Year 3, Crisis Era(6)

In an era where anxiety had taken hold of everything, Luo Ji was now the world's most laid-back man. He strolled beside the lake, took a boat out into the water, had the chef turn the mushrooms he picked and the fish he caught into tasty delicacies, browsed through the library's rich collection, and when he tired of that, went outside and golfed with the guards. He rode on horseback through the grassland and on the forest path in the direction of the snow peak, but he never reached the foot of the mountain. Oftentimes, he would sit on a bench on the lakeside and look at the mountain's reflection in the water, doing and thinking nothing as an entire day passed unknowingly.

He was alone during this time, with no connection to the outside world. Kent was in the manor, too, but he had his own small office and rarely bothered him. Luo Ji had only spoken once to the officer in charge of security, to ask that the security detail not trail along behind him, and if they absolutely had to, to make sure that he could not see them.

He felt like the boat in the water, floating quietly with its sail furled, ignorant of where it was moored and not caring where it floated. Now and then when he thought about his former life, he was surprised to discover that in the short space of a few days, he could no longer recognize it. This state satisfied him.

He was particularly interested in the wine cellar. He knew that the dust-covered bottles lying horizontally on the racks held nothing but the best. He drank in the living room, he drank in the library, and sometimes he drank on the boat; but never too much, just enough to keep him in that perfect, half-drunk, half-sober state, and then he would take out that long-stemmed pipe left by the previous owner and puff away.

Even when it rained and the living room grew chilly, Luo Ji never had the fireplace lit. He knew it wasn't yet time.

He never went online here, but he sometimes watched television, skipping over the news and watching programs that had nothing to do with current events or even the present day. This sort of content was still possible to find, although it was growing increasingly rare in the last ebbs of the Golden Age.

Late one night, he got carried away by a bottle of cognac that, from the label, was thirty-five years old. Wielding the remote, he skipped past the several news stations on the high-definition television, but one English-language news item caught his eye. It concerned the salvage of a mid-seventeenth-century wreck, a clipper that had sailed from Rotterdam to Faridabad and had sunk off Cape Horn. Among the objects that divers had retrieved from the wreck was a small, sealed cask of fine wine that experts speculated was still drinkable. Not only that, but after three centuries in storage at the bottom of the ocean, its taste would be unparalleled. Luo Ji recorded most of the program, and then called for Kent.

"I want that cask. Buy it for me," he said.

Kent went to make a call. Two hours later he told Luo Ji that the price of the cask was astonishingly high: Bidding would start at three hundred thousand euros.

"That amount is nothing to the Wallfacer Project. Buy it. It's part of the plan."

And thus, the Wallfacer Project produced a second idiom after the "Wallfacer smile." Anything that was clearly absurd but which had to be done anyway was called "part of the Wallfacer plan," or simply, "part of the plan."

Two days later, the cask, its aged surface covered in shells, was placed in the villa's living room. Luo Ji took out a tap with a twist drill specially made for wooden casks, which he found in the cellar, and carefully drilled it into the side to pour out the first glass. The liquid was a tempting emerald green. He sniffed it, and then put the glass to his lips.

"Doctor, is this part of the plan too?" Kent asked softly.

"That's right. It's part of the plan." Luo Ji was about to drink, but seeing the people present in the room, he said, "All of you, out."

Kent and the rest of them did not move.

"Sending you out is part of the plan too. Out!" He glared at them. Kent gently shook his head and led the others out.

Luo Ji took a sip. Although he did his utmost to convince himself that the flavor was heavenly, in the end he did not have the guts to take a second sip. But that one sip didn't let him go unscathed. That night he was sick out both ends until he spat up bile the color of the wine and his body was so weak he couldn't get out of bed. Later, after doctors and experts opened the cask lid, they found that it had a rather large brass label on the inside wall, as was the custom in those days. Over time there had been some sort of reaction between the normally peacefully coexisting copper and the wine, and some sort of substance had dissolved into the wine.… When the cask was carried off, Luo Ji could see the schadenfreude on Kent's face.

Deeply exhausted, he lay in bed watching his IV drip, and an intense loneliness seized him. He knew that his recent leisure was merely the weightlessness of tumbling into the abyss of loneliness, and now he had reached the bottom. But he had anticipated this moment, and he had been prepared. He was waiting for someone, and then the next step of the plan would begin. He was waiting for Da Shi.

* * *

Tyler stood holding an umbrella against the Kagoshima drizzle. Behind him, two meters away, stood defense chief Koichi Inoue, whose umbrella remained unopened. The past two days he had maintained the same separation from Tyler, both physically and mentally. They were at the Chiran Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots, and in front of them was a statue of a special attack unit next to a white plane, call sign 502. A light layer of rain painted the surface of the statue and the aircraft and made them deceptively lifelike.

"Isn't there any room for discussion of my proposal?" Tyler asked.

"I strongly advise you not to speak of this to the media. It will cause trouble." Koichi Inoue's words were as icy as the rain.

"Is it still that sensitive, even today?"

"What's sensitive isn't the history, but your proposal to restore the kamikaze special attack units. Why don't you do it in the US or some other place? Are the Japanese people the only ones in the world who can die out of duty?"

Tyler closed up his umbrella and drew closer to Koichi Inoue, who—although he didn't recoil—seemed to have a force field surrounding him that prevented Tyler from getting close. "I've never said that the future kamikaze forces would be made up only of Japanese members. It's an international force, but since it originated in your great country, isn't it only natural to revive it here?"

"In interplanetary war, does this mode of attack really have any significance? You should realize that victories for those special attack units were limited, and they didn't turn the tide of battle."

"Commander, sir, the space force I have established is a fleet of fighters equipped with super hydrogen bombs."

"Why do you need humans? Can't computer-controlled fighters get close enough to attack?"

This question seemed to give Tyler the opportunity he was waiting for, and he grew exited. "That's exactly the problem! Today's computers are unable to replace human brains, and advancements in fundamental theory would be necessary for quantum and other next-gen computers. But that's been locked up by the sophons. So four centuries from now, computing intelligence will still be limited, and human-controlled weapons will be indispensable.… To tell you the truth, reviving the kamikaze squads only has moral significance now, because it will be ten generations before any of them go to their death. But establishing that spirit and faith means starting now!"

Koichi Inoue turned around to face Tyler for the first time. His wet hair was plastered against his forehead and the raindrops on his face looked like tears. "That approach violates the basic moral principles of modern society: Human lives come first, and the state and the government can't require any individual to take up a death mission. I seem to remember a line Yang Wen-li said in Legend of the Galactic Heroes:12 'In this war lies the fate of the country, but what does it matter next to individual rights and freedoms? All of you just do your best.'"

Tyler sighed. "You know what? You have thrown away your most precious resource." Then he snapped open his umbrella and turned and walked angrily away. When he reached the gate of the memorial, he looked back and saw Koichi Inoue still standing in the rain before the statue.

As Tyler walked in the sea breeze, his mind returned to a sentence from a suicide note from a kamikaze pilot to his mother that he had seen in the exhibit:

Mom, I'm going to be a firefly.

* * *

"It's worse than I imagined," Allen said to Rey Diaz. They were standing next to a black obelisk made of lava rock, the monument marking ground zero of humankind's first atom bomb.

"Is its structure really that different?" Rey Diaz asked.

"Totally different from today's nuclear bombs. Constructing its mathematical model might be more than a hundred times more complicated than today's bombs. This is an enormous undertaking."

"What do I need to do?"

"Cosmo's on your staff, right? Get him to come to my lab."

"William Cosmo?"

"Yes."

"But he's … he's…"

"An astrophysicist. An authority on stars."

"What's he going to do?"

"That's what I'm gonna tell you. To your mind, a nuclear bomb is detonated and then explodes, but the actual process is more like burning. The greater the yield, the longer the combustion. A twenty-megaton nuclear explosion, for example, has a fireball that can last for over twenty seconds. The superbomb we're designing is two hundred megatons, and its fireball will burn for several minutes. Think about that. What will it look like?"

"A small sun."

"Correct! Its fusion structure is very like that of a star, and it reproduces stellar evolution over a very abbreviated period. So the mathematical model we need to construct is essentially the model of a star."

White sands stretched out in front of them. In the moments just before dawn, the details of the dark desert couldn't be made out. As they gazed at the scenery, they were involuntarily reminded of the basic setting of Three Body.

"I'm very excited, Mr. Rey Diaz. Please forgive me for our lack of enthusiasm at the start. Looking at the project now, the significance far exceeds the construction of a superbomb itself. Do you know what we're doing? We're creating a virtual star!"

Rey Diaz shook his head in disapproval. "What does that have to do with the defense of Earth?"

"Don't be limited by planetary defense. Me and my colleagues in the lab are scientists, after all. Besides, this thing is not without practical significance. So long as you input the appropriate parameters, the star could be a model for our sun. Think about it. It's always useful to have the sun in your computer memory. It's the biggest presence that's close to us in the cosmos, but we could take more advantage of it. The model may have many more discoveries lying in wait."

Rey Diaz said, "One previous use of the sun is what brought humanity to the brink, and brought you and me to this place."

"But new discoveries might bring humanity back. So today, I've invited you here to watch the sunrise."

The rising sun was now just peeking its head over the horizon. The desert in front of them came into focus like a developing photograph, and Rey Diaz could see that this place, once blasted by the fires of hell, was now covered in sparse undergrowth.

"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds," Allen exclaimed.

"What?" Rey Diaz whipped his head around, as if someone had shot him from behind.

"Oppenheimer said that when he watched the first nuclear explosion. I think it's a quote from the Bhagavad Gita."

The wheel in the east expanded rapidly, casting light across the Earth like a golden web. The same sun was there on that morning when Ye Wenjie had tuned the Red Shore antenna, and even before that, the same sun had shone upon the dust settling after the first bomb blast. Australopithecus a million years ago and the dinosaurs a hundred million years ago had turned their dull eyes upon this very sun, and even earlier than that, the hazy light that penetrated the surface of the primeval ocean and was felt by the first living cell was emitted by this same sun.

Allen went on, "And then a man called Bainbridge followed up Oppenheimer's statement with something completely nonpoetic: 'Now we are all sons of bitches.'"

"What are you talking about?" Rey Diaz said. Watching the rising sun, his breathing became ragged.

"I'm thanking you, Mr. Rey Diaz, because from now on we're not sons of bitches."

In the east, the sun rose in overarching solemnity, as if declaring to the world, "Everything is as fleeting as a shadow before me."

"What's the matter, Mr. Rey Diaz?" Allen saw that Rey Diaz had fallen into a crouch, one hand on the ground, and was convulsing in dry heaves. His face had turned pale and was covered in a cold sweat, and he had no strength to move his hand from the clump of thorns it was pressing on.

"Go, go to the car," he said weakly. He turned his head in the direction opposite the sun, and he raised his other hand to block the sunlight. He was unable to get up. Allen tried to assist but couldn't budge his stocky body. "Drive the car over.…" Rey Diaz wheezed out, while pulling his hand back to cover his eyes. When Allen drove over to him, he had fallen to the ground. With difficulty, Allen helped him into the backseat. "Sunglasses. I need sunglasses.…" He half-reclined into the backseat, his hands clawing at the air. Allen handed Rey Diaz a pair of sunglasses he found on the dashboard. After he put them on his breathing grew smoother. "I'm all right. Let's get out of here. Quickly," he said feebly.

"What on earth happened? What's wrong?"

"It might be the sun."

"Uh … when did you start having this sort of reaction?"

"Just now."

The peculiar phobia for the sun that afflicted Rey Diaz pushed him to the edge of mental and physical breakdown whenever he saw it and kept him confined indoors from then on.

* * *

"Was the flight very long? You look like you don't have any energy," was the first thing Luo Ji said after Shi Qiang arrived.

"Yeah. You'll never find a plane as comfortable as that one we were on," Shi Qiang said as he appraised his surroundings.

"Not bad, eh?"

"It's awful," Shi Qiang said, shaking his head. "Woods on three sides, so it's easy to hide close to the house. And there's a lake. With the shore this close to the house, it would be difficult to defend against divers coming from the woods on the other side. But the surrounding grassland is pretty good, and provides some open space."

"Can't you be any more romantic?"

"I'm here to work, my boy."

"It's romantic work I'm thinking of." Luo Ji led Shi Qiang into the living room. He surveyed it, but did not seem much impressed by the luxury and elegance. Luo Ji poured him a drink in a crystal goblet, but Shi Qiang turned it down with a wave of his hand.

"It's thirty-year-old aged brandy."

"I can't drink right now.… Tell me of this romantic work of yours."

Luo Ji sipped his brandy and sat down next to him. "Da Shi, I'm asking you to do me a favor. In your old job, did you ever have to look across the entire country for a particular person, or even around the world?"

"Yes."

"Were you good at it?"

"At finding people? Of course."

"Great. Help me find a person. A woman in her early twenties. This is part of the plan."

"Nationality? Name? Address?"

"None. The possibility that she even exists in the world is low."

Shi Qiang looked at him, and after a few seconds said, "You dreamed her?"

Luo Ji nodded. "Daydreams, too."

Shi Qiang nodded, too, then said something Luo Ji had not expected him to say. "Okay."

"What?"

"Okay, so long as you know what she looks like."

"She's, well, she's Asian, so let's say Chinese." As Luo Ji spoke, he took out a paper and pencil. "Her face is like this. Her nose, like this. And her mouth … geez, I can't draw. And her eyes … damn it, how can I draw her eyes? Do you have one of those things, a piece of software that will let you pull up a face and then adjust the eyes and nose and so on according to the eyewitnesses description to come up with an accurate depiction of the person the witness saw?"

"Sure. I've got one right here on my laptop."

"Then get it out and let's draw!"

Shi Qiang stretched out on the sofa and situated himself comfortably. "Not necessary. You don't need to draw her. Just keep talking. Put aside her appearance, and first talk about what sort of person she is."

Something in Luo Ji's mind caught fire, and he stood up and began to pace restlessly in front of the fireplace. "She … how should I put it? She came into this world like a lily growing out of a rubbish heap, so … so pure and delicate, and nothing around her can contaminate her. But it can all harm her. Yes, everything around her can hurt her! Your first reaction when you see her is to protect her. No, to care for her, to let her know that you are willing to pay any price to shield her from the harm of a crude and savage reality. She … she's so … ah, I've got a clumsy tongue. I can't say anything clearly."

"It's always like that," Shi Qiang said with a laugh. His laugh, which had seemed crude and silly the first time Luo Ji heard it, felt full of wisdom now, and it soothed him. "But you've been clear enough."

"Okay. Well, I'll go on, then. She … but what am I saying? No matter what I say, I can't express what she's like in my heart." He grew irritated, and seemed to want to tear out his heart to show to Shi Qiang.

Shi Qiang calmed him with a wave. "Forget it. Just talk about what happens when the two of you are together. The more detailed the better."

Luo Ji's eyes widened in amazement. "How did you know about the two of us?"

Shi Qiang laughed again. Then he looked around. "There wouldn't happen to be any cigars in this place, would there?"

"Yes, there are!" Luo Ji grabbed an elegant wooden box from the mantel, took out a thick Davidoff, and used an even more elegant guillotine-style cigar cutter to slice off the end. Then he passed it to Shi Qiang, and lit it for him with a cedar strip specially designed for cigars.

Shi Qiang took a puff and nodded his head, pleased. "Go on."

Luo Ji overcame his earlier language barrier and grew garrulous. He described how she had come alive for the first time in the library, how she appeared in his classroom during lecture, how the two of them had met in front of the imaginary fireplace in his dormitory, the beauty of the firelight shining onto her face through the bottle of wine like the eyes of twilight. He recalled with pleasure their road trip, describing every last detail: the fields after the snow, the town and village under the blue sky, the mountains like old villagers basking in the sun, and the evening and bonfire at the foot of the mountain.…

After he finished, Shi Qiang stubbed out his cigar. "Well, that's about enough. I'll guess a few things about the girl, and you see if I'm right."

"Great!"

"Education: She's got at least a bachelor's, but less than a doctorate."

Luo Ji nodded. "Yes, yes. She's knowledgeable, but not to the point where it calcifies her. It only makes her more sensitive to life and to the world."

"She was probably born into a highly educated family and lived a life that wasn't too rich but more affluent than most families. Growing up she enjoyed her parents' love, but she had little contact with the community, particularly the lower rungs of society."

"Right, absolutely right! She never told me about her family circumstances, or actually anything about herself, but I think that ought to be the case."

"Now, if any of the following speculations are wrong, let me know. She likes to wear—how would you put it—simple, elegant clothing, a little plainer than other women her age." Luo Ji nodded dumbly, over and over. "But there's always something white, like a shirt or a collar, that contrasts sharply with the dark colors of the rest of the outfit."

"Da Shi, you're…" Luo Ji said, admiration in his eyes, as he watched Shi Qiang speak.

Brushing him aside, Shi Qiang went on, "Finally, she's not tall, one hundred and sixty centimeters or so, and her body is … well, I guess you could say slender, as if a gust of wind could blow her away, so she doesn't seem so short.… I can come up with more, of course. Not far off, is it?"

Luo Ji was ready to fall on his knees before Shi Qiang. "Da Shi, I throw myself on the ground before you. You're the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes!"

Shi Qiang stood up. "Now I'll sketch her on the computer."

That night, he brought the computer to Luo Ji. When the woman's portrait appeared onscreen, Luo Ji stared, not moving a muscle, like he had been struck by a curse. Shi Qiang had evidently expected this, and retrieved another cigar from the mantel, clipped it with the guillotine, lit it, and began to smoke. When he had taken a few puffs, he came back to find Luo Ji still staring at the screen.

"Tell me what's off and I'll adjust it for you."

With difficulty, Luo Ji tore his gaze from the screen, stood up, and walked to the window, where he watched the moonlight shining on the distant snow peak. He murmured, dreamlike, "Nothing."

"I thought so," Shi Qiang said, and closed the computer.

Still gazing into the distance, Luo Ji uttered a phrase that others had used to evaluate Shi Qiang: "Da Shi, you're a devil."

Shi Qiang sat down on the sofa, exhausted. "There's nothing supernatural about it. We're both men."

Luo Ji turned to him. "But every man's dream lover is quite different!"

"Dream lovers are basically the same for men of a certain type."

"Still, getting it so close should be impossible!"

"Remember, you told me a lot of stuff."

Luo Ji walked over to the computer and opened it up again. "Send me a copy." Then, as Shi Qiang worked on copying the image, he asked, "Can you find her?"

"All I can say now is that it's quite likely. But I can't rule out not finding her."

"What?" Luo Ji's hands stopped their movements and he turned to look at Shi Qiang in astonishment.

"With this sort of thing, how can you guarantee one hundred percent success?"

"No, that's not what I mean. The total opposite, in fact. I thought you would say that it's practically impossible, but you wouldn't rule out a random, one-ten-thousandth of a percent chance of finding her. And if you had said that, I'd have been satisfied." He turned back to the picture on the screen, and murmured again, "Can such a person really exist in the world?"

Shi Qiang smiled scornfully. "Dr. Luo, how many people have you seen?"

"Not as many as you, of course, but I know that there's no perfect person in the world, much less a perfect woman."

"Like you said earlier, I'm often able to find a particular individual out of tens of thousands, and I can tell you from the experience of most of my life that there are all kinds of people out there. All kinds, my boy. Perfect people, perfect women. You just haven't met them."

"That's the first time I've heard anyone say that."

"It's because someone who's perfect in your mind isn't necessarily perfect in the minds of others. This girl of your dreams—to me, she's got obvious, well, imperfections. So there's a good chance of finding her."

"But directors can search for an ideal actor out of tens of thousands of people and not find them in the end."

"Those directors can't match our professional search capabilities. We're not just looking at tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands or millions of people. The tools and techniques we use are more sophisticated than any director's. The computers at the police analysis center, say, can find a match out of upwards of a hundred million faces in just half a day.… The only catch is that this is beyond the scope of my duties, so I'll need to report to the higher authorities first. If they approve and assign the task to me, then of course I'll do my best."

"Tell them that it's an important part of the Wallfacer Project and must be taken seriously."

Shi Qiang chuckled opaquely and then took his leave.

* * *

"What? The PDC needs to find him…?" Kent groped for the Chinese term. "A dream lover? The guy's been indulged too much. I'm sorry. I can't pass along your request."

"Then you are in violation of the Wallfacer Project principle: No matter how incomprehensible a Wallfacer's order is, it must be reported and executed. Any veto belongs to the PDC."

"But we can't use society's resources to allow a person like him to live the life of an emperor! Mr. Shi, we haven't been working together long, but I really respect you. You're an experienced and insightful man, so tell me the truth. Do you really think Luo Ji is carrying out the Wallfacer Project?"

Shi Qiang shook his head. "I don't know." He raised a hand to stop Kent from arguing. "However, sir, that's just my ignorance, not the opinion of our superiors. This is the biggest difference between you and me: I'm just someone who faithfully carries out orders. You, you're someone who always has to ask why."

"Is that wrong?"

"It's not about right or wrong. If everyone had to be clear about why before they executed an order, then the world would have plunged into chaos long ago. Mr. Kent, you do outrank me, but when you get down to it, we're both people who carry out orders. We ought to understand that some things aren't for people like us to think over. It's enough to do our duty. If you can't do that, then I'm afraid you'll have a rough time."

"I'm already having a rough time! We just wasted gobs of money buying that sunken wine. I just think … look, does he look like a Wallfacer at all?"

"What should a Wallfacer look like?"

Kent was speechless for a moment.

"Even if there were a template for a Wallfacer, Luo Ji is not entirely inconsistent with it."

"What?" asked Kent, a little taken aback. "You're not saying that you see a certain amount of quality in him?"

"That I am."

"Well, damn it, what do you see?"

Shi Qiang clapped a hand to Kent's shoulder. "You, for example. If the Wallfacer mantle descended upon you, you would be an opportunistic hedonist just like him."

"I'd have broken down long before now."

"That's right. But Luo Ji's carefree. Nothing bothers him. Kent, old fellow, do you think what he's doing is easy? Open-mindedness, is what this is, and anyone who wants to do great things needs to be open-minded. Someone like you won't accomplish great things."

"But he's so … I mean … if he's just carefree like that, how does it relate to the Wallfacer Project?"

"I've been explaining it all this time and you still don't get it? I said that I don't know. How do you know that what the guy's doing right now isn't part of the plan? Once again, this isn't something for you or I to judge. Taking a step back, even if we're correct in what we think,"—Shi Qiang drew close to Kent and lowered his voice—"some things require time."

Kent stared at Shi Qiang for a long moment, and at last shook his head, unsure whether or not he understood that last sentence. "Fine. I'll make the report. But can you let me see that dream lover of his first?"

When he saw the woman on the screen, Kent's old face grew gentle for an instant. He rubbed his jaw and said, "Oh … my god. I don't believe for a moment that anyone like that exists, but I hope you find her soon."

* * *

"Colonel, do you find it a little abrupt for me to inspect the political and ideological work of your military in my capacity?" Tyler said when he met Zhang Beihai.

"No, Mr. Tyler. There's precedent for it. Rumsfeld once visited the Central Military Commission's Party School when I was studying there." Zhang Beihai lacked the curiosity, caution, and distance that Tyler had observed in the other officers. He appeared sincere, and that made the conversation easier.

"You've got good English. You must be from the navy."

"That's right. The US Space Force drew an even larger proportion from the navy than we did."

"That venerable old branch of the services would never have imagined that its warships would be sailing into space.… I'll be frank. When General Chang Weisi introduced you as the finest political cadre in the space force, I thought you would be army, because the army is the soul of your military."

Zhang Beihai clearly did not agree, but he laughed graciously. "The same soul is found throughout the different branches of the military. In every country's nascent space force, the military culture bears the imprint of its various branches."

"I'm quite interested in your political and ideological work. I was hoping I could do some in-depth investigation."

"Not a problem at all. My superiors have instructed me to hold nothing back, within the scope of my work."

"Thank you!" Tyler hesitated before going on. "My purpose in this trip is to obtain an answer. I'd like to ask you first."

"Of course. Go ahead."

"Colonel, do you believe that we can restore the spirit of armies of the past?"

"What do you mean by 'past'?"

"A wide range of time, from perhaps ancient Greece through the Second World War. What's key is the spiritual commonalities I mentioned: duty and honor above all, and, in time of need, to unhesitatingly lay down one's life. You may have noticed that after the Second World War, this spirit vanished from the military in democratic and authoritarian countries alike."

"The army is drawn from society, so it would mean that the past spirit you speak of would need to be restored throughout society."

"Our views agree on this point."

"But, Mr. Tyler, that is impossible."

"Why? We have four hundred years. In the past, human society used exactly that amount of time to evolve from the era of collective heroism to one of individualism, so why can't we use the same amount of time to evolve back?"

Zhang Beihai considered this for a moment, then said, "This is a profound question, but I think that society has grown up and can never return to its childhood. In the four hundred years that led to the formation of modern society, we see no cultural or mental preparation for this sort of crisis."

"Then from what do you draw your confidence? As far as I'm aware, you are a committed triumphalist. How will a space fleet brimming with defeatism face a powerful enemy?"

"Didn't you just say we have four hundred years? If we can't go backward, then we must move resolutely forward."

Zhang Beihai's answer was opaque. Tyler obtained nothing else from the ensuing conversation but a feeling that the man's thoughts went deeper than a brief visit could reveal.

Tyler passed a sentry as he left the space force headquarters. When their eyes met, the sentry greeted him with a shy smile. It was something he hadn't seen in other countries' militaries, whose sentries stared intently straight ahead. Looking at the young man's face, Tyler once again repeated that line to himself:

Mom, I'm going to be a firefly.

* * *

It began to rain that evening for the first time since Luo Ji had arrived at the estate, and the living room was quite cold. He sat beside the unlit fireplace and listened to the rain outside, feeling that the house was located on a lonely island in the middle of a dark ocean. He wrapped himself in the boundless solitude. With Shi Qiang gone, he had been restlessly waiting, and this lonely wait was itself a kind of happiness. Then he heard a car pull up to the porch and caught snatches of conversation. The soft, gentle voice of a woman saying "Thank you" and "Good-bye" jolted him like an electric shock.

Two years ago, he had heard the same sound day and night in his dreams. The ethereal sound, a wisp of gossamer floating through the blue sky, brought a fleeting sunshine to the gloomy evening.

Then there was a light knock at the door. He sat stiffly in place and only after a long while did he finally open his mouth and say, "Come in." The door opened. A slender figure floated in on a breath of rain. The sole light in the living room was a floor lamp with an old-fashioned lampshade that cast a circle of illumination beside the fireplace but lit the rest of the room only dimly. Luo Ji couldn't make out her face, but noticed that she wore white trousers and a dark jacket that stood in stark contrast to her white collar and made him think of lilies.

"Hello, Mr. Luo," she said.

"Hello," he said, standing up. "Is it cold outside?"

"Not in the car." Although he couldn't see her clearly, he knew she was smiling. "But here"—she looked around her—"here it's a little cold.… Er, I'm Zhuang Yan, Mr. Luo."

"Hello, Zhuang Yan. Let's light the fireplace."

And so Luo Ji knelt down and put some of the neatly stacked fruitwood into the fireplace. He said, "Have you ever seen one before? Here, come have a seat."

She came over and sat on the sofa, still in the shadows. "Oh … only in the movies."

Luo Ji struck a match and lit the fire-starter under the wood pile. The flame stretched like it was alive, and the woman gradually took shape in its soft golden glow. Luo Ji gripped tightly to the match with two fingers as it burnt down. He needed the pain to tell him this wasn't a dream. It was like he had ignited the sun, which now shone on a dreamworld-turned-reality. Outside, the sun could remain forever hidden by clouds and night, so long as his world had her and the firelight in it.

Da Shi, you really are a devil. Where did you find her? How the hell were you able to find her?

Luo Ji looked away, back into the fire, and tears came unbidden to his eyes. This made him a little scared to look at her, until he realized there was no reason to hide—she would probably think it was the smoke that made him cry. He rubbed his tears away with a hand.

"It's really warm, and nice…" she said with a smile as she watched the flames.

Her words and her smile made Luo Ji's heart tremble.

"Why is it like this?" She looked up and glanced around the dim living room a second time.

"It's not the same as you imagined?"

"It's not the same."

"It's not…" He thought about her name. "It's not 'dignified' enough for you?"

She smiled at him. "My name is the 'yan' that means color, not dignity."

"Oh, I see. Perhaps you think there ought to be lots of maps, and a large screen, and clusters of uniformed generals, and I'd be here pointing at things with a stick?"

"That's it exactly, Mr. Luo." Delighted, her smile blossomed like a rose in bloom.

Luo Ji stood up. "You must be tired from the journey. Have some tea." He hesitated. "Or would you care for some wine? It'll ward off the cold."

She nodded. "Okay." She accepted the goblet with a quiet "Thank you," and took a small sip.

Looking at her innocently holding the wineglass stirred the most delicate parts of his mind. She drank when invited. She trusted the world and had no wariness about it at all. Yes, everything in the world was lying in wait to hurt her, except here. She needed to be cared for here. This was her castle.

He sat down and looked at her, and then said, as calmly as he could, "What did they tell you before you came?"

"That I'd be coming to work, of course." She flashed him that innocent smile that dashed his heart to pieces. "Mr. Luo, what will I be working on?"

"What did you study?"

"Traditional painting, at the Central Academy of Fine Arts."

"Ah. Have you graduated?"

"Yes. I just graduated, and have been looking for work while I prepare for grad school."

Luo Ji considered this for a while, but he couldn't come up with anything for her to do. "Well, as for work, we'll talk about that tomorrow. You must be tired. First you must sleep well.… Do you like it here?"

"I don't know. There was a lot of fog when I came from the airport, and then it got dark, so I couldn't see anything.… Mr. Luo, where is this?"

"I don't know either."

She nodded and chuckled to herself, clearly not believing him.

"I really don't know where we are. The land looks like Scandinavia. I could call and ask right now." He reached for the phone next to the sofa.

"No, don't, Mr. Luo. It's nice not knowing."

"Why?"

"Once you know, the world turns narrow."

My god, he exclaimed to himself.

All of a sudden, she exclaimed, "Mr. Luo, look at how lovely the wine is in the firelight."

The wine, soaked in the light of the fire, shone with a glistening crimson found only in dreams.

"What do you think it looks like?" he asked nervously.

"Well, I think it looks like eyes."

"The eyes of twilight, no?"

"The eyes of twilight? That's a marvelous way to put it, Mr. Luo."

"Dawn or twilight? You prefer twilight, do you?"

"That's right. How did you know? I love painting the twilight." Her eyes shone crystalline in the firelight, as if asking, What's wrong with that?

The next morning, after the rain had cleared, Luo Ji felt as if God had washed out this Garden of Eden to prepare for Zhuang Yan's arrival. When she saw its true appearance for the first time, what Luo Ji heard was not the squeals and fussing and exclamations that young women like her usually made. No, in the face of such a magnificent vista, she fell into an awed and breathless state and was unable to speak even one word of praise. He could tell that she was far more sensitive to natural beauty than other women.

"So you really like to paint?" he asked.

She stared speechless at the distant snow peak, and it was some time before she recovered her senses. "Oh, yes. But if I'd grown up here, I probably wouldn't."

"Why's that?"

"I've imagined lots of wonderful places, and when I paint them it's like I've been there. But this place has everything from my dreams and imagination, so what would a painting do?"

"That's true. When the beauty in your imagination becomes reality, it's really…" He trailed off, and glanced at Zhuang Yan against the sunrise, the angel who had stepped out of his dream. The happiness in his heart rippled like the waves on the lake sparkling in the light. The UN and the PDC never imagined that this would be a consequence of the Wallfacer Project. If he died now, he wouldn't care.

"Mr. Luo, if it rained so much yesterday, why hasn't the snow on that mountain been washed away?" she asked.

"The rain fell below the snowline. That mountain has snow year-round. The climate here is very different from back in China."

"Have you been to the mountain?"

"No. I haven't been here very long." He noticed that the girl's eyes never left the mountain. "Do you like snowcaps?"

She nodded.

"Then let's go."

"Really? When?" she exclaimed in excitement.

"We can set off now. There's a simple roadway that runs to the foot of the mountain, and if we go now, we can be back by evening."

"What about work?" Zhuang Yan tore her eyes from the mountain and looked at Luo Ji.

"Work can be set aside for now. You just arrived," he said perfunctorily.

"Well…" She tilted her head, giving his heart a jolt. The naïve expression was one he had seen on her countless times before. "Mr. Luo, I've got to know what it is I'm doing."

He looked into the distance and thought for a few seconds, then said with finality, "I'll tell you when we've reached the mountain."

"Great! Then we should be off, shouldn't we?"

"Right. It's easier if we take the boat to the other side of the lake and then drive from there."

They walked to the end of the pier. Luo Ji noted that the wind was favorable, so they could take the sailboat. The direction would change at night so they would be able to catch it again coming back. He took her by the hand to help her into the boat. It was the first time he had touched her, and her hands were exactly like the ones he had first clasped on that winter night in his imagination, so soft and cool. She was pleasantly surprised when he raised the white spinnaker. When the boat left the pier, she plunged a hand into the water.

"The lake water is very cold," he said.

"But it's so clean and clear!"

Like your eyes, he said to himself. "Why do you like snowcaps?"

"I like traditional painting."

"What's that got to do with snowcaps?"

"Mr. Luo, are you aware of the difference between traditional painting and oil painting? Oil paintings are brimming with rich colors. A master once said that in oil painting, white is as precious as gold. But it's different with traditional painting. There's lots and lots of blank space, and blank space forms the painting's eyes. The scenery is just the border for that blank space. Look at that snowy peak. Doesn't it look like the blank space in a traditional painting?"

This was the most she had ever said to him. She lectured the Wallfacer, pouring out words and turning him into an ignorant schoolboy, without any sense of being out of line.

You're like the blank space in a traditional painting: pure, but to a mature appreciation, infinitely appealing, he thought as he looked at her.

The boat docked at a pier on the opposite shore, where an open-top Jeep was parked next to the trees. The driver who had parked it there was gone.

"Is this a military car? I saw troops around when I arrived, and had to go past three sentry points," she said as they got into the car.

"That doesn't matter. They won't bother us," he said, starting the engine.

The road passing through the forest was narrow and rough, but the car drove smoothly on it. In the forest, where the morning mist had not yet lifted, the sun penetrated the tall pines with shafts of light, and even through the engine sound they could hear the calls of birds in the trees. A sweet breeze whipped up Zhuang Yan's hair and tossed it about on Luo Ji's face, and the itching made him think of the winter road trip two years ago.

Everything about their surroundings was completely remote from Mount Taihang and the snowy northern China plains, but his dreams from that trip were so seamlessly connected to today's reality that he found it hard to believe that it was actually happening to him.

He turned to look at Zhuang Yan and found her looking back at him. She had been for a long time, it seemed. The look in her eyes was one of slight curiosity mixed with goodwill and innocence. Sunbeams flickered over her face and body. When she saw Luo Ji looking at her, she did not turn away.

"Mr. Luo, do you really have the ability to defeat the aliens?" she asked.

He was completely overcome by her childlike nature. The question was one that no one but her would ever ask a Wallfacer, and they had known each other so briefly.

"Zhuang Yan, the core meaning of the Wallfacer Project is to encapsulate humanity's real strategy in the mind of one person, the only place in the world that's safe from sophon spying. They had to choose a few people, but that doesn't mean those people are supermen. Superman doesn't exist."

"But why were you chosen?"

That question was even more abrupt and outrageous than the previous one, but it sounded natural coming from Zhuang Yan's lips, because in her transparent heart, every sunbeam was transmitted and refracted with crystalline clarity.

Luo Ji slowed the car to a stop. She looked at him in surprise as he stared straight ahead at the patches of sun on the roadway.

"Wallfacers are the most untrustworthy people in history. The world's greatest liars."

"That's your duty."

He nodded. "But, Zhuang Yan, I'm going to tell you the truth. Please believe me."

She nodded. "Mr. Luo, please continue. I believe you."

He was silent for a long while, increasing the weight of the words he then uttered. "I don't know why I was chosen." He turned to her. "I'm just an ordinary man."

She nodded again. "It must be very hard."

Those words and Zhuang Yan's look of innocence again brought tears to his eyes. It was the first time he had received such an acknowledgement since becoming a Wallfacer. The girl's eyes were his paradise, and in that clear gaze he saw no trace of the expression that everyone else directed at the Wallfacers. Her smile was paradise for him, too. It wasn't the Wallfacer smile, but a pure, innocent smile, like a sun-drenched dewdrop falling softly into the driest part of his soul.

"It'll be hard, but I'd like to make it easier.… That's all. Here endeth the truth. We now return to the Wallfacer state," he said, as he restarted the engine.

They drove on in silence, until the trees grew sparse and the deep blue sky emerged overhead.

"Mr. Luo, look at that eagle!" Zhuang Yan shouted.

"And that over there looks like deer!" He pointed, fast enough to distract her attention, because he knew that the object in the sky wasn't an eagle but a circling sentry drone. This reminded him of Shi Qiang. He took out his phone and dialed.

Shi Qiang answered. "Hey, brother Luo. So now you remember me, eh? First, tell me: How's Yan Yan doing?"

"Fine. Excellent. Wonderful. Thank you!"

"That's good. So it turns out I've completed my final mission."

"Final mission? Where are you?"

"Back home. I'm getting ready for hibernation."

"What?"

"I've got leukemia. I'm going to the future to cure it."

Luo Ji slammed his foot down on the brakes and stopped short. Zhuang Yan yelped. He looked at her in concern, but, seeing that nothing was wrong, he resumed talking to Shi Qiang.

"Er … when did this happen?"

"I got irradiated on a previous mission and then got ill last year."

"My god! I didn't delay you, did I?"

"With this sort of thing, delay isn't relevant. Who knows what medicine will be like in the future?"

"I'm truly sorry, Da Shi."

"Oh, it doesn't matter. It's all part of the job. I didn't bother you about it because I figured we would be able to meet again sometime. But I'd like to tell you something in case we can't."

"Please."

After a lengthy silence, Shi Qiang said, "'Three things are unfilial, and having no issue is the greatest.'13 Brother Luo, the lineage of the Shi family four hundred years from now is in your hands."

The call disconnected. Luo Ji looked up at the sky, where the drone had disappeared. The empty blue wash of the sky was his heart.

"You were talking to Uncle Shi?" Zhuang Yan asked.

"Yes. Did you meet him?"

"I met him. He's a nice man. The day I left he accidentally broke the skin on his hand and it wouldn't stop bleeding. It was pretty scary."

"Oh … Did he say anything to you?"

"He said you were doing the most important thing in the world, and he asked me to help you."

Now the forest had entirely disappeared, leaving only grassland between them and the mountain. In silver and green, the composition of the world had turned simple and pure, and, to Luo Ji's mind, more and more like the girl sitting beside him. He noticed a hint of melancholy in her eyes, and he became aware that she was sighing softly.

"Yan Yan, what's wrong?" he asked. It was the first time he had called her that, but he thought, If Da Shi can call her that, why can't I?

"It's such a beautiful world, but when you think about how someday there may be no one here to see it, it's quite sad."

"Won't the aliens be here?"

"I don't think they appreciate beauty."

"Why?"

"My dad said that people who are sensitive to beauty are good by nature, and if they're not good, then they can't appreciate beauty."

"Yan Yan, their approach to humans is a rational choice. It's the responsible thing to do for the survival of their species, and has nothing to do with good or evil."

"That's the first I've heard of it. Mr. Luo, you're going to see them, aren't you?"

"Perhaps."

"If they're really like you say, and you defeat them in the Doomsday Battle, then, well, could you…" She tilted her head to look at him, and hesitated.

He was about to say that the possibility of that was practically nil, but he controlled himself, and said, "Could I what?"

"Why do you have to drive them out into space to die? Give them a plot of land, and let them coexist with us? Wouldn't that be wonderful?"

Luo Ji dealt silently with his emotions for a moment, then pointed up to the sky and said, "Yan Yan, I'm not the only one who heard what you just said."

Zhuang Yan looked up nervously. "Oh, right. There must be tons of sophons around us."

"It might have been the Trisolar High Consul himself who heard you."

"And you're all laughing at me, aren't you?"

"No. Yan Yan, do you know what I'm thinking right now?" He had a strong impulse to take hold of her slender left hand, which was lying next to the steering wheel, but he controlled himself. "I'm thinking that the person who might actually have a chance of saving the world is you."

"Me?" She burst out laughing.

"You, except that you're not enough. Or, rather, there aren't enough people like you. If a third of humanity was like you, then Trisolaris might negotiate with us about the possibility of coexisting on the world. But now…" He let out a long sigh.

Zhuang Yan flashed a helpless smile. "Mr. Luo, it hasn't been easy for me. Going out into the world after graduation, I was like a fish swimming into the sea, where the water was muddy and I couldn't see anything at all. I wanted to swim to clearer waters, but all that swimming got tiring.…"

I wish I could help you swim to those waters, he said to himself.

The road began to climb the mountain, and as the altitude increased, the vegetation grew sparse, exposing the naked black rock. For one stretch of road, they seemed to be driving on the surface of the moon. But soon they crossed the snowline and were surrounded by white, and a crisp chill filled the air. He grabbed down jackets from the travel bag in the backseat, and they put them on and continued ahead.

Before long they reached a roadblock, a conspicuous sign in the middle of the road that warned, DANGER: AVALANCHE SEASON. ROAD AHEAD CLOSED. So they got out of the car and walked to the snow at the roadside.

The sun had started its descent, casting shadows around them on the snowy slope. The pure snow was pale blue in color, almost weakly fluorescent. The jagged peaks in the distance were still lit and shone silver in all directions, a light that seemed to issue from the snow itself, as if it was this mountain and not the sun that had been illuminating the world all along.

"Okay, now the painting's entirely blank," he said, sweeping his hands about him.

Zhang Yan drank in the white world around her. "Mr. Luo, I actually did do a painting like this once. From a distance, it was a white sheet of paper, almost entirely blank, but closer in you would see fine reeds in the lower left corner, and in the upper right the traces of a disappearing bird. In the blank center, two infinitesimally tiny people.… It's the painting I'm proudest of."

"I can imagine it. It must be magnificent.… So, Zhuang Yan, now that we're in this blank world, are you interested in learning about your job?"

She nodded, but looked anxious.

"You know about the Wallfacer Project, and you know that its success relies on its incomprehensibility. At its highest level, no one on Earth or Trisolaris, apart from the Wallfacer himself, understands it. So, Zhuang Yan, no matter how inexplicable you find your work, it definitely has meaning. Don't try to understand it. Just do it as best you can."

She nodded nervously. "Yes, I understand." Then she laughed and shook her head. "I mean, I get it."

Looking at her amid the snow, the whiteness lost all dimension, and the world faded around her, leaving her its only presence. Two years before, when the literary image he had created had come to life in his imagination, he had tasted love. Now, in the blank space of this grand natural painting, he understood love's ultimate mystery.

"Zhuang Yan, your work is to make yourself happy."

Her eyes widened.

"You must become the happiest woman on Earth. This is part of the Wallfacer plan."

The light of the peak that illuminated their world was reflected in her eyes, and complex feelings drifted across the purity of her gaze. The snowy peak absorbed all sound from the outside world, and he waited patiently in the silence, until finally she said, in a voice that seemed to come from a great distance, "Then … what should I do?"

Luo Ji grew animated. "Whatever you want to! Tomorrow, or when we go back tonight, you can go wherever you want and do whatever you wish, and live life as you please. As a Wallfacer, I can help you realize all of it."

"But I…" She looked at him helplessly. "Mr. Luo, I … I don't need anything."

"That's not possible. Everyone needs something! Aren't young people always chasing after something?"

"Have I ever chased after anything?" She slowly shook her head. "No, I don't think so."

"Ah, yes. A carefree young woman like you might not need to. But you've got to have a dream, at least. You like painting, so have you ever thought of having an individual exhibition at the world's largest gallery or art museum?"

She laughed, as if Luo Ji had turned into a foolish child. "Mr. Luo, I paint for myself. I've never thought about that stuff."

"Well then. You must have dreamed of love," he said without hesitation. "You've got the means now, so why not go find it?"

The sunset was draining its light from the snowy peak. Zhuang Yan's eyes darkened, and her expression softened. She said gently, "Mr. Luo, that's not something you can go in search of."

"True." He calmed himself down and nodded. "Then, how about this: Don't think long term, just think about tomorrow. Tomorrow, you know? Where do you want to go tomorrow? What do you want to do? What will make you happy tomorrow? You're able to come up with something, surely."

She thought earnestly for a while, and finally said, hesitantly, "If I tell you, can you really make it happen?"

"Of course. Tell me."

"Then, Mr. Luo, can you take me to the Louvre?"