A Literary Life Starting from the First Year of High School

Chapter 114, "The Story of Your Life" (adapted)

By the time I left the hotel after signing the contract, it was almost dark.

Lin Shubai stood by the roadside, watching Alan Carter's taxi disappear into the traffic, stuffed the copy of the contract into his backpack, and zipped it up.

Lu Tianming stood next to him. "I need to keep a copy of the contract as a backup. If there is any discrepancy between the English and Chinese versions, the Chinese version shall prevail. I have included this clause in the supplementary agreement."

"Thank you, Attorney Lu."

"No need to thank me. I have to do what Chairman Fang asked me to do." After saying that, Lu Tianming hailed a taxi and left.

Lin Shubai stood alone by the roadside. The April evening breeze carried a slightly damp chill. He adjusted his backpack straps over his shoulder and walked towards the bus stop.

When I got home, the living room lights were on.

Wang Xiulan, sitting on the sofa, saw Lin Shubai return and quickly asked, "How did the conversation go? Was the contract signed?"

"Signed."

"How's that Englishman doing?"

"They are very professional, have a good understanding of the market, and are also very honest."

Wang Xiulan nodded, went to the kitchen and brought out the dishes. "Let's eat."

At eight o'clock in the evening, Lin Shubai sat at his desk, thinking about the adaptation of "The Story of Your Life". He had been working on this collection for some time. Since it was also a science fiction book, Lin Shubai did not rush to start writing after finishing "Hugo", but instead wrote "Astrology" first.

Now that Astrology is complete, and because of the short story collection, Feed Out has been used up, so Lin Shu-bai has decided to start adapting The Story of Your Life for submission to Science Fiction World.

Ted Chiang's novella is completely different from Shinichi Hoshi's short story. Shinichi Hoshi's science fiction allegories are cold, short, and to the point, and can be considered soft science fiction, while "Story of Your Life" is much more hardcore.

The main storyline is simple: the alien civilization "Heptapods" arrives on Earth, and 112 alien spaceships hover over various parts of the world, marking the formal contact between humanity and the alien civilization.

The heptapods have a peculiar appearance, possessing seven symmetrical limbs, and their thought processes and cognitive patterns are completely different from humans. Humanity assembled a team of experts, inviting linguist Lewis, physicist Gare, and others to decipher the heptapods' language, understand their intentions, and explore the purpose of their extraterrestrial visit.

Initially, communication was fraught with difficulties; the heptapods' spoken language was chaotic, disordered, and illogical. But Lewis quickly discovered that the heptapods' written language, "Heptalog," was extremely unique. It was not the linear script commonly used by humans, but rather a complex pattern that was complete, symmetrical, and contained all semantic meanings simultaneously. As Lewis delved deeper into learning, his thinking was completely reshaped by this language.

Human thought follows causal logic and is bound by linear time; it can only experience the cause first and then witness the result, unable to predict the future. However, the Seven Scripts possess a non-linear cognitive system. After mastering this language, Louise was able to break free from the constraints of time and see her entire future life in its entirety.

She will fall in love with her colleague, Gary, marry him, and have a smart and lovely daughter; but sadly, her daughter will die in an accident when she is in her twenties, and her marriage with Gary will also end early.

The story unfolds along two parallel storylines. One is the main storyline of humanity deciphering the alien language, battling the heptapods, and learning advanced physics knowledge, from which humanity gains a wealth of cutting-edge scientific insights. The other is Louise's fragmented memories of the future, interspersed with heartwarming and regretful moments from her daughter's childhood to adulthood.

Louise had a complete understanding of destiny, knowing in advance that happiness would end in separation, and all beauty would eventually come to an end. She possessed the ability to foresee the future, but had no way to change her fate—in the heptapod worldview, all events in the universe were predetermined, and the meaning of life lay not in avoiding the ending, but in fully experiencing everything that was destined.

Even having foreseen the devastating loss of her daughter and the bitterness of her broken marriage, Louise still chose to accept the trajectory of fate with equanimity. She still chose to pursue her love with Gary, to give birth to her daughter, and to cherish every warm moment of their daily lives.

Ultimately, the alien civilization quietly departed, leaving humanity with endless cognitive innovations. Louis, carrying complete memories of the future, calmly entered into his own life.

After outlining the storyline, Lin Shubai began to work out his adaptation ideas. First, he looked at the names: Louise—let's call her Lu Wei. She's a linguist in her early thirties who teaches at a university in Shanghai. Her parents are divorced, and she lives alone. She's quiet and not good at expressing her emotions.

The physicist, whose real name is Gai Lei, is thirty-five years old. He is Lu Wei's colleague and her ambiguous romantic interest. He wears black-rimmed glasses, likes to wear dark jackets, and has a somewhat naive smile.

Secondly, the background has been changed; the location of the aliens' arrival—Montana, USA—has been changed to the Inner Mongolian grasslands.

The most crucial element is the language system.

The written term for heptapods, “seven-limbed,” is not linear; it is not from left to right, from top to bottom, or from right to left.

A complete sentence, when written out, is a closed circle. All the information—subject, predicate, object, tense, and mood—exists simultaneously at every point of this circle. You cannot say "this is the beginning" because the circle has no beginning; you cannot say "this is the end" because the circle has no end.

This setting itself is a metaphor. The circle has no beginning and no end, just like the time that Lu Wei perceived after learning the Seven Scripts—past, present, and future are no longer a line, but a circle with its beginning and end connected.

She knew her daughter would die, but she also "knew" that her daughter's cries at birth, the first time she called her mother, the blood and tears from falling off her bicycle and scraping her knee—these moments did not happen one after another; they existed simultaneously.

"After learning the heptapod language, memories of the future were like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle, piece by piece. They did not come one after another, nor were they pieced together in order, but soon they combined to form a memory spanning fifty years, running through my life from my first encounter with the heptapods until my death."

This is a turning point in the story, and it's also what Lin Shubai thinks is Ted Chiang's greatest strength. He presents the concept of "predicting the future," which has been overused in science fiction, in a completely different way. It's not about "seeing the future" or "calculating the future," but about "remembering the future," as naturally as remembering what you ate yesterday. Lu Wei didn't "predict" her daughter's death through some kind of superpower; she "remembered" it while learning the Seven Scripts.

This approach shifts the story from "science fiction" to "philosophy," raising questions about the existence of free will and the meaning of choices if the ending is predetermined.