Those who face the wall, but are in the Nascent Soul stage.

Chapter 126 Round Soap Bubbles
The events involving Rediaz and Hines seem to have occurred four or five years ago, while the 'Taiyuan Earth Fire,' which has been forgotten by the world, happened twelve years ago.

It is worth mentioning that in the 26th year of the Crisis Era, the government announced that it had completely extinguished the Taiyuan fire, the worst man-made disaster in human history. This was three years ahead of the UN's initial timeline for extinguishing the fire.

During the long rescue operation to extinguish the ground fire, a special technology was developed: a brand-new nanomaterial with significance comparable to the 'flying blade' material.

The founder of nanomaterials is a female scientist named Yuanyuan. She named this new type of nanomaterial "flying liquid," which can stabilize flying liquid bubbles by adjusting surface tension.
The development of "flying liquid" materials represents a major technological breakthrough that enables humanity to quickly extinguish subterranean fires.

"Flying liquid" can create super soap bubbles with a diameter of hundreds of kilometers. During the final stage of the "earth fire" extinguishing, these super soap bubbles completely enveloped Taiyuan. Moreover, these super soap bubbles can also carry a large amount of seawater, forming a weakening effect similar to "Luo Qing moving the Bohai Bay". This excellent use of "round soap bubbles" accelerated the extinguishing of the earth fire.

On the other hand, the 'super soap bubble' created by female scientist Yuanyuan was also put to practical use by the government. The soap bubble was used to move seawater and bring rain to the arid northwest inland, which not only saved the Silk Road City in GS Province from extinction, but also effectively curbed desertification in East Asia.

As for soil salinization, there's no need to worry, as the 'round soap bubbles' can effectively filter out a large amount of salt from the seawater.

After the near-collapsed Silk Road City was saved by the 'round soap bubbles', the 'flying liquid' nanotechnology was quickly made public by the government to the world. For a time, soap bubbles with diameters ranging from several kilometers to hundreds of kilometers were everywhere in the sky. These soap bubbles filtered out the salt in the seawater and flew in all directions to the world's arid regions.

The United Nations called it the "sea-land transport" project and praised Yuan Yuan as the greatest applied physicist of the 40s. The United Nations Environment Programme went even further, saying, "Yuan Yuan saved the earth."

When asked about this, the lovely scientist simply smiled shyly at the interview camera.

Liu Xin, who accidentally caused an earthquake; Ding Yi, who broke through to controllable nuclear fusion; Tu Hengyu, who triggered the birth of MOSS; and Yuan Yuan, who changed the desertification environment of the earth…

Good or bad, right or wrong, countless scientists like these are doing everything in their power for humanity in their respective fields. Although the sophon still stands at the end of humanity's scientific wall, humanity, with its indomitable spirit, continues to drive the vigorous development of applied physics.

The emergence of new technologies has even led to a recovery in the human economy.

The futurist school of history refers to the economic recovery of the 2040s as a "last gasp".

Yes, despite the continuous breakthroughs in human applied technology and the curbing of desertification, the Future Historians have not wavered in their judgment of the Great Depression.

This also made Luo Qing a little worried.

If there's anything in modern human society that we can't control, it's the human economic system.

There's no way of knowing when it will collapse.

But taking advantage of this brief resurgence in the human economy, the 55-year-old Ding Yi used his influence to propose a bold idea that he had long harbored to countries around the world.

—Initiate the construction of the 'Ring Equator' particle accelerator.

Almost without any suspense, Ding Yi's request was rejected by various countries... Let humanity enjoy a few good days.

Ding Yi was naturally unwilling to accept this. He bluntly stated, "The Equatorial Particle Accelerator is humanity's last hope in overcoming the interference of sophons. The particle accelerator built on Mars has already proven the effectiveness of sophons in interfering with the Martian particle accelerator, which means that the number of sophons lurking within humanity has exceeded expectations."

The temporary negotiations reached between the Trisolarans and Luo Qingna decades ago have long since ended with Dr. Luo Ji's hibernation. Now, the possibility of shielding against sophon interference by increasing spatial distance is virtually nonexistent. Humanity is left with only one last resort: building a ring-equatorial particle accelerator.

Ding Yi's words clearly resonated with the scientific community. At a time when scientific development is facing obstacles, breaking free from the theoretical interference of sophons is something every scientist hopes for.

The less breakthroughs there are in fundamental physics, the greater the likelihood that humanity will perish in the doomsday war—a sentiment shared by many scientists.

Led by Ding Yi, the theoretical science community launched a wave of support for the construction of a ring-equatorial particle accelerator.

After six months of complex discussions and struggles, and with Luo Qing's expressed support, the United Nations and the PDC cautiously approved the application to build the equatorial particle accelerator.

In an effort to appease the public, the United Nations announced that the construction of the Ring Equatorial Particle Accelerator would be led by MOSS.

Some scholars have estimated that the total resources consumed in building the equatorial particle accelerator are enough to build 60 more planetary warships for humanity.

Hopefully, the human economy can withstand the strain, and we also hope that MOSS can be even more efficient. This is a world-class engineering project far surpassing the space elevator. In terms of scale, the construction of the equatorial particle accelerator will be a long-term project, roughly estimated to take at least sixty years.

Laying a submarine accelerator tunnel with a diameter of 100 meters in the equatorial sea is a very difficult project. Compared to the vacuum on the surface, construction on the seabed is much more difficult.

Ding Yi certainly won't live past 60 years; he's already prepared for hibernation.
In addition to the commencement of construction on the Ring Equatorial Particle Accelerator, humanity has also made commendable progress in the field of space.

Besides the six planetary-level warships, the moon has almost become one of humanity's main production bases in space, and the construction of the Mars base is quite complete, with even commercial projects emerging. Various large-scale human experimental projects, including the 'Mars' particle accelerator, are springing up like mushrooms after rain.

The unfortunate situation of a person and a cat being trapped on Mars will no longer occur. A monitoring space station has been established in Mars' near-Mars orbit, and a girl named Mai Dong has become the first 'Mars astronaut'.

Most commendable is Mercury. After Luo Qing dug through Mercury's north and south poles, he deployed humanity's thousand star-shaped nuclear bombs on Mercury under the name of the 'Mercury Ballistic Missile Defense System'.

Unlike other planetary spacecraft that explore distant planets, the Wan Nian Yan Di and Wan Nian Feng Xue were almost entirely fixed between Mercury and Earth, serving as transport trucks for space supplies between the two.

Among them, the British mission 'New World' traveled the farthest to explore distant planets. After a two-year journey, the New World planetary spacecraft even reached near Jupiter's orbit, marking humanity's first arrival in the outer reaches of the solar system. (This does not include Luo Qing's mission.)

Meanwhile, the Mercury 'cavitation' base, after four years of construction, has also achieved remarkable results. Humans used the "Emperor of Ten Thousand Years" and the "Snowstorm of Ten Thousand Years" to transport a batch of general-purpose industrial robots to the Mercury 'cavitation'.

Although the surface temperature of Mercury often varies drastically between 400 degrees Celsius and -150 degrees Celsius, the 'cavitation' with its constant temperature and unaffected by the sun will surely become a breeding ground for humans inside Mercury in the future.

Not to mention that Luo Qing also tore off a wisp of Earth's atmosphere and stuffed it into the 'vacuum'. The round soap bubbles formed a thin film that blocked the air from escaping from the tunnel. The [Radiant Sword] continuously provided light and heat, and with the addition of some soil transported from Earth, some plants were already growing inside the 'vacuum'.

Of course, this ecosystem is still very fragile.

But at least Diaz can finally take off his bulky space helmet.

Unfortunately, the diameter of the cavitation is too small, only 100 kilometers, which limits the potential for further development of the Mercury cavitation.

ps:

This chapter is inserted into Liu Cixin's short story "Round Soap Bubbles".

This is the sixth of Liu Cixin's works to be included in this book, following "Ball Lightning", "The Cretaceous Past", "Taiyuan Love", "Earth Fire" and "Festivals That Cannot Coexist".

As usual, let me first recommend "Round Soap Bubbles." This is a fairy tale science fiction story that sparkles with humanistic elements. It's not hardcore but very heartwarming, and I recommend everyone to read it.

Works that have already been hinted at in the text as potentially being integrated into the main storyline include: *The Devourer*, *Poetry Cloud*, *The Road to Dawn*, *Mountain*, *The Village Teacher*, *The Wandering Earth*, and *Earth Cannon*.

I won't reveal any more details about the sewing project here. It includes everything you can imagine and nothing you can't, but there will definitely be some cuts and omissions. In short, the outline is very complete, and the ending is also set. Don't worry about the possibility of the sewing going wrong. I am the best tailor in the village.

In addition, regarding the plot of this book, as you can see, I have been giving humanity positive buffs in these chapters.

Controlled nuclear fusion is one (as stated in the original text), MOSS is another, and the round soap bubble is yet another. These three correspond to energy, technology, and the environment, respectively.

Including Lao Qing, humanity now has four cheat codes.

After all, the enemies of future human civilization are all Frankenstein's monsters, so it's only right to give them some positive buffs.

I have repeatedly emphasized: This is a bustling universe.
I've come up with a new title for this book: *The Hybrid Three-Body Problem*

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(End of this chapter)