In Lingshu Hall, the afternoon sunlight stretched like a golden thread through the blinds, cutting the wooden floor into alternating. Those, as if time were folded into,. The air held the lingering warmth of mugwort ash with a hint of, with the of disinfectant, and a faint trace of sandalwood—like leaking from an unseen,. After seeing off the last scheduled patient, Xiuxiu didn't spread medical records on the rosewood desk as usual, nor dip a brush in cinnabar to, nor sterilize silver needles in. She stood before the light wall flowing with digitalized meridian maps,, only her eyelashes occasionally fluttering.
The twelve regular meridians and eight extraordinary vessels on screen resembled magnified, on the transparent human model; acupoints pulsed like pulsars. She reached to touch, and the like disturbed fireflies, quickly reabsorbed by the model. This was her "child"—fed with, oral, and millions of modern bioelectric to deep learning networks,. She thought she was enough, treating this"" like a surgeon. But now, her heart felt by a fine thread, each beat. Her gaze,. It lasted only 0.7 milliseconds,,,,. Yet its tore wider in her cognition.
That afternoon, Xiao Li from the quantum computing research institute came in with migraine, face. She selected Neiguan on the Triple Burner Meridian, Taichong and Fengchi, aiming to. The moment the needle achieved deqi, the monitor waveform suddenly, into. She thought it was, but playback showed the,0.1. She tried to with "coincidence," like using a. Now, that in the screen corner,.
She recalled the line from "Suwen · Yin Yang Ying Xiang Da Lun": "Heaven's qi connects with the lungs; earth's qi connects with the throat." Ancient people viewed the human body as an inverted bellows where. As a child with her grandfather, his: "Qi is the root of humanity; if the root withers, stem and leaves dry." She didn't understand then, only seeing "qi" as grandfather's smoke rings rising to the rafters, dispersing in. Later she studied biomedical engineering at Tongji, treating meridians as interstitial channels, "defensive qi" as a of lymph and neurotransmitters. She thought she had dissected "qi" cleanly with surgical precision, but that. She suddenly realized she had never truly escaped grandfather's smoke rings—they had just in a more.
She turned off the light wall; the treatment room,. She walked to the medicine cabinet, opened the bottom drawer,. The lid carved with felt subtly, like. Inside were her: chan needle, yuan needle, di needle, feng needle, pi needle, yuanli needle, hao needle, long needle, large needle. She each,, yet in that felt, as if these.
She recalled "Lingshu · Guan Zhen" chapter: "The nine needles each have their purpose; their lengths and sizes each have their applications." Ancient people used chan needles to, feng needles to, hao needles to, as if using nine different languages to converse with the body. A arose: perhaps that was the universe's tenth language, and she lacked the corresponding "needle."
She closed her eyes, letting breath sink to dantian, then slowly rise to. Grandfather taught her "collecting solar essence", saying afternoon sunlight held "yang essence" that could. She imagined those golden from pores,, finally converging at into a. But that like ice; wherever it passed,. She abruptly opened her eyes,. She realized she must do something, or that would like leeches.
She opened her terminal, emailed Professor Yue'er at the mathematics department. Yue'er once came for treatment, leaving a remark: "My fluctuations and your meridians might be two voices of the same song." Back then she dismissed it as; now it felt like grasping a. She wrote: "Professor Yue,. I'm interested in the 'anomalous fluctuations' you mentioned. Would you share recent data? I suspect it's related to. If willing, I can provide before/after acupuncture as." She read it thrice, changed "suspect" to "speculate," "exchange" to "discuss," then clicked send. The screen flashed; the email.
She returned to the light wall,, to only. The Triple Burner Meridian's like an from, intersecting with, into complex. She,,. At, that; its, 47Hz—the upper bound of human brain gamma waves. Her; 47Hz is also the most common in patient EEG when she achieves deqi.
She recalled "Nanjing · Ba Nan": "The moving qi between the kidneys is the foundation of the five zang and six fu organs, the root of the twelve meridians." Modern research often correlates with the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. An arose: perhaps that wasn't external but "" under quantum, like a in a valley. But where did the energy come from?
Her gaze fell on the in the screen's upper right—material downloaded for her "" lecture. In a uniform background, labeled "." She touched one; it, like. A term flashed in her mind: dark energy. Cosmology says it permeates, yet hides trillion trillion trillion energy in each cubic centimeter of vacuum, enough to push galaxies apart. She suddenly felt that might be "" stirred by dark energy within the human body, and the silver needle merely the.
She realized she needed a bridge to translate dark energy's "cosmological language" into meridians' "medical language." She opened her, searched "dark energy biological system"; fewer than ten papers appeared, all conjecture and mathematical games. She downloaded each like a diver collecting in deep sea.
One mentioned that if dark energy and matter have, it might leave "detuning" signals at biomolecular vibration frequencies, magnitude comparable toγ. Reading this, her, as if. She suddenly understood she needed not a larger lab but a smaller "universe"—a model that could scale dark energy to meridian dimensions.
She remembered Mozi, the quantitative trading expert, who once casually mentioned using fractal algorithms to, compressing millisecond into "emotional-dimensional Klein bottles." Back then she found it; now it felt like grasping another. She messaged him: "Brother Mo, any way to compress cosmological-scale dark energy fields to-? I need a, even if just mathematically." Then added: "Consultation fee convertible to stock options." He instantly replied with a smiley: "Doctor Xiu, testing needles on me again? Tomorrow night, I'll bring '82 Lafite, you bring ears."
She,., like. She; the light wall's,. She suddenly felt those,,; once exposed to, only remain.
She turned off the ceiling light, letting darkness,. She reached into the,,.,"",. She recalled grandfather saying the's "hao" comes from autumn goose, light as nothing yet"".
An arose: insert this needle into her own Neiguan, see if she could. She,,. She,, yet lingered there,.
She recalled "Suwen · Zhen Jie": "The key to needling: efficacy arrives with the qi." If qi hasn't arrived, the needle merely,; if qi has arrived, the needle needn't,.
She closed her eyes, synchronizing breath with heartbeat, imagining inside her body also a. She counted to; suddenly her, like.
She abruptly opened her eyes; the, yet,. She, watching the like,,,,. No pain, only,,,.
She; waveforms,,,α. She felt not disappointment but: perhaps that needed larger "snow slope," not merely her own.
She gently,,. During this, she sampled her own EEG, ECG,,, stored in folder "Neiguan_Dark_20250923".
Upon, she felt the like, yet at left a""—the of that. She touched her; skin intact, yet clearly felt a"". She suddenly laughed; laughter,.
She turned off devices, returned the to, closed the. She walked to the door, glanced back at the light wall; those, "",. She; that star vanished in darkness.
She;"".. She recalled grandfather's: "Xiu'er, the needle is merely a boat, ferrying others and oneself. If one day you see leaks in the boat bottom, don't panic—that might be the sea wanting to enter."
She didn't understand then; now she felt that might be a drop of "sea" leaking in. And she—both the ferried person and the boat-repairing artisan.
She,,, like adding. She knew what she was about to enter wasn't a lab nor stock market but a darker, deeper, colder sea. Yet she also knew what she held was no longer but a net woven with mugwort, silver needles, γ waves, dark energy, and 47Hz oscillations.
She; the moon, edges. She,"," like. In her heart she said: Wait for me. Next time, I'll bring a larger "boat," let you hear the "ding" when silver needles collide with dark energy.