晚上，苏布德靠在枕头上，她刚挂掉老郑的电话，学社那边协调好了公证处和校办，封存的程序问题解决了。她拿过水杯喝了一口，手指有些抖。把杯子放下的时候，被子洇湿了一小块，她没有去擦。
她接起来，他的声音从听筒里传出来，很轻，带着酒店房间里特有的安静。
"I arrived in Beijing last night. I'm staying at the hotel. But my health code has a pop-up window, so I can't visit you in person yet."
"It's all right. What matters is you're here."
"Göttingen has agreed to accept the manuscript, but they need to confirm where exactly it should be placed. Several members of the Library Committee, two mathematicians, one archivist, they hope to have an online discussion with you before the sealing ceremony. Not a formal academic defense. They just want to hear you talk about the manuscript in your own words. They have a few questions that only you can answer." He paused. "Are you strong enough?"
苏布德把氧气管往上推了推。"Yes. You can make the arrangements."
"Then tomorrow afternoon. I'll host. The exact time depends on how you're feeling."
她挂了电话，靠在枕头上。窗外的天已经黑透了，路灯亮了一排。她闭上眼睛，氧气管里气泡静静地冒着。
第二天下午，护士帮她调整了床头的高度，把便携式氧气瓶的流量调大了一点。床头柜上搁着半杯水，还有一个削好的苹果，没怎么动。笔记本电脑支在床尾的移动桌板上，屏幕亮着，视频会议的窗口已经打开了。
Schmidt的脸出现在屏幕上。他身后是酒店房间的白墙，窗帘拉着，台灯亮着。
"Good afternoon, Professor Zhang. Did you rest well last night?"
"Good. Our colleagues from Göttingen are already online. Allow me to introduce them." He turned slightly toward the screen. "We have two members of the Library Committee, one a specialist in nonlinear systems, the other in fractal geometry, and the chief archivist from the Göttingen Mathematical Institute. Both German professors understand English perfectly well, but when it comes to precise questions, they prefer to speak in German. I will translate. This is not a formal defense. We simply wanted to hear from you directly before the sealing ceremony. Your answers to their questions will be recorded as part of the accession archive."
苏布德对着屏幕微微点了点头。"Thank you, colleagues, for taking the time. Let us begin."
The nonlinear systems specialist spoke first. His English carried a faint German accent.
"Professor Zhang, we have read several of your published papers on nonlinear iterative mappings. But the framework in this manuscript extends far beyond your published work. Could you tell us directly: what is the core academic positioning of this manuscript?"
"This is a new paradigm I built over forty years. A self-similar metric analysis framework. The entire system of differential rules and measure definitions departs from the classical Riemannian analytic framework. No other mathematician in the world has ever fully studied this self-created toolkit. There are no successors. No lecture notes. Everything is in my mind and in these pages. Fragments alone cannot replicate the logic. If this were made public now, scholars across nonlinear dynamics and fractal PDEs would pour in, exhaust their resources, and get stuck at the final step for decades with no output. That is the core reason the manuscript has been labeled 'Giftschrank.'"
The fractal geometry specialist leaned forward. He spoke in German, his voice precise and deliberate.
"Professor Zhang, ich forsche seit Jahrzehnten über fraktale Geometrie. Können Sie uns sagen, wie die Zahl 2.316 entstanden ist?"
Schmidt将他的话译成英文，声音很平。 "Professor Zhang, I have researched fractal geometry for decades. Can you tell us how the number 2.316 came to be?"
苏布德靠在枕头上，看着窗外。窗外的首都天空灰蒙蒙的，没有塔拉那么开阔。
"This number was not calculated. It was given to me by the tala. I spent many years conducting field measurements on the steppe. There are three natural fractal structures on the grassland. The first is patch fractals in herbaceous vegetation. Affected by precipitation, grazing, and local ponding, the vegetation forms irregular clusters with self-similar geometry at the boundaries between bare soil and grass cover. I measured the fractal dimension of vegetation patches alone: approximately 2.12. The second is near-surface turbulent wind fields. The airflow in the canopy layer between ten and fifty centimeters above ground, blocked by grass clusters, forms countless micro-scale irregular vortices. I measured the fractal dimension of the wind field alone: approximately 2.28. The third is wind erosion and livestock trampling microtopography. Years of wind, sheep, and cattle have carved the surface soil into fine, self-similar depressions and ridges. The fractal dimension of the substrate alone: approximately 2.37."
"These three are not isolated fractals. The airflow moves between the vegetation and the rough surface. The vegetation distribution reshapes the wind vortex patterns. The wind, in turn, continuously erodes the surface. Three fractal structures, dynamically and nonlinearly coupled. Together they form a composite natural system. I took the three measured fractal dimensions and entered them into a coupled dynamical iterative equation. The three fractals constrain one another, nested across scales. The iterative equation has a unique convergent fixed point. After repeated analytic iteration, the numerical value converges and locks at 2.316. This number belongs exclusively to this steppe composite fractal system. Replace it with a Sierpiński carpet, a Koch curve, or any other fractal, and the iterative fixed point immediately shifts. The number no longer holds."
屏幕上安静了几秒。那位分形几何方向的教授再次开口，用德语说道：
"Es handelt sich also um eine empirisch abgeleitete Dimension, die durch iterative Abbildung zu einem Fixpunkt konvergiert. Nicht um ein a priori angenommenes Fraktalmodell, aus dem die Dimension zurückgerechnet wurde."
Schmidt点了点头. "So this is an empirically derived dimension, converging to a fixed point through iterative mapping. Not a fractal model assumed a priori and then back-calculated."
苏布德说："Correct. 2.316 specifically denotes the Hausdorff dimension. The topological dimension remains an integer, fully consistent with fundamental topological rules. Integer-order time reparameterization with adaptive Hausdorff dimension. This is entirely distinct from fractional derivative theory. My original research objective was to model the transport of grass seeds carried by near-surface airflow on the steppe. Where the seeds fall, new grass grows the following year. My egeqi taught me this. She taught me to read the wind direction, to see how the grass bends, to gauge the depth of hoofprints left by sheep and cattle. She said when the wind comes from the west, the seeds settle on the leeward slope, and the next year the grass is thicker there. I turned all of this into mathematics. The essential problem is a natural continuum fluid problem. It naturally leads to a Navier-Stokes-type conservation framework. But my equation is a Navier-Stokes-type conservation evolution equation defined on a 2.316-dimensional Hausdorff fractal space. The original Navier-Stokes equations are defined exclusively on three-dimensional Euclidean space. My NS-type equation and the classical NS on R³ have no derivational connection. I have never touched the three-dimensional smoothness problem. The toxicity is confined entirely to the fractal nonlinear subfield. It will not disrupt the main line of millennium prize research. It will not cause a collapse across the entire PDE discipline. It meets the Giftschrank criterion: locally highly toxic, globally harmless."
图书馆委员会的一位委员问。他说的是英语，带着德国口音的谨慎。
"Professor Zhang, what is the current state of completion of the manuscript?"
"The 2.316-dimensional fractal space construction is complete. The chaotic iterative traceability calculations for the constant are fully executed. The conservation law definitions for the NS-type equation are complete. Over ninety percent of the lemmas for the smoothness proof have been rigorously derived. Only the final link remains, the global compactness convergence estimate. There is only a conceptual outline. No rigorous inequality proof. Without a complete closed-form proof, it cannot be published as a theorem. It does not meet journal acceptance standards. But the overall logic has no known contradictions. Numerical special cases can be partially verified. This is far from empty speculation. To destroy it outright would be a major loss to the mathematical community. The only compromise is sealed preservation. I have spent a lifetime deepening a solitary system in nonlinearity. No disciple has fully absorbed the entire new paradigm. After I am gone, no one will be able to continue the remaining proof in the short term. The manuscript becomes a dead text, a visible treasure that cannot be excavated. Immediate sealed preservation is the optimal academic disposition."
屏幕上的几位学者沉默了一会儿。Schmidt看向图书馆委员会的两位委员。
"Professor Zhang, Göttingen proposes the following note in the accession record: This manuscript belongs, alongside Gauss's unpublished non-Euclidean geometry manuscripts, to the category of paradigm-breaking unfinished works. It shall remain sealed until a future scholar reconstructs the entire system and is thereby able to unlock it. Do you consent?"
病房里很安静。氧气管里气泡一下一下冒着。苏布德靠在枕头上，看着屏幕上那位档案专家。窗外的阳光已经从窗帘缝隙里移到了床尾，落在她的脚上。
"Yes. The Giftschrank is the best possible home for this manuscript."
几位学者依次向她点了点头。Schmidt问："Professor Zhang, is there anything else you would like to add?"
"The manuscript contains some original field observation records from the tala. The pages have become brittle. They are integral to the manuscript. They should be sealed together with it."
Schmidt点了点头，看向屏幕上的几位学者。"This concludes our discussion for today. Thank you, Professor Zhang. And thank you to all our colleagues for your participation. I will continue to coordinate the sealing arrangements with the embassy and Göttingen."
"Thank you, Professor Zhang."
"Klaus. The sealing. I entrust it to you."
她把笔记本电脑合上。窗外的阳光已经移到了墙角，落在她闭着的眼睛上。床头柜上搁着额吉年轻时的照片，两个辫子，笑起来嘴角有一颗痣。
