked to the control panel, pulled up the surveillance footage from the entrance of the first-floor conference room, and stared intently at it. She knew she couldn't intervene in the confrontation between father and son, but she had to ensure she was aware of the situation immediately.
Time ticked by, each second feeling incredibly long. Jiang Mo's fingertips tapped unconsciously on the table, the rhythm erratic. She remembered the photo of the wisteria rose that Shen Zhiyan had shared, the rare look of bewilderment in his eyes when he spoke of his father, and his steady, warm hand in the darkness. A strange, intense protective instinct began to grow within her, intertwining with her concern as an ally, becoming increasingly heavy.
The encryption software was eerily quiet.
Nearly an hour later, Shen Zhiyan finally reappeared at the laboratory door. His face was even paler than when he left, his lips were tightly pressed together, and he exuded an almost tangible chill. He didn't look at anyone, walked straight to his desk, picked up a water glass, but his fingers trembled almost imperceptibly, causing the water in the glass to ripple slightly.
Jiang Mo immediately got up and walked over, while Researcher Zhou and Xiao Chen tacitly did not follow, giving them space.
"How is it?" she asked in a low voice.
Shen Zhiyan put down his water glass, took a deep breath, and then looked up at her. His eyes regained their usual calmness, but beneath that calmness, there was a turbulent undercurrent.
“He presented his final conditions.” Shen Zhiyan’s voice was low and hoarse. “Cease all ‘inappropriate attention’ to the foundation and related capital, publicly clarify the ‘methodological limitations’ of the previous ‘science videos,’ and… distance yourself from you.” He paused, each word seeming to have been pulled from an ice cellar. “In exchange, he will ensure the ‘absolute safety’ of you and your family and promise not to interfere with my research direction again.”
Jiang Mo's heart sank. Shen Huaiming wanted them to surrender completely and personally destroy everything they had just built up—their credibility, their alliance, and the unspoken but quietly growing emotional connection.
"What...how did you answer?"
A faint, cold smile curved Shen Zhiyan's lips—a smile Jiang Mo had never seen on his face before, a smile with sharp angles. "I told him the probability was zero."
Four simple words, yet they carried immense weight. He chose the most difficult path, confronting it head-on.
“He said,” Shen Zhiyan continued, his tone eerily calm, “that I made an irrational and costly mistake. He gave me a final twenty-four hours to ‘calibrate’ my decision.”
The pressure had reached its peak.
As night deepened, Researcher Zhou and Xiao Chen had already left, leaving only Shen Zhiyan and Jiang Mo in the laboratory. They didn't turn on the main lights; only the indicator lights of a few standby instruments emitted a faint glow in the darkness, like stars in the night sky.
Shen Zhiyan stopped working and stood by the window, gazing at the deep night sky outside. Jiang Mo made two cups of hot cocoa and handed him one. He didn't refuse and took it; the warm cup dispelled some of the coldness from his fingertips.
“Sometimes,” Shen Zhiyan suddenly spoke, his voice unusually clear in the silence, “I try to calculate the probability of certain low-probability events occurring.” He didn’t look at her, still gazing out the window, “For example, the probability of two people with very different backgrounds and originally parallel paths intersecting in a vast sea of people.”
Jiang Mo's heart began to race, but she held the warm cup without interrupting him.
“In conventional models, this probability is so low that it can be ignored,” he continued, his tone purely rational, but the content went straight to the heart of the matter: “It is affected by countless variables—time, place, random events, individual choices…any tiny change can lead to drastically different results.”
He slowly turned around, his gaze finding her precisely in the dim light: "But low probability doesn't mean impossible. Just like some theoretically impossible particles in the universe can still be observed." He took a step forward, closing the distance between them to the point where they could feel each other's breath. "Jiang Mo, to me, you are that anomaly that transcends all prior probabilities... All my models need to be reconstructed because of your appearance."
This wasn't just a sweet love confession; it was Shen Zhiyan's highest level of declaration of love. He used his unique language to tell her that her appearance had overturned his established world.
Jiang Mo looked up at him. In the darkness, his outline was somewhat blurred, but his eyes were exceptionally bright. She put down her cup, took a step forward, and closed the last bit of distance between them. She didn't speak, but simply reached out and gently grasped his hand, which was hanging by his side and slightly curled up.
His fingers stiffened for a moment, then slowly relaxed, and firmly returned her grip. Fingertips touched, palms pressed together, and warmth flowed in the silence. There was no embrace, no more intimate gestures, just this simple handshake, yet it seemed to have exhausted all courage and confirmed their mutual feelings.
Just then, Jiang Mo picked up her thermos from the lab table, about to drink some water, when the bottom of the cup made a slight, unusual "click" sound as it touched the surface, unlike the sound one would expect from ceramic or metal. Puzzled, she turned the cup upside down and discovered a small, black metal device, smaller than a fingernail and now faintly glowing red, stuck to the gap between the bottom and the silicone gasket.
Shen Zhiyan immediately took the cup, glanced at it, and his voice dropped to freezing: "This is a miniature passive signal repeater. All our conversations may have been eavesdropped on."
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