I only wish to discuss with you one possibility: Perhaps seeds of love are present in other places in the universe. We ought to encourage them to sprout and grow.

“That’s a goal worth taking risks for.”

Yes, we can take risks.

“I have a dream that one day brilliant sunlight will illuminate the dark forest.”

The sun was setting. Now only its tip was exposed beyond the distant mountains, as if the mountaintop was inset with a dazzling gemstone. Like the grass, the child running in the distance was bathed in the golden sunset.

The sun will set soon. Isn’t your child afraid?

“Of course she’s not afraid. She knows that the sun will rise again tomorrow.”

Excerpt: Ball Lightning

If you enjoyed

The Dark Forest

Look out for

Ball Lightning

By

Cixin Liu

translated by Ken Liu

When Chen’s parents are incinerated before his eyes by a blast of ball lightning, he devotes his life to cracking the secret of mysterious natural phenomenon. His search takes him to stormy mountaintops, an experimental military weapons lab, and an old Soviet science station.

The more he learns, the more he comes to realize that ball lightning is just the tip of an entirely new frontier in particle physics. Although Chen’s quest provides a purpose for his lonely life, his reasons for chasing his elusive quarry come into conflict with soldiers and scientists who have motives of their own: a beautiful army major with an obsession with dangerous weaponry, and a physicist who has no place for ethical considerations in his single-minded pursuit of knowledge.

PRELUDE

I only remembered that it was my birthday because Mom and Dad lit the candles on the cake and we sat down around fourteen small tongues of flame.

The storm that night made it seem as if the whole universe held nothing but rapid flashes of lightning surrounding our small dining room. Electric blue bursts froze the rain into solid drops for an instant, forming dense strands of glittering crystal beads suspended between heaven and earth. A thought struck me: the world would be a fascinating place if that instant were sustained. You could walk through streets hung with crystal, surrounded on all sides by the sound of chimes. But in such a dazzling world, the lightning would be unbearable.… I had always seen a different world from the one others saw. I wanted to transform the world: that was the one thing I knew about myself at that age.

The storm had started earlier in the evening, and the thunder and lightning had quickened their pace as it progressed. At first, after each flash, my mind retained an impression of the ephemeral crystalline world outside the window as I tensed in anticipation of the peal of thunder. But the lightning had grown so thick and fast that I could no longer distinguish which thunderclap belonged to which bolt.