飯後茶餘

This is my way (not really new though) of book reading.
(1) read it the “old” way. learn vocabularies along the way.
(2) make it an audio (mp3 preferrably).
(3) ask the AI APP to translate it into Chinese, both in text and in audio.
I have one section of the book, the Prologue of Dan Brown’s book “The Secret Of Secrets”:

Prologue

I must have died, the woman thought. She was drifting high above the spires of the old city. Beneath her, the illuminated towers of St. Vitus Cathedral glowed on a sea of twinkling lights. With her eyes, if she still had eyes, she traced the gentle slope of Castle Hill down into the heart of the Bohemian capital, following the labyrinth of winding streets that lay shrouded in a fresh blanket of snow. Prague. Disoriented, she strained to make sense of her predicament. I am a neuroscientist, she reassured herself. I am of sound mind. That second statement, she decided, was questionable. The only thing Dr. Brigita Gessner knew for certain at the moment was that she was suspended over her home city of Prague. Her body was not with her. She was without mass and without form. And yet the rest of her, the real her—her essence, her consciousness—seemed to be quite intact and alert, floating slowly through the air in the direction of the Vltava River. Gessner could recall nothing from her recent past except a faint memory of physical pain, but her body now seemed to consist only of the atmosphere through which she was floating. The sensation was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Against her every intellectual instinct, Gessner could find only one explanation. I have died. This is the afterlife. Even as the notion materialized, she rejected it as absurd. The afterlife is a shared delusion…created to make our actual life bearable. As a physician, Gessner was intimately familiar with death, and also with its finality. In medical school, while dissecting human brains, Gessner came to understand that all those personal attributes that made us who we are—our hopes, fears, dreams, memories—were nothing but chemical compounds held in suspension by electrical charges in our brains. When a person died, the brain’s power source was severed, and all of those chemicals simply dissolved into a meaningless puddle of liquid, erasing every last trace of who that person had once been. When you die, you die. Full stop. Now, however, as she drifted over the symmetrical gardens of Wallenstein Palace, she felt very much alive. She watched the snow falling around her—or through her?—and oddly, she sensed no cold at all. It was as if her mind were simply hovering in space, with all reason and logic intact. I have brain function, she told herself. So I must be alive. All Gessner could conclude was that she was now in the throes of what medical literature termed an OBE—out-of-body experience—a hallucination that occurred when critically injured patients were resuscitated after clinically dying. OBEs almost always presented in the same manner—the perception that one’s mind had been temporarily separated from its physical body, floating upward and hovering without form. Despite feeling like real experiences, OBEs were nothing but imagined journeys, usually triggered by the effects of extreme stress and hypoxia on the brain, sometimes in conjunction with emergency room anesthetics like ketamine. I am hallucinating these images, Gessner assured herself, gazing down at the dark curve of the Vltava River snaking through the city. But if this is an OBE…then I must be in the process of dying. Surprised by her own calm, Gessner tried to remember what had happened to her. I am a healthy forty-nine-year-old woman…Why would I be dying? In a blinding flash, a frightening memory materialized in Gessner’s consciousness. She now realized where her physical body was lying at this very instant…and, even more terrifying, what was being done to her. She was on her back, tightly strapped into a machine she herself had created. A monster stood over her. The creature looked like some kind of primordial man who had crawled out of the earth. His face and hairless skull were coated with a thick layer of filthy clay, cracked and fractured like the surface of the moon. Only his hate-filled eyes were visible behind his earthen mask. Crudely etched across his forehead were three letters in an ancient language. “Why are you doing this?!” Gessner had screamed in panic. “Who are you?!” What are you?! “I am her protector,” the monster replied. His voice was hollow, his accent vaguely Slavic. “She trusted you…and you betrayed her.” “Who?!” Gessner demanded. The monster spoke a woman’s name, and Gessner felt a stab of panic. How can he possibly know what I have done?! An icy weight materialized in her arms, and Gessner realized the monster had started the process. An instant later, an unbearable pinpoint of pain blossomed in her left arm, spreading along her median cubital vein, clawing its way sharply toward her shoulder. “Please, stop,” she gasped. “Tell me everything,” he demanded as the excruciating sensation reached her armpit. “I will!” Gessner frantically agreed, and the monster paused the machine, halting the pain at her shoulder, though the intense burning remained. Racked with terror, Gessner spoke as quickly as she could through clenched teeth, frantically revealing the secrets she had vowed to keep. She answered his questions, divulging the disturbing truth about what she and her partners had created deep beneath the city of Prague. The monster stared down at her from behind his thick clay mask, his cold eyes flashing with comprehension…and hatred. “You’ve built an underground house of horrors,” he whispered. “You all deserve to die.” Without hesitation, he turned the machine back on and headed for the door. “No…!” she shrieked as the agony seized her anew, surging through her shoulder and into her chest. “Please don’t leave…This will kill me!” “Yes,” he said over his shoulder. “But death is not the end. I have died many times.” With that, the monster evaporated, and Gessner was suddenly hovering again. She tried to shout an appeal for mercy, but her voice was muted by a deafening thunderclap as the sky above her seemed to open wide. She felt herself gripped by an unseen force—a kind of reverse gravity—lifting her higher, dragging her upward. For years, Dr. Brigita Gessner had derided her patients’ claims of returning from the brink of death. Now she found herself praying that she could join the ranks of those rare souls who had danced to the edge of oblivion, peered into the abyss, and somehow stepped back from the precipice. I can’t die…I have to warn the others!
But she knew it was too late. This life was over.

序章

我一定是死了，那名女子心想。

她正漂浮在古老城市的尖塔之上。她的下方，聖維特大教堂的燈火輝煌，在閃爍的燈海中熠熠生光。她用她的雙眼——如果她仍然擁有雙眼的話——沿著城堡山緩緩傾斜的坡道向下望去，直達波希米亞首都的中心，追隨那被新雪覆蓋、宛如迷宮般蜿蜒的街道。

布拉格。

她感到迷惘，努力想理解自己所處的境況。

我是神經科學家，她安慰自己。我神智清醒。

她隨即認定，第二句話恐怕值得懷疑。

此刻，布麗吉塔・格斯納醫生唯一能確定的是，她正懸浮在她的家鄉布拉格上空。她的身體不在身邊。她沒有質量，也沒有形體。然而，她的其餘部分——真正的她，她的本質，她的意識——似乎依然完整而清醒，正緩慢地在空中飄移，朝伏爾塔瓦河的方向前進。

格斯納對最近發生的事毫無記憶，只隱約記得一絲身體上的痛楚。然而現在，她的「身體」彷彿只剩下她所漂浮其中的空氣。這種感覺前所未有。儘管這違背了她所有的理性直覺，她仍然只能得出一個解釋。

我已經死了。這是來世。

然而這個念頭才剛形成，她便立刻將其視為荒謬而否定。

來世只是一種共同的幻覺……是為了讓我們能夠承受現實生活而創造出來的。

身為醫師，格斯納對死亡再熟悉不過，也深知其不可逆轉的終結性。在醫學院解剖人腦時，她逐漸明白，構成「我們是誰」的一切個人特質——希望、恐懼、夢想、記憶——都不過是腦中由電荷維繫的化學物質。當一個人死亡時，大腦的能量來源被切斷，那些化學物質便會化為一灘毫無意義的液體，抹去這個人曾經存在的所有痕跡。

人一旦死去，就是死了。

句點。

然而此刻，當她飄過華倫斯坦宮對稱的花園時，她卻感覺自己非常「活著」。她看著雪花在她周圍——或穿過她——飄落，而奇怪的是，她絲毫感覺不到寒冷。彷彿她的意識只是懸浮在空中，理性與邏輯依然完好無損。

我的大腦還在運作，她告訴自己。所以我一定還活著。

格斯納唯一能得出的結論是，她正經歷醫學文獻中所稱的「離體經驗」（OBE）——一種在重傷患者從臨床死亡中被救回時出現的幻覺。

離體經驗幾乎總是以相同的形式出現——人會感覺自己的意識暫時脫離了肉體，向上漂浮，在空中無形地懸停。儘管這些經歷感覺無比真實，實際上卻只是大腦在極端壓力與缺氧狀態下產生的幻象，有時還會受到急診室麻醉藥（如氯胺酮）的影響。

我正在幻覺這些景象，格斯納告訴自己，俯視著蜿蜒穿過城市的伏爾塔瓦河。但如果這是離體經驗……那我一定正在死亡的過程中。

對於自己出奇的冷靜，她感到驚訝，並試圖回想究竟發生了什麼事。

我是一名健康的四十九歲女性……我為什麼會死？

一道刺眼的閃光中，一段可怕的記憶在她的意識中浮現。她終於明白，此刻她的肉體正躺在何處……以及，更令人恐懼的是，正發生在她身上的事。

她仰躺著，被緊緊固定在一台由她親手打造的機器上。一個怪物站在她的上方。那生物看起來像是某種從大地中爬出的原始人。他的臉和無毛的頭顱覆滿厚厚一層骯髒的泥土，龜裂如月球表面。只有他那充滿仇恨的雙眼，從泥土面具後顯露出來。他的額頭上，粗糙地刻著三個古老語言的字母。

「你為什麼要這樣做？！」格斯納驚恐地尖叫。「你是誰？！」你到底是什麼？！

「我是她的守護者，」那怪物回答。他的聲音空洞，帶著隱約的斯拉夫口音。「她信任你……而你背叛了她。」

「她是誰？！」格斯納逼問。

怪物說出一個女人的名字，格斯納頓時感到一陣恐慌。他怎麼可能知道我做過的事？！

一股冰冷的重量在她的手臂上出現，她意識到那怪物已經啟動了機器。瞬間，一點難以忍受的劇痛在她左臂爆發，沿著肘正中靜脈蔓延，銳利地向肩膀爬升。「求你……停下來，」她喘息著說。

「把一切都告訴我，」他命令道，當那劇痛蔓延到她的腋下時。

「我會說！」格斯納慌亂地答應。怪物暫時停止了機器，疼痛停在她的肩膀，但灼熱的感覺依然存在。

被恐懼吞噬，格斯納咬緊牙關，以最快的速度開口，瘋狂地说出了（吐露）她曾發誓守護的秘密。她回答他的問題，披露（揭露）了她與同夥（夥伴）們在布拉格地下深處所創造的可怕真相。

怪物透過厚重的泥土面具俯視著她，冰冷的眼中閃過理解……以及仇恨。

「你們建造了一座地下的恐怖之屋，」他低聲說。「你們全都該死。」他毫不猶豫地再次啟動機器，轉身走向門口。

「不——！」她尖叫，劇痛再次吞噬她，從肩膀湧入胸口。「不要走……這會殺了我！」

「會的，」他頭也不回地說。「但死亡並不是終點。我已經死過很多次了。」

話音落下，怪物消失無蹤，而格斯納又突然回到了漂浮狀態。她試圖呼喊求饒，但一聲震耳欲聾的雷鳴掩蓋了她的聲音，天空彷彿在她頭頂裂開。一股無形的力量——某種反向的重力——將她緊緊抓住，把她往更高處拖去。

多年來，布麗吉塔・格斯納醫生一直嘲笑那些聲稱從死亡邊緣歸來的病人。如今，她卻發現自己在祈禱，期望能成為那些少數靈魂之一——那些曾在虛無邊緣起舞、凝視深淵，卻又奇蹟般回到現實的人。

我不能死……我必須警告其他人！

但她知道，一切已經太遲了。

這一生，已經結束。

English (home made) audio:

现在，”AI”的文字翻译的质量已经要让那些职业的翻译家丢饭碗了。口译还有一个延迟，和场景切换等问题要解决。总之，AI很快就赢了并抢走了人们的翻译工作。

但是，书还是要看的，语言还是要学的。对语言全球化，我还是有保留的。