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金箍棒(卷一)第十七章
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DEEP SEA FISHING
The winter vacation started.
Dr. and Mrs. Lin went to China. Dr. Lin was going to do his research on China’s sweatshops and they were also in the process of adopting a girl from China.
China returned her home in Germany.
Phoenix flew over to Atlanta with the Hoffmans to join the Green family reunion.
The reunion party started in Stone Mountain Park. Then they reconvened in GA Tech Hotel. They had almost two hundred people, occupied three floors of the hotel. And they had a big banquet in the Dining Hall, total 20 ten seating tables.
They danced, they sang, and they chat. It was so enjoyable for every one, young and old.
Afterwards, the Hoffmans flew to Germany to spend the Christmas with John’s parents. They had offered to take Phoenix with them, but Phoenix said he had other plans.
Other plans he had, two of them. First of all, he planed to stay in Atlanta for a few days to meet Anna. Second, he planed to go to Charleston, SC to visit Aunt Angela’s family. Angela was his birth father’s another sister. He had met Aunt Angela and her family in the reunion party. They had invited him to visit them.
Anna came to GA Tech Hotel to meet Phoenix that night.
She asked about his baptization. She looked him with envy.
“Why didn’t you be baptized?” he asked her, encouragingly. He had done that many times in his emails and phone calls to her, never got a straight answer from her. She always managed to change the topic. He was happy that she raised this topic herself this time.
“I wanted too, but my parents did not want me to,” she said, sadly.
“This is a free country, you know. You do know that, right?” he asked her, could not believe her lame excuse.
“We are different,” she said, even more quietly. “My parents work for the government, they were constantly been watched by their colleagues. They all watched on each other. Family members are not excluded. Any careless step we take would cause my parents’ jobs, maybe even the little freedom we have now. And we would be sent back to China.” She looked absolutely miserable now. Phoenix felt sorry that he had been too harsh on her. He remembered he had read a few months ago on Epochtimes.com what young former Chinese diplomat Yonglin Chen had said in Australia. Chen was now a political refugee under the protection of the Australia government. The diplomats of the communist government did not have any freedom in terms of religious activity or friendship.
“Could we find someplace interesting to visit tomorrow?” He changed their topic. “Like some lakes or mountains, you know?” He was thinking about that incredible journey he had with China not very long time ago. He had never mentioned that to Anna. He did not even mention China to her. He didn’t think honest was the best policy right now. He needed Anna’s help. He did now want a jealous girlfriend to ruin God’s grand plan. Although in his mind, his relationship with Anna was strictly professional, he did not expect Anna would accept that. She was very attractive and she must have a lot of suitors. He did not want to lose her now. He had to play along as her boyfriend for now. He felt extremely guilty about that. He really liked her. He imagined how hard it would be for him to choose between Anna and China if Anna was also with him everyday at SAM. That would be a torture. He thanked God for not putting him in that awkward position.
They met again next morning at the hotel. They set out immediately in Anna’s Mazda to Amicalola State Park in a North GA mountain.
“What do you think about the Big Bang theory?” Phoenix asked Anna while looking out from the car window to the beautiful mountains.
“The Big Bang theory?” Anna smiled, wondering why Phoenix was suddenly asking her this question.
“You know, like what Brian Greene had described in his Elegant Universe.”
“Oh, you remembered that I was reading that book in the flight. I see no conflict between the Big Bang theory and what Genesis described.” Anna said happily. “The modern cosmologists believe, after the Big Bang, when the temperature had dropped to a few thousand degrees, wildly streaming electrons slowed down to the point where atomic nuclei, mostly hydrogen and helium, were able to capture them, forming the first electrically neutral atoms. This was a pivotal moment: from this point forward the universe, by and large, became transparent. Prior to the era of electron capture, the universe was filled with dense plasma of electrically charged particles and was almost completely opaque.”
“Yes, the Bible described a very similar turning point. In the beginning, the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
“The modern cosmologists believe, the universe started out as cold and essentially infinite in spatial extent. And then an external force kicked in, driving every point in the universe to rush rapidly away from each other. This caused space to become increasingly curved and resulted in a dramatic increase in temperature and energy density. After some time, a millimeter sized three-dimensional region within this vast expanse became a super hot and dense patch. Then it was the Big Bang. This patch accounted for the whole of the universe with which we are familiar.”
“And that external force was kicked in by God. The Bible says, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
“Exactly. The author of the Elegant Universe said, as our generation marvels at our new view of the universe – our new way of asserting the world’s coherence – we were fulfilling our part, contributing our rung to the human ladder reaching for the stars. But”
“But without God’s help, we will never get there.” Phoenix finished that sentence for Anna.
“Exactly.”
The beautiful waterfall falling down from the mountaintop hundreds of yards above them like a huge curtain covered a cave behind it.
Phoenix insisted to walk through the water curtain to explore the cave. Both of them fell down on slippery rocks. They were soaked with water and had a few bruises. Phoenix was very sorry for Anna. She laughed, did not seem to mind.
Phoenix had his flashlight in hand and a Kan Long Wan bottle in his deep pocket. The cave was very small, nothing out of ordinary. Phoenix could not find anything that might resemble a trigger, a handle, or a doorknob, nothing at all. They walked back out. Phoenix was very disappointed. He really wanted to finish the Cuba task.
Maybe it was in Stone Mountain Park. In that lake, he thought. But he did carefully survey that lake, did not see any strange looking islands. He even had read the park brochure for legends and stories. He had done the same thing here. And this fall was his best guess, but apparently he was wrong.
Maybe it was in Lake Lanier. He heard this former Olympic water sports arena before and had studied that northern Atlanta lake in SAM’s library and in internet, but he did not find any legends that was worth noting.
He was at lost now. He prayed quietly, asking God to enlighten him of His plan.
“You know,” Anna said when they were sitting in a bench under warm afternoon sun trying to dry the clothes. “My parents are going to Miami tomorrow for a few days on business trip. They were offering to take us with them.”
“They can cover the costs. Everything can be reimbursed by the Consulate,” added Anna, before Phoenix could say anything, trying to ease his possible concern on being a burden on the expenses.
“Yes, I want to visit Miami. Thanks,” replied Phoenix. He normally did not like people associated with the communist government, and he resent those who spent Chinese people’s money for their own interests like it was nothing, but he liked Anna and he decided to go with them. And he decided against insisting to pay the trip himself.
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