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

Chapter 457 The Gregorian Calendar (5k)

Two hundred and twelve trimaran warships were burned to ashes in the vacuum, their wreckage still sliding forward at a speed of about 0.1C.

Faced with an array powerful enough to annihilate high-level cultivators, the Trisolaran civilization's light-speed fleet, so powerful that human civilization at its current stage was completely unable to resist, perished at this very moment.

Under the attack of the formation, approximately 120 million Trisolaran crew members and 1000 million dehydrated Trisolarans crammed into the dry compartments perished together in the blazing flames of the true sun.

They were all happy; the process of dying lasted less than a microsecond and was without any pain.

Because they are not recognized by the ley lines, these Trisolarans did not develop the concept of a soul; their souls dissipated upon death. If the universe is indeed an isolated, finite-energy mechanical system, after a sufficiently long period of time, when Poincaré reappears, they might have another chance.

Compared to the dense fleet wreckage, ten wreckage vessels traveled an exceptionally long distance, creating a gap of 50,000 kilometers between themselves and the main fleet of wreckage behind them.

These were the ten spaceships that successfully activated their warp drives. Just 0.2 seconds after reaching light speed, they were extinguished by the pre-prepared Super-Stellar Flame Spears. Magnified ten thousand times by the Great Ring, the Super-Stellar Flame Spears, spanning two hundred thousand kilometers, resembled an insurmountable fiery chasm. Perpendicular to the escape routes of the light-speed spaceships, they cleaved down horizontally.

The relative distance between the Super Starflame Spear and the light-speed spaceship left these ten warships with no chance of escape, and they were all destroyed.

At the scene, only ten curvature tracks, each about 60,000 kilometers long, were left behind, which then spread into long strips of slow-moving fog.

Fortunately, the slow fog formed by the 60,000-kilometer-long curvature track is not large; in the vastness of space, it is like a drop in the ocean, and there is virtually no possibility of revealing its location.

Once the Starfire Spears were formed, they could not dissipate on their own and could only fly eternally into the depths of the universe. In an instant, the four fire spears split into four long streams of fire, searching for the location of the other Trisolaran second escape fleet. They tore through the void at the speed of light and headed to their respective distant destinations.

As for the giant spear of starfire, still wreathed in embers, it flew randomly to an unknown direction far from the solar system and the Trisolaran system, gradually disappearing into the vast sea of ​​stars.

Luo Ji did intend to have the Starfire Spear directly annihilate the Trisolarans, but unfortunately, once outside the Oort Cloud, the Starfire Spear could no longer be stably controlled by him and could only fly in a straight line. Moreover, the 'Four Bodies' system, where the Trisolarans were located, was in a chaotic pendulum motion, and the probability of crossing two light-years to hit the Trisolarans under the chaotic pendulum system was too low.

Based on the speed of the Starflame Spears, in two years, the five Starflame Spears will fly out of the Oort Cloud and lose the control of the array, becoming lone spears that will never return.

Three thousand years from now, the Starfire Spear will fly out of the Orion Arm.

Ten thousand years later, the Starfire Spear will fly out of the Milky Way.

Ten thousand years from now, these starfire spears will have exhausted their energy and dissipated into the universe ten thousand light-years away.

It's worth mentioning that Luo Ji did not destroy the three damaged light-speed spaceships. Instead, he had the sophons expand in a lower dimension and issue the following commands to the Trisolarans on those three spaceships:
[Shut down all weapon systems, decelerate to zero speed at full power, then stop the matter-antimatter annihilation engines, shut down the strong interaction generator, disable the ship's onboard intelligence, and make the warship emit visible light. After completing all this, all crew members must immediately dehydrate and await the arrival of the solar system fleet to take over these three ships. Do not move them rashly, or they will be annihilated.]

The Trisolarans in the three light-speed ships looked at the 212 friendly ships that had not even left behind any wreckage, and the embers still remaining around them, and without any hesitation, immediately did as Luo Ji said.

The three trimaran warships began to decelerate at full power.

Ten hours later, the Trisolaran warship reached zero speed.

Subsequently, under the surveillance of human sophons, the Trisolarans performed the following actions:
The antimatter annihilation engine is shut down, the magnetic funnel antiparticle collection field is shut down, the red zone stasis field is shut down, the strong interaction force field generator is shut down, the force field tentacles are shut down, the antimatter confinement annihilation weapon system is shut down, the directed kinetic energy weapon system is shut down, the shipborne intelligence is shut down, and the entire ship emits visible light.

Then, the Trisolarans lined up and entered the drying chamber, where they turned into sheets of dry skin.

The Trisolaran captain didn't forget to open the hatch beforehand and even left a copy of the light-speed spaceship's user manual, printed out in human language, which he placed on the table.

A rescue fleet consisting of fifteen star-class warships has entered [Advance 5] mode, reaching its maximum speed of 0.5C. They will be responsible for towing this 'light-speed spaceship,' which is extremely precious to humanity, back to the solar system.

More than half a month passed in the blink of an eye.

The rescue fleet successfully arrived near the Trisolaran warship. Subsequently, the star-class warship deployed thirty boarding craft. The space military warriors responsible for boarding the ships, carrying assault electric guns, looked somewhat nervously at the light-speed spaceship that was so close at hand and divided according to the golden ratio.

Two hours later, after a complex reconnaissance operation, French Space Force Major Gabriel became the first human to board an alien warship.

The Space Force has successively completed the complete occupation of these three light-speed spaceships.

Humans also took the Trisolarans out of the drying chamber, rolled them up like a carpet, put them in the temperature-controlled chamber, and transported them back to the star-class warship.

To be fair, the dehydrated Trisolarans are very easy to carry. A space officer from Shandong, who is a member of the Common Era, said in a communications channel: "The Trisolarans remind me of the local specialty food from my hometown."

"What main dish? Pizza Hut thin-crust pizza?" a white companion asked.

“nia, ning”.

This Shandong-born space force member left behind a complex pronunciation and a chuckle.

"Call it pancakes is fine, anyway, let's get to work."

Because the Trisolarans left behind an operating manual for their light-speed spaceship, and after confirming that this manual was not a 'self-destruction instruction manual,' humanity quickly mastered most of the piloting skills for the Trisolarans' light-speed spaceship.

"I understand some of the principles and concepts of most technologies. The Trisolarans' technology is far beyond ours, but we are still in the same era."

The leading spacecraft technology expert said, "It's roughly equivalent to a Qing Dynasty person who has received a Western education looking at an aircraft carrier. Hey, with such a huge technological gap, how could they win?"

"Praise Luo Qing."

"This time it's Luo Ji."

"It's all the same; in short, it's all about praising cultivators." The man sighed.

Fifteen hours later, the three light-speed spaceships, under human control, activated their matter-antimatter annihilation engines, entered manual control mode, and then made a large-arc turn at 10% of the speed of light before heading towards the solar system.

Three months later, humanity will have three nearly complete Trisolaran spaceships. Once the analysis and replication of these light-speed spaceships are completed, especially the replication of warp drive technology, humanity's deep space travel technology will leap to the level of a Class 1A civilization.

This feeling of "crossing the river by feeling the stones of the Three-Body Problem" has captivated the entire scientific community.

The technological explosion happening in the human world is about to enter a new phase of rapid acceleration.

Near these three light-speed spaceships were a group of star-class warships also flying at 0.1 times the speed of light. These star-class warships protected the three human-piloted trimaran warships tightly, for fear that a meteorite might suddenly appear.

This is, after all, inside the Oort Cloud, and this is the first time humans have ever come to such a distant place.

By the time the light-speed spaceship was captured, a month had passed since the Second Fleet was destroyed.

...

"Commander Qian, have the other two hundred warships been found?"

"No, the Oort cloud has not shown any obvious curvature trajectory either. The universe is too vast. We have activated all the deep space telescopes and sophons and conducted a large number of observations according to the simulations of quantum computers, but we still have no clues."

Luo Ji sighed, "The universe is too vast."

Qian Mengjian: "At least they didn't activate the warp drive. I remember you could sense their location, didn't you?"

Luo Ji shook his head: "It's just a very vague direction. I've described that vague direction to the light cone telescope control center many times, and the light cone has been observed many times, but we haven't found it even once."

Luo Ji could only sense that the warships were moving away from the sun through the array. As for the accuracy... it was about the accuracy of a finger. He could only point his finger in the approximate direction of the fleet.

As for accuracy, it's ridiculously off; a deviation of hundreds of billions of kilometers is considered small.

Qian Mengjian pondered for a moment: "Then there's basically no way to deal with it. However, judging from their speed, the distance to their solar system should already exceed 3000 astronomical units. I suspect they are unaware of the destruction of the other fleet, otherwise they would have accelerated long ago."

Luo Ji nodded: "It's normal not to know. From the moment the fleet split, both fleets implicitly entered a dark forest state. Naturally, they won't share their positions and encounters with each other. They'll probably even completely cut off communication with the sophons. That's why I dared to take action." Hearing this, the veteran commander, who had survived the Cold War crisis between the US and the Soviet Union, simply sighed deeply: "Dark forest... Dark forest, is this thing really that terrifying? There's no way to avoid it. I thought of Starship Earth. I wonder how they are doing."

Luo Ji also thought of Hines. After thinking for a while, he said, "I remember that a considerable portion of the Space Force was once imprinted with the fourth ideological seal set by Luo Qing."

Qian Mengjian vividly recalled the steel stamp: "Humanity will unite as one, and members of the Space Force will always exist as part of human civilization. Members of the Space Force will transcend the limitations of space and time and will forever be closely united with human civilization. There will be no more barriers or doubts, and there will be no internal strife or attacks between members of the Space Force."

Qian Mengjian said, "According to the post-incident investigation, about 37.2% of the people on the twelve escaped warships were branded with this fourth steel stamp. Except for the first steel stamp, which was reversed, all the other steel stamps on the entire Belief Center equipment were normal. I think that if Starship Earth can be spared from internal attacks because of this steel stamp, then Wallfacer Hines can be considered to have made a contribution to humanity."

Luo Ji did not agree with Commander Qian's statement. He believed that Hines' contributions were far more than that, but they were simply impossible to quantify.

The more they fought against the Trisolaran fleet, the more they felt the insurmountable gap between the two fleets.

All of the Wallfacers' plans were based on Luo Qing's disappearance, so from this perspective, all of the Wallfacers' strategic directions were correct.

Moreover, Luo Qing has indeed disappeared now.

They defeated the Second Fleet using their formation, but the road ahead is the most difficult.

...

Three months later, the Trisolaran spaceship was successfully driven back to the solar system by humans and parked in Jupiter's orbit. For the first time, humanity saw what the legendary light-speed spaceship looked like.

“It’s so beautiful.”

This is the sentiment of many people watching the live television broadcast.

Beautiful indeed.

The Trisolaran spaceship exhibits the standard golden ratio, with no superfluous curves from the pointed bow to the streamlined stern. This teardrop-like structure has greatly impressed human ship enthusiasts and shipbuilding engineers.

It was practically a suspended silver Fibonacci spiral, its hull covered in tiny, mirror-like scales—when these scales came together, the strong interaction force generator would immediately activate, making the warship indestructible.

The ring-shaped warp drive attached to the waist of the spaceship was what everyone was most concerned about. It was a very pale, cold white color, and its surface was as calm as a frozen river of light.

But it is precisely because of this that the dark crater annihilated by the antimatter bullet is all the more shocking.

The large screen next to it simulated the state when the warp drive was intact and activated: fine ripples appeared on the silver ring, undulating from the inside to the outside of the ring and then slowly dissipating. The originally frozen river of light rippled with the curvature of space, the nearby space was flattened, and the spaceship was propelled by the spatial waves to glide at the speed of light in this flat space.

Watching the simulated footage in the video, and seeing the black hole on the warp drive pierced by the antimatter bullet, countless humans felt a sense of regret.

This also makes countless people feel fortunate.

Only the dinosaurs found this thing to have a kind of exquisite ugliness.

Three more months passed, and since he was still unable to find the other Trisolaran fleet, Luo Ji had returned to Earth from Pluto.

As the year draws to a close, after working hard for more than half a year, it's time for him to go home.

The first thing Luo Ji did upon returning to Earth was to visit his white-haired widow and pay his respects to Einstein. Einstein's grave is located on the back hill of Tsinghua University, and people come to pay their respects and sweep the tomb every day, so it is not exactly deserted.

While paying respects to Einstein, Luo Ji encountered a fat gray striped tabby cat. The cat glanced at Luo Ji and then disappeared in a flash.

"When did Tsinghua University start keeping such a fat cat?" Luo Ji asked, somewhat puzzled.

As New Year's Day approached, Luo Ji met with several friends, especially Ding Yi and Tu Hengyu. From Ding Yi, Luo Ji learned that humanity had officially begun construction of the 'Sun Ring Accelerator,' which would be the first 'celestial'-level construction project in human history.

Upon hearing Ding Yi mention that the government planned to name the accelerator "Luo Qing Accelerator" in honor of Luo Qing's contributions, Luo Ji hurriedly called the Federal Chairman to tell them not to name it haphazardly.

When the Federal Chairman asked for the reason, Luo Ji only said one sentence.

"This name carries a great karmic consequence and a great terror; our circumpolar accelerator cannot suppress it."

Although it sounded very feudal and superstitious, the Federal Chairman still decisively changed the name to: "Ding Yi - Einstein Sun-Circling Accelerator".

Ding Yi had no objection to this—he was already used to the government building technological wonders, erecting scientific monuments, and constructing cyber tombs in his name in advance.

Ding Yi was just one death away from being included in history books.

Another minor matter is that the federal government plans to change the human calendar, reverting the "Crisis Era," which has lasted for 212 years since 2007, back to the Gregorian calendar.

That is, the year 2219 AD.

The federal government plans to announce this good news to all of humanity, all of the dinosaurs, and all of the Puji on New Year's Day.

The dinosaurs didn't care; they had their own dinosaur calendar. The Puji didn't care either; they didn't have a calendar for glowing things, and mushrooms didn't have a calendar.

In short, the era of the Three-Body Crisis is completely over!
New Year's Day has arrived amidst everyone's anticipation.

Interestingly, the dinosaurs' Dragon Day and the human New Year's Day fell on the same day, so they joined in the celebration. The dinosaurs didn't know what was happening, but the humans' festive decorations made them happy, emitting a lot of random visible light. Meanwhile, in geosynchronous orbit, three thousand planetary warships were lined up end to end, their nuclear fusion engines emitting golden light, forming the words "AD 2220" in a diameter of 100 kilometers.

This simple proclamation ceremony brought tears to the eyes of countless people.

Shortly after the New Year's bells rang, Luo Ji also received a quantum paging message from Commander-in-Chief Qian Mengjian.

"Two hundred Trisolaran warships have entered the light-speed travel phase, at a distance of 6000 astronomical units from the solar system. I really didn't expect that we would still miss them despite scanning that direction so many times. Currently, the visible light caused by the slow fog has been transmitted back to the solar system, which means that they activated their warp drives 34 days ago... Dr. Luo Ji, is everything alright?"

Luo Ji knew that the Commander-in-Chief was worried about the hidden dangers brought about by the Dark Forest Theory.

"Approximately one trillion kilometers is a very long distance, and it's safe. The Second Fleet only activated its warp drive when it was 6000 astronomical units away from the Trisolaran system, which means that in their understanding, 6000 astronomical units is a very safe distance... Happy New Year, Commander Qian."

"Okay, then I'm relieved. Happy New Year, Dr. Luo Ji. I'm going to a meeting now... The work of the Wallfacers is so much easier."

Qian Mengjian made a small joke and then hung up the phone.

"Um……"

Looking at the room full of friends who had come to freeload, including even a shameless dinosaur, Luo Ji couldn't calm down in this lively environment.

If Luo Qing wasn't on any of the death lines, then where did Luo Qing go? Besides, the earth beneath my feet had once spoken to me and directly raised my cultivation level from the first level of Qi Refining to the peak of Foundation Establishment.

But now, why has this entity, which calls itself 'the earth's veins', disappeared?
In recent days, the earth veins have not responded to me in any way.

Luo Ji had tried to probe the earth's veins more than once, but they remained as if asleep, offering no response whatsoever. This made him increasingly anxious, and he even wanted to urge the federal government to quickly implement the 'Sunset Project' and build the Earth's core spaceship so that he could explore the Earth's core.

"Ugh."

"With you not here, I really have no confidence at all."

Luo Ji looked at the plump golden core in his dantian, which was brimming with spiritual energy, and murmured to himself.

(End of this chapter)