Chapter 18 Chapter Seventeen

Few children dare say they remember meeting their father for the first time, but Victoria Wittler does.It was a rainy day when she was eight years old, and she was living in the Siena Orphanage, a Catholic orphanage outside Florence, where she seemed to have been for as long as she could remember, because she was born with a Parents who have never met are cruelly abandoned.The nun called her twice to go to dinner, but she always pretended not to hear, lying in the yard outside, staring at the raindrops that kept falling from the sky... felt them dripping on her... Guess where the next drop of rain will fall.The nun cried out again, threatening her that pneumonia would make such an unruly and stubborn child less curious.

I can't hear you, Victoria thought. She was soaking wet when suddenly a young priest ran up to her.He was new here and she hadn't seen him before.Victoria waited for him to grab her and drag her back to the house.But he didn't do that. On the contrary, to her surprise, he also lay down beside her, his robe dragging into the puddle. "They say you always ask a lot of questions," the young pastor said softly. Victoria frowned angrily. "Is it wrong to ask questions?" The pastor laughed loudly, "It seems that they are right." "What did you run out for?"

"Like you, think about why raindrops fall." "I don't think about why they fell because I already knew." The pastor looked at her in surprise, "You know?" "Sister Francesca said that the rain was originally the tears of angels, and they fell on the earth to wash away the sins we have committed." "Ouch!" he exclaimed, "I see." "That's not it!" retorted the girl, "Raindrops fall because everything falls, everything falls, not just rain!" The pastor scratched his head, puzzled. "You know, little girl, you're right, everything falls down because of gravity."

"Why?" He looked at her again in surprise, "Haven't you heard of gravity?" "No." The pastor shrugged and said sadly, "Too bad, gravity can explain a lot." Victoria sat up abruptly. "What is gravity?" she demanded. "Tell me!" The pastor winked at her and said, "How about I tell you after dinner?" The young pastor was Leonardo Wittler.Despite being an award-winning college student, the physics student was called to seminary by another voice.Together in this lonely world of cold nuns and rules and regulations, they become improbably best friends.Victoria always made Leonardo laugh, and he shaded her, explaining beautiful natural phenomena such as rainbows and small rivers to her, and understanding what light and planets are from both religious and scientific perspectives , stars, and everything in the universe.Victoria has become a tireless student with her innate supernatural savvy and strong desire for knowledge.Leonardo took care of her like a daughter.

Victoria was also very happy. She never knew that a father could bring so much joy and happiness.She asked the adults questions, and the adults were always impatient and thought she was too busy, but Leonardo found a lot of books for her, explained them to her bit by bit, and asked her opinions.Victoria secretly prayed, asking God to let her and Leonardo be together forever.But one day, her worst nightmare came true when Father Leonardo told her he was leaving the orphanage. "I'm going to Switzerland." Leonardo said to her: "I have applied for a scholarship in Geneva, and I'm going to study physics there."

"Physics?" cried Victoria, "I thought you loved God!" "I love God, and I love him very much. That's why I went to learn his divine laws. The laws of physics are a big canvas laid down by God, and then God painted all things in the world and the beauty of the world on it." Victoria was about to collapse, but Father Leonardo had one more thing to tell her. He had already asked his superiors, and they agreed to Father Leonardo's adoption of her. "Would you like me to adopt you?" Leonardo asked her. "What is adoption?" Victoria asked puzzled.

Father Leonardo explained to her. Victoria immediately hugged him tightly, and a few minutes later she cried with tears in her eyes, "I will! I will!" Leonardo told her again that he had to go first until his new home in Switzerland was settled, but he promised to come to fetch her within six months.It was the longest wait in Victoria's life.Leonardo did not break his promise, and just five days before her ninth birthday, she was taken to Geneva, where she went to the International School of Geneva during the day and studied with her father at night. Three years later, Leonardo Wittler was employed by CERN, so they settled here again, a paradise that the young Victoria had never imagined before.

Victoria continued to stride down the tunnel of the LHC, feeling her body go numb.She saw her own blurry reflection on the collider and realized her father was no longer there.Usually she is unhurried, poised and in harmony with the world around her.But now, all of a sudden, it didn't matter anymore, and the previous three hours had completely disrupted her life. At ten o'clock in the morning, she got a call from Kohler in the Balearic Islands.Your father was murdered, return quickly.Even though the deck of the submersible was steaming hot at the time, these words made her feel bitingly cold.Both Khloe's nonchalant tone and the sad news chilled her.

Now she's home, but whose home is this? The "European Nuclear Center", the world she had owned since she was twelve years old, suddenly became strange.Her father, the amazing figure among the scientists at CERN, is dead. Take a deep breath, she ordered herself, but her mind still couldn't calm down.Questions flashed through her mind one after another, who killed her father?Why?Who is this "expert" from the United States?Why did Kohler insist on seeing the lab? Kohler said there was evidence linking her father's death to the experiment they were conducting.What evidence?Nobody knows what we're doing!Even if someone found out, why did he have to kill his father?

Victoria walked down the corridor of the LHC towards her father's laboratory, realizing that she was about to show the world his greatest deed, but he was no longer there.This was a far cry from what she had expected.She had imagined that her father would invite all the senior scientists in the "European Nuclear Center" to his laboratory to show his shocking discoveries. Seeing the expressions of admiration and awe of those scientists, he looked like a father. of the light, proudly introducing them that his experiment was only possible thanks to Victoria's bright idea...his daughter who made an integral contribution to this momentous discovery.Victoria's throat choked.Father, I should have shared this moment with you.But now, she was alone, without any colleagues, without any happy faces, just a stranger from America and Maximilian Kohler.

Monarch Maximilian Kohler. She had disliked this man since she was a child, and although she was impressed by his great intelligence, his icy demeanor and speech always made her feel unkind, which was very different from her father's kindness and warmth. on the contrary.Kohler was into science for the sake of pure rational logic, but her father was in pursuit of spiritual miracles.Strangely enough, she felt that the two of them had a silent respect for each other.Genius, someone had explained to her that way, accepting genius in an eclectic way. Genius, she cried out in her heart, my father... Dad, is dead. The corridors leading to Leonardo's laboratory were all paved with monotonous white tiles, and Langdon felt as if he had walked into an underground madhouse.Dozens of framed black-and-white images hung on the walls on either side of the hallway, and even though Langdon was a professional in the study of images, these paintings felt very strange to him.Sometimes it is a horizontal strip, and sometimes it is a spiral circle, which is dazzling. These are not images, and the negatives are just as messy.modern Art?He couldn't help thinking about it, the amphetamine sulfate painting? "Scattering mapping." Victoria evidently noticed Langdon's interest in it. "The computer diagram of the particle collision, this is the trajectory of the Z particle." She pointed to a blurred line and explained: "This is what my father discovered five years ago. Pure energy-without any energy. Mass. This is probably the smallest structural unit in nature. Matter is nothing but energy in a finite state." Matter is energy?Langdon couldn't help pricking up his ears, it sounded really mysterious.He scrutinized the hair-thin lines and wondered what would happen if he told his Harvard physics buddies that he spent a weekend at the Large Hadron Collider and looked at the Z particle's impact trajectory. What is the reaction? "Victoria," Kohler said as he approached the lab's imposing steel doors, "I should tell you that I came here this morning to see your father." Victoria's face flushed slightly, "Have you been here?" "Yes, you can imagine how surprised I was when I found out that your father had replaced the keyboard-type security check facility uniformly used by the 'European Nuclear Center'." Kohler said, pointing to a Precision Electronics. "I'm very sorry," Victoria said. "You know my father is very cautious. He doesn't want me and anyone else near this laboratory." Kohler said, "Nothing, open the door." Victoria stood for a moment, then took a deep breath and walked over to the mechanism on the wall. Langdon was unprepared for what happened next. Victoria stood directly in front of the device, carefully aligned her right eye with a protruding telescope-like lens, and pressed the button.Something inside the machine clicked, and a light shone back and forth a few times, scanning her eyeballs like a photocopier. "It's a retinal scanning system," she explained, "and it's absolutely safe because it only recognizes two retinas, mine and my dad's." Robert Langdon stood stunned, horrified at the revelation.The tragic death of Leonardo Vitra is vivid - the blood-stained face, a hazel eyeball rolling white, and an empty socket.He really didn't want to admit the obvious.But, suddenly, he saw...under the scanner, on the snow-white floor... there was a deep red mark, which was clearly dried blood. Thankfully, Victoria didn't see it. The steel doors slid open and Victoria stepped inside. Kohler stared at Langdon intently, and the meaning couldn't be more obvious: I said...the eyeball that was taken out has a great use.

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