Three-Body (2023) s01e06 Episode Script

What's this?
Look carefully.
Look in the middle.
What's this?
Countdown.
Where did you get these?
Wang Miao took them.
Every one of them was taken by him.
Every one has that thing on it.
When did he start taking these?
This is the first time.
Previous to this,
it only appeared in pictures,
but now, it's right in front of him.
I mean, even the things he sees
have that countdown on them,
and it's been ongoing all the time.
Chang, while you're checking these out,
I, uh, I'll fill you in on something.
I used to have a colleague named Tian.
I think you know him.
He has a habit.
Every time he needs to go on a mission,
he'll check the total number
of the cigarettes
in his cigarette pack first.
It has to be odd.
If it's even,
he'll pull one out before departure.
Don't smoke in here.
Strangely enough,
so long as it's odd,
he's guaranteed to catch the suspect.
On one occasion,
after he checked his cigarettes,
I stealthily pulled one out.
Guess what?
On that day,
he cornered the suspect at a dead end,
but somehow the latter
climbed over the wall and escaped.
Because of that,
I didn't get any cigarettes
from Tian for two months.
Chang,
do you think this
has anything to do with the case?
Then what did
Wang Miao do
that had nothing to do
with the countdown?
Wang Miao shut down
the nano experiment,
and the countdown disappeared.
I've always said
that anything sufficiently weird
must be fishy,
but this time around,
this fishy thing's way too unusual.
Do you know who had him
shut down the experiment?
Shen Yufei.
I don't know who I am ♪
And I don't know where I am ♪
Fly and fly ♪
Never reached the sky ♪
I'm lost in the forest ♪
When I just can't leave my land ♪
On my way ♪
To endless darkness ♪
Waiting for your boat ♪
Can you take me from the old world ♪
But now we cannot stop ♪
All my life feels me sailing ♪
We'll stop in time ♪
The falling stars are still alive every night ♪
Moon is full of sorrow ♪
=Three-Body=
=Episode 6=
It's very weird that I,
a would-be Buddhist,
raise chickens, right?
I heard chicken used to be
your favorite food.
Yeah.
A student of mine,
who didn't know
I'd converted to Buddhism,
came to visit,
and he actually brought me
a couple of chickens.
I couldn't eat them,
even if I wanted to,
so I had no choice but to keep them.
You see,
now they've become so many.
It's not weird.
I'm a scientist but I pray quite often.
I wonder if these chickens know
it is me who's been feeding them.
Just like I don't know
if the deity you pray to
can see your piety or not.
I mean, the whole universe
is is like
a malfunctioning fluorescent tube.
It flickers with a crackling sound,
and uh,
Shen Yufei told Wang Miao beforehand
when it would flicker.
The rhythm of its flickering
is a set of codes.
After the codes were deciphered,
they're still
a countdown.
Do you guys raise chickens
in Pastoral China?
That program is the work
of Pan Han and some others.
I got nothing to do with it.
I heard he threw people back
into the natural environment
to reduce consumption and trash.
You don't like his method
of environmental protection?
What's the point of that?
Humans can never give up city life
and get back to nature.
Only a small number of people
have seen through the emptiness
of earthly life.
What is this countdown exactly?
Where does it come from?
And what will happen
when it ends?
That's what I'm going to find out.
Chang,
what should we do with Wang Miao?
Shen Yufei put a lot of work into him.
Her efforts will not be in vain.
But don't worry.
Wang Miao
is definitely our entry point
to the truth.
Yeah.
Alright.
My report is over.
I understand.
You made it an odd number.
See you.
How does it feel to see
through the emptiness of earthly life?
Boring.
You guys think my lifestyle's boring,
and I think yours is boring,
so
this is very interesting.
Interesting.
Professor Peng,
I'm Chang Weisi.
I got a question for you.
Can the universe
flicker?
We've got
European, North American, African,
and all other major combat zones.
Send those pictures to them right now.
Okay.
I'm sorry
to have kept you waiting, everybody.
Latest news.
A moment ago,
another exceptional case
happened in Asian Combat Zone.
Another scientist's suicide?
No.
Someone saw a countdown.
A countdown?
You mean, like, the ones in the photographs?
Were they printed?
They're not printed.
We haven't verified
how they came into being.
Those on the pictures
are only in a preliminary form.
What do you mean?
Are they projected
or are there other carriers?
It's somewhat bizarre.
I should say
this is something
we've never seen before.
It's on his retina.
What? Undercover?
That's one way to put it.
You see,
all those things
have something to do with Shen Yufei
and the Frontiers of Science,
and Shen Yufei came to you.
If you don't go undercover,
do you think
they'll come to me someday?
I used to think
the Frontiers of Science
was just an academic organization,
but I see it differently now.
What do you mean by "differently"?
I don't know how to explain it,
but I know very well
that they're desperate
to have me accept a hard truth.
And it's that no matter whether
we're eating,
chatting,
or improving civilization,
developing science and technology,
or deepening our understanding
of this society,
it doesn't change the fact that we're
just a flock of turkeys
on a shabby farm.
Even so, you're an undercover
science-savvy turkey.
I'm not like you.
I'm a bodyguard turkey.
Don't worry.
I'll always be there for you.
You'll never understand
what I've been through,
or what I'm going through.
Here.
Look here.
Don't be afraid.
I had a friend make this for me.
I told him
I wanted a super-long countdown timer.
He's an expert bomb maker
who blows up things.
This is the best he can do.
I
I don't know
what your countdown is about.
Anyway, here's the point.
Wang Miao,
if your time is up,
mine will be up
as well.
Do you understand?
Come on.
Let's set the watch.
You became cross-eyed.
Are the numbers of the countdown
very close to each other?
Not that close.
Tell me. What is it?
One, zero, one, eight,
four, five, two.
One.
Zero.
One, eight.
Four.
Five.
Two.
Alright.
Tell me when it's double four.
I'll press the button at the same time.
Countdown starts.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
Are they the same?
Yeah.
Okay.
Done.
Look.
It seems insubstantial.
The experiment has been restarted.
When can you finish the Flying Knife?
It's Flying Blade.
Are there any differences?
Currently, nano Flying Blades
are made with molecular construction techniques,
but it's very resource-intensive.
Right now what we're trying to do
is develop a catalytic reaction
as a substitute
for molecular construction.
Can you translate those words for me?
I mean, use a language I can understand.
The experiment hasn't succeeded yet.
We still need to work on it.
Can you get the job done
before it ends?
I mean, the countdown.
I don't know.
You said the countdown halted
when you stopped the experiment.
Is it possible that
this is a countdown to your success?
I mean,
can it be that
you'll succeed
at the end of the countdown?
Your way of speaking is very unreasonable,
but there have been
too many unreasonable things lately.
Just tell me if seeing it this way
cheers you up.
Munphy also talked to Shen Yufei
before his death.
If you're right,
all those who had dealings
with Shen Yufei
have either joined
the Frontiers of Science
or committed suicide.
Not all of them.
You're still alive, aren't you?
That's why you need to join it.
Apart from me,
are there any other survivors?
Yes.
Yang Dong's mother.
During the investigation,
I originally thought
that Shen Yufei got close to Ye Wenjie
for Yang Dong,
but it didn't seem to be the case,
because Ye Wenjie is a scientist herself.
She's alive, and so are you.
You two survivors
don't seem to follow any patterns.
Do you think it's possible
Ye Wenjie can see the countdown as well?
Probably not.
The other day, when I went to observe
cosmic background radiation,
it was she
who contacted her student for me.
If she could also see the countdown,
she should know what I was there for.
You've looked into Ye Wenjie, right?
Yeah.
Nothing out of the ordinary,
except she didn't commit suicide.
This place
used to be the warehouse of a museum.
It's very roomy.
Now it's your office.
A warehouse?
It's pretty nice.
Being big enough is the whole point.
There are a dozen people, after all.
They need enough space.
You've already started working?
General.
Let me introduce you.
The introduction can wait.
You should wait until everybody's here.
It'll save you the trouble
of introducing me repeatedly.
Everyone's here.
Xu Bingbing.
Transferred here from CID.
She's worth ten agents.
What do you mean by "Everyone's here"?
How do you know she's worth ten agents?
Why should I believe you?
Chang, how can you do this?
You're such a high-ranking general.
How could you go back on your word?
Do I need to have you write it down
every time you make me a promise?
Are you done?
You don't want her?
I'll take her away then.
Go, go, go.
Wait.
You can't leave.
I'm not letting her leave unless you get me
the 10 people as promised.
I need a hostage.
Alright.
Stop it.
I asked Chang for information specialists,
not cleaners.
(Ye Wenjie)
(Mu Xing)
Ye Wenjie, an astrophysicist.
Mu Xing, a reporter
and freelance media worker.
That's all?
I'm giving you four hours
to gather everything you can
on these two people.
Alright.
This job requires two people at the most.
This
is a list of the names
of all the scientists
we need to look into.
I want all the detailed information
about them and their family members!
It must be done today!
Alright.
And clean this room.
I want it spotless.
Don't say alright.
Say yes.
Understood.
Yes.
(Reporters have learned)
(from the meeting held on the 13th)
(about the assignment of tasks)
(of 2007 Lucky Beijing volunteers)
(and the Beijing Olympics
urban volunteers that)
Dad, do you feel better?
Doudou put the eye drops in Dad's eyes,
and Dad's eyes feel much better now.
You two, the rice is done,
and the fish will be ready in two minutes.
- Doudou, go wash your hands and eat.
- Get ready to eat.
Hurry.
Wash your hands clean, Doudou.
Li Yao,
you and Doudou may eat without me.
I have an errand to run.
What errand do you
have to run at mealtime?
You're going out, Dad?
Yeah.
Dr. Doudou has cured Dad's eye disease,
so now Dad has to go to work.
I think Dad hasn't fully recovered yet.
The treatment has to continue.
You still don't get it?
Your daughter
wants you to stay at home a bit longer.
Right, Doudou?
Dad will stay at home
and keep Doudou company
for many days after finishing this job.
Be good.
Sit there and eat.
Alright. Come and eat. Come on.
Li Yao, the fish is almost done.
You may turn off the heat now.
It can't be done so soon.
You're so accurate.
Are you a stopwatch or something?
You're
just too tense,
and too punctual.
It's bad for your health.
I have an appointment
with an old expert today.
I can't be late.
Doudou,
bye-bye.
Goodbye, Dad.
I've got to go.
Alright.
Wang, thanks.
You went to so much trouble.
You're welcome, Ms. Ye.
Alright, thanks.
Let me help you with this.
By the way, Ms. Ye,
a few days ago,
I met a scientist.
Her name's Shen Yufei.
Have you ever heard of her?
It rings a bell.
Maybe I saw her at some kind of event.
If my memory serves me well,
she specializes in nanotechnology
as you do.
Yeah.
By the way,
the other day,
when you went to the observatory,
Sha Ruishan gave me a call.
He said you guys
spotted some rather unscientific stuff.
Yeah.
This is exactly what I want
to consult you about.
You specialize in astrophysics.
In your experience,
do you think it's possible
for the universe to flicker?
According to what we know,
that's impossible.
What about what we don't know?
When science
goes beyond our comprehension,
it usually
gets mistaken for heresy.
That's why it throws people into panic.
In human history,
science caused panic
many times.
During the Renaissance in Europe,
Copernicus got persecuted and repressed
by the Church
for his heliocentric theory.
When The Revolutions
of the Heavenly Bodies was published,
he only stroked its cover
before passing away.
Bruno, who supported
the heliocentric theory,
was burned at the stake by the Church.
Cecco d'Ascoli, an astronomer,
believed that the earth was round,
and he got burned alive as well.
The theories that we see
as common sense today
served only to cause great panic
among the public in that era.
Just like the many problems
we're faced with today.
In the future,
when we look back on them,
we'll find them as unsurprising
as the fact that the earth is round.
Mu Xing
returned from overseas
only half a year ago.
She's in the new media industry.
Her reports are mainly
about science and technology
and environmental protection.
She's very aggressive
in getting exposure on newspapers.
She once exaggerated the facts
to create hot topics.
(Portfolio)
But some of her reports
did bring attention to the issues
and fix some of the problems.
Nothing else?
All information on Ye Wenjie is here,
(Ye Wenjie)
including some deciphered files
and some info about her father.
They're all in here.
These are infosheets
about all the scientists on the list
and the family members
of some of the scientists
who committed suicide.
I don't think these infosheets
have any special value,
but I looked into everything
you asked me to look into.
Alright.
If this task was assigned to ten people,
it would definitely have been
a waste of manpower.
In the observatory,
there's a guy named Sha Ruishan,
he
I know.
He's Ye Wenjie's student.
He went to observe cosmic flicker
with Wang Miao a few days ago.
I'll do some digging.
Here's my cell number.
My phone's on twenty-four seven.
If anything happens,
you may call me anytime.
Yes.
Alright.
Who are you looking for?
So you're Sha Ruishan?
How do you know?
The other day, Professor Wang Miao
paid you a visit.
I need to verify a few things with you.
Who are you?
(Xu Bingbing,
CID of Beijing Public Security Bureau)
I want some information
about cosmic flicker.
Are you saying
even if Ye Wenjie knows she's a turkey,
she'll feel it's unsurprising?
We only talked for a short while,
but it made me feel much calmer.
No matter whether those theories
of the Frontiers of Science
are right or wrong,
I find them acceptable now.
Maybe we just don't know
who we are exactly.
Just like Schrodinger's cat.
I know about cats.
Lately I've boned up on physics.
It's about putting a cat
into a box, isn't it?
And when you open it,
it's either dead or alive.
But isn't that frivolous?
It's just an experiment
with a lot of constants and variables.
In other words,
it's a process of finding proof
and seeking confirmation.
Is that necessary?
What if the third possibility happens?
That'll be like seeing a ghost.
It'll mean physics no longer exists.
Does Ye Wenjie believe it?
She believes
our physics might have ceased to exist.
Physics
didn't cease to exist.
It's just the physics we know
might be non-existent.
Many years from now,
history will reveal the answer.
We might be Copernicus,
or Bruno,
or the Church.
Or maybe
we're nothing.
Come. I'll show you something.
Come on.
All data are unproblematic,
but this is impossible.
Even the explosion of a supernova
couldn't have done that.
What if someone made that happen?
That's even more impossible.
It's such a large scale.
It was spotted from the observatories
in both Beijing and Urumqi.
Do you know what that means?
You see this?
Do you get it now?
I'm imposing human interference
on your observation of this lamp.
This is both theoretically possible
and doable,
but what's a cosmic flicker?
The observation signals received
by Beijing and Urumqi observatories
are from three observation satellites.
Do you know what that means?
What does it mean?
Let's say this is our earth.
These three are observation satellites.
To make the whole universe flicker
with human interference,
theoretically,
you need to build
a gigantic screen at least
300,000 kilometers wide in a place
150,000 kilometers away
from the earth.
Is there science behind your theory?
Science?
You want to talk about science with me?
Considering this scale,
not only Batman and Iron Man
can't make it happen,
but even Superman can't do it.
In other words,
it's impossible even in sci-fi.
Then what can make it happen?
Mythology.
Zeus should be able to swing it.
It was really not my doing.
I'm a cop.
I had dealings with a lot of criminals.
Criminals
experienced things
others didn't experience,
so sometimes their mindset
is different as well.
Did Professor Ye
experience anything unusual?
That's hard to say.
She lived in that era.
She might've been affected.
By the way, the constant
and variable thing
you talked about a moment ago.
The guy surnamed Schro.
Did he have to pick a cat?
Could it not be a rabbit,
or a squirrel or anything like that?
What is this place?
Our office.
Roomy, huh?
Come on. Come on.
Take a look.
Spotlessly clean.
I brought you here
to let you take a closer look
and do some research
into Ye Wenjie's file.
Alright.
Where's Professor Ye's file?
Over there.
Under the picture
of Houyi Shooting Down The Suns.
Below the first sun.
Everything here is orderly.
You found it, right?
Yeah.
I'll fill you in while you read those.
Ye Wenjie's father
was a great scientist,
a counter-revolutionary one.
Now he's rehabilitated, of course.
Do you know who ratted on him?
His own daughter.
Professor Ye?
No.
Ye Wenjie's little sister.
Her name's Ye Wenxue.
And it gets better than that.
Do you know
who delivered the decisive blow to him?
His wife.
Shao Lin.
Uh, not Shaolin Monastery.
Her surname was Shao.
Her given name was Lin.
It's all in here.
I wonder
what Ye Wenjie felt at that time.
Ye Wenjie's little sister, Ye Wenxue,
personally had the leader
of the campaign
take her father away
(1967)
for interrogation about the ideology
embodied in his treatise.
In the key phase of the interrogation,
Ye Zhetai's wife, Shao Lin,
showed up as well,
Together with Ye Wenxue,
they distanced themselves
from Ye Zhetai,
which was a terrible blow to him.
Didn't Mother say
that Grandfather and Einstein
were close friends?
That they used to
discuss science together?
But why are they
beginning to criticize Einstein?
Shao Lin's father
did cross paths with Einstein.
In 1922,
on Nanjing Road
of Shanghai.
They were walking along the road.
Einstein
suddenly asked a young boy
smashing stones at the roadside
how much he earned in a day.
He said five cents.
That was the only time he conversed
with the master who changed the world.
No physics.
No theory of relativity.
Only the hard truth.
Lin is better than me.
She proved all scientific achievements
were the fruits of the people's wisdom.
Those academic authorities
of the bourgeoisie
just stole the fruits.
There are so many terms in physics.
Will changing the names
be enough?
Any brilliant idea
will fall apart eventually.
The gravity of reality
is just too strong.
It never crossed my mind
that Professor Ye had been through
something like that.
Now I can understand
why she took Yang Dong's death
so calmly.
But I find it confusing.
By rights, those who have
lost a loved one
will definitely
cherish familial bonding even more,
but Professor Ye
doesn't seem to be like that.
It strikes me
that the reason her grief was dissolved
is probably not so simple.
Professor Ye's father
was unable to continue his research
because of the era.
Professor Ye's daughter,
since physics had ceased to exist,
couldn't continue her research either.
Maybe in Professor Ye's eyes,
death was a relief to them.
We never experienced
anything like that,
so maybe we can't understand it.
No.
Professor Ye didn't have many dealings
with Shen Yufei,
but judging from what she said to you,
she's not against the theories
of the Frontiers of Science.
Professor Ye's behavior is becoming
an increasingly greater mystery to me.
What did she say to you again?
Did she say this was not
the first time the scientific community
had been in panic?
Yeah.
In human history,
science caused panic
many times.
We might be Copernicus,
or Bruno,
or the Church.
Or maybe
we're nothing.
Was she asking you to become
someone like Copernicus?
Even if I wanted to do that,
aren't I still your plant?
Well, go ahead and become Copernicus.
With me protecting you,
I promise you won't get burned alive.
Get burned alive?
That guy's name's Bruno.
What about Co-Copernicus?
He died of natural causes.
Well, with me protecting you,
I promise you'll
be Copernicus.
Thank you.
(Chat Recipient:)
(Lord's given the order.
If Wang Miao continues his research,)
(Lord's given the order. If Wang Miao
continues his research, eliminate him.)
(Try to rope him in.)
(Lord's order must not be defied.)
(It won't be defiance if we have him
get to know Lord and join us.)
I've seen things
you people won't believe ♪
Soon our planet will vanish ♪
I've known the future
you people won't think of ♪
Soon your planet will be punished ♪
I've seen things
you people won't believe ♪
Soon our planet will vanish ♪
I've known the future
you people won't think of ♪
Soon your planet will be punished ♪
=Three-Body=