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

Chapter 170 Eridanus Civilization

Everyone stared in astonishment at the cartoon girl inside the crystal. They could all tell that the cartoon girl was not a real person, but rather a holographic projection that spontaneously lit up from within the crystal.

"How do you know that scaring him like that will work?" the young researcher asked Ding Yi incredulously.

"Your work has revealed a clear optical structure inside, with multiple layers of interference fringes and nanoscale markings. This structure is definitely for imaging purposes. Since it can be visualized, we can only find a way to turn it on."

"Then you should have tried using electrical stimulation or light wave stimulation, how could you think of swinging a hammer and smashing it?"

Ding Yi glanced at the young researcher and said smugly, "Kid, I was born in the 20s, and you were probably born in the 21s. Your great-great-grandfather might not even be older than me. When I was a kid, our old boxy TV often wouldn't work. You would just go over and smash it a couple of times and the TV would be fine, understand?"

"What's the principle behind this?" the young researcher asked, bewildered.

"If the TV doesn't behave, beat it up," Ding Yi said, forcing a kind smile through his wrinkles as he spoke to the little girl.

"I won't hit you anymore, what's your name?"

"Don't hit me! Don't hit me!" the crystal girl cried in terror as she crouched inside the crystal, clutching her head.

"What's your name?" Ding Yi asked, picking up the geological hammer again when she didn't listen.

"Don't hit me! My name is Bojiang!"

Bojiang? I'm still Boniu.

Ding Yi inexplicably thought of old 2D animated films from over a hundred years ago.

"OK, we can communicate, the rest will be easy." Ding Yi tucked the geological hammer into his waistband and asked the girl directly, "Why did you come to the solar system?"

"I have no home! Oh no! I'm a refugee! Help! The Devourers are here! The Devourers are here!"

The girl from Pojiang stared at everyone with her big eyes, her expression somewhat terrified. Her slender, fair arm pointed in the direction she had come from, and she kept screaming inside the crystal.

Ding Yi kept his finger on the crystal, confirming that the sound was transmitted directly through the crystal's vibration.

Interesting technology.

"What is a Devourer?" the colonel asked.

"The Devourer, the Devourer! It's a giant tire! You know that! Aren't you building a fleet? Can you defeat it? Oh, the Devourer is coming, the Devourer is coming!"

"A Devourer? A giant tire? She knows we know about the Tire Civilization? And she seems to know a lot about our civilization," the colonel said, frowning.

"So the Tire Civilization is called the Devourer Civilization?" someone frowned.

"Judging from their name, they're not a good civilization. They're probably even more brutal than the Trisolarans," one of the crew members said.

Ding Yi explained to the colonel, "It's normal that she understands us. Don't forget that she can absorb electromagnetic waves. The electromagnetic wave signals emitted by the Earth contain a lot of information about human society. I guess she has received and analyzed them all. I'll ask her a few questions to verify it."

The colonel nodded and raised his hand to quiet the people around him.

Ding Yi forced a smile again: "Why can you speak Chinese?"

"I learned this on the way... Oh no, the Devourer is coming! The Devourer is coming!"

Ding Yi made a "1" gesture with his finger behind his back.

"You look like this..."

"The road is changing... there are so many of these electromagnetic waves on the road. You guys seem to really like anime. Oh no, the Devourer is here! The Devourer is here!"

Ding Yi made a "2" gesture with his fingers behind his back.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Ding Yi, it's you, Ding Yi! The scientist of human civilization... Oh no, the Devourers are here! The Devourers are here!"

Ding Yi made a 3 with his fingers, then twisted the 3 into an OK sign.

He said to the colonel, "I guessed right. She should be a program-like being, without life, capable of receiving and analyzing human electromagnetic waves and learning and simulating them. She even knows who I am. You can ask her some questions you care about now."

Meanwhile, the girl from Pojiang was still screaming in panic inside the crystal, repeatedly shouting, "Warning! Warning! The Devourer is coming! The Devourer is coming!"

Amidst the continuous screams of fear, the Po River girl occasionally uttered a few questions: "Can your fleet defeat the Devourers? Hey! Why aren't you afraid of the Devourers?!"

While issuing the warning, the girl from Pojiang continued to point in the direction she had come from.

Soon, a communications officer came over and said to the colonel, "Colonel, the observation results from the Ringer-Fitzroy 2 telescope in Jupiter's orbit are in. We made a precise observation in the direction the crystal came from and successfully discovered a circular dark shadow. Although the image has not yet been processed, it can be basically determined that this is the tire-shaped spacecraft. It is rushing towards us along the angle between the ecliptic plane and the galactic plane of the solar system."

"How far is it?" the colonel asked.

"At least 1000 astronomical units, we finally found it. Damn it, it was hidden on the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt's 'disordered disk,' where there are so many meteorites and dwarf planets. No wonder we hadn't found it before."

"Report this to the United Government." "We've already sent all known intelligence, but it'll take at least half an hour for them on Earth to receive our message. Should we suggest activating the Wallfacers?"

“This is not a problem for us to consider.” After the colonel finished speaking, he quickly received direct orders from the Joint Space Force.

[Joint Space Force Command Order A-7982: The "Infinite Frontier" starship of the Asian Fleet shall immediately set sail, carrying the "Eridanus Girl Crystal" and Dr. Ding Yi, and return to Earth's near-Earth orbit within 72 hours to complete its return deployment.]

"It seems we should go back," the colonel said to Ding Yi.

“Let’s go back. I think we have a lot to talk about with this little cartoon girl along the way.”

The colonel said, "Perhaps Tomoko is here. Should we be cautious and careful when communicating with her?"

“No need. My intuition tells me that the Trisolarans already know a lot about that so-called Devourer civilization through the Sophon. Only we know nothing. Let’s ask.”

During their three-day return journey, Ding Yi and the Colonel obtained a great deal of information from the Po River girl, but the more they learned, the more alarmed they became.

Upon receiving the news, the Earth United Government was extremely anxious and wished they could immediately send the 'Infinite Frontier' back in its forward-moving 4th phase.

The Po River girl brought a wealth of information about the Devourers.

According to the Eridanus Girl, she comes from Epsilon Eridani, which is also a star system very 'close' to our solar system. It is about 10.5 light-years away from our solar system, which is more than twice the distance of the Trisolaran system from our solar system.

The Eridan Girls told humanity that the Devourer was a generational spaceship that had been drifting in the Milky Way for tens of millions of years, growing by eating planets.

The phrase "grew up by eating planets" completely baffled the Earth United Government.

Moreover, it has drifted for tens of millions of years... What level of technology must the Devourer civilization have reached during such a long period of time?
The Joint Space Force immediately assembled all its star-class warships for a live-fire exercise against a planetary enemy. The target of the exercise was Saturn's moon Titan, which is about 178 kilometers in diameter, more than 70 times the diameter of Earth. The sole objective of the exercise was to try to 'destroy' it.

The Joint Space Force is attempting to use military exercises of this scale to mask the fears and anxieties within humanity.

Furthermore, the Eridanus girl disseminated much crucial information to humanity, such as the fact that the third planet of Eridanus-ε had been devoured by the Devourer. She also described the Devourer's specific dimensions, including a diameter of 50,000 kilometers, a "tire" width of 10,000 kilometers, and an inner diameter of 30,000 kilometers.

These are all human units.

In stark contrast, the Earth's diameter is 12,000 kilometers.

The inner ring of the Devourer spaceship could fit more than two Earths.

Upon learning of this horrific fact, the Earth United Government immediately expanded the production scale of stellar hydrogen bombs to the maximum extent possible.

The value of the Wallfacer Reidiaz from seventy years ago is still rising, and the United Government is beginning to feel fortunate that it has mastered the Stellar-type hydrogen bomb, a weapon of mass destruction.

The Eridan Girls also used crystals to present a complete video depicting the scene of the Devourer devouring the planet.

When the Devourer spaceship approaches a planet, it will first disturb the planet's gravity, triggering super geological disasters such as ocean waves, continental tearing, and volcanic eruptions.

Once the planet is encased in the "tire," the devourer begins to plunder its resources. After about a century of "chewing," the planet's resources will be completely depleted, eventually turning it into a "disco ball."

When it was ejected, the planet's surface was in a molten state, becoming a lifeless hell.

The Pojiang civilization, to which the Pojiang girl belonged, was destroyed in this way.

The footage of planetary destruction was filmed live, and for the first time, everyone witnessed the scene of planetary destruction up close. Unlike in science fiction movies, the destruction of a real planet was a long and brutal process.

Through the Eridan Girl's narration, humanity also learned what kind of existence the Eridan civilization was, and how it developed along a completely different technological path from Earth, the Trisolaran civilization, and the Devourer civilization.

All of the Pojang people's technological capabilities come from the organisms of their home planet. For example, the crystal that carries the image of the Pojang girl is a symbiotic organism of a planktonic organism in the ocean of Pojang. Once separated from the organisms of their home planet, the Pojang people's technology cannot be used.

Ding Yi's intuition was correct; the crystal containing the Pojiang girl was an alternative life form, which explained its softness.

After the Pojang Girl finished her story, humanity gave up trying to acquire more advanced technology from her. According to her, the Pojang civilization was not as advanced as Earth's civilization. Before the arrival of the Devourers, the Pojang civilization had always been in a mutually beneficial symbiotic state, and its level of development was not much higher than that of humanity before the First Industrial Revolution.

Most importantly, the society in which the Eridanus Crystal existed had no history of war; it was a relatively peaceful civilization. It was precisely for this reason that the Devourer civilization devoured Eridanus with almost no effort.

As for why the Po Eridan girl came to Earth, that's a touching story for humanity.

Before its demise, the Eridan civilization encapsulated all relevant information in this transparent crystal and sent it on a specific trajectory toward Earth, attempting to warn Earth's civilization of the impending threat, even though the Eridan civilization had no idea that Earth's civilization existed.

This civilization, which perished tragically, made this decision simply because of its genetic nature of symbiotic evolution and mutual benefit. Undoubtedly, this civilization was immature and even naive, but it was this naivety that brought humanity crucial intelligence about the Devourers.

Besides the risk-takers, there are other good civilizations in the universe.

After the 'Infinite Frontier' starship docked in near-Earth orbit, the Earth United Government held a welcoming ceremony to warmly welcome the Eridan Girl to Earth—even though she was just a lifeless encapsulated information entity.

After the welcoming ceremony, the chairman of the Earth United Government did not hesitate to personally knock on the gate of the Wallfacer compound.

"Mr. Luo Qing, the Wallfacer, I apologize for disturbing you, but humanity needs your help. Please come out of seclusion!"

Having finally found an excuse to go into seclusion, Luo Qingren was so numb that he was woken up after only two years of seclusion.

(End of this chapter)